Sandman Simulations

23/07/2025 update Mission 12. Kneeboard and briefing documentation fixed All missions: AI AAR changed for better reliability (was not mentioned in DCS change log but should be there)

23/07/2025 update Missions 3, 8, 13 and 15: AI AAR changed for better reliability

The mission should work after todays update.

Thank you for your message. There is a DCS core bug causing ai to stay behind the tanker after AAR if there is more than one aircraft in the group. This is reported to ED and I really hope they will fix it ASAP. I have also made a patch for the campaign to bypass this issue. It should be out in the next DCS update.

The big day has arrived. No, not the campaign release day, but I submitted the campaign to ED for evaluation today. And now we wait. The review process is usually long—months. Since this is clearly an unusual campaign, with two flyable aircraft types and a dynamic structure, there may still be challenges ahead. Below is a tutorial video that walks through the planning and execution of a simple mission in the campaign.

Hi, Thank you for your report. I have noticed the same and it seems to be DCS core problem. Single AI refuels normally but a pair doesn't leave the tanker. I have reported this to ED and hope they will fix it ASAP.

Thanks. Hope I will get it out some day

I'm just trying to test this but it seems that in development version AAR is broken once again so can't play the mission yet. Just reported this to ED and hope it won't get into release.

The liveries are ready. Lately, I’ve been working on testing and battle outcome calculations, trying to get the difficulty level balanced properly. The campaign documentation is also nearly complete—about 150 pages including instructions for playing the dynamic campaign, along with plenty of intelligence material for mission planning. Testing and fine-tuning will still take some time. In addition to that, both the campaign start and the various end scenarios are still missing.

Hi, Thank you for your report. Good to hear you made it back to the carrier and got the debrief as supposed. Still it sounds to me that everything didn't went just as is should. I suppose you don't have a track saved but if you are using Tacview please send me the file. I'll try to find out if there is some new bug introduced.

Thank you for your feedback. After playing the Arctic Thunder campaign, I’ve been planning to implement this innovative idea into my own campaigns. It’s a task that involves testing and will take some months to complete, so I haven’t had the chance to do it yet, but I believe it will happen at some point.

Hi, Thank you for your message. It would naturally be possible to create the campaign in such a way that all friendly and enemy units are visible on the map. However, the difficulty level of the campaign has been carefully balanced, and changing this setting would have a significant impact. It would not only make units visible on the map, but all units set to be visible would also be listed in the briefing — and to my understanding, this cannot be disabled. That would spoil many of the intended surprises. In reality, not everything the player is led to believe is happening around them is actually taking place. For the sake of performance, units may appear and disappear in areas where the player won’t notice — actions that would look strange if shown on the map. So unfortunately the answer is no.

A month has flown by again and intense testing continues. In addition to testing the campaign progression calculations, I've been working on briefing materials, including images of the target areas. However, this work is still largely unfinished. The campaign documents will inevitably become, shall we say, extensive. Voice actors have been working on the voice-overs, and I have been editing the recordings. I've also been working on aircraft liveries. Nothing too special, but unique side numbers for the four Tomcat squadrons, since it's not possible to change them in the editor like it is with the Hornets. This only means about 50 liveries. A fair amount of time will still be spent on these tasks.