Campaign Feedback

[ChillNG]

Great feedback from Capn Jakes, reposted with his permission, on the first mission of the campaign:

 

"Ok, freshest possible review of Mission 1, I just landed and shut down my jet. Got a score of 94, I blame my approach for that...don't know the Syria map at all so need to get to know the landmarks.

My thoughts... For a 1st mission of a campaign, it's an amazing start, just the right amount of getting to know the way things are done and getting a feel for the situation. The dialogue is amazing, doesn't feel forced and flows beautifully. The immersion is great! 1hr 30min and not a second of boredom!!

The only issue I had was approaching WP1, lead flew away from me and I had to burn a lot of gas catching up, maybe an additional orbit by lead after the trigger would have been great...I also suck at re-joining so take that with a huge bag of salt.

1) Will I be playing this mission over and over until the release of the campaign? HELL YEAH!
2) Will I buy this campaign the moment it's available? I would buy it yesterday if could!
3) Would I invest the time and money to learn the A10 and F16 to play your other campaigns if I could, HELL YEAH if they are remotely as good as this one mission!

I haven't been this excited for anything DCS since Raven One, and that is a damn high bar to reach, and you have reached that level of stoke! Well done @ChillNG, bloody well done! Also, just to add, the level of detail in the mission documentation and SPINS, the amount of thought and planning, INCREDIBLE!

[ClydeBigBird]

This looks campaign looks great!  I thought Ground Pounder Sims' A-10C campaign was right up there with a lot of the most popular campaigns in DCS, so I'm really hyped to play through a new campaign from them, especially one using the F/A-18C and set in a large scale conflict on the Syria map!

[ChillNG]

1 hour ago, ClydeBigBird said:

This looks campaign looks great!  I thought Ground Pounder Sims' A-10C campaign was right up there with a lot of the most popular campaigns in DCS, so I'm really hyped to play through a new campaign from them, especially one using the F/A-18C and set in a large scale conflict on the Syria map!

Thanks, I learnt a lot building Persian Freedom so Cerberus North takes it to another level in comparison, hope you enjoy!

[Jayhawk1971]

I'm three missions in, and so far I'm blown away by the immersion and attention to detail. Mission 3 came with a nice, unexpected twist. The documentation is excellent, albeit a little overwhelming at first (when all you want to do is hop in the cockpit). But well worth the read!

My only minor gripes so far are:

• Some of the voice actors are hard to understand due to the amount of "echo" in the recording. So far in my playthrough, only flight lead/ wingman were affected. ATC, AWACS and "player" are fine. Should you ever want to fine tune some of it, maybe a dampening effect or filter could be applied?
• I've noticed the barometric pressure remains at 29.92. It would be a nice touch if that would change with the weather conditions, but I suppose that may break the custom ATC you've designed?
• Sometimes changing the comms channel doesn't "take" (F10 option doesn't appear), despite smashing the enter button, switching back and forth again, manually entering the frequency. Not sure if the triggers don't fire, or maybe I'm outside of the trigger zone (despite trying my best to stick to the flight plan).

Other than that, I greatly enjoy this campaign. 

 

For those on the fence, a fun example of the level of detail in this campaign:

I always perform overhead breaks, since we're flying fighters, not airliners. But maybe I should have read the SPINS more carefully instead of winging it:

Zitat

For aircraft performing overhead breaks for landing the maximum altitude is 2000 feet AGL.

Of course on my downwind leg I descended below 2000 over Adana, and after touchdown I was informed by Tower that the base commander wanted to discuss my ignoring of the noise abatement procedure.  

It's those "little things" that create immersion. 

Edited April 2, 2022 by Jayhawk1971

[ChillNG]

2 hours ago, Jayhawk1971 said:

I'm three missions in, and so far I'm blown away by the immersion and attention to detail. Mission 3 came with a nice, unexpected twist. The documentation is excellent, albeit a little overwhelming at first (when all you want to do is hop in the cockpit). But well worth the read!

My only minor gripes so far are:

• Some of the voice actors are hard to understand due to the amount of "echo" in the recording. So far in my playthrough, only flight lead/ wingman were affected. ATC, AWACS and "player" are fine. Should you ever want to fine tune some of it, maybe a dampening effect or filter could be applied?
• I've noticed the barometric pressure remains at 29.92. It would be a nice touch if that would change with the weather conditions, but I suppose that may break the custom ATC you've designed?
• Sometimes changing the comms channel doesn't "take" (F10 option doesn't appear), despite smashing the enter button, switching back and forth again, manually entering the frequency. Not sure if the triggers don't fire, or maybe I'm outside of the trigger zone (despite trying my best to stick to the flight plan).

Other than that, I greatly enjoy this campaign. 

 

For those on the fence, a fun example of the level of detail in this campaign:

I always perform overhead breaks, since we're flying fighters, not airliners. But maybe I should have read the SPINS more carefully instead of winging it:

Of course on my downwind leg I descended below 2000 over Adana, and after touchdown I was informed by Tower that the base commander wanted to discuss my ignoring of the noise abatement procedure.  

It's those "little things" that create immersion. 

 

Thanks for the feedback, glad you enjoyed the first mission.   Great points on the audio, there was some difficulty early on dialing in the settings with some of the VAs mikes, but some new mikes came on-board later and did help a little.

The radio option not being added was most likely down to your position, if the channel is correct and you've pressed UFC enter that's the remaining variable  fir the ATC at least.

That base commanders going to be busy from the sounds of it.  The break has quite a tight margin, you have to stay below 2000 feet to keep clear of the pattern  but avoid the base housing below 1000 or 1500 feet (I forgot which).

[Eagleflieger]

Hi, 

 

I did flying today 2 missions and I like your campaign the dialogs are amazing, but 1 disadvantage is in my opinion the difficult use of the radios it terms of I have always to press enter or space where I am not used to, In my opinion the low level flight in mission 2 is very hard to fly but probably my skills are bad is this way.

How do you keep following the river during the low level the with is very low so it is very hard to see the small lake and follow them correctly. 

[ChillNG]

1 hour ago, CaptainLuisman said:

Hi, 

 

I did flying today 2 missions and I like your campaign the dialogs are amazing, but 1 disadvantage is in my opinion the difficult use of the radios it terms of I have always to press enter or space where I am not used to, In my opinion the low level flight in mission 2 is very hard to fly but probably my skills are bad is this way.

How do you keep following the river during the low level the with is very low so it is very hard to see the small lake and follow them correctly. 

Hey, use the waypoints to guide you if you're struggling, you won't need to be super precise.  As for having to press spacebar a lot, I like to do this to allow the player the ability to control the pace and to a small extent at least give a little more interaction.

[Eagleflieger]

Thank you for your advise, I did practice low level fight for some hours created with mission editor same route like you and I think I have learned how to perform it better, I think it is very important that you are not following especially when have a lots of threes the river instead you following the scruture of the terrain and as navigational help you use the waypoints. 

[unlikely_spider]

9 minutes ago, CaptainLuisman said:

Thank you for your advise, I did practice low level fight for some hours created with mission editor same route like you and I think I have learned how to perform it better, I think it is very important that you are not following especially when have a lots of threes the river instead you following the scruture of the terrain and as navigational help you use the waypoints. 

I'm on this mission currently. (I am repeating it because I need to practice my CCIP skills because I'm falling a little short. Also, are these bombs supposed to explode or are they training bombs? I have the fuses set but I just get a little poof)

Anyway, back to your question, the canyon run is a lot of fun. I got good remarks from Poodle. If you turn on Auto for the waypoint sequence on the HSI, it shows a dotted line to follow. Just put it at 5 mile scale and use that on the left or right display instead of trying to visually follow each curve of the river, which will not be possible at 400 knots.

Btw, I can tell this campaign is going to be amazing.

Edited April 2, 2022 by unlikely_spider

[ChillNG]

1 minute ago, unlikely_spider said:

I'm on this mission currently. (I need to practice my CCIP skills because I'm falling a little short. Also, are these bombs supposed to explode or are they training bombs? I have the fuses set but I just get a little poof)

Anyway, back to your question, the canyon run is a lot of fun. I got good remarks from Poodle. If you turn on Auto for the waypoint sequence on the HSI, it shows a dotted line to follow. Just put it at 5 mile scale and use that on the left or right display instead of trying to visually follow each curve of the river, which will not be possible at 400 knots.

Btw, I can tell this campaign is going to be amazing.

 

They should explode, unless ED have updated the fusing in some way.  I've never had them not anyway.  They are Mk-82 snake eyes though, at the time of making the slick 82 wasn't available in the trigger conditions so had to use the snake eye, not sure if this will affect things or not but you do get additonal options on the DDI with the snake eye.

Glad you're having fun!

[cwoomio]

In the first mission i noticed Devil 1-1 tells you to go Mach 0.75 - he himself goes about 0.735 (something between 0.73 and 0.74) - also FL250 seems more like FL240

[ChillNG]

3 minutes ago, cwoomio said:

In the first mission i noticed Devil 1-1 tells you to go Mach 0.75 - he himself goes about 0.735 (something between 0.73 and 0.74) - also FL250 seems more like FL240

Yeah he varies what he'll actually do, it'll fluctuate a little after updates, he's set to do .75 and FL250 but there's always a minor variation 

[Andrei]

I guess it's nitpicking, but... I'll post it still  

First of all, flown two missions, great campaign so far. Excellent briefings and I appreciate your effort to bring life to static world of DCS. I love campaigns which focus on realism and operational aspect and you managed it very well in both PG campaign and OCN.

Now for the nitpicking part. Our USMC F/A-18 squad is based on land, not on the carrier. Therefore they would not be using  three digit modex numbers on board. E.g. no 300, 301 .. 310 like on USN aircraft operating from carriers. Instead, they are typically using two-digit board number 00, 01, 03, .. 07, 10, etc. If you google for USMC F/A-18 photos you will see what I mean.

Also, you will generally never see USN/USMC board numbers ending in 8 or 9. After e.g. 307 you would see 310 and after 07 you'd get 10. If I recall correctly this is due to the octal nature of transponder codes which go 0-7. 

[ChillNG]

6 hours ago, Andrei said:

I guess it's nitpicking, but... I'll post it still  

First of all, flown two missions, great campaign so far. Excellent briefings and I appreciate your effort to bring life to static world of DCS. I love campaigns which focus on realism and operational aspect and you managed it very well in both PG campaign and OCN.

Now for the nitpicking part. Our USMC F/A-18 squad is based on land, not on the carrier. Therefore they would not be using  three digit modex numbers on board. E.g. no 300, 301 .. 310 like on USN aircraft operating from carriers. Instead, they are typically using two-digit board number 00, 01, 03, .. 07, 10, etc. If you google for USMC F/A-18 photos you will see what I mean.

Also, you will generally never see USN/USMC board numbers ending in 8 or 9. After e.g. 307 you would see 310 and after 07 you'd get 10. If I recall correctly this is due to the octal nature of transponder codes which go 0-7. 

Thanks, was not aware of that, noted for the future!

[Rattles]

Love your work!

- It would be good if the briefing photos indicated which direction north is.

- Air to Air refueling. They are too far out of the way to be any use if you need them. 

- Waypoint 1 on a lot missions (9 & 10 especially) could be a little further toward WP2, so you avoid having to back track or "enter restricted area" once you finally clear departure and head to WP1.

Keep up the awesome work. Please.

 

[ChillNG]

1 hour ago, Rattles said:

Love your work!

- It would be good if the briefing photos indicated which direction north is.

- Air to Air refueling. They are too far out of the way to be any use if you need them. 

- Waypoint 1 on a lot missions (9 & 10 especially) could be a little further toward WP2, so you avoid having to back track or "enter restricted area" once you finally clear departure and head to WP1.

Keep up the awesome work. Please.

 

Thanks, and thanks for the feedback!

[ClydeBigBird]

Finished the campaign today and had a great time with it!

It's clear that a tremendous amount of work went into this, and it really shows in the complexity of the missions as well as the length of the briefings.  A lot of thought seems to have gone into imagining a multi-faction conflict that develops in a realistic way.  Some additional positives in no particular order:

• Voice acting was really good across the board
• Having proper ATC procedures for Incilik was really cool, and something I'd like to see more of in other campaigns
• Syria map!
• The missions you get to plan yourself were a really nice touch, and it's worth acknowledging the extra effort that went into providing supplemental briefing material for these
• In terms of the amount of units and the amount of stuff going on on the map, these might be the most complex missions I've seen in a campaign

A few minor critiques also in no particular order:

• While the complexity of the missions is really cool, it can also be taxing on one's system.  I encountered slight hitches roughly every 10 seconds or so when ingressing in M10P2 and in M11 despite having a fairly beefy system (12700k, 32GB, 3080).  I didn't have any other performance issues though.  Also worth noting I was playing at 2160p, so maybe this was a factor
• For a campaign as long as this one, it would have been cool to relocate to a new airfield midway through, as flying the same departure and arrival got just a little bit tedious by the latter part of the campaign
• While I can understand not wanting to develop alternate mission files for either continuing after AAR or skipping it (like what Raven One does), it would have been cool to have completing AAR improve your score at the end of the first part of the mission (maybe you can't augment the score after reaching a "mission complete" state?).  Can't really fault this campaign for not going the route of alternate mission files though, as on average these missions have quite a lot more going on on the battlefield than Raven One (IIRC), so remaking them to allow optional refueling checkpoints would have been a lot of work for not all that much practical benefit
• I could have used maybe one more A2A engagement in there to break up some of the A2G in the second half

Overall this is a fantastic campaign, one of the best for the F/A-18C, and an absolute must play for fans of DCS campaign in general!

[ChillNG]

7 hours ago, ClydeBigBird said:

Finished the campaign today and had a great time with it!

It's clear that a tremendous amount of work went into this, and it really shows in the complexity of the missions as well as the length of the briefings.  A lot of thought seems to have gone into imagining a multi-faction conflict that develops in a realistic way.  Some additional positives in no particular order:

• Voice acting was really good across the board
• Having proper ATC procedures for Incilik was really cool, and something I'd like to see more of in other campaigns
• Syria map!
• The missions you get to plan yourself were a really nice touch, and it's worth acknowledging the extra effort that went into providing supplemental briefing material for these
• In terms of the amount of units and the amount of stuff going on on the map, these might be the most complex missions I've seen in a campaign

A few minor critiques also in no particular order:

• While the complexity of the missions is really cool, it can also be taxing on one's system.  I encountered slight hitches roughly every 10 seconds or so when ingressing in M10P2 and in M11 despite having a fairly beefy system (12700k, 32GB, 3080).  I didn't have any other performance issues though.  Also worth noting I was playing at 2160p, so maybe this was a factor
• For a campaign as long as this one, it would have been cool to relocate to a new airfield midway through, as flying the same departure and arrival got just a little bit tedious by the latter part of the campaign
• While I can understand not wanting to develop alternate mission files for either continuing after AAR or skipping it (like what Raven One does), it would have been cool to have completing AAR improve your score at the end of the first part of the mission (maybe you can't augment the score after reaching a "mission complete" state?).  Can't really fault this campaign for not going the route of alternate mission files though, as on average these missions have quite a lot more going on on the battlefield than Raven One (IIRC), so remaking them to allow optional refueling checkpoints would have been a lot of work for not all that much practical benefit
• I could have used maybe one more A2A engagement in there to break up some of the A2G in the second half

Overall this is a fantastic campaign, one of the best for the F/A-18C, and an absolute must play for fans of DCS campaign in general!

Thanks for the detailed feedback, really appreciated.  Glad you enjoyed the campaign .

[L4key]

Amazing campaign and amazing aftersales care!

sorry if I have missed it but is there a way of downloading the knee pads so I can have on my iPad?

Many thanks, L

[ChillNG]

2 hours ago, L4key said:

Amazing campaign and amazing aftersales care!

sorry if I have missed it but is there a way of downloading the knee pads so I can have on my iPad?

Many thanks, L

Sure thing, here you go:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12MDCwnVET87R5yMe3TScbAj0DLWATZu4?usp=sharing

[schuetzre]

I'm just through Mission 2 and the campaign is great!   I know you've received other feedback on the comms - overall I think it is a great simulation and appreciate the time you put into making it close to realistic.  Having said that, after hitting my targets in Mission 2 and choosing to go straight back to base, I cannot get any of the F10 comms options to trigger and just fly home blind.  Still - a great mission (but that limited my score to a draw).

[rob10]

8 hours ago, schuetzre said:

I'm just through Mission 2 and the campaign is great!   I know you've received other feedback on the comms - overall I think it is a great simulation and appreciate the time you put into making it close to realistic.  Having said that, after hitting my targets in Mission 2 and choosing to go straight back to base, I cannot get any of the F10 comms options to trigger and just fly home blind.  Still - a great mission (but that limited my score to a draw).

I assume you did hit ENTER on the UFC after changing the preset channel?  If you don't it may not register the change which would mean you couldn't communicate with base.

Edited June 10, 2022 by rob10

[AMEDooley]

Just did the first mission and I enjoyed it. I do have a suggestion. Most Marine squadrons that I worked with had the lightning pod on the centerline not station 4. My suggestion would be to put the pod on station 5 or go double ugly if your going to use station 4 for the POD. This way you have more time that it’s unmasked. Keep up the good work. This campaign is very immersive.

Edited June 14, 2022 by AMEDooley

[JEFX]

@ChillNG Hello, just started your campaign (OCN) and it feels great!  I am having such fun, thank you so much (only flew 2 missions, but really nice).

I really appreciate the detailed documentation about the airport, the procedures, the ATC, etc... I am a pilot IRL (modest PPL) and it really speaks to me!

Just at the start like this I do have 2 small comments that could help perhaps in the future :

1) when GROUND clears us to taxi to the runway, we have no idea where we are parked and there are no taxi instructions (like IRL they would say, taxi via alpha, turn left on such and such, cross runway yy and hold short runway zzz) or something like that.  I had to guess where to turn to get to the runway... 

2) The other comment is stupid but perhaps you might consider : in your SPINS, the photo of the air base has the south on top and the north at the bottom ????  the thing is when you look at it at the very first sight, one sees 05 on the RIGHT and 23 on the LEFT of the airport ??? that would never happen IRL, it would always reflect the cardinals with north on top...  when I saw this at first, I had the impression I was back in the bad dream of DCS wind direction nightmare...

But this is so minor compared to all the trouble that you went to to make this so immersive, thank you so much!!! 

JEFX

[JEFX]

My bad...    I am really sorry.. About my comment  #1:  just played again mission 1 and GROUND clearly tells me how to taxi (turn left and so on)...  My bad..  I had played mission 1 quite a while ago and my reaction was after having played mission 2..  I guess one could argue that GROUND would always tell you how to taxi, but sorry about my comment, great mission, even on the second play around!!!!

Edited December 31, 2022 by JEFX