Sabre-TLA

If you check the mission folder you should see interactive startup and shutdown trainer missions. These missions do highlight the switches if you are not sure which switch is which. You have 10 seconds to locate the correct switch and if not, then it will be highlighted. I found them quite useful when first learning the A-10 but they didn't really fit into the campaign format but the missions are still part of the campaign package and in the folder. You can open them in the mission editor. We have not tested them in a long time so let me know if you find any issues if you want to try them out. We will fix any bugs reported if we can.

That's good news! Thanks for letting us know.

Thanks for reporting the issues. We will retest and see what is going on. We will submit updates for the next patch release if we can get them done in time. Update: We understand the issue (ED made some changes to the way triggers detect the radio settings). We will update and retest all the missions. This should make them functional again. I'll post another update when the changes are submitted to ED. Update 2: All missions have been updated and the fixes submitted to ED for inclusion in the next patch update.

Thanks for reporting that. Likely the game engine has changed again and our trigger range is out of sorts. I'll investigate and tweak the ranges so 160 kts will be selected again.

No problem. It happens. Glad the mission is playing as expected. Let me know if you encounter any other anomalies.

For BFT04 we check the altitude you are at approximately 4nm from the end of the runway. Typical glideslope should be about 3 degrees. If you are lower than 310m ~1000ft then you are below the glideslope. If you are higher than 405m ~1328ft then you are above the glideslope. In between these ranges at 4nm from the end of the runway would put you within the glideslope. I found that a common rule of thumb is 300 ft of altitude for every nautical mile from the runway. So at 4nm 1200 ft would be ideal. Close enough for this type of mission. In BFT09 you get to use the ILS so we actually check the position of the needles to determine accurate glideslope.

Thanks for reporting that. We will retest. It's likely the triggers need more tweaking again as you suggested.

Thanks for reporting the issue. They should definitely be spawning to the east of India not west. It could be a change to the AI behavior (I know ED has been making lots of changes to the AI as the other campaign developers have been complaining about it). I'll do some testing and see if I can replicate the issue. Our triggers are pretty simple and the AI should seek out the player and not abandon the engagement. I'll report back after we have a chance to review what is going on. Update - You didn't indicate if this was in the FC version of the campaign or not. We checked both versions of BFM 02 which is the engagement with the F-4Es and we found that they are setup to spawn east of India. We tested the practice missions and they worked as expected. If it happens again please save the .trk file and send it to us and we can take a look.

That trk played successfully when I ran it. If it happens again on the practice mission please upload a new trk.

I think I found the problem and will submit a fix to ED for the A-10C and A-10C II missions. The practice mission works ok however I did notice that the qual missions (from cold start) had more stringent wings level and speed tests than the practice missions. I believe that in certain conditions it's possible the triggers would not fire so you wouldn't get the appropriate messages. The changes I'll submit will ensure the triggers match so if you can pass the practice mission then you should be able to pass the qual missions if flown within similar parameters.

It's been reported that some aircraft are having an unexpected pitch up on final to some airports. ED is investigating. I suspect the unexpected behavior you encountered may be related to this bug. You can eject if necessary and the campaign will continue but normally you should be able to land ok. Here is the link to the thread where this issue was first reported:

Those are good clues. Thanks.

Thanks for the info. The triggers are timing based not tied to any locations or zones so the location should not matter. I suspect the failed case was taking too long to complete the maneuvers but I'll check the triggers and review your trk file to see if we can get to the bottom of it. There should be some message indicating the reason for the failed attempt. I'll see if I can get that from the trk file. Once we know why then we can see what next steps can be taken to make this better.

Yes we should have a patch for this soon. We have a fix for the radio issue but still working on a fix for the helo. Update: We have a fix for the helo crashing issue. The patch will include both the radio fix and the helo crashing fix. Now the TAC23 mission should play as expected for both A-10C and A-10C II versions. We also updated TAC 24 and TAC 25 missions as they had the same issue. ED has the files so they should be included in the next patch release. Thanks for your patience and for reporting the issue.

I just checked the triggers and you have a 30 minute playtime to destroy as many targets as you can within the kill box. I would say you don't have to kill all of them but you need to kill some of them to pass the mission. This was because for some players they are very adept at identifying and killing targets quickly and others it can take longer for them. As long as you confirm the targets are within the kill box then that is what is important. If you accidentally kill a target outside the kill box you won't fail the mission but will score a Q minus (Q-) rating since you didn't meet the mission objective of only killing targets in the kill box. A Q rating will score 100, a Q- rating will score 80.

Yes according to the briefing you are tasked with patrolling a kill box and eliminating any targets of opportunity. You can use your wingmen to also assist by assigning them targets as you did in TAC18 using the SADL datalink.

Most likely. We also have F-15C Aggressor Red Flag and Basic Flight Training Qualification campaigns for the current FC version in the works. The BFT one is similar to our A-10C BFT campaign. We will likely update all of them to support the FF module once it's ready.

Thank you for your honest feedback. We will review the items you have raised and see what can be done to improve them.

Thanks for reporting the issues. Likely some recent game engine updates have changed the AI behavior and weather again. I'll open a bug report and make the changes to get it back to it's original working order. If you wanted to see how it was originally working you can watch Recon Stewart's video here:

The timer starts when he is finished his dialogue so I recommend looking at the clock and adding five minutes and set that as your time on target. There is some leeway so you don't have to be at the point in space at the exact time but within 30 seconds or so I think. The Q trigger is about 3nm from the overfly point so you need to be within that trigger zone within the 5 minutes from getting the instructions. You do have to ensure you have the correct location as some folks enter the wrong grid coordinates and end up heading in the wrong direction. There is a humvee placed at the correct position on the map if you want to check your coordinates. For the TACAN check we do test to see if it is setup correctly. If not you will get a message like "You did not setup your TACAN correctly! You need to set the TACAN to T/R and select TCN on the NMSP." If you didn't hear that message then you likely had the TACAN setup correctly. Usually there is a message when you do something that fails the mission so if you can post a trk file if it happens again that would be helpful in figuring out if there is a bug or just something went wonky on that flight attempt. The practice mission triggers are identical so you could try that and see if you get the same result.

Yes it's hard to ensure the AI fly the way you would expect and still maintain a proper close formation distance. Usually it's not a problem but once in a while the AI act stupid and do stupid things. We did put some triggers in to have them depart the formation when close to landing and doing other maneuvers so it's possible ED changed something recently to cause that trigger to fail. We will retest and see if we can get the trigger active again. Please ensure you have the latest version of the campaign (if it's an old version you are using).

Not sure why it was changed (possibly ED will fix it in a future update). We don't test for that specific temperature condition (it was from the manual we referenced) so ignore it for now.

You can edit your score in the logbook.lua file located in the Saved Games directories. You can skip a mission by using the SKIP button in the campaign menu. We have not had any reported issues with those altitude triggers so please post a trk file and we can investigate further. Thanks.

That campaign was created before ED started selling campaigns on their website (we sold them on ours using Paypal but had to discontinue it when ED took over the sales aspect). We do intend to sell it from ED's page at some point. Unfortunately there have been a ton of changes to the game engine in the mean time and we need time to update and retest all the missions so they are lower on our priority list at the moment. Plus we have to go through ED's campaign release process which has many other requirements. I'm sorry it's taking so long but we hope to get to it soon. I know many folks that are interested in it.

Sorry still on our to-do list. We haven't forgotten just busy with other projects at the moment.