WWSmith

First off, I just want to say that this campaign is positively fantastic! I just finished it, which felt like a real accomplishment. One thing I ran across which I think is a bug but which might have been intentional was in Mission 14: one of the targets is an RPG team, which the radio call says is on a rooftop. After wasting a few minutes searching every rooftop in the village, I found them on the ground on the north side of the building which I was told they were on top of. The tricky part is that the building was masking them from view from the IP, so I had to roam out over the village before I could get a line of sight. The drop itself was then very interesting: having marked their location, I returned to the IP, turned inbound, and dropped blind, then put the laser on the enemy as I came over the top of the building, less than ten seconds before impact. It certainly was one of the more challenging LGB drops I've done, but I'm not sure if it was meant to be that way or if they really were supposed to be on the roof. The one other bug I ran across was a lot more serious: in Mission 1, Davy said "whilst." Americans don't say "whilst." Any Americans. Ever.

I also couldn't get more than 50 points on this mission, but something different happened to me: I intercepted the MiG-15 and got the call, "Good intercept, return to base," which I did, but when I was on final I then received another call telling me to follow intercept vectors and keep my radar on standby until I had visual on the target. I had already received that call earlier, prior to the intercept. It happened when I was quite close to the runway, probably around 5km final for runway 06 at Sochi. After that, my score dropped to 0. I then landed and parked and got 50 points for that.

I had no intention of making fun. I was frankly confused about what you were trying to communicate by listing a slew of diverse projects, and I only said that you were referring to rumors because you actually used the word "rumor" multiple times. Examples: I am also well aware that ED does not directly control nor finance the development studios, nor did I ever suggest that they do, although they absolutely do control what is licensed for inclusion in DCS, so there is that. If I was to make any practical suggestion on the matter, it would be that everybody would benefit from some voluntary coordination of overall development. I think that this would not only benefit players, but the developers themselves, as I would expect stronger sales from complementary products than from maps and planes which just sort of exist as outliers. For instance, if someone (I don't know who, I'm just saying) were to release a mid-war Zero or a J2M or something, that would help drive sales of the Corsair and Hellcat. I expect that, if Razbam's MiG-23 sells well, it will be at least in part because we now have the Mirage F1 and (soon) the Phantom, without which it really wouldn't have any contemporaries, outclassing the MiG-21 and the F-5 (except in a turning fight), while in turn being thoroughly outclassed by the newer American fighters. Is this just a happy coincidence, are developers consciously looking to fill a late '70s/early '80s gap, I don't know, but it's a good thing and we need more of it. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that. As for the Sea Harrier FRS1, I'll preorder it on day 1 if that day ever comes.

Most of that Silver_Dragon post seems to be just a list of projects in development, stuff that we might not see for 10 years, and flat-out rumors, but this is exactly what I was referring to as a "scattershot development approach." This is a bad thing. Okay, if you're into DCS just for 1v1 online dogfights, then it's not really an issue (except for the I-16, which literally has no feasible opponents), but if you're like me and want to simulate historical or historically-plausible combat, then you want to see coordination, plans, and a roadmap. Now, I'm not saying that DCS overall is broken or anything, because we can do pretty darn well with Middle Eastern conflicts from the 80s to 2000s, as well as stuff in the Caucasus from that time period, including the aforementioned Cold War-gone-hot US vs Russia/USSR matchups. The issue is that we've also seen work invested in random directions which could have been better used elsewhere. For instance, I've flown the MiG-19 a couple of times on free trial, and I think it's a fun plane with a lot of potential, but I can't bring myself to buy it for the simple reason that there's nothing very interesting for me to do with it. It's kind of like having a snowmobile in Hawaii: yeah, it might be fun to tear up the lawn, but that gets old fast. The same goes for the SA map. (By the way, if they meant for this to be a modern map, why? That's like doing modern Vietnam or 1950s Afghanistan, thereby deliberately ignoring the iconic conflict in the region.) I'm not saying any of this out of spite or anything like that. Are there other planes which I wish were developed instead? Sure, but I'm not sore about it. I don't expect people I've never met to invest their time and money on something just because one guy thinks it's cool. I'm personally not very interested in the F-15E (might still buy it some day, just not at the top of my list), but I agree that creating it made perfect sense because it fits in well with the overall sim and people can get a lot of use out of it. I guess my point is that DCS could be so much better if there was coordination and an overall development plan, but that's probably too much to hope for.

I have the A-4 and it's great, especially considering that it was done without the official SDK for free. Is it exactly 100% accurate? I don't know, but it's good enough that I don't really care, since it's the closest simulation of an A-4 anybody's ever made, which is pretty much my point. This is the kind of content we need more of in order to flesh out the sim. After all, it's Digital Combat Simulator, and in a combat sim, context is critical, even if you're doing a hypothetical Cold War-gone-hot scenario. To simulate any particular conflict, you need the appropriate planes and map. In MSFS, it doesn't really matter that we have a 747 and an MD-11, but no Il-86 (although a hypothetical Cold War-gone-hot widebody dogfight would be cool). In DCS, it matters that we have a Falklands Map, an HMS Invincible, and a couple of Argentine planes, but no British planes, because we can't simulate the Falklands War without them. As for a fictional '90s or later war in the region, we still have the same problem of lacking planes which were flown by any plausible participants in such a war. The map includes Chile, Argentina, and the Falklands. We have no British planes, so that leaves Chile and Argentina. Chile flew the F-5, and later got F-16Cs in the 2000s, but we have no Argentine fighters. Same problem.

I've considered that possibility, too, which makes the South Atlantic Map's development even more of a head-scratcher for me. Why invest the time, effort, and money in a map without a workable plane set? Right now we really have just two Argentine planes, namely the A-4 and MB-339. There is/was a freeware Pucara which seems to have been abandoned and is now bugged, but Razbam might still be working on a proper module of that; the Cuesta Brothers did a very basic rendition of the Super Etendard which hasn't been updated in 3 years; and someone (I think VSN) is working on a freeware Mirage III. Even so, that would still leave us with exactly zero British aircraft from the period. No Sea Harrier, no GR1, no GR3. Certainly no Vulcan, not that I'd actually want to simulate a Black Buck sortie. Unless somebody feels like making a completely off-the-wall alternate-history campaign in which we're flying Tomcat FG1s off the HMS Forrestal, then the whole thing seems fairly pointless. This reminds me of a video posted by Enigma in the summer, in which he raised the point that the strict demand for full fidelity means that there are a slew of historically-significant planes which will never be modeled in DCS either because they're classified, documentation has been lost or destroyed, or simply because it takes way too long to develop modules. I, for one, would unhesitatingly buy a Sea Harrier knowing full well that the radar is Razbam's best guess rather than a perfectly accurate recreation, if the alternative is no Sea Harrier ever. It wasn't really discussed by Enigma, but it's clear to me that DCS also suffers from a scattershot approach to the development of modules and maps, of which the South Atlantic Map is just one example. There are also the F-86 and the MiG-15, which ED released ages ago, and followed with absolutely nothing else related to the Korean War. OctopusG made the I-16, although we have not one other interwar/early WW2 plane in existence or in development. Sure, it's nice to have a simulation of it, but since we can't simulate its use in combat, they might as well have made it for MSFS and sold more copies. Now they're working on the La-7, which can at least tangle with the available late-war German fighters, but we'll still have no other Eastern Front assets or map. Magnitude3 might actually release their Corsair sometime this decade, and ED is working on a Hellcat, but how long before we have any Japanese fighters? Enigma's proposed answer is to fill gaps in the sim with FC3-level planes, and I'm inclined to agree. Maybe a little upgrade from FC3, with clickable cockpits at least, but something along those lines. So long as aircraft performance is accurate, and weapons and sensors are accurately modeled in capability if not necessarily in every fine detail of function, then it should still provide a satisfying combat simulation of a given aircraft. I'll always prefer full fidelity, but also I'll settle for second-best when full fidelity isn't possible. It's sort of like when Confucius said, "Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without," except that in this case, the alternative is probably no rock at all.

In Mission 6, I changed the loadout to rockets and was fine. As for the ambush, my advice is, when escorting any convoy, not just the one in this mission, to always hang back or off to one side, orbiting at a reasonable cruise speed. This achieves two things: first, you won't get caught in the same ambush as the convoy itself; and second, you'll be in position to launch a counterattack as soon as you turn on-target. If you're right on top of the convoy, you won't be able to line up and shoot back at the ambushers. Apart from that, there's an interesting anomaly in this mission: I found an enemy convoy made up of trucks, 2S9s, BTRs, one T-72, and one Shilka, running roughly southeast on the same route as the friendly convoy. I could see it, but Petrovich couldn't find it for the life of him. Switching to the CPG seat, I could see it through the sight and shoot missiles at it myself. Interestingly, the convoy also didn't appear to see me until I opened fire, because I originally flew past it well within range of the Shilka and the BTRs, and we all know how they normally behave, so I suspect that this is more likely a mission design issue rather than a Petrovich bug. It happened on a subsequent playthrough as well.

The other weird glitch I had in my playthrough was that, after the RTB call, I used the F10 menu to tell Jester that we were returning straight to base, since we had enough fuel to skip the tanker. However, when I flew through the general vicinity of the tanker, Jester started talking me through the pre-contact procedure. I continued on, and Jester declared that we had taken on enough fuel and could return to base. Again, I was able to complete the mission in the end, but it was nevertheless buggy.

Rick_NSX, I applied the fixes shown in your video as nearly as I could. For the trigger 1 ONCE (RTB FOFF 30 FON 31, NO EVENT), your video shows to select Lead-2 / 1. Switch Waypoint (<current> - 3), but in the mission editor, the choices were (<current> -4) and (<current> -5). Ditto for 1 ONCE (Failure FOFF 30 FON 31, NO EVENT). I set the first one to waypoint 4 and the second to waypoint 5. I was able to complete the mission, but ran into lots of issues getting vectors to land. The first radio call from Incirlik Tower was extremely difficult to trigger. I'm not even sure how I did, but overflying the last steerpoint didn't work, as if Jester had set it wrong.

Thanks, Rokkett and Rick_NSX. Flew the corrected Mission 2 today and had a blast with it. Tomorrow I'm going to try the mission 3 fix from the YouTube video. I have some experience with the mission editor, and shouldn't have much trouble.

Ok, this is really weird. I'm on 2.9.0.47168 and the mission files are all dated 4/13/2023. I just tried mission 2 and it's still bugged for me, just like for Sillyrunner and Gryphus1. I've run a repair to no effect.

I was away last week so I just got to try it out this morning, but still no joy. I waited to close the canopy until after contacting Hops, and then also tried closing it just before contacting him, but he still won't move. What's the exact order of radio calls and canopy closing that you used? Am I supposed to contact the tower for taxi clearance as usual, or does that screw it up? Also, I don't know if it's related, but there's another A-4 parked between us which doesn't taxi out.

Thanks, I'll try that with the canopy.

I've started the campaign, but I've already run into a few issues. Firstly, in "Day Two - Nav Practice", the frequency for MUT TACAN isn't listed anywhere, or else I'm stupid. On the F10 map, it oddly shows a VOR frequency of 112.30, which should convert to TACAN Channel 70X, but I couldn't pick up anything on that channel. Looking in the mission editor, it's actually 42X. Please add this to the briefing. Secondly, in "Day Three - Formation Practice with Hops", I can't for the life of me figure out how to get Hops to taxi out. I wait until 0645 as stipulated in the briefing, get taxi clearance from the tower, then contact Hops on preset 10 by pressing spacebar. He tells me to follow him out and take off with a 7 second interval, but then he won't budge from his parking spot. I also tried contacting Hops first, then getting taxi clearance, but that didn't work either.

That worked. Thanks!

I'm really interested in trying this campaign, but the link to the 476th VFS Range Targets Mod takes me to a login screen.

Yes, there is that. Also, I haven't played it in ages because the AI is awful. As in Jedi-reflexes, no laws of physics, total-immersion-breaking awful. Supposedly that's being fixed in the next update, which might be released... soon after the Corsair? Seriously, though, I'd love to get the Corsair, along with a healthy mix of Pacific Theater assets and the WW2 Marianas map. The Corsair by itself, not so much, because it would be just like the F-86 and MiG-15: a plane with no context.

To nick10 and javelina1, there is currently a WW2 sim with BOB (the Battle of Britain) and the North African theater. It's been around for awhile now. I'm sure you can find it with a little searching.

@TonnyArno I just had another CTD, and I ran GPU-Z immediately afterwards to confirm that I was underclocked. I had turned the base clock speed all the way down to 1350 from 1605, while boost was at 1895 vs the default of 1905. (Incidentally, how can you tune base and boost independently?) Anyway, as I've mentioned before, I can run DCS single-thread all day long with no crashes, regardless of underclocking/overclocking, so there is pretty clearly some issue with multithreading. I really wish we could get some official word on this, even if just to say that they still can't figure it out, because it's now been about 3 months since I've heard anything at all.

Strange that it only happened to you after the last update. MT hasn't worked for me since either the initial release or the very first update, I can't remember now. This morning I thought that underclocking might have fixed it, but then I had another DX Device Removed crash this afternoon. Unless I just need to underclock more, I'm all out of ideas.

No joy. I just had 2 CTDs in the past hour. I'll try reducing clock speed more, but I'm not hopeful. Edit: the last CTD was not the DX Device Removed error. The log file from the one before that appears corrupt, because I can't open it, but the most recent was caused by a problem with an Apache texture, unless I'm reading this wrong. I've attached the log. I'll continue testing with a different module. dcs.log-20230701-140147.zip

Somewhat confusingly, MSI Afterburner only shows the boosted speed, whereas GPU-Z gives both the base and boosted speeds. In any case, both were above the manufacturer standard, so I used Afterburner to set it just below the recommended boost speed. I played about an hour last night and two hours this morning without a CTD yet.

TonnyArno, I tried your suggestion and found that my GPU was actually overclocked from the factory. I'd never considered this possibility before, having never tinkered around with hardware tuning, and just assumed that so long as I didn't overclock anything, then it wasn't overclocked. Anyway, I turned down the clock speed using MSI Afterburner. I've only just done this, and flew for about half an hour without a CTD, but I'll report back after more thorough testing.

It looks like you're using an AMD GPU. Which one exactly? Me and lots of other people on here with 5700XTs can't play DCS MT, and we've heard nothing about a fix since April. While the issue isn't unique to this 5700XT, there seems to be something about this GPU in particular which makes it especially incompatible with DCS MT. Like you, I have no problem running DCS ST.

Is any progress being made on this front? It seems like anyone with a 5700 XT can't run MT, myself included. I've attached a crash log from the most recent OB, which still has this bug. There's also another recent thread about this issue: dcs.log-20230604-211539.zip