414th Fork Overview

What's Different in the 414th Fork

414Ret is the 414th Joint Fighter Group's build of DCS Retribution. It is not a reskin or a single extra aircraft pack — it changes how a Retribution campaign is planned, understood, and flown by a multiplayer squadron. Everything upstream Retribution does still works; this page is the map of what the fork adds on top, with links to the full pages.

If you have never used Retribution before, read Getting Started first — this page assumes you know the basic turn loop.

The build tracks upstream Retribution's dev branch and layers the 414th feature set plus selected newer upstream fixes on top. Pre-built Windows releases publish automatically to the rolling latest build.

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Intelligence is incomplete — and recon has a purpose

Upstream shows you the enemy laydown. The fork fogs it, so reconnaissance becomes a real task.

• Enemy sites can be known without their composition, strength, damage state, or threat rings being known. Attacking or scouting a site reveals it; confirmed battle damage can require a surviving recon pass (BDA damage lag).
• TARPS is a real player task for F-14s, backed by the TARS film-and-debrief engine — what the aircraft photographs is carried back into the campaign as confirmed intelligence.
• An optional Approximate target area mode removes perfect coordinates and offsets steerpoints, so visual acquisition, talk-ons, and recon matter. Mobile short-range defenses are kept off player datalinks while larger SAM sites stay available for deliberate SEAD/DEAD.
• When you need the ground truth anyway — debugging, planning the opposing side, or just checking the real laydown — tick Reveal fog of war (overview) in the map layer panel. It is a view toggle only; it never changes the campaign and is never saved.

Full detail: Fog of War and Reconnaissance.

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Missions are built for squadron play

• SCAR — a player-led moving-target hunt: identify the real HVT among decoys and clutter, then stop it before it reaches safety. Prosecuting the wrong convoy is a mis-identification that costs budget. An experimental SOF commander-capture path uses finite purchased SOF teams to capture a commander alive, with a downed-team helo-CSAR recovery loop.
• Combat SAR — makes a downed pilot worth flying for. A CH-47 rescuer orbits the front while a C-130 holds overhead as the HC-130 "King". Recover a human pilot and deliver them to a friendly field and the campaign spares the aviator (you still lose the jet).
• Electronic Warfare and ISR — the JAMMING flight type turns the C-130J into an EC-130H/RC-130H-style standoff jammer and ELINT/ISR platform. This is the only 414th scripted EW model; the old generic fighter-pod jammer is retired.
• Strike and DEAD packages can receive auto-planned TARPS follow-up, and AI SEAD can loiter, react to emitters, and break off on a computed timeline instead of a single inflexible pass.

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The air war behaves like a campaign, not a queue of sorties

• Squadrons can hold aircraft in a QRA intercept reserve for runtime base defense.
• BARCAP coverage uses overlapping, jittered, threat-weighted waves and a more useful forward defensive line — quiet sectors keep baseline coverage, contested sectors get more.
• AWACS and tanker racetracks are anchored on the front line and stand off into friendly airspace; a theater tanker is placed on receiver demand.
• The auto-planner no longer sends strikers through a SAM belt it only intends to clear: a strike that depends on a DEAD which can't actually reach its target is held back until the belt is genuinely down.
• An optional auto-planner unpredictability doctrine knob (per side, off by default) varies which offensive targets the enemy services first.
• New campaigns default to the MANTIS IADS engine (Skynet still selectable).

Full detail: Air Defense and the Air War.

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The generated mission feels occupied

• Troops In Contact (TIC) produces prolonged, formation-aware frontline firefights with ambient suppressive fire, instead of vanilla ground AI instantly erasing the battle. Frontline formations are distributed along the line, not piled on one spot.
• Flight Control adds player-facing tower sequencing at friendly land bases, with SRS voice and an optional text fallback.
• Civilian regional traffic adds light rear-area activity, and the 414th-tuned Splash Damage 3 build improves weapon effects.

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Planning and debriefing expose what crews need

• Ground targets have an intel panel showing known strength, mission suitability, ranges, IADS membership, visibility, and capture/purchase state.
• Package and flight dialogs show task, TOT, player slots, departure bases, squadron fit, and target distance without hunting across windows.
• The unified map layers panel replaces both stock Leaflet controls with one dark-themed, grouped, collapsible control — with one-click preset views (Default / SEAD / Recon / Clean) and remembered choices between sessions.
• Debriefing begins with a Mission Impact summary — territorial changes, runway damage, and losses — before the full event detail.

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Additional content and tools

• Drop-Spawn Unit Placement — right-click blank map space to place a unit group (gated behind cheat settings).
• DTC Cartridge Export — native F/A-18C data-cartridge export (default OFF).
• CurrentHill Iran integration — Shahed-136 and IRGCN FAC assets plus a [CH] Iran 2020 faction behind a new-game mod toggle (see Custom Factions).
• Germany - Red Tide — a Red Storm Rising-flavoured 1988 NATO counteroffensive campaign built for the 414th, with named historical squadrons and liveries (see Custom Campaigns).
• A settings audit removed dead/duplicate options and consolidated the AI-radio toggles into a single AI wingman radio behavior choice; existing campaigns migrate automatically.

Most campaign-facing systems have their own setting or plugin toggle. The experimental SCAR commander-capture mechanics are on by default for new campaigns while being playtested (toggle SCAR command-post intel on the Campaign Doctrine page to turn them off); existing campaigns keep whatever they were saved with.

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See also

• Getting Started
• Mission Planning
• Fog of War and Reconnaissance
• Air Defense and the Air War
• Home