Xxx

Off topic a bit, but as a mud mover, I would love to see the Tornado GR4. It's already got the AI version. Since the GR4 is being retired gradually and it's as old as the F14, surely one of the 3rd party producers can do it! The FLIR, ground mapping etc has been in the A10c for years. So it can't be that bigger step to put it into a Tonka! I don't think there is much left to implement in the 2000c. It's a fine sim of a now aging aircraft. INS bombing is probably the most complex system wise. Regards.

I believe you are correct re the response from ground after landing. I was using the first exit from the runway, about half way along! When I used the exit at the end of the runway and used Alpha, I got the trigger! My fault for landing and stopping so short! Your trigger zone is obviously at the end of the runway. In #10 the Roland SAM do not engage any of my flight. We were all around 10000' chasing the bandits and the Roland's ignored us! Thankfully and just maybe the French built Roland's don't like shooting at French Mirages!!Lol! However, seriously, if the Roland's had been active, we all would have died, since ignoring the briefing and not remaining above 25k would have been fatal That missionon was an exercise in getting the flights radars on and ordering them to engage! My two pathetic 530 shots missed! But my French flight fought superbly. I am more of a Mud Mover pilot, so I am looking at those Tornados with envious eyes! If anyone got around to doing a Tornado module, I'd be first in the queue.:D Yes I am enjoying your Red Flag in the Mirage.:thumbup: You are a very talented chap sir! Regards David

I updated my 2.5 stable DCS today. This resulted in my Saitek x55 throttle losing it's axis. I was unable to reset it. The input was unrecognised. I resolved this by copying a x55 lua file from my Mig21 input folder and then re assigning all the switches on the X55. Does anyone else have this problem, or is it just my bad luck? Everything was ok before the update, so my bets on that as the culpret! Regards David

:thumbup:Same here. Wingman returns with all weapons intact? Thus mission s very exciting! If you are too aggressive, with full realism on ( no imortal setting) you will have a big chance to ride the silk! Cheers.

Whilst enjoying the Red Flag campaign, I noticed that the view in the mirror is fuzzy. I used to use a mod (forgot what that was now) which altered the external lights, but gave a clear mirror. Is there any way to have a clear mirror. Several times in the campaign I missed seeing the position of flight elements, not to mention AGR aircraft on my six!:lol: Regards David

You bet! By the time I do, the Hornet will probably be completed as well..well...maybe not!:lol: Just did #9. But that took a few attempts. Seems like what you answer over the radio alters the AI behaviour? Clever and cunning! I was holding back defending the Bone, after the cleared to engage order. So I missed out on any kills. I ordered my wingman to go radar hot and engage bandits. To my surprise he did, but in a duel with a Falcon, his SAR 530 lost to the Amraam and he died! Must confess I lost situational awareness there and without the Tacview, I wouldn't have known where Anvil was? I thought Anvil was to my west but they were behind me. Superbly realistic! I would have preferred less chit chat at #3 during orbit. Perhaps more on the way back and since it was Friday, Max offering to buy drinks in the o club....only fair since he bagged 2 Tigers. I loved the opening banter about the ATIS girl....Max getting excited about a robot!:lol: I still don't get any response from ground after landing and going to channel 3? Regards. David

The AGR Tigers should have 9p Sidewinders. Rear aspect only. So I'm guessing it's the all aspect Magics that may be upping their score? However, I surmise that the Iranians may have upped the spec and purchased Magics for their tigers. So it's probably correct after all. But as you say, there are some strange artifacts that sometimes present in Tacview? Anyway, the proof of my ineptitude is there in the file.:lol: One thing we all know, is that that AI in DCS needs attention. Anecdotally, the Mirage is a real handful to dogfight, these missions prove this. There is massive bleed off of airspeed with any big g turns. With only 2 Semi Acive radar missiles and two heat seakers, you gotta use them wisely!:joystick: I am looking forward to you doing a Persian Gulf campaign with the Hornet, when it's finished that is. Regards. David

Baltic Dragon. Here is the TACVIEW file I uploaded to Dropbox. FF to the action and you will see what I mean I am on "invulnerable" here! https://www.dropbox.com/s/67v4z6y0xf2s82q/Tacview-20181013-201548-DCS-M2000%20NTTR%20M06.zip.acmi?dl=0 Cheers David

I tried to upload the Zip ACMI file, but DCS forum says it exceeds the limit 10.22 mb over 9.77...????? Very annoying. I don't know how to compress it smaller? I can email it to you? See Dropbox link in the next post. The thing that's revealed is the Aggressor Tigers are firing Matra R550 Magics. Is that correct? They account for a lot of downed blue jets. Regards David

I reflew again, with invulnerable on, as you suggested. This was #7 try. I flew orbit at 25000. Stood back, ordered F16's in with Amraams, priority F-14's. Then the M2k with orders to wait until no escape zone established. Priority F4's. Amrams had some success but Tomcats got the upper hand. Over the F16's. M2k's rapidly got into trouble and after the call "need some help", I engaged with my wingman (radar on engage bandits). Wingman went down to F4 AIM7's. I ended up alone with two Tomcats, an F4 and two Tigers. I had a nice dogfight with the remaining fighters. Scored two kills, one with 530"s one with guns. I would have been shot to pieces without immortal on. I got a couple of Sidewinders up my tailpipe and about a thousand rounds of 20mm. I would be interested in any feedback from others too! Seemingly, the F-14's may have been "beefed up", perhaps prior to the impending new release? In the missions I have done, the enemy AI were always superhuman. Especially with a full compliment of missiles. I tended to give the enemy AI a reduced armament to try to compensate? The friendly AI were never as good as enemy AI. The number of times my flight has flown into a mountain, or refused to obey orders, used to put me off making missions. Even as mission designer, I saw how unbalanced things could get when I relied on the AI to "behave" realistically. Anyhow I'm on to mission #7 now. It's a great campaign. Cheers David

Unbelievable! I spent all afternoon on this one mission. Died 6 times! Finally held back in 25k high altitude position. I sent in the F16's, tasked against the F-14's...All died! Sent in the M2k's, tasked against the Phantoms, all died. I even deployed my wingman into the fray..he died as well!!! LOL...No one left to talk to on way home? Interesting how you have the chit chat on the way, about the M2k and the 530's being out of date! Against the A.I. I think they are. You cant get a semi active lock for long enough, before some wise ass A.I. is on your tail! If I could modify this mission (I know you have locked them) I would add an extra flight of F-16's with Amrams. Seemingly, the odds are too great for the Blue force. Its great fun, but I think you have to expect to loose a few against those super human enemy A.I. Cheers.

Is mission #6 designed to be a failure? I am defeated every time by the enemy A.I. They are simple too strong in this mission. The 530's and Magics are woefully under par. It shows here! Even the F16's are no match for the enemy. Unless there is a trick...LOL! Cheers

If you don't have FC, can you buy this as a separate module, like the SU-27?

That's OK Baltic, so long as you don't mind my feedback! Just did the follow on mission, night mission, number #4. Did better here, strangely? Noticed again after landing, selecting ground on channel 3, space bar didn't trigger anything. You could be right, it may be me that's not selecting ground and then pressing space bar? Anyway, doesn't affect mission if its successful. Re A.I. They acted stupid on return to base on this mission. Two Mirages ejected, almost home!! Annoyingly we were loss free up to that point! The most important report, is the self destructing Mig 29's? I crossed FEBA, with permission, engaged the Mig 29's, killed a clever arse Mig doing a climb up and zero speed tail slide??? However, then the 3 remaining Migs flew away a couple of clicks and then self destructed? I only saw what they did on TACVIEW replay. Otherwise I wouldn't have known where they went! I don't know if you intended them to self destruct, but that's what happened. They didn't crash into the ground, they just blew up! Then the Tigers joined the melee and were mopped up by the F15's who had dropped their bombs. Seemingly, the A.I. is the PITA for designers like you. You try to crate a balanced mission, but are up against all odds with A.I who are super human killers one minute and dumb arsed idiots the next! Anyway, enjoying the Campaign greatly. Regards David

Hello again. Mission 3, ELINT, completed. Here's the review. BTW I am not moaning here. I think the Campaign is superb! But there are funny things that you may be able to fix? Please tell me if these reports are no use to you, and I will shut up! First, the enemy AI Phantoms launched a barrage attack, 4 in all, of Sparrows, I died. Re did mission. LOL. This time Super A.I. Eagles mopped up all enemy aircraft with their Amrams. I got one Magic off, only to miss as it was spoofed by flares! LOL! Monster flight survived, but only because of super AI Eagles. Tried to direct my wingman on to tanker. He just says "negative". I think maybe you have to put something in the campaign to get the wingmen to obey refuelling order? Or maybe not, since they are difficult. Anyway, he made it back to Nellis and landed! After landing at Nellis, I got the "hit spacebar and tune to ground for taxi". The space bar did not trigger any message to or from ground. So I taxied in, shut down, and mission was complete. Looks like that last flag is missing? I then noticed Monster 1 was circling at the west side of Nellis. They continued to circle for 15 minutes, then they collided with each other and ejected. The mission result was unchanged. I guess they didn't want to land since they were enjoying the view so much...LOL! Anyway, on to the night mission. Regards David

Confirm easy comms are off. After landing, the mission requested I tune to tower and gave the frequency. So I saw it was channel 3 frequency. Tuned to 3 and hit space bar. No result. I tried manually tuning the freq. Selected manual mode on tuner, still no response. Info message stayed on across the screen, like it had stuck or something? So I taxied to parking, shut down and exited mission. Mission was shown completed, but only got 85 score. Cheers David

Hi, the Eagles seemed to turn OK. I missed just the one "reply", the press space bar.....? I didn't realise I had missed it until I saw the Tornados leaving the area without any ID of any targets? I finally hit space bar after 30 minutes and down to 1800 lbs fuel. Then the Tornados began reporting the enemy ID's? By that time they were back at Nellis. I figured that perhaps the missing space bar acknowledgement, messed up all the mission timings? The whole area then went active with bogeys and all sorts of positions! After crashing, I re started the whole campaign. Enjoyed the fly in again and the recce of the Red Flag area. I heard some more speech that I'd missed the first time!! However, after two perfect first missions, I got a score of 85? Previously it was 100! Also noticed after landing after the recce, I couldn't select Tower and space bar wasn't giving me the acknowledgement! Maybe that's why I only got 85? I am sure I was on the correct freqs but just missed the vital acknowledgement to activate the Tornado's on their ELINT! All great fun! Cheers.

Mission #2 was a botch. Had to re start the campaign. After missing a radio call, a space bar hit, during the wp#4 to wp#5 patrol. Nothing happened for 35 minutes. The Monsters, Tornado's, flew their pattern and RTB. However after hitting the space bar, after 35 minutes, the Tornados suddenly began reporting all their targets, trouble was, they were back at Nellis? Seems like, after hitting space bar late, the mission kept running its program, from where it thought the mission was, but the aircraft were all out of place? By this time I was Bingo so had to RTB. Then all hell broke loose over the FEBA. The F15 and F16 mopped up the Phantoms and Migs. I crashed after running out of fuel! LOL The moral of the tale is, don't miss a space bar hit, keep on the correct freq. The mission seems to run on a time from space bar hit, clock. Get that wrong and your sunk! I will try again tomorrow. Regards David

So, after the flight in to Nellis and the first mission completed, introduction to the range, here's my first impressions. Its a brilliant! The only thing I noted was, after landing (tour of Red Flag area) I received a radio message from AWACs about the Aggressors, who came up for a play. Apparently, when I was showboating with an Aggressor Tiger, there was some AWACs message that wasn't played right away. It got played after I landed. But that's the only minor glitch! There are so many messages, its totally compelling and makes the campaign come alive. The first flight over the range really put me there. I especially enjoyed the banter about area 51 and the way the Eagle driver didn't want to talk much about it, especially when the French leader got cocky and mentioned "conspiracy theories!...LOL!! Well done Baltic Dragon. Now I'm off to do mission 2. Lets see if I can protect those chaps in the Dambuster squadron from Lossiemouth! Tally Ho! Regards David

Will do. I can record them for my You Tube channel, with Tacview as well if required. Ferry in, first mission done. Very good!:D First few seconds had me panicking since my high school French was 50 years ago...:megalol: Regards David

Thanks for the kind words of encouragement. But believe me I have tried. There's something wrong with my head?:cry: The Mirage is a dream to fly. It's FBW in the latest DCS version is superb, but that dam basket floats around all over the place, seemingly my mind looses control of my coordination as soon as I get close to the basket! I can fly straight and level exactly 6 feet behind the basket. As soon as I close in, mysterious forces conspire to float it around! If there was a boom refueller, with a guy who slots it into your aircraft, like the F16, or Hog, I would be fine! Cheers.:joystick:

Yes I know what you mean re reading all the notes! I'm having a look at the mission notes in the PDF link in the forum. The biggest puzzle are all the radio frequencies, when to change, but I'll work it out. As for refuellings...lol forget it! I tried for ages and each time ended up with high blood pressure, maximum frustration, no fuel, hours of wasted time and hearing that dam voice, "cleared pre contact" in my nightmares!!! I have done the DCS Red Flags for the A10 and Eagle, so looking forward to yours. I think these campaigns are very important to DCS. They make the sim come alive and force you to really understand your weaknesses, the enemy strengths and learn the aircraft 100%. The latter point is the whole reason behind Red Flag, so we are spot on there. I have tried to create some missions that run with random elements, to make them challenging, so I appreciate how much work goes into these projects. I'll let you know how I get on. Cheers. David

Thanks, that's great. I'll buy it tomorrow for my day off! By the way, I didn't know you could order the wingmen to refuel? That interesting! Regards David

I have just enjoyed re running all the training missions for my Mirage. I haven't flown it in a while and with the updates its a super sim! The last mission in training, a preparation for Red Flag, was very good. Before I buy the Red Flag campaign, for the Mirage, I need to ask a question. My question is, do any of the Red Flag missions require refuelling Tanking? This is one thing I avoid, because I am unable to do it! Regards David

Would be a purchase for me! It would require some AI (crew) since the aircraft had five crew members. This was the Cold War nuclear defence. So we could use the Normandy UK map. If they don't want nukes, then the twenty odd thousand pounders could simulate a cold war Warsaw Pact advance into France! Black Buck would need a Falklands Map (another purchase from me....can use the Harrier there!) To simulate all those refuellings! Oh and an Ascention Island Map! Just simulate that "Howl" from those engines!!! Regards