Jayhawk1971

I'm hoping ED has finally (!!!!!!) fixed this highly annoying AI bug - preventing AI from detaching from a tanker. This bug ruins a good chunk of otherwise perfectly fine campaign missions.

My 2 cents. As far as I could piece together from Discord, the F-15E was supposed to be released "early June" (internal EA release date), also made apparent by the start of the pre-release marketing campaign, which was pushed to the 9's ("imminent", "beware the pre-release discount", and sending out EA copies to every YouTuber with more than 10 subs ). Only for - allegedly - ED asking RB to push back the release date to July at the 11th our, with, according to some mods on the Razbam discord, the F-15E module itself not being the issue. Should that be the case, there must have been something from ED's side, which we can only guess (like they might want to get another patch in, which would be good, or they want to give another 3rd party module the limelight without it being drowned out by the Strike Eagle release, or, or, or.....) Apparently, last night some people affiliated with RB "spilled the beans" (presumably out of frustration over this last-minute delay, and completely underestimating the <profanity>storm this would trigger), hence the already rather volatile part of the "community" (I hate that term) was being made aware of the "missed opportunity". Without those "whistle blowers", no one would have been any wiser, albeit some being annoyed that "influencers" get to play with the module publicly, while they have to wait (to which I could only say: start your own popular YouTube channel!). My unsolicited advice to ED would be to recognize that the cat's kinda out of the bag now, and communicate the reason(s) for this last-minute delay to the "community" (again, hate hate hate that term ). Otherwise, conspiracy theories will inevitably pop up (already have), and many will be left in a negative mood. For example, it would be quite reasonable that ED would want to wait for some core engine patch or fix to be ready pre-release, or wait for another module (Sinai) to be ready for EA. Strike Eagle + Sinai would make for a nice "bundle" release. So no shame admitting to that if that were the case. In any case, personally, I can wait for another month; got enough on my plate as it is. BTW, I finally pre-ordered the Strike Eagle last night. Just to be contrarian.

Corsair or Hellcat? Or both?

On a positive note: mission 6 worked well and I had a good laugh, because I had heard of the real event that this is based on. I even managed a very good 3 wire trap (despite - or maybe due to - the circumstances ). (Forrestal's IFLOLS is still a mess, though: completely unreadable because it's way too bright, blindingly so, at least in VR).

Mission 5 had two issues (playing on Multithreading exe): 1. After takeoff, the flight stays very low and slow, extremely high AOA with burners, weaving back and forth. After a while I left them there, climbed and flew to SP 1, where I planned to circle and see what'll happen. Suddenly the flight was ahead of me and I had to go full burner to catch up. 2. I chose the "engage" F10-option after the bombing run, but the Migs seem to be broken, like in Mission 2. One seems to be circling over their home base, the other is crashed on the runway with the ejected pilot standing next to it. I shot down the circling Mig and strafed the crashed one, but mission didn't progress. I found the tanker, refueled, RTB'd but got no further messages, and no "mission complete". Refueling was actually pretty cool, because the whole Tornado flight was in the process of refueling. Which was very immersive. The last Tornado was in left observation position, awaiting his turn, so I joined on his left wing. As he slid into position behind the left drogue, I went to the right one. Really immersive. Mission 4 (MT): Jester missed the outpost with the GBU-12, despite me dropping within parameters, in a gentle right-hand bank after pickle, just like before. Mission kept somewhat progressing due to the convoy keeping on moving, but it seemed out of whack so I quit at that point. First drop went well, despite a comms issue: I pickled only once, but got Jester's scripted "drop message" twice.

Yup, can confirm. I joined up on the Vipers instead, but the mission didn't seem to progress after reaching the tanker track waypoint.

Sounds like the mission is indeed broken. Oh well, that's why ED added the "skip" function I suppose.

How did the mission play out for you up until that point? Both Wavehopper and me seem to run into the wrong trigger right from the beginning of the CAP. Despite flying the planned route right behind the other Tomcat flights. I took off last and cruised about 8-ish miles behind the other Tomcats. I saw them peel off to their respective CAP stations, then got the dialogue concerning our CAP procedures. Very shortly after I turned towards SP 3 I got the message about those MiG-29's, same as Wavehopper.

Same. To add insult to injury: the MiG-21's completely ignored us and merely blasted right by at ludicrous speed.

How long did you wait? "Never" is a very relative term. It's called "Alert 5" for a reason. I've played this mission 4 times now (probably my favorite out of the Marianas part of the campaign), and I launched every time. Twice with MT. It just takes a couple of minutes from signal to actual launch. After the helicopter takes off, the launch sequence starts.

Oh crap, I realize I never got around to trying this mission again (contrary to what I announced so boastfully ). I guess I was way too curious to see where the campaign was going, and after the next couple of missions, I promptly forgot about it.

I don't know what exactly you mean by "official", but at least two and a half 3rd-party pay ware DLC campaigns are confirmed to be worked on: - @ChillNG (Ground Pounder Sims) is working on a Wild Weasel campaign for the Syria map, aiming for a release date in the second half of 2023 (Q3/Q4) - @baltic_dragon is working on an F-16 campaign (also set on the Syria map) with John "Rain" Waters (The Afterburn Podcast). - @Reflected and @baltic_dragon are providing a campaign for the announced Kola map in collaboration, where Reflected is making the F-16 part of the campaign, and Baltic the F-18 part.

Actually I didn't, since I didn't know how much fuel I would need to go "there and back again (not a Hobbit's tale)". Incidentally, right after the dogfight, Jester jettisoned the tanks anyway (without any comment; I just hear the jettison noise), without me ordering him to do so. That might be related to VAICOM though, because it has become so sensitive that it started to register me breathing (microphones on my VR Headset are apparently very close to my nose) as I keep hearing a random "confirmation beep" once in a while.

"If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" - Hamlet (probably) (and, to be fair, I did it the hard way the first time around. And that was quite the experience, thankyouverymuch )

Good effort! Regarding the Fishcans and fuel situation: When I was re-flying this mission a couple of days ago as part of my second campaign playthrough, I remembered that the Air Wing's Air Intelligence Officer was my mentor at the Academy, so I paid him a visit, and pointed out to him that , given that we saw aggressive Chinese defensive counter air operations on every sortie, bringing only two heaters (also given their disappointing performance head-on) each would be rather risky, even against Fishcans. And getting into a WVR engagement with a full load of bombs (that inexplicably weren't loaded in the tunnel, where they would cause less drag, but on the glove stations for some reason) would not make the mission go any smoother. He said that replenishment was difficult under strict EMCON and so close to Guam, and therefore the Air Wing's ammunition stock was rather depleted. He also explained that the Wing's Weapons Officer wasn't quite the same ever since he smashed his head against the bulkhead during last week's storm and now insisted that the tunnel was somehow "jinxed", and no A2G ordinance should be put there, at least that's what the voices keep telling him. But he also somewhat conceded to my point. As it turned out, one AIM-7MH came back from maintenance just in time for the mission, so he grudgingly permitted the red shirts to mount it on my number 4 station. Just as I began heading for the deck, he mumbled "a Sparrow a day keeps the flameout away". Don't know what he meant by that. [starting the missions individually allows for access to the mission editor] TL;DR I couldn't be arsed to go through the whole ordeal again (!!) and asked myself "what would Snort have done?!". My answer was to add one Sparrow, which conveniently exploded in the first Fishcan's face with a comfortable pre-merge margin, so I had enough energy, turning room and two heaters for the second bandit.

The J-11 is notching your AIM-7, as the AI can do so easily ATM. Try to get a lot closer before you fire your Sparrow. Right now you launch at around 13 miles. Try 6 or so. Another thing is that currently, the AIM-9M's don't seem to like head-on shots very much. Try to get into better parameters before you launch, preferably a rear quarter aspect.

Get your speed up before turning back in for your Fox 1 shot, and wait until you're well within 10 nm (6-7-ish miles should be about right). The Flanker will probably launch at you at around 5, so be prepared for that. It's good practice to constantly drop a flare or two every 2 seconds while WVR. With the AI's perfect notch, give him as little time as possible; a fast missile at close range makes it harder for the AI to dodge. In that situation, I'd rather crank to the left after the Fox 1 shot, because the Flanker seems to prefer cranking to his left (your right). Contrary to the player, the AI has perfect SA and notches just enough to spoof your missile, then immediately turns hot again. So cranking left gives you more turning room, in case your Sparrow gets trashed. Aim to fly to his six (lag pursuit), that should get you behind the Flanker, where your Fox 2 have a much better chance to hit. At least that's how it worked for me. Interestingly, my subjective observation is that AI behavior might have changed since the last patch; before the patch, the A2A parts of all missions seemed to be easier, as the AI ate the Sparrows more often than not. Post-patch, either Sparrows got easier to spoof, or the AI got even better at notching them. Again, subjective observation, no hard data to back it up (and no desire to test that hypothesis, because, well, life and stuff ).

Would it be technically and economically (cost-benefit ratio) possible to not only tie a combo to a livery, but also have that livery change/degrade over time? So for example, for a couple of missions the ACM panel is clean, then next mission you get the tape, then for the next 3 an enterprising maintainer does the wire job, and lastly the plate? Until the "cruise" is over and back at the shore a new ACM panel gets installed.

Combination of new GFX card and MT, re-flew this mission. Result: Hardware does make a difference! Now if I could only decide on a new CPU-MoBo combo. Totally out of the loop, so lots of prior research necessary. For some reason I still keep fudging up the initial combined climb and break turn in the LANTIRN set. One of the metrics (altitude, speed, distance to target) is always somewhat off, incidentally not always the same one.

I believe it. I can easily imagine 6 to 12 months of heavy duty can render even the most techy tech tech stuff into a bucket of improvised patch jobs. Especially considering meager defense budgets (even after the recent "surge" in defense spending). I'm really curious how much leeway ground crews get with regards to fixing/ modifying their jets (apart from obvious safety regulations, of course).

I think this whole thing probably needs some time to sink in for many people. I think most grew up with the notion of US military aircraft being these high-techy, pristine, clean affairs with lots of shiny, blinking lights and cool displays (thanks in part to US military glossy PR material enforcing this belief). When in reality, the harsh conditions on a Carrier on deployment, with spare parts being a rare commodity, those Tomcats resembled more Han and Chewy patching up the Millennium Falcon. Give it time, people will get used to it once the realism of it all sinks in. In my opinion.

That's fine too (or, even better actually), as long as it doesn't happen "in the air"..... ....unless: you include one set where the pilot has put some chewing gum over those covers. With more and more maps coming out, I foresee that some campaigns will feature missions that span over two maps (Syria and Sinai, for example). I suppose that's where a consistent transition would be necessary.

How it is implemented right now, it doesn't work well with "Speed and Angels", and I imagine other missions that, for example, use multiple maps. Due to the structure of this campaign, every set is being loaded individually, which coupled with the randomness of FORGE, the player finds himself in a different cockpit despite being in the same jet (for example, "203"), every time a new set loads. Which is weird and does not really help with immersion. I hope in the future there will be the possibility to "assign" certain FORGE elements to a specific airframe for the duration of, say, a campaign. Otherwise, it's a great idea to have the ability to reflect the reality of such patch jobs and the fact that no two Tomcats were ever quite the same.

@KageseigiI highly recommend the "Speed & Angels" campaign by Reflected. You'll learn about slow-speed-high AOA-maneuvering in the first mission, from none other than "Paco" Chierici. And a lot more about handling the F-14 correctly. And tactics!

Could you elaborate? As a stand-alone DCS but SteamVR user (because Vive Pro), do I have to manually add "force_enable_VR" to the exe?