RimanDk

Just finished it. Absolute top marks for characters - Max and Player in particular stand out, but they all felt like they had personality and depth! Amazing job! - atmosphere and story/structure. The missions were nice and varied. This was my very first taste of a Red Flag exercise and I'm happy I got that through this campaign, as it felt very authentic and "lived", if you will. I learned new things and reinforced previous knowledge, falling in love with the Mirage all over again and becoming a better pilot for it. The ride wasn't purely smooth and all rainbows and unicorns, however. Especially at the beginning, it can feel overwhelming and chaotic. I have needed to re-do multiple (most!) missions because of malfunctioning or missed triggers (lacking guidance on needing to pass a given waypoint within a certain distance to trigger, or needing to be on a certain frequency at a specific time, but not learning about it anywhere). I persevered and got to the end, but it's not a campaign I would currently recommend to people, unless I knew beforehand that they are handy at getting around that sort of thing and don't mind putting up with some frustration to get the full experience. Overall, it's been an amazing ride! If the critique above were to be addressed, so that everybody would get a smooth ride on their first play through it, I would recommend it in a heartbeat!

No worries, mate! I'm mostly managing to figure out the bugs and navigating my way around them through trial and error. Annoying, but still making progress. I did a 4th run at it and passed it with an 80 (was Winchester and couldn't deal with the follow-up). To any, who might be running into issues: The mission appears to be on a script with rather tight tolerances. You must overfly WP3 within 3nm for everything to trigger correctly! If you do, the script plays out as expected. If not, trouble ensues. I still didn't get any comms telling me the Migs were down and I got no indication that I should switch frequencies towards the end, so I only learned about additional tasking when an F10 prompt description came up. Suffice it to say, without having heard the radio call preceding it, I was pretty lost on what was expected.

I know this response comes almost a year after the last post, but it's still relevant. My experience on the first try was great - right up until I got shot out of the sky by a surprise Igla at point blank... My bad, I suppose. Second attempt included an unfortunate accidental ejection between WP2 and 3. We won't go into that... Third attempt is the one that matters, as it appears it missed a whole lot of triggers. I flew past WP3 on the left and anchored around it in a circle with a radius to WP3 of maybe 5nm, while climbing to 25k. Chevy 2 remained glued to my wing throughout, where, in my first attempt, I flew right over WP3 and Chevy 2 detached straight away. Got the migs spawn, pointed East and lit the burner, while CAP dealt with the threat, but got zero indication that the Migs were down. No comms or otherwise. Turned back when the M disappeared from my RWR and a quick F2 step-through of air assets revealed no Migs around. Went back to tracing circles above WP3 and must somehow have gotten accidentally close enough to trigger Chevy 2 leaving (didn't realize what the trigger to get them to leave was, but I guess it's actual proximity to the WP)... to go... on a merry patrol of the area, nowhere near the target, never dropping bombs on anything and never making a radio call for me to follow up with a run in. After a while just tracing rings in the sky, I finally got a "Good job, everyone! Let's RTB!" call from Twister... Stepped through the dialogue, then decided to go <profanity> up my target anyway, because I felt rather cheated... but no iglas this time and no active target assets. RTB'ed uneventfully, got a 55 score with zero mention of me launching rockets nor of my rockets hitting anything at all, though I clearly hit some mockups.

Thanks, BD - I think it would help to just get a run down of how the mission is supposed to play out after the intercept point. The B-1 does its attack run and turns around, of course, but I lack some comms calling me out of the CAP point, so it becomes a little bit murky when to leave, particularly if I'm in doubt whether any bogeys are left alive or not. Once I leave, what more is supposed to happen? What radios am I supposed to be on while retreating out of the strike point? Are there any interactions I should be getting? What triggers am I missing? I assume there's some radio chatter that I'm not getting because I'm on the wrong radios, and that's where the triggers are that I'm not catching. Guidance for when to switch radios is missing from the strike point onwards, which is where I get turned around, I think. If you could provide a comms timeline past the strike/intercept point, I can try and follow it and report back whether it changed anything or not. The campaign is excellent so far, with some fun, quirky characters and excellent voice acting. It's extremely chaotic, though, but I put that down to the confusing radar with all the spurious contacts and the lack of datalink resulting in lacking SA. Makes it very hard to tell what's going on a lot of the time - no fault of yours, just an observation of how this campaign is challenging in different ways than others I have played. I'm enjoying it, but the comms are a problem. Particularly the first couple of missions are pretty broken in that regard. Could just be kneeboards need updating or something =). Cheers.

I go through the escort portion and the attack run, intercept the bandits (AI is quite effective and kills them before I manage to get a shot off), circle a couple of times and F10 Darkstar to get a bogey dope, get a "picture clean" and try to leg it back to the Bone. I rejoin it, but get nothing on comms. No triggers. Nothing. It gets back on station in the whereabouts of WP3/6, but hanging with it does nothing, so I push red 2 and green 7 and head home. En-route I get a message to F10 to Nellis manually when I get close to the WP, which I do (pushing green 10 for approach). I land successfully and switch to tower on one radio and ground on the other, but get no comms from anybody. I park and turn off the plane, but... nothing. 50% score. Something ain't triggering. Where am I going wrong?

Okay, cool! Thanks! I set mine up on Ace, which is... more than a challenge! I will adjust my own training scenario to reflect this change. Hopefully, I'll start getting some results and building the confidence to get back to doing the mission proper! Cheers! EDIT: Lowering the difficulty definitely made the fight more approachable in my custom training scenario and I have started to see some success. Hopefully, I can translate that to the real mission! EDIT2: Managed to pass it. Turns out practising against considerably harder opponents pays off! =). It's still a hard fight, but it's approachable now, whereas before it would take a combination of skill and luck to survive it and would lead to a lot of frustration and painful re-do's. The way it is now, 15 is an amazing mission that offers a bit of everything, from carrier ops to strike coordination and tough formation flying (quite a tight turn with quite a lot of bank!) to air-to-air knife fighting to strike and cas... it's a ton of stuff crammed into a single mission! Marvellous fun! One of the best-designed missions I have ever flown (could only be improved by an optional tanker en-route home - which would be far from unrealistic for a strike of this size).

What are they set at? I think the ones I added to my own mission are set pretty high - would like to practice against the right difficulty, if possible =).

Doing this mission again for my second playthrough and I find them near impossible to deal with. I have a thread on hoggit about it, actually. Would absolutely love to see a video of you doing it. No matter what I try, they tend to fly rings around me and tag-team me to death. It's gotten to the point that I'm just practising that one encounter in a separate mission that attempts to recreate the parameters without Paco, as he's utterly useless in that fight. Say, it's not possible to just blow through them and keep going with the attack, is it? An optional tanker would really mean the world in this mission...

Yeah, I suspected as much. That would be why I mentioned keybinds . I have recently done a file verification/restoration. I do have mods installed. I can try to remove them.

I have been playing this again and I got shot in the face by flankers in both mission 11 and 12, but somehow walked away without a scratch both times?! I have checked and I do not have immortality enabled in the game options. Is there some sort of key bind I could have accidentally hit to enable it?

Thank you. I'll try that, then =).

Unfortunately, as already mentioned, that was the first thing I did, to no avail. The most important part is being able to play the mission at all, of course... but I would also like the campaign to progress naturally! As a work-around, can I play the mission as mentioned (through the Mission menu point) and skip it in the Campaign menu? Will that progress me to 16?

As per title. Just tried tonight. No mods (I cleaned them out for this). It launches and plays the intro sequence with the external view of the carrier. That finishes up and it goes to load the proper mission, but it gets stuck on "Wait for pooled tasks - 1". I've left it there for 5 full minutes and... nothing. For context, I'm on a brand new system with a Ryzen 7 7800x3D, 64 gigs of ram and a 4090. DCS is installed on a Samsung 980 PRO - missions typically load within half a minute. I seem able to launch any other random mission I have tried (tried about a dozen between campaign missions and instant action ones), but not this one. I have already verified integrity of files and repaired (I'm on Steam - there was nothing to repair) EDIT: If I load 15b through the Mission menu point, it works just fine. EDIT 2: Loading 15a through the Mission menu point works as well; it loads in 15b just fine =/. Not sure what the heck is wrong... I copied 15a and 15b into my Missions folder so that I could get to load them, for what it's worth... (The Mission menu point doesn't allow me to backtrack out of my Saved Games on C, all the way to the root, so I can switch to my secondary drive, whereon the DCS proper installation resides)

Situation resolved. I was missing the whole helicopter sequence. I never get the "Chig, I'm closing the canopy" dialogue, but if I wait out the helicopter, the rest works as expected. Cheers, guys!

I waited about 3-4 mins. I didn't notice any change of direction in the ship and the conversation never triggered regardless of whether I closed the canopy or not. I have a couple of mods installed: A-4 T-45 F-22 Bronco Blackhawk English cockpit for the Viggen Community keybinds I haven't noticed a helicopter launch yet. I'll try again and pay attention to it - thanks!

I go through the cutscene, load into the Tomcat on the catapult, get the magazine. The call to scramble and launch comes in, the magazine goes away and... that's it. Nothing more happens. Am I missing something? I have tried closing the canopy manually, but to no avail. Paco never launches, the dialog with Chig never triggers. I'm just stuck. I have tried both MT and regular and it's the same with either. Help?

On the 3/9 line, I was having similar issues as the gents in this thread, where the 3/9 line was brought up: Shots taken after the "2's engaged" call still didn't count for whatever reason. It only worked once I made sure I passed that 3/9 line. Could be a question of timing. Shooting within 3-5s of the call still annulled any hits that I scored. *shrug* The reason I call it a "soft" limit is that there is no "hard" limit in the game. The jet in the game is perfectly capable of pulling past 6.5 without breaking. The control surfaces don't get bent or stuck (not talking about flaps, which you are not supposed to use in dogfights anyway). Sure, you can tear off the wings in absurd, extreme circumstances, but I have never experienced it in a conventional dogfight before. The second part to this is that there's no reliable indication that you are pulling too hard, which makes it incredibly hard to avoid. Like the vast majority, I don't have an FFB stick, so I can't do it by feel. That leaves me to constantly glance at the G-meter while manoeuvring to try to figure out how much I can pull to hit that magical number without passing it. I already struggle to track bandits visually as is, without needing the ulterior distraction of having to constantly mind a gauge that's halfway across the world, if you catch my drift =). Cockpit shake is an indication of AOA, not G-load, as far as I understand. Finally, the AI doesn't give a crap about g-limits. All of that combines to make this tolerance of 6.5g feel artificial if you will? I have to respect it because the mission tells me to (because you're adhering to Natops) - not because the game demands it. I'm not g-locking. The plane's not coming apart. The AI is flying circles around me. I feel like I'm fighting with my hands tied behind my back and it feels unfair and thus aggravating - does that make sense? There is no blame in this comment. AI and damage modelling are outside of your control. Just sharing that those timeline intercepts have required numerous playthroughs, which became pretty aggravating in the end, due to those factors. I guess I would love for overstepping the limit to have a consequence less severe than automatic Unsat? I still appreciated learning the tactics, the call-outs, etc. Feeling like part of a division doing a proper intercept was awesome! The immersion was off the chart. I loved it. I just wish the BFM portion had been less tricky to figure out and execute. The formation flying portions were also nigh on impossible for me. I can easily get into position (and loved learning what the right positions are for the various formation flying styles), but my reflexes are too slow to react properly to the course changes and maintain position. These few frustrations aside, I will happily repeat that this has been an absolute blast so far! The explanations (white-boards, briefings, images/screenshots for alignment) and the syllabus are all masterfully done and put the bar at a whole new level. In all honesty, I never thought basic flight could be this challenging and exciting - and never knew that I craved this sort of content so vividly! It truly fills a massive gap in DCS and I firmly believe that this syllabus should come with every plane/module you get, just adapted to the airframe. I know it's an unrealistic ask - and I would never ask it of you specifically. The point is that playing through this has been such an eye-opener for content that is direly missing in DCS and imo should be there. Yes, most modules come with training missions, but it's just not the same thing in the slightest! PS - I know you were worried about the chunked up missions and continuity; don't worry about it, it's perfect the way it is! In fact, this approach was hugely beneficial for allowing me to load up and attempt the bits I was interested in, which was absolutely appreciated (even though it was a side-effect of DCS limitations :D)

Phew! What a ride! Just finished my night qual on a high note and rushed over to share my grade sheet! Save for a handful, none of these are first attempts. I worked most of them up from Unsats or Below Avg's over 2-10 attempts depending on the task. Most of them took like 3 attempts to get right. Some of it was missing information I needed to fill in on my own. Some of it was misunderstanding the briefing. For either of these, it's pretty clear I'm just an enthusiast that never took lessons in any of this stuff and there are bits and pieces of the basics that I was/am just missing. Then, there's the bits where I thought I had done everything right, but the triggers wouldn't trigger (such as the BVR->BFM, where you need to actually cross the bandit's 3/9 line for your shots to count - had to repeat those a looooot of times before I got that... + the soft g-limit screwed me over many times...) nullnullIt's been frustrating. It's been heart-wrenching. It's been exhilarating and highly rewarding to finally overcome some of these! I learned so much from doing these! Easily worth the price of admission just for the first 10 missions alone! Can't wait to get into the second part!

Perfect! Thank you!

Given the format of the campaign and the nomenclature used (Mission 2.a, etc), I was hoping that each exercise would be re-playable from the campaign mission select menu. Unfortunately, they are not and only the "top" mission file in the stack is shown and re-playable. That means, if I want to practice a particular exercise, I have to go through all of what came before first. I get the "you can never get too good at x and y..." argument, but when time is limited and the mission/file structure seems to support this... If I were to copy the individual mission files from the campaign folder into the Missions folder, would I not be able to load and play each "subsection" of the mission (each exercise) separately? Would it break anything? Would I be doing something "wrong"? Are there any particular drawbacks in doing this? Thanks in advance.

Perfect! Thanks for that! Believe me, I listen to Paco carefully - and stop the mission to read back the message history whenever I am in doubt - but listening to and understanding are not always the same thing... particularly when you have no formal training in any of it and are just an enthusiastic, self-taught amateur =). As much as I would love to take your grad-sheet challenge, it's pretty evident to me that I'm not on a level yet, where it would make sense to do so. Instead, I'll use the first few missions in this campaign as a training tool to learn and practice those fundamental skills I'm missing (primarily precision flying). Cheers - and sorry, FMBleucher, for butting into your thread

Ah! So, "wings level" means level flight as well? I took that to mean "no bank angle". Okay, fair enough. I guess there is still some lingo I need to get used to! Cheers.

I get that. Its value is not readily apparent and I'm not sure I have the full answer to that. My personal takeaway is a greater understanding and appreciation for how it handles at low-speed, high-bank. At a certain point, that nose just comes down dramatically. I also have a better feeling for how it will recover from such a situation... how much vertical space I need for it, etc. To me, that's all got some carry-over to BFM.

Same point as anything else on the fam flight: to get a feeling for how the plane does in different situations. Great tip, the bottom one! I'm willing to wager you are a far more experienced - and meticulous! - flier than most of your customers*. I've run through this mission 4 times now, and I ran out of fuel once and got a bad remark for landing with 1600lbs left in the tanks on a second occasion, where I got a BELOW AVERAGE. The latter is ironic, for I was trying to make up for my first, AVERAGE run =). The difference was that I was asked to re-do the left-hand 360, the loop and the first wing-over (in my better run, I had to repeat the level turn as well as the wing-over, but not the loop). That, and I got confused by the Mach run portion. You do as instructed, but there is no voice-over telling you when have satisfied the criteria. I did my right turn, did my left turn, got no confirmation and did them a second time. Got pretty close to hitting the mountains at Mach 1.5... only when I backed out of it and leveled out on my own, did the sound file play. I guess the trigger is going back to wings level and/or pulling out of blower. Had I realized that sooner, I would probably have had more juice to limp home with... *Sidenote: this campaign is brutal! I know you warned us in advance, but... mission 2 is absolutely spanking me raw... I dare not think of 3... (and no, it's not the AAR, it's keeping formation through the turns)

Got it! Thank you =). Quick follow-up question for mission 1: The wing-overs, are you supposed to use rudders during? Spud's video of mission 1 is a bit confusing about this, as it mentions airflow over the tails, but doesn't mention applying rudders during. The slow-speed, high AOA exercise is slightly confusing as well, as getting the nose to 60 degs is easy enough, but keeping it there becomes impossible eventually. Keeping it at 30 is doable, but not higher than that, in my experience. Is that okay? The script/triggers seemed satisfied...