Viper Quick Practice & Proficiency Missions - v. 3.0; Mission Count: 76; 12/3/23

[=617= Evil]

16 hours ago, skywalker22 said:

Why not? Makes no sence. Then all the missions/campaigns would be for Causasius only. But ok, that's how you think. 

Why then making for F-16? People have to pay for it as well

That's a fair point. People pay to fly the F16, absolutely. That's a cost we all agree to. But I don't want them to have to pay more to partake in the practice missions I make if they don't want to. I want them to be accessible for everyone who owns or was gifted the module. DCS costs enough as it is. I think training and practice missions should be available to everyone.

[felipesm]

I really like your practice missions, can you create it at F16's house? NTTR

Edited July 21, 2023 by felipesm

[=617= Evil]

On 7/20/2023 at 8:13 PM, felipesm said:

I really like your practice missions, can you create it at F16's house? NTTR

 

Thanks, man. Initially when I started making these, that's where it was going to take place but I wanted them to be on maps that people didn't have to pay for. 

I am however, slowly making missions around NTTR for that sweet, sweet immersion. 

[Checkmate]

=617=Evil I can never thank you enough for the find work you have done on these missions. I will always be happy to pay for the work you have done, becuase it has helped me become so much more proficient in the F-16. I was wondering if you would ever consider doing the same missions in the F-15E, since it could be years before we see these kind of training missions for the F-15E and I really like to maintain the same proficiency in both aircraft.

Best Regards,

Checkmate

 

Edited July 29, 2023 by Checkmate

[=617= Evil]

22 hours ago, Checkmate said:

=617=Evil I can never thank you enough for the find work you have done on these missions. I will always be happy to pay for the work you have done, becuase it has helped me become so much more proficient in the F-16. I was wondering if you would ever consider doing the same missions in the F-15E, since it could be years before we see these kind of training missions for the F-15E and I really like to maintain the same proficiency in both aircraft.

Best Regards,

Checkmate

 

 

First off, thanks for the kind words, my friend. They really do mean a lot. I've put a lot of time into these and it's nice to get positive feedback, so thank you for that.  

To your second question, You're in luck. I'm actually in the process of converting some to the F15E as we speak. Look for updates soon over in the Mud Hen forum and on the DCS User Files. 

Edited July 30, 2023 by =617= Evil

[=617= Evil]

For Strike Eagle pilots, I've begun to make a similar mission pack. Here's the first upload: 

Now, the Viper missions are a passion project, because I fly the jet primarily. The Strike Eagle missions are a side project, so I will not promise the regular updates that we get for the F16. However, I will slowly convert missions over in the coming months, especially as the jet receives more updates. 

Thank you all again for your passion, support, feedback, and participation. 

 

 

[=617= Evil]

For anyone following/reading this; I'm trying to gauge a level of interest. Thanks to @felipesm for lighting the mental fire that got me thinking about it more.

Would you be interested in a Proficiency/Practice mission pack set on the Nevada/NTTR map, but with a much more Milsim vibe. All cold starts, always taxi, takeoff, land, recorded radio transmissions, parameters for pass/fail, that sort of thing. I started building one last night and of course, realized that for what I want to do, it's a massive amount of work, so I figured I'd see if it's something people would enjoy first. (I think I know the answer, but you never know.) 

Please react to this post if you'd be interested. Any messages or suggestions you have please just message me directly so we don't gum up or derail this thread. And thanks to all my fellow Snake Drivers. The massive amount of support you all have shown for this project has been amazing. Never would have imagined when I started it back in January that we'd be here. 

Thanks,

Evil

Edited August 3, 2023 by =617= Evil

[pj]

I think these missions on the NTTR map would be great!

[felipesm]

6 hours ago, =617= Evil said:

Para quem está seguindo/lendo isso; Estou tentando avaliar um nível de interesse. Graças a@felipesm por acender o fogo mental que me fez pensar mais sobre isso.

Você estaria interessado em um pacote de missão Proficiency/Practice definido no mapa Nevada/NTTR, mas com uma vibe muito mais Milsim. Todas as partidas a frio, sempre táxi, decolagem, pouso, transmissões de rádio gravadas, parâmetros para aprovação/reprovação, esse tipo de coisa. Comecei a construir um ontem à noite e, claro, percebi que para o que quero fazer, é uma quantidade enorme de trabalho, então pensei em ver se é algo que as pessoas gostariam primeiro. (Acho que sei a resposta, mas nunca se sabe.) 

Por favor, reaja a este post se você estiver interessado. Quaisquer mensagens ou sugestões que você tenha, por favor, envie-me uma mensagem diretamente para que não estraguemos ou atrapalhemos este tópico. E obrigado a todos os meus companheiros Snake Drivers. A enorme quantidade de apoio que todos vocês mostraram para este projeto foi incrível. Nunca imaginaria quando comecei em janeiro que estaríamos aqui. 

Obrigado,

Mal

 

That would be amazing !!!!

[=617= Evil]

To all, 

It's been almost a month since I've updated so I wanted to share where the next update is headed and hopefully get some more feedback. 

This mission pack is really at a kind of critical mass as far as all staple skills I feel Viper pilots need to have. If you can successfully and competently fly every mission, I don't feel there's any skill that you're lacking, or any aircraft system or armament you can't use. So, where does that leave us? 

- Currently I'm working on the following, looking to upload sometime in the next couple weeks. I have an extremely busy month traveling for work, but I will work on them as much as I'm able.

• A 'just for fun' airshow mission complete with crowds and static display aircraft. (Bonus points for putting on a Thunderbird or Viper Demo Team livery) For when you just wanna hop in a Viper and fly and do silly stuff. Will include multiple client aircraft in case you want to bring friends and do some photo ops.
• 2v1 & Defensive versions of the current Expert Fox 3 and Fox 2 missions, with 360 degrees of potential threats and mixed adversary types. 
• Following in an AI SEAD/DEAD strike and hunting a convoy through an urban area before enemy CAP can respond.
• A Low level night strike (Very early on in developing this one. This may end up being a full blown cold start/night refuel/strike/return sort of Expert scenario. TBD)

As you can see, with all basic and advanced skills covered, I think that more complex Advanced and Expert level missions are really about all that's left, unless I'm missing something, so, what would you all like to see? 

• Night Missions? 
• Bad weather? 
• More air-to-air stuff? 
• Low level strikes? 
• More mil-simmy stuff where you need to cold start, takeoff, refuel, strike, land, etc? 
• Two player missions? 

Anything you feel should be included but hasn't been thus far? 

Additionally, I am proceeding with NTTR Practice/Proficiency missions, but that's going to be slow going just because of the nature of the missions. They are going to be what I would call 'Milsim-light'. They're not going to be full blown Red Flag missions. For a couple reasons: 1. Those have been done already and to an order of magnitude better than I ever could. (Search for Sedlo Red Flag in the User Files). And 2. Frankly, I don't enjoy flying those types of missions all that often, and at the end of the day, I like making missions for myself just as much as I enjoy making them for all of you.

Stay tuned. 

[AdrianL]

Two players missions where you have to practice tactics would be awesome.

And anything where you have to rely on instruments / radar more i.e. Night or bad weather missions. 

Edited August 8, 2023 by AdrianL

[sepruda]

3 hours ago, =617= Evil said:

To all, 

It's been almost a month since I've updated so I wanted to share where the next update is headed and hopefully get some more feedback. 

This mission pack is really at a kind of critical mass as far as all staple skills I feel Viper pilots need to have. If you can successfully and competently fly every mission, I don't feel there's any skill that you're lacking, or any aircraft system or armament you can't use. So, where does that leave us? 

- Currently I'm working on the following, looking to upload sometime in the next couple weeks. I have an extremely busy month traveling for work, but I will work on them as much as I'm able.

• A 'just for fun' airshow mission complete with crowds and static display aircraft. (Bonus points for putting on a Thunderbird or Viper Demo Team livery) For when you just wanna hop in a Viper and fly and do silly stuff. Will include multiple client aircraft in case you want to bring friends and do some photo ops.
• 2v1 & Defensive versions of the current Expert Fox 3 and Fox 2 missions, with 360 degrees of potential threats and mixed adversary types. 
• Following in an AI SEAD/DEAD strike and hunting a convoy through an urban area before enemy CAP can respond.
• A Low level night strike (Very early on in developing this one. This may end up being a full blown cold start/night refuel/strike/return sort of Expert scenario. TBD)

As you can see, with all basic and advanced skills covered, I think that more complex Advanced and Expert level missions are really about all that's left, unless I'm missing something, so, what would you all like to see? 

• Night Missions? 
• Bad weather? 
• More air-to-air stuff? 
• Low level strikes? 
• More mil-simmy stuff where you need to cold start, takeoff, refuel, strike, land, etc? 
• Two player missions? 

Anything you feel should be included but hasn't been thus far? 

Additionally, I am proceeding with NTTR Practice/Proficiency missions, but that's going to be slow going just because of the nature of the missions. They are going to be what I would call 'Milsim-light'. They're not going to be full blown Red Flag missions. For a couple reasons: 1. Those have been done already and to an order of magnitude better than I ever could. (Search for Sedlo Red Flag in the User Files). And 2. Frankly, I don't enjoy flying those types of missions all that often, and at the end of the day, I like making missions for myself just as much as I enjoy making them for all of you.

Stay tuned. 

I would have to finish the entire pack before I could say what I'm missing. So far I'm real happy that there is so much content, great work!

[skywalker22]

Please create a mission with RL red SAM sites.

ps: And if possible, used random modifier, so you don't know what expect each time around.

Edited August 8, 2023 by skywalker22

[=617= Evil]

3 hours ago, skywalker22 said:

Please create a mission with RL red SAM sites.

ps: And if possible, used random modifier, so you don't know what expect each time around.

 

A SAM version of my BFM/BVR missions, with randomly generated SAMs, was on my list of 'maybe?' missions to build. Thank you for mentioning the concept. I will absolutely look into making something like this. 

[skywalker22]

5 hours ago, =617= Evil said:

A SAM version of my BFM/BVR missions, with randomly generated SAMs, was on my list of 'maybe?' missions to build. Thank you for mentioning the concept. I will absolutely look into making something like this. 

It was just a suggesition, I am doing something similar on my own, so the mission can be flown multiple times, and can never get bored, since each time you don't know what to expect.

[BaronVonVaderham]

First off all, I’m very grateful that you went out of your way to develop these missions for us. Although I’m just beginning with DCS and these missions, I find them very valuable. 
 

as for additional missions, I do have some suggestions:

 

1) additional landing practice under different weight conditions

2) more scenarios for beginner formation practice (eg a flight with more turns, a flight with altitude and/or speed changes, and maybe a flight with adverse weather/ lower visibility)

3) additional navigation practise flights, with knee board entries for the stages of the flight.

4) additional beginner ILS approaches in various weather conditions (eg one in good weather, one in rain and wind, one in cloudy/foggy conditions)

5) maybe for advanced a scramble intercept mission. For expert maybe a more challenging version with multiple  allies scrambling to intercept a flight of boogies

Edited August 10, 2023 by BaronVonVaderham

[=617= Evil]

7 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

First off all, I’m very grateful that you went out of your way to develop these missions for us. Although I’m just beginning with DCS and these missions, I find them very valuable. 
 

as for additional missions, I do have some suggestions:

 

1) additional landing practice under different weight conditions

2) more scenarios for beginner formation practice (eg a flight with more turns, a flight with altitude and/or speed changes, and maybe a flight with adverse weather/ lower visibility)

3) additional navigation practise flights, with knee board entries for the stages of the flight.

4) additional beginner ILS approaches in various weather conditions (eg one in good weather, one in rain and wind, one in cloudy/foggy conditions)

5) maybe for advanced a scramble intercept mission. For expert maybe a more challenging version with multiple  allies scrambling to intercept a flight of boogies

 

First off, thank you! I have a ton of fun making them. 

These are some excellent suggestions! I'll definitely add them to my list of potential updates in the future. Thank you! 

[=617= Evil]

New Update! Now with 69 missions! (Giggity.)

v.2.7 - August 12th, 2023
- New Mission Category! - 'Fun' - Airshow Demonstration: Just like it sounds, this is just for fun. There's multiple client aircraft available if you want to bring friends. 

- Expert - Go for the Head - Follow in a friendly SEAD/DEAD strike before taking out critical command bunkers marked with smoke with GBUs before enemy CAP responds. 
- Expert - 360 Degree BFM - Take on one of 70 potential bandits coming at you from all points of the compass, from different altitudes, and with varying weapons. (No Fox 3s though)

- F15E has been added as an adversary in the following BFM Missions: 
  - Defensive Guns & Fox 2s
  - Neutral Guns & Fox 2s. 
  - Offensive 2v1 Guns & Fox 2s.

- All Fox 2 BFM Missions now have two client aircraft, one with AIM9Xs and one with AIM9Ms, if you'd like to practice with either one.

Small edit: Forgot a AIM9M client aircraft on one BFM mission and they weren't labeled correctly in another. Fixed and reuploaded. 

Edited August 13, 2023 by =617= Evil

[Princess57]

Hi! I wrote this as a comment in the mission pack page but I'll leave it here too:

Something I've been doing is to add the relevant pages from the module manual (or Chuck's guide) to the in-game kneeboard so I can read it while in the cockpit.
This effectively turns these missions from practice only to both learning and practice. And IMHO is much more effective and efficient than the usual training missions with 30 minute long hard coded  voice instructions.

About the longer missions on NTTR, I think it's nice to have them in that map but cold starting the aircraft just to practice firing a couple of missiles isn't very efficient. And I think efficiency is the main advantage of your missions over any other tutorial missions in the game (including those that come with trainer aircraft modules like the C-101 and L-39). You can really learn anything in just a couple of minutes. I learned 95% of the F-16C operation in just 2 weeks by exclusively flying your missions. Something that I could have never done otherwise. 

What could be added next? I would love to have more Expert missions, with specific attack profiles. Speedy's DCS F-16C Combat Aircraft Fundamentals describes these in detail (see attached image). It would be awesome to have a mission for each profile described. Ideally these would be set in specific contexts that force the player to apply that profile to achieve mission success. Limitations like weather, air defences, etc. This would effectively bridge the gap between aircraft systems operation and tactical application. 

null

Edited August 30, 2023 by Princess57

[=617= Evil]

On 8/30/2023 at 8:33 AM, Princess57 said:

I learned 95% of the F-16C operation in just 2 weeks by exclusively flying your missions. Something that I could have never done otherwise. 

 

I think this is the highest praise I could ever receive. And exactly why I efforted to build these missions in the first place. Thank you, truly. 

As for your other suggestions, I really like the concept, and to be honest, I've put the NTTR missions on a bit of a pause simply because I don't want to just recreate the current mission pack, but in the desert with longer transit times. I want there to be a different aspect to it, and this has definitely sent my thinking in a new direction, so thank you for that. I will say though, that I'm hesitant to dictate tactics in such a specific way. One thing I've been told by some folks who have sent me private messages, is that they love having new Squadron members use my missions to learn systems, specifically because they don't teach tactics, and each Squadron likes to do things a little differently. Also, I'm not an expert in tactics, and I'd hate to to push out missions with a pass/fail so specifically laid out if that isn't the only way that the attack can be carried out successfully. I think stuff like that is much more suited to the hardcore MilSim crowd, of which I am most definitely not a part of. Love those guys' passion, but not for me. And I don't have any desire to build missions I'm not passionate about and want to fly myself. And just thinking about trying to build that level of grading system with our current mission editor kind of makes my head hurt. I'm a somewhat casual player, like most of us I imagine, and that's who I want to make missions for. Where even if you only have 15 minutes to hop in the Viper before bed, you can feel like you accomplished something. I dunno, I'm rambling at this point so I'll wrap this up.

I can't promise NTTR missions will come quickly, but I can promise that when/if they do, they will offer something different beyond what I've done with the current mission pack. Exactly what, and how different? Still working. But this project is still very much alive. 

As for updating this mission pack, if I can speak on a personal level for a moment, for anyone following this thread, Fall is a very busy time for my business that I run, so I'll certainly do my best to keep up monthly updates on this, but I won't just push out fluff. If I'm not updating, it's because I don't have anything that's worth adding. Not every idea is a winner, and I have a trash can full of 'under construction' missions that probably won't see the light of day. 

Even if I'm not here, I'm here. Thanks to everyone for your continued support and feedback. It really does mean a lot to me.  

Edited September 1, 2023 by =617= Evil
Added words and whatnot.

[dureiken]

Hi

 

thanks a lot for your awesome work ! is there any COOP version of this ? or I can just edit missions and add a second plane ? thanks !

[=617= Evil]

5 hours ago, dureiken said:

Hi

 

thanks a lot for your awesome work ! is there any COOP version of this ? or I can just edit missions and add a second plane ? thanks !

Thank you!

Yep, if you're handy with the mission editor, just drop another jet in there, make your steerpoints and you should be good to go. In some of the expert missions I think there's triggers that are linked to the jet, so that's probably the only thing that wouldn't function if the second jet performed the same action, but most of them are linked to targets so should still work fine. 

[dureiken]

45 minutes ago, =617= Evil said:

Thank you!

Yep, if you're handy with the mission editor, just drop another jet in there, make your steerpoints and you should be good to go. In some of the expert missions I think there's triggers that are linked to the jet, so that's probably the only thing that wouldn't function if the second jet performed the same action, but most of them are linked to targets so should still work fine. 

ok thanks. I just add 2 plane to group and change to client

BTW a good idea would be to number mission for newb to go in good order I started if you want to pm me ! thanks §

[=617= Evil]

Small update for September, but a few new missions that I think are nice additions. Any issues you have with the missions working properly, please let me know! 

v.2.8 - Semptember 16th, 2023
Missions Added:

- Fun - Marianas Tanker Shoot - Bored with aerial refueling? Frustrated with it? Take out some stress on no less than 22 defenseless KC-135 Tankers over the island of Guam. Unlimited missiles, fuel and cannon ammo. 

- Advanced - Fight the Phoenix - Square off against an F14B Tomcat armed with the longest range air to air missile in DCS: The AIM-54 Phoenix. Practice how to evade, fight and win against this unique weapon system. 

- Expert - Dusk & Night Wild Weasel - Fly into a randomly generated short range SAM system (SA11, 6, 3 or 8 ) and practice low-light and full dark Weasel Tactics. No labels. No F10.

- Admin/Quality of Life updates: 
- All Basic & Advanced formation flight missions now terminate with the AI flight lead landing at the final steerpoint, allowing you to attempt formation landings to culminate the mission. 
- All AIM-120 missions now have 2 client aircraft, allowing you to choose between AIM-120B or C model missiles. 
- Grammatical and contextual updates to multiple mission briefings. 

Edited September 16, 2023 by =617= Evil

[=617= Evil]

To all following: This mission pack is not dead. I'm still working on a few things. Expect a small update this week specifically to practice new 2.9 TDOA/TNDL Datalink and HTS functions. 

As I've stated before, a combination of Fall being a busy time for me professionally, mission building that I do for my DCS Squadron, and with how fleshed out this mission pack has gotten overall, are the reason for the irregular updates. 

Thank you again to all who have participated, given suggestions, and offered feedback. I appreciate you all and always welcome more. 

Stay frosty, Vipers. More is coming.