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) that is 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.

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

The core loop

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

• The real HVT — a signature convoy (or a real ground object, see below).
• Partial-signature decoys that look almost right.
• Plain-truck clutter and a light threat laydown (AAA).

The whole picture is parked when you arrive, so the discrimination puzzle is always present. 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 cannot start the chase before you get there). The fail clock starts on that activation, not at mission start — the target is moving as you arrive, but it can never be "long gone" before slow jets reach it.

Outcomes:

• Success — you 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.

The F10 / briefing cues give you the target signature, no-strike and firing-position marks, and a decoy warning. The target mark points at the search-area center, not the exact HVT unit — combined with spawn-time decoys and the HVT moving off its start point, you have to reconnoiter to identify it.

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 as the HVT and mixes in decoys derived from its live composition	Same; groups containing towed/static units (e.g. a KS-19 flak gun) fall 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

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

Mis-ID penalty — discrimination has a cost

Because the decoys look almost right, destroying the wrong convoy has to hurt — otherwise you would just shoot everything. 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 (mis-IDs are then only logged). The Lua side of this still wants an in-game pass.

Commander capture (experimental)

SCAR also drives an experimental commander-capture path. It is gated by the scar_command_post_intel setting (Campaign Doctrine, default ON for new campaigns while it is playtested; existing saves keep their stored value).

When it is on:

• Enemy command posts are hidden entirely from your map until revealed.
• You can buy finite, dedicated SOF teams (a distinct, priced inventory unit, kept out of front-line deployment ratios and combat-strength scoring).
• A C-130 SOF insert (FlightType.SOF, flown by fixed-wing transports — helos are reserved for recovery) drops the capture team at the ambush point along the HVT's route. If you do not fly the insert, a scripted fallback team is spawned.
• If the un-killed command vehicle drives into the capture radius and your SOF team is still alive, you get a clean capture: the enemy command posts are revealed (permanently, with exact coordinates), and the team escapes with the prisoner. The kill-priority order is killed > captured > escaped/timeout.
• A botched grab strands the team — surfaced next turn as a first-class "downed SOF team" objective that you recover with a helo. See the recovery loop below.

The economy is debit-on-frag: one bought team per fragged insert. A clean capture refunds the team (it got out); a botch strands it.

Note: the EW (C-130J) plugin is correctly skipped on the SOF insert C-130, so you cannot fly the EW jet and run a SOF insert in the same mission.

The CSAR recovery loop

A stranded SOF team becomes a friendly "downed SOF team" ground object at the strand point, anchored to the nearest friendly control point. It offers only FlightType.CSAR (helo-only) to your side. The team ages out after a few turns (default 3) or if its anchor base is overrun.

You recover it two ways, and either one refunds the bought team (it only refunds once):

1. A dedicated FlightType.CSAR helo air-assault flown at the objective that survives the sortie.
2. A Combat SAR flight extracting the team in-mission (MOOSE CASEVAC) — see Combat SAR.

This SCAR SOF-recovery CSAR is distinct from the Combat SAR pilot-rescue flight type, though Combat SAR can service both.

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 is left off until the in-mission Lua has had a full cockpit pass; flip it on once you are comfortable flying SCAR by hand.

In-game pass status

The SCAR planner, scenario bridge, command-post fog, capture loop, and SOF EW de-conflict have been verified in-game (the HVT drives/flees on activation; posts hide; the capture loop and the overview toggle work). Still owing a pass: the mis-ID budget penalty Lua (checklist F5) and the full capture → permanent-reveal carryover across turns (checklist F2). Until those are cleared, treat the commander-capture path as experimental.

See also

• Combat SAR
• Mission planning
• Fog of War and Reconnaissance