Mission 7 - playthrough

[Lt_Jaeger]

Even so the AIM-54 didn't do the job it was designed for (at least mine didn't - dunno if I did something wrong), we made it.

 

Thank you Task Force Air-Defence 

 

 

 

 

[Reflected]

Yeah, I just replayed this mission and for the first time in 1.5 years none of my Aim-54s hit from within 35 miles...but you have to knock on Heatblur's door with this one

[Damian-J]

Took me ALOT of attempts with this mission.

Pheonix is so random at the moment

[Sandman1330]

Check out this track - 6 pheonixes, not a single one guided. Something is definitely not right there.

 

Useless pheonixes tacview

 

Did the mission again, fired from farther away, got 6 kills. All backfires were destroyed (got the voiceover for that). However, I got the "ship hit, mission failed,"  but no enemy missiles hit. A few were fired before the backfires were destroyed, but none hit the ship, the point defence got them all. That tacview is also attached.

 

Ship wasn't hit tacview

 

Finally, it's a bit annoying to not be able to prioritize targets in TWS. The MIGs are always "stealing" your priority 1 and 2 slots, so you have to "waste" 2 phoenixes on them before you can start engaging the bombers. Again, it's a Heatblur / DCS problem, but still...

 

 

[Reflected]

@Sandman1330 you may want to post these in the Heatblur section. I agree that Phoenixes are messed up at the moment, but there's nothing I can do in the mission editor to fix it.

 

The mission fail condition is tied to the 'unit hit=USS Theodore Roosevelt" trigger. I can't imagine what else could possibly trigger this. I'll do some more experimenting.

[Sandman1330]

1 minute ago, Reflected said:

@Sandman1330 you may want to post these in the Heatblur section. I agree that Phoenixes are messed up at the moment, but there's nothing I can do in the mission editor to fix it.

 

The mission fail condition is tied to the 'unit hit=USS Theodore Roosevelt" trigger. I can't imagine what else could possibly trigger this. I'll do some more experimenting.

Oh yeah, I understand it’s not controllable on your end. I think Heatblur is well aware of the Phoenix issues, but it’s actually DCS core that controls the missile API. There’s supposed to be a fix in the works.

 

It’s not a big deal that the mission showed fail, I still got all the “win” dialog and was able to just hit skip mission to progress. One missile did get super duper close, the CIWS got it, but maybe the ship took a tiny bit of damage from the close by explosion of the missile, and perhaps that’s all it took to trigger

[Reflected]

That's possible. With the 'unit damaged' trigger I can't control how much damage I need. As soo as it's less than 100%, it's damaged, which would mean a missile hit. I think a partial missile hit by a nearby explosion has a chance of 1 in a 100000

[Lt_Jaeger]

8 hours ago, Sandman1330 said:

 

Finally, it's a bit annoying to not be able to prioritize targets in TWS. The MIGs are always "stealing" your priority 1 and 2 slots, so you have to "waste" 2 phoenixes on them before you can start engaging the bombers. Again, it's a Heatblur / DCS problem, but still...

 

 

 

 

I did the following (should be in the video): I jumped in the backseat, hooked the 3( iircr) MiGs (one after the other) and marked them as "Do not attack" via CAP, thous removing the tracks from the Tgt list. Now the bombers get prioritized, but that too didn't do any good for the phoenix effectiveness

Edited July 13, 2021 by Lt_Jaeger

[Sandman1330]

14 hours ago, Lt_Jaeger said:

 

 

I did the following (should be in the video): I jumped in the backseat, hooked the 3( iircr) MiGs (one after the other) and marked them as "Do not attack" via CAP, thous removing the tracks from the Tgt list. Now the bombers get prioritized, but that too didn't do any good for the phoenix effectiveness

 

 

Awesome tip! I just tried that and it worked great. Still only got 1/6 phoenix hits though...

[Whistler_RIO]

I get good hits with phoenix. killing up to six, (i mostly play as RIO in squadron so maybe just a bit more experienced. i get two to four usually with phoenix BVR at around 70m and then two more after merging. those bombers are fast and high and not easily hit with Fox2) and yet everytime i get the GAME OVER text.  

a bug that i kind of think is in your side, Inverted, is that the wingman is not behaving correctly.  he seems to maybe not launch or if he does (i dont know because im rushing to merge with bombers) he doesnt respond on comms at 269.00 which it shows him to be at.  i could really use his help engaging bandits!   Learned that wingman is just silent but still executes commands!

 

I guess im supposed to try and intercept the missiles?  Maybe im spending too much time in the back seat and so maybe Iceman isnt pushing burners hard enough?
 

Edited July 14, 2021 by marcocom

[Sandman1330]

9 hours ago, marcocom said:

I get good hits with phoenix. killing up to six, (i mostly play as RIO in squadron so maybe just a bit more experienced. i get two to four usually with phoenix BVR at around 70m and then two more after merging. 
 

 

Phoenixes work OK at longer ranges, but if you engage at shorter range 

(30NM-ish), they don’t even seem to guide, even with valid tracks held throughout.

[Whistler_RIO]

ya i guess i wouldnt call it consistent!  man, this was a rewarding mission to complete!  i had great fun with it

[unlikely_spider]

On 7/13/2021 at 3:11 AM, Lt_Jaeger said:

 

 

I did the following (should be in the video): I jumped in the backseat, hooked the 3( iircr) MiGs (one after the other) and marked them as "Do not attack" via CAP, thous removing the tracks from the Tgt list. Now the bombers get prioritized, but that too didn't do any good for the phoenix effectiveness

 

From that range how do you know which are the bombers?

[Lt_Jaeger]

I never thought much about it .

 

There were reports about fighters and a flight of F-14 engaging them and then there was that wall of planes coming in. Without much thought I found the radar/link picture kinda clear who was who. 

 

[BoFrost]

As I have Not so much time to fly, I now could fly the mission. In the first try I failed, and the Carrier got hit. 

On the second try, I switched to RIO Seat,  and fired  all my Phoenix from there, with an much better result. 

Then switched back to Pilot and hunted the remaining Bomber from there with Sidewinder and Guns.

 

I enjoy the campaign very much and I am hoping there will come more in this style. I own Zone 5 too, but did not get warm with it. Maybe because of missing knowledge of the Cat. But I am sure this will now change, and I will give it a new try after this one. 

 

 

[Polo]

On 7/13/2021 at 9:22 AM, Reflected said:

That's possible. With the 'unit damaged' trigger I can't control how much damage I need. As soo as it's less than 100%, it's damaged, which would mean a missile hit. I think a partial missile hit by a nearby explosion has a chance of 1 in a 100000

 

Just to add to this, I've had multiple attempts at this mission and haven't yet 'officially' passed it.

 

What seems to have happened to me repeatedly is that there is always one AS4 leaker that gets past the SM2s, at which point all the CIWS engage and destroy it. However there's always a couple of 20mm shells hitting the carrier (usually from the USS Farragut that is 'behind' the carrier relative to the AS4s, and engages them with its CIWS as it should) which triggers the carrier is sinking message and mission failure.

 

Having said that, am having a great time with this campaign overall, awesome work!

Edited September 22, 2021 by DaMoFo

[bonux1987]

This mission has totally taken away my enthousiasm to play this campaign further.

Since last weekend i've given it multiple try's a day... It's just not working, there is always a missile slipping through and hitting the carrier.
Firing missiles at long range, short range, high speeds, low speeds, nothing is working, half of the missiles do not hit, my wingman is even worse it seems, he fires to god know what...

Even followed the playthrough to the second.... not the same end result.

I was super exited about this campaign, fully into the story, now my drive is completely gone, hell even to play DCS.

 

 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by bonux1987

[Reflected]

6 hours ago, bonux1987 said:

This mission has totally taken away my enthousiasm to play this campaign further.

Since last weekend i've given it multiple try's a day... It's just not working, there is always a missile slipping through and hitting the carrier.
Firing missiles at long range, short range, high speeds, low speeds, nothing is working, half of the missiles do not hit, my wingman is even worse it seems, he fires to god know what...

Even followed the playthrough to the second.... not the same end result.

I was super exited about this campaign, fully into the story, now my drive is completely gone, hell even to play DCS.

 

 

 

 

Sorry to hear about your experience. You must be aware that missile performances change a lot in DCS and very often. Recently HB changed the AIM-54, and not in a good way. It got completely nerfed. This of course affects this mission fundamentally. I cannot possibly change/ write new missions for the campaign depending on what missile is nerfed and what isn't at a given moment. I have to assume everything works as intended - which they don't right now.

So this report belongs more to the table of whoever works on the AIM-54 performance, I'm also hoping for a fix in the upcoming updates. Until then, please use the 'skip mission' function in the campaign menu.

Edited February 3, 2022 by Reflected

[Reflected]

On 2/4/2022 at 1:21 AM, bonux1987 said:

This mission has totally taken away my enthousiasm to play this campaign further.

Since last weekend i've given it multiple try's a day... It's just not working, there is always a missile slipping through and hitting the carrier.
Firing missiles at long range, short range, high speeds, low speeds, nothing is working, half of the missiles do not hit, my wingman is even worse it seems, he fires to god know what...

Even followed the playthrough to the second.... not the same end result.

I was super exited about this campaign, fully into the story, now my drive is completely gone, hell even to play DCS.

 

 

 

 

Aaand we didn't have to wait very long either
 

 

[bonux1987]

Gonna give it a go today !

Please excuse my rant the other day... sometimes its best not to comment on something in the heat of the moment !

 

Thank you !

[Reflected]

11 hours ago, bonux1987 said:

Gonna give it a go today !

Please excuse my rant the other day... sometimes its best not to comment on something in the heat of the moment !

 

Thank you !

Don't worry, I understand...I can also get quite angry when a core DCS bug makes a campaign mission unplayable. Fortunately updates are coming regularly and such bugs are likely to be fixed soon if reported.

[rollnloop]

This one has been quite difficult for me too, managed to win it before the patch with luck after three tries.

 

The main problem is that, playing only as a pilot and not going in the backseat at all, it's quite difficult to have jester not select Migs as a priority target.

 

Asking him to scan high at the right time makes migs disappear and Tu22s to be the only target, but then if the shot is not taken soon enough even the TU22s get out of the scope.

 

On my last, successful attempt I decided to shoot whatever jester had as a priority, wether it was mig or Tu22, and then try to position the Tomcat to keep everyone in the scope aperture. In the end only the mig was hit, but since I had been in afterburner all the way since take off we were on time to dispatch enough of them before they launched.

[Miller]

I can't seem to be able to communicate with my wingman at all. Is he supposed to be at COM2 channel 1 as in previous missions?

[Jayhawk1971]

 

[Reflected]

Doh, I see why some of you can't complete this mission recently. Due to a silly new AI bug, VF-41 never launches, only the leader, and that's 3 Tomcats less to intercept the Backfires.