Sandman Simulations

Hi, Thanks for your feedback. It shouldn't be like that. There is supposed to be head wind like told in briefing documentation. In mission 2 10 kts almost straight to the nose and in mission 4 20 kts less than 30 degrees from left side causing less than 10 kts crosswind. I will check if there is something wrong.

Hi again, Thank you for your feedback. Version 1.05 now updated to DCS user files Sandstrom Training Camp mini campaign 1.05 by Sandman Simulations (digitalcombatsimulator.com) 1) You are right about tankers. Wrong type. Now changed to right ones. Also frequencies now matching briefing. 2) As tanker is neutral it is invisible for enemy fighters so they should not be able to attack it. I think only way is accidentally when trying to shoot player or someone else on your team. Now tanker is also immortal to make sure no one kills it. Hornet should climb about the time when it is in friendly zone. Overlord should report it for all fighters and enemy should then turn away. I changed trigger area where Hornet is counted as reaching friendly zone bit earlier to avoid enemy to attack you if you somehow manage to get to the tanker about same time. 3) There was still some fixing with mission scoring. DCS campaign engine throws you to earlier mission if you get less than 50 points. I thought I fixed it earlier but seems it was still there. Now you should get at least 50 points even if you crash and die. To get to next mission you just need to get back to Nellis in one piece. No matter if you "die" in training or who wins the exercise. 4) In mission 4 USAF has mission to protect the air base so they loose the fight if strike flight gets over the target even if they would manage to destroy Hornets after home base is destroyed. That's why you win even if there is still some enemies alive.

Hi, I'm trying to find reason for that. Can you confirm it was mission 1 where that too early message was? If it was, did that message say "all bombers were dead" or "bombers reached target area"? Or is it possible it was Overlord giving relief for Pontiac flight (F/A-18 flight leaving training area few minutes before you will arrive)?

Hi, Thank you for your feedback This campaign is not actually preview as it lacks many advansed trigger functions and is pretty much simplified version. Also mycapability for camapaign maintainance is not on same level as for paid one but I will try to fix all found problems as soon as possible. Anyway nice to hear you have downloaded it and please report if you find more problems. I will check the tanker issue and look what could cause too early "mission comleted" message in few days.

Hi, Thank you for your tip. That is at least as good place to save it. Or even better

Hi, If you like highly realistic fighter weapons school flights with real Topgun instructor, have you tried Zone 5 campaign by Reflected? It's very well made campaign. https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/shop/campaigns/f-14a_zone_5_campaign/

Thanks for your reply. I'll need to pay more attention for performance indeed. You are right about lots of things happening around even if they are not currently relevant for player. For scripted mission where player will fly pretty much pre-planned route, it is possible (and maybe recommendable) to set AI to activate only when necessary. I think there is problem when player happens to fly anywhere else and there will be no war going on around, empty radar/RWR screen, no threat from ground and so on. Maybe it could be made to work with triggers activating AI units only when player is getting closer. It just would need tons of triggers to take into account all unexpected ways player can fly the mission if freedom for this is given. Range to activate AI also must be quite long anyway if we want to get realistic RWR warnings. My goal was to use AI units fighting against each other around area player will operate to create some dynamicity and to make it look like real war even if player happens to fly a bit different route I have thought he/she will. I think it was too ambitious plan taking into account how much CPU performance is needed. I might be bit crazy or stupid but actually at the moment I'm trying to solve how to make campaign with somehow dynamic ground war going on around where players squadron actions would or would not have effect for result. Like Operation Pontus but with dynamic ground war. I have found that even few moving and fighting ground units will cause FSP drop. For some reason it is much worse than with air units. I have found way to make it work with my triple display solution without getting power point show but I haven't been able to test it yet with VR. I think there is still a long way for playable campaign... or to trash can.

Hi again, You are right. There is quite a lot of things going on around you also in this mission. Maybe too much for good performance demand balance at least with VR. In scripted mission where player will pretty much fly pre-planned route it is possible to set things to happen only at that area giving much lower demand. I just hate to see situation where player happens to fly anywhere else than was supposed to fly and there will be nothing. And there should be full war going on around you. But of course it is my problem to find a good balance and I'll have to give more attention for performance issues. Thanks for your feedback again. As you said there is nothing I can do for stupid AI. Hope it gets better. At the moment I'm working with Hornet missions and it would be much more immersive to get AI make real AAR so that there would be real traffic around tanker like in real life. But Hornets kill themselves on every second AAR attempt . At the moment only reliable way is to set AI Hornet circle at tanker location and then after some minutes disappear and new unit with same task appear in vicinity. Not very immersive if player happens to be close.

Hi, Sorry to hear there has been more performance problems. Mission 7 got some changes in 8th of june Open Beta update to make it less performance demanding. According to your experience not enough. I have found that performance demand has grown durin last year updates. I don't exactly know what has changed. Even my freeware training mini-campaign got freezing problems (about one year after release) with too many aircrafts coming into view at the same moment. I never had those problems while testing either of these campaigns. https://forum.dcs.world/topic/302245-nttr-training-campaign-mission-4/#comment-4985237. Also being too cautious about future performance issues will cause lots of restrictions for mission planning. Must find some balance. Do you use VR or some other performance demanding equipment like multiple high-resolution displays? About general issues. All feedback is appreciated so that if I sometimes will find enough time to build new campaign (it takes about year for me while doing it part-time) there would be less problems you have already encountered with this campaign. Dissatisfaction about voice-over quality has been clear but if you have some other relevant issues in your mind I would be really eager to hear.

Thanks for confirmation

It seems that Enfield 2 flight stalls all the way to the ground when trying to get to the tanker. I can't say it will do it every time but it is possible. I think problem is AI Hornet flight model where it makes too hard turn if it approaches tanker nose to nose. It loses too much airspeed and poor pilots don't know stall recovery procedures very well. Maybe next update will change something with AI behavior again so that it won't happen but it's too uncertain. I will figure out some backup for this but unfortunately you have to wait for next update.

Hi, Thanks for feedback. Frustrating indeed. It should be 7 flights + you so total 8 flights to trigger the push command. Jester will also notify you when all flights are ready. Unfortunately almost every DCS update changes AI behavior somehow so it might be something new. I'll test this again as soos as possible. If you use Tacview could you post me a record so I could see who is messing things up and how it could be fixed? I could set permanent command option for push but there are events ahead not going to be triggered if some elements of the package are already crashed even before rendezvous.

Hi, Thank you for your feedback even if you have not liked the campaign at all. There has been discussion about voice over quality and according to feedback there really is thing to be improved for next campaign. I just have to decide best way to do it taking into account challenges talked in other topic below. https://forum.dcs.world/topic/299771-bugs-issues/?do=findComment&comment=4961127 About missions you have found boring. It has been balancing between playability with much of action and realism and I know very well that balance I have chosen will not satisfy all players. That balance rather reflects my own view about military aviation. Lots of flying and some action once in a while. To avoid offending anyone with mission design or voiceovers and so on there has been video about mission 5 in Youtube well before release. Even if video has been made about preliminary version of the campaign you can get quite realistic view about mission design and voiceovers. https://youtu.be/h5IYjoUVscY. Also trailer video in DCS e-shop is made with voice overs from the campaign.

Hi, New version 1.04 can be downloaded from DCS user files. Unfortunately it will reset your old campaign but you can skip previous missions. Because there is no good debriefing option in DCS there is not very much to see after the point freezing happened so you have pretty much passed the campaign already. I think problem was too many aircrafts in vicinity of the player. Because it is training campaign no one will die and killed aircrafts from both sides would fly back to Nellis after being hit. Unfortunately Nellis approach is not so efficient so those returning aircrafts were stacked at holding. I'm pretty sure freezing occurred when player got to point were aircrafts in holding should become visible. That problem was not there few months ago so I don't know what has changed and why it is happening. Or I can be totally wrong and problem comes back next time I test it

Training Campaign now updated. At least for me freezing not happening anymore after I fixed end of mission 4 bit more performance friendly.

You are right. Mission is freezing while on way back to Nellis. Almost at same point twice but not exactly. I haven't yet found reason for this problem I have never seen before after testing this mission about dozens of times. Have to continue searching what could cause the problem.

Hi, Thank your for your feedback. There has been quite a many core updates since I last tested this Campaign. I will check if I can find reason for freezing. There has been some freeze reports lately about DLC campaign and I haven't been able to find any other reason but possibly bit too many aircrafts nearby at same time. I'm not sure if it is performance problem but it is one possibility. For those who haven't been playing my free training mini-campaign it can be found from user-files. Sandstrom Training Camp mini campaign 1.03 by Sandman Simulations (digitalcombatsimulator.com)

Hi, There might be some elements not so important for the mission that could be excluded to ease a bit with system requirements. I'll check that. Game freezing at the end is very annoying. Unfortunately I still can't give you reason why you have this problem. It could be mission being too massive but @JupiterJoe had that problem with earlier missions too with much less units in air. Overlord not being available via communication menu is deliberate choice I had to made in this and actually in quite many missions. Reason is when there more things going on at same time channel would be filled with AWACS calls about distant enemies not being important to player at the time.

Hi, Thanks for feedback.

25/5/2022 update All missions "Press spacebar" message did stay too long - fixed Improved landing checklist Landing checklist message sometimes fired too early - fixed List is not challenge type list anymore but pilot monologi - except if item is missing Jester will remind to check the item Player aircraft number corrected to match with side number Some typos corrected Jester talks less over VOs (even if someone might like Jester voice more) Mission 2 Tanker callsign fixed to match briefing/kneeboard

Actually now that I finally got to check ICLS channel is on kneeboard as it should be or did you mean something else?

Hi, There has been some discussion about the topic earlier. In preview video you can take a look to mission 5. Video has been made long time a go so it is not release version. Better kneeboards and so on are included in release. But voices are same so have a look

Hi, Sorry to hear VOs are broking your ears. Here has been some conversation about the topic. https://forum.dcs.world/topic/299771-bugs-issues/?do=findComment&comment=4961127

Thanks you for your notice. It's really important indeed. Fortunately channel 11 is preset for ICLS but it really is ment to be in kneeboard too!