Black Shark 2: Republic Campaign

[QuiGon]

About names of the countries.

1. It was no such events in real life.

2. The borders of Republic don't coincide with borders of Abkhazia. Very much. It is the main reason.

I didn't suppose that it will cause such hard discussions.

Just accept it as it is.

Thanks.

 

Thank you for your reply.

 

I really appreaciate that we got a new campaign for the Black Shark and I thank you for that. I do enjoy it after all. :thumbup:

But regarding country names I just hope this won't become a new standard for future campaigns, since it really takes away the immersion which is an important factor to really enjoy it.

 

So, let's get back talking about the actual campaign. :)

[dburne]

Purchased and installed this morning.

I am still in the learning process of the Ka-50, but working hard at it and looking forward to hopefully getting to the point I can do some good campaign flying.

[313_Nevo]

Reality and history should not be censored.

[:poster_offtopic:]

What reality? Whose history? :censored:

 

Fictional? Fine with me... even the (CNN) news, politic rhetorics, presented history events are :imxo: (sometimes) fictional :detective: :music_whistling:

[/:poster_offtopic:]

 

Dzen :thumbup:

[winz]

Tbh I'm currently playing this campaign and I enjoy the break from the holy US-Russia-Insurgents trinity. It's good to have this kind of campaign for time to time, and it allows the mission creator to create events that would not make sense in a 'realistic' setting. (i.e. a single helo turning the tide of the conflict)

[Kamov Akula]

Swastika

 

My 2 cents, I grew up in Japan, where swastikas have nothing to do with Nazi's. Swastikas were, and still are in most parts of the world, a symbol associated with peace and prosperity in Buddhism. The Nazi's borrowed this symbol, they didn't create it.

 

And this is a good example of why I am against sensorship of any kind. It usually does more harm than good, in the name of not offending a few people.

 

Anyway, I also am in the camp of wishing they made the Republic campaign with real country names. But really its not that big a deal.

 

Now, back to my game as Ronin....

[DerekSpeare]

Might someone enlighten me (and other newcomers to DCS) about this campaign? I'd like to know if it's a new map/theatre of war or if it's the same default one found in DCS. Thanks in advance!

[Charly_Owl]

Might someone enlighten me (and other newcomers to DCS) about this campaign? I'd like to know if it's a new map/theatre of war or if it's the same default one found in DCS. Thanks in advance!

 

It's a campaign set in the default Georgia/Caucasus map. You fly the Ka-50 Black Shark and blow stuff up. :pilotfly:

[Yurgon]

More info: Black Shark 2: Republic Campaign is now available

 

Store page.

[thdman1511]

I am just wondering whether or not this will be released on Steam. I am using the DCS World 1.5 (openbeta) in steam, and would love to get this DLC, or will I have to wait until the official release of DCS World 1.5.

[NineLine]

I would guess it would need to wait till the full 1.5 release, just based on how Steam handles the Beta... but that is just a guess. I will ask.

[Kamov Akula]

Mission: Cleanup

 

I was doing fine - perfect in fact - until this mission. But now I find myself having to redo this one mission about 5 times now. AND its starting to piss me off.

 

There is one Manpad that keeps spawning, in range and ready to fire, and even after a few tries and knowing where he generally appears, he is too quick for me to move my gun on him and fire before he does.

 

And of course there is the AI super power of seeing and shooting through trees while I can't. (well, maybe I can shoot through them but not much point if I can't see him)

 

Ok granted that having blue icons indicating about what and where my enemies are is not wholly realistic, but I also think having a unit spawn out of thin air in range to shoot me is even more so.

 

So I'm pissed off because of this one Manpad- not only because he's making this mission very difficult for me, but also because his existence (spawning) is making my game seem very unrealistic.

 

And we all know to have fun in this game we need to keep ourselves in our little pretend bubble of reality, not have something constantly burst it.

 

Is there a way to take this damn little green blob of Igla-carrying pixelated annoyance out of my game? (and out of my bubble?)

 

On another note, because of this incident I've noticed that in this Campaign if I don't succeed a mission it doesn't carry on with different circumstances like with the stock Campaigns that came with the Ka50 or DCS World (Su25t). I just have to keep redoing the mission but with my Campaign tally continuously looking worse as far as success ratio etc.

 

But this got me thinking. The Republic campaign claims to have "different story arcs", how does this happen if there is only one mission accomplishment criteria?

[Kamov Akula]

I am just wondering whether or not this will be released on Steam. I am using the DCS World 1.5 (openbeta) in steam, and would love to get this DLC, or will I have to wait until the official release of DCS World 1.5.

I had the Steam DCS 1.5, and realized that it wasn't compatible with the ED DCS when I tried to download this campaign. So, I uninstalled the Steam version and installed the ED version. I could have had both installed simultaneously, apparently, but why bother? Steam gets all their stuff from ED anyway, but later, so in a way its a no brainer. But I still don't understand why the Steam version would be any different. It's free, and its only there for modules to be added on. Where I buy the modules (or campaigns) shouldn't really matter. But hey, I'm sure there are good reasons.

[winz]

The manpand spawns only if you overfly the city.

 

On another note, because of this incident I've noticed that in this Campaign if I don't succeed a mission it doesn't carry on with different circumstances like with the stock Campaigns that came with the Ka50 or DCS World (Su25t). I just have to keep redoing the mission but with my Campaign tally continuously looking worse as far as success ratio etc.

This is pretty standard for story campaign and both the Ka-50 campaigns - Deployment and Operation Medvedev were set this way too.

[Wolf Rider]

Like Yurgon already said: Swastiks were NOT part of the discussion at that point. I also was NOT talking about building accurate missions, that happened in real life with all the involved units and such.

The thing I was talking about in the first place was a very basic one: Using real country names. The missions themselves can be fictional for sure, although I wouldn't say no to "real" missions. But coming up with some fictional country names is just too much fantasy for me. I mean, come on, The Republic vs the Butchers?! What is this? I can't really enjoy a campaign like this.

 

About Swastikas: These are against the law in some countries, e.g. Germany. (Well, at least that's what everybody thinks, but this leads to far here). If something is against the law like Swastikas in Germany, then of course I have no problem with it not being used in the game. But using real country names in games (or movies) isn't against any law I know of. (Except using Tibet as a country if you want to sell the game/movie/whatever in China :D)

 

 

You've said it all yourself (especially with the last sentence, which applies to many different areas)... its the real world political aspects (and also for the few nutters out there who can't distinguish), and become propaganda. That is something nobody really wants

 

Best to just keep things fictional, that way no country gets upset... there's nothing wrong with real world simulation in a fictional setting - you're flying real world tactics (hopefully), in simulated real world systems.

Edited October 30, 2015 by Wolf Rider

[some1]

I played several missions from the campaign, including that %*#& airfield mission.

 

Overall, I enjoy the campaign. I don't mind the fictional setting. It plays a bit more like an action hero movie (lone fighter turning the tides of battle) rather than a typical military campaign. This allowed the devs to make some interesting missions and also removes the problem of the stupid wingman AI - you just fly alone all the time.

 

Unfortunately this also makes you a one-man-orchestra that has to destroy something like 8 vehicles per mission to progress. You also need to hit the right triggers. For example in the first mission you are directed by FAC to destroy two tanks on the right side of the road. But one of them is on the left side of the road and you won't get any more directions from FAC untill you destroy that particular tank.

 

The airfield mission is just badly designed: you alone with your little helicopter have to destroy something like 2xSA10, 2xSA1, 2xShilkas, 2xZU-23, and 2x Iglas located randomly around the airfield. Within time limit. At dawn. Without any intel about targets number and location. Without overflying the city which is between you and your target, and you are not warned in the briefing about possible enemy SAM activity over city, there's just a laconic "don't fly over city". I wonder how many people playing without icons will pass this mission at their first try.

And to make things more sour for me, the first time I managed to destroy all targets and waited for the planes to land, something went wrong with DCS AI, planes landed in the wrong order and I wasn't able to complete the mission because they parked in the incorrect spot. :doh:

[Ripcord]

So this is the second campaign -- I have not flown any of them, are they all SP missions?

[Yurgon]

So this is the second campaign -- I have not flown any of them, are they all SP missions?

 

What do you mean by second?

 

AFAIK it's a new version of an old campaign of the LOMAC days, but I never played the original.

 

There were two campaigns that came with BS1, Georgian Oil War and Deployment, and another that came with BS2, Medvedev II.

 

AFAIK (once again ;)) the Republic campaign is entirely SP.

 

Edit: Come to think of it, all of these campaigns are entirely SP, though there was a user modified version of the Medvedev II for coop MP, but I don't know whether that's still available, and I'm pretty certain it doesn't come with the game, you'd have to search the forum or the user files for that.

[Igneous01]

Is the campaign supposed to restart back to mission 1 if I fail a mission?

 

I've so far failed the second and third missions once each, and everytime it brings me back to mission one. I can't replay any mission. Even quitting the game causes this to happen.

 

Is this a bug, or a setting I can change?

[Yurgon]

Is the campaign supposed to restart back to mission 1 if I fail a mission?

 

I've so far failed the second and third missions once each, and everytime it brings me back to mission one. I can't replay any mission. Even quitting the game causes this to happen.

 

Is this a bug, or a setting I can change?

 

Sounds wrong.

 

I had a PC crash or two and these missions never showed up in the campaign log. When I continued after such a crash, the next active mission was always the one I had flown when the crash occurred, just as I'd expect it to be.

 

I also failed a mission because I got shot down and had to replay that exact same mission (I think it was mission 5, which I finished in the second attempt, and then my TrackIR broke and I haven't continued further). The failed one showed up correctly in the campaign log (i.e. 5 missions flown, 4 successes, 1 failure, success rate 92% or something).

[Dzen]

--->

[Yurgon]

--->

 

Thx, good to know! :)

 

So, in order to enjoy all of the missions in the campaign, we'd have to fail the first 4 and then win 15?

[Dzen]

Thx, good to know! :)

 

So, in order to enjoy all of the missions in the campaign, we'd have to fail the first 4 and then win 15?

 

You can play it as single mission.

[Yurgon]

You can play it as single mission.

 

Good point.

 

I was just trying to clarify if I read the chart correctly.

[winz]

I've finished the campaign so I will now sum my opinions about it -

 

First things first, I've not experienced any broken triggers during the playthrough. All missions worked as they were supposed to, and I was not forced to re-fly any mission because something broke, this is a huge +.

 

I liked the setting, it was a pleasant from the regular 'realistic' campaigns. The Ka-50 fitted perfectly. It would be great if more campaigns tried to break from the norm and experiment a little. The briefings are detailed and give enough information so I knew what is expected of me and how achieve my objectives.

 

The missions also have nice variety and few of them are truly original. But now for the first negative - imho, some of them ask too much from a single airframe, especially the airfield capture, and the last combat mission. The airfield capture is tricky, because you have no intel about the units around the airfield (it would be great to have this in briefing), especially manpads are huge pita, because they are deadly and very hard to spot (as IRL). The last combat mission got tricky because of the laser geting broke after firing 24 vikhrs, even when following the cooldown instructions. I resorted to vehicle respawn in that one, because destroying the last t-55s with cannon became tedious and super-boring.

 

The other - minus is the voiceover. I feel there is just too little of it, and even that little isn't all english. Some of the ambient voiceovers are in Russian, and it feels weird. I wouldn't mind in a free campaign, but for payed one I expect some consistency.

 

Overall I would rate this campaign as 8/10, it's a nice campaign that works (the most importatn part), tries to experiment with breking the norm, but the excecution sometimes lacks a little bit of polish.

Is wort the 10 bucks? Absolutely, I enjoyed my playthrough, will certainly replay it again and I would absolutely bought The Republic 2 :)

[Erforce]

the only difficutly i've encountered uo to date is the CTD happenning as soon as the yak lands at senaki. capturing it wasn't no too difficult, i even found IA has different spawn location but spotted them every time.

as for the last mission, remember your AP gun can kill some tanks ;) but i'm not at this point yet.

i'm glad some missions ask us to do things i consider fun and prepared in my unreleased campaign (yet, but maybe DCS 2 will be more stable through updates)

 

Edit : Well.. this time it did not crash. so far 100% win.

Edited November 4, 2015 by Erforce