An Eye for an Eye v0.9- Single player/2 player for F-15C

[feefifofum]

I'll look in to creating an alternate version of #4 once I get through the rest of the campaign.

Unfortunately, due to the way the mission is constructed I'll pretty much have to start from the ground up, as most of the triggers for the flavor dialogue are tied to the ground war.

 

For the time being, I think the time I have is better spent designing and troubleshooting the later missions in the campaign, as 4 is working as intended apart from the frame rate drops at the beginning.

 

Thanks for taking the time to check your track.

I wouldn't mind taking a look as well if you want to send it over to feefifofumdcs@gmail.com, seeing other people fly these is very helpful to me, as most of my testers won't take lead.

 

Hope your finals went well!

[ralfidude]

Ok I watched a few tracks back.

 

So what's happening is that due to the absolutely piss poor performance of the missiles (Even though I'm using Scats missile mod) the very first volley never kills any flankers.

 

I shoot at 4 flankers in a tight formation in TWS, and even though they reach their targets with Mach 2.0, they refuse to guide themselves on to the targets. Some of them just "forget" to guide and then try to guide AFTER they passed the target... You know, ED missile bullshit.

 

In anycase, those 4-6 flankers essentially by pass me after having done a lazy left defensive maneuver form the useless 120s, as I'm breaking defensive from the 13 missiles coming my way. By the time I turn around, I have 2-3 more up my ass from the second group so I'm busy fighting them.

 

My wingman and I think 2 more allied fighters behind me start to go at it with the flankers and get absolutely WRECKED. By the time I'm allowed to breathe a little and turn around to assist anything I've missed, they are literally on top of our AWACS and destroy everything.

 

Our little SAM system does jack all to help till after everything friendly in the skies has died.

 

All at the same time this mess is happening, the frogfoots are below and they are doing their thing.

 

 

So in my honest opinion a few things would need to happen.

 

 

Separate out the flanker positions a bit. Space them out just a little more to give us time to actually react since I'm the only thing up there of any air combat use to our team. But at least push the frogs back a lot more. By the time (if at all) you have the moment to take your eyes off the flankers to deal with the frogs, you are out of ammo and are busy trying to guns them all, while more flankers are on their way back now towards you after having ripped your allied flight to bits.

 

The TU bomber part is fine, that happens later on and you can deal with that sortie by landing, re arming and all that jazz before they become a serious threat. So that's cool.

 

But there is just way too much to worry about in the sky at the same time to be able to do anything about it.

 

 

Next thing I'l do is turn off SCATs missile mod, and try to shoot at under 10 miles. With SCATS missile mod I was shooting at 15, and that's like CLOSE with that mod on. So possibly you might be seeing different results because of the missile difference.

 

Il let you know how it goes without that mod on.

[feefifofum]

I'm hoping it's SCAT's tuned R-27ERs that are making swiss cheese of your allied flights. Generally, I've found that as long as I can force the lead group of 4xSu-27 defensive the AI will get in there and start taking care of business. Sounds like they didn't have to work too hard on your run through due to poor missile tracking, and were able to get their nose back on the friendlies too quickly for the allied flights to gain enough altitude and airspeed to be contenders.

 

That being said, if this is giving you this much trouble it's definitely a little harder than I intended it to be.

 

Since you've made such nice videos for the campaign, I suppose I could find it in my heart to delay the 4xSu-25T and 3xSu-27 wave a couple minutes. ;) My experience has generally been that the first wave of 8xSu-27 is pretty much wiped, close to wiped, or bugging out around the time I get the call from Magic that the Frogfoots have entered Georgian airspace.

 

Generally at that point I'm on the ground and halfway refueled, which still leaves me time to get up and mix it up with the frogfoots and their escort (assuming friendly AI hasn't shot them down) and then I typically have a couple minutes to regain composure before the Tu-22 shows up.

 

I'm going to wait for your report on your non missile-mod playthrough before I pull the trigger on that change, but it's definitely on the table if you still find you're having a really rough time.

 

Appreciate all the feedback.

[ralfidude]

Ok so I did it without the missile mod and yes, it's quite different.

 

The ERs won't track for shit, which is why the 15s are able to slightly dominate the field.

 

But the AI are still a little dumb, one SU managed to sneak past us all, and he was fighting 3 f-15s plus the AWACS crew all at the same time. It's pretty hilarious, in anycase they can "somewhat" hold their own, plus the 15s help it taking out the froggies while you rearm.

 

In order to take out that first wave though, you have to get VERY ballsy, I mean stupid close. I essentially fired within 10 miles and managed to pull it off, so let's see how others manage it I guess.

[feefifofum]

Hey, I never said it was supposed to be easy. :) I know it encourages bad behavior somewhat, but I wanted to sneak one Rambo moment in there, since it's something of a contrast to the rest of the campaign.

 

In order to keep the player from getting massacred when they are forced to make the decision that you made, the first two groups of Su-27s are set to target the player group as their lowest priority, so they won't come after you until you engage them.

This leads to the massacre of the AI flights if the player doesn't get in there and mix it up, but that's kind of what I was going for.

Glad it worked out for you. Thanks for being a reliable source of feedback on these.

[Comes]

Hey feefifofum, just wanted to tell you, that I just played Mission 5 in coop. Did not have any real issues.

I still have the bug, that I have to unpause the sim, prior to selecting the aircraft, otherwise my game crashes. But most likely, that's my system.

There was another strange thing. When we shot down the AWACS, there were no real explosions, just some black puffs. They were pretty big and looked like a graphic glitch.

My wingman had the same phenomenonon his system, which is completly diffrent from mine.

So I don't know where this was coming from.

Thank's a lot for the mission, was great fun. Still loving Overlords voice :D

Edited May 27, 2015 by Comes

[feefifofum]

Hey Comes, I noticed that in Ralfi's video of 5 as well. Not sure what exactly is going on there, but I haven't stuck my fingers in any graphical configuration settings or done anything differently than I normally do in that mission.

I'm going to go in and poke around a little bit and see if I can find anything strange going on that I may have missed during that particular stage of the ME learning process, but when I last played it I wasn't having any issues. Admittedly, that was a while ago, please let me know if anything else gives you trouble.

[feefifofum]

Hey Comes.

Just ran 5 in co-op with a squadmate last night. I didn't experience your startup crash, but I did encounter the same graphical hiccup you can see in Ralfi's video.

Not sure what its origins could be, I looked in the .miz and there's nothing unusual.

Anyone else have any ideas?

[Comes]

Maybe we will have to wait for DCS 2.0 and it is just a bug.

[feefifofum]

Status update 6/3

 

I SMELL THE BLOOD OF AN ENGLISHMAN.

 

No, seriously folks. Mission 10, entitled A Dog in the Fight, will feature a large scale UN offensive and fighter sweep, including SAM-clearing assistance from a flight of Royal Air Force bombers and a little A-A help, if requested, from a group of French Mirage 2000s.

Because there weren't enough bad accents yet. ;)

 

Mission 10 has been fully designed and scripted, and VOs have been recorded. I am currently running through the fine tuning of timing and

triggers, but this will hopefully be pretty quick!

[feefifofum]

Mission 10 online

 

Mission 10 is now live!

 

Entitled "A Dog in the Fight," mission 10 is an extended CAP down the length of the Georgian border with Russia and Abkhazia.

 

You will have allied flights on station throughout your route to provide assistance as necessary, and a tanker on station halfway through your route should you require refueling.

 

Be sure to budget your missiles and fuel carefully! While I did not add any timers to prevent the player from landing and rearming, it's a long way out of your way to a friendly airport.

[feefifofum]

Status update 6/19

 

Hey kids. I've had another busy couple of weeks, and will also admit I've been slacking a bit on campaign building in order to fly some of the other excellent user missions out there. ;)

 

That being said, work has begun on mission 11, bringing us into the home stretch of the campaign. I'm still in the early concept phase, but I am planning for this mission to involve escorting a small strike package into Abkhazia to disable the remaining air defenses at Sukhumi, and take out last of the Abkhazian MiG-29s.

 

I've run into a bit of a hiccup with ground forces behavior, and while it's not mission critical in this instance I've enlisted the help of some of the other excellent mission builders on this forum to try to get the problem hammered out. It's a little early to pin a date on it just yet, but I hope to release mission 11 some time in the next week or two, with the final mission of the campaign to follow shortly thereafter!

 

With the release of 12, I also plan to revisit all of the previous missions and add a respectable looking map to the briefing screen, and make a few other minor changes to tighten things up.

I will also try to include a version of mission 4 which does not include the gigantic off-camera ground war for players experiencing frame rate issues as a result of my penchant for theatrics, though hopefully the eventual release of DCSW2 will take care of this issue in the standard version.

 

As always, thanks for playing!

[feefifofum]

Update 6/26

 

Mission 11 is well underway. After some light wrestling with my own stupidity, I've discovered the issues with ground forces were my fault because of something I did in a previous mission. :lol:

 

In mission 11, entitled A Fish in a Barrel,you and your wingman will lead a single A-10C on a pinpoint strike mission to disabled the remaining Abkhazian MiG-29s on the ramp at Sukhumi. Expect a couple of twists an turns along the way.

 

This mission features some of the weirder things I've tried to make the Eagle do, tasking-wise, so tuning the triggers is taking a little bit longer than I was expecting. Things are going well, though, and I hope to be able to release the mission some time soon!

[feefifofum]

Mission Eleven online!

 

Hey guys, I've just uploaded mission 11 of the campaign.

 

As I previously mentioned, this mission will involve escorting an A-10 from Kobuleti to Sukhumi to disable the runway and any Abkhazian MiG-29s stationed there.

 

This is probably the most complicated, dynamic mission I have attempted to design so far, with multiple ways to accomplish your task (and three unique failure conditions :lol:)

 

That being said, I haven't had access to my testers for the past couple of weeks due to RL obligations, and a couple of them giving up on DCS. I've banged on this one pretty thoroughly myself, but as always, feedback is appreciated whether it's "this is cool" or bug reports/suggestions on how to improve the missions.

[feefifofum]

Update 7/8:

 

Hey all, just wanted to pop in with a quick update.

 

Mission 12 scripting has begun, and is about halfway through the initial design phase. I have the whole concept fleshed out at this point, and will hopefully have a good long chunk of time tomorrow afternoon to work on the scripting.

 

As I have mentioned, upon completion of mission 12, I also plan to revisit the previous missions and update some triggers and pathing now that I'm a little more proficient in the ME. If there is anything in particular anyone would like me to take a look at, please drop a line.

 

Off the top of my head, planned changes include-

 

M1 - slow down IL-76 just a bit to make the merge a little easier for newer players

 

M2 - adjust "missile launch" message so it is more difficult to trigger by disobedient player aircraft, add a firm scolding from Overlord if player shoots first

 

M3 - adjust patrol route to simmer down Mr. Turn & Burn to a manageable flight leader; add a radio message for his final right turn

 

M4 - create alternate "oh jesus my poor frame rate" version without ground units, add number & spacing of bandits to BRA call from Overlord

 

M5 - few minor things to help with dialogue collisions, no major changes planned

 

M6 - what I hope to be the final tuning to make the AI SEAD flight more reliable, add some radio chatter along the route from Vaziani to Kobuleti in non Instant Action version

 

M7 - add flag to prevent rendezvous message if player goes straight for hostiles

 

M8 - include distance to Vaziani in Su-25 and Tu-22 launch messages

 

M9 - launch final wave sooner, add option to call in reinforcements once player is back in Georgian airpsace

 

Any input from those of you who have played the later missions would be appreciated, I've not had a chance to run them in co-op yet so I haven't seen how other humans react to things. :lol:

[wilbur81]

How It Should Be

 

Good grief, Feefifofum....

 

I just downloaded and started flying your E.f.a.E. missions today: Brilliant stuff! You clearly put in a lot of work. Great stuff. This is how DCS missions/campaigns should be. Great narrative and little touches like air-raid sirens. :-)

 

ED should hire you.

[feefifofum]

Aw shucks.

Thanks, Wilbur! Always happy to hear from people having fun with these.

 

Look for the final mission of the campaign very soon, as well as major updates to the previous missions, including new voice actors so I don't have to try to sound like 50 different guys. :lol:

[Home Fries]

Great stuff, feefifofum. We just tackled the first mission last night and had a blast.

 

If you would like me as a voice actor I'd be happy to oblige. I'm former Navy and know the lingo, and I've done voice for a couple of missions (outside of my own). Given my voice (baritone) I'd probably make a good Overlord.

 

Also, when you complete the final mission, will you be packaging the single player campaign as a linear campaign so that we can get the logbook credit?

[feefifofum]

Hey Home Fries! Thanks for playing and for your kind words.

With regards to the SP campaign, that is indeed the plan.

 

I'd love to have you onboard as Overlord, if you're up for the workload. It's probably in the neighborhood of two hundred lines when all is said and done. As much fun as we've all had with my version, Overlord is definitely on the list of people to be replaced. I'll shoot you some details tomorrow morning if that didn't scare you off. ;)

[Home Fries]

Not at all. Bring it on!

[Milkbone]

Just started playing and Im having problems with the first mission. Im flying right next to the ship but I cant talk to it.

[Home Fries]

You need to be very close (200 m), so you should be able to read the serial number on the tail without zoom.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Home Fries
200 meters (not feet); my bad!

[feefifofum]

Hey Milkbone!

Sorry you're having trouble.

 

The trigger zone is 200m, which is roughly 650ft. The screenshot from the briefing screen will give you an idea of how close you'll need to be.

 

Be sure you've got the right plane, as well. There are several civilian flights in the air throughout the mission at various altitudes, including two other IL-76's and a Yak-40 very close to RA-78810. Use your IFF to determine which IL-76 is the aircraft transporting the terrorist.

 

If you're still having trouble, let me know, and I can provide a .TRK file of the mission being flown successfully.

 

 

EDIT: I should also add that you'll need to maintain that distance throughout the time you are communicating with RA-78810; if you fall out of formation for more than thirty seconds you should get a message from your wingman telling you you need to tighten up. Good luck!

Edited July 19, 2015 by feefifofum

[Rivvern]

First mission complete! Thanks! Looking forward to fly the next one.

[feefifofum]

Thanks, Rivvern.

 

I apologize in advance for the flight lead in mission 3 ;)

 

Fixes coming very soon!