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veafCombatMission — The MISSIONS menu

Module ID: COMBATMISSION | File: veafCombatMission.lua

See it in game: step 11 “On-demand CAP and the Senaki raid” of the demo mission.

Purpose

Offers players, from the F10 MISSIONS radio menu, scenarios the mission maker prepared in the DCS editor and declared in YAML. Two families:

  • CAP missions (cap_missions:) — on-demand combat air patrols;
  • combat missions (combat_missions:) — scenarios with a briefing, elements, and remaining-enemy tracking.

The module is enabled by default (veaf.registerModule(..., { enable = true }, 100)). It builds no menu at all when no mission is declared.

Dependencies

  • veafRadio — the F10 MISSIONS menu
  • veafSpawn — spawns a mission's groups
  • veafSecurity — for missions declared secured: true
  • veafRemote — the /air remote module (optional)

The F10 menu

The menu follows the mission's language (mission.language). The labels below are the ones an English mission shows.

At the root of MISSIONS:

Entry Effect
HELP Recalls how the menu works (absent when help menus are disabled)
List available Lists the declared missions
List active Lists running missions, with their remaining enemy count

Then one submenu per mission, and inside it:

Entry Effect
Get info The mission's briefing and state
Activate mission Starts the mission (shown while it is inactive)
Deactivate mission Stops it (shown while it is active)

A mission declared secured: true has its activation entries routed through the security check: on the F10 menu, the group acts at the level of its lowest-graded occupant (see veafSecurity).

A combat mission also offers skill and scale submenus, which set the difficulty and the number of groups engaged. When the mission has an opposition level, each skill also carries the Auto scale (opposition level) entry: it activates the scale of one enemy group per two players, rounded up, within the scales offered (level 6 → scale 3).

The aliases

veafShortcuts ships two shortcuts, and they do not bypass security (setBypassSecurity(false)):

Alias What it does
-airstart Starts a combat mission — the name goes right after
-airstop Stops a combat mission 
-airstart Frappe-Nord
-airstop Frappe-Nord

The /air remote module

Registered with veafRemote under the name air, it answers in chat:

Command Effect
/air list Lists the available missions
/air start <mission> Starts the named mission
/air start <mission> silent Starts it with no on-screen message
/air stop <mission> Stops it
/air stop <mission> silent Stops it with no message

mission.yaml configuration

modules:
  COMBATMISSION:
    enabled: true          # required for cap_missions: and combat_missions:

# ── CAP missions ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
cap_missions:
  - group_name: "CAP Group"       # REQUIRED — logical name; the DCS group must be called "OnDemand-CAP Group"
    menu_name: "North CAP"         # F10 menu label; group_name when omitted (not friendly_name)
    briefing: "Patrol the northern sector and engage threats."
    default: false                # true = Activate / Deactivate reserved to authorised pilots
    activated: true               # true = the CAP shows in the F10 menu

# ── Combat missions ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────
combat_missions:
  - name: "Strike-Alpha"          # REQUIRED — internal identifier
    friendly_name: "Strike Alpha" # F10 menu label
    secured: false                # true = activation reserved to authorised pilots
    radio_menu_enabled: true      # show in the F10 menu
    briefing: |
      Destroy the armoured column in grid square BQ-123.
      Expect AAA and MANPADS.
    elements:
      - name: "Element Alpha 1"   # element's internal name
        groups:                   # DCS group names in this element
          - "STRIKE-GROUP-1"
          - "STRIKE-GROUP-2"
        scalable: true            # true = the group count follows the skill setting

cap_missions[] fields

Field Type Default Required Description
group_name string — Yes Logical name of the CAP flight. The DCS group placed in the editor must be named OnDemand-<group_name>: the runtime prefixes OnDemand- (since v5). E.g. group_name: CAP-Alpha → DCS group OnDemand-CAP-Alpha
menu_name string — No F10 menu label
briefing string — No Briefing text shown to players
default boolean false No Secures the CAP's Activate / Deactivate commands: true reserves them to pilots with the required security level. With false, the default, any player can start or stop the CAP. It is the secured parameter of veafCombatMission.addCapMission; the key's name does not say so
activated boolean true No Shows the CAP in the F10 menu, in skill levels (Good, Excellent) and sizes (1, 2 groups). With false, it has no menu entry. It is the radioMenuEnabled parameter of veafCombatMission.addCapMission. Neither key starts the CAP: a CAP only flies once it is activated

combat_missions[] fields

Field Type Default Required Description
name string — Yes Internal identifier
friendly_name string — No F10 menu label
secured boolean false No Activation reserved to authorised pilots — on the F10 menu the group acts at its lowest-graded occupant's level (see veafSecurity)
radio_menu_enabled boolean true No Show in the F10 menu
briefing string — No Multi-line briefing text
elements object[] [] No Mission element definitions
elements[].name string — No Element's internal name
elements[].groups string[] — No DCS group names in this element
elements[].scalable boolean true No Scale the group count with difficulty

Minimal example

modules:
  COMBATMISSION:
    enabled: true

cap_missions:
  - group_name: "CAP-Alpha"
    menu_name: "CAP"

combat_missions:
  - name: "Strike-North"
    briefing: "Destroy the northern targets."
    elements:
      - groups: ["Strike-Group-1"]

Module constants

Constant Value Role
SecondsBetweenWatchdogChecks 30 Interval between two mission-state checks
MinimumSpacingBetweenClones 300 Minimum distance, in metres, between two clones of the same group
RadioMenuName menu.combatmission.root i18n key for the F10 menu's name, resolved when the menu is built

See also