CSAR Returns To CVW-20

Credit: M.A.S.H 20th Century Fox

If you’re familiar with DPTST2, you’ll remember there was a very good reason to not get shot down. If you did move a little bit too far inland and found yourself tasting the business end of a SAM site, ejecting would trigger a CSAR mission. You’d have to do that CSAR mission too if you wanted to fly that specific aircraft again, otherwise it would be locked out until the you were picked up. CSAR did not make a return in DPTST 3, due to issues with persistence.

Now it’s time to blare Suicide is Painless and spin up the choppers, because CSAR IS BACK (with some changes). First off, the brutality of slot blocking is not making a return. The reality is the transition off of Mist, to the much more versatile MOOSE came with a much more lightweight version of CSAR. It plays better with a lot of things and allows us to adjust on the fly although it is lacking a lot of the super cool features that Ciribob brought into his standalone script. This was part of the reason we didn’t see it in 3, as it just didn’t run very well with much of the reworked DPTST engine. It also threw the gameplay loop into total chaos, since warehousing would often conflict with CSAR’s slot blocking.

I have been watching A LOT of MASH though lately, and there’s just such a cool feeling when Radar O’Reilly calls choppers and everyone runs to the helipad. Now new and lightweight, how will the new CSAR work? The answer is much of the same as last time. We’ll cover the core gameplay loop in this blog, but it should be very familiar to folks who have gotten use to our CTLD Setup

EJECTION

When a poor pilot who has made a series of mistakes that day, decides he would rather live than die for his country, he will likely eject. Upon ejecting, an infantry unit will spawn on the ground with a radio frequency and an ADF. This unit will then be identifiable via the CSAR menu which is accessible by the F10 Radio Menu.

RECOVERY

Upon accepting a mission and approaching the downed pilot, they may start to pop smoke to inform you of their position. Land near the pilot and they’ll get into your chopper. Then it’s just a simple flight back home. You can land at either a Forward Operating Base, or a MASH hospital.

So why? We'll, it’s busy work for one. A reason for Helicopters to do something even if the line moves forward. Also there’s a new scoring system you might hear about in the next few days. Scoring will allow for both logistics AND strikes to be equally important. It will even be persistent past server restarts.

This is all for another time though, and I hope you enjoy pulling your less competent pilots outta the fire.