Operation Dixmude

[Mango]

Nice, has this correction to mission 12 been added to the public build of DCS, or do I still need to download the updated mission from this thread?

 

EDIT: I downloaded the mission and finished the campaign. That music kicks serious ass!!!

Edited April 10, 2019 by Mango

[pietpuk]

The only reason I do not remove this mission is to prove I am the good guy and Nineline is the bad guy.

[Bashibazouk]

OK, at the risk of demonstrating a skill issue on my part, I have comments and questions from when I went to play this campaign again. With the updates to the Gazelle and the environment it's become unplayable. At my level of medium skill anyway. I know there will be some who might wish to prove me wrong by sailing through the missions, but someone at that level of skill is way beyond the average.

Firstly, it's so dark in many of the missions, for example, one has a 5 metre altitude requirement over a choppy sea (and attendant wind) that no IRL pilot would ever fly. 5 metre max altitude over a 2-ish metre chop? Suicide.  Also, with the removal of the UFO flight model, the Gazelle can barely get off the ground without dragging a skid, or tipping and breaking a blade, particularly with the moderate-high wind as set. To get through the occasional mission I had to unload most of the fuel.

First question - am I the only one? I found this campaign challenging but do-able a couple of years ago.

Second question - are there any updates in the pipeline?

I understand the realism requirement to have night missions but I find them both boring and harrowing. Boring as all the work that went into creating the beautiful maps and environments is wasted and I'm staring at mostly a black screen with a cockpit overlay. With occasional views of a blurry green circle overlaid, which is so blurry it prevents me from flying instruments. Harrowing because without proprioception (gravity telling me which way/direction I'm facing)  it's ridiculously easy to lose which way is up for a second. And at a <5 metre altitude, that's enough time for game over. Visual cues are the only cues we have, and with almost none I would imagine it's even more difficult than a real life attempt at a similar mission.

 

With the HUEY I will often skip the night missions once I flown a mission once, or if I've flown a night mission in that particular campaign. Not because they're too difficult, they are usually within my skill level, but they're just dull. Even so, there's usually enough moonlight. With this campaign, all of them are night and many of them have no moon at all.

I understand that I'm whining about having both realism considered (I play for simulation, not gaming reasons so artificially created challenge levels don't interest me) and less realism in that night missions just aren't fun - most of the time anyway.

[MAXsenna]

@Bashibazouk

Well, it states in the beginning of this thread that 80% are night missions, and one should be familiar with navigation.

Try Taz1004's NVG mod.

[Eugel]

Yeah, I had some trouble with the night missions as well. I think I´m stuck in the second or third mission.
Might be because of VR, but whenever I put on the NVGs, I couldn´t read any of the instruments, and without them, you don´t even see a tree 20 meters in front of you.

[nazradu]

The night visibility issue can be solved by adjusting gamma setting to around 3.

[lefuneste01]

On 8/23/2023 at 9:11 AM, Eugel said:

Yeah, I had some trouble with the night missions as well. I think I´m stuck in the second or third mission.
Might be because of VR, but whenever I put on the NVGs, I couldn´t read any of the instruments, and without them, you don´t even see a tree 20 meters in front of you.

Try my mod:  you will be able to reduce NVG size by usign a menu when in cockpit :

And it wil lallow you to remove rotor display so no more issue wiht reprojection.

[DimSim]

Are you supposed to manually select armament at the start of every mission?

I notice my aircraft has no weapons loaded at startup. Looking at YouTube plays from 4 years ago, it appears aircraft were already armed.

@Bashibazouk I've only reached mission 2 and found the scene pitch black without bumping up gamma. Once again looking at old YouTube videos, it appears the night was much brighter in earlier version of DCS or perhaps the campaign.

[Ramsay]

9 hours ago, DimSim said:

I notice my aircraft has no weapons loaded at startup. Looking at YouTube plays from 4 years ago, it appears aircraft were already armed.

The mission(s) need to be updated to use the current versions of the Gazelle's weapons.

9 hours ago, DimSim said:

I've only reached mission 2 and found the scene pitch black without bumping up gamma. Once again looking at old YouTube videos, it appears the night was much brighter in earlier version of DCS or perhaps the campaign.

The mission(s) need resaving using the latest version of DCS - although set on a moon lit night, the moon and stars are now missing unless the mission is resaved i.e. using the Light Scattered Clouds preset, you'll get a few faint clouds and moon/stars that silhouette against the horizon.

IIRC the mission (DCS 1.5.3 / 2016) was intended to be darker than shown in this youtube video from 4 years ago but NOT PITCH BLACK.

Originally ground targets were marked by IR laser/marker from predator drones and visible using NVG [RShift+H]) - however I'm not sure if the old (2015) JTAC autolase script still works as intended (I reflew the mission several years ago and IIRC the IR markers were missing) YMMV.

Tested using DCS Open Beta Multi-thread 2.9.1.48335 but not flown to completion.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Ramsay

[dimitriov]

Prettily glad to see that after so many years, people still break their teeth on my missions. Mouahaha

Campaign was inspired after Harmattan operation where this kind of flight was common, though probably not as hardcore I admit, fair enough, it's a game. Flight by black moon at very low level, including low altitude in urban environments and shooting HOTS at ghaddafi elements. You don't fly at night with full moon, it's pointless, a single bullet could kill you. It never was intended to be realistic though, the scenario is one of the most wtf things I ever wrote, simply a serie of real challenges that one should handle once he really masters the helicopter, and more than all IFR. It's more a milsim battlefield campaign than a purely sim one. But real life is boring. I never made missions that I couldn't finish myself so I guess you still need for training, I played it recently and although it's obviously harder, it's still manageable. It's not because the scenario is goofy and hollywood style that you must fly it the same way.

 

For the water part, simply fly IFR, use your instruments only. When in low visibility situation, the worst idea is to look outside, IRL like on sim, you'll crash. This is one the first things they teach you at flight school. "Fly looking outside and you'll fly backwards"  So switch off your NVG, look at your instruments and fly.  A good pilot blindy trusts his instruments. (Glider manual page 1) Of course it implies that you know how to set them up accordingly. If you even want a bigger challenge, disable your artificial horizon and fly using the drift marble, the compass and the variometer, you should be able to know which attitude takes your aircraft only with them. (Although less true with an helicopter than with a plane I admit, unless you don't touch at your collective, then your helicopter is a very noisy plane)

 

So if you crash because you don't see anything, it's because you think that it's important to see something. (Pai Mei style quote I know) You must learn IFR, and stop even thinking about the fact that you don't see anything. Your aircraft has not any eyes and still, it flies. Being able to do so in a small cockpit like the Gazelle one will be of vital help for other more complex aircrafts. You have the heading, the wind value, the drift value. Far enough to cross the Atlantic from La Rochelle and land at La Guardia NY if you wish  Plus you have a huge advantage compared to real life : wind stays the same all the way. 

 

Lindbergh basically did it in 1927 with this cockpit : 

 

So let's put it mildly : You're flying a Rolls Royce compared to this poor fella. He was an airmail pilot, and therefore perfectly knew how to fly in bad visibility situation, with instruments at this time that you would laugh about. 

He had a periscope to watch outside and his plane looked like this terrible piece of wood : 

 

 

So now you can get a glimpse at my philosophy when I produced this... Thing. You have in your Gazelle : 

- A nadir inertial unit with doppler addon, perfect stuff. 

- A gyrocompass (Lindbergh would not be able to spell this)

- Two altimeters (He's passing out right now looking at them)

- A variometer (Voodoo magic)

- An artificial horizon (Like the real horizon but artificial)

- Another artificial horizon (So you can get an insight of what 4 dimensional universe is  I guess)

- A trim (Aliens...)

- Philippe, your fearless commander, who does nothing except trying to eat your soul with his eyes. 

 

Well camarade, let's say it : You're rich. 

 

Ah, btw, there is no trigger for the 5m level, actually it was a confusion of me for the radar SAM minimum altitude. You can fly up to 10m without having it shooting at you. I thought it was only 5 when I created it. Still, you should not fly higher than 2 if you're the boss  

 

And : "I know there will be some who might wish to prove me wrong by sailing through the missions, but someone at that level of skill is way beyond the average." Lmao thank you I guess   But seriously, everyone can learn, it's not the skill, it's the method, and as most people on sim never flew an aircraft IRL they therefore don't learn properly. You need to read on it. Intellectual capacities never were a prerequisite to learn how to fly, I can tell you... Military procedures are what they are, but first a pilot learns how to fly. 

 

Regards

Edited December 21, 2023 by dimitriov

[Ramius007]

all good, but AAA target aquisition time should be toned down a bit by ED, currently even at lowest setting they see you much further away than you see them

[Bashibazouk]

Thanks. I was very frustrated when I was rerunning the campaign with the new changes. It's a lot better now, I've readjusted my curves and the Gazelle is quite flyable, so that helps a lot!  I've managed the night missions and your advice that 10m is ok rather than 5 really helps with that one. Seriously, I was brushing the top of the waves trying to stay under 5, which realistically, with that wind, and my level of competence,  means flying at 2-3 metres. So effectively 0-1m with the chop.

So, all good. Except one thing in mission 11. The snowy one. Is there any trick to getting the IR to see through the snow? I've been adjusting brightness and contrast and the best I can do is a white on black, with oversaturated blobs. Am I doing something wrong here, or is it the changes to the IR system? I completed the mission by cheating and turning on labels, but I try to keep that to a minimum.

BTW, I've been manually adding the HOT missiles in the appropriate missions as they are not currently loading by default, something to do with the changes to the versions of the chopper? If not, it's probably my overload of mods. I'm gonna have to setup OVGME, I have so many and it's a bit of a faff moving files around if I'm looking for an error caused by a particular one.

I have been enjoying the missions, the one where I have to hide (I won't say more) is nail biting. And there's a quite shocking one later on, narrative wise. I love the Gazelle, moreso now it's less of a UFO. My only current whinge is the skids sometimes seem to magnetically stick to the ground on take-off, particularly noticeable if not taking off directly into the wind but still a thing even if I rotate the craft while it's still on the ground to ensure I'm facing the right way. This doesn't happen with any other choppers, so I'm fairly sure it's not a skill issue although most of my other problems are

[Mavkruger]

the dixmude campaign need some fix, some trigger are broken, for example on the third or fourth mission the meatboy land on you, i need to pass the mission. ZSU shooting trough forest is a big no for the moment. You need to rearm on each mission before starting.

[bingbean]

I do not play much multiplayer scenarios because i am mostly lost there. I simple dont know where to fly and what to do there. This campaign is even worse in this case. I don't know what to do and over that i don't see anything. 

[dimitriov]

Yup,

 

For the bugs, now it's up to PC to fix them. My personnal engagement toward them was to deliver a campaign, and I fixed it for 2 years for free so well... Their problem.

 

For the snow in miz 11, it worked before 2.5 when old IR was in place. The only way to fix it now would be for you to edit and reduce not the snow but the fog (which is here to simulate the snow effect).

 

For the meatboy landing on you.... I remember having fixed it 10 times since with every new ED update he decided to land on another place and generally on you... So well, you only can edit it.

 

For the triggers, same, last repair of the campaign must be 3-4 years old to give you an idea.

For not knowing what to do : get in your gazelle repertory on windows, docs, and you'll find a massive pdf which describes the whole scenario and each mission briefing. At the time it was not possible to put it efficiently directly in DCS.

Regards

Edited March 2, 2024 by dimitriov

[MAXsenna]

Yup,
 
For the bugs, now it's up to PC to fix them. My personnal engagement toward them was to deliver a campaign, and I fixed it for 2 years for free so well... Their problem.
 
For the snow in miz 11, it worked before 2.5 when old IR was in place. The only way to fix it now would be for you to edit and reduce not the snow but the fog (which is here to simulate the snow effect).
 
For the meatboy landing on you.... I remember having fixed it 10 times since with every new ED update he decided to land on another place and generally on you... So well, you only can edit it.
 
For the triggers, same, last repair of the campaign must be 3-4 years old to give you an idea.
For not knowing what to do : get in your gazelle repertory on windows, docs, and you'll find a massive pdf which describes the whole scenario and each mission briefing. At the time it was not possible to put it efficiently directly in DCS.
Regards

The mission briefings are excellent! Thank you!
As for the bugs. Yes, it's up to PC. First thing that should be done obviously, is to open every mission and save them with a new weather preset, and obviously check the triggers. Fixing the AI is pretty much up to ED...
Cheers!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Bashibazouk]

UPDATE  ----NEVER MIND! I looked through previous comments, I had no idea there was a wonderful guide in the actual files in PDF format for the whole campaign. I now know where that Gori Plain demarcation line is. I wish I'd seen this earlier! Back in the cockpit.

 

======================================================================================

Ok, I've worked my way through to mission 12, although I had to skip the snow bound one. But where is this line that bisects the Gori plain? What is the Gori plain? I keep crossing it but I have no idea where it is. 

cheers,

 

BB

 

PS the 'sticktion' problem I was having with the Gazelle seems to have been fixed in a recent update. I haven't done any formalised testing, but I'm not being thrown to the side in the mildest of crosswinds when trying to take off from dirt. Fingers crossed!

Edited April 11, 2024 by Bashibazouk

[Bailey]

I think the issue with mission 12 comes from some collision which triggers WW3 an aggressive AI. I made the mission playable by manually changing all Russian units ROE to hold fire. I cannot post the change here because it is a part of the OH-58D Kiowa conversion campaign. Looking at the waypoint task list, it seems that some of them have "?". I have recently learned with other missions that making a new task of the same type with the same parameters will reduce the likelihood of bugs.