Naming Conventions

Medusa uses Dot-Echelon notation to discover assets and infer command hierarchy from DCS group names. The system is derived from how internet domain names work - dot-separated segments read from left to right, where each segment places the group one level deeper into an organizational hierarchy.

The sole purpose of Dot-Echelon notation is to confer command hierarchy. You can use as many or as few echelon levels as you want - from zero (flat network) to as many as you can dream up (I’m sure at some point DCS will crash, but go off).

Format

{prefix}.{echelon}.{echelon}.{echelon}...

Segments after the prefix read left-to-right, top-down - highest echelon first, unit last:

red.1div.1bde.1bn.sa10_battery
|    |    |     |    +-- Unit (sa10_battery)
|    |    |     +-- Battalion
|    |    +-- Brigade
|    +-- Division (highest echelon)
+-- Prefix

Read left to right, top down - just like a military mailing address. Division, brigade, battalion, unit. The opposite of how domain names work.

There is no limit to the number of echelon levels. These are all valid:

red.sa10                              - No hierarchy (flat)
red.north.sa10                        - One echelon
red.1bde.1bn.sa10                     - Two echelons
red.southern_cmd.1div.1bde.1bn.sa10   - Four echelons

Flat naming

If you don’t need hierarchy, just use the prefix and a label. If you’re migrating from another IADS script, you just need to add the prefix to your existing group names:

RED SA-10 Bandar       -->  red.SA-10 Bandar
RED SA-6 North         -->  red.SA-6 North
RED EWR Bigbird        -->  red.EWR Bigbird
RED Tor Point Defense  -->  red.Tor Point Defense

This creates a flat network with no command hierarchy - every group reports directly to the network. You can migrate to Dot-Echelon hierarchy later by renaming groups.

Role tokens

Special tokens anywhere in the group name identify non-battery roles:

Token	Role	Entity Created
ewr	Early Warning Radar	SensorUnit
gci	Ground Controlled Intercept	SensorUnit
awacs	Airborne Early Warning	SensorUnit (airborne)
hq	Headquarters	C2Node
(none)	SAM / AAA battery	Battery

AWACS groups must contain an aircraft with the DCS AWACS attribute (E-2, E-3, A-50, KJ-2000). Medusa validates this on discovery and rejects groups without it. Place each AWACS aircraft in its own group to avoid the DCS getSensors() bug that returns incorrect data for multi-unit groups. AWACS are exempt from EMCON policies and always emit.

Role tokens are case-insensitive and matched using word boundary rules - they match at the start of any segment (dot-separated or space-separated), either as the whole segment or followed by a non-alphanumeric character. This means EWR, ewr, Ewr all work, and both Dot-Echelon style and flat naming are recognized out of the box:

pvo.north.ewr.1div             - "ewr" is the entire segment
opfor.EWR North                - "ewr" at start of segment, followed by space
red.EWR-1.1div                 - "ewr" at start of segment, followed by hyphen
iads.newer_radar.1div          - "newer" does not start with "ewr", no match
red.ewrything.1div             - "ewr" followed by "y" (alphanumeric), rejected

When a role token is found, echelon parsing starts from the segment immediately right of the rightmost role token.

Examples

Flat naming (no hierarchy):

pvo SA-10 Bandar               - lowercase prefix, space separated
OPFOR SA-6 North               - uppercase prefix
Red EWR Bigbird                - pascal prefix
redFor EWR-1                   - camelCase prefix
RED IADS HQ Main               - multi-word prefix
red.SA-15 Point Defense        - dot-separated prefix
red.1div.EWR South             - dot-echelon with hierarchy

With hierarchy:

pvo.1Div.EWR.North             - EWR under 1Div
OPFOR.1BDE.1BN.GCI.Cairo       - GCI under 1BN under 1BDE
redFor.1Div.HQ.CommandPost     - HQ for 1Div
Red.1Div.1BDE.1BN.SA10         - Battery under 1BN under 1BDE under 1Div

EWR aliases

The following tokens are all recognized as EWR roles: ewr, radar, sensor. This means red.north.radar.1div and red.north.ewr.1div produce the same result.

Auto-discovery of EWR groups

Medusa also auto-discovers EWR groups: any group with a search radar but no launchers is automatically classified as a sensor, even without an explicit role token. This can be disabled via doctrine:

Medusa_MM_Doctrine = {
    AutoDiscoverEwrs = false,
}

Custom prefix and role tokens

Override the defaults via MEDUSA_CONFIG:

MEDUSA_CONFIG = {
    Networks = {
        {
            name = "RED",
            coalition = "red",
            prefix = "red",
        },
    },
    Roles = {
        HQ  = "command",            -- Use .command. instead of .hq.
        GCI = "gci",
        EWR = "radar",              -- Use .radar. instead of .ewr.
    },
}