SCAR

SCAR — Strike Coordination and Reconnaissance

SCAR is a player-flown hunt. You work a defined area to find and kill a moving high-value target (HVT) hidden among look-alike decoys and clutter, before it reaches safety. It is the air-to- ground answer to "the target is out there moving — go find the real one and prosecute it," and it rewards reading the picture over trusting a single pin on the map. SCAR sits between CAS (needs troops in contact), BAI (a known, fixed group), and Armed Recon (small-radius targets of opportunity): the skill it tests is discrimination, not a free-fire sweep.

FlightType.SCAR is player-selectable when you build a package. The auto-planner does not frag it by default (see auto-planning). BAI remains the AI's anti-armor/convoy task — SCAR is the human discrimination puzzle, not an AI behavior.

In-game-pass status: the planner, scenario bridge, command-post fog, and capture loop are verified in-game. Still owing a cockpit pass: the mis-ID budget penalty Lua (checklist F5) and the capture → permanent-reveal carryover across turns (F2).

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The core loop

When you fly a SCAR sortie, the search area is populated at mission start with:

• the real HVT — a signature convoy (or a real ground object; see target types below);
• partial-signature decoys that look almost right; and
• plain-truck clutter and a light threat laydown (AAA).

The whole picture is parked when you arrive, so the discrimination puzzle is always there to solve. The columns only bug out once your strike package crosses the activation ring — 50 NM, counting only human-flown aircraft, so a transiting AI tanker or AWACS can't start the chase before you get there. The fail clock starts on that activation, not at mission start: the target is already moving as you arrive, but it can never be "long gone" before slow jets reach the area.

Outcomes:

• Success — you identify and kill the HVT.
• Fail — the HVT reaches the nearest enemy-held city, or (for a SCUD) reaches its firing position and launches, or the window expires.

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Reading the picture

This is the heart of SCAR, so it's worth being explicit about what you're given and what you're not:

• The target mark points at the search-area center, not the HVT. Combined with spawn-time decoys and the HVT moving off its start point, the mark is a starting place to look, never the answer.
• The briefing and F10 cues give you the target signature (the specific mix of vehicles that make up the real HVT — e.g. a SAM TEL plus a command vehicle plus two support trucks), the no-strike / firing-position marks, and a decoy warning.
• The decoys carry a partial signature — close, but missing a piece — and the clutter is plain trucks. Your job is to reconnoiter the convoys and match the full signature before you release.

Practical technique: get eyes on each candidate column before committing. Read the composition against the briefed signature, watch which column is making for the city (or, for a SCUD, the firing position), and prosecute only when the picture matches. You can pass talk-ons to other flights in your package — coordination across aircraft is player-run, which is the "coordination" in Strike Coordination and Reconnaissance.

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Three target types

Variant	What it is	Win / lose
spawn (generic convoy)	A fully scripted ground picture: HVT signature convoy + partial decoys + plain clutter + light threats	Win = HVT killed; lose = it reaches the city or the window expires
armor (real, fully-mobile group)	Binds a real mobile vehicle group on the map as the HVT and mixes in decoys derived from its live composition	Same; a group containing towed/static units (e.g. a KS-19 flak gun) falls back to the spawn picture so nothing is stranded
missile (real SCUD site)	The launcher races to a firing position and actually launches at its target city on arrival	The launch is the fail — stop it before it shoots

So real armor and missile sites already on the map can themselves become the SCAR objective, not just abstract convoys.

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Mis-ID penalty — discrimination has a cost

Because the decoys look almost right, destroying the wrong convoy has to hurt — otherwise you'd just shoot everything in the box. Killing one of the area's decoy/clutter columns on a SCAR sortie debits budget. The charge applies only when the prosecuting (SCAR) side gets the kill.

The amount is the scar_misid_penalty setting (Campaign Doctrine, default 8 — about the cost of one SOF team). Set it to 0 to disable the budget hit, in which case mis-IDs are only logged. (The Lua side of this still wants an in-game pass — checklist F5.)

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Commander capture (experimental)

SCAR also drives an experimental commander-capture path: rather than killing the HVT, you can capture the enemy commander alive with a finite, purchased special-operations team — a clean grab permanently reveals the enemy command network, and a botched grab strands your team and starts a rescue subplot. It is gated by the scar_command_post_intel setting (Campaign Doctrine, default ON for new campaigns while it is playtested).

This is a whole campaign-layer loop of its own — buying SOF teams, the C-130 insert, the capture geometry, and the multi-turn CSAR recovery if a team is stranded. It has its own page:

→ SOF and Commander Capture for the full economy, the insert, capture outcomes, and the recovery loop.

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Auto-planning (off by default)

PlanScarHunts can frag one player-flyable SCAR package per turn against the highest-priority enemy battle position. It is gated by the scar_autoplan setting (default OFF) and is blue-only by design — the AI keeps using BAI for anti-armor and never frags SCAR for itself. It's left off until the in-mission Lua has had a full cockpit pass; flip it on once you're comfortable flying SCAR by hand.

Settings reference

Setting	Default	Effect
FlightType.SCAR	player-selectable	Build a SCAR hunt by hand
scar_misid_penalty	8	Budget cost per wrong convoy prosecuted (0 disables)
scar_command_post_intel	ON (new campaigns)	Enables the SOF commander-capture loop and hides enemy command posts
scar_autoplan	OFF	Auto-frag one blue SCAR package per turn

See also

• SOF and Commander Capture
• Combat SAR
• TARPS Reconnaissance
• Fog of War and Reconnaissance
• Mission planning