Mission 12 CAS bugs - Weird manpad spawns and way too long enroute

[Ready]

Hi I am truly loving the Persian Freedom campaign, but I get really upset right now with mission 12 (the CAS mission to support 4 stranded operators near a pumping station and radio tower).

 

1;

There are manpads spawning, just as you fly low over them (on the mountain side and south of the radio tower), which is not how things work in real life. Manpads can not magically appear out of thin air at spots where there was no manpad a few seconds ago.

 

Which brings me to the second point;

 

2;The trip from wheels up to the extraction point is waaay too long, 80+NM is crazy and takes out all the fun of restarting and playing it all over again. Especially if you know you will run into these crazy-magic manpads again, which I did 3 times now.

 

One of these issues can be okay, but the combination really takes out all my joy.

 

Please help me or fix these issues so I can continue because I would really love to finish this campaign.

 

Thank you,

[ChillNG]

18 hours ago, Ready_ENP said:

Hi I am truly loving the Persian Freedom campaign, but I get really upset right now with mission 12 (the CAS mission to support 4 stranded operators near a pumping station and radio tower).

 

1;

There are manpads spawning, just as you fly low over them (on the mountain side and south of the radio tower), which is not how things work in real life. Manpads can not magically appear out of thin air at spots where there was no manpad a few seconds ago.

 

Which brings me to the second point;

 

2;The trip from wheels up to the extraction point is waaay too long, 80+NM is crazy and takes out all the fun of restarting and playing it all over again. Especially if you know you will run into these crazy-magic manpads again, which I did 3 times now.

 

One of these issues can be okay, but the combination really takes out all my joy.

 

Please help me or fix these issues so I can continue because I would really love to finish this campaign.

 

Thank you,

 

I'm guessing from your M13 post you've got past this ok now.   Glad to hear you've enjoyed things so far .

 

With regards to the MANPADS spawning in, yes of course you are correct they wouldn't appear out of thin air in real life, but I would argue that they may well be concealed until the enemy wishes to deploy them.  For example the ones to the south of the tower are with a group of shacks, I would think it may be reasonable that to conclude they were inside to start with.  Of course in DCS this manifests as a 'spawn' as entering/exiting buildings isn't modelled.  But anyways from a mission design standpoint there is good reasons for doing this...such as managing the number of spawned units to preserve performance for all types of systems, throwing an additional challenge at the player at exactly the moment you want to (M12 as a later mission was designed to deliberately push your situational awareness and task saturate you when under pressure) and most importantly, to stop the player interfering with units needed later in the mission.  Take the MANPADS near the shacks for example, if I allowed these to spawn at mission start, they would interfere with your initial tasks and if you were to kill them, or if they ran out of ammo then this would impact the final task to take them out before they killed the Hueys - holding the spawn back prevents this potential mission breaking issue.  Don't know if any of that helps but I hope it sheds some light on the mission making decision process.

 

As for travel distance, this honestly comes down to taste.  Some people tell me they love longer missions, some prefer shorter ones.  My personal opinion on M12 is that the travel time is just about right.  I felt some earlier missions were getting a bit too long legged (M5 & M6 in particular), which is why we change bases a lot in the campaign so to keep travel times as low as possible.  But I get the frustration about having to travel only to die and have to do it again.  Difficulty balancing was a big part of the campaign testing process, and something I focused on a lot with the guys testing the missions and tweaked based on their feedback - I hope I got the balance right throughout the campaign but always happy to take feedback if you disagree.

 

Anyways, thanks for your thoughts, appreciate the feedback!

Edited September 11, 2021 by ChillNG

[Ready]

Thank you. The first time I used Tacview to find out when and where those nasty manpads were appearing so I nailed them the second time around, but then a second group of manpads appeared a few minutes later somewhere down the radio tower. I then was properly fed up and moved on to M13 by adjusting the logbook.lua. Okay I am a bit of a cheater, but hey, this was the only way for me to continue.

 

I understand your reasoning and appreciate the explanation for the mission design. I can appreciate some unexpected manpads and am more than happy to feed them a rocket or two, but the combination with the long travel for the replay took away all the pleasure. I have no problem with flying long distances, if there is a purpose to it and if it doesn't interfere with the storyline. The first time around it didn't do that so much, but the second and third time around it did so big time for me. I sometimes increase the simulator speed while on long autopilot stretches, just to get through the rather boring parts, but that is not how it should be done.

 

I had a similar issue with a another studio's mission in the past. I kept failing at a certain point (had to make a fast coordinated turn in a nightly storm with a very small error treshold), which was like 40 minutes into the mission, and everytime I failed at this point.

 

It is just frustrating having to do everything all over again, if it takes more than 30 minutes to reach the failure point and you only have a limited time to fly, because you know, life.

 

It would be nice if ED somewhere in the future could introduce a save/load function for single player missions. This would help immensely with the learning curve, because I would be more than happy to replay a certain part 100 times to get it down.

 

Anyways, I am happy you got my point and I found a way to move on.

 

I have another question; a few missions ago there was some kind of distress signal that I should have traced. I could not make it out and had no clue as to how find the source of it. It kept repeating all the way to the landing. What was that?

 

Cheers,

Edited September 12, 2021 by Ready_ENP

[ChillNG]

12 minutes ago, Ready_ENP said:

Thank you. The first time I used Tacview to find out when and where those nasty manpads were appearing so I nailed them the second time around, but then a second group of manpads appeared a few minutes later somewhere down the radio tower. I then was properly fed up and moved on to M13 by adjusting the logbook.lua. Okay I am a bit of a cheater, but hey, this was the only way for me to continue.

 

I understand your reasoning and appreciate the explanation for the mission design. I can appreciate some unexpected manpads and am more than happy to feed them a rocket or two, but the combination with the long travel for the replay took away all the pleasure. I have no problem with flying long distances, if there is a purpose to it and if it doesn't interfere with the storyline. The first time around it didn't do that so much, but the second and third time around it did so big time for me. I sometimes increase the simulator speed while on long autopilot stretches, just to get through the rather boring parts, but that is not how it should be done.

 

I had a similar issue with a another studio's mission in the past. I kept failing at a certain point (had to make a fast coordinated turn in a nightly storm with a very small error treshold), which was like 40 minutes into the mission, and everytime I failed at this point.

 

It is just frustrating having to do everything all over again, if it takes more than 30 minutes to reach the failure point and you only have a limited time to fly, because you know, life.

 

It would be nice if ED somewhere in the future could introduce a save/load function for single player missions. This would help immensely with the learning curve, because I would be more than happy to replay a certain part 100 times to get it down.

 

Anyways, I am happy you got my point and I found a way to move on.

 

I have another question; a few missions ago there was some kind of distress signal that I should have traced. I could not make it out and had no clue as to how find the source of it. It kept repeating all the way to the landing. What was that?

 

Cheers,

 

No probs, I agree, if we can get a save system in the future this would be great.  I am breaking up and putting in a checkpoint on some of the longer, challenging missions in the next campaign I'm working on but a save system would be perfect.

 

Was probably the radio signal on mission 11 that you're referring to.  This was an optional extra, results in quite a lot of fun SCUD action but by no means mandatory.  There are two ways of triggering this task, either approaching the later waypoints (from memory it's maybe 9 or 10) above or below the cloud.  Above the cloud means you are hidden from the ground unit so have to track them down, idea was to use ADF to home in on the signal.  If you're below the cloud then they see you on contact you directly.

[Ready]

So again got a stinger up my ()*&&(* from a manpad after flying around for quite a bit in the next mission, while heading back out, just after taking out a small convoy and some dudes in a field. Did a hard break to dodge the first, but the second one got me. Quite unsatisfying that I have to fly it again and do all that travelling, waiting and circling before the fun starts. At least now I know where they are spawning. Will use the CMS manual Charlie program next time. I guess I am also going to create a mission with a valley full of manpads and put some strafing targets in, just to train a bit of dodging.

Edited September 20, 2021 by Ready_ENP

[ChillNG]

3 hours ago, Ready_ENP said:

So again got a stinger up my ()*&&(* from a manpad after flying around for quite a bit in the next mission, while heading back out, just after taking out a small convoy and some dudes in a field. Did a hard break to dodge the first, but the second one got me. Quite unsatisfying that I have to fly it again and do all that travelling, waiting and circling before the fun starts. At least now I know where they are spawning. Will use the CMS manual Charlie program next time. I guess I am also going to create a mission with a valley full of manpads and put some strafing targets in, just to train a bit of dodging.

 

Best advice is to stay high as much as possible, only drop lower when you absolutely need to when using the gun etc.  When you go low use a flare programme to pump then out regularly, I usually modify one of the CMS programmes to drop 1 flare a second for 20-30 seconds.  As soon as I enter MANPAD range I pump them out as a preemptive measure.

[Seabiscuit1985]

On 9/11/2021 at 6:16 AM, Ready_ENP said:

Hi I am truly loving the Persian Freedom campaign, but I get really upset right now with mission 12 (the CAS mission to support 4 stranded operators near a pumping station and radio tower).

 

1;

There are manpads spawning, just as you fly low over them (on the mountain side and south of the radio tower), which is not how things work in real life. Manpads can not magically appear out of thin air at spots where there was no manpad a few seconds ago.

 

Which brings me to the second point;

 

2;The trip from wheels up to the extraction point is waaay too long, 80+NM is crazy and takes out all the fun of restarting and playing it all over again. Especially if you know you will run into these crazy-magic manpads again, which I did 3 times now.

 

One of these issues can be okay, but the combination really takes out all my joy.

 

Please help me or fix these issues so I can continue because I would really love to finish this campaign.

 

Thank you,

I actually tried more than 5 times for this specific mission. At the beginning I felt suicidal as well but then I got the point that this is a campaign that intends to make you one of the top ACEs. I also realized that the manpads are really easy to dodge since they are infrared-guided only. As long as you turn to the heading that makes the manpad on your 3/9 o'clock and release a lot of flares while maintaining high speed, the missile will have a more than 90% chance to miss. Then you make the helmet SOI and mark the launch point using the missile trail and come back you can take it out easily with a lasered rocket. In later missions there would be a really low cloud cover that blocks you from spotting your target from safe altitude, but it is also a good practice for you to handle this situation when you have to rely on your naked eyes to tally targets or how to manipulate tgp at low air. Just adjust your attitude to take the campaign as a difficult training rather than an obstacle that stops you from completing the story. You'll find it really helpful in improving your airmanship. 

[Ready]

On 9/22/2021 at 6:10 AM, Seabiscuit1985 said:

I actually tried more than 5 times for this specific mission. At the beginning I felt suicidal as well but then I got the point that this is a campaign that intends to make you one of the top ACEs. I also realized that the manpads are really easy to dodge since they are infrared-guided only. As long as you turn to the heading that makes the manpad on your 3/9 o'clock and release a lot of flares while maintaining high speed, the missile will have a more than 90% chance to miss. Then you make the helmet SOI and mark the launch point using the missile trail and come back you can take it out easily with a lasered rocket. In later missions there would be a really low cloud cover that blocks you from spotting your target from safe altitude, but it is also a good practice for you to handle this situation when you have to rely on your naked eyes to tally targets or how to manipulate tgp at low air. Just adjust your attitude to take the campaign as a difficult training rather than an obstacle that stops you from completing the story. You'll find it really helpful in improving your airmanship. 

Thanks for the tips. Yes fair point about the attitude, except I play this campaign just for entertainment and as a trainer it is ineffective in my case, just because I have little spare time and it takes too long to get to the actual learning situation since I first have to go through 30 minutes of the same storyline, overhead circling etc. To train dealing with manpads I set up a lesson mission in a valley with low overcast and scattered manpads and just flew through it a bunch of times using rockets and gun.

On 9/20/2021 at 1:09 PM, ChillNG said:

Best advice is to stay high as much as possible, only drop lower when you absolutely need to when using the gun etc.  When you go low use a flare programme to pump then out regularly, I usually modify one of the CMS programmes to drop 1 flare a second for 20-30 seconds.  As soon as I enter MANPAD range I pump them out as a preemptive measure.

yes thanks, that works. 

[schurem]

Hoo boy, that did not leave much room for error! As soon as Davey called out a break, I got one up my six. I also think dumb rockets, and a lot of them seem to be the way to go on this mish. No time for picking out things in the TGP under that low cloud.

 

This one took me six tries. I finally made it by overloading my hog with two cluster bombs, two Mk-82 dumb bombs, two triplets of unguided HE rockets, four(!) maverick-D's and a pack of HE APKWS. I took off the sidewinders and ECM pod to be able to load all of this. Oh and I loaded HEI on the gun instead of CM. I flew home with just 400 rounds left in the gun. What a thing!

For some reason, the AGM-65 is straight up murderous against infantry. It has a splash about four times as big as that of a Mk-82. It also works well against things like mortar positions..

Do not make this one any easier, it feels awesome to overcome. With time compression the flight in is quite doable.

Edited January 2, 2022 by schurem

[ChillNG]

On 1/1/2022 at 4:35 PM, schurem said:

Hoo boy, that did not leave much room for error! As soon as Davey called out a break, I got one up my six. I also think dumb rockets, and a lot of them seem to be the way to go on this mish. No time for picking out things in the TGP under that low cloud.

 

This one took me six tries. I finally made it by overloading my hog with two cluster bombs, two Mk-82 dumb bombs, two triplets of unguided HE rockets, four(!) maverick-D's and a pack of HE APKWS. I took off the sidewinders and ECM pod to be able to load all of this. Oh and I loaded HEI on the gun instead of CM. I flew home with just 400 rounds left in the gun. What a thing!

For some reason, the AGM-65 is straight up murderous against infantry. It has a splash about four times as big as that of a Mk-82. It also works well against things like mortar positions..

Do not make this one any easier, it feels awesome to overcome. With time compression the flight in is quite doable.

 

Quite the combat loadout!  Thanks for the feedback!

[King39]

On 9/10/2021 at 6:16 PM, Ready said:

1;

There are manpads spawning, just as you fly low over them (on the mountain side and south of the radio tower), which is not how things work in real life. Manpads can not magically appear out of thin air at spots where there was no manpad a few seconds ago.

 

Dude,

You are dead wrong about Manpads. Actually, that is EXACTLY how they work and that is why they are so effective. Abdul is taking a nap under a tree or in his house having lunch with the kids or on patrol with his Dudes in the Takar Gar valley, hears that delicious high bypass engine winding up in the next valley over, runs to his truck, pulls out that SA-6 and waits for the unsuspecting A-10 jock to pass in range.

That is EXACTLY how it works IRL. That's why they are called MAn Portable Air Dense weapons.

Stop believing the movies or how it looks on TV or whatever. Just because you play this game doesn't make you an expert.

Im not an expert on Manpads. The Intel guys are but I've been there and done that enough to know how it REALLY works.

Rant ends.

Edited January 13, 2022 by King39

[Ready]

48 minutes ago, King39 said:

Dude,

You are dead wrong about Manpads. Actually, that is EXACTLY how they work and that is why they are so effective. Abdul is taking a nap under a tree or in his house having lunch with the kids or on patrol with his Dudes in the Takar Gar valley, hears that delicious high bypass engine winding up in the next valley over, runs to his truck, pulls out that SA-6 and waits for the unsuspecting A-10 jock to pass in range.

That is EXACTLY how it works IRL. That's why they are called MAn Portable Air Dense weapons.

Stop believing the movies or how it looks on TV or whatever. Just because you play this game doesn't make you an expert.

Im not an expert on Manpads. The Intel guys are but I've been there and done that enough to know how it REALLY works.

Rant ends.

 

Hahaha that's funny. Thanks for the comments and for your service (if I understand you correctly) You are right but I was not referring to movies. I was talking about my experience during this specific mission. I did not see anything in front of me and just a few seconds later it appeared under me. I understand this happens in real life. I guess he heard me and just crawled from under a rock or out of a cave.

You quoted my first post and since then I added some explanations and had a conversation with the missions creator in this thread. My original post started out of frustration because of the combination of long travel with these spawning manpads (which of course is also how it can be in real life). Since then I also flew quite a couple of nice manpad dodging exercises, even recorded a video of myself flying around an airstrip filled with a bunch of them and dodging their missiles at very low altitude. So much fun! 

Edited January 13, 2022 by Ready

[King39]

As a side note, in my time as a Combat search and rescue medic working with Sandy crews; they were deathly afraid of them especially in the northern mountains if Afghanland where they were frequently forced to fly in deep valleys which made them horribly exposed to infrared manpads where they had NO warning except for their wingman and only if they were looking in the right direction.

Manpads are no joke.

[Ready]

2 minutes ago, King39 said:

As a side note, in my time as a Combat search and rescue medic working with Sandy crews; they were deathly afraid of them especially in the northern mountains if Afghanland where they were frequently forced to fly in deep valleys which made them horribly exposed to infrared manpads where they had NO warning except for their wingman and only if they were looking in the right direction.

Manpads are no joke.

Yes I can imagine! I hope you can understand that when I say flying manpad exercises in DCS is fun I mean no disrespect to people who actually had to go through these real experiences and I just refer to the sim. 

[King39]

51 minutes ago, Ready said:

Yes I can imagine! I hope you can understand that when I say flying manpad exercises in DCS is fun I mean no disrespect to people who actually had to go through these real experiences and I just refer to the sim. 

No worries.

I just get a little amped up when people refer to "In Real Life" when playing this or any game. 

Unfortunately, I think there are a number of people (DCS players) who are unable to make that distinction.

No worries.

 

[dhlrugby]

It doesn't matter how many flares I pop out or how hard I pull (I've tried programs of 1 per second through 4 per second for my attack runs)  I always get popped by a MANPAD within 2-3 seconds of Davy yelling "break."  You know the A10 isn't a fighter jet and can only pull maybe 3 G's or so right?   After this happening 4 consecutive times its just getting boring and frustrating as its down to the RNG gods I guess.  This mission is pretty much making me want to quit the campaign.

[ChillNG]

11 hours ago, dhlrugby said:

It doesn't matter how many flares I pop out or how hard I pull (I've tried programs of 1 per second through 4 per second for my attack runs)  I always get popped by a MANPAD within 2-3 seconds of Davy yelling "break."  You know the A10 isn't a fighter jet and can only pull maybe 3 G's or so right?   After this happening 4 consecutive times its just getting boring and frustrating as its down to the RNG gods I guess.  This mission is pretty much making me want to quit the campaign.

Is there a specific point it keeps happening at?  If so I can take a look at how many Manpads are active at that time.  There has been anecdotal feedback that manpads have got harder to avoid in recent times so missions built before this update can be unbalanced a little. 

Now to be fair I've not flown the A-10 properly in ages as currently focused on Harrier and Viper, but despite any potential manpad difficulty increase I'm not having any major issues with flares decoying them provided I pump enough out.  General advice is as always...stay high as often as you can,  try to standoff with weapons as much as you can and I often find if you need to get low then get really low, hanging out a few thousand feet AGL is probably the worst place to be, the relative speed you move to the Manpad at lower attitudes can help spoof them easier.

 

[dhlrugby]

It was always after my 2nd attack run, I did manage to eventually evade it by forgoing the flare program and just manually mashing the flare dispense like a monkey on meth.   Overall great campaign thanks for your work in designing it.

[ChillNG]

16 hours ago, dhlrugby said:

It was always after my 2nd attack run, I did manage to eventually evade it by forgoing the flare program and just manually mashing the flare dispense like a monkey on meth.   Overall great campaign thanks for your work in designing it.

No probs, glad you got through it.  This one can be tricky, I think I was feeling pretty devious when I made it.