Oil In The Water SP & CO Campaign

[LordOrion]

28 minutes ago, CBStu said:

Thanks Bunny. I never would have thought about a UI feature. I was thinking about getting the latest version. If I do that will I lose all my progress so far?

 

AFAIK no, just be sure to use the same folder name when you install it.

[Bunny Clark]

4 hours ago, CBStu said:

Thanks Bunny. I never would have thought about a UI feature. I was thinking about getting the latest version. If I do that will I lose all my progress so far?

Nope, campaign progress is saved in your logbook file. Just overwrite the campaign files with the new version and the game won't know the difference since the file names are all the same. 

[CBStu]

2 hours ago, Bunny Clark said:

Nope, campaign progress is saved in your logbook file. Just overwrite the campaign files with the new version and the game won't know the difference since the file names are all the same. 

Ok, so I downloaded it, extracted it to the same folder the campaign is in now. And now, in DCS, I have two Oil in the Water campaigns to choose from. If I click the new one it takes me to the Prologue which I believe is the first mission. Should I delete the old one?

[Bunny Clark]

7 hours ago, CBStu said:

Ok, so I downloaded it, extracted it to the same folder the campaign is in now. And now, in DCS, I have two Oil in the Water campaigns to choose from. If I click the new one it takes me to the Prologue which I believe is the first mission. Should I delete the old one?

You should overwrite the old one with the new one. Drop it into the same folder as the old one. 

[CBStu]

OK, I will try again later today.

[Cornflex]

On 3/15/2021 at 10:39 AM, LordOrion said:

 

I flew  that mission some  day ago and all went fine: did you manually set-up targets coordinates? If so, do you have correctly set the target altitude?

I saw the same effect when I've used waypoint target designation and WP altitude was not the same of the target, but the idea is the same: weapons compute a fall trajectory  using the specified coords and altitude. If altitude is not correct they will miss.

I.e.:

- If target is a 100ft MSL and you left height to 0 in weapon setup, the JSOW will fall short.

- If target is at 100ft MSL and you use the WP altitude (WP TGT designation), with a waypoint set at 15000 ft, the JSOW will fall long.

 

If I'm right your should be the second case.

 

I can‘t get any of the JSOWs to hit the targets.

There still seems to be a problem with it.

See latest post.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Cornflex

[Padre Pio]

Hello dear Pilots and dear Author! I am nearly close to the end of the campaign, but now it is my first experience with SLAMs in mission 14.

 

Generally, after studying various manuals, I had no problem with settting up the SLAM in TOO mode. I found out that after shortening the "active seeker" distance to 5nm, the missile reaches perfectly each of the targets, even without corrections via DataLink (on the other hand, DL13 visiblity and transmission is very poor, distance does not matter much).

 

The main problem I have is efficiency. Direct hits from the high level don't bring much damage to the ships, maybe 2-12%. One thing I am wandering of is  just the "flight level" parameter. I am setting it to "high". Does it have a meaning, in sense of destruction ratio? 

 

I know that "harpoon" is usually set to low and "pop-up" on the end, what is more important due to detecting by enemy radar and defense.

 

Another problem is "AI" Wingman as usually. I have read all the instructions and I am ordering him "coming back" after every launch. No problem with this. The problem is, that he always attacks the Primary target (Krivak), despite of fact, that he should also attack second "Grisha". Is it because the primary one is not completly destroyed?  Would be better for me to take out both the Grishas first, and then order Wingman to attack on Primary?

 

Thank you for all the suggestions!

 

[Bunny Clark]

49 minutes ago, Cornflex said:

I can‘t get any of the JSOWs to hit the targets.

There still seems to be a problem with it.

 

Yah, I've been meaning to spend some time to properly re-test the JSOW-A and produce a good clean track for ED if there's a problem. Haven't gotten around to it yet. 

 

2 minutes ago, Padre Pio said:

The main problem I have is efficiency. Direct hits from the high level don't bring much damage to the ships, maybe 2-12%.

Yup, the damage model for ships is pretty out of wack right now. No need to worry about it for the mission though, so long as you damage all three ships by any amount you will complete the mission. A single SLAM is unlikely to sink a warship in real life anyway, and the idea of the mission is simply to cripple them and prevent them from leaving port. 

 

Wingman AI is always an adventure to try to understand. He isn't told to attack units specifically, just two locations, which happen to be two anchored ships. So he should attack both targets, regardless of the status of the ships. Weird things happen though. A single hit on each ship is all you need, so as long as he lands one hit and you hit the other two you'll be all set.

[Padre Pio]

21 minutes ago, Bunny Clark said:

Yup, the damage model for ships is pretty out of wack right now. No need to worry about it for the mission though, so long as you damage all three ships by any amount you will complete the mission. A single SLAM is unlikely to sink a warship in real life anyway, and the idea of the mission is simply to cripple them and prevent them from leaving port. 

 

Wingman AI is always an adventure to try to understand. He isn't told to attack units specifically, just two locations, which happen to be two anchored ships. So he should attack both targets, regardless of the status of the ships. Weird things happen though. A single hit on each ship is all you need, so as long as he lands one hit and you hit the other two you'll be all set.

Thank You Bunny, I will be testing today. There are some additional issues with the mission results counts, but it is probably some bug. On one hand it is reported that I have hit the object, but on the other hand the report shows no points and no results time to time. I will see

[LordOrion]

2 hours ago, Cornflex said:

I can‘t get any of the JSOWs to hit the targets.

There still seems to be a problem with it.

See latest post.

 

 

I don't remember any major OB update since the time I've flew this mission: are you using OB or stable version?

 

2 hours ago, Padre Pio said:

Hello dear Pilots and dear Author! I am nearly close to the end of the campaign, but now it is my first experience with SLAMs in mission 14.

 

Generally, after studying various manuals, I had no problem with settting up the SLAM in TOO mode. I found out that after shortening the "active seeker" distance to 5nm, the missile reaches perfectly each of the targets, even without corrections via DataLink (on the other hand, DL13 visiblity and transmission is very poor, distance does not matter much).

 

I've seen the same while training  in SLAM usage, and  AFAIK active seeker distance is not related since the missile hit  without guidance even setting it to 10 or 15nm.

Dunno how SLAM works in real life, however it might be that terminal guidance is needed only when you have an approximate position of  the target, or it has been mover around.

If it is stationary and  you have its precise position coordinates, SLAM could be able to hit without any adjustment from the DataLink.

 

 

[Cornflex]

59 minutes ago, LordOrion said:

I don't remember any major OB update since the time I've flew this mission: are you using OB or stable version?

 

I only used the OB.

Now I tried with the stable and it worked perfectly. Seems to be an issue with the latest open beta.

Edited March 19, 2021 by Cornflex

[LordOrion]

3 minutes ago, Cornflex said:

 

I only used the OB.

Now I tried with the stable and it worked perfectly. Seems to be an issue with the latest open beta.

 

 

I'm only using OB and it worked fine for  me

[Padre Pio]

1 hour ago, LordOrion said:

AFAIK active seeker distance is not related since the missile hit  without guidance even setting it to 10 or 15nm.

Dunno how SLAM works in real life, however it might be that terminal guidance is needed only when you have an approximate position of  the target, or it has been mover around.

If it is stationary and  you have its precise position coordinates, SLAM could be able to hit without any adjustment from the DataLink.

Thanks Lord for your opinion. That's true, but there was a different reason why I started to play with the seeker distance. In that mission you've got a harbour with a couple of other ships. I I had few missed launches before and I was affraid that seeker had aquired  a different target since it had became active. Logically, when decreasing the seeker distance parameter, you are decreasing the risk of aquiring a wrong target between you and the proper one. Of course, it is valid until the azzimuth is perfect.  Maybe I am investigating too deep and all of this does not have a meaning in dcs. However it is interesting and I have to perform more tests in the future.  

[Cornflex]

59 minutes ago, LordOrion said:

I'm only using OB and it worked fine for  me

 

I did a quick test with the latest beta. Set up a mission with 1 target (infantry) and load 4 JSOW-A. When launching all 4 JSOWs at the same target (all bombs with same parameters; TOO or PP mode does not make a difference here) I have to be lucky, if only one JSOW hits. Even during flight you can see how different the bombs behave. Some fall short, some fly high and miss and another one maybe hits. 

[LordOrion]

1 hour ago, Padre Pio said:

Logically, when decreasing the seeker distance parameter, you are decreasing the risk of aquiring a wrong target between you and the proper one. 

 

Well, this indeed make sense :)

 

1 hour ago, Cornflex said:

 

I did a quick test with the latest beta. Set up a mission with 1 target (infantry) and load 4 JSOW-A. When launching all 4 JSOWs at the same target (all bombs with same parameters; TOO or PP mode does not make a difference here) I have to be lucky, if only one JSOW hits. Even during flight you can see how different the bombs behave. Some fall short, some fly high and miss and another one maybe hits. 

 

To me, the effect you are describing seems a wrong target altitude setup... did you double checked it?

Edited March 19, 2021 by LordOrion

[CBStu]

I am still stuck on Mission 13. Flew it 8 times now and getting frustrated. Of four 82LGs I usually only get 2 hits. Some are my fault because I forget to re-arm the LTDR. But I don't understand how these are supposed to work. We know that the laser only fires for the last 10-15 seconds of the bomb's fall so it seems there is a limit as to how much correction could be applied. Other than that last bit of laser firing these should act just like a dumb bomb right? So w/o the laser maybe it misses the launcher but dang, I should see it blow up something in the near vicinity right? On several drops just to try to see what is going on, I zoom out so I can see the entire area of the facility. The bomb doesn't hit the launcher but it doesn't hit anywhere else either. Yesterday my first bomb didn't hit the launcher (laser has been armed for the last 30 miles so I don't forget it again), so I fly on about 10 miles, do a 180 turn, re arm the laser and fly back onto the same bomb fall line for the same launcher, push and hold the button as soon as I see the release cue dropping down the fall line. This one hits just fine. So maybe it is me, maybe it's DCS, I don't know. I am really enjoying this campaign but flying the same mission 8+ times at 30 minutes each is getting really boring. The edit the logbook stuff isn't any more reliable for me than the bombs are.

I would like to see campaigns include a manual button to move on to the next mission.

[Cornflex]

59 minutes ago, LordOrion said:

To me, the effect you are describing seems a wrong target altitude setup... did you double checked it?

 

 

I tried again with the OB. One target and two JSOWs launched. Both miss. I attached a trackfile.

Any help would be appreciated.

JSOWA.trk

[CBStu]

I tried deleting just mission 13. That kills the entire campaign so not an option.

[Padre Pio]

On 3/19/2021 at 3:02 PM, CBStu said:

The bomb doesn't hit the launcher but it doesn't hit anywhere else either. Yesterday my first bomb didn't hit the launcher (laser has been armed for the last 30 miles so I don't forget it again), so I fly on about 10 miles, do a 180 turn, re arm the laser and fly back onto the same bomb fall line for the same launcher, push and hold the button as soon as I see the release cue dropping down the fall line.

It is difficult to find a solution for you, I have no idea.. Are you sure, you set the code for ALL the GBUs, step by step? I have one strange situation there like yours, that I pointed TGP on the target, launched and observed the bomb-fall on F5-view. I was very dissapointed seeing, that bomb was hitting to "nothing" on final (the launcher was like invisible), however I received a comment that target was destroyed. Generally, didn't have several problems with this mission, however - it is not easy.

 

Generally, after finishing the campaign, I can do some sum-up. I like it very much, however it needs some 'polishing' in the future. Some AA mission with multiple targets are realy hard-core and tought to pass, also because of simulator bugs (radar, weapons, ecm) and because I am not so skilled dogfighter yet. I wish to re-fly them after ED  corrects known bugs.

 

On the other hand, there are A-G missions (further part of campaign) that look simple and not much interaction (200nm of flight, drop the load and come back :D). I would suggest to implement more suprises there  SEA A/G mission are very interesting, making a lot of skill problems but this is it. New aircraft tools like Sea radar help very much.

 

Sometimes I had a problem to find out what is exactly a mission goal, however it is very nice for the campaign, that our great author @Bunny Clarkis very active here and helps a lot.  

Thanks and waiting for more products!

[CBStu]

3 hours ago, Padre Pio said:

It is difficult to find a solution for you, I have no idea.. Are you sure, you set the code for ALL the GBUs, step by step? I have one strange situation there like yours, that I pointed TGP on the target, launched and observed the bomb-fall on F5-view. I was very dissapointed seeing, that bomb was hitting to "nothing" on final (the launcher was like invisible), however I received a comment that target was destroyed. Generally, didn't have several problems with this mission, however - it is not easy.

@Bunny Clarkis very active here and helps a lot....

I did question the codes at first. Since there are two bombs per rack I set a code for the rack and 'assume' that it goes into both bombs. Maybe that is my problem? Do I need to drop two bombs and then set codes again? I have now flown this mission 10-12 times and my frustration has given way to being pi$$ed off, so I have moved on to another campaign. I figure I will come back to OitW at some later point. Maybe I will have learned something and maybe DCS will have been improved. When reading through this forum is appears to me that there are a lot of idiosyncrasies in various bombs, missiles, etc that need fixing.

 

 

[Padre Pio]

26 minutes ago, CBStu said:

Since there are two bombs per rack I set a code for the rack and 'assume' that it goes into both bombs.

You did OK I think, it's one code per whole a pylon. You do not need to delete a mission. Just clever and careful handling with logbook.lua. It's sometimes tricky and a little bit different for each campaign. Needs patience.

 

Generally, all the campaigns have more or less bugs. Very often it is a fault of the game, not an author. The patches are released very often and change many things forward and sometimes back. According to this, author of the campaign have problem with being on time and adapt to new conditions. I have started "Raven One" few days ago witch is generally rated as the top-one, and nearly each mission forces me to look into a forum, because of bugs and tricks. There is no perfect product in this case, even when you pay for it.

 

[CBStu]

8 hours ago, Padre Pio said:

You did OK I think, it's one code per whole a pylon. You do not need to delete a mission. Just clever and careful handling with logbook.lua. It's sometimes tricky and a little bit different for each campaign. Needs patience.

 

Generally, all the campaigns have more or less bugs. Very often it is a fault of the game, not an author. The patches are released very often and change many things forward and sometimes back. According to this, author of the campaign have problem with being on time and adapt to new conditions. I have started "Raven One" few days ago witch is generally rated as the top-one, and nearly each mission forces me to look into a forum, because of bugs and tricks. There is no perfect product in this case, even when you pay for it.

 

Padre I agree 100%. I have made a couple of very simple missions of my own to use for learning and I am in awe of anyone who can put together a realistic mission, let alone a campaign. I have only been flying campaigns for maybe 3-4 months now and I know I have come across many techniques that I was not up to speed on. I am getting better at hitting pause, researching something, and coming back to try to get through w/ my new knowledge. OTOH, reading through this forum about different campaigns I see I am not the only one who gets stuck on a certain mission. I think it may be time to have a button one can click to move to the next mission. Or maybe a max of 5 attempts and then move on whether one has passed or failed.  I understand that this wouldn't be realistic but at some point we need to be able to choose between realism and moving on. After all I have been killed many times in a mission and L Shift-R lets me fly it again. There are 2(?) more missions in OitW campaign that I'd love to fly but.....

Edited March 23, 2021 by CBStu

[Padre Pio]

10 hours ago, CBStu said:

Or maybe a max of 5 attempts and then move on whether one has passed or failed.  I understand that this wouldn't be realistic but at some point we need to be able to choose between realism and moving on. After all I have been killed many times in a mission and L Shift-R lets me fly it again. There are 2(?) more missions in OitW campaign that I'd love to fly but.....

I also agree with you! I hope all this problems will be raised up in the coming or close next patches. That's why I am waiting for them.. not for clouds, not for additional HARM systems but for fixing the bugs and improving old - known issues. Off course I will be happy with new graphics, however it is further priority for me. 

[Bunny Clark]

Getting everything to work is a difficult and always evolving process. Frequently, I spend an enormous amount of time just trying to get the AI to do what I want, because the options and systems interact in weird and unpredictable ways and finding the root cause of a problem can be really challenging. At one point I discovered that the AI wingman refused to attack ships at night with IR Mavs unless the moon was full; which is not an easy sort of thing to trouble shoot. But as I learn more and make more missions I get faster at it. A large point of this campaign was just to learn how things worked and develop a workflow, and some missions exist almost entirely because I wanted to experiment with a weapon or try out a concept. 

 

It's been really interesting to see how people get on with some missions. My perspective of difficulty gets pretty warped as I fly the mission dozens of times and I know what's coming. Some of the missions I expected people to have a lot of trouble with, like finding infantry units on oil rigs, don't seem to be a huge problem; while missions like the first BARCAP mission which I've never had a hard time with seem to cause some people a lot of grief. 

 

On 3/23/2021 at 4:40 PM, CBStu said:

I think it may be time to have a button one can click to move to the next mission.

I've been thinking about this. That kind of functionality kinda already exists in DCS, it's just not obvious. The DCS campaign engine is designed with a non-linear campaign in mind, where you can move forwards and backwards in the campaign depending on your score. If you score 0-49 you'll move backwards, 50 will stay on the mission you currently are on, while 51-100 will advance you to the next mission. This is why you start the mission with 50 "free" points, to prevent a failed mission from moving you back to the previous mission. But it means being potentially stuck on the same mission forever. When you complete a mission you have the option to Accept and move on, Refly the mission, or Cancel to exit the campaign without saving the results of the mission you just flew. So, if I just set it up so that you have more than 50 points by default, hitting Accept after any mission will advance you to the next mission regardless of if you completed your objectives. Then anyone wanting to retry a failed mission could use the Refly button that's already there in the debreifing screen. I could make this simply by setting the default starting score to 51, or maybe I rejigger all the scoring so everyone gets 50 by default and another 5 for being alive at the end of the mission. That way you're only forced to refly the mission if you die, and any mission result where you're still alive would be considered passing that stage and moving on.  

 

The next campaign I'm working on is being designed in 3-mission chapters, were every (most?) chapter results in the end mission being different depending on their performance in the other two missions. Allowing the player to continue in the campaign even if all objectives are failed would make this even more interesting. 

[speed-of-heat]

I just want to say how much i am enjoying this campaign; great pace and good missions!  Thanks @Bunny Clark

Edited March 27, 2021 by speed-of-heat