Mission 6 - Some feedbacks

[BlitzimX]

Hi everyone,

I just finished mission 6 yesterday and i would have a few bugs to report and feedback to give, if i may.

• The Ground frequency for Nellis set in the presets, and given as instruction, is wrong. We are asked to move to 375.800, when the frequency is 275.800 (like in the pdf briefing).
• The briefing for the manual control checks is worded a bit strange; it requests to wait for instruction to execute some actions (for example "wait for call to move to rudders"), when in fact you have to do them without any request.
• BIFF takes a very long time to taxi, and if you don't actively wait for him before taking off, he's too far behind and the mission doesn't work correctly.
• When doing the reversal manoeuvres between point 3 and 4, there is no queue from BIFF that the mission is actualy working and carrying on as normal. We are asked to get to 3, then turn to 4 and switch to reversal mode. We then have to guess we have to fly like this until we're close from 4, where BIFF steps back in and tells us the exercice is done. Maybe add an extra dialogue to help?
• Similarly, when flying to 5, there is a very long downtime before the speech on the tanker and refueling. The trigger is a bit late, so we overfly 5 by quite a distance, before being asked to turn toward the tanker. Maybe have the trigger a bit earlier?
• I'm not sure if this is a bug, but my tanker was almost constantly in a right or left turn, very little on a straight line. For first time refueling, it adds difficulty to an already complex manoeuvre.
• At the end, for the ILS approach, we are asked to move the Course to 032 to line up with the runway. However we are landing runway 21L, so the course should be set to 212,  not 032. It still works, but in this situation  the horizontal indicator is inverted, making things quite confusing. I realised it after checking my position on the map and noticing the inversion. In fact, nowhere in the briefing or the lesson is precised that the final ILS course should be made relative to the runway heading. That could be usefull for pilots not used to ILS usage.

But in any case, i'm really enjoying the campaign. Can't wait for part 2 :)

[lester]

21 hours ago, BlitzimX said:

Hi everyone,

I just finished mission 6 yesterday and i would have a few bugs to report and feedback to give, if i may.

• The Ground frequency for Nellis set in the presets, and given as instruction, is wrong. We are asked to move to 375.800, when the frequency is 275.800 (like in the pdf briefing).
• The briefing for the manual control checks is worded a bit strange; it requests to wait for instruction to execute some actions (for example "wait for call to move to rudders"), when in fact you have to do them without any request.
• BIFF takes a very long time to taxi, and if you don't actively wait for him before taking off, he's too far behind and the mission doesn't work correctly.
• When doing the reversal manoeuvres between point 3 and 4, there is no queue from BIFF that the mission is actualy working and carrying on as normal. We are asked to get to 3, then turn to 4 and switch to reversal mode. We then have to guess we have to fly like this until we're close from 4, where BIFF steps back in and tells us the exercice is done. Maybe add an extra dialogue to help?
• Similarly, when flying to 5, there is a very long downtime before the speech on the tanker and refueling. The trigger is a bit late, so we overfly 5 by quite a distance, before being asked to turn toward the tanker. Maybe have the trigger a bit earlier?
• I'm not sure if this is a bug, but my tanker was almost constantly in a right or left turn, very little on a straight line. For first time refueling, it adds difficulty to an already complex manoeuvre.
• At the end, for the ILS approach, we are asked to move the Course to 032 to line up with the runway. However we are landing runway 21L, so the course should be set to 212,  not 032. It still works, but in this situation  the horizontal indicator is inverted, making things quite confusing. I realised it after checking my position on the map and noticing the inversion. In fact, nowhere in the briefing or the lesson is precised that the final ILS course should be made relative to the runway heading. That could be usefull for pilots not used to ILS usage.

Hey,

Just wanted to add my 2 cents as I also finished mission 6 this night. Sorry that my experience might be different from yours at some points and I may have forgotten some details - goldfish memory:

• I don't recall the exact value for Ground freq, but I'm pretty sure I heard the replies from Ground after loading frequencies listed on the corresponding kneebord page as presets manually at the beginning of the mission (I did have some problems with flight FM frequency though: when I tried to load it as preset channel 1 it didn't work, so I left it in manual mode - but again I might have messed up something)
• for me the Crew Chief asked to perform appropriate actions first (like press then release brakes) and I followed directions
• Biff started taxing later indeed, but for me it wasn't that terrible considering I had to taxi slower due to Boar flight taking off ahead of me anyway
• I agree here, there were no instructions given between steerpoints 3 and 4 after switching to manual reverse mode especially considering Biff mentioned something like "we will have to switch between manual reverse and normal modes several times and also perform some shallow turns": I did (reversed) trimming, slight turns and then just concentrated on flying straight to steerpoint 4 then Biff told me that it's completed. I'm curious is that because it's hard to track/estimate player's actions in manual reverse mode from scripts/ME?
• There was some delay with Biff speaking about AAR procedures before reaching steerpoint 5, but after it's reached he starts talking and I was still flying the same course listening to him until he asked to turn towards the tanker
• Same here: tanker was turning most of the time during AAR
• So my understanding was that course 032 was the inbound course for the Nellis Tacan station radial (similar to situation we had at the beginning of the mission for outbound Nellis Tacan station radial then inbound for Mormon something Tacan station radial), so for the outbound course for a radial we had to set the same course as directed (like 03X) while for inbound course for a radial we need to reverse it (i.e. add 180 to the 032 = 212) - but maybe I'm wrong here.
   
• There was also some inconsistency in altitudes specified in the dialogues and on the kneeboard page for the corresponding waypoints: for example in dialogues I was directed to fly at 19-20k feet while it's 18k feet on the kneeboard page (it made me a bit of nervous as I know triggers depend on altitude). Also for manual reverse training our hard deck requirement is 15k feet and we set low altitude alert to the 16k feet beforehand and then in dialogue Biff asked to take 15k feet to start exercise iirc.
• I had one more issue with mission didn't display successfully completed message when I parked the plane at the same spot where I started (despite I turned off the engines and waited Biff to land, taxi and park), so I had to turn left engine back on and taxi to the spot close to the one Biff was parked then I finally got the completion message
  
  Really like the campaign too, many thanks to Baltic Dragon and other authors/testers involved: definitely allowed me to extend my knowledge both in terms of general procedures and of course Hog systems in great detail (not even speaking about Nevada landmarks and some history). It would be nice to know if work on part 2 has been already started or is in future plans for now.

Edited April 18, 2022 by lester