SP Campaign: Operation Earnest Will

[SpikeGondorff]

I thought about doing that, but with the kneeboard card provided it's easy enough to jump in Jester's seat for a couple seconds and change the radios.

 

3 missions in so far; I'm enjoying having to make decisions like divert or try to make it back to the ship, and referencing the kneeboard cards for TACAN channels, frequencies, and such. My only moment of puzzlement for mission 3 was why TPTB wouldn't have the Tomcats launch and cover the AWACS while using its escorting Eagles for the initial show of force, since they are a couple hundred miles closer at mission start. I get it, though- the 'logical' way doesn't make for much of a mission.

 

On mission 2, I actually landed at the divert, used the ground crew refuel function, and then flew back to the ship. Made for a long mission, but I got the field landing and the trap. Unfortunately, my wingman didn't want to switch over to landing configuration and ate dirt trying to stay in formation with me in the landing pattern at the divert. That's totally on the sub-par AI, however.

 

Good stuff!

 

In case you don't know, you can order Jester to change the radio through his radial menu without having to swap seats. Might be easier to just swap seats, though. I'll have to try it.

 

Yeah, logical doesn't really work in DCS campaigns. :) I tried to imply that the F-15s would be the absolute last resort to do it because they're taking off from the UAE. If they fired on Iranian planes/boats while based in the UAE, that would draw the UAE into the conflict, or result in the US getting kicked out of the UAE, which was to be avoided at all costs. I should have emphasized that more in the mission itself, as I think I only referenced it in the previous one.

 

But yeah, it's mental gymnastics to make it so you're the hero. Otherwise, it would be just as uneventful for the Tomcat as it was in real life. :)

 

You should be able to end the mission at the divert field if you want. Once you landed at the divert your Results should be 100 and at that point you can advance. In case you don't have (real life) time to make it back to the carrier.

[jmarso]

In case you don't know, you can order Jester to change the radio through his radial menu without having to swap seats. Might be easier to just swap seats, though. I'll have to try it.

 

 

I know; sometimes I have trouble with AIRIO, where you use VAICOM and voice commands for the radial menu functions. Sometimes I forget the proper voice command, and sometimes the proper voice command doesn't work right, probably due to voice recognition difficulties. Nothing to do with your campaign.

 

Man, when that AIRIO works right, it's the bomb. When it doesn't, suckage goes up to level 20.

[Castor Troy]

Excellent!

 

If you don't mind editing the mission files directly, it's super easy to enable Easy Comms in the mission editor. Another user (Castro Troy, I think) said the missions work fine if you flip it on. I haven't tested it, but if you really prefer Easy Comms, it's an easy switch.

 

Can confirm. Have tested using EC after enabling EC in the mission editor, and all missions work. You do have to ask Jester to tune the ARC 182 channels, to be able to use the f10 radio communications and commands.

[Home Fries]

@SpikeGondorff,

 

I have to say I'm having a blast with your campaign. Add some voice overs to the already great dialogue and you have a commercial quality product.

 

I am confused about one thing, though (poss bug report): on mission 7 (OCA Strike) I line up the runway, drop all 14 snakeyes at 200ft intervals (shredding the runway), and yet the Iranians still launch F-4s and the mission is a failure. I actually doubled back and verified that the bombs hit the runway. There was a bit of wind drift, so not everything is down centerline, but at least 10 bombs marked the runway.

 

Is this a new issue with the ME, or do I need to set a delay fuse as one would IRL to cause cratering? With ED's current modeling of A/G munitions, I'm usually hesitant to arm a delayed fuse.

 

Again, great stuff. I've told all my fellow Tomcat drivers about this campaign.

 

Best,

HF

 

EDIT: F14SCEarnestWill_7_OCA.miz dated 7/12/2020.

Edited August 6, 2020 by Home Fries

[SpikeGondorff]

@SpikeGondorff,

 

I have to say I'm having a blast with your campaign. Add some voice overs to the already great dialogue and you have a commercial quality product.

 

I am confused about one thing, though (poss bug report): on mission 7 (OCA Strike) I line up the runway, drop all 14 snakeyes at 200ft intervals (shredding the runway), and yet the Iranians still launch F-4s and the mission is a failure. I actually doubled back and verified that the bombs hit the runway. There was a bit of wind drift, so not everything is down centerline, but at least 10 bombs marked the runway.

 

Is this a new issue with the ME, or do I need to set a delay fuse as one would IRL to cause cratering? With ED's current modeling of A/G munitions, I'm usually hesitant to arm a delayed fuse.

 

Again, great stuff. I've told all my fellow Tomcat drivers about this campaign.

 

Best,

HF

 

EDIT: F14SCEarnestWill_7_OCA.miz dated 7/12/2020.

 

I'm glad you're liking it except for that mission 7. You're not the first to report issues with it, and I recently updated the mission to be more lenient on determining if the runway is destroyed. Sorry for the hassle, but if you re-download the campaign/mission (date should be July 30th) it hopefully will trigger the destruction of the base. You shouldn't have to set any delayed fuses or anything.

 

I never had any issues with destroying the runway until recently, so I don't know if something changed in the game or if my skills degraded that much. Previously, you needed to be near perfect to get the runway destroyed (100% of the HP), but I changed it so you only need to destroy about 2/3 of the runway HP.

 

If you're still having issues after downloading the updated missions, please let me know. I should also probably start labelling the files with the version number. :music_whistling: You're addition of the date was perfect, so thank you for that! Please let me know if you see any other issues.

 

Thanks!

[Home Fries]

I'm glad you're liking it except for that mission 7. You're not the first to report issues with it, and I recently updated the mission to be more lenient on determining if the runway is destroyed. Sorry for the hassle, but if you re-download the campaign/mission (date should be July 30th) it hopefully will trigger the destruction of the base. You shouldn't have to set any delayed fuses or anything.

 

I never had any issues with destroying the runway until recently, so I don't know if something changed in the game or if my skills degraded that much. Previously, you needed to be near perfect to get the runway destroyed (100% of the HP), but I changed it so you only need to destroy about 2/3 of the runway HP.

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll be sure to download the latest version.

 

Just a thought: to take out a runway, you don't really need to take out the entire runway. As fun as it is to run down the axis of the runway dropping on the entire surface, a big crater in the center will normally prevent all but helos and V/STOL from taking off. Operationally, we would weaponeer exactly this (and for crossing runways we would crater the intersection). Any more hits on the runway would be useful to keep it out of action longer, but that center hit is the most important one. If there's a way to score the weapon damage specific to the more central portions of the runway, this might be a good way to set the mission criteria.

 

If you're still having issues after downloading the updated missions, please let me know. I should also probably start labelling the files with the version number. :music_whistling: You're addition of the date was perfect, so thank you for that! Please let me know if you see any other issues.

 

Thanks!

 

Personally, I wouldn't rename the files themselves. The way you have it now, I can just copy over the old files and not interrupt or corrupt my campaign flow.

 

Thanks again for the quick reply. I'll be sure to let you know if anything else comes up.

[jmarso]

Finished Mission 7. Had to try a few times before it would accept that I'd cratered the runway. Must not have hit the damage threshold on the first couple of tries.

 

One little detail I loved was Jester getting in my grill when I 'popped up' about 7 miles out to get my bearings, and make sure my lineup was good for the run down the runway before getting back down on the deck. I love how he bitched me out about it! Little stuff like that really makes a difference when it comes to immersion.

 

Only one gripe with the mission planning here: the runway alignment is 06/24, and it's an early morning mission with the package striking to the east- into the sun. I think the strike planners would have engineered it to either come at the runway on the 260 heading, with the sun at their back, or planned the mission for dusk along the 060 heading, which would have achieved the same thing.

 

Anyway, loving the whole thing so far. After not doing enough damage to the runway on the first try, I got tangled up with a couple Phantoms and splashed them, which meant I made it back to the boat on vapor. Two bolters later, I caught a 4-wire with 700 lbs on the totalizer. Jester cheered me up, though: "Bombcat we are not! Let's go face the music!" LOVE IT! :thumbup:

Edited August 7, 2020 by jmarso

[SpikeGondorff]

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll be sure to download the latest version.

 

Just a thought: to take out a runway, you don't really need to take out the entire runway. As fun as it is to run down the axis of the runway dropping on the entire surface, a big crater in the center will normally prevent all but helos and V/STOL from taking off. Operationally, we would weaponeer exactly this (and for crossing runways we would crater the intersection). Any more hits on the runway would be useful to keep it out of action longer, but that center hit is the most important one. If there's a way to score the weapon damage specific to the more central portions of the runway, this might be a good way to set the mission criteria.

 

Personally, I wouldn't rename the files themselves. The way you have it now, I can just copy over the old files and not interrupt or corrupt my campaign flow.

 

Thanks again for the quick reply. I'll be sure to let you know if anything else comes up.

 

I don't know of clean way to determine hits on a runway. You can set up zones along the length and do Bomb in Zone triggers, but it's not actually where the bomb explodes. Any bomb falling in the zone would count, so you could drop bombs at 20k feet that completely missed the runway as long as they passed through the zone on the way down.

 

I'm sure the scripting people can do it, but I'm an amateur scripter (a thief, really, I just copy scripts and tweak them to what I need :)). If you know of a script that can determine damage in a zone, I'll look at tweaking the script for it. I think the 2/3 damage to the HP is nice balance, but I can certainly tweak it to 1/2 or even 1/3 if that seems more plausible and people are having issues.

 

And good call on renaming the files. Maybe just the root folder so people can look there for the version they're on instead of the ModifiedDateTime.

 

Finished Mission 7. Had to try a few times before it would accept that I'd cratered the runway. Must not have hit the damage threshold on the first couple of tries.

 

One little detail I loved was Jester getting in my grill when I 'popped up' about 7 miles out to get my bearings, and make sure my lineup was good for the run down the runway before getting back down on the deck. I love how he bitched me out about it! Little stuff like that really makes a difference when it comes to immersion.

 

Only one gripe with the mission planning here: the runway alignment is 06/24, and it's an early morning mission with the package striking to the east- into the sun. I think the strike planners would have engineered it to either come at the runway on the 260 heading, with the sun at their back, or planned the mission for dusk along the 060 heading, which would have achieved the same thing.

 

Anyway, loving the whole thing so far. After not doing enough damage to the runway on the first try, I got tangled up with a couple Phantoms and splashed them, which meant I made it back to the boat on vapor. Two bolters later, I caught a 4-wire with 700 lbs on the totalizer. Jester cheered me up, though: "Bombcat we are not! Let's go face the music!" LOVE IT! :thumbup:

 

The mission time was based on a quick turnaround from last evening's sweep, and before Iran could fly more support into it. The reason why they don't attack Northeast -> Southwest is that would require flying over Iran proper, and they would (theoretically) be spotted earlier. I flip flopped on the time/direction when creating it, so I may tweak it (or change the sweep mission to morning/noon and the OCA to evening). The difficulty with the sun glare wasn't too bad, in my opinion, and added that little "command has no idea what they're doing when they send us on these missions" feeling, so I opted to leave it. If other people hate it too much as well, then it's easily changed, and I can always rationalize it in the mission brief.:music_whistling:

 

If Jester complained about you popping up, then that should have made the bombing run a bit more exciting. :)

 

 

If you go above a certain height (800ft AGL, I think) after you turn to the airbase, Jester yells at you, and that also triggers some MANPADS and AAA(?) to spawn at the airbase in response to you popping up on their radar that far out.

 

Thanks to you both for the feedback. Please keep it coming.

Edited August 7, 2020 by SpikeGondorff

[jmarso]

Finished the campaign. Very immersive, very enjoyable. 5/5. Bravo Zulu!

 

Looking forward to further ventures, if you plan on doing any.

[Chacal_IX]

I just finished your campaign and it's one of the most enjoyable I've ever played. I particularly liked the atmosphere, the scenario and the realism of the missions. All that's missing are the recorded voices.

Thank you very much for creating this campaign :thumbup: I look forward to the next ones:smilewink:

[jmarso]

I like 'wrap up' missions like the last one- war's over, gives a chance to bring some closure through dialog and gameplay, and just some easy flying back to the boat with a beautiful gulf sunset. Perfect!

[SpikeGondorff]

Finished the campaign. Very immersive, very enjoyable. 5/5. Bravo Zulu!

 

Looking forward to further ventures, if you plan on doing any.

 

I just finished your campaign and it's one of the most enjoyable I've ever played. I particularly liked the atmosphere, the scenario and the realism of the missions. All that's missing are the recorded voices.

Thank you very much for creating this campaign :thumbup: I look forward to the next ones:smilewink:

 

Thank you for the positive feedback. It's always great to hear that other people enjoyed your work. :thumbup:

 

Fly safe! :pilotfly:

[Home Fries]

I just finished it as well. Again, very nicely done. I especially like "GasCan" as your dig at the AI's skill at fuel management. I also like the "pinkie" trap at the end. Not too crazy, but not a Case I either.

Edited August 11, 2020 by Home Fries

[CheckGear]

Isn't the campaign that's supposed to be released for DCS: F-14A supposed to be based on Earnest Will also? I'm really looking forward to that (and the F-14A).

[SpikeGondorff]

I just finished it as well. Again, very nicely done. I especially like "GasCan" as your dig at the AI's skill at fuel management. I also like the "pinkie" trap at the end. Not too crazy, but not a Case I either.

 

Yeah, dealing with the AI behavior is the most frustrating thing. All your wingmen's names are insults. :)

 

Isn't the campaign that's supposed to be released for DCS: F-14A supposed to be based on Earnest Will also? I'm really looking forward to that (and the F-14A).

 

Lol, I had no idea. I knew they were working on a campaign of some sort, but I didn't know it was about Operation Earnest Will. I was reading up on the F14 history, and figured Earnest Will would be a good setting for a campaign in DCS (minor conflict that didn't escalate into full war), especially since we're limited in geographical locations.

 

I can remove it if it infringes too much on what HB is doing.

[CheckGear]

Lol, I had no idea. I knew they were working on a campaign of some sort, but I didn't know it was about Operation Earnest Will. I was reading up on the F14 history, and figured Earnest Will would be a good setting for a campaign in DCS (minor conflict that didn't escalate into full war), especially since we're limited in geographical locations.

 

I can remove it if it infringes too much on what HB is doing.

 

 

I can't speak for HB, but I'd doubt they'd make you do that. Operation Earnest Will's a historical event, not some intellectual property HB has exclusivity to.

[RaisedByWolves]

I can't speak for HB, but I'd doubt they'd make you do that. Operation Earnest Will's a historical event, not some intellectual property HB has exclusivity to.

 

 

 

This. By the time HB releases a campaign I’ll be 90

[jmarso]

 

I can remove it if it infringes too much on what HB is doing.

 

Noooooo.

 

Best case: HB makes your campaign part of the product, like they did with Cage the Bear.

 

Worst case: (although not even bad in reality): there are two campaigns based on Earnest Will, yours and theirs. The onus would then be on HB to make their paid product better than your freeware mod.

 

Freeware mods are just what they are: labors of love by those of us who build them and share them with the community. Not just in DCS but in other games as well, some freeware mods manage to surpass the quality and content of the original game. Skyrim is the most classic example of this. Many people think the Bruma mod is better than the stock game. Another example is the X-wing Alliance upgrade project, which has completely rejuvenated a 20-year old game engine. Don't ever worry about what someone else is putting out, paid or otherwise. You just do your thing, and share what you want with the community. The players can judge which contributions are worthy of their time, and which aren't.

 

If someone is building a campaign and they expect people to pay for it, the burden is THEIRS to make it a product worthy of purchase as opposed to a freeware download.

Edited August 13, 2020 by jmarso

[SpikeGondorff]

Hah, thanks guys. I wasn't thinking it was some sort of copyright issue, but more of a "don't be a d!ck and steal our thunder." As I said, I knew there was a campaign coming, but assumed it would be based in the Caucuses because that's the free map.

 

This. By the time HB releases a campaign I’ll be 90

 

This made me laugh. Quality over quantity, right? :) I like their Causcuses Viggen campaigns, so hopefully it will at least as good as those, and am about to start their Red Flag campaign. I have high hopes for that one, too.

[CheckGear]

This. By the time HB releases a campaign I’ll be 90

 

 

:megalol:

 

 

 

As I said, I knew there was a campaign coming, but assumed it would be based in the Caucuses because that's the free map.

 

There's a Black Sea campaign that's supposed to be released by HB for DCS: F-14B.

[DrDetroit]

I'm having an issue with Mission-2. During cold start, a helo flies in (MH-53 maybe?) and land right on cat-3 runway, so my wingman can't take off.

 

I took a quick look at it in ME and didn't see any waypoints for the helo, so assume it's a script or trigger.

 

Kind of a bummer lol.

 

Good day,

DrDetroit

[SpikeGondorff]

I'm having an issue with Mission-2. During cold start, a helo flies in (MH-53 maybe?) and land right on cat-3 runway, so my wingman can't take off.

 

I took a quick look at it in ME and didn't see any waypoints for the helo, so assume it's a script or trigger.

 

Kind of a bummer lol.

 

Good day,

DrDetroit

 

You can delete the helo if you don't mind messing with it in the mission editor. Weird that you don't see any waypoints for it, but I do (but it behaves like it has no waypoints). Something is screwy with it, so I updated the campaign a week ago and changed it from a CH-53 to an SH-60. With the updated mission, the SH-60 takes off and actually follows the waypoints.

 

It's pure eye candy, so if you just delete it nothing bad will happen to the mission. Or you can download the updated campaign (a few other things are tweaked, too).

 

Sorry for the hassle!

[DrDetroit]

You can delete the helo if you don't mind messing with it in the mission editor. Weird that you don't see any waypoints for it, but I do (but it behaves like it has no waypoints). Something is screwy with it, so I updated the campaign a week ago and changed it from a CH-53 to an SH-60. With the updated mission, the SH-60 takes off and actually follows the waypoints.

 

It's pure eye candy, so if you just delete it nothing bad will happen to the mission. Or you can download the updated campaign (a few other things are tweaked, too).

 

Sorry for the hassle!

 

Hey, thanks for the quick heads up! I'll grab the latest....I must have downloaded the older version.

 

No hassle at all! Thanks for your work.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Just text, unfortunately. I don't know how to record voice overs, so it's all just strictly text. If HB want to lend me Jester's voice and their recording equipment, I'll gladly insert the files into the campaign. :thumbup:

 

Hi. I started this campaign yesterday, and just finished the 2nd mission.

I've noticed other campaign makers use text-to-speech programmes, which is still better than simply reading text in my opinion, and should be doable without making the campaign payware.

 

I really like it so far. Good immersion, funny dialogues. The one thing that bothered me so far, is the presence of an A-50 in Mission 2. I've never seen any publicly available document that says Iran had one of those in the '80s...

It's also a shame that there's such a lack of AI models in DCS for the SoH map: especially the Mirage 5 (or Mirage 3 with -5 livery even) would have been nice for this campaign, since seeing those Mirage 2000 contacts on the RWR makes you go "meh"... Nothing you can do about it of course :smilewink:

[SpikeGondorff]

Hi. I started this campaign yesterday, and just finished the 2nd mission.

I've noticed other campaign makers use text-to-speech programmes, which is still better than simply reading text in my opinion, and should be doable without making the campaign payware.

 

I really like it so far. Good immersion, funny dialogues. The one thing that bothered me so far, is the presence of an A-50 in Mission 2. I've never seen any publicly available document that says Iran had one of those in the '80s...

It's also a shame that there's such a lack of AI models in DCS for the SoH map: especially the Mirage 5 (or Mirage 3 with -5 livery even) would have been nice for this campaign, since seeing those Mirage 2000 contacts on the RWR makes you go "meh"... Nothing you can do about it of course :smilewink:

 

I looked at a few ones, and even uploaded some of the Jester speech from the first mission, and I thought they were terrible. They had some nicer voice packs if you paid for it, but the free ones were generally bad. The voices Kaba has in Cage the Bear are pretty good, but I couldn't find something comparable.

 

There is at least 1 mission where I need an AWACS for the Iranian AI to work properly, and the F5s were inconsistent unless there was an eye in the sky. It seems that without the AWACS, the AI doesn't detect the player or BlueFor consistently. It could be my triggers/scripting, too, but there was one mission where I could only get the actions I wanted with one in the air. I figured the An-50 was better than an E3 or E2, and thought I should introduce it early in the campaign so it's not a "WTF" surprise later.

 

I agree with you about the lack of AI planes. I originally planned on using the Civil and Military Airplane mods, but when I released the 3rd mission as a standalone, very few people downloaded it until I offered an option without those mods. Most of those Mirages should have been planes like 737s and A320s, but I don't have that option with vanilla. Instead you get Mirages, C130s, and that lone Russian passenger jet. :(

 

Thanks for the feedback, and please let me know if you see anything else amiss!