Su-25T: Op. Dawn Raven - Requesting feedback.

[DarkFire]

OK, my latest single player mission for the Su-25T went live yesterday, it's available here:

 

http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/1305332/

 

Name: Su-25T Operation Dawn Raven

Quick Summary:

 

This mission involves attacking several AA and ground targets in and around a small village that has been taken over by a terrorist group. After your attack a pair of helicopters will land outside the village and deploy a Spetsnaz commando team that will conduct an offensive sweep, eliminate the terrorists and then re-embark on the helicopters. The operation takes place very early in the morning.

 

The zip file that I published to the DCS web site includes the mission and an accompanying story / briefing / air tasking order document for you to read. Hopefully this will add some immersion.

 

This mission includes a pile of custom briefing material and some awesome voice-over work by community members Blooz and P5138. Thanks very much to both of them for their efforts!

 

I'd really appreciate some feedback on this, both for the mission itself and the briefing document that I included in the zip file: what works, what could be better, what isn't necessary.

 

I want to be a better mission designer so that I can hopefully write realistic but also fun and interesting missions for the community and myself to fly and feedback would be very helpful to that end. Please don't feel the need to be overly polite because of how long this took me to put together: if you feel some aspect of the mission, or the entire thing for that matter, is utterly crap then please say so :smilewink:

[Tello]

Hey I played your mission and I would like to point out that I have only been playing DCS World/Su25T for a week now. (I was raised in Warthunder SB and are now looking for more than ww2's piston engines. and free me from the stupid grind)

 

I think that it is a really great mission but then again I might not know what you could have done better. I like the fact it was dark and I got some very good training in LLTV. The enemy really choose to place them self in a bottleneck situation where it was easy to get in at safe distance with out the big hazzle. I want to try and take bombs next time I play it.

 

So far I have tried to find and install as many missions I could find(DCS is a whole new thing for me, modules, user made stuff. its awesome) and yours is one of the favorites. I even made a user here just to tell you :P

Keep up the good work. It can only help me on the way to prepare for online play.

 

Thank you for great mission. Do make more =)

[DarkFire]

Hey I played your mission and I would like to point out that I have only been playing DCS World/Su25T for a week now. (I was raised in Warthunder SB and are now looking for more than ww2's piston engines. and free me from the stupid grind)

 

I think that it is a really great mission but then again I might not know what you could have done better. I like the fact it was dark and I got some very good training in LLTV. The enemy really choose to place them self in a bottleneck situation where it was easy to get in at safe distance with out the big hazzle. I want to try and take bombs next time I play it.

 

So far I have tried to find and install as many missions I could find(DCS is a whole new thing for me, modules, user made stuff. its awesome) and yours is one of the favorites. I even made a user here just to tell you :P

Keep up the good work. It can only help me on the way to prepare for online play.

 

Thank you for great mission. Do make more =)

 

Thanks, much appreciated! I value feedback from players of all experience levels. If you want to try playing the mission with bombs instead of missiles you should be free to adjust your loadout from the mission editor. I don't think I locked the loadout. One thing to bear in mind is that using iron bombs will take you within range of the Igla-S manpad unless you climb up to at least 3000m AGL.

 

Also bear in mind that the Su-25T makes using iron bombs very easy: you can use the Shkval (I think this also works with the Mercury pod) to lock on to a ground target and the aircfrat autopilot will then guide you to the bomb release point if you want it to. The only thing this does not seem to take in to account is wind over the target so it's best not used from a high altitude.

 

As always, enjoy your flying!

[xentxo]

SZU-23 should be ZU-23-2(truck)

Enroute speeds are set at 390 km/h. Best range speed with suggested default load at 3000m alt is 620 km/h for the Su-25T.

Also nice to have would be ...

- target elevation

- times the target images were shot

- map scale of the target map

- declared time of take-off (Spetsnaz transport)

- estimated TOTarget (Holding pattern) of Spetsnaz transport

- some Air Traffic Control chatter during T/O at Sukhumi Babushara Airport

 

Not really the safest but a possible route for a low level carpet bombing attack(100m AGL):

 

Only one attack run is needed but the attacker would be exposed to incoming fire for appr. 16 seconds at speed 700kph.

[DarkFire]

SZU-23 should be ZU-23-2(truck)

Enroute speeds are set at 390 km/h. Best range speed with suggested default load at 3000m alt is 620 km/h for the Su-25T.

Also nice to have would be ...

- target elevation

- times the target images were shot

- map scale of the target map

- declared time of take-off (Spetsnaz transport)

- estimated TOTarget (Holding pattern) of Spetsnaz transport

- some Air Traffic Control chatter during T/O at Sukhumi Babushara Airport

 

Not really the safest but a possible route for a low level carpet bombing attack(100m AGL)

 

Only one attack run is needed but the attacker would be exposed to incoming fire for appr. 16 seconds at speed 700kph.

 

Good points. I realised after creating the mission that the set route speed is actually far too low and actually causes problems with the autopilot for the Su-25T while en-route to the target in that it can't maintain altitude with throttle settings below about 87% at that altitude and weight. Something for me to remember for future missions. Out of interest, how did you calculate the best range speed for the suggested armament?

 

I agree with all the points on your 'nice to have' list. Not sure how to simulate tower chatter, that's something I'll have to investigate but you're absolutely right, it does add a lot of immersion. For interest the "recon drone" photos were taken during a test run I did so they're at around real mission time. Unfortunately this lead to them being a bit too dark. I think in future I'll do the photos from a daylight start point and then make any necessary changes using Paint Shop Pro.

 

As far as carpet bombing goes, I'd honestly not thought of trying that. It could work, but based on my experiences with them I've never been impressed by the KGMU dispensers. I've also just realised that carpet bombing would probably also cause the mission scripting to fail in a specific way. Interesting though, I might give that a try to see if it works.

 

Thanks for your feedback, it's much appreciated.

Edited March 19, 2015 by DarkFire

[feefifofum]

Hey Darkfire, my own campaign relies heavily on comms chatter to relay information and help make those 130 mile trips across the countryside a little less monotonous.

 

Since it looks like you have more or less guaranteed your players will be flying along a certain path, the easiest way to do this would be to create trigger zones along that path.

We'll call that zone you have made along the flight path chattertrigger1 then use the built in scripter to do something like

column1

1 ONCE (Radio chatter 1)

column2

PART OF GROUP IN ZONE (player group) (chattertrigger1)

column3

MESSAGE TO ALL ("Enroute to target area")

 

This will cause the message "Enroute to target area" to display one time whenever the player's aircraft enters the trigger zone.

All of these command lines are selected from drop down menus, then you just fill in your message! Super simple! Just remember to click "hidden on map" on your chatter or spawn trigger zones so players don't see AMBUSH HAPPENS HERE!!11!! on their mission planner maps!

 

I'm looking forward to checking this out whenever I get around to flying for fun again instead of fooling with the ME :lol:

Edited March 21, 2015 by feefifofum

[DarkFire]

Hey Darkfire, my own campaign relies heavily on comms chatter to relay information and help make those 130 mile trips across the countryside a little less monotonous.

 

Since it looks like you have more or less guaranteed your players will be flying along a certain path, the easiest way to do this would be to create trigger zones along that path.

We'll call that zone you have made along the flight path chattertrigger1 then use the built in scripter to do something like

column1

1 ONCE (Radio chatter 1)

column2

PART OF GROUP IN ZONE (player group) (chattertrigger1)

column3

MESSAGE TO ALL ("Enroute to target area")

 

This will cause the message "Enroute to target area" to display one time whenever the player's aircraft enters the trigger zone.

All of these command lines are selected from drop down menus, then you just fill in your message! Super simple! Just remember to click "hidden on map" on your chatter or spawn trigger zones so players don't see AMBUSH HAPPENS HERE!!11!! on their mission planner maps!

 

I'm looking forward to checking this out whenever I get around to flying for fun again instead of fooling with the ME :lol:

 

Ah, I hadn't thought of doing it that way. Nice... Thanks for the tip :thumbup:

[Belgeode]

Sorry I am just seeing this now. Going to download your mission and check it out. It's been a while since I took "Helga" (my Su-25T) up for a spin.

 

I'll report back later. o7

[xentxo]

 

As far as carpet bombing goes, I'd honestly not thought of trying that. It could work, but based on my experiences with them I've never been impressed by the KGMU dispensers. I've also just realised that carpet bombing would probably also cause the mission scripting to fail in a specific way.

 

what weapon does what