Hippo

My first attempt at this mission following the update had the missile fly to the last enroute waypoint but then fail to turn to the target waypoint, instead staying on its previous course and flying until crashing into the sea (when I assume it ran out of fuel). Same or similar behaviour to track01a above, although I did set the fuse this time. track_03.trk

Ah, I see. Thank you both. Phew.

Hi, thanks for replying; but I'm not sure I follow. I haven't tried doing it (and, yes, I probably should have), but if I understand the manual correctly, getting a score below 50 doesn't mean the campaign will fail, it means that it will drop to the previous stage and give you a mission from that stage. The campaign will only fail, I think, if there is no previous stage, i.e. this can only happen if you fail whilst in the first stage. Have I misunderstood something? I'll try it out for real as soon as I get some time.

From my, admittedly limited, experience with the ME and Campaign Builder, I assumed that that was their mission statement.

Let's say I'm working on a campaign with ten stages, and in a mission in stage five I wish a certain event to cause the campaign to (abruptly) end in failure (or success). How would I implement this? The DCS manual is rather vague, p.364 : However, it does not explain what "failure to complete the campaign" means in practical terms. On p. 365, This appears to imply that the only way a campaign can end in failure is if a mission gets a score below 50 in the first stage. And, conversely, that a campaign can only end in success if a score over 50 is achieved in the last stage. Tell me it ain't so. Please.

Thank you. Just a couple of clarifications please. COs = commanding officer? Meaning what with regard to my question? And what is "squadron altitude"?

Should my 5090 be hitting 41% util when I fully zoom out the map in the ME? It's not enough that this application has the worst interface design in the history of humanity, it turns out I'm having to pay through the nose to run it as well?

I find this behaviour absolutely infuriating. Please have mercy and provide an option so that selecting a unit in the unit list only highlights it and does not shift the view. Please. Sometimes I think the ME was designed as an instrument of torture. More generally, if the user does not choose to change the view in the ME in the usual way (scrolling and zooming), I don't see why it should be changed by opening windows, selecting units, or any other function not specifically to do with changing the view.

According to the CV NATOPS, 6.2.1, How does this work IRL, i.e., how and when is this altitude assigned? And what to do in the (single player) game? I normally just use 4.000 feet and wait for "charlie", but should this altitude have been passed to me by the tower on entering the CCA? Another one for the wish list? A recent mission I played had five other, single aircraft, AI flights arrive at around the same time as I did. One AI went straight into the landing pattern (i.e. 800ft), the other aircraft went into the port holding pattern at 4k, 5k, 6k and 3k. I was behind them. How was I supposed to know which levels they were going to use? How was I supposed to know which level I was supposed to use?

+1. especially for the route lines and waypoints. Blue against a blue sea background doesn't make for easy visibility.

These are the actions that should be carried out wrt the deck crew signalling: unfold wings, extend launch bar, retract launch bar, salute. I add to the other answers since you mentioned you've already tried saluting. You also need to go to full military power or AB on the throttle before the salute. The procedure hasn't changed.

A quick test, then: Image 1: (1920 x 1200, windowed) I move and rezoom the map and save it thus It seems to me that this is how the map should appear whenever the mission is reloaded into the ME and the planner. Not necessarily in the F10 map. It shouldn't change if the resolution changes. If the aspect ratio changes then a choice has to be made as to whether the vertical or horizontal extent is saved, and the same centre point should be used. That would be my wish to add to the wish list. Image 2: I click on the "Fly Mission" icon (green up arrow) and go into the mission planner. The view has changed, and now appears to have recentred on the only unit in the mission. Why? As the mission creator, I didn't want or ask for this. Image 3: I return to the ME. Now it looks like it did in the planner, not as I had originally left it. Image 4: I reload the mission in the ME. It's back to how I saved it. Good. Image 5: I run the mission and open the F10 map. It makes sense that the player's unit should be centred in this view and it is. The zoom level is different, and probably should be the same I include this view because "MAXsenna" brought it up, although I didn't mention it in my OP. Images 6, 7: I reopen the mission in full screen at a higher res (4k), in the ME and MP. A much larger area of the map is presented. I would argue that this is not how it should work. When the mission designer saves the view, the intention is usually to include the area of the map that they wish to present to the player, as e.g. the extent of the player's route. This should not change, no matter what resolution the player is using (except, of course, when the aspect ratio changes as mentioned above).

The kneeboard is extremely useful, especially in VR. However, having a bright white (day) kneeboard during a night mission can be quite distracting and uncomfortable. For the mission-specific kneeboard, no problem: when I create a night mission, I just create a version with red text on a black background and insert that into the mission file. For the general kneeboard at %userprofile%\Saved Games\DCS\Kneeboard\FA-18C_hornet, it's not quite so simple Please would you consider implementing a system where the user could place day and night versions of their kneeboards in that folder, the night versions could be named in a specific way, or placed in a subfolder for that purpose. DCS would then be able to distiguish between them and automatically load the appropriate kneeboard dependent on mission time. Thank you for listening.

Well, it's how many of the paid and included campaigns work. But you're right, it depends on what you're trying to achieve. Unless I'm missing something, this functionality could have been enabled if they'd provided a range of scores for a "draw" and not just 50. Even so, the tool would still remain tragically basic and inadequate, when it should've been so much more.

I haven't checked the campaign (yet), and I understand all of the above. What I would like is, that if you fail a mission, you stay in the same stage and get the same mission you just failed. Are you sure it does that? According to the manual, and my limited testing, that is incorrect. If you get 50 points (exactly) you stay in the same stage (what I want). If there is more than one mission, you could get any of them (what I don't: I would like the player to get the same mission they just failed). Thank you for replying. I don't believe it is (easily) possible using the Campaign Builder, and have decided to restructure my campaign in a different way.

Thank you both for your replies, but it really, really shouldn't be this way.

Some may find it unusual that after (many, many) years of DCS enjoyment, I only tried using the Campaign Builder for the first time a few days ago. What I found was very disappointing. I wish to complain regarding the sheer inadequacy of this tool. That the replies I received to a recent forum question about what should be a trivial campaign creation issue involved user-created APIs and delving into the minutae of 3rd party campaign missions just says it all. I won't turn this into an essay about persistent campaign-wide variables and unit status tracking, proper branching support and other essential features for a tool of this nature. Instead I will just point you to what was available in a twenty-six year old product, for an idea of what the functionality a tool of this kind should provide; I'm sure Matt Wagner will be able to provide further details if required. Of course, now it's plainly obvious why all* third party campaigns are, structurally, trivial linear affairs rather than complex, branching and endlessly replayable experiences that, in the hands of talented creators, can rival any dynamic campaign. I think the development effort in creating such a tool would be relatively minor in relation to the enormous benefit it would return in the long run. Certainly I would've put it way ahead of, e.g., the recent very pretty but mostly unnecessary laucher app, in a priority list. * No, not all, but those that aren't involve players writing down codes and jumping through other hoops. And I am continually in awe at what the pro campaign creators produce, especially considering how lacking are the tools at their disposal. Think of what they could achieve with a tool like the one linked to above.

I finally managed to get the superbright supercarrier (yay!) The bad news is that I did it by using Virtual Desktop. I (almost) never use VD with DCS, as I am happy using the Meta Quest Link App with a Link cable. I am using the non-Steam version of DCS (with the Oculus runtime). So, for anyone on Oculus (Meta), using VD, try the Link software instead. For anyone else, idk. I'm really, really not trying to annoy anyone, promise.

Great, thanks. Will test again after update and report here. EDIT (for the benefit of the person who just liked this post): My gaming rig and I will be back together again on 25/09. I will test this then.

I attach three tracks for your perusal. Track 01 : the behaviour I intended to report. Things go very wrong at around 1017 as the missile plunges to its demise. Track 01a: I unintentionally left the fuse set to OFF and I got a different (and unexpected) result; even with the fusing incorrectly set should it do this? Around 1017 the missile doesn't make its last turn towards the target and gradually descends until it crashes into the sea. Track 02: I amended the mission so that the target was nearer and this time it worked as expected. I created this mission years ago, and this didn't happen at the time. Maybe it's something to do with the range or that the missile is (mostly) flying into wind; but surely an in-range indication shouldn't appear if the FP to the target is outside of the missile's range. Please ignore any mission failure, etc, messages, they are informational only. Searching I found this post, from January(!), which seems very similar. If it's the same issue, consider this a bump and an offer of additional information in the hope of encouraging a swift resolution. track_01a.trk track_01.trk track_02.trk

Not a big deal, but to aid organisation and readability for the mission designer, and for the sake of interface consistency could you please add the ordering arrows as is common elsewhere in the ME? Thank you for your understanding and patience. (If I want "mis_start_B" to follow "mis_start_A" (below), which would be my preference, I have to delete the last three goals and recreate them again in the order I want. I hope you can appreciate that some might consider this to be sub-optimal.) P.S. Will a much needed undo function ever see the light of day? (interface design suggestion - keystroke "Ctrl-Z", not "U").

Is the following possible? (I'm getting a sinking feeling that the answer is, incredibly, no) A campaign with multiple stages, with (say) four different missions in each. As you get to a stage you are assigned a mission at random, if the mission is a success you advance to the next stage where you are assigned a mission at random, but if the mission is not a success you stay in the same stage and have to refly the same mission. The player never goes back a stage, they have to refly the same mission in a stage until it is completed successfully, they can then move on to the next stage. I understand that a score of 50 keeps you in the same stage, but I presume one of the four missions would be randomly assigned, which is not what I'm after. Grateful for any suggestions. My first impression of this tool is that it is somewhat lacking.

Sorry if I've missed something here, but does anyone know how the saving of the visible area of the map works? It seems that whenever you click save, the area that is visible is what comes up when the mission is loaded into the ME the next time. But what if you subsquently work in another resolution or aspect ratio? Then it doesn't appear to be. Wouldn't it be preferable for either the selected vertical or horizontal extent to be saved and then presented no matter in which res or ar the mission is reloaded? And what about what is presented in the mission planner to the player when they load the mission? I can't see any logic to that at all. Surely this should be definable by the mission creator? I find that I can be working in the ME, click the launch mission icon, go into the mission planner, find that the extents are different, and then if I exit back into the ME, the extents have now changed to be the same as what I saw in the planner. Why?

DCS: R&R? DCS: Retired Aviator?

Widely available at all FTOs near you. Only kidding. I was going for something more ab initio. And western. Well, they'd get my money. Which they haven't for quite some time as they keep producing stuff I don't want.