FMBluecher

Awesome, thanks!

Oh, cool, I didn't know that. How do we edit (or remove) kneeboards that come with the aircraft module?

Probably a good idea!

The Hornets did a great job dealing with the Hawk on Abu Musa! Their HARMs did the job on the radars rather well. But, while I applaud their dedication, trying to finish the site off with strafing runs after they ran out of Mavericks was probably a wee bit optimistic...all four got shot down by either MANPADS or AAA. Perhaps something to tweak in the AI settings? It didn't affect my ability to complete the mission, so this is low priority, but still, perhaps something to look at if you have time. Additionally, the opening message regarding radio frequencies is wrong again--it lists both the AWACS (correctly) and the tanker (incorrectly) as Radio 2 Button 5. The tanker should be (IIRC) button 4.

Cool--I'll probably skip for now, as I feel like I've done my part in beating the mission, and maybe revisit later. Thanks again!

Awesome, looking forward to it! Should I wait to replay until after the update, or did your tweaks not affect the AI behavior/victory conditions?

No worries! Your prompt responses are much appreciated, and I'll give the mission another try soon and let you know how it goes (this time, giving my wingmen multiple attack orders!).

Ah, that (oddly) makes sense about the wingmen. BTW, when reviewing it, can you check the opening message about radio frequencies as well? I posted about it before, but the radio channels are not correct as listed. I figured them out by trial and error, but at least the AWACS and LHA channels are wrong.

What do we actually need to do to win this mission? I expended all of my ordnance, and my wingmen at least decided they were done attacking (I don't think any of them actually used all of their ordnance, but they said "rejoin" after being ordered to Engage Mission and Rejoin). We had destroyed all but one of the Silkworm launchers (although none of the command vehicles), and I got 0 points. I did waste one bomb and one missile (destroying missiles that my wingmen had already destroyed, and I couldn't tell), but that seems pretty darn close to the limit of what is achievable...

Also having this exact same problem. Shot down both MiG-31s and then tried just about anything I could to get the Tornados to move on. I flew formation on their leader, I flew to WPTs 4 and 5, I shot down both of the MiG-29s (on the off-chance that that would have helped), but still nothing. Any chance of a fix, BD?

Ah, that makes sense! Thanks for taking my feedback into account, and, again, this whole mini-campaign was awesome and I'm very glad you made it!

It was definitely Mission 1. I think it said "all bombers were dead" but I couldn't swear to that, so it's possible (especially if no one else is reporting this issue) that it was just relieving Pontiac. I just finished the campaign! Good stuff, and I bought the paid DLC, which I'll start next. I thought I'd condense all my feedback (including that mentioned above) into one post here: 1) KC-135 needs to be converted to KC-135MPRS in every mission. It might be worth checking if the radios are set up correctly for it as well, as in Mission 3 it seemed as though the KC-135 was on the wrong frequency (although this may have been a function of my own edits to turn the KC-135 into an MPRS rather than an underlying issue with the campaign itself). 2) In Mission 3, I successfully escorted the F/A-18 through the range, and then the Hornet started a sudden climb towards the tanker. I assumed that this meant that the mission was complete, even though I received no message to this effect, especially since some of the F-16s that had been pursuing us turned around. Therefore, I started climbing towards the tanker too, as I was very low on fuel (about 2600 lbs remaining). Right as I was about to call pre-contact, one of the F-16s (Falcon 3-1) showed up, blew up the tanker, and killed me. Seems to me that the mission should be considered complete if the Hornet got far enough away to tank, and the tanker should definitely be made immortal so that even if it gets called "killed" by Overlord, the player isn't left in a spot where they don't have enough fuel to land. 3) Also, because I just quit the mission at this point (since I was basically running on fumes and the training F-16 blew up the tanker for real!), it got counted as a fail, and oddly bumped me back to Mission 2 for failing Mission 3. That seemed very odd; even if you fail, at worst it should just send you to replay Mission 3. 4) No bugs with Mission 4, although it did seem a bit surprising that the exercise was "knocked off" just because Pontiac reached the target. There were a couple of Eagles still about that could have still messed with the retreating strikers, but I do get why it was done this way. Anyway, the above aside, I really enjoyed this, and thanks again for making the training campaign! Fun little thing to do before I get stuck into the "real" thing!

All makes sense! I'm hoping to finish the training in the next few days, and I'll let you know my feedback once I'm done. (And then I'll start the paid campaign! Looking forward to it!) BTW the tanker issue is present in all the missions, but because it's not a DLC campaign I can edit the files myself; it was pretty trivial to add KC-135MPRS's to all the missions so it's not a showstopper or anything.

First of all, might I say that it is very cool that you have made this mini-campaign as a preview for your paid one? I really like the idea, and Mission 1 was good fun. However, there are two issues I've noted so far: 1) The tanker is a KC-135, not a KC-135MPRS, which is the only KC-135 variant in-game that Tomcats can actually refuel from. Due to a (pretty awesome) supersonic low-speed chase of one of the bandit bombers, I was super low on fuel and rather distressed to find out that I couldn't actually refuel from the tanker! This appears to be the same in Mission 2 as well, although I haven't flown it yet so I can't confirm. 2) I was told by Overlord that I had completed the mission before I even checked in on station--might be worth checking the trigger situation to see what's happening there.

IIRC there was a dev who said something to the effect that the MPDs were complex enough that they could release one such video a week for the next 20 weeks--but not that they were actually planning to do so.

What exact command(s) were you issuing? Sometimes, if you tell him to "STT Lock Enemy Target Ahead," he'll say "unable," not because he can't lock the target, but because he's not 100% sure the target is an enemy. AFAIK this can happen even if the datalink identifies the target as hostile. Maybe that's not your specific issue, but either way, more details will help us help you.

Can confirm, this also happened to me just now, also on OB.

Now on this, I completely agree with you!

There might be a big difference between how many people would want it if all RAZBAM had to do was flip a switch and enable removing CFTs, versus how many people would want it if they realized how much time, money, and effort RAZBAM would need to divert to it as opposed to spending said time, money, and effort on other things. If it was trivial for RAZBAM to do it? Sure! I'd never use it once, but I'd be happy for other people to get a silly, fun feature. But it's not. It's a question of them spending a non-trivial amount of resources to model an unrealistic option to remove CFTs versus them spending more resources getting the actual features of the F-15E done properly and quickly, and then starting work on other modules that people also clearly want, like the MiG-23. And in that context, I wholeheartedly support RAZBAM's decision (which they have already made) to not model removing the CFTs.

Excellent! I'll start the original soon, then! Bought it a while ago but been saving it up--I've had super high expectations for it and wanted to savor it, but it looks like now'd be a good time.

Here they are--all of the new and old tracks for the missions with valid pre-merge shots. (I also included Exposure in the new tracks, since, even though they're not counted as kills, the briefing said that forward-quarter pre-merge shots were encouraged.) https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1IJr6Wm0YLkMGERuQaUXvpVMgwN42gKUr?usp=sharing

I'd love to--heck, I'd be willing to post the Tacview tracks from previous Zone 5 missions where this was an issue as well. I can't get the file sizes below 5 MB, though. I've never attached any files to these forums before; is there some way to get larger files attached, or is there somewhere I can send them directly that doesn't have the file size limit? Would it still be helpful, since you already submitted your own track? I didn't save the DCS tracks, sadly--I didn't realize there was a bug until after I had already closed DCS to watch the Tacview track.

I'm replaying Zone 5, and I noticed an oddity. (Of course, because I'm extemely observant, I noticed it only by the time I got to event 9, even though this has affected every mission up until 9!) The AI--both friendly and enemy--is completely refusing to use any weapon aside from IR-guided missiles. (They might be willing to use the gun, too, but it's hard to say for sure, since it's much more difficult for the AI to satisfy those parameters.) I thought it might be a DCS issue, and apparently there have been some bugs reported like this, so I also just tried a BVR practice mission that I had created. I hadn't messed with the default AI behaviors, and both my AI wingman (using standard DCS AI comms) and the bandits fired AIM-54s and R-27s (respectively). So, while this might be to some extent a DCS bug, it appears to be especially effective at crippling both the friendly and enemy AI in Zone 5. Edit: I should clarify that the difference is very obvious when I compared my Tacview track of Event 9 that I just played with the track of the same event played in August. In August, the sky was full of missiles before the merge; my wingmen were firing away with Sparrows and Phoenixes, and so were the bandits (with just Sparrows, obviously). In this case, I was the only one who fired anything other than an AIM-9.

Would I be missing out by playing the original Raven One campaign before this one, even though this one is a prequel? I assume not (especially since I've already read the book), but just wanted to ask.

If I were you, I would just jump into the F-14A and don't worry about "learning a new version." As others have said, the differences are minimal. Inside the cockpit, the only thing that's at all different is that the engine readouts (RPM, TIT, and FF) are in analog rather than digital format, but the information is presented in the exact same way; there's no need to learn anything new. The major difference is just that the engines in the A are a) less responsive, b) less powerful, and c) more prone to compressor stalls than the ones in the B. But most of the time, I don't notice a huge difference. I swap between playing the A and B regularly and don't feel as though I need to adjust very much at all. The differences only really come into play when extra-fine control is needed, like during in-air refueling and carrier traps. But even then, it's still not so huge of a difference that you can't overcome it just by paying a bit more attention. The only new thing to learn about the A is dealing with compressor stalls, and those are rare enough (for me at least) that it's not a major part of flying the A. And you can learn about how to avoid causing compressor stalls and how to recover from them when they happen by reading about them in your spare time. Got 5 minutes between meetings, or while waiting the pick the kids up from something? Check it out on your phone. Chances are it won't even come up in a mission. Trust me--Reflected's F-14A campaigns are absolutely, 100% worth doing this for. Stop worrying and just do it! You won't regret it.