Super Wabbit

You can also get creative with your loadouts. The F-16 can't carry as many weapons as the F-18, but it has the option of not carrying sidewinders. So you can carry 4 to 6 AIM-120C's to keep enemies at a distance and still have the ability to carry a decent bomb load. With the F-18, I will sometimes sling 2 JDAMs on one pylon then 120C's on the rest if it looks like I'm going to need the extra missiles. The Hornet can dogfight pretty well in an asymmetric loadout, so get creative!

I guess that should be tip #1! FYI, Operation Black Spire is set in Nevada and there are a few targets that are pretty close, something that might be excellent for the A-10 with a little bit of help from the Friendly fighter support.

TL/DR: I've played through Snow Fox and Clear Field and currently working through Black Spire. This mission is really best served using a multi-role fighter like the Hornet or Viper. I think the Hornet is probably the best at it right now with its ability to carry so many A/A missiles in addition to GBU-38 and GBU-31 (those are the primary A/G weapons I use when I'm by myself). However, the viper and it's CBU-97's are great to clean up large clusters of ground targets. In single player mode, an A-10 would be very very difficult. F-14 could probably be okay, though taking out SA-10 SAMs will be difficult because the targeting pod is so low res (assuming your using the mod that allows you to use the TPOD from the pilot's seat until Heatblur add TPOD support to Jester). Here are some tips I've learned: Tip #1: Take out the major SAM sites first. Ignore the missions until you've destroyed or crippled all the major SAM sites: SA-10, SA-2, SA-3, SA-15 Tor, SA-8 9K33 Osa etc. For the fixed SAM sites, such as SA-10, SA-2, and SA-3, you only need to destroy the tracking radars to make the entire site a non-threat. They do not regenerate (don't get any ideas Surrexen). I've had great success using an F-18 and carrying no more than 2 GBU-38's to attack SA-10's, SA-15 and SA-8's (I only carry 2 so that I can fly higher). SA-3's won't shoot JSOWs, so use those. SA-2's will fire on JSOW's but a standard site can be defeated by firing 4 JSOW's at once. Tip #2: Now that you've got breathing room, engage nearby fighters prior to your ground attack. The spawn times for the enemy fighters can be a bit fast (it's a range) for single player. Be sure you not only take out any fighters over your objective, but any others in adjacent sectors. General rule of thumb is that if they are within 50nm, they're gonna come for you. Sometimes you can lure these enemy fighters out from the cover a SAM site to make it easier to engage them. Tip #3: If you call in air to air support, join up with them and make sure they are out front. Like solidGad mentioned, call in air to air support and SEAD support. SEAD aircraft are typically F-16's or F-18's so they will carry A/A missiles and will try to defend themselves. That gives you 4 friendly fighters to join you over the objective. Tip #4: Consider sending fighter support to an area adjacent to your objective to act as a fighter screen based what you see on your Hornet SA page or Viper HSD with data link. This means that you will more than likely have to engage and clean out on enemy fighter group in your objective but you will then be screened from other sectors by the friendly AI flight. For example, if your objective is in the Bandar Abbas area, that's covered by 3 overlapping fighter patrol areas, send your fighter support to Havadarya instead of Bandar Abbas. This will cover your West flank and even provide some support over the objective. You can even get creative by sending the fighters to a sector to the West of your objective and have the SEAD flight go East of your objective to give you cover from two sides. Tip #5: Consider carrying less A/G weapons in favor of as many A/A missiles as possible. In single player, especially if you aren't calling in support, you'll need as many missiles as you can carry. Honestly, F-18 does this the best right now. If a mission only calls to destroy 2 tanks, well, put two GBU-28's a single pylon, then load up 8 more AIM-120's and 2 AIM-9X. Also consider making two or more trips to complete an objective. Whether that's because you can't carry enough A/G ordnance or you had to run away in the middle of the attack. Tip #6: Don't be afraid to run away. Pressing a bad situation that gets you shot down can cost you more time compared to breaking off an attack and engaging enemy fighters, or simply running away and re-positioning to get a better attack. Tip #7: If a particular mission is causing a lot of headache, just skip it. There's no penalty for that and it will eventually come up again. Sometimes, with the slight randomness of the spawn times and patrol routes, your luck is just against you for a particular session. I've flown missions that I could not catch a break and other times, missions in the same area were no trouble at all. Tip #8: Don't ignore AWACs calles, especially when they say HOT. Keep an eye on your SA page and consider centering the view on your aircraft so nothing sneaks up behind you. Pseudo Tip: JSOW Spam. I've not tried this just yet. But an F-18 can carry 8 JSOW. I don't think that's enough to take out an SA-10 but every thing else should be overwhelmed. If you're lucky enough to get a mission that calls for destroying a SAM site, you won't need the TPOD to find the target, you could simply enter in the precise coordinates, get up to 40,000 feet and let them all fly then run away. You should be able to 40+ miles of range and that's enough distance to be able to stay away from SAMs and enemy fighters. I've been playing these missions almost nightly since Surrexen first created them. So far they are some of the best times I've had in DCS so far. The replay-ability is very high and there is enough randomness that nothing feels like it's on rails. Simply adding one human wingman goes a long way and opens up a lot more options on how to complete a mission.

That being said....if it seems like the majority of people have it... All your missions can be run without the carrier too, which is cool btw, so even if you did include the super carrier, it's not required. I appreciate that, I end up skipping a lot of missions that require mods.

I think leave the default Stennis for now. Unless the new carrier is wildly popular and the majority of people are actually using it, then having the Stennis in so that everyone can use it makes the most sense to me. My worry is that players who don't have the super carrier may skip trying these missions and you'd be splitting your player base. Leave it as default and everyone plays. I'm curious to see what the super carrier brings to the table. When your running these missions, you don't spend a lot of time at the carrier so I'm not sure it's entirely worth it or required to make the sim even more immersive than it already is. You're just not spending that much time interacting with it. So...having not seen the super carrier at all, I feel like it's going to be more of a nice to have than something that'll be over the top cool.

This would be a great game mechanic!

It should not. In fact I did this just that last night and it worked just fine. It's my understanding that after a mission target is destroyed it'll pick another random target from a list of unfinished targets - ie targets that are still alive.

I fly in VR and anything that helps performance is welcomed but I honestly don't know that removing the destroyed static objects would noticeably increase performance. But also in VR, we wouldn't really care if we saw the smoke of destroyed static objects. So.... Option 1, while not as visually interesting, would be far easier to implement and maintain than doing all the testing to verify how many little explosions it takes to destroy a static object. Especially considering the same type of static object took differing amounts of damage based on terrain. Having to test each and every static object. We've completed Clear Field and Snow Fox and through the many hours of playing this mission, the most common problem has been an issue with static targets. Thanks again for all the hard work and enjoy your holiday!

Surrexen, tl:dr - the explosion command in the "Snowfox Persistent World.lua" script is not sufficient enough to kill Shelter Structures. I think this is only an issue with the three static objects that are listed as Shelters under the mission editor's Structures category: "Bandar Lengeh - Boat Bunker" "Bandar Abbas - Missile Bunker 1" "Bandar Abbas - Missile Bunker 2" I see your comment in the Persistent lua,"not exact science :/" - lol. It really isn't! So I tested what explosion value needs to be set in the "Snowfox Persistent World.lua" script. For the boat bunker, a value of 3000 destroyed it but this left the two missile bunkers alive. I found that I had to set the explosion value to at least 3200 to get the missile bunkers to also be destroyed. I can understand not wanting to increase the explosion for fear of taking out units nearby, so I wondered if a double explosion on the Shelters would work. I edited your lua script by adding "coord:Explosion(1700)" right after the original explosion command: for i = 1, StaticIntermentTableLength do local SnowfoxStatic = STATIC:FindByName(SnowfoxStaticInterment[i]) local coord = SnowfoxStatic:GetCoordinate() coord:Explosion(1500) --works for Workshop size statics, may hit other things, not exact science :/ coord:Explosion(1700) --added by Super Wabbit to destroy missile bunkers coord:BigSmokeMedium(0.25) SEFDeletedStaticCount = SEFDeletedStaticCount + 1 end BTW: "Abu Musa - Bunker 1" and "Abu Musa - Bunker 2", which are actually listed as "Bunker 1" in the mission editor's Structures list, are taken out by the original explosion from the Persistent lua. Also, I don't see this as an issue with the other static objects, like the processing plants, comms towers, hangars, etc. I'm assuming that DCS has some type of health/hit value for static objects and that Shelters have a larger value as they seem to require larger bombs to destroy compared to other static objects. Just curious, was this similar to the issue with the outpost static object bug you noted in the past?

It could have been something I had done. The behavior I was seeing was that the mission was not writing to the files even though I de-sanitize 'lfs' and 'io'. I don't think it was anything with the mission and it was a few versions back.

I ran into something similar a few versions back. My issue was due to the two persistent files the missions writes to getting corrupted. I copied them out of the DCS root directory and ran the mission again, which created new empty files. I then copied the already destroyed targets into each file respectively, ran the mission and it worked.

Nope. Operation Sea Slug is perfect.

The JTAC will be awesome, that might get us into the F-5 or Mirage some for LGB loadouts. Indeed we have dived deep in to F-18, F-16, and F-14 and feel confident in taking on any mission (other than SEAD) at this point. We haven't cleared the map yet. We've destroyed 185 ground targets and 13 static targets. But we'll get there! We've definitely learned a lot as a result of this mission and can't recommend it enough. Thanks so much for all your effort!

Thanks for the heads up regarding the tags. We've found that once we've taken out the larger SAM threats, a two-ship flight is not having too much trouble completing a mission on its own. It has required us to really dig in deep with how the jets work to make us efficient. Fly to the objective, clear out fighters, then one will quickly locate the target and kill it while the other provides a fighter screen. Learning how to quickly find the target has been the key - get good with the targeting pod of your choice!

We're still playing this map almost daily, thanks again! Question: Does adding an option to the Red Cap aircraft, like restricting countermeasures or defining AA Missile attack ranges, carry over to when they are spawned?

Here are two short track files. Beta 2.5.5.39384 Issue occurs in Single and Multiplayer Even loading wingtip 9X's and two single pylon 9X's - step from station 2 to station 8 doesn't work. So the issue seems to be when the system automatically steps to the next pylon missile after firing. That and the fact that the 9X's stay on the pylons after firing them. f-18-bug-sgl-aim-9x-rail-4.trk f-18-bug-sgl-aim-9x-rail-2.trk

I guess you could mark it with smoke, but one of the best aspects of this mission you've created is that it really teaches you how to navigate and target things without making it easy. I've learned so much about a lot of these jets on that front that it makes me feel very capable. On one mission I, I pulled up the map and placed my mouse over the exact point listed in the target report. Using the Sat layer on the map I was able to line up the roads and other landmarks to ID the location of the target (I think this was Ochamchira - Military HQ). Then used the TPod on F-14 to find the precise building. It felt realistic, a bit of work to do this, but very rewarding.

Are there any tips on identifying a target when it is a static object? As an example, the mission to destroy the "Ochamchira - Train Station" was tough in an aircraft like the F-14 where I couldn't get the precision target coordinates. I had to load up the mission in the editor just to figure out which one was the real target. Thanks!

From a jet that starts on the carrier, or rearming from an airfield: Datalink pod is tuned to correct station, I see the Walleye and am able to slew the camera around around from the DL page. As soon as I drop the Walleye the Datalink camera goes fuzzy as if it is not tuned correctly. Re-tune the DL and it remains fuzzy. Works fine when starting in-air.

Thanks for the response. We doubled those values tonight but it still felt overwhelming. Almost like there are more than one cap group being spawned in the cap zone. But looking at the script that doesn't seem to be possible. But, Is this a typo? Is the Kuznetsov cap group supposed to spawn in Zone 4? --ZONE 5 / Theta / Admiral Kuznetsov REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCap( "Theta", CAPZoneRed4, 1000, 10000, 600, 800, 800, 1200, "BARO" ) REDA2ADispatcher:SetSquadronCapInterval( "Theta", 1, 600, 1500, 1 )

This is a great mission, my friends and I have been playing it almost every night. Thanks for your hard work. Typically its just two of us playing at any one time. Even with a fighter sweep and CAP up we're finding it difficult to complete missions in the Gudauta area because we're spending our time trying to clear enemy fighters. It's like we can't carry enough missiles while carrying any A2G stores. Can't tell you how many times the Gudauta fighters spawn right under us. How can I increase the time between waves? Is it just modifying the LowInterval and HighInterval values in the A2A Defense System lua?

I just deleted the A-4 mod and I no longer have this issue. Path the mod should be C:/Users/[your user name]/Saved Games/DCS.openbeta/mods/aircraft/

Same behavior as everyone else. Hosting a MP sessions or through the Mission Editor. Initial spawn in an F-14 and takeoff is fine. Drop some GB-10's and tried to land only to fall through the ground. Subsequent spawns in any aircraft type immediate have be falling through the ground. Was flying the Fade Away mission on Beta: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3302509/?sphrase_id=17960784

Friend of mine both purchased the Persian Gulf map on the recent Steam sale and we too have noticed significant decrease in our VR performance. Our VR settings are as low as we can get them without making the cockpits unusable.

I can confirm the same behavior as JackFlash. Game Flight mode is not enabled. Key bindings are not double bound. Axis tuning is correct, deadzones accounted for and curves set etc. I have Auto Rudder unchecked and Landing Assistance set to 0. Verified server is not forcing game mode. Simply taxing around I see the rudder moving on it's own as if it is trying to keep my taxiing straight. Taxi up to 10 knots then push the stick forward to unlock the tail wheel. You will see the rudder move on its own to the left as it tries to keep you straight. Go to extrenal view: taxiing straght ahead, I go full right deflection on rudders then ease off the rudders. Before I get back to the neutral position I can see my rudder swings to the left as it compensates. Also, a some speed, my rudder authority is being limited. From external view: from a dead stop with full rudder deflection, I slowly increase taxi speed and I've noticed that at some speed (between 7 and 10 knots) the rudder will snap back from full deflection to some intermediate position. Above that speed I can no longer see full deflection on my rudder. Bringing up the Controls Indicator (Rctrl+Enter) I see the rudder input bar is grayed out at the edges (this indicates the toe-brake axis I believe). Below a certain speed the rudder will indicate to the far edge of the input bar but above a certain speed the rudder snaps back into the red bar area (see screenshots). Screenshots of Rudder Deflection Behavior: https://imgur.com/a/zVncM18 I see no noticeable change in behavior with different combinations of Auto Rudder and Takeoff Assistance enabled/disabled. It seems like enabling or disabling those options has no effect.