Oil In The Water SP & CO Campaign

[VDV]

Well, they were not. I was forced to hide it mannually via map planner for each mission (took me 1 hour). Anyways, good work and pretty nice campaing.

[pstavis]

Sorry if my question sounds dumb but I'm having a bit of trouble on mission 2 (excluding the prologue).

 

So I hit all targets on the first island. Then I move to the second one and the F-5 shows up. On my first try, they got me fairly easily. On the second one, I tried shooting him but somehow he just got behind me. Third try, my wingmen got him. Then I continued hitting the ground targets. Out of the nothing another F-5 shot me.

I was well aware there were two of 'em. When we downed the first one, the second guy moved away and I kept asking for EWACS reports, it always came back as clean.

 

I might be misunderstanding the F18 (i'm like a average guy on it for now) but I dont see any RWR warning he's behind me nor the EWACS tells me theres a guy coming for me. Any advice? Isnt the RWR supposed to warn me i'm being shot at, followed or at least the EWACS is supposed to update me on the bandit position?

[Bunny Clark]

19 hours ago, VDV said:

Well, they were not. I was forced to hide it mannually via map planner for each mission (took me 1 hour). Anyways, good work and pretty nice campaing.

What units did you hide? It's always possible I missed something. 

 

 

6 hours ago, pstavis said:

I might be misunderstanding the F18 (i'm like a average guy on it for now) but I dont see any RWR warning he's behind me nor the EWACS tells me theres a guy coming for me. Any advice? Isnt the RWR supposed to warn me i'm being shot at, followed or at least the EWACS is supposed to update me on the bandit position?

The F-5s are using heat-seeking Sidewinder missiles that don't need a radar lock to target you, they're short ranged but you get no warning when they are launched. The F-5 also has a very rudimentary radar that you may pick up on your RWR occasionally, but they generally won't hard lock you since there's no need for them to do that to launch weapons. They can be quite sneaky. The AWACS should see them tough, and you should see them on the SA page over datalink.

[pstavis]

19 hours ago, Bunny Clark said:

The F-5s are using heat-seeking Sidewinder missiles that don't need a radar lock to target you, they're short ranged but you get no warning when they are launched. The F-5 also has a very rudimentary radar that you may pick up on your RWR occasionally, but they generally won't hard lock you since there's no need for them to do that to launch weapons. They can be quite sneaky. The AWACS should see them tough, and you should see them on the SA page over datalink.

 

Here's a video from the moment they "activate" until we exchange missiles:

 

Around 01:30 into the video I call the AWACS for the first time, clean. 03:45, still clean. Around 05:50 i'm turning to hit the next target I can see 'em on my RWR. 06:03 AWACS says they're only 30nm from me and they pop up on my SA page. Then around 7' mark I try to lock using my radar (TDC depress) but that's another thing I cant figure out yet (why the radar keeps scanning the small portion but it never locks up). Finally around 7nm from him I can lock and wait until my missile says its in range. The end you already know.

 

I'm not sure if its maybe a mission spawn so they will pop up at 13.000ft 30nm from me. Or the AWACS should have picked them far away but isnt working as it is supposed to.

 

 

 

[pete_auau]

9 hours ago, pstavis said:

 

Here's a video from the moment they "activate" until we exchange missiles:

 

Around 01:30 into the video I call the AWACS for the first time, clean. 03:45, still clean. Around 05:50 i'm turning to hit the next target I can see 'em on my RWR. 06:03 AWACS says they're only 30nm from me and they pop up on my SA page. Then around 7' mark I try to lock using my radar (TDC depress) but that's another thing I cant figure out yet (why the radar keeps scanning the small portion but it never locks up). Finally around 7nm from him I can lock and wait until my missile says its in range. The end you already know.

 

I'm not sure if its maybe a mission spawn so they will pop up at 13.000ft 30nm from me. Or the AWACS should have picked them far away but isnt working as it is supposed to.

 

 

 

the most likely  reason  for  you not looking  them up is  because of  your radar  elevation  was  set  wrong  your  was  set  between 9 to  17  thousand  on where the bandits  alt  were at 25 thou.  Need  to  use  your  elevation  radar  to  tilt  up

Edited October 11, 2021 by pete_auau

[pstavis]

12 hours ago, pete_auau said:

the most likely  reason  for  you not looking  them up is  because of  your radar  elevation  was  set  wrong  your  was  set  between 9 to  17  thousand  on where the bandits  alt  were at 25 thou.  Need  to  use  your  elevation  radar  to  tilt  up

 

 

Near the end of the video, when I turn towards the bandits they instantly appear on my radar. The main issue until that point is that they somehow took off and climbed to 13000ft, got near 30nm from me without the AWACS seeing 'em.

I believe its some kind of bug or maybe they spawn mid air right behind me. The radar thing is another topic which i'm having trouble but i'll try to manipulate the radar elevation a little bit more and see if I can lock targets easier.

 

PS: I'll try a separate thread for this question so we don't fill the campaign thread.

[Bunny Clark]

8 hours ago, pstavis said:

maybe they spawn mid air right behind me.

They spawn over Qeshm Island Airbase at the same time you get the scripted message from Wizard saying that bandits are taking off. From there they just fly to you. In my experience they frequently split up, so it's not too surprising that one snuck around behind you while you were fixating on getting a radar lock on his buddy.

 

The AWACS is nearly 200nm from the airbase, so it's maybe not too surprising that it doesn't pick up the fairly small F-5s until they are closer to you. 

[FMBluecher]

Just started this campaign yesterday and really enjoying it so far! Played through the prologue and Mission 1.

Mission 1 was a lot of fun, but it might be worthwhile to increase the speed of the tanker. The S-3 was chugging along at only about 192 KIAS, which made it very difficult to control the Hornet properly while trying to refuel. I thought I was doing badly until I saw that my AI (!) wingman did such a poor job that he failed to refuel successfully and ended up having to eject due to running out of fuel.

Just a minor annoyance, though, in what so far has been great. Looking forward to the rest of it!

[pstavis]

Its me, again...

 

Well mission 4 is really unplayable. Tried it like 30 times and everytime I get a different result. On my first tries, I could kill the first group then head to the massive attack. Here it became unfair, all the friedly AI died. I died too rofl.

For the next tries, now I can only kill the 2 migs, the next SU24s go past the AWACS unnoticed. When I finally find them with my radar, the ship gets hit and mission fail.

My wingman? Geez... Crash after takeoff, killed by the first migs, killed by SU24s. Not sure whats happening.

 

What I believe is a must here is changing the double fuel tank on wings for more AIM-120. Not sure if it's a realistic loadout but so far is the only alternative for me...

[Blackflys56]

Hi,

Mission 4 not realistic, 2 f-18 and  1 E2C VS more than 15 fighters.

 

Edited November 12, 2021 by Blackflys56

[Bunny Clark]

On 11/12/2021 at 6:08 AM, Blackflys56 said:

Hi,

Mission 4 not realistic, 2 f-18 and  1 E2C VS more than 15 fighters.

It's supposed to be a surprise attack and a significant escalation of hostilities by Iran. The point is that the US is not expecting such a strike. 

Besides, it's not that lopsided. There are 4 Hornets airborne at the start of the engagement, plus two more alert fighters launched from the carrier. And most of the threat aircraft are bombers, not fighters. The fighter-fighter ratio is 6 Hornets vs 6 MiG-29s, then there are Tu-22s which can only threaten you with R-60s. 

This mission continues to confuddle me. I've had multiple people complain about it being too hard, yet when I play it I always win easily, with the friendly AI usually defeating the northern attack without any help from me at all. 

[FMBluecher]

On Mission 9 (Minhad CAP) - I've been having a blast so far, but I'm a bit stuck on this one, and it seems like there are a few things that aren't quite right.

Admittedly, part of the reason I'm having problems with this is that I'm simply not great at using the the Hornet in BVR engagements. So I've been working on my skills, but there are a few things that I feel are making it harder on the player than intended.

The biggest issue is that Enfield 1 - the F-16s that start airborne - are consistently leaving the AO to tangle with the Iranian MiG-29 CAP over Iranian airspace instead of defending their own airspace. This makes the engagement against the Iranian ground attack's escorts a 2v4 instead of a 4v4, and the 2v4 is rather difficult given that the enemy has AIM-54s. Enfield 2 seldom gets airborne in time to make a difference; usually we get shot down and then they get shot down. I just opened up the Mission Planner, and I don't get why Enfield 1 goes off to the north. Their Search then Engage in Zone order seems placed properly, but for me, they are consistently going wandering way north of their assigned engagement zone. I also tried changing their orders, but it looks like I can't do this from the Mission Planner since it's not my flight.

Another issue that doesn't help is that the radio message giving the initial bearing of the bandits is off. It seems as though (possibly?) the radio message is written as though Bullseye is WPT 3, as it gives the hostiles' bearing as Bullseye 107, but it's actually closer to 070 from WPT 2, which is actually what the Bullseye is.

Anyway, thanks again for making this campaign. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to the rest of it!

[FMBluecher]

Finished the campaign yesterday, and I wanted to thank you for such an awesome experience! This was some of the most fun I've ever had in a Hornet. As a historian, I really appreciated a lot of the historical notes on your insipiration for various missions, and the missions felt both realistic and fun. Great work!

A couple of notes on some of the final missions:

On #12, "Silkworm," you noted in the briefing that the wingman's targeting behavior was unpredictable, and that he would sometimes hit the correct targets, and sometimes not. I'm just one data point, so I'm not sure this 100% solves the issue, but I gave him a "Search and Engage in Zone" order in the mission planner that covered all three possible target areas and de-selected every target type but "Artillery." He dropped all of his ordnance right on target, so that might be a solution.

On #14, "Praying Mantis," despite looking like he had the right orders, the wingman put both of his SLAM-ERs into the Krivak, and, given that I put one into the Krivak as well (leaving one of the Grishas unharmed), it resulted in an unsuccessful mission. Thanks to your excellent policy of allowing the player to keep going as long as they RTB, it didn't bother me too much, but it might be good to just give the player a win as long as they score hits on both the Krivak and the eastern Grisha. (Oddly, my one SLAM-ER into the Grisha didn't kill it, either. But it clearly hit, as the game played the audio message indicating a hit on the Grisha.)

Anyway, thanks again! This was an awesome campaign, and I'm already looking forward to anything else you put out.

[Bunny Clark]

Thanks for the compliments! 

3 hours ago, FMBluecher said:

I gave him a "Search and Engage in Zone" order in the mission planner that covered all three possible target areas and de-selected every target type but "Artillery." 

That's an interesting idea, I hadn't considered filtering for artillery. I'll test that out and see if it's more reliable. 

Quote

despite looking like he had the right orders, the wingman put both of his SLAM-ERs into the Krivak

Yah, the DCS AI does really dumb things with standoff weapons right now, getting them to do something predictable is extremely hit-and-miss. I found the most reliable way to pass the mission is the have the wingman fire both his missiles first, then attack whatever he doesn't hit yourself. 

Killing the ships isn't necessary, it's not really possible in DCS with a single missile hit, and that's fairly realistic anyway. Within the context of the story the objective is to damage them to prevent them from leaving port, sinking them isn't necessary. For the mission doing any amount of damage to them will count as a hit for mission success (you can even strafe them if you're feeling brave enough and that would count too ...).

[FMBluecher]

21 hours ago, Bunny Clark said:

Yah, the DCS AI does really dumb things with standoff weapons right now, getting them to do something predictable is extremely hit-and-miss. I found the most reliable way to pass the mission is the have the wingman fire both his missiles first, then attack whatever he doesn't hit yourself.

Good call--if I replay the campaign, that'll probably be the approach I'd take.

[flyingtom]

Just finished this campaign. That was very nice and fun to fly . Great thanks to Bunny for his enormous work on that campaign . How long did you take to create only one mission ?

I can't wait to see your next campaign to come.

Thanks again and best wishes for 2022 !

[Ghostrider401]

Hi 

I can´t finished mission 11 allthough all F 14 on the ground are bombed und destroyed: 

 

[Bunny Clark]

On 1/31/2022 at 8:45 AM, Ghostrider401 said:

Hi 

I can´t finished mission 11 allthough all F 14 on the ground are bombed und destroyed: 

 

There are 5 aircraft total to hit, 3 in the open and two in a hanger that your wingman should hit. Did you instruct your wingman to attack his targets?

[Ghostrider401]

On 2/6/2022 at 12:24 AM, Bunny Clark said:

There are 5 aircraft total to hit, 3 in the open and two in a hanger that your wingman should hit. Did you instruct your wingman to attack his targets?

yes i did. he attacked the hangars. after that my radio report miller time than i land plane on CV and mission score is 0 points and a fail

[Bunny Clark]

1 minute ago, Ghostrider401 said:

yes i did. he attacked the hangars. after that my radio report miller time than i land plane on CV and mission score is 0 points and a fail

Did you have a "Score" of 0 or a "Results" of 0? The two terms are often used interchangeably, but Score is a DCS thing based only on the number of units you killed, while Results is the points from 0-100 that the mission designer gives you and that is what determines success or failure in the campaign. A Results of 0 should not be possible, a Score of 0 would indicate that you didn't kill anything, which wouldn't actually be surprising since aircraft on the ground in DCS are very difficult to kill and the mission is designed such that you only need to damage them to pass. If you got the Miller Time call for your flight you definitely should have passed the mission, those triggers are directly linked. 

Are you flying the hot start or cold start version?

[Ghostrider401]

36 minutes ago, Bunny Clark said:

Did you have a "Score" of 0 or a "Results" of 0? The two terms are often used interchangeably, but Score is a DCS thing based only on the number of units you killed, while Results is the points from 0-100 that the mission designer gives you and that is what determines success or failure in the campaign. A Results of 0 should not be possible, a Score of 0 would indicate that you didn't kill anything, which wouldn't actually be surprising since aircraft on the ground in DCS are very difficult to kill and the mission is designed such that you only need to damage them to pass. If you got the Miller Time call for your flight you definitely should have passed the mission, those triggers are directly linked. 

Are you flying the hot start or cold start version?

Result 0. I fly hot start. 

[Bunny Clark]

49 minutes ago, Ghostrider401 said:

Result 0. I fly hot start. 

Has this happened more than once? Are you using the most recent version?

You should get 50 points immediately at the start of the mission, 5 points for ending the mission with your aircraft still intact, and 45 points for completing the mission. 

[Ghostrider401]

16 hours ago, Bunny Clark said:

Has this happened more than once? Are you using the most recent version?

You should get 50 points immediately at the start of the mission, 5 points for ending the mission with your aircraft still intact, and 45 points for completing the mission. 

Version 2.9 it happans 4 times. I´ll try it today again 

[Ghostrider401]

1 hour ago, Ghostrider401 said:

Version 2.9 it happans 4 times. I´ll try it today again 

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[Bunny Clark]

That is extremely weird. When I get time I'll test fly the mission myself just to be sure everything is working, though it's such basic functionality that isn't working for you that I don't have much hope I'll stumble onto anything obvious, and all the flags are correct in the ME. From your screenshots everything looks like you should be getting Results=100. 

I wonder if localization is causing a screwy problem somewhere. Though, if that were the case why wouldn't it be a problem on other missions?

Edited February 13, 2022 by Bunny Clark