feedback Raven One Campaign Review / Feedback

[pokeraccio]

Thanks a lot for this fantastic campaign.

 

I played and finished it some time ago, but wanted to write some lines as you deserve it. 

 

You all did a great job, very realistic feel, keeping in mind the boundaries of the platform.

 

As a very basic user of DCS Mission Editor, knowing some of its limitation, I was really pleased to fly this very well done piece of art, I didn't  had the book when flying it, and lately bought it to complete the loop, I still have to go through it anyway.

 

I wish to see some other work like this in the near future.

 

The money are well invested in product like this.

 

Keep up the great work!

 

cheers

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by pokeraccio

[Teleblaster]

Yeah this campaign really has spoiled me. The realistic missions and scenarios and ESPECIALLY the realistic comms make this campaign stand head and shoulders above the rest. I hope that, with more and more actual fighter pilots taking interest in this sim, that will lead to more involvement with real fighter pilots in the development of campaigns. It’s going to be damn near impossible for me to cringe my way through the dialog on other campaigns now lol. 

[wilbur81]

Just finished mission 4. This campaign is absolutely fantastic so far! You and your little team have really put on display the maturing excellence of DCS as a platform and the Hornet as a module! What a great campaign, BD! Keep up the great work. Any Hornet content that you're associated with will be a day-one-purchase for me. 

[ruprecht]

Coming back to DCS after a little while and looking for a reason to relearn the Bug. Early feedback after 4 successful missions and failing mission 5, playing in VR and having not read the book.

 

Have to agree that this is the best single player DCS experience I've had, having flown the franchise since LOMAC days. Huge congratulations to the whole team, and I can't wait to fly more. Will definitely read the book, but will try to stay behind the campaign so I don't spoiler anything.  

 

Just hoping future campaigns (KW/Apache?) feature Australians so I can do some VO for you

 

VR users, I definitely recommend VR Kneeboard for this campaign. The campaign kneeboard is really well done with a lot of useful (dare I say vital) information, and the ability to copy down marshal and JFAC information is very handy.

Edited February 22, 2021 by ruprecht

[War_Pig]

Baltic, I just want to say THANK YOU for an incredible DCS experience!

 

I (finally*) completed the campaign last night, after three attempts at the last mission (I still suck at modern air-to-air combat, but am learning!).  What a great campaign.  You've set the bar high, not just for a DCS campaign, but for any fighter sim single-player experience.  Thank you for all you hard work and effort that went into this, and everyone that helped with voice acting and everything else.  The sense of atmosphere from the voiceovers, other aircraft doing their work, and the quality presentation of the briefings and kneeboard packages can't be overstated.  You should have seen my face when I noticed that during a CSAR (which is not scripted, but seems to be launched IF a certain aircraft is shot down) the CSAR package (not just the switchblade, but the CAP/CAS (RESCORT, I think?) actually launched in-game as fragged, and performed its mission.  The only way I noticed is casually flipping through the F2 views on other aircraft to see what was going on during my flight back to the boat.  Pretty amazing!

 

All of the missions ran great on my PC, which is great for DCS considering the optimization; for the number of moving parts I would have expected some lag here and there but never got any.  

 

I do have some feedback on the first part of the last mission, a couple of items I noticed, but nothing game-breaking by any means:

When AAA stars up on the way to the IP, I saw a debug caption that said something like "AAA On".

When the SA-15 and SA-2 (I think, I can't remember) become active, I saw some debug messages related to their state. 
Not a problem by any means, but probably intended to be hidden from the player in the release version.

The only 'cheat' I did was adding a centerline tank to my loadout during startup for the last mission.  My second playthrough I was running out of fuel on the way out, and felt it was fairly reasonable to bring a little extra gas considering the long, low-level ingress.  I hope you don't mind!

 

Awesome work, playing this led to me buying several more of your campaigns, even for aircraft that I previously wasn't specifically interested in (but will be learning now!).  This campaign drove me to grow into a (relatively) decent Hornet pilot, capable of cold-starting the aircraft from memory, setting up and using PG weapons, learning A2A refueling, and getting used to operating per my flight plan as fragged.  These skills will translate to many other aircraft in DCS, and I appreciate the motivation to put time into developing them.  Thanks again for the awesome ride!

 

The only question now is what's next?  Maybe a FIGHT FIGHT campaign for the upcoming Marianas map?  Looking forward to your Gamblers campaign for F-16/Syria too!

 

*Not to make it sound like this campaign takes forever, on the contrary I was wishing for more, believe me!   But work and life (small children that like to "fly with daddy" which precludes any attempt at concentrating on a serious mission) got in my way, meaning it was several months from start to finish.

 

Edited June 3, 2021 by War_Pig
Punctuation

[baltic_dragon]

Thank you @War_Pig, @ruprecht, @wilbur81, @Teleblaster, @pokeraccio and others for your kind words - and we are very happy that you enjoyed this campaign! 

As to the Australian pilots - I will need some voiceovers for the F-16C "The Gamblers" campaign, so I will be in touch.

And as to the plans - well, we're half-way through the Raven One prequel, taking place in 2005 (so 3 years before the novel) in Eastern Mediterranean. The work is progressing well and since we are not bound by the book, we can spread our DCS wings and should have a few surprises for you!

 

[Mistermann]

A prequel?  Nice.  Flip as a JO.  Looking forward to it, @baltic_dragon.  I assume a 2022 planned release? 

[baltic_dragon]

11 hours ago, Mistermann said:

A prequel?  Nice.  Flip as a JO.  Looking forward to it, @baltic_dragon.  I assume a 2022 planned release? 

should be Q4 2021 unless something goes really bad. I have half of it ready. 

[ruprecht]

On 6/5/2021 at 7:53 PM, baltic_dragon said:

Raven One prequel

 

Dare I ask how this is going?

[baltic_dragon]

23 hours ago, ruprecht said:

 

Dare I ask how this is going?

Moving forward, around M10 right now, which I think is the most difficult one I've ever built (in terms of interactions and timing, not necessarily how hard it is to pass). Had a slow-down during the summer, with very little time for DCS, but trying to catch up now!

[Teleblaster]

Can’t wait!

[Thumper1911]

So here is some feedback.

I think it was mission 9 before I actually shot a weapon.    Then it was at night going after fast moving boats.   Can’t see them at all without tags on.   The ground radar would not lock them up and I was unable to track them with the tgp.

In the mission briefings there are lots of words,  but nowhere in the campaign is there clear military style list of objectives and execution plan.   Each mission I am left trying to figure it out. This is a consistent problem with these campaigns.   
 

Operation orders and clear execution plans please

[baltic_dragon]

That is a feedback I am getting from some of the players, thanks. The briefings were written & checked by two former Hornet pilots, and they are as close as you can get to real life... but I understand that some summary could be welcome, so I'll try to prepare that for the missions (and definitely will include it in the upcoming Raven One prequel). 

As for firing weapons - again, the campaign focuses on realism (plus follows the novel), so it is not for those who seek a lot of action from the outset, but for those who would like to feel more immersed & see how things look in the real life (although in real life it is much more boring I guess). Besides if I am not mistaken there is some shooting in Mission 03 (quite a lot of it in fact), then starting from 8 you go kinetic in each sortie, so in 9 missions out of 15. 

The boats at night are on DCS side, when I was building the campaign they were clearly visible in NVGs. Then they weren't, then some months after they were again, now they are not. I am sure ED will fix this.

Anyway, @Thumper1911 thanks for the feedback, I'll keep that in mind and definitely will include a simplified briefing / objectives if that helps! 

[Thumper1911]

I have a little military planning experience.   If there are any future campaigns/missions I would be willing to help out.  It was a good campaign.  I am not looking to get anything just want to help.

[QuassSeabass]

Hey Baltic,

Loving the campaign, first time playing through it. I have only encountered one game-breaking bug so far.

Mission 12, when Blade spawns, the aircraft apparently picks up some damage to the left wing, and the left leading-edge slat falls off. This culminates in the wing detaching when Blade launches off CAT 2, leading to a quite fiery demise. At first I thought perhaps this was intentional and I was supposed to carry on solo, but then he started answering radio calls, so I'm assuming it's unintentional.

Other than that, having an absolute blast! Thankyou so much for making it

[wilbur81]

Hey, Baltic.

Had a chance to get another go at your campaign (just finished mission 9)... Such great and imaginative work, Sir! Well done.

W

 

[baltic_dragon]

On 11/26/2021 at 5:11 AM, QuassSeabass said:

Hey Baltic,

Loving the campaign, first time playing through it. I have only encountered one game-breaking bug so far.

Mission 12, when Blade spawns, the aircraft apparently picks up some damage to the left wing, and the left leading-edge slat falls off. This culminates in the wing detaching when Blade launches off CAT 2, leading to a quite fiery demise. At first I thought perhaps this was intentional and I was supposed to carry on solo, but then he started answering radio calls, so I'm assuming it's unintentional.

Other than that, having an absolute blast! Thankyou so much for making it

Thanks, I'll check what is going on there! And thanks for your kind words!

[lax22]

On 6/6/2021 at 2:42 AM, baltic_dragon said:

should be Q4 2021 unless something goes really bad. I have half of it ready. 

Hi Baltic, do you have any update on the estimated release date for the new Raven campaign?

 

Thanks in advance for your reply!

[baltic_dragon]

@lax22hopefully Q1 2022 if all goes well, almost done with core missions and moving soon to testing!

[lax22]

2 hours ago, baltic_dragon said:

@lax22hopefully Q1 2022 if all goes well, almost done with core missions and moving soon to testing!

Thanks for the update!

[DeltaMike]

Raven One is just outstanding.  I found the book first, the whole time thinking, "somebody should import this into DCS."  Great minds think alike eh

The voice acting took this to a whole nuther level in terms of professionalism and polish; well done.  

Did you see  RedKite's walkthrough for mission 9?  Check out the trailer in his intro.  There's a briefing for ya.  Powerful stuff.  

Have you talked to Mover?  

Matt Jackson's "Crisis in the Desert" series is pretty darn cool -- scratches that Clancy itch especially if you remember "Red Storm Rising" -- and the first book, to a great extent takes place on our PG map.  That would be a monster of a project I imagine but dang.  

You could charge more.  People drop a lot of money on this hobby, it won't kill em to pay up for something that makes it worthwhile to strap on that headset.  

 

[flyingtom]

Just finished the campaign ... Wow , what an experience ! I never felt that kind of immersion before in a sim. It was kind of sad to land for the last time on the carrier. Not a shoot'em up but a whole adventure that will put your nerves to the test .

I really enjoyed the time spent on your campaign !!

 

I cannot imagine the work involved to keep that show on track, well done to you ! I am looking forward to Operation Pontus and your next campaigns to come !

[ClydeBigBird]

I originally played this campaign about a year ago but kind of rushed through it before I had to pack up my sim gear and move house.

I just replayed it, this time while reading the book concurrently, and wow, that was one of the coolest experiences I've had in gaming!

I've gone through a bunch of really great campaigns in the past year, but at risk of sounding unoriginal, I have to say that Raven One is still the best campaign in DCS.  What really sets it apart is how all fifteen missions feel completely unique.  This variety really keeps you hooked and eager to fly the next mission.  Some other (very good) campaigns can drag a little bit in their latter halves when they have multiple missions asking the player to perform slight variations on a similar task.  Raven One never does this, and the mission variety coupled with the added cool factor of launching and recovering from the Supercarrier makes each mission feel engaging from start to finish.

The only downsides I can think of are a couple bugs I encountered (reported elsewhere), and maybe Psycho's voice actor not really matching her character in the book (I would have maybe swapped Olive's and Psycho's VA).  The fact that Psycho has an extremely limited number of lines that amount to "roger", and is only one of a huge number of different voice actors should tell you how tiny of a nit this is to pick.  It's just literally the only thing that came to mind (apart from bugs) where I thought "that could be better."

This campaign is basically a DCS classic, top of the pile in a list of must play campaigns for every DCS user.

Oh, and the book totally kicks ass!  I thought reading a book concurrently might not allow me to play through the campaign as quickly as I'd like to, but this wasn't the case at all.  The book isn't all that long, and it's a real page turner.  It added a whole extra dimension to the experience that can't be found anywhere else in the DCS universe.  Highly recommended!

[baltic_dragon]

Thank you so much for these kind words! Hope you don’t mind me posting this on my FB channel!

[ClydeBigBird]

20 minutes ago, baltic_dragon said:

Thank you so much for these kind words! Hope you don’t mind me posting this on my FB channel!

Go for it!