F5E BFM Campaign Review

[Reflected]

I recently purchased and finished the Maple Flag F5E Basic Fighter Maneuvers campaign, and I loved it. Let me share my experience with you.

 

Every campaign maker works with the same tools and components, but it never fails to amaze me how different the results can be. Like a box of LEGO – one may build a ship, the other person a house, the third a dinosaur – even though everyone starts with the same bricks. This is the reason why I enjoy playing other people’s campaigns. I don’t only have a lot of fun, but also learn new tricks, new ways of doing things, not to mention the fact that it’s refreshing not to know what comes next, not to hear each trigger click and fire in the background.

 

Originally, I wasn’t too interested. I prefer WWII planes over modern jets. I didn’t have the Nevada map, because hey, it’s just a few square miles of sand. Now I could finally try it using the free month. I also heard that this campaign is a series of repetitive 1v1 duels against the AI. The same AI that is known for having an exemption from the laws of physics. What fun would all this be? I only had to fly the first few missions to realize how wrong I was. I was completely blown away by the standard they set.

 

I always thought the F5E is a simple plane and I was pretty good at it. I was quickly humbled by the task at hand. Flying the F5E has to be second nature, because you’ll have so many other things to do that you’ll have absolutely zero time thinking about what switch does what. And I’m not even talking about the fights, merely getting there. You get dozens of pages of documents, briefings, kneeboard pages with routes, channels, TACAN, procedures and it’s pretty overwhelming. The learning curve is steep. You can’t just take off, fly straight into the desert with your hair on fire then defeat the bad guys like some cowboy. You’ll be expected to follow the same procedures as real fighter pilots. And believe me, there is a reason why only a select few make it to this elite group of warriors. You’ll quickly understand that it requires a lot more than knowing which way you need to move the stick. I haven’t even made it to my first engagement, but I was already sweating profusely, intercepting radials, arcs, oops I’m at the wrong altitude, let’s correct the heading, dammit, what’s the TACAN for BTY?!

 

Yes, the missions ARE repetitive, after the intro and familiarization flight (which set the mood nicely to the campaign). Pretty much the same, with different times and different opponents. But think about it for a minute: it’s just as repetitive in real life. Same routes, same procedures, same setups, different outcomes. I can’t emphasize enough that the mission that „repeats” itself is so complex, so demanding and so realistic that it will not fail to challenge you even after the 8-9th time. The more missions you fly, the more the workload will decrease and you’ll finally have some time to look outside and admire how beautiful those few square miles of sand really are. By the way, any campaign can be repetitive if you rush through it. I applied the same approach that I always recommend everyone who’s playing my campaigns: Fly one mission a day and not more, but make the most of it, don’t rush. Read the docs, fly it right. The repetitiveness of the missions allowed the guys at Maple Flag to implement something else that I find brilliant. They used stock radio calls for voice overs as much as possible. E.g. your voice is the same that you hear when you use the stock radio menu. This brings consistency, and it all feels very natural. Of course, this doesn’t allow for chit chat, banter, or jokes, but let’s not forget that this is not a Hollywood movie. I also loved how the blue pilots had the accent of the country they are from, that was another nice touch.

 

My main concern was and still is the AI. These duels are all about energy management, and it’s not much fun to fight against cheaters, who can do 3 loops after a steep turn at stall speed at 200 feet. To make matters worse, all of them are set to „Excellent” – I would love to see an „easier” version of the campaign with the opponents set to „good”, or „high”, or maybe „random”. I only got 1-2 kills, the rest of the engagements ended because someone hit the hard deck or we ran out of time. This is very realistic, though. I recently read „Top Gun” by Dan Pedersen, the guy who came up with the whole idea. What he described in his book is surprisingly similar. Most engagements ended in low energy turnfights on the deck, so they had to call it a draw.

 

If I really HAD TO highlight some points of improvement, I would probably suggest adding a „skip mission” radio item, or enable the player to progress to the next one even if he is defeated – like in real life. I would also love to see some more life at Nellis. There’s plenty of statics, but some trucks, jeeps and soldiers moving around, some random air traffic would breathe a lot of life into that huge military complex.

 

All in all, I was proven right and wrong. Nevada IS a huge sea of sand, this campaign IS a repetitive series of missions against AI aircraft that sometimes cheat...but not in a way that I though. Far from it, actually: It’s a beautiful map as it is, repetitive is not at all synonymous to boring, and it’s probably one of the most realistic dozen of missions, the closest you can get to the experience of flying as a real USAF Agressor pilot – including the outcome of the duels against the AI. The research that went into this one is staggering, and I think such missions and campaigns let DCS shine at its best. You get to try your skills in a study-level, realistic scenario with a pretty steep learning curve, once you THINK you got to the top of the steep learning curve of your study-level, realistic aircraft module. It’s pretty humbling, believe me. This is why to me, this campaign embodies what DCS truly stands for. All this for the price of a pizza. Thank you Maple Flag!

 

 

[TLTeo]

Good review. I was going to write some feedback myself, I guess I'll do it in this thread instead. I agree with many things Reflected said, however the same issues he mentioned in the campaign kept me from enjoying it. To elaborate a bit:

 

1) The AI setting is the worst culprit. I know the devs have stated that they want the campaign to be challenging, but frankly, while setting the AI to Excellent might achieve this, it does it in the wrong way. In my experience, what ends up happening is that you have essentially one tactic to use:

a) Use the AI's predictability post the first merge (it always flies a low G, nose up, oblique, 1 circle turn) by pulling in the vertical, come over the top with about 90 degrees of angular advantage, and go for a miracle snapshot in the next 1-2 merges.

b) If that snapshot doesn't land take the AI to the hard deck and hope they break it and/or crash. You can't keep up the fight, even against other F-5s, because they will always no matter what have more energy than you, never make a mistake, and never lose SA.

Crucially, neither of these things feels like good BFM. To me, getting a kill in the campaign didn't feel like I flew well, I always felt like I got lucky.

I suggest an alternative way to keep the challenge, while allowing for lower AI skill, is to set the have the opponents keep their radar off, such that you'll be punished more heavily for losing SA.

 

 

2) On top of the first point, having the player do 2-3 fights means the jet is at the very limits of its range, even when using optimal climb and cruise profiles from the actual F5 manual. This would be OK if not for the fact that calling knock it off (due to going bingo for example) results in a fight (and likely mission) failure. So not only do you have less power than the AI you're fighting (which would be OK if it didn't also apply to the first mission against other F5s), you're not in a position to fully use what little power your jet has.

 

3) I wish aircraft were set to immune, and hits were handled by triggers. This would allow the player to continue their mission after losing the first fight, provided you have enough fuel, which would make the campaign more realistic anyway.

 

 

4) This is a far smaller point, but it would be neat if the briefings contained a quick rundown of the capabilities of the aircraft you're facing, as a reminder of what may be a good or bad tactic. Stuff like "at low speeds your F5 will have a better roll rate than your Tomcat opponent" or "flying low and slow against a Hornet is always a losing proposition".

Edited May 7, 2020 by TLTeo

[Reflected]

While I agree about the AI, I would like to remind you that 3rd party mission makers work with what we all have. We try to make the most of our "LEGO bricks" even if some of them could use some polishing. Considering that, I think MF did a great job. :thumbup:

[TLTeo]

Oh yeah I agree, I didn't mean to come across as being too harsh. I have used the editor enough to know getting the AI to do what it's supposed to do is basically dark magic.

 

All I'm saying is, I think there are better ways to make the campaign more challenging, rewarding and realistic in general.

[Sabre-TLA]

Thanks for the feedback and a great write up Reflected! Much appreciated.

 

When we first started thinking about a campaign for the F-5E we obviously thought of a Red Flag event as the aircraft is an iconic reference for those missions.

 

As we developed the Red Flag campaign we realized it would be too difficult for most players without some BFM and ACM experience first. The Aggressors are the best of the best after all!

 

This led us to creating the BFM and ACM campaigns as pre-cursors to our Red Flag campaign.

 

Initially we didn't like the repetitive nature of the missions either but the more we played it the more we realized it set a common baseline when flying against the different aircraft and gave it some consistency as you

would expect being "tested" against different aircraft types. If you try the F-15C or FA-18C BFM campaigns you will see the obvious advantages those later developed aircraft have over the F-5E.

 

The AI is always a challenge and ED is working to improve them but they all follow some standard game engine decisions which you can change by changing your merge approach.

 

We just learned about adding multiple campaigns to the same package so we will be putting the practice missions in their own campaign with a Skip Mission capability as you suggested. Given this we could also add an Easy version

as some have suggested. Our initial thinking was we wanted the player to go up against the best the game engine could provide.

 

WRT to the life at Nellis, initially we had lots of traffic and other moving objects around Nellis but the fps hit was just too great for most players so we had to tone it down alot.

The current 2.5.6 fps issues with pathfinding have made us reduce it even further. Hopefully when ED gets that issue sorted we can add more life back to the ramp at Nellis.

 

Additionally we would also like to have a trigger that could detect hits and leave the aircraft immune but the current game engine only provides a damaged or dead perspective and we felt that a kill shouldn't be counted if you only

nicked a wing for example as the bandit was still in the fight. If ED can provide a trigger that would allow for a % unit damaged measure while immortal that would allow us to better replicate the actual events.

 

We will continue to update our campaigns as improvements and new ideas allow and appreciate all feedback to help make our campaigns more challenging and enjoyable.

[plau011]

Any update on making an "Easy" or Average level AI campaign. I have been watching videos, MrPilot and others and trying to follow their technique. None of it seems to work.Not even close.

 

Am not sure if something changed since then. Other "practice" I tried is putting an F5 under AI as "Good" as red. Then I fly as wingman to an "Excellent" F5 blue plane. Just trying to stay off my lead's wing. "Trying" is the operative word here. I can usually stay with him for about 5 seconds, and then he zooms off. I try to cut corners and such to catch back up but it's all for naught.

One time I ended up stalled out, a kilometer or more behind while he was finishing the other F5 off in a vertical climb a few thousand feet above me.

 

For me would be much more enjoyable on an easier level until the AI gets fixed.

[SPAS79]

Yeah I must say I have replayed the first mission so many times, with the F18 Aggressors' version... It is boring to say the least. You can't win in a turn fight against planes that seem to have infinite energy... at most I managed to evade them, I think I scored a kill once or twice then it usually ends up in a tie for lack of time. Too bad. I'm not going to skip meals for those 10 bucks. I just wish I had done more research before buying.

[Sabre-TLA]

Sorry you find the AI dogfighting boring.

 

We are adding Rookie and Random campaigns and have changed the ROE to Return Fire to allow the player to get the first shot before they engage. Hopefully this gives more options than flying against the Ace AI. As ED improves the AI then hopefully the dogfighting will become more challenging.

[SPAS79]

Sorry you find the AI dogfighting boring.

 

We are adding Rookie and Random campaigns and have changed the ROE to Return Fire to allow the player to get the first shot before they engage. Hopefully this gives more options than flying against the Ace AI. As ED improves the AI then hopefully the dogfighting will become more challenging.

 

Yeah definitely not a problem with your design. It's just the AI that is not properly implemented, chief issue being the fact that they do not have the same energy bleeding as the player which results in bandits running vertical laps around you while you try and keep out of their guns (nigh impossible to line up a shot).

 

Maybe, additional to lowering the AI level, the suggested "skip mission" option would be ok, or lower the "win" requirements, as in: "don't get shot down = pass", vs the current "gun hits = pass".

Edited November 11, 2020 by SPAS79
clarity