Funky Monkey

In mission 5 "Sweep" of the "Sea Dragon" campaign for the Flaming Cliffs Su-33, the wingman consistently crashes on takeoff. I've attached a track file for this. su-33-heavy-dragon-mission-5-wingman-crash-on-takeoff.trk

This is fixed with today's update to DCS 2.9.19.13478. Thanks!

In mission 20 "Helicopters intercept" of the "Heavy Sky" campaign for the Flaming Cliffs Su-33, the mission ends with a result score of 50 even after getting the message indicating mission success. As a result, you have to skip the mission to advance the campaign. You can see it at the end of this guy's video: Looking at it in the mission editor, it looks like maybe the 50 result points we're supposed to get for the "rec" mission goal are not being awarded because that goal has no conditions. When I start the mission and immediately end it, I end up with a result of 0.

In mission 15 "AWACS Hunting", the "OBJECTIVE" portion of the briefing says that we will take-off from and land at Gudauta. That's probably copied from other missions in the campaign. In this mission, we actually take-off from Nalchik and land at Gudauta.

I just played through it again. I also saw some message text in Russian while playing in English. I could decipher F-10 from that message so I checked the F10 radio menu. The F10 radio command to say that I'm RTB was also in Russian so I didn't know what I was saying except that the subsequent message said RTB. So I started to RTB even though the strike wasn't over, and later on when the enemy fighters popped up I was way out of position. Overall, the mission is completable now but it's a bit confusing for those of us playing in English.

In the 6th mission (though the filename is "Su-27 Camp 5.miz"), there is a 4-ship group of AI Su-27 named "RU Su-27 (Moz Def)" that is set to late activation but there is no trigger to activate it. It is configured to orbit at waypoint 2, looking for threats, which is sensible in the context of the mission. I'm guessing it just needs to have late activation turned off rather than add a trigger to react to encroaching bandits or something like that. Without that group activating, this mission is still completable, but it turns what was probably supposed to be an 8 vs 12 into a 4 vs 12. EDIT: @Flappie just to be clear, this is the case even after yesterday's update. T4buk hadn't reported this particular issue but I thought it might make sense to roll it into this thread. Thanks for your help!

This is fixed with today's update to version 2.9.15.9408. Flight 227 now actually resumes escort a couple seconds after saying he will.

In the "Interception of a B-52H bomber" instant action mission for the FC Su-27 on the Cold War Germany map, the "Situation" in the briefing reads: "Your task is to provide cover for a bomber carrying out a strategic air strike. The enemy has launched interceptors and will try to destroy the target before it enters the combat course. Your main goal is to intercept and destroy the enemy aircraft without losing your bomber." This text seems more appropriate for the corresponding F-16C mission where we play as blue side rather than red. In the Su-27 mission, our objective is actually to destroy the bomber, not protect it.

@NineLine thanks for looking into it so quickly. I played through it one more time and got the same behavior, and remembered to save a track this time (attached). 227 still doesn't resume escort after he says he will. After playing this, I did a repair with "Check all files" but I checked the md5sum on this mission file before and after the repair. It was cfb098a38f51596bdd398844002139af both times. This time around, I also noticed a few typos/voice line issues so I looked through all the triggers: Trigger "425 TAXI------------------------------------------": the message says "taxing" when it should probably be "taxiing". Trigger "227 TAXI---------F11-----------------------------": the message/voice says to taxi to runway 17 right but all the AI takes off on 17 left. Trigger "227 PRE-------------------------------------------": the message/voice says "internals" when I think "intervals" is meant. Trigger "F15_5-------------F305----------------------------": the message says "(227)" but I think it's supposed to be from "(F-15)". Trigger "227 FINAL-----------------------------------------": the message/voice says "17 right" but the 227 AI landed on 17 left in my playthroughs. su-27-unwanted-guest_lead_wont_resume_escort.trk

In the "Unwanted Guest" mission for the Flaming Cliffs Su-27, I saw the message saying "(227): 227 flight, resume escort." But the 227 group that represents the flight lead did not actually resume escorting the Su-25s. I followed him around in his orbit for a long time while the Su-25s flew home. Eventually the 227 group did return home but we were too far away from the Su-25s to trigger the last couple messages that are supposed to show up. I played through this mission twice and saw the same thing happen both times. I forgot to save the track for this but I've attached a TacView recording showing the Su-25s departing while 227 and I just keep orbiting. Breaking it down further, the trigger named "227 RTB----------F710---------------------------" did fire because I saw the message it sends. That trigger also turns on flag 710. The follow-on trigger is "227 RTB FLG----F711---------------------------". That trigger waits 8 seconds after flag 710 is set and requires flag 600 to be false. Flag 600 would only be true if I had initiated combat and I didn't do that, so it should be false. This second trigger pushes an AI task for group 227 to escort the Su-25s. I don't know whether this trigger didn't fire or the AI task didn't work, but group 227 did not break its orbit 8 seconds after the message from the previous trigger. I also don't know whether 227 eventually returned home because of the trigger or because of something like low fuel. Tacview-20250331-134512-DCS-Su-27 - Syria - Unwanted Guest.zip.acmi

In the MiG-29 instant action mission "MiG-29A - Airfield Strike" on the Sinai map, the mission success trigger and mission goals both require the "enfield81" unit to be alive. The problem is that is an AI unit in a separate flight from the player. The player's unit is "springfield91".

Thanks for the explanation. That is certainly an entertaining chain of events. You've enabled my software engineer brain to sleep a little easier at night.

@killjoy73au are you still supporting these missions? I played the first couple of them for the F-15C but I think I'm seeing some issues with the triggers and mission goals. I'd be happy to help work through this stuff and playtest if you're interested.

If you ever had to kill all the Flankers, I don't think you do now. In my successful playthrough, there are still 2 of them flying around at mission end. After killing the first 2, I got the message "[Magic] Dodge 4-1, the Flankers are bugging out. Disengage and return on station, steer 2." The biggest difference I can see in the TacView for the failed vs successful playthroughs is that in the failed one, the Dodge 5 flight RTB'd as soon as the Flankers got close even though it doesn't look like the Flankers shot at them, so they never engaged the Frogfoots or the Fencers. In the successful one, Dodge 5 flight hung in even after getting shot at by the Flankers, and proceeded to engage both the Frogfoots and the Fencers.

I took one more stab at it and got through it successfully. This time I got lots of dialogue while I was RTB that I didn't see in the previous playthrough. I'm attaching the TacView for the successful playthrough in case there's something to be found via comparison. I don't think I consciously did anything differently except maybe go a bit easier on the throttle on the way to WP2, anticipating that I might need to save fuel to chase down those Su-24s at the end myself. Thanks for your support and for the great campaign. I enjoyed it immensely. Tacview-20241203-125206-DCS-F15C TGW M15.zip.acmi