Lace

Mission 5 attached. This is a low-level recce mission targeted at the deployed HQ elements of the 6th Rocket Brigade from Pinozero. Northern Flank 5.miz I appreciate some players may like a more active role, so here is an alternative #5, where you instead lead a 2-ship with CBU on essentially the same mission, but with the option to engage any ground forces located. Northern Flank 5 ALTERNATE.miz

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. In the other missions I'm pretty sure the AWACS freq is listed, but maybe I missed it in #2. To be honest though, I personally don't think the RT in it's current state adds much to the realism of the missions. Usually the wingman spends the mission listing every single contact and quickly becomes muted when I am flying, Never mind the premature RTBs and repetitive "Rejoin". Good shout about the text message alerts though, I'll add them in (though they don't feature in #3 & #4), and in future I'll populate the UHF/VHF channels. Hopefully mission 5 should be done by the weekend - another longer one after the short previous two, I am thinking a long range armed recce. Oh, and reinforcements should be on the way soon. NATO planned to reinforce NON within 2-7 days. Again, I am making some substitutions given the limited selection of units in DCS, but I will be trying to keep within the spirit of the time period at least.

Mission 4 ready to go. Things not looking good for AFNORTH at the moment. WP Forces closing on Bodø. Northern Flank 4.miz

Hi @rel4y, I emailed you last week about the Cougar USB mod - just wondering if you are still selling these?

Thanks for the feedback. Number 4 is almost done (and looking very dark and dramatic!).

Mission 3 for anyone still interested. Much shorter duration, Daytime, low overcast and snake-eyes! Northern Flank 3.miz

There are no altitude restrictions. The WP Strike group should be triggered shortly after your departure (as long as you are within a mile or so of the planned track. By warning do you mean by AWACS or the wingman? I guess if you are really quick in the inspection you could be RTB before they get noticed. I know the wingman's fuel management is terrible, especially if he has to play catch up the whole way. Normally (for all missions, not just this one) I throttle back to about 300kts once established in the climb to allow 2 to catch up without sitting in burner for too long.

Which would also work. Simple stuff like landing gear, battery, master arm etc. Obviously fully-clickable is the ideal solution (but then so would a full fidelity A-10A, Su-25, MiG-29, Su-27 and Su-33! )

+1, MANPADS on 'civil' marine traffic would be good.

The FC3 aircraft are low fidelity representations of aircraft we are no likely to see as high fidelity full modules. As such they rely on many keyboard shortcuts rather than clickable cockpits. I understand the logic behind this, as many of the simplifications do not have a dedicated cockpit control so cannot be clickable. However this means that ironically, the FC3 aircraft end up with a large number of key binds. In VR with a full clickable cockpit there is no need to remember any keybinds (in fact I don't touch the keyboard at all in VR), everything is either HOTAS, or 'point and click'. The FC3 aircraft present an extra difficulty in VR since I either need to double my HOTAS binds (and remember them), or frequently lift the headset to use the keyboard. My suggestion is this: For VR allow a clickable virtual kneeboard. If I look down at the seat pan I will see a kneeboard with all of the required FC3 keybinds, perhaps with tabs for Systems/Weapons/Views. This solution would mean no more lists of arbitrary keybinds to remember, no more immersion destroying headset removal. I would love to be able to spend more time enjoying the FC3 aircraft (particularly the A-10A and Su-25), but in VR they are 'harder' to interact with than their high fidelity counterparts.

Most, but not all. There are some in which I have no interest (JF-17), some which require two crew to operate properly (F-14), some which I may buy at some point (UH-1, C-101), and finally the WWII ones, which bar the Spitfire (and upcoming Mossie), I won't bother with. I did go through a Pokemon phase with modules, but at the moment I believe in concentration of effort, so I am focussing on the Viper for fixed wing, and the Mi-8 for rotary (in lieu of the imminent Hind). Anyway, I'm on 16 a/c, 5 maps, FC3, CA and SC FWIW. For sure this year(?!?) I'll be adding the Hind, Kiowa, A-6, F-8, and Mossie. Maybe the Apache.

Second mission attached. Fairly simple intercept at dawn.j Northern Flank 2.miz

Thanks for the feedback. I appreciate you taking the time to try it out. I'll upload an updated version today which should fix the reluctant wingman issue.

I know, bless him, at least he tried! I think it’s something to do with the parking allocation for the landing Herc. I’ve changed the distance it starts at to get it parked up a bit quicker. Might be best to ditch it altogether given the current wingman AI. He’ll be more use in mission 2. How many aircraft made it through? Their skill is set to random and sometimes a couple don’t make it to the rigs. How did you find the transit time? I wanted to keep it long enough to make the descent through the overcast into the relative darkness more dramatic, after being up in the blue. Appreciate not everyone wants to be sat in the cruise for half a mission.

FLASH MSG =============================== Z 1417h45 FEB 87 FM DEFSTNOR TO BASE COMMANDER =============================== WARNING ORDER WARPAC MOBILISATION ON ALL FRONTS. EXPECT OUTBREAK OF HOSTILITIES IMMINENTLY. ENSURE ALL OFFICERS READ AND UNDERSTAND THE DIRECTIVE =============================== END ///// Northern Flank.miz

A couple of points I'd like to make. More is better and CA has been sorely neglected over recent years, so I am all in favour of a 3rd party taking ownership of this aspect of DCS, fleshing out the unit inventory and improving the AI. Regarding survivability. I think those who say you wouldn't last 5 minutes in a ground unit are being a little disingenuous, and basing this assumption on the current state of play with CA and ground unit AI. Firstly, thermal imaging at the moment is too perfect. Vehicles just glow uniformly against their background. I know ED have already proposed a rework of IR signatures which would address this. Secondly, ground units don't just camp out in straight lines in the middle of flat fields. So many missions have them out in the open within a mile of a waypoint which (for a cold war scenario) is incredibly unrealistic. A 1980s ground war would not feature medium altitude CAS wheels, or GPS navigation, or TGPs. It would be in the weeds with a paper map and the Mk1 eyeball. Spot the difference... DCS tanks: Real tanks: These guys in a treeline are not going to be easy to see, especially at low level and 480 kts. Take away the F10 god view and permissive high altitude TGP friendly environment and the tanks survivability increases dramatically. The problem is as much a ground detail fidelity issue. Improve that and so do the chances of survival. Something like Mudrunner, which I appreciate uses much smaller maps would be IMHO the 'ideal' implementation of CA for DCS in terms of ground detail fidelity and wheel/mud physics. It is also conceivable that a ground unit commander could have 1st person control of a platoon of multiple vehicles. This multiplies the survivability and playability. Lose a couple of your tanks to a passing 'Hog/Su-25 and you still have a couple left to fight with. It would also be nice to see a rework of the damage models. Even just a simple upgrade from mobility kills, sensor damage, crew effectiveness, to outright destruction. A nearby MK82 certainly won't kill an MBT but could quite conceivably crack lenses, remove radio antennae or kill an unbuttoned commander, all of which would have an effect on said MBT's combat effectiveness. I think the ground warfare side of DCS if thoughtfully reworked could open up the game to a whole new subset of players, who don't necessarily want to invest the time on the aircraft modules. The MP servers and SP missions may feel very different to our current airpower-centric bias, but they would add a richness to the DCS 'World' which is currently lacking.

It also looks like posters have ignored or misunderstood the 'AI only' aspect of the question. Many of the types listed above would be great modules and a shame to be AI only. F-117? A-6? E-2? Superbug? MiG-17? etc.

There aren't many aircraft types which I would not want as FF flyable modules, so to add something which is non-flyable, but AI featured I would have to go for the bigger multi-engined utility or support types, which would give mission/campaign builders more options to generate interesting narratives. Something like a P3 Orion, Badger is a good shout, C-5/C-141 for cold war Reforger type scenarios, etc. How about an ekranoplan? Imagine being scrambled to defend the carrier against these!

I'm working on a couple of missions/mini campaign for the Viper. There will need to be a little bit of poetic licencing involved. Caucusus in winter rather than Norway. Modern Viper rather than the correct vintage (though I will attempt to limit it's abilities, i.e. no HMCS, TGP, AMRAAMs, DL etc.). If anyone is interested in flying in some horrible weather over inhospitable seas as the RNoAF attempts to hold at bay the Soviets then I can post them up. The first mission is done and the second is nearly there. I have Ideas for 3 and 4. I'm trying to provide a bit of variety in the mission objectives but without straying too far from reality and the context of the back story (and develop my mission building skillset). SP only at the moment, and due to heavy soviet ELINT presence and jamming very little radio chatter

It's a process that takes literally two minutes during the ingress phase of flight. Even Wags' YouTube tutorial video is an epic 3:00 duration! Clearly this is an inconvenience for the type of player who thinks multiple hot-pit rearms 5 minutes from FEBA is a realistic type of operation for this aircraft. Probably the same people who take off from taxiways and fly downwind straight-ins because 'quicker'.

I have a big ask, and I'm not sure whether this is even feasible given the current engine limitations, but since this is a wishlist thread, here goes... I would like it if it was possible to test fly missions through the mission editor, and then dynamically edit them. Essentially, pause the sim and enter a 'God mode' which allows access to all the mission editor features from the F10 menu. If anyone has used C:MO/C:MANO you will know exactly what I mean. It allows you to build a scenario, and then tweak it as you test play it. This would save so much time as changes could be made without having to exit the flight, launch the ME again, edit the mission and then re-fly. Rinse and repeat, GOTO 10.

Have you sent them the plans already? I got 2 quotes for Stang's Viper plans, one was about 1k GBP +VAT, the second about 1.5k +VAT. I'm holding off due to an impending house move. If your local company can do better than that would you mind sharing the details? I imagine the job size for the Hornet/Viper are similar?

Are they? That seems wasteful. Surely if you are beaming a SARH/ARH or older radar SAM you wouldn’t want to be pumping out flares. Obviously some countermeasures programs should be mixed In anticipation of a launch during the final phase of a pop-up attack for example, but that’s why there are five, and why they are customised to the mission profile and expected threat. I know there’s always the chance you are taken by surprise which is why there is the panic dispense slap switch, but as they say, you should never put the aircraft somewhere you didn’t put your brain five minutes earlier.

Thanks Falconeer. Though it does seem strange to me that the VMS would not be programmed to differentiate between which types are being dispensed.

When dispensing a CMS program containing only chaff, I still get a "CHAFF FLARE" announcement from the VMS. Is this correct behaviour or should the VMS only announce the type of countermeasure being dispensed? I noticed the same in Wags' HARM tutorial video, and thought it strange he'd be popping flares during an attack at that range.