Sandman Simulations

Hi, Being new in DCS is not a problem. This campaign just differs quite a lot from normal scripted campaign. Here you are not flying preplanned missions. Instead you need to act as squadron CO and according to goals given to your squadron plan missions to reach those goals. First of all you need to read the campaign manual. When installing campaign, documentations goes to somewhat challenging place. It should be found behind following path: Program files/Eagle Dynamics/DCS World (or DCS World OpenBeta)/Mods/campaigns/FA-18C Flaming Sunrise/Doc. Manual does not give you instructions how to win the war but it will guide you how to plan a single mission. First mission is like intro and doesn't need planning. Before second mission you should read the briefing and find out what goals are given to your squadron. For the first dynamic mission it is something like this: "Primary mission to gain air superiority in Emirates and northern parts of Oman airspace. Secondary mission to support Emirate’s ground forces defending city of Dubai." Now you need to decide how to reach those goals with 10 Hornets of your squadron. When you start this mission, there is also tutorial telling you how to task your squadron and so on. At the end of the missions you will get debriefing about what happened during the mission and what is situation on ground. After landing you need to press spacebar to start the debriefing. After crashing or ejecting it starts automatically. In debriefing you will get Air Superiority Level and Enemy Air Defense level for the next mission. Those numbers and charts you will need when planning next mission. Active air bases for the next mission can be found from Air Superiority Level chart during the debriefing. Charts can be found from documentation also. Don't hesitate to ask if still confused.

I tested attack against Bandar Abbas international airport. There is active military base only when air superiority level is 10-20 % or less. When active, AI bombed runways and infrastructure as supposed and it was noted in debriefing. Please report if you still get into this problem even if air base should be active.

If you have achieved air superiority level of 70-80% those air bases are not active anymore. So you can't destroy them. They will become active again if enemy gets your air superiority level back to lower level. You need to check active air bases from planning charts of current air superiority level before tasking your flights. Unfortunately AI may sometimes get back home via very interesting routes and altitudes. No matter what altitude is set for the unit.

Thanks for report. I will check. What was air superiority level for missions? Damage is only counted for active airbases.

In first few tests I wasn't able to get the problem to happen and all flights launched normally. Still it is not first time AI does something stupid on deck. Usually it is when there are F-14s involved but in this campaign that doesn't explain. Could you please tell me also what tasks had you assigned for other flights (D2-D4)? And if you could try again after downloading todays update and report did it change anything?

Hi, Thank you for report. I'll check when able to get DCS started. At the moment seems to be quite crowded due to update. It needs some magic to get all AI aircraft to launch without crashing each other or to get stuck anywhere. Did you wait until D5 was behind cat or had you already taxied? And which task was assigned to D5?

Change log for June update 2023 Documentation – typos fixed All missions – typos fixed All missions – planning charts included in in-game kneeboard All missions – sidenumbers changed to be more realistic

Everything what happens after mission start and before (actually during) debriefing will affect. Point of the campaign is not what you do as a single pilot but what your decisions are. So you you can stay on the deck during whole mission but because of AI restrictions D4 won't launch if you won't.

Tested it and it seems to be like that old problem is still there but fortunately not as bad as year ago. Still if F-18 has to make a steep turn to catch the tanker it may stall until hit the ground. I tried with three two ship flights simultaneusly at tanker station and lost usually one F-18. That sucks but won't ruin the mission. I will report the problem to ED but can't promise they will make it better.

Hi, It was year ago when there was a huge AI Hornet AAR problem. If F-18 had to make too steep turn when meeting the tanker they lost their airspeed and stalled all the way to the ground. ED mostly fixed that so it only happened sometimes. I don't think you are doing anything wrong. Just hope that bug is not coming back. I will check that. https://forum.dcs.world/topic/300277-question-mission-10-waypoint-2-rendezvous/?do=findComment&comment=4989904

I couldn't find the A-10 suicide site but there are lots of things that may affect. Like is that certain AAA alive. Anyway it's just like you said. As told in mission briefing, if you take care of air superiority, Air Force will provide some CAS power so you may use your squadron somewhere else. You may land anywhere you want. Of course in real life it would be good to return to the carrier but in emergency you may use any available place. Actually for campaign progression it doesn't matter if you land or get shot down. Campaign will progress to the next stage anyway. You will return to the same mission only if you end the mission without going through the debriefing part. Losing your aircraft will of course have an affect on air superiority calculation as losing any of you squadron aircrafts.

That is true. If you use "engage bandits" command AI will engage what ever enemy it thinks is the greatest threat and might help you spontaneously. But you never know and often you end up shooting missiles against same enemy. If trying split to our forces and save some missiles I usually use "attack my enemy" command so I have some idea where my wingman is going. But then after killing enemy I have pointed wingman usually won't engage other enemies and might not save my butt.

All feedback and remarks are warmly welcome. I will put them all to my notes and if I can find I good resolution without breaking something else I'll try to fix also AI-problems if possible. About A-10s. Need to take a look to it. I had big challenges to balance A-10s not to be too efficient. Can you specify what was name of that mission and how many missions being flown before it. I tested few missions and it seems that at least there A-10s are still doing a good job. Even little bit too good

Hi, Thank you for your feedback. Flight tasked to SEAD area Bravo should attack SA-10 west from Bandar Lengeh as priority and if SA-10 is out of operation (like it is in your situation) they should attack SA-6 at Bandar Lengeh. Only after SA-6 should they attack against AAA and Rapiers on smaller islands. Just tested it and they are acting just as you said. But when I set one flight simultaneously commit OCA strike to Bandar Lengeh, SA-6 started shooting at them and at the same time SEAD-flight reacted, shot HARMs and destroyed SA-6. They of course didn't do that if they already had shot all HARMs to other targets. I'm not sure what causes it and it wasn't like this during tests. I'm not sure if SA-6 with skill level high can be using radar only when engaging threat and only then can be engaged with HARMs? Cost of dynamic features is that there is much more dependency on AI than in normal scripted campaign. And as we all know DCS AI sometimes does something very stupid. I'm sure there will be lots of AI-things I need to fix. Because in this situation flight seems to do their job in the end I will not change things at least for now. Tacview-20230529-231416-DCS-STAGE 4 90 perf.zip.acmi

Hi, Thank you for your feedback. I have already made update and included most important charts in kneeboard. I try to get it in the next DCS update. Unfortunately I can't do anything about wingman behavior. I usually use "engage my enemy" and it has worked at least until now.

At least at the moment it's not possible. You just need to start mission again if you give wrong task. I did that many many times while testing the campaign and I couldn't find easy way to give player opportunity to take one step back. When you choose task for flight a new group with that task will spawn on deck. I'm not sure would it work if I add possibility to remove already spawned flight and set new one on deck. Already there is a risk of AI colliding on deck if player starts taxiing wrong time and I'm bit scared it would mess up AI getting air even more. It was quite a job to get it work like it works now.

Hi, Thank you for your feedback. Nice to hear you find planning with VR easy to do. Because there is about 70 pages of planning charts in documentation I first thought it wouldn't help at all to put few of those in kneeboard. But maybe it could be like you said if I add maybe most important charts like operation areas and frequencies. I'll do that. Can't promise it will make it to next update.

Hi, Because you need to see charts to make planning (and it's unfortunately impossible to bring charts in planning view) with VR you may have to shift between planning and chart view. Please if you have better solution with VR please tell us about it.

Hi Thank you for your feedback. Hope you like it when you get in the dynamic part. I'll take a look so I could do something about side numbers.

Flaming Sunrise Campaign for DCS F/A-18C Hornet is based on semi-dynamic campaign system developed by Sandman Simulations. I was inspired by idea of Operation Pontus Campaign made by 373vFS Greg, 373vFS_Petritis and Baltic Dragon, where events of previous mission determined situation at beginning of next mission. DCS campaign engine does not support this kind of dynamicity very well making design of this kind of campaign quite laborious. Huge respect for the crew of Operation Pontus for making it work. I wanted to bring into this campaign that same kind of dynamicity and even go a bit deeper if possible. I wanted to give a player even more possibilities to affect the situation around. I wanted that there is a real ground war going on and that player can be a part of it. I mean things like you are flying a cap flight over front line and spot enemy attack helicopters. If you decide to ignore them, helos might next go and kill some tanks from good guys side. If you decide to take them out, it may affect the situation on the ground. Because DCS campaign engine does not transfer any information from mission to other some player action is needed. In Flaming Sunrise Campaign events in ground war will determine the starting point of next mission. At end of the mission, you will get detailed debriefing about ground war situation, success of strike missions by your squadron, effect of your squadron against enemy air defense and air superiority situation. Most important, you will get air superiority and enemy air defense levels for next mission. You will need them to make next mission work as meant so it could be a good idea to write them down. You will progress through campaign story line but situation around is strongly affected by success of your squadron. Ground forces may become overpowered by enemy if air support is not available. Air support is not possible if enemy has air superiority over front line. You can affect air superiority situation just by killing enemy aircrafts or choose more effective way by attacking against enemy airbases. You can support ground forces by choosing close air support missions, by enabling other squadrons to fly support missions by maintaining local air superiority or by striking against strategic targets like harbor, oil refinery or naval convoy weakening enemy support. Of course, strike missions will take a huge part of your squadron resources needing fighter sweep, SEAD flight or two and at least one strike flight. It’s always a compromise how to use your squadron to help ground troops to achieve their objective. If that sounds complicated I will promise it isn't. You can find tutorial video guiding you through flight planning, setting up mission parameters and tasking your squadron. There is also a tutorial mission included where you will get hints what to do. Campaign voice overs have been updated after making of the video below. I found some great voice actors! Hope you will enjoy playing this campaign.

Hi, Thank you very much for this feedback. I have also thought about this same problem about Mission 12 and now that you mentioned it I think I need to do something about it.

I think I found the broken part about scoring. I will send patch to ED soon. Some parts are still mystery. News broadcast telling that YAK was killed should only be possible if YAK is dead one way or another. And even if you kill that one you should get 50 points, not zero. Zero should only happen if carrier is also killed. Anyway after that patch scoring should be fixed so that you will pass the mission when playing like you had done on second attempt. While testing I had once that weird INS problem too. I can't tell you what caused it because I think I had normal alignment first but after takeoff everything was messed up. I'm pretty sure I had that same problem once while playing Speed & Angels campaign but I ignored it because I crashed soon after takeoff due to totally messed up ADI. Anyway there is no INS problem scripted in the campaign.

Thank you for your report. I'll take a look. If you use Tacview, please send me a file. I have no idea what could cause that navigation error you mentioned. Campaign shouldn't have any affect for aircraft system behavior.

Patch was finally released today so should be working.

10/3/2023 update Missions 8 Dodge 1 flight circling the carrier after takeoff - FIXED Missions 10 Mission scoring broken - FIXED