The Enemy Within as official DLC

New, separate forum for the campaign has been created - click HERE

I am happy to announce that "The Enemy Within" campaign will become an official DLC for the DCS A-10C Warthog. That means that the freeware version is no longer available for download, as it is undergoing a series of upgrades and changes which I always wanted to make. The most important among these are:

- completely new system of briefings, composed of three parts:

A. FRAGO (fragmentary order, based on real-life examples)

B. Briefing by intelligence officer (providing general information about progress in the campaign, situation in the country and delivering the background story)

C. Briefing by the actual AMC who will be directing player's flight during the mission, containing most important information for the mission and advice which may be missing in FRAGO

Moreover, the briefings will have some degree of RP element in it (all the officers will be described, will have their specific way of speaking etc.)

- additional flight plan and maps for all of the missions + more recon photos etc.

- additional voiceovers: for most of the AI flights omitted so far (mainly Georgian recon craft, but not only, also planes tasked with attacking different targets etc)

- some of the voiceovers will be redone

- additional tasks and occurrences in some of the missions

- three new missions added to the campaign

- more AI units for greater immersion / atmosphere

- some other surprises it is too early to unveil at this stage.

The DLC should be available in September / October.

The discussion on the previous version can be found here.

Also, for all those who played whole or part of the campaign - I would be grateful for any comments or ideas you might have on how to make it better. Perhaps you have an idea of a mission you always wanted to see. Please post here or PM me.

Many thanks for all those who helped me so far, I hope that the new Enemy Within will be even more immersive and entertaining!

***EDIT***

After having finishing the upgrades, I am moving to polishing the campaign. Current features:

- 80 pages of FRAGOs (fragmentary orders), based on the ones used by military in real operations

- around 50 pages of briefing / objectives text

- around 40 maps and recon photos

- 3 totally new missions and additional tasks in two others

- a total of 672 voiceovers in the campaign (so more than 150 new ones, something new is happening in almost every mission)

- total number of missions: 21 (I would estimate that gives around 30-35 hours to finish the campaign, give or take)

***EDIT***

And an official cover:

Congratulations, that's well deserved and I hope you'll get lots of purchases! :thumbup:

Can't wait to beta test and, if I may, present some very mild spoilers for those who have to wait 'til release. :D

New versions of mission 1 and 2 will be going your way tonight, Sir!

Good to hear!

Baltic creates the most immersive missions. I have no doubt they will be worth the purchase price.

Looking forward to it.

Nate

Great news! I will buy it for sure!

Congrats Baltic. I'm looking forward to the DLC version!

congrats, i will be sure to get it even having done the existing one to both support your hard work and see the improvements.

I agree with this, when someone put such hard work into making this sim what it is for me I would like to repay my gratitude.

Just to make it clear and I love DCS and don't want to be seen as a naysayer, study sims are great, but without truly realistic campaigns I just can't get into it.

I am a Single Player and despite (is it 10 years now from lomac) that mission editor has not rocked my world, I must have downloaded terabytes of DCS patches and it's still the same. People like you sir (Baltic) make this sim for me, so I would just as well pay for mission content as aircraft.

I just hope that if there is something DCS can do to the mission editor to help you make the campaigns even better they do it!

Well done and congratulations!

You have done a fantastic job on that campaign and it deserves to be part of ED's DLC campaigns.

Looking forward to the new version. :thumbup:

I've always been a fan of the detailed briefings of The Enemy Within, and from what I've seen so far, these briefings will be even better in the new version! :thumbup:

Congratulations :)

Reward for a job well done. Look forward to the DLC

Many thanks for all the kind words! I will do my best to make the final version even better than the previous one.

@ Mr Burns - the editor is already awesome and lets one do almost anything mission designer might want. There are some things to improve of course, but nothing huge. What is needed are some more changes in the engine, but they are coming!

Well done bud, looking forward to it.

Congratulations Baltic_Dragon. Nice work :thumbup:

Cheers

Hans

Congratulations, well deserved. I'm currently playing the campaign, and it is the best A-10C campaign I've played, and one of the best of all the campaigns. It is up there with Revanche, Deployment campaign. Truly a piece of superb work, will surely buy the upgraded version once it is available. :)

One small idea - I don't remember the mission name, but it is the one you have to dive deep under the cloud cover, into a valley, to destroy an SA-9 after which a JTAC will become available and will you task you to destroy two bunkers. In the mission briefing you're ordered to stay in safe altitude, above the SAM envelope. It would be great to give player a hint in a way of a radio msg "permitted to descent below hard deck".

Thanks for the suggestion, winz - and for the praise. Dully noted, I like the idea. After seeing AARs by many people here on the forums I am adjusting the briefings and ROE for the mission, but this change can be implemented.

That is exactly what I would like to see here - while for another month / month and a half I am working on upgrading the campaign please let me know what you think should be improved, adjusted or added - would be great to be able to include as many ideas as possible!

Do you make it for 2.0 or still for 1.x?

Great News! I tried the freeware version but only made it to the 2nd mission so far because of time lacking but what I've seen in that time was just great! I really like realistic and immersive missions which are way too few in DCS (especially in MP), so I will certainly buy it when it'll be polished and released as a DLC.

Just one question: Would it be possible to offer the campaign in a coop-version as well? Especially with DCS World 2 it should be possible I guess, since multi-player flights will be possible then. If you could make this happen I would be able to convince 1 or 2 friends to buy it too.

Anyways, keep up the good work!

Do you make it for 2.0 or still for 1.x?

Still for 1.x - I will have it ready in the first week of September, so hopefully it can be released not long after that. When 2.0 comes alive I hope to have the campaign updated, but from what I've seen so far there shouldn't be any problems.

For 2.0 I am working on a different campaign in Georgia set in a bit different scheme - within a larger conflict. But that is currently on hold while I upgrade the Enemy Within.

Great News! I tried the freeware version but only made it to the 2nd mission so far because of time lacking but what I've seen in that time was just great! I really like realistic and immersive missions which are way too few in DCS (especially in MP), so I will certainly buy it when it'll be polished and released as a DLC.

 

Just one question: Would it be possible to offer the campaign in a coop-version as well? Especially with DCS World 2 it should be possible I guess, since multi-player flights will be possible then.

 

Anyways, keep up the good work!

What I plan to do is to release those missions which would be fun to play in coop mode together with the campaign. Not all, however, would be fit for that - for instance M1 won't be much of a fun, and some others are quite scripted and not very good for MP or are meant to be played with one player only. However, I reckon quite a few missions could be made available in MP mode together with the DLC.

Congratulations :)

... When 2.0 comes alive I hope to have the campaign updated ...

Makes sense - you wouldn't be able to sell it anymore, when a version comes out that breaks your missions. Some mission makers stated every new version breaks something. :smilewink: