Lupson

Thanks for responding! Let's see... I completed mission 5 on my first attempt, so no further data on AI pilot behavior there. I ran mission 8 twice, AI pilot crashed both times close to IP. Come to think of it, I should have TacView files for all campaign missions. I can check the other computer later and see if it's possible to upload the tracks to the forum. Per mission 4 - don't want to spoil too much, but is there some recommended way of releasing the bombs there? I figured dive bombing would provide the most accuracy, but it does expose one's aircraft a lot. Note sure if the terrain would allow a more level approach.

Just completed this campaign. Thank you so much, I really enjoyed it! The difficulty was indeed quite steep, though I do believe it actually got kind of easier the further the campaign progressed. Mission 2 took a lot of retries! Many cool moments and I really love how well the roadbases worked. I've just encountered a few bugs. * The last mission didn't trigger the "parked at roadbase" trigger after taxing to the normal park spot. Had 30+ kills and got result 50, so I think I had a score good enough for the mission to succeed. Started using runway 74 if that helps. * The AI pilot crashed unforcedly close to the IP in both mission 5 and 8. Missions still completed fine though. Not sure if perhaps something needs to be done with the AI's waypoints? * Not a bug, just a thought: Mission 4. I got a bit frustrated getting shot down when trying to dive bomb, so I used the ME to switch to Rb05 instead. Hit good, even got a big lump of rock blocking the entrance, but did not trigger the requisite trigger to complete the mission since the trigger required m/71 bombs to enter the trigger area. I guess that's fine, it was me meddling with the ME after all, but I do think that mission's incredibly hard to complete with low-drag bombs. Perhaps give the player the option to use Rb05 as well? Again, thanks! Best Viggen campaign!

Cannot offer any screnshots, but I can confirm that the RR mode now works like a charm and that the symbology has changed to thinner lines.

I have a (swedish) squadmate using the Rift CV1 that has installed the English cockpit mod for Viggen due to the text being more distinct in that mod. Perhaps worth trying?

What, if any, do you see as the most serious current problems with the Viggen? Nothing serious, but AI wingman behavior is kind of bad. No low-level flying, employs weapons unrealistically (few bombs/rockets at a time, can't do high-drag bombing etc, doesn't employ Rb-15F / Rb-04 consistently). When was the last time you played the module? A few days ago. How great an impact did incomplete/buggy features have on your enjoyment of the module? Very minor. Mainly AI wingmen behavior as specified above, making it hard to create some types of single-player missions. Did you raise these issues with HeatBlur? Yes, in the bug-report forum. If so, how satisfied were you with their response, if any. Could be better, though I guess many AI issues lies in core DCS code rather than the module code. What sort of other important bugs, now resolved, do you remember and how long did it take for them to be resolved? The targeting/aiming bugs caused by changes in EDs atmospheric model was annoying. I do think RagnarDa fixed them quite quickly though. In your opinion, what is a reasonable amount of time for bugs of varying complexity to be resolved? Depends, as long as the bug report is acknowledged by the devs I can wait until it's done... In your opinion, what is a reasonable amount of time for a module to be in Early Access? 2 years Based on Heatblur's claim of having their F-14B module being mostly feature complete on early access launch, how confident are you they will be able to meet that goal? Should be very enjoyable, but naturally with some missing features and bugs Knowing what you know now, would you purchase the AJS-37 Viggen Module? 100% yes. No, make that 200% yes :) Knowing what you know now, would you purchase the F-14 module? Yes, but mainly for supporting Heatblur so they might make another Swedish aircraft/theater/asset pack sometime in the future. :)

Amazing post! Really well laid out, thanks! I also noticed the abysmal performance of the MJ2's during some extensive testing yesterday. The 20 mm RH202 round has an armor penetration of 55mm according to the Steel Beasts Wiki (http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php/Ammunition_Data#Autocannon). I have no idea how APDS penetration given a certain kinetic energy translates into EFP penetration at the same level of kinetic energy, but even if EFPs have only 50% pen given the same kinetic energy, it should still be enough to penetrate APCs and the side armor of many IFVs at 20-30 meters? Of course, penetrating something doesn't mean destroying it - but I think DCS should at least register damage / hits at much greater ranges from each MJ2 impact point than what seems to happen now. My best guess is that DCS models each MJ2 as a really small bomb doing blast damage in a similarly small radius of effect.

Scoring works fine! Been doing a number of practice runs this evening and the thing looks just marvellous!

Great, thanks HB! A question: In the previous Bk-90 implementation, kills by Bk-90's wasn't awarded to the player that launched the weapon. Has this been fixed as well?

I havn't looked at your mission (not on that computer), but there's a few older bug reports of AI not attacking if: * The ships are moving faster than 3 km/h * One has specified Attack Unit or Attack Group and set "Anti-ship missiles" as weapon. Works if set to ASM instead. IIRC

I'm pretty sure it's a Saab 105 (aka Sk-60). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saab_105

Rather trivial issue: If I carry 4 Bk-90's and release 2 of them (one at a time, "impulse") the "Fälld last" light is lit even though I still have two Bk-90's left. TAKT shows stores carried correctly.

I can confirm your finding for RBS-15F (AI) as well. Changed the enemy ship to a Grisha and armed the Viggen with RBS-15F (AI): Grisha 0 km/h: Immediately launches a single RBS-15F when within range. Grisha 2 km/h: Same as above Grisha 3 km/h: Same as above Grisha 4 km/h: Never fires even after fired upon Grisha 10 km/h: Never fires... The above is with Anti-shipping as orders. If the first RBS-15F (AI) is shot down, the Viggen fires another. I also figured out the problem with Attack Group and Attack Unit. If I explicitly select "Anti-shipping missile" as Weapon in the "Attack Unit" submemu, no missile is ever fired. However - if I select "ASM" or "Auto", the AI will successfully engage. By selecting "ASM" I can also select Release Quantity ALL which makes my AI Viggen fire both missiles immediately. My guess is that the RBS-15F (AI) isn't flagged as an Anti-shipping missile.

Interesting. For my RBS-15F tests above I used a Bulk Cargo belonging to Red coalition. I actually think I tried both 0 kts and 5 kts as speed without any noticeable difference in AI behavior. Can try changing ship type according to your findings and see what happens.

I messed around with the ME with various Viggen weaponry (latest Open Beta) yesterday. Some findings for an AI flight: -- RBS 15F -- * Attack group or Attack unit doesn't work at all. Neither with RBS-15 or RBS-15 AI. Never engages. * With "anti-shipping" as task, RBS-15 (non AI) are fired at appropriate distance. Sometimes, missiles just crash into the sea, I think it happens when the launching plane changes its heading too much away from the target ship. * With RBS-15 AI, no missiles are ever fired. For Air-to-ground, I set up a column of 12 fuel trucks. -- ARAK - CAS as mission -- * Works fine, though the AI fires an arbitrary number of rockets per run. Sometimes 1 or 2, sometimes a few more. Realistically it should be all 24 rockets though we can fire 4 at a time using "Impuls" setting when flying ourselves. -- M/71 low drag - CAS as mission -- * Works very well, the AI even adjusted its approach for covering the whole column with bombs. * When I changed to formation of the trucks to a more spread out formation, the AI performs multiple passes releasing a few bombs per run. Typically, one should release all bombs but IIRC it's possible to release just a few by releasing the trigger early? -- M/71 high drag - CAS as mission -- * Sort-of works but since bombs are released at 300 m altitude the precision is really bad. AI doesn't seem to be capable of low-level releases. -- RB-05 -- Bombing as mission -- * Works nicely. -- M/71 low drag - Bombing as mission -- * I couldn't get the AI planes to release bombs at all.

Thanks, I'll give that a try. I do however recall that one can specify "expend" directly in the ME? Though that's perhaps only for certain actions which would explain having to modify the .miz. I couldn't get AI flights to reliably attack at all back in january though, see https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=199575

Awesome! I spent a lot of time trying to get AI wingmen and AI flights to engage ships in a meaningful manner a while back. My wishlist: * Fire all (i.e. both) RB-04/15 missiles carried instead of one per "attack run". This was likely the standard tactical procedure of the SwAF Viggens. * Utilize the full range envelope of the missiles. * Break-off and go to next waypoint after launch (if current waypoint is target waypoint?) * Possibility to set up RB-04/15 "fire at coordinate" in ME, e.g. we could theoretically set up missions where AI flights would perform something such as a "bearing only"-attack. E.g. "Enroute task - fire at coordinate" where the AI would launch at the designated coordinate once in range.

Wonder if this issue is somehow related to my problem reported here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=199575 I should try wingmen with RBS-15 (AI) equipped against a stationary surface group instead of a moving one.

DCS Version: 1.5.8.12823 This is a detailed report on my findings regarding AI use of RBS-15 first discussed here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=199325 (Please note that I'm refering to AI controlled flights, not AI wingmen.) I set up a simple mission using the editor to try to figure out why AI-controlled Viggen flights wouldn't fire their missiles at all, or if they actually did - fired them way too close. Five flights of four Viggens each, same distance to a surface group with short-range SAMs only. No matter what Set Option, Do Task, Start Enroute Task, target waypoints etc I gave the AI groups at various waypoints, they wouldn't fire at all. They even overflew the enemy surface group without firing. After a lot of trial-and-error, logging unit detection using LUA script etc I think I've pinpointed two things: * If I (in a separate flight with me as pilot) engaged and hit a surface vessel, then the AI units would suddenly report "Engaging...", close to approx 20 nm and then engage using RBS-15F (AI). * If I gave 3 AI flights the normal RBS-15F and 2 AI flights the RBS-15 AI - the flights equipped with _normal_ RBS-15F would immediately on mission start report on the radio that they're going to engage surface targets. After this, they close to about 40 nm and fire a volley of missiles. After missiles hit something, the same as above applies - the flights armed with RBS-15F AI will after they get close enough suddenly decide to engage and fire their RBS-15F (AI) from 15-20 nm. RBS-15F (non AI) fired by AI flights actually seem to work pretty OK. They seem to pick the same target, and if the target they seem to have picked is destroyed, they self-destruct. My conclusion is that the RBS-15F (AI) has problems with one or more of: * Changes flight AI behaviour so they don't engage enemy ships at all unless some other flight has hit something in that surface group. * Seems to make the flight AI totally ignore all attempts of "Attack Unit", "Attack group", "Search then engage group" etc. * Even after "activating" and trying to engage, they fire their RBS-15F (AI) much closer than their maximum range. Something weird about the max range? Using Rb-04E values? * I don't think detection of the enemy surface group is an issue, the Controller.getDetectedTargets() function called once per second reports detection as expected given distance, altitude, size of enemy ship etc. I've attached a sample .miz where the two flights with RBS-15F (AI) are the two to the southwest while the three to the southeast are armed with RBS-15F. The northwest flight is the player flight. rbs15aitest.miz

After spending a ridiculous amount of time trying to figure this out using various settings in the mission editor, writing lua scripts dumping game state to dcs.log etc. I've come to the conclusion that the RBS-15 (AI) is bugged since AI flights engage correctly when armed with the normal RBS-15 (non-AI). I'll file a more comprehensive report in the appropriate sub-forum.

Despite spending a lot of time on this problem over the weekend, I was unable to get AI flights to consistently fire RBS-15F at enemy ships, especially at any useful standoff distance. AI wingmen was even worse, refusing to fire at ships on direct "Flight -> Engage -> Engage Ships" even though close and with perfect visibility conditions. My follow-up question in that case - is it possible in DCS to debug / log what AI planes are up to and why a wingman would refuse to "engage ships" for example? Perhaps a question better suited for the modders or mission editor sub-forums, though this particular problem seems to be AJS-37 related given that F/A-18s with Harpoons happily fires at maximum distance. I'm considering whether it's possible to write a lua script that executes when an AJS-37 flight passes a waypoint (e.g. Advanced waypoint options, Set Command, execute http://wiki.hoggit.us/view/DCS_command_script , where the lua script basically would tell the unit to "if armed with RBS-15F, fire them at bearing NN (would need to be hard-coded or derived from next waypoint, known enemy group or similar) in mode 800005 (bearing attack). Anyone knows if the above is possible using lua-scripts in the mission editor? Even better would be if Heatblur added a wingmen command "Engage current bearing using weapon ..." though that wouldn't fix AI controlled flights. Anyone got some advice for me here? Would love to be able to make a coordinated anti-shipping strike involving many flights.

As additional info: I added 2 F/A-18s with Harpoons to the mission and they attacked the surface group at proper standoff distance, probably 80-100 km or so.

TLDR; Anyone able to get AI wingmen to fire RBS-15F from proper standoff distance, i.e. > 50 km? Long version: I'm trying to coordinate a number of AI-controlled AJS-37 4-ships striking a naval group of 10+ ships using the RBS-15F. Basically - my issue is that I can't get neither wingmen nor other groups to fire their RBS-15F (AI) until either very close or not at all. When flyging myself, I can detect the enemy ships using radar, set BX points and successfully fire from about 70 km or so. Anyone got any advice on how to set this up in the Mission Editor or if it's possible given the limitations on AI in DCS? I've fiddled around with the "Perform Task - Attack Group" and "Start Enroute Task" advanced waypoint options to no avail. When the AI engages it's usually once they have Line-of-Sight to the enemy ships. I'm suspecting the AI perhaps needs to detect the enemies before being able to engage, and that the AI cannot use the AJS-37 radar for that. On the other hand, the docs for the "Attack Group" command explictly states that activation of such a command auto-detects the targeted unit. Ideas, anyone?

Thanks for the clarification, it makes sense.

In regard to using Bk-90's in the Nordic Battle campaign, I think there's also an issue where the player isn't credited with any units destroyed by Bk-90s. Don't remember if that also affects overall scoring in the campaign or not, e.g. if units destroyed by Bk-90s stay destroyed or not. But IIRC Bk-90s were basically useless in the Nordic Battle campaign due to those scoring issues. I used the Bk-90 mix variant since it's hugely more effective than the pure MJ1 or MJ2 variants, don't know if that matters. This was single player.

Hi Andy, I tried your VIGGEN!.miz yesterday. Worked just fine, thanks. Wouldn't mind a little more comprehensive briefing though. I took a flight that was pre-armed with Mavericks and was a bit unsure whether to target AAA assets or the ships.