SpikeGondorff

Thanks for heads up on the multiple triggers. I'll also tweak the tanker speed. I first learned to AAR with the A-10, so I always default to that speed without thinking. :) Hah, yeah, sometimes you just need to do what works. It should be in the briefing and the pages on the kneeboard. What mission were you on that was missing it? Yeah, I finished the campaign the week the SC came out, and I was burned out on mission editing. If I recall, Jester mentions the Stennis somewhat often, so my plan is to just insert the Stennis carrier in the SC missions when it finally comes out. Although I'm getting the itch to create missions again...

I didn't actually try that one mission with an EWR station, because one of the previous mission has a group of Hornets destroying everything that emits a radar signal. :) Also, major spoiler for mission 8: You're right, I did have one set of Mirage planes flying around because that's close to what the UAE had, but you're seeing a lot more of them because of the lack of civilian planes. I might just get rid of all the extra planes at some point. They don't seem to have the impact I want (congested/confused airspace), and Jester likes to go crazy pointing them all out. Especially those dangerous enemy cargo planes. :)

I looked at a few ones, and even uploaded some of the Jester speech from the first mission, and I thought they were terrible. They had some nicer voice packs if you paid for it, but the free ones were generally bad. The voices Kaba has in Cage the Bear are pretty good, but I couldn't find something comparable. There is at least 1 mission where I need an AWACS for the Iranian AI to work properly, and the F5s were inconsistent unless there was an eye in the sky. It seems that without the AWACS, the AI doesn't detect the player or BlueFor consistently. It could be my triggers/scripting, too, but there was one mission where I could only get the actions I wanted with one in the air. I figured the An-50 was better than an E3 or E2, and thought I should introduce it early in the campaign so it's not a "WTF" surprise later. I agree with you about the lack of AI planes. I originally planned on using the Civil and Military Airplane mods, but when I released the 3rd mission as a standalone, very few people downloaded it until I offered an option without those mods. Most of those Mirages should have been planes like 737s and A320s, but I don't have that option with vanilla. Instead you get Mirages, C130s, and that lone Russian passenger jet. :( Thanks for the feedback, and please let me know if you see anything else amiss!

You can delete the helo if you don't mind messing with it in the mission editor. Weird that you don't see any waypoints for it, but I do (but it behaves like it has no waypoints). Something is screwy with it, so I updated the campaign a week ago and changed it from a CH-53 to an SH-60. With the updated mission, the SH-60 takes off and actually follows the waypoints. It's pure eye candy, so if you just delete it nothing bad will happen to the mission. Or you can download the updated campaign (a few other things are tweaked, too). Sorry for the hassle!

Hah, thanks guys. I wasn't thinking it was some sort of copyright issue, but more of a "don't be a d!ck and steal our thunder." As I said, I knew there was a campaign coming, but assumed it would be based in the Caucuses because that's the free map. This made me laugh. Quality over quantity, right? :) I like their Causcuses Viggen campaigns, so hopefully it will at least as good as those, and am about to start their Red Flag campaign. I have high hopes for that one, too.

Yeah, dealing with the AI behavior is the most frustrating thing. All your wingmen's names are insults. :) Lol, I had no idea. I knew they were working on a campaign of some sort, but I didn't know it was about Operation Earnest Will. I was reading up on the F14 history, and figured Earnest Will would be a good setting for a campaign in DCS (minor conflict that didn't escalate into full war), especially since we're limited in geographical locations. I can remove it if it infringes too much on what HB is doing.

Thank you for the positive feedback. It's always great to hear that other people enjoyed your work. :thumbup: Fly safe! :pilotfly:

I don't know of clean way to determine hits on a runway. You can set up zones along the length and do Bomb in Zone triggers, but it's not actually where the bomb explodes. Any bomb falling in the zone would count, so you could drop bombs at 20k feet that completely missed the runway as long as they passed through the zone on the way down. I'm sure the scripting people can do it, but I'm an amateur scripter (a thief, really, I just copy scripts and tweak them to what I need :)). If you know of a script that can determine damage in a zone, I'll look at tweaking the script for it. I think the 2/3 damage to the HP is nice balance, but I can certainly tweak it to 1/2 or even 1/3 if that seems more plausible and people are having issues. And good call on renaming the files. Maybe just the root folder so people can look there for the version they're on instead of the ModifiedDateTime. The mission time was based on a quick turnaround from last evening's sweep, and before Iran could fly more support into it. The reason why they don't attack Northeast -> Southwest is that would require flying over Iran proper, and they would (theoretically) be spotted earlier. I flip flopped on the time/direction when creating it, so I may tweak it (or change the sweep mission to morning/noon and the OCA to evening). The difficulty with the sun glare wasn't too bad, in my opinion, and added that little "command has no idea what they're doing when they send us on these missions" feeling, so I opted to leave it. If other people hate it too much as well, then it's easily changed, and I can always rationalize it in the mission brief.:music_whistling: If Jester complained about you popping up, then that should have made the bombing run a bit more exciting. :) Thanks to you both for the feedback. Please keep it coming.

I'm glad you're liking it except for that mission 7. You're not the first to report issues with it, and I recently updated the mission to be more lenient on determining if the runway is destroyed. Sorry for the hassle, but if you re-download the campaign/mission (date should be July 30th) it hopefully will trigger the destruction of the base. You shouldn't have to set any delayed fuses or anything. I never had any issues with destroying the runway until recently, so I don't know if something changed in the game or if my skills degraded that much. Previously, you needed to be near perfect to get the runway destroyed (100% of the HP), but I changed it so you only need to destroy about 2/3 of the runway HP. If you're still having issues after downloading the updated missions, please let me know. I should also probably start labelling the files with the version number. :music_whistling: You're addition of the date was perfect, so thank you for that! Please let me know if you see any other issues. Thanks!

In case you don't know, you can order Jester to change the radio through his radial menu without having to swap seats. Might be easier to just swap seats, though. I'll have to try it. Yeah, logical doesn't really work in DCS campaigns. :) I tried to imply that the F-15s would be the absolute last resort to do it because they're taking off from the UAE. If they fired on Iranian planes/boats while based in the UAE, that would draw the UAE into the conflict, or result in the US getting kicked out of the UAE, which was to be avoided at all costs. I should have emphasized that more in the mission itself, as I think I only referenced it in the previous one. But yeah, it's mental gymnastics to make it so you're the hero. Otherwise, it would be just as uneventful for the Tomcat as it was in real life. :) You should be able to end the mission at the divert field if you want. Once you landed at the divert your Results should be 100 and at that point you can advance. In case you don't have (real life) time to make it back to the carrier.

Excellent! If you don't mind editing the mission files directly, it's super easy to enable Easy Comms in the mission editor. Another user (Castro Troy, I think) said the missions work fine if you flip it on. I haven't tested it, but if you really prefer Easy Comms, it's an easy switch.

What key are you hitting to open the radio menu? Easy Communications is off in this campaign, so you need to tune to the correct channel and hit the correct Push To Talk key (check in the kebindings for ARC 182 for RIO radio and ARC 159 for Pilot radio). The carrier should be on 127.500, which is only available from the RIO radio. This is key for the remainder of the missions, too, as directions will come from AWACS only if you're tuned on the correct frequency. Apparently there is a bug with the F14 and CASE III recoveries and No Communication, but I have always been able to trigger it for CASE I. The first mission should definitely be a CASE I, so there might be something else going on. Glad you liked the first mission, and I hope you like the rest. Let me know if you see any more radio issues, because they all work fine for me (except that CASE III), so if it's something else, I can't reproduce it and would need some more information. Thanks!

I set them to about 5 knots at sea level, and maybe 25 knots at the highest level, which I think is about normal. I'm no meteorologist, though, so feel free to point me to the winds aloft data for the Persian Gulf. The weather is static because from my quick research the weather is pretty static for the times in the campaign. If I recall, the chance of precipitation outside of the winter months is like 2%. Even during the winter months it's only like 10% or something like that. Similar stats for cloudiness, too, although not as bad. I think even during the "rainy" season it was still clear over 60% of the days (and more than partly cloudy only about 20%), and the summer had even more clear days. Again, that was just what I remember from my quick googling when researching for the campaign, so if you have other data, I'm open to it. Hope that explains the thought process, and I'm glad you like it overall!

I tried it several times and it was hit or miss for me. It always worked when I tried it from the checkpoint mission (which was always a CASE 1 recovery), but it would sometimes work when I did the full mission (which was CASE 1 or 3 depending on how long it took to complete the mission). To be honest, I've always found CASE 3's to be a bit wonky with the communications. I assume I'm doing something wrong even when following the directions in the SC .pdf. I updated the campaign and set the start time earlier to avoid any chance of CASE 3. Hopefully that will fix it. I flew it again today with the original values and it triggered just fine. I'm guessing the wind is causing issues with the bombs hitting the runway consistently and accurately. The original values also required near perfection with the bombs, so I went ahead and changed the criteria to make it a bit easier. Those original values were a bit harsh, as it required actually destroying the runway (essentially, hit points = 0). You should only need to reduce the runway's hitpoints by 2/3 now instead of 100%. Give it a shot and see if that works for you. I can tweak some more if needed. Thanks!

I tried a few times and I couldn't destroy it either. I added a script to spit out the health of the runway and I could never get it below the threshold to trigger the success. I don't know what changed between this patch and the last, but something is calculated differently or my bombing skills got way worse. I tweaked the damage necessary to trigger the success, but my internet went down while I was doing it, and I can't upload the changes (typing this on my phone, so sorry for spelling/grammar). Assuming my cable provider is done with their maintenance by tomorrow, I'll upload it then. Sorry for the hassle, and thanks for pointing this out.

Yeah, that was a weird one. Hope it's all squared away for you. Say hi to your brother, Pollux. :) Is it happening on every mission? It shouldn't impact the completion of the mission. Are failing to advance in the campaign when this happens? I don't have any control over the radio calls from the super carrier, but it might be some weird bug. There was a thread about DCS missing the radio calls, but I don't remember the specifics (something about when you call "See you at 10" if I recall). I just blitzed though the first mission and it triggered fine. Please let me know if it's stopping you from advancing in the campaign, as it shouldn't do that at all. I'll poke around some more and fly the 2nd mission when I get some time. I know Gunslinger said it happened on that one. Let me know if there are other missions you see it, too. Thanks!

There are 2 "spots" to change the TACAN. One is the lever that changes the second number of the channel (X1, X2, X3, etc.), and it sounds like you know where that is. The other is the edge of a little wheel on the right side of where you can see the TACAN number. It's tough to explain, but mouse around there and you should see your mouse change to the symbol where you can interact with it. Clicking that should change the first number of the TACAN (6X, 7X, 8X, etc.). Hopefully that helps.

Updated the campaign files to fix the weird issue with the CH-53 immediately landing after takeoff, which would cause GasCan to not take off on Mission 2 (thanks for Castor Troy for pointing it out). Also aligned the kneeboard/briefing TACAN information with what the carrier is actually broadcasting in Mission 1 (thanks for MAD-MM for bringing it up). I'm glad you enjoyed it, and thank you for the kind words! :)

Does it work in other missions with Easy Communications off? What button are you pressing to open the comms menu? It will be a different button than the easy comms menu, and will be a different button depending on if you're talking on the pilot's radio or RIO radio. In the key bindings menu look for keybinds for the 2 ARC radio items (ARC 159 for the pilot and ARC 182 for the RIO). Hope that helps.

I tried the mission again after the most recent Stable update (which is currently the same as OB), and I now see the same issue. The problem appears to be the CH-53. It's supposed to take off and fly to Dubai, but instead it takes off, circles to the back of the carrier, and lands. When the helo is on the landing area, GasCan won't take off. I have no idea why the CH-53 is ignoring its flight plan and just immediately landing. I tried changing the flight's speed, altitude, length, etc., and he just laughs at me and then lands on the carrier. I swapped him out with an SH-60, and everything went well. I'll check through the rest of the missions tomorrow and see if are other helos ignoring my orders. Once they're all fixed, I'll update the campaign.

Are you on OB or Stable? SC or plain ol' Stennis? I just ran through both the Super Carrier and vanilla versions of the mission in Stable, and GasCan launched just fine. He actually launched before me, which is annoying, but he did it just fine.

Ugh, that's annoying. It should be 74X. I originally created that mission with 76X before realizing the Stennis' number was 74. I changed it in the mission editor, but forgot to update the documentation. I checked the next few missions and they're all correct, so they should all be good. I'll update the first mission when I get some time. Sorry for the incorrect briefing and kneeboard pages. Hope you enjoy the rest of the missions! Unfortunately, I don't think I'll do an EC build. There's already 11 missions in the campaign, with another 9 missions that are checkpoints. Then there's another 20 missions for the Super Carrier version. Adding an EC version to both the non-SC and SC would be 80 missions that's I have to update if (when) something goes wrong. Sorry. :(

I poked around at some of the free text-to-speech engines out there and I thought they were pretty bad. I even uploaded the first half of the Mission 1 with it, and hated it. I heard some better voices on a few engines, but you had to pay for those, which sucks. Glad you like the writing. Aside from learning how to script, that was the longest part of mission making, but hopefully makes some of the boring transits a bit more enjoyable. The checkpoints were something I always wanted in missions, too, so I'm happy to see I'm not alone. :) I'm not sure, as I've never really used Voice Attack. I think it would just work normally if it's as good as the reviews say, but I can't say for certain. Did it work fine in the first mission? It's the same radio frequency and everything. Only difference is the time of day for Mission 2 is close to dusk when landing and it might be a CASE III. Or it might just be a weird bug. I have the 2 radio buttons bound to my HOTAS, and I think they're just called ARC-182 and ARC-159 in the bindings if you want to slum it like us normal people. :) And to be honest, I don't know how Easy Radios would work with F10 radio calls in the missions. I updated the campaign with a better speed check for the landings. I specifically tested the whole 2nd mission with the Super Carrier and landed without calling the carrier, and it triggered just fine. You should see some Jester chatter about 5 seconds after you land, which means the trigger fired. If you really don't want to fly that mission again, shoot me a PM and I can tell you how to edit the mission so you can bypass it.

Glad you liked it! It was my first, which is probably why there are no voice overs. I really have no clue how to record the voice, and with learning all the mission editor stuff and minor scripting, it wasn't something I wanted to add to the list of things. Not sure if I'll do any more campaigns, at least anytime soon. I'm kind of burned out on creating missions, but I'll probably get the itch again. Thanks again! I'm happy you're enjoying it so far! For your mission 7 question: success is only determined if you destroy the runway. It doesn't matter what your wingmen do. More spoiler info below:

Not sure about GasCan. Unless you're communicating with him through the F10 menu, I can't control what he says. He's part of your group, and I double checked and Channel 1 is the correct one. EDIT: I completely forgot about the Silent setting. GasCan was going a little goofy calling out every “civilian“ aircraft from RAT, so I set him on Silent for the first half. I'll look at it again and see about tweaking it. Sorry about that...just forgot I told him to shut up. :) I think I found the issue with the landings (check below). The lack of comms wouldn't be a problem for triggering the landing/completion (see next paragraph). I just tried it and communicated with the carrier just fine. Are you using the ARC-182 (RIO's radio) to talk? That's the only Radio that can tune to the carrier, while the ARC-159 (Pilot's Radio) can't. Even if Jester tunes to it, you have to push the correct button to talk to the carrier. Getting the correct carrier comms isn't something I can control, provided you're tuned to the correct frequency (127.500). I think I found the issue with the landing trigger. The speed trigger I mentioned earlier is set lower than normal (9 kts instead of the 30 kts listed). With the carrier moving, if you don't get pulled back by the wires after landing, you might not trigger it. I'll tweak the value and test it tomorrow, and after checking all the other missions for any lower values, upload the changes. You should be able to land at the alternate field to complete the mission, if you don't want to wait for the upload. Just make sure you stop completely (which apparently you can't do on a moving carrier, according to the mission editor). Sorry for the hassle. I'll upload the changes once I get all the versions of that mission sorted. Thanks for the patience.