Bold Cheetah - A 13 Mission DCS F/A-18 Campaign by Sedlo

[ron533]

On 3/16/2023 at 2:12 AM, Sedlo said:

Thanks for the info, @ron533 .  I haven’t seen this behaviour myself.  Is this on Multi-Thread?

Give cat 3 a try and please let me know how that works out. 
 

I’ll have a look this coming weekend, too. 
 

thanks!

Hi,

It's in ST, (in MT you can't see the mission messages yet, known bug)

I've just tried the mission again, went to cat 3 this time, wingman went for cat 2 

took off before I did again, and when I took off after him he declared "rejoin" and jettisoned all again.
External look in track replay showed his tail hook was down as well. 

trk file attached.

UPDATE: I've tried now to expedite and takeoff before my hasty wingman, so he took off after me and rejoined WITHOUT jettison...  
 

mission 2 jettison.trk

Edited March 18, 2023 by ron533

[Sedlo]

1 hour ago, ron533 said:

Hi,

It's in ST, (in MT you can't see the mission messages yet, known bug)

I've just tried the mission again, went to cat 3 this time, wingman went for cat 2 

took off before I did again, and when I took off after him he declared "rejoin" and jettisoned all again.
External look in track replay showed his tail hook was down as well. 

trk file attached.

UPDATE: I've tried now to expedite and takeoff before my hasty wingman, so he took off after me and rejoined WITHOUT jettison...  
 

mission 2 jettison.trk 10.55 MB · 0 downloads

 

Any chance you’re running ANY mods? (aside from SRS). 

Also, @ron533, what do you mean about not seeing mission messages?  I've flown this mission now in Multi-Thread and see all the messages there are meant to be.

[Sedlo]

OK, I watched the track... I think the issue is you took too long to take off.  If the wingman is airborne and doesn't see the player aircraft airborne at a certain time, they'll RTB.  This is what likely happened.

Once you're hooked up to the cat, you'll need to launch right away.

The other thing is you didn't switch your left hand radio to Channel 20 prior to taxiing out.  This will set other triggers in motion, and you'll get more information on the mission you're about to fly. 

 

Hope this helps!

[ron533]

28 minutes ago, Sedlo said:

Any chance you’re running ANY mods? (aside from SRS). 

Also, @ron533, what do you mean about not seeing mission messages?  I've flown this mission now in Multi-Thread and see all the messages there are meant to be.

Regarding MT messages, I've reported in CB about a bug regarding multimonitor/ultrawide monitor users need to constraint the GUI, so not to strech across the whole screen, 
other wise the messages are too far to the right or the left of the monitor, but this leads to messages not seen, like mission messages/startup messages.

I'm running Helios export mods, but ran the mission without any exports for testing,
When I move the plane the first time, then number two rolls out, and from that point there's no stopping him and I have to hurry to the cat and launch before he does.
the track I uploaded was just to demonstrate the issue, but even if I set the channels and run as intended, I'm on a race with number 2 once I start to roll out the parking position.

Thanks!!

 

[Sedlo]

Ah, copy... wasn't aware of the ultra-wide thing. 

Yeah, once you start taxiing, you'll have to be fairly quick with the hookup and launch.  This will happen throughout the campaign. 

I hope you have fun with the rest of the missions!  I had a blast making them, for sure.

[ron533]

5 minutes ago, Sedlo said:

Ah, copy... wasn't aware of the ultra-wide thing. 

Yeah, once you start taxiing, you'll have to be fairly quick with the hookup and launch.  This will happen throughout the campaign. 

I hope you have fun with the rest of the missions!  I had a blast making them, for sure.

I understand now 

I'm already enjoying it tremendously!!
Thank you so much for your efforts here Sedlo!! 
Cheers

[Sedlo]

Awesome!  Thanks and I hope the ultra wide issue gets fixed soon. 

[Sedlo]

Updated to 1.091 - Adjusted script mission 10, adjusted weather in other missions.

[Saigon]

Hi Sedlo.  I just discovered your campaign and I'm now on mission n4.  I find it fabulous and it has allowed me a richer and more enjoyable approach to DCS.  I sincerely thank you for your work and for making it free.  You are great.

[Sedlo]

Thank you, @Saigon! I’m glad you’re enjoying it!

[guriak]

@Sedlo  I discovered this campaign recently and started playing through it, very enjoyable and well made. The accompanying PDFs are a nice touch and very helpful. Thank you for putting this together!

[Sedlo]

3 minutes ago, guriak said:

@Sedlo  I discovered this campaign recently and started playing through it, very enjoyable and well made. The accompanying PDFs are a nice touch and very helpful. Thank you for putting this together!

That’s awesome to hear!  I’m glad you’re enjoying it so far, and hope that continues to the end!

[Jasonmoofang]

Finished the campaign last night. Just wow, what a massive upgrade from Eastern Friendship, which I already greatly enjoyed! Almost felt a little bad at the end when the campaign said "thank you for deciding to purchase". Did you ever set up something for us to be able to buy you a beer?

Some more detailed feedback:

Spoiler

1. there were some minor issues with the documentation, incorrect push times, waypoint info, that sort of thing, but nothing too gamebreaking

2. Loved Mission 9. Always find this sort of talk-on CAS with no precise coordinates challenging and rewarding, and it's really something that you can't experience in DCS outside of well scripted missions, so I particularly appreciated this one.

3. Mission 10 was also pretty amazing. I thought I was gonna die when I realized it was going to be about emergency procedures that I never bothered to learn but yeah the whole deal with declaring emergency and talking to a squadron rep, a scenario I've only ever read about, was pretty riveting. Luckily the rep read me exactly what I needed to do, and even then I did a lot of squinting all around the cockpit to find the stuff I've never touched before. Landing gear circuit breaker what?

4. Speaking of that, I'm not sure why, but carrier recovery felt quite unstable on most of the missions. I'm not sure if it's something you deliberately designed with certain wind settings, or if its from subtle lag from the number of active units in the mission. It also felt like there was crosswind when I was trying to land in Mission 10 on one engine. Managed to get on deck but it wasn't pretty. I later reflected that it might have just been the effect of flying on one engine. If you DID put crosswind on that mission though, I shall hate you for the next 5 mins!

5. Something odd happened to me at the end of Mission 13. I opted to take some fuel after a hairy egress, and there was a message to report when I'm done on the F10 menu. I took 2000lbs and then aborted the refuel with arco, then reported refuel complete via F10, and got the response from AWACS to proceed direct Mother, but the message to report refuel complete on F10 never went away and kept on repeating, all the way til trap and it was still periodically interrupting the campaign credits.

6. Like some of the others mentioned, it did feel like some missions included semi-suicidal elements. The gun run in Mission 9, also Mission 13 where it seemed I was supposed to overfly an SA-9 at low altitude. I only passed Mission 13 the second time after being forewarned of the SA-9's location and doing some gymnastics to stay just out of its range. Also it felt like on a few missions the egress route dipped into range of active SAMs, which caused some hairy (though admittedly exciting) situations, and did make me want to shake the collars of the strike planners

7. Noting also that I did see a similar thing reported by another user on Mission 12, where the popup group of Su-24 seemed sometimes invulnerable. I was watching the tacview and some of them ate multiple missiles and kept flying.

8. Very much appreciated how more than half the missions were of such large scale, that can't be fun to script One thing that I think would enhance the experience of such missions is if we got the entire brief for all packages in the strike, so we know which flght is responsible for what and will be holding where at what altitude. That way you could push on time and be like "okay that's A-flight to the right, thats B-flight above me and C flight to the left and down, great we're all pushing on time". Helps the immersion and create a stronger sense of a coordinated strike. I think Raven One does this to great effect

Overall again thanks and congratulations on an excellent campaign. I shall definitely be reflying some of the missions!

[Sedlo]

@Jasonmoofang, thank you for commenting.  I'm glad you found the experience enjoyable, that means a lot. 

I've taken your points to heart, and will try to address them all in the next update.  The feedback is much appreciated!

[Stratos]

Mission1: Any idea of why radio comms menu dissapear? I contacted UZI on channel 20, then after that I cannot select any more the radio menu, cannot contact my wingman or the tanker. What I'm doing wrong?

[Sedlo]

36 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Mission1: Any idea of why radio comms menu dissapear? I contacted UZI on channel 20, then after that I cannot select any more the radio menu, cannot contact my wingman or the tanker. What I'm doing wrong?

Are you using the Comm1 and Comm2 transmit binds when you're airborne?  The "\" doesn't work when you are flying. 

[Stratos]

No, what do you mind transmit binds? I for example select 11 on the left radio for TEXACO, then press "\" but nothing happens.

[Sedlo]

Hey @Stratos, you can't use the "\" key airborne.  Easy comms are off on this mission, so you need to use "Right Alt + \" for Comm1 and "Right CTRL + \" for Comm2.

Don't forget to consult the documentation in the .zip file, it will give you information on what you might need to know to fly this campaign.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the missions!

[Stratos]

Thanks, will try it.

[Stratos]

Completed first one, a very interesting start, altough a bit radio management heavy.

BTW is this loadout for mission 2 correct?

[Sedlo]

Hey @Stratos!  Yep, loadout is correct, two mavericks and 1 GBU-12.  And yes, realistic radio comms is very important to me and features very much in this campaign.

[Roosterfeet]

Speaking of double-ugly loadouts. How do you trim for that so you're not fighting a hard bank off the cat? I set my trim for that with a best guess which is usually wrong.

[Sedlo]

Just be ready for a little yaw and roll.  I don’t add any aileron trim, just grab the stick after the cat stroke and fly away. 

[War_Pig]

Sedlo, I just want to say this campaign is incredible, extremely well done and stacks up with the best of the best DLC campaigns to date.  I wish you'd been able to release it as an official DLC, it's certainly worthy.

I love the effort put into voiceover work and the radio comms, very very well done.  Thank you for giving it to us.  I'd like to echo the sentiments earlier; if you create a patreon or method of accepting donations to reward your time and effort I'd throw something your way.

[Stratos]

I'm on mission 5 and I always do autostart, is there anything I miss? cause the JDAM bombs keep failing even If the coordinates are ok.