Medevac Campaign

[Chipwich]

hehehe. Don't worry Chip, I'll upload a version tonight without the first mission. I only do half days on Friday so it should be up by early evening.

 

Edit: Here you go. It's a version without the introductory flight, so that should save you an hour and a half (or 45 minutes if you don't care about your crew chief staying up all night) :D

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ibl53u125fu8ifb/DustoffNoIntro.rar?dl=0

 

Looks like the general consensus is this resetting of progress is a bug.

 

Campaign Update

I've been recharging my batteries this week getting ideas for the next set of missions (I over did it last week), but I'll hopefully get a few more done this weekend.

Awesome Wavehopper. Will load this one and drive on.

 

Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk

[Chipwich]

So finished mission 2 last night for the normal DustOff4 (mission 1 for NoIntro) and enjoyed it. Without giving details away it's amazing how crappy my approaches and landings are when there are a bunch of bullets flying at the LZ. It usually starts with a high approach with too much airspeed and too high descent rate. That's followed by an oh-shizzle flare which deteriorates into too little left pedal compounded by a mushing and spinning bird until I get control of the thing enough to set down. I've usually forgotten to give the door gunners a "fire at will" command and sit hunkered behind my armor with a thoroughly puckered hunkus while the crew chief does his thing. At least the return rides and landings have been uneventful :)

 

What a wimp!

Edited April 2, 2016 by Chipwich

[Wavehopper]

Don't be afraid to orbit for a bit to plot your approach in either. I haven't put horrible time constraints on the missions so don't feel like you just have to zoom in.

 

I do, but purely because I'm an idiot :D

 

Just finished making 2 more missions today. I was going to ask you guys how many missions do you think is about right? I was going for 20-30 but I think that may become a bit of a slog.

 

Opinions?

[parob]

Hi there Wavehopper, I think 20 - 30 is about right to represent a tour of duty as a medevac pilot although I am very aware that it is your goodself who has to do it the hard work in putting together the missions. I just get to enjoy the fruits of your labour. whatever you decide to do is fine by me. I am most grateful for your talented contribution.

[Chipwich]

I'm thinking quality over quantity, i.e. refine with voice-overs and the other details that give the campaign a polished feel. If you've got 30 great missions in you, then bring 'em on. But on the other hand, what about taking a break, then doing a gunship campaign doing slick escorts. That is if you find building them rewarding. We sure enjoy flying them Wavehopper. Kudos for all if your hard work to this point!

[Yurgon]

I always enjoy flying the Huey.

 

On the other hand, time devoted to DCS is limited (you know, only 24 hours a day ;)), and so my personal preference would be a campaign that isn't too repetitive, even if repetition is of course a large part of the duties of a Medevac pilot. So if you have 30 unique missions, I say bring'em on! ;)

 

But a shorter campaign that is very much to the point, with varying missions and varying difficulty, maybe some surprises and midflight re-tasking, might be more memorable and enjoyable than a long campaign that feels like flying the same mission all over again (so far I never got this feeling, but I haven't played through all the missions yet).

 

Ultimately, I think the most important thing is that you enjoy creating the missions as much as we enjoy flying them. :thumbup:

[Wavehopper]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

 

Okay, I'll aim for 20 at the moment for the first proper release. As you say Yurgon, I'm just conscious of it becoming too repetitive.

 

It's a tradeoff really between repetition and realism as I don't want to just shoe horn in things like sling loading for the sake of it.

 

You'll definently like the two missions I did yesterday, but I wont spoil the surprise.

 

Voice acting is another dilemma. Honestly I don't think I want to get into audio editing at this stage but I'll see how it goes. I can do a variety of hilarious American accents, but I don't want to offend anyone :D

[flying rabbit]

Just do as much missions as you have good ideas. I had about 10 in mind and if you deliver 20 missions with unique ideas it would be plain awesome. :)

 

Feedback for the first mission:

I really like the radio music. :) I did choose to follow the river and got of track. Maybe the zones are too big? At the end I was not sure if I should land at the camp or at the airport. Maybe add a homing signal to the camp, too.

Edited April 3, 2016 by flying rabbit

[Wavehopper]

Good idea squirrel, I'll add an fm signal to the hospital.

[Chipwich]

There's an an inner and an outer NDB at the airport at Mineralnye Vody, not too far from the hospital. They are 583 and 283. I homed on the inner and it was perfect. Outer would have been closer. Edit: I'm pretty sure that the orders were to land at the hospital, and coming over from Gudauta put those in good position to home on until you got within 5 miles of the hospital. But the clipboard map had steerpoints so not a big deal.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Chipwich

[Wavehopper]

Version 5.1 of the Demo is up (version 5 had problems)

 

Link is on the first page.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2722167&postcount=5

 

Changes include:

 

- 3 new missions (11 in total)

- Edited mission pictures

- Complete re-working of campaign scoring. Quitting out of a mission no longer sends you back to the previous mission.

- Many many tweaks and fixes.

 

Enjoy

 

If you have downloaded Demo version 5, delete it. I apologise for the hassle but things got very convoluted and certain fixes created new problems. Version 5.1 has been been checked as best as I could.

 

I'm currently running through the entire campaign to check for problems, which I'm sure you can appreciate is a bit time consuming.

Edited April 4, 2016 by Wavehopper

[f4l0]

I just played the first few missions. I really liked them. I bet, voice acting would add a lot to this campaign. But I also know, it's quite a lot of work. What you could do is, add some static noise or beeps at the beginning/end when you display the text messages...

[Chipwich]

What you could do is, add some static noise or beeps at the beginning/end when you display the text messages...

 

I have to +1 this idea. I flew mission 3 last night of v5.1 and after the requested shutdown, sat for 20 mins. I probably missed the next orders, but finally had to call it a night. I did get 50 pts for flying the first segment and advancement to the next mission, which was nice. However, I think that we need some audible queue on the comms if we are going to park for a while.

 

Edit: Since FM homing was added, is there any penalty for not hitting your waypoints and cutting the course? Or should we always fly the planned route? Thanks.

 

Here we sit enjoying a moon pie and RC Cola waiting for some action.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Chipwich

[assafm25]

Wow chipwip what is your setup for this great grafics?

[Wavehopper]

Hey guys, work has been hectic so I haven't done much this week.

 

I will certainly add an audio cue for radio comms, and there is no penalty for missing waypoints. The only important ones are picking up and dropping off wounded.

[Chipwich]

Thanks Wavehopper. No rush.

 

@assafm25, it's an i7 slightly OC'd to 4 GHz and a 980 GTX graphics card using Wags' settings that he posted a while ago when introducing the NTTR, if memory serves. I typically get over 100 fps, depending on the aircraft and mission. 27" monitor at 1920x1080. Would like one of those new curved wide monitors. So nice.

[flying rabbit]

Did you remove the music radio?

[MadDog-IC]

Hmmm that's very odd snowsniper, that certainly shouldn't happen.

 

Does anyone have any ideas if this is a bug or have I fouled up somewhere? I'll have to investigate that.

 

 

Had a quick look through your first couple of mission in the ME, and played the first one with 100% success, the scoring system you use is a bit flawed to my thinking anyway for a campaign.

 

In campaigns if you want to have a chronological progression you can not give the player any less than 50 points or it will make them play the previous mission again.

 

Basic campaign Goal scoring system works as such:

 

• 0 - 49 = Go back a mission
  
• 50 = Replay same mission
  
• 51 - 100 = Move on to next mission.
  

 

Your Scoring is:

• 50 for Player jumping into game
  
• -50 for mission failure
  
• 50 for mission success
  
• So if it is possible to fail straight after joining game, you will get a score of 0 and go back a mission.
  

I prefer a system of (You can't go over a total 100 points anyway):

 

• 50 - Player alive, jumping into mission and possibly doing nothing.
  
• 10 - 15 each individual goals to be achieved if more than one
  
• (LOSS) - Do nothing to score so they either have to replay same mission for not accomplishing anything or are moved on to next mission but with a score of between 51 - 100
  
• 50 to 100 for (WIN) Completing all assigned goals and total mission success and moved onto next mission.
  

P.S. I liked what I saw of the first mission, your doing well, will be better with some voice overs, but that comes later I assume, all in good time.

 

 

Kind Regards, Ian.

[MadDog-IC]

I just played the first few missions. I really liked them. I bet, voice acting would add a lot to this campaign. But I also know, it's quite a lot of work. What you could do is, add some static noise or beeps at the beginning/end when you display the text messages...

 

Definetely a +1 for some notification of a message being presented, simple radio static sound for a few seconds is fine for beginning.

 

Cheers

[Wavehopper]

Cheers MadDog that's very useful information. I must admit I've found the whole thing quite bewildering.

 

There is more coming, but I have been utterly hammered at work recently and I haven't had much time to work on this in the evenings.

 

Don't worry though, I'm still working on it.

[sublime]

I love this campaign. Finally landed in that tight clearing ON A FRIGGIN SLOPE for the heavy ordinance mission (the one you laager at the hilltop FOB and then a trooper steps on a 105 round)

It took several tries but I was ecstatic when I got it. 6 dead and 4 wounded for the GIs though poor bastards =(

[sublime]

Very strange. Today playing the campaign leaving Dublin my left door gunner just.. died. No maneuver or loss of any other parts no enemy fire. After finishing the mission successfully (the one where you laager with the line of helos and tune into the US anthem on FM 40.00) I looked through the stats and his death was listed as would a random equipment failure. Are the door gunners considered equipment by the game?

[Wavehopper]

Very strange. Today playing the campaign leaving Dublin my left door gunner just.. died. No maneuver or loss of any other parts no enemy fire. After finishing the mission successfully (the one where you laager with the line of helos and tune into the US anthem on FM 40.00) I looked through the stats and his death was listed as would a random equipment failure. Are the door gunners considered equipment by the game?

 

Funny story to this one. I had originally intended the left door gunner to die during the evacuation but for the life of me I couldn't get it to work. I wrote out a whole section for it that I had to remove as he just wouldn't die.

 

Sod's law that he goes and dies in your mission. Thanks, looks like I missed something so that's on my to do list.

[Yurgon]

Right now there's one really, really awesome aspect about this campaign IMO: It's a great opportunity to listen, for example, to the 476th podcast with retired A-10C pilot "Olie". ;)

 

I don't usually listen to podcasts because, fascinating as they are, it feels like I'm not making good use of my time. But flying to an LZ, pausing the podcast for a few minutes while things are hectic, and then flying all the way back, that's a perfect environment for this. :thumbup:

 

Probably not quite the way the campaign was supposed to be played, but for me that's like a win-win situation because I get to fly the Huey, which I always enjoy, and learn lots of interesting things (though not necessarily related to the Huey) at the same time. ;)

 

Back on topic, I just flew mission 6 "Professional Courtesy" and as always it was lots of fun, keep'em coming, Wavehopper. :thumbup:

[assafm25]

Wavehopper did u got my PM ?