Sandman Simulations

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

Hi, Thank you for your report and I'm very sorry this problem still exists. It sounds like you have done everything right and should have passed the mission. It was reported on January and I have sent fix for ED long time ago. Unfortunately they have not released it yet. I have made multiple reclamations about delay and they have promised it will be out in next update. I really hope so. Here below is discussion about this problem. Because getting this fixed takes so long time and it is always possible that new problems will arise I have released requirements for passing each mission. You can find them behind link below. If you encounter such a problem I suggest to look if you have met all requirements and if so skip to next mission.

Unfortunately patch was not released in todays update even if it was submitted to ED 7th of January. I have contacted them to get it out as soon as possible to fix this mission.

There have been some scoring problems recently. I will fix all problems but unfortunately it can take some time to get fix released. It can be very frustrating if you do everything right but still won't pass the mission. You can find requirements for completing each mission here. I suggest to only check them in case you have problem with passing certain mission. Mission 1 Mission 2 Mission 3 Mission 4 Mission 5 Mission 6 Mission 7 Mission 8 Mission 9 Mission 10 Mission 11 Mission 12

I found the problem with scoring. I will send fix to ED but unfortunately it pretty sure won't make it to next update. I will release mission scoring for all missions in different topic for cases like this.

Hi, Thank your for your report. You should get full scores just because of effort you have put in! Sounds like you have done everything right and something is broken again with scoring. I will check it today.

This is tough one. 1) I did 15 tests. 2 times Enfield 1 flight did not taxi at all. They should do it about 5 minutes from mission start. I haven't been able to find reason for that behavior and it seems random. Usually it's not random but there is some variables that by common sense should have nothing to do with each other and finding the connection is just difficult. 2) There is another problem I found: If player taxies to catapult before Enfield 1 (you have to do a very fast start up to do it) they will taxi to cat after you but get stuck on cat. Of course that is not normal AI behavior and I think this is new one. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do about this kind of AI problem. If I do all normal procedures by checklist and they have time to taxi before me everything should work. Unless problem 1 activates of course So. How to fix those two problems? I do not have solution for now but I continue looking for it. Because it is very frustrating to wait at rendezvous just to find out that AI can't start I suggest to look for Enfield 1 flight (those bastards in red circle in picture below) and If they have not started taxiing between 0410-0412 o'clock they won't do it at all and you just have to try again. I'm very sorry about this kind of problem and that I can't fix it at least for now. null

Thanks for your notice. I will check it out. This sounds like different problem than the one above

Nice to hear

This is strange because I'm not able to replicate the problem. If I land after RTB message I will get full 100 scores from mission. No matter if I have killed single enemy. There was a scoring problem with mission 6 to 12 some time ago. It was fixed by December update. Have you updated your DCS to the latest version? Please also report if someone else is having the same problem. DCS 2.8.1.34437 Open Beta (digitalcombatsimulator.com) DCS 2.8.1.34667.2 (digitalcombatsimulator.com)

Hi, Thank you for your report. AAR is not mandatory in any mission. Player is always able to fly through missions but just need to be more conservative with fuel usage as you have described. Your wingman might still have some problems. Goal to meet for success in this mission is that enemy is fleeing (Overlord tells you to RTB) and carrier is intact. No matter if you kill any enemies but someone must do it. But if you got RTB message from Overlord you should pass the mission. Last time I tested the mission it was ok but need to run some tests if there something different after the latest update.

I sent patch to ED. Hope it gets to next update.

I found the problem. Dodge 1 flight (Roosevelt CAS 1) should fly to north and wait for CAS tasking. They don't anymore but turn back from waypoint 1 and begin to fly nice circle around the carrier. I couldn't tell them to do that kind of maneuver even if I want to. I'll start looking for solution but at the moment mission seems to be broken. It can be flown but things won't happen as they should null

Hi, Thank you for your feedback. Helos should activate few minutes after Hornets arrive over the town and destroy some ground units. Well before rescue. Did Hornets arrive at all?

16/12/2022 update Mission 5 Enfield 1 flight did not taxi to catapult – FIXED Missions 6-12 Mission scoring broken - FIXED

Hi, Thanks for your feedback. Problem is quite sure that tanker is empty. Unfortunately S-3B has quite a limited refueling capacity (15000 pounds I think). Mission design should take care that other flights won't use the tanker. But if your wingman is running on fumes and takes full load with external tanks there might not be anything left for you. You can always tell your wingman to stop refueling by calling him to rejoin but you won't know how much he has gotten. Because there is no good way to control refueling of your wingman I would suggest to take first turn by yourself. Take like 6000 pounds or whatever you think you will need to complete mission but still be within MLW at time of recovery and then send your wingman to refuel. It would be nice if we had means to ask wingman his fuel state and tell how much to take from tanker.

Hi, Unfortunately, official DLC update is a slow process because it is tied to DCS updates. I submitted the patch to ED 16th of November immediately I found the fix but it of course missed DCS update 17th of November (deadline was few days before). I hope next update will be out soon.