First Mission... Yay

[swagchimp]

Hey there! I bought Black Shark on sunday and immediately began getting into it. Just now I completed my first mission, at least that's what I think. How do you notice if you've finished a Mission? I got an Air Medal after I ended it, but I don't know what that means. No enemies were remaining, so I landed and ended the game. Anyway, here's my first track:

http://www.file-upload.net/download-11412768/firstmission.html

I'd be very glad if someone could have a look at it and tell me what I did wrong, or even better, what I did right. That's probably gonna give us a shorter list :)

 

Thanks in Advance,

swagchimp

[Sryan]

you can press ' and see if you scored atleast over 50. A good mission gives you cues it's time to go back to base.

 

Since you are new I reccomend you try out the deployment campaign sometime. It starts out very easy an progressively becomes harder along a nice curve. The other campaigns are typically harder. I know you can face SAMs in Georgian oil war in the very first mission.

[swagchimp]

Well the end screen said I scored 235 points, IIRC, but I didn't get any cues. Thanks for the tip with the deployment campaign, I'm gonna try it.

[Yurgon]

How do you notice if you've finished a Mission?

 

It depends. ;)

 

It's up to the mission designer to define success and failure. Some missions require the player to land after completing all primary goals, some will succeed somewhere mid-mission, and some don't even care.

 

Depending on the mission, the player might be required to...

• destroy a set number of enemy units
  
• destroy all enemy units
  
• destroy a particular enemy unit
  
• pass a waypoint
  
• set a certain switch in the cockpit
  
• stay alive for more than 2 seconds ;)
  
• or just about any other condition, or combination of conditions, that can be set in the mission editor
  

 

In this regard, DCS really is a sandbox and success or failure depend on the mission designer.

 

As well, some missions very prominently display a message like "MISSION SUCCESS", or play a sound file, or simply end the mission and throw you into the debriefing screen, or give no feedback at all - once again, it's up to the mission designer.

 

There are two more or less important numbers in the debriefing screen, whose meaning AFAIK is:

• Score: Automatically awarded by DCS depending on number and value of enemy units destroyed by the player, minus friendly kills and minus player aircraft lost. Is logged in the logbook. I believe this is also one of the primary factors for medals awarded.
  
• Results: Triggered by achieving goals set by the mission designer. See above, these could be anything. Also, different goals can have different values. Minimum value is 0, maximum value is 100. Like Sryan said, the score window can be opened at any time during a mission, default key for EN/US keyboard is ', but be aware that the results are only updated when goals defined by the mission designer are achieved; it's quite possible to see results of 0 throughout the entire mission, and only after successful landing see the results jump to 100 (or remain at 0 or anything in between - you guessed it, depending on achieving the goals set by the mission designer :D).
  

 

The Results mostly affect campaign progress. Typically, if your Results are more than 50, you'll advance to the next mission, if your Results are less than 50 you'll be set back to the previous mission, and with Results exactly at 50 you'll have to repeat the current mission. But, once again, this is up to the campaign designer and can be different with any campaign and even between missions, or stages, in a campaign.

 

So, long story short: it depends. :)

[kilix]

I see you take off and then after a while crash into a building, what is wrong with my replays? It always works like that. What should I do to see replays properly?

[Yurgon]

What should I do to see replays properly?

 

That's an old issue. A replay is more like a rerun of the entire flight, only this time all the inputs don't come from your controllers, they're fed into DCS by the track file. So if the track failed to record something, or if DCS fails to properly replicate the inputs while flying the mission again, even slight variations will sooner or later lead to vast differences between the original flight and the replay.

 

I find that replays run badly when I have low frames rates, but tend to keep more in sync when it runs smooth. Also, don't fast forward, that's almost guaranteed to break the replay.

 

And be aware that tracks are often not compatible between versions. Imagine the engine power output was changed, even by a small margin - now replaying the track in the new version would result in different speeds, climb rates etcetera, and put the aircraft into completely different positions.

 

In short: Your mileage may vary, and there's little you can do to fix it. Most importantly, don't fast forward/time accelerate.

[kilix]

okay, that may be the issue.

I FFWD that engine startup procedure, now I will have to endure it for the 683x time.

Maybe it will help

[kilix]

So>

1. why did you turn on the APU after both your engines were running, I dont understand.

2. LWR test can be done by waiting it up. You dont need to turn off/on the power to LWR

3. your dust protection is on, even long after takeoff, no need to do that. Dust protection significantly reduces your engine output.

4. dont raise your collective so fast when taking off. You dont want to ever hear your rotor rpm alarm warning. Never. Thats a sign of bad piloting skills.

thats about it. After this, the replay goes awry and there is nothing more to add, because the replay system is ****ed up. I see you crashing onto ground, entering vortex state, etc.

[swagchimp]

1. I turned my APU on again because autostart somehow left my right engine as it was... Well, I had to start it manually, so...

2. Copy that.

3. Okay, I'm gonna keep it in mind.

4. Hmm, I didn't raise it particularly fast, maybe something with the replay? Also, I entered VRS once while slowing down and didn't notice it, so I crashed, but that was the only time.