Georgian Oil War

[LastRifleRound]

Can someone show me them actually executing mission 1 of this campaign? (Not the one divided in chapters). I tried everything. I don't know who I'm supposed to be shooting, the fog means I can't see a damned thing, my wingman is useless and dies or doesn't shoot anything, and won't do recon. No one talks to you so I don't know where I'm supposed to focus, then fighting the auto-hover that refuses to do anything about the wind blowing you down the valley makes it all worse.

 

This mission feels cheap, like it's just designed to throw all of the weakest parts of DCS at you in place of actual difficulty (invulnerable trees, poor visual acuity, terrible friendly AI. In fact, most of the Black Shark campaigns feel this way.

[Flappie]

BS is the oldest module of DCS, and so are its campaigns. I'll give it a go next week and will post a video. I'm pretty sure I won't succeed on the first try, because I had tried it years ago and IIRC, I couldn't end the mission without being fatally hit. I believe this official BS campaign is the toughest one.

 

If you haven't, play the Deployment campaign first. It's way easier.

Edited August 28, 2021 by Flappie

[LastRifleRound]

Thanks for the reply @Flappie

 

I love the BS but the missions throw way more under your responsibility than it's reasonable for the little bird to deal with.

 

Deployment is ok, but mission 2 was really annoying. Without labels, I don't know how you're supposed to be successful on the first try. After getting through that I was turned off from the campaign.

[Flappie]

I think I remember which mission you're talking about, with infantries hidden in a small town. I had to retry this one a few times.

 

Don't forget you can accelerate time when redoing a mission.

The faster you get back to where you got shot down, the less frustrated you get. Of course, it's less immersive to fly with fast forward on, but you forget this once you're back in the battle.

[Flappie]

I agree with you about Georgia Oil War mission 01: it is quite difficult. Here's my first try at it. It lasted 18 mintues....

 

 

I killed 6 enemy MBTs on the front line (WP1), and a few artillery units near WP2(?) but I couldn't see WP1 one was still populated by enemy units. I quickly went short of Vikhr missiles, and after being lased a few times, I went for a gun run, which ended very badly.

 

I told my wingman to attack my enemies and a few minutes later he couldn't respond my calls anymore...

GeorgianOilWar_mission1.trk

[LastRifleRound]

Deployment isn't much better. I get it the KA50 is old, but this isn't games as a service nonsense. It should be stable and good to play, not progressively ruined over time. I'm really disappointed I have to say. I've owned this module since 2009 and have bought it essentially twice. Soon I will be asked to buy it a third time. Official campaigns should not be allowed to deteriorate like this.

[Flappie]

1 hour ago, LastRifleRound said:

Deployment isn't much better. I get it the KA50 is old, but this isn't games as a service nonsense. It should be stable and good to play, not progressively ruined over time. I'm really disappointed I have to say. I've owned this module since 2009 and have bought it essentially twice. Soon I will be asked to buy it a third time. Official campaigns should not be allowed to deteriorate like this.

AFAIK, BS3 won't be mandatory. You won't have to buy it to keep playing BS.

 

When I was saying BS campaigns are old, I didn't mean they are not maintained anymore (I know they are because I contributed not so long ago on the Deployment campaign). I meant that, at the time, it was common to see very hard missions right at the start of a campaign. Nowadays, most mission creators are "nicer" to players, and especially to beginners.

 

I think Georgian Oil War is a very hard campaign because I've never been past the first mission, ever. I think in contrast it's way easier to reach the end of the Deployment campaign, because I did. Why are you suggesting it's not stable and good to play ? Do you think the misssions were altered other time? If so, please attach a track showing the issues.

 

By the way, I didn't make use of the auto-hover in my try as you can see if you play the track. I simply used trimming and had no real issue with the wind.

Edited August 30, 2021 by Flappie

[LastRifleRound]

It's not stable as in the difficulty spikes along with the maintenance.

 

The main issue is when these campaigns were made there were less trees and most of the scenery had no collision model. Therefore, you have point air defense units placed in essentially invulnerable positions, and units put in places that, without labels, are literally impossible to see. With the cloud placement, these units are behind structures that you cannot gain enough altitude to shoot over, meaning you will have to frontally assault AAA and SA9 units. This is fine, except the mission expects you to not only see them, but to see and engage every single last one of them. That's crazy, and it's unreasonable and not in the nature of this sim to handle that sort of thing.

 

I just played mission 2 of the republic, same thing. You're asked to dogfight two MI24's over an armed convoy with no warning. There is no way someone lives through that without A.) Labels and B.) Foreknowledge

 

I don't ask mission designers to be nice, I ask them to be logically consistent and not to ask for super-heroics. Asking me to take on an SA9 hiding in the woods where 1-in-10 missiles can actually hit is suicidal. It's cheap. It's not good design. I can't see it without cheating and then I can't hit it because trees are invulnerable. Ground units don't even bother taking it out for me, so if I want to advance with the column, I'm playing chicken with that Strela and the ZU23 southeast of it every time. It's not difficult because it's good, it's difficult because the mission designers have taken advantage of 3 shortcomings of the DCS engine in the placement of those units.

 

Also, asking me to shoot the front armor of that T80U will drain at least 4 missiles. Your wingman will not engage it and even if he does he will die. It's not "nice" to not put that unit there, it's in keeping with the limitations of the AI. In a threat rich SAM/AAA environment, the AI rarely survives. I am clearly meant to be using double the missiles I'm carrying, which means I am intended to use my wingman. That's not good design, knowing what we know about AI wingmen in DCS.

 

It's my opinion that either A.) these missions were never that great or B.) the DCS engine has made too many changes to AI and ground scenery that weren't kept up, and made previously reasonable missions frustrating and cheap, and sometimes even impossible.

[Flappie]

These missions are tough, that's for sure. But as I said, they dates back from 2008 (13 years!), and I'm sure a part of the Ka-50 users want to keep these missions as they are because they replay them from time to time - at least those who could finish such campaigns !

 

Maybe fixing the wingman + adding a few scripted voice-overs would be enough to ease the pain. Let's take my run as an example: after shooting the first 3 MBTs, I didn't know if task 1 was completed (apparently, it wasn't but I had no clue). I would have appreciated if the ground forces could tell me: "Good work, Sergeï, 4 more MBTs to go! Aim at coordinates blahblah...".

 

About your B) theory, I opened the mission and it seems no units is hidden in the middle of trees, at least not at WP1 and 2. I put a yellow circle around the units I couldn't see: not so much trees between them and me.

 

Maybe when we'll have a real FLIR view, this mission will become easier. In the meantime, it's really tough, I agree.