Strider21

Baltic again great campaign. I totally recognize you are working within the limits of the Mission Editor. I flew Mission 3 and things went well until the SAM launch. Smoke got hit an then ejected. His plane pilot less then proceeded to orbit and bounce off the ground. I flew to Exxon on the way out stat to refuel. I then though I would use the save function to end the mission and then restart from the final refuel. I wanted to make sure I didn't miss any of the comms/story on the way home. I quit the mission, then exited out. When I went back to campaign I loaded up and was back at the start of Mission 3. Attached is the Tacview. I have the Trackfile as well but its 52 mb and I am not sure how to upload. Also not sure if it is of any help. TACVIEW.zip

I had this problem as well on one attempt of this mission. I took off and assumed Smoke would rejoin. He never did and returned to the CV. I flew it second time and after launch closed in on Smoke. When I got close to Smoke I had prompt to "press space to get Smoke to Join up". This then got him to follow me and everything flowed normally after that. Hope that helps.

Baltic first off great campaign really enjoying. On mission 2 for recovery I head to tanker as per options, tank and then press space to push. I get the comms between Flip and Smoke. Flip says get ready to switch marshall. Smoke says he is on marshall. At that point do I contact the normal Supercarrier ATC or do I wait for the mission comms. I got to 40 nm from the CV and then used the suppercarrier ATC for the case 3 recovery and it all ended well. Was I just impatient and should have waited for the mission comms?

Bearfoot, Thanks again for you help. I will give your advice a shot! I also really appreciate the effort in generating the mission, briefing and integrating the scripts etc.

I have played the mission a couple times and so far have enjoyed it. I particularly like the positioning of the carrier, CAP flights and tankers, as well as the time of day (dawn into early morning). A couple questions/comments: 1. I know it is not your fault but the AI wingman is pretty useless and usually runs out fuel early in the mission. I have tried sending him to the tanker without much luck. Any thoughts on how best to employ the AI wingman? 2. I usually end up running out of missiles after 2 engagements. Is the idea that I should be spawning additional CAPS. I usually engage the AI flights coming down the coast and let the AI handle the russian fighters over the mountains to east. I haven't been able to shoot down the coastal Mig-21s and Su-25s quick enough and have enough weapons to then proceed to head east. The AI flights do better than the wingman but usually they get overwhelmed. Any thoughts/strategy/tips to manage the battle? 3. The other flights do better than the AI wingman but I have a issue where CAP chases aircraft down to TIBLISI and then get sandwiched between Russian flights. Or when I spawn new CAPs they are right in the middle of 1-2 mig-29s and then get downed quickly. Again any tips on managing the AI CAP flights over Georgia would be appreciated. I know you are trying to balance the battle to make it interesting but the Russian flights spawn very quickly after each other. At least from my couple play through. Anyway overall I enjoyed the mission but was unsure how to complete it. Thanks!

I am in Pacific Time Zone (Vancouver Island) and would also be interested in F-14 or F-18 multiplayer missions. PM me if you would like to join up. I am free 3-4 evenings a week.

I did a single player mission with 6 x 4 ship of hornets and 3 x 4 ship of tomcats arriving at the CV. Here is what I noticed. The AI does seem to stack sequentially in altitude (2000, 3000, 4000 etc). Neither marshall nor tower give the human player any direction so I just slotted in behind the flights at the next altitude which was 5000. Normally I get "305 established angles 5000 etc" which towers responds immediately "Signal is Charlie... etc...". With the "305 established call being automatic once you are within a couple miles of the CV. When I arrived after a couple of AI flights in the marshall stack and pattern I got no response so I assumed I did not have signal Charlie yet. I went around the marshall a couple times and then I eventually got the tower saying Signal is Charlie. I assume this is the AI tower waiting to call you down once the pattern is clear. I got this message ahead of two flights below me in the stack and so I descended through their altitudes. My flight also had the lowest fuel state. I am not sure if the AI takes in account fuel state when choosing the next flight to give Signal Charlie but it appears it did. I am also not sure if this is common for flights descend through other flights altitude bands to get to the initial. Maybe it is because it is all VFR and stack altitude isn't necessarily related to fuel state? I also noticed that the AI tower landed a number of the hornet flights before the last two tomcat flights. I am not sure if it fuel state or endurance is in the AI decision process to call down the next flight. At the end the CV managed to land all the flights (36 aircraft) it in a pretty organized manner. It was pretty cool to watch in VR from the LSO station flights entering the break with additional flights overhead. I think it would help if we could hear the AI flight communicate with marshall, tower and the LSO although with all of that one freq it could get pretty cluttered. It would also help to have some clarification from ED (perhaps in the manual) what is SOP for player flights integrating with AI flights (particularly for marshall stack altitude) and order of precedence for signal charlie. It also looks like 4 aircraft is max the AI tower allows in the landing pattern and the next flight does not seem to commence until the #4 has landed. Not sure how it is done IRL. Anyway those are just my observations.

Yes you can do repeated landings and launches. After landing go to the COMMS menu -> Ground Crew -> request launch. This will Reset the CAT crews and you can taxi up and go through the launch sequence. Once you are airborne they will go back to recovery mode clear of the Landing Area. To get the LSO to work correctly what I found works is to call INBOUND after launch and them immediately call SEE YOU AT 10. You won't get any additional calls but once you roll into the groove you can CALL THE BALL and the LSO will respond and grade the landing. If you bolter or wave off you do not need to re initiate COMMs with the tower and next time you are in the groove you can CALL THE BALL. Anyway not sure if that exactly how ED intended but it seems to work reasonably well to do repeated graded landings and launches. If you use the tanker or fuel on the carrier I have found this works reliably for at least a 20 passes.

Mustang thanks for the reply. Appreciate the work you have put into the shader mod.

I am looking for any advice. I have PeterP's SweetFx and Mustang's Shaders Mod installed. With a high sun, especially around noon, the upper surfaces of aircraft are really washed out. Any advice on how to reduce the glare from the sun. I have HDR off. First image shows the washed out effect. Second image is same time of day but the aircraft at 90 degrees AOB.

Long time lurker here. I am definitely excited and will likely support the kickstarter. Mainly because a mid-late war Westren Front sim is so rare these days. What was the last one? Il2 AEP? 2004? I feel this is going to fill a big void in the market. Good luck to the team!