Jayhawk1971

This was my first "flight sim", 1984, on the C64: Followed by:

Ok, I'll try again.

Yep, this mission would have been less stressful (especially the first part) if it had been "in the pale moonlight" (little Deep Space 9 reference ). Edit: I managed AAR by increasing the gamma, and dimming the HUD all the way down when using NVG's to eliminate the "backlighting". I use the 30-degree mark on the "A2A HUD" as a reference point for AAR, so I didn't want turn off the HUD completely. I could AAR without NVG's in the previous night formation training mission. Goes to show that a little illumination goes a long way in DCS. I hope ED will get the nights right one day (soon).

Despite being a very immersive and fun mission in general, for me this mission has been really, really unlucky so far. I had to restart it so often I feel like Phil Connors by now. First restart due to the still not fixed Tomcat AI glitch that damages the player aircraft on spawn, restarted to see whether that was just a one-time glitch (AI listened to that Queen song too often - Spread your Wings) Next one is a spoiler: Once more unto the breach, result: see above (again, spoiler warning) Another try, and just when our flight was pushing (after 15 minutes of doing what Dos Gringos sang about in their "Thunderbirds" song), a higher entity required me to do a last-minute supermarket run, because said higher entity forgot to buy milk and couldn't be arsed to go again itself. This time, the crew of Cat 3 either was on their cigarette break, or on strike. In any case, they were hanging around behind Cat 4 and refused to hook up Paco. That turned out to apparently have been a one-time glitch, cause it didn't happen again (so far!) Finally, I made it to Guam, but missed the text message to trigger the "5 mile warning" (), which I only noticed after I popped, which seemed to mess up the script (well....duh! ). Also, on my coal-powered, ancient PC in VR, Andersen was a slideshow, which makes it hard to do anything requiring precision. Can someone please provide some motivation for me to try....again. Again means: doing a repair after AI smashes its wing against me, do the startup, fly to RP, go around in a steep fingertip formation bank for 10 minutes (by now I deliberately take my time to join up, to reduce circling time), then passing the first "barrier" (will not mention because spoilers). And does developing a slight twitch around my left eye mean anything? [/rant]

VISA (the company) also offers debit cards, not credit cards only.

"Fix Point" and "Surface Target". Those are Tomcat specific navigation reference points that can be stored additionally to waypoints 1-3.

IIRC, you'll get the briefing in the air on that mission.

You accidentally bought the Christen Eagle?

No, but considering that BD is still in the process of writing the manual, I suppose you'll have at least until Monday to benefit from the pre-purchase discount. (my point being: there is absolutely no rational reason for rushing the e-store to the extent of causing the server to crash) Edit: But seriously: no one not affiliated with Razbam or ED knows for sure, but I suppose 3 months would be a reasonable guess. Once you see Razbam videos with startup procedures pop up, early access release is getting close.

Little bump for this thread, since this is still a thing, as I was affected by the bug in a 3rd party SP campaign mission yesterday.

After loading the mission (takes a while in my case, plus the "flight is delayed" message), as soon as the AI crew spawns, my plane gets damaged. This happened twice in a row: first attempt at the mission was when started from campaign tab, second time I manually loaded the mission via "mission" tab. As far as I could tell, nothing vital was damaged, I could take off and fly the mission. BTW, I have filed for a transfer to the Blue Angels, after spending 10+ minutes in a constant 60ish degree angle of bank bank fingertip.

Do you use VAICOM Pro? Since I had the same issue with Slick calling engaged and hits not registering straight away in a previous mission, maybe there's some connection? I have zero knowledge about any coding stuff, but maybe Vaicom could cause a delay of some sorts? Technically, it's also a "mod".

I believe you have to make sure you've passed the bandit's 3-9 line, regardless of any message (I also misinterpreted that message at first, coupled with lousy visuals in VR, which makes it very hard to judge another aircraft's orientation beyond 1 in-game mile). Best to take a rear-quarter shot to be certain (or nuke it from orbit). At least that's how it worked for me. I think one of the points of mission 8 is to force you into a WVR engagement after the BVR timeline, so head-on shots and high aspect shots deliberately don't "count" as kills. Only after you have truly merged like in the previous 1v1 sets (= passed the bandit) invincibility will be turned off. This is very similar to some Zone 5 engagements. BTW, don't give up on mission 8, you'll definitely need what you learn there for the campaign part later on. Also, you don't want to miss the RTB part.

I was referring to the "heads up" call before the turn back into the bandits, something like, "shoot when you're at 20 miles" (paraphrasing). At that point I was at about 26 out, so I took that as a hint to shoot right as I centered the T. And as veteran gamer - and also because it would make sense tactically, I figured that we were supposed to shoot as close to Paco as possible to get a good score. Then I really don't understand what made the difference for me. The "gripes" I received at first try were "drifted too far away" and "took too long to kill bandit". Re the bandit part, I understand the how and why. But for the distance part, I was convinced that I must have gotten too far away during the turns. That's what I tried to correct on the replay, and then I got an above average grade, which seemed to confirm what I had thought. But reading the above, this sound like a case of "correlation vs coincidence". Or I completely misunderstand what you wrote (([...]I implemented a leeway, and it's only checked before the AI is let loose to maneuver.) ? Oh well. I know I shouldn't be overthinking this, I got great grades and we killed the bandits (multiple times) during the engagement, and I did everything correct tactically, so the point of the lesson was learned.

I didn't think it was a pre-merge shot, as I did a steep descending left turn behind the north F-5 when I launched the AIM-9. But I launched right after Slick's radio call was triggered, and I had a decent amount of lead on the bandit, so maybe it still counted as pre-merge? Second time I waited two more seconds and the kill counted. The second and third set went well without an urge to reload, so apparently I must have been somehow within the correct "zone", although I didn't do anything different up until the first turn: I spawn, frantically trim up up up up, and verify throttles are set for the right speed, maintain initial heading. The plane does yaw quite a bit right when it spawns. But the heading is 270, right? I'm confused because IMO the "uneventful" part of the timeline (from spawn to first turn) seems to be the part where I must have drifted off, if I understood your explanation correctly, yet that's the part which I thought was the most stable one initially, hence why I keep belaboring this point. Do you count vertical separation as well as lateral? I got quite low on the first spawn (trim was waaaaay nose down at spawn due to wings being fully swept, which caught me by surprise). What I did differently on successful retry was: I was more aggressive throughout all turns, especially the turn to center the T when I tried again. But if I understand correctly, all of that doesn't count anymore WRT distance? Yup, I guessed that would be the case when I heard him say "shoot at 20" and I saw 26/25 on the TID.

Just finished mission 7, and it was the first one in this campaign where I felt I could have gotten above average at first try, if it hadn't been for "DCS-isms". Had to fly the first set three times to get above average due to having to figure out how not to drift away from lead, and what to do to get the timing right for Fox3/Fox1. At least for me, Paco was late calling the maneuvers, meaning he initialized before telling me, which messed up abeam distance. He also seems to speed up considerably (without any warning) for the first centering the T, so first try when I was about to Fox 1 he was way ahead of me. I believe I remained pretty much at 400 (give or take 10 kts) throughout the turns, never below 380. On the second set, I was better at getting distance right (other than Paco again leaving me in the dust for Fox 3 shot) and then got a "you took way too long to kill the bandit" message, which happened because my first Fox2, which I saw hit the north bandit (and got Jester's "splash") apparently didn't register. I did hear Slick say "turning in" (or engaging, can't remember) right before I pressed the trigger, but maybe the game was too slow/ I was too trigger-happy. It took a while to figure out that he was in fact not "dead", I had to re-position, which took a while. I fixed the distance thing by going full blower at the "center the T" call, and remain in blower until I'm abeam in time for the crank. By the third one I had it all pretty much down cold, and then the set felt really good, very immersive. Despite the "DCS-isms" (with which we all have to live with), this has probably been my most favorite mission so far. Looking forward to mission 8!

I did that with mission 6, and it worked very well. It even let me jump to the next set (via F10 menu) without having to quit and manually load the next one.

[I know, it's a typo, but a funny one, so I couldn't resist]

I'm convinced that Judgement Day will be triggered by Google Assistant telling Siri that Cortana and Bixby agree that Alexa is much better, smarter and better looking.

I had also an odd experience in Zone 5 with AI shortly before S&A was released, but forgot to bring it up. It was the 4vunk where I fly as number 4 (the one after exposure - event 8?). Shortly before landing back at Nellis, after clearance for the overhead, instead of moving to echelon left, Hammer decided to break away and fly off. Later investigation via F2 view revealed that he had joined up with ARCO and was taking fuel. He must have still been full to the brim with fuel from the short flight back from Bighorn. Let's just say if this AI is Skynet becoming self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, I am not concerned for the future of humanity.

How nice of Bio that he managed to come to Nellis to see me off before my A2A lessons. Didn't know he did become an Air Boss.

Incidentally, the OP was written by ChatGPT. @cheezit Then again, ED might have to release DCS: Blade Runner, a module to hunt down any rogue AI.

Good idea, I'll do that!

Tried mission 6 again, got an above average on defensive perch, then DCS crashed again on loading offensive perch, right as the cockpit appeared. I'm ->this<- close to skipping ahead to mission 7, but I'll miss out on two-circle and butterfly set.