gregzagk

Yes, you should fly with the runway heading and keep this altitude. The altitude is fine. About the labels it should be just your local options here and not needed to save the missions. Please let me know if it won't work so that I will go through the options again. Thanks

Hey, you should be able to skip the refuel option (F10 Menu) after completing the Senaki task (you will get the radio menu after the message). If you proceed without refueling or without selecting this option, then the mission won't unfortunately proceed. Yes, all missions after mission 1 are in ramp start status. About the labels, we left the option free for the users. Could you please check if it works for you? I understand that if you change your local options, it should work as there is no enforcement in the mission. Thanks again Greg

Hey thank you for your purchase. It seems that unfortunately you missed a step. You don't need to control over your squadmates in the first mission. This becomes a feature from the 2nd mission (currently there is an issue there but you can use the default ones as explained in the tips thread). For completing mission 1, could you please let me know if: - You past over Senaki (low pass) as indicated? - Did you then select to do or to skip refuel? - Did you destroy a target in the target zone afterwards? Thanks in advance Greg

It actually depends on your plan. The campaign gives you the opportunity to take decisions and plan your strategy. So apart from Mission no 1 that is fixed (I would say it can take up to 30mins), from Mission no 2 and onwards, there is a planning time that you would need to spend before jumping into the cockpit (5-10mins). Then it could be from 20 mins up to 60 (in case you would like to refuel for example and stay longer in the area). I would say that during the tests, the average was close to 45 minutes including the planning - procedures that needed before starting your engines. You can decrease the time as you get used of the process and become familiar with the area of operations. Hope that helps Greg

Hey, no worries about this. We are not using this option to determine the packages task The packages are going to execute the following tasks by default: - Fish: CAP ALPHA - Hooters: CAP BRAVO - Pickles: CAS - Trimmer: SEAD You can see here more details and tips about the strategy you can follow: There's going to be also an update soon that makes the process easier for task selection. Greg

Hi, thank you very much for your purchase! Is it Open Beta that you are using? The campaign is not yet out in the stable version as far as I know. Greg

Hi, thanks so much for your purchase and valuable feedback. We are currently improving the messages for VR purposes and hopefully they are now suiting better. The task assigment feature is now also changed internally and should be available soon. As far for tutorials, you shall see more videos and posts with guides that should fill the gap but we believe that once the players get used of the process, it's easy to follow. It's just that it's recently introduced. As this is a new gameplay style we appreciate all the feedback to improve it and take advantage of its replayability. Thanks again Greg

Feedback from VR users is really important. Thank you very much for this. We are optimising the debriefing messages too, to fit properly in the VR view. Greg

Hi, thanks for your purchase. The comms plan is mentioned in the campaign's manual (page 22). But adding it as pre programmed is a nice suggestion. Thanks for your feedback. Will take care asap. Greg

Yes, so Pontiac should be used to obtain ground targets in case you decided to execute CAS missions. For the AWACS - Darkstar authentication - check in process: You can refrain to the campaign manual for a detailed example (Page 18 - The manual should be under the path: C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\campaigns\FA-18C Operation Pontus\Doc) but I will try to explain it here too. - When the player says "ready to authenticate", Darkstar will provide a code (e.g. ECHO-FOXTROT-DELTA). - You can then go to your matrix check the letters. - The first two letters (E - F from the example), should be read as one and they are located on the horizontal top line of the matrix. - Then you check for the D letter on the vertical left side of the matrix. - If you follow this plan you will find the letter R (based on the manual's example) and this should be your reply to the AWACS call. Please let me know if that helps. Greg

Hey, thank you very much for your purchase! Hmm the AWACS (Darkstar), should only lead you for air to air targets. Is there a chance that you mean the AFAC? If this is the case, these are UAVs that provide ground units location and it works like the normal JTAC functions of DCS. It starts contacting and informing about your payload and then it gives you instructions on how to attack the target. The issue that you are mentioning about the LGBs could be a potential DCS bug that I will check and report if I can reproduce. Thanks again Greg

Hi, thank you for your purchase! There is currently an issue hiding the zones that you have to rename. It should be fixed soon but until then, you can continue as normal. Your squadron packages have tasks assigned by default and they are quite appropriate for the first sorties (To focus in Air to Air & SEAD missions). Please find here the tips - planning suggestions for the first stages. This thread will be updated quite often: Here you can monitor if there are any current issues with the campaign and the workarounds: Greg

Hey, thank you very much for your purchase. Here you can find tips and planning suggestions that work pretty well: Squadron flights behavior/ Survivability Your squadron flights, are not just supporting flights to your package, but are part of a COMAO (Combined Air Operations). As such, depending on their role, they adjust their ETA to their areas of responsibilities (Air to Air flights go first, SEAD follow and STRIKE,CAS are coming last). The time you submit your code, plays a role on when the other flights will start their offensive, so pls be sure you submit it once you are almost ready to take off. About the planning time that you spend in the Mission planner. Based on testers feedback we believe it's an easy to follow process and by the 2nd - 3rd time the player should get used of it. We believe the time needed is justified for a dynamic campaign (set up your waypoints, check the targets and manage your squadrons roles and payloads). It's quite the same process on other dynamic campaigns that we were dealing with in the past. Without this, it would be completely different gameplay not offering these features that make it a dynamic concept. For the survivability of yours and your squadron packages, you must ensure that you fly less risky sorties in the first missions in order to establish air superiority. The enemy is stronger in the beginning and you might even decide to send RTB some of your flights to return safe. You should move on Strike, SEAD tasks at a later point. * The strike target coordinates that are given by your XO on each mission end, are as mentioned in the manual, optional in case you believe you are in a position to perform safe Strike missions. If you see that the enemy is still operating in high numbers then you should skip them and continue executing only Air to Air and SEAD missions. AWACS Authentication This is a quite realistic procedure that is used to authenticate your package with AWACS before actually receiving calls. Otherwise it won't respond to you. So you need the matrix to respond correctly to the authentication process. F10 Menu The menu includes orders that are optional. They are serving also safe switch in case an AI package is not behaving the desired way and is risking to get shot down. So you have RTB Menus, Establish CAP etc. As mentioned in the manual, one of the RTB menu serves the role to prevent a likely DCS bug in which AI could attack targets with guns. If that doesn't happen then the better for the player Bugs Please let us know of any bugs that you face. If you are referring to the zones that are not showing up, yes this is reported and should be fixed soon. This issue though it's not a blocking bug but mostly a missing feature, as you are perfectly able to continue (check the planning tips above). Overall the campaign's goal is to use the current and future AI logic to create a nice dynamic environment. As such, we have to adapt to some limitations and find various solutions to be on the safe side. However the idea is to update/ upgrade it quite often as it's replayable. Hope that helps Greg

Hey, thank you for your purchase! Yes it's unfortunately not possible to change this task option through the mission planner but it's not a bug. This is not related to the campaign but on how DCS world planner works and that's the reason the feature of renaming the zones was introduced. Even with a different task in your package options, the package will execute the desired task that you can edit in the zones Loadouts help also in this option. You shall create new presets that you can use during the whole campaign. Here we plan to post more and more tips:

Yes, it's connected to the same issue. However it's playable without this feature. Please check the documents and maps to see the areas until it's fixed. However, as you will soon see here: it is recommended that you set your squadron packages to Air to Air roles and SEAD in the beginning. They are already like this by default so no need to change their zone names now. You can go ahead and change their munitions based on these roles: - Fish: CAP ALPHA - Hooters: CAP BRAVO - Pickles: CAS - Trimmer: SEAD This way you should gain Air superiority and reduce the Air defenses before being able to execute CAS and Strike missions. As such we hope to have the fix released before that point There are also many other workarounds with payload (this will be included in the above thread too). Hope that helps. Greg

Thanks for your purchase! Yes, every friendly loss impacts the overall performance and the next missions status. The campaign doesn't count exact aircraft numbers either keep a warehouse that is affected, but instead it keeps track of performance and affects the enemy air - ground power. Your fellow squadmates, are designed the way that instead of going KIA, they go MIA during their loss and then they are rescued by friendly forces. So this way they are still there in the next missions but their temporary "loss" impacts your progress. There are variables that are connected to the campaigns progress code that is being recalculated in the background. As a result, many friendly losses will allow the enemy to execute more sorties and reinforce their ground units, when if you succeed in the air and reduce losses, the enemy air activity will be reduced mission to mission. It is simulated the way that your squadron operates not only during the player's sorties but on a 24x hour base so with many losses the morale is decreased and the enemy is free to operate. We plan to post tips and planning suggestions here soon and would be happy to hear about your experience:

Starting this topic with the purpose to have it as sticky and provide tips, discussions that you can follow during the campaign. One of the main features of the "Pontus" campaign, is that it offers re-playability, due to the ability to take different decisions on each mission. We plan to strengthen this feature by providing additional updates/ upgrades from time to time, based mostly on the players feedback. Combined with any new systems, weapons, AI behavior and features that DCS will bring to us in the coming months, the main goal is to provide a new experience each time you restart it. Posts with example sorties/ decisions will follow Op. Pontus Guideline Video:

Thank you very much for the feedback, checking the issues that can affect VR users now. About the code matrix, yes it should be visible in the kneeboard already. As a workaround until the fix, you can see the target coordinates by checking the Red marks in the map once the message appears. Greg

No, it uses only default DCS World functionalities to qualify as an official DLC Product. So everything is managed through the Mission Planner and the normal Campaign engine. This way you don't need to modify files or so. Greg

Hey, the first thing that comes to my mind would be that maybe you didn't enter the "Campaign Progress Code" before taking off? If so, it would not take into consideration that the mission is completed when you return to base. Greg

Hey, after the 1st mission which is fixed, you will receive intel each time about the campaign status. Additionally your virtual XO will provide suggestions on how to manage your squadron. As a squadron leader, you have the ability to set the roles of your squadron AI packages and change their payload through the Mission Planner. During the missions you can also provide them various orders (RTB etc). For your package, you can edit your waypoints and design your missions accordingly. As a result, the player can decide, plan sorties based on the given intel. There is currently an issue that is blocking the task assignment to your squadron packages but ED is aware of it. We shall have updates for this soon. Greg

Thank you so much for your feedback. I am going through them and will update this thread with all the updates for bugs etc. Greg

Hi, I am unfortunately not aware how this could work with DLC mission files. There is an encryption that might cause problems. It would be interesting to see if it works for anyone that will try it out Greg

Thanks again for your purchase! Here we will keep an update for: - Known issues - Fixes - Workarounds - Feature updates 14.04.2021 - Updated weather conditions (clouds) - Added new weather conditions mission variant - Added extra field in Campaign Progress Code to connect with new computations - Current strike target info and mark in F10 map, is now available after entering campaign Progress Code too - Tweaked friendly AI groups behaviour - Corrected typos 02.03.2021 - Mission 1 options adjusted (labels, easy comms). - Skip whole Mission 1 option added. - Kneeboard inverted comms info fixed. - Optimised air traffic to eliminate potential frame drop. - Optimised AI low flying trigger conditions. - Optimised AI RTB trigger behaviour. - Intercept missions spawn and end message fixed. 17.02.2021 - Corrected PDF files 10/02/2021 *Will be available in one of the upcoming updates: - Optimising ingress altitude for AI packages - AI Low flying issue - FPS drop report under a specific situation - Intercept mission spawn issue - Optimising intro .miz file (guideline added) 03.02.2021 - Re-designed squadron task assignment concept. Now it's working through the F10. - Radio menu to solve the zone encryption issues - Updated manual - F.A.Q. docs with the new functionality. - Long Messages optimization for VR users. - Fixed AI Wingman missing calls. For strategy - planning tips: Thanks for your patience.

Hi, I understand you purchased the campaign and can't see it in your campaign folder? Please check if you downloaded it properly through the module manager. It's the icon on the top. Thanks again Greg