Mission 11 suggestion

[Aa416295]

First off, what an excellent campaign. I consider myself to be on the lower skill side of the average DCS player, and although challenging, so far I've been able to compete each mission after a try or two. 

 

I have a suggestion for mission 11. Without giving anything away, I decided to continue with the AAR. By the time I met up with the tanker, I had just over 9k of fuel. In the notes, it says to make sure Elvis gets fuelled as well. I didn't really think about how much fuel the S3 carries, and I think I bled it dry. I got to 18k, and the tanker brought in the hose and turned to the carrier. I tried to order Elvis to refuel, and he said 'negative'. I suspect that I took all the fuel, leaving my wingmen SOL. I'd suggest you tell players to take 4000lbs, or something like that in the message telling them to make sure Elvis gets fuel. I don't know how much the S3 is capable of giving out, but it may be helpful to let fokes know not to steal all the fuel from Elvis... 

 

A second suggestion 

Spoiler

I decided to chase down the transport like a shinny penny after downing the fighters. I then managed to take a Sam to the face on the way out of country. It would have been nice to be able to respawn after the AAR for the second attempt at the mission. I love long missions that require AAR, but I'm not really looking forward to sitting through the first uneventful hour a second time. I don't even know if that's a possibility, given the limitations of the dcs campaign generator, but since there is clearly a save point to allow people to skip the AAR, it'd be nice if it also allows someone to skip doing the first half of the mission all over again when they get shot down like me... 

 

Once again, thanks so much for the awesome campaign. I hope there's some more in the pipeline! 

 

T. 

[Jayhawk1971]

+1 on your second suggestion. It would have been a nice option to have. Especially given the idiosyncrasies of DCS.

 

Spoiler

IIRC, it was possible in another campaign (Earnest Will by SpikeGondorff, I believe) to respawn after reaching a certain amount of points for the second portion of a given mission, so it should be technically possible. 

 

Edited June 27, 2021 by Jayhawk1971

[Reflected]

It would only be possible if the second part would be in the next stage already, which would raise more serious problems. We've been through this with @baltic_dragon, testing all kinds of  possibilities, and this was the only solution that worked in all scenarios. (pass/ fail/ pass the next one/ fail the next one/ etc...)

 

I always managed to get Elvis to refuel too - I think you need to call the tanker and say 'abort rejoin', that's how your wingman will know he can go. Or just tell him to go first.

[Damian-J]

I just flew to the tanker, didn't use the radio menu as instructed not to, I formed up on left wing and nothing happened, I just stay they flying round with the tanker for 5 mins. I tried telling Elvis to refuel which he did but I got no option to preconnect with tanker or repsawn full on fuel...............

Had to end mission and am about to try again - And do thr whole hour flying round to start with lol

[Reflected]

You've got to be on the correct frequency, otherwise you'll miss radio transmissions and triggers. Also, the mission asks you to press spacebar to contact the tanker.

[Damian-J]

27 minutes ago, Reflected said:

You've got to be on the correct frequency, otherwise you'll miss radio transmissions and triggers. Also, the mission asks you to press spacebar to contact the tanker.

I was all good with the freqs.

Pressing spacebar was my issue, I completely forgot to do that - I was waiting for another message to pop up lol

My bad.

Just finished mission 11

[Cpt. Weber]

In my scenario Elvis also couldn't refuel, as the tanker interrupted my refueling without warning, beside reaching a waypoint and headed back home. Because of that, Elvis was "unable". 

Is it possible the mission took me too long? I wasn't flying fast in the CAP station, chilling. Maybe the tanker runs out of the track?

[Lt_Jaeger]

Had my share of problems with the tanker.

 

Did Mission 11 3 times now due to the fact that the recording for my playthrue video was broken every time, and you can imagine that it is thrilling only the first time as you await the big onslaught every second, but the second and third time not so much anymore.

Anyhow, the first time I came with roughly 11000 pounds to the tanker and filled up to 16000, which gave Elvis the chance to fill up too. Problem was that he didn't connect. So I called the tanker via menu and aborted the refuel, and told him to go to tanker and (I believe) I called back in to rejoin, and he was able to refuel.

 

Second time, same fuel stat, I connected...got fuel for 12500, had a disconnect, connected again but no pumping. Had the probe switch on the first stage, so only internal tanks would get fueled. Took me like 5 min to figure out I don't get fuel, put the switch in second position and the fuel flow started again, just to be ended by the tanker, who RTBed. Guess for the tanker, he was pumping the whole time, but the fuel never showed up in my tanks. Guess it is another DCS thing....

 

I'm not sure how much fuel an S-3 holds, but it is for sure not enough to fill up two Tomcats. Since Elvis has blown his fuel, I guess it would be a smart move to just fill up like 16000 Pounds and let him take the rest.

 

 

Oh, and I'm for sure not doing a further try to record the mission....even so I understand and enjoyed the first time the boredom of a CAP, I don't do 2+ hours for a 3rd or 4th time 

 

[Reflected]

Wow, that mission is definitely NOT meant to be replayed several times   It's meant to give the player a taste of real world CAPs, where Tomcats were on station for long loooong hours without much happening.

 

Anyhow, I think AI AAR is currently broken. The other day I had an AI wingman who couldn't even connect, just flew 30 feet above the tanker... you can never trust the DCS AI. So just go refuel, then let Elvis take as much as he would ,and if he runs out of fuel later, just forget about him. I'm looking forward to the day when we can give unlimited fuel to units in the mission editor, because currently the AI fuel consumption and AAR (in)capability is not very easy to work with...

[Lt_Jaeger]

Oh, BTW, there is a typo in the Topgun "scene" - scool - or something like that. 

[Gretsch_Man]

On 7/19/2021 at 5:18 PM, Reflected said:

Wow, that mission is definitely NOT meant to be replayed several times   It's meant to give the player a taste of real world CAPs, where Tomcats were on station for long loooong hours without much happening.

Lucky me I got shot down by the fighters after playing the whole mission up until then without time compression (I kinda knew this was coming...).

 

This mission certainly gives the player a taste of real world CAPs. Personally I would have preferred this mission to be somewhat shorter (it took me almost 2 hours, including doing the AAR, until I went BOOOM - GAME OVER).

[War_Pig]

On 7/19/2021 at 3:18 AM, Reflected said:

I'm looking forward to the day when we can give unlimited fuel to units in the mission editor, because currently the AI fuel consumption and AAR (in)capability is not very easy to work with...

This should DEFINITELY be a thing!  Who cares if the AI has unlimited fuel, it won’t hurt the players immersion.  When they run out arbitrarily it certainly does.

[War_Pig]

I played this mission last night and enjoyed it.  I went after that transport, splashed it, then engaged the 29’s.  The last one got me.

 

Unfortunately now I have to start over, which means another night some other time due to work and family (two little ones).  It would be tremendously helpful if we could split this mission into two parts so you can pick up right behind the tanker if you get splashed during the action, and skip the first hour. 

[Reflected]

7 hours ago, War_Pig said:

I played this mission last night and enjoyed it.  I went after that transport, splashed it, then engaged the 29’s.  The last one got me.

 

Unfortunately now I have to start over, which means another night some other time due to work and family (two little ones).  It would be tremendously helpful if we could split this mission into two parts so you can pick up right behind the tanker if you get splashed during the action, and skip the first hour. 

this is the best solution that the dcs campaign engine can offer, sorry. PS: why did you go after the 29s? The Awacs told you to get out of there?

 

also, there is an option to skip the mission using the f10 radio menu. 

[War_Pig]

My wingman was engaged BFM defensive in a knife fight with two of them by the time my AIM-7 hit and I could turn around.  I splashed the two -29's, then another with guns.  The fourth got behind me a stuck a missile up my tailpipes.

 

My point is that I don't want to skip the mission, I'd love to be able to restart the mission at the second part.  If that's not technically possible, I'll take your word for it.  It's unfortunate though, it shaped up to be an awesome fight, especially with that SA-11 thrown into the mix.  I just can't invest another hour+ into the boring portion.  Thanks for the response though!

[Jayhawk1971]

I just played this mission again, after the patch today (Sept 17). 

 

Now I too had tanker issues, probably due to me being a lot better at staying connected thanks to superior depth perception and the ability to lean around the canopy frame in VR. Which meant I was able to stay connected long enough to completely fill up my tanks (from around 12,800 lbs or so). The result was that when I ordered Elvis to refuel, he declared "rejoin" barely after he connected to the drogue. Subsequently, he called "bingo" shortly before the 

Spoiler

engagement with the Fulcrums, leaving me to deal with them alone (which I did, but then I didn't want to go after the transport with only 3 Sidewinders left).

 

The only explanation I can come up with is that the tanker must have been out of fuel.

 

I know next to nothing about mission making, so I'll have to ask: is there a way to determine (and in the best case set) the fuel load of a tanker? One would assume a tanker (even a small S-3) should be able to carry more than 7,000 lbs of fuel? If not, maybe Reflected could add a line to the mission advising the player only to take 2,000-3,000 lbs or so?

[Reflected]

The tanker takes off the moment you declare bingo so it should have enough fuel. And you’ll need a full tank anyway. I hope one day we get the option to set unlimited fuel for specific units.  

[Jayhawk1971]

Yep, hopefully ED does do that, and/ or, even better, give the AI a complete overhaul. 

[CrispyRoboChicken]

FYI - I just completed this mission. I really liked it the first time. Waiting for something to happen and I would not have minded if there would not have been any action at all.

But then I tried to refuel... Same issues as the other guys here. At my first attempt the Tanker just stopped to refuel me and left. Second attempt the same thing. 

Third attempt I skipped the refueling but DCS crashed. So here is what I did:

I went to the "DCS World OpenBeta\Mods\campaigns\F-14A Fear the Bones Campaign" folder and copied the "FTB - 11b.miz" to "C:\Users\YourName\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Missions" then just launched that mission directly as mission in dcs.

That way I was able to start in the air with full tanks and a great point to restart without flying for an hour. Everything you do here does not count towards your campaign so I had to skip the mission in the campaign but still got to see everything it offers

Hope this might help anyone having issues or time constraints like me

[BuzzLine]

On 6/28/2021 at 12:54 AM, Reflected said:

It would only be possible if the second part would be in the next stage already, which would raise more serious problems. We've been through this with @baltic_dragon, testing all kinds of  possibilities, and this was the only solution that worked in all scenarios. (pass/ fail/ pass the next one/ fail the next one/ etc...)

 

I always managed to get Elvis to refuel too - I think you need to call the tanker and say 'abort rejoin', that's how your wingman will know he can go. Or just tell him to go first.

I'm not sure I understand why it wouldn't work to set M11b as the outcome for a score of 50 in stage 11 ? (0..49->m11 , 50->m11b, 51..100->m11). It's a very long mission (and quite boring to replay, intentionally by design  ) and you already have done all the work to have a checkpoint !

 

Spoiler

For the record, I had no bugs or issues w/ refueling since I only took 4k lbs (I've drained S-3s dry before, now I know better), just I got greedy after the transport and closed in to AIM7 range... and ... well...  

 

Solution for the lazy yet adventurous ones who want to replay *only* the last part: quit DCS, edit your logbook.lua and simply add a 'b' to your current mission in the campaign. You'll get the expected effect. (usual caveats apply, don't mess up your stuff, backup before you operate, etc, etc)

[15] = 
{
["stage"] = 11,
["mission"] = "FTB - 11b.miz",
}, -- end of [15]

 

Cheers all,

Buzz

[Reflected]

Because 0.49 takes you back to mission 10 with the current campaign engine. You need 50 points at mission start, otherwise you move backwards and that's even worse.

So what if you fail the end of mission 11, not using 11b? what if you fail the end of mission 11b? 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Reflected

[BuzzLine]

6 hours ago, Reflected said:

Because 0.49 takes you back to mission 10 with the current campaign engine. You need 50 points at mission start, otherwise you move backwards and that's even worse.

So what if you fail the end of mission 11, not using 11b? what if you fail the end of mission 11b? 

From my understanding, if you set the points to 50 at the start of m11/m11b (as you, and most campaign creators, usually do because moving back a stage is pure evil), then failing either m11 or m11b keeps you in the stage and on m11b. I guess setting the 0..49 parts of the score is in case you fail at stage 12 and it gets you back into stage 11 ? But that shouldn't happen so let's not worry about it. 

So the issue is if you fail to reach the refueling point in m11, like a cold cat launch straight into the sea . You'd still get your 50 points for participating (because nobody wants to regress a stage) but then on your next try, you'd find yourself directly in m11b, having missed all the pre-tanking part of the flight.  I'd wager that anyone who has made it this far in the campaign is unlikely to fail that first part of the mission and so the benefits are worth the possible inconvenience.

 

Anyways, it's your work and I'm just asking to understand if I misunderstood something or other, as if felt like the perfect opportunity for a checkpoint. I do love long missions(*), just not flying them twice if I can avoid it (and I use ctrl-z if I can't).

Thanks,

Buzz

Spoiler

(*) I almost would have loved it if after two hours on CAP with some good banter, it went "Pontiac 1, cleared RTB.   MISSION COMPLETE". The ultimage anticlimax, toying with our emotions and ultimately deflating them !  

 

[Reflected]

But that's exactly what I did: 50 points at mission start. The only way I could safely call it a checkpoint is to put them in different stages, but then refueling by yourself wouldn't be an option  

[BuzzLine]

Indeed.

BTW, to clarify, that's the way stages are setup in Operation Earnest Will (*), mentioned by an earlier poster:

OCA is the deck start full mission and OCA_C is the airstart shortened variant.

The score in the full mission is set at 50 only *after* the whole takeoff, admin and boring flying to the action zone, rather than at the beginning, so don't crash on takeoff ! But any time after that, any failure or restart will move to the _C variant, which is the air start right before the action begins. The airstart mission starts with a score of 50 so it will loop on itself until success. It makes for a very enjoyable experience overall !

Note: with the "skip mission" option now available on the campaign UI, should the user go back one stage because of failure before reaching the "score=50" point, they can skip over the previous stage and easily get back to the stage they were in. Or they can not accept the mission results and forget about it all. So in terms of user experience, there are reasonably accessible ways to not go back one stage. 

 

(*) I really hope it will be back soon, it's an amazing campaign and well worth the price, should it come back as payware. Support the content creators !  

[Reflected]

Quote

The score in the full mission is set at 50 only *after* the whole takeoff, admin and boring flying to the action zone, rather than at the beginning, so don't crash on takeoff ! 

That's it right there. If I don't give 50 points at the beginning, and players move backwards I'll get lots of complaints. Then again, as you said the skip mission feature makes it easier now, but still, I'd get many 'I progressed backwards, what do I do now?' threads - happened in the past.