Mission 15 - play through

[Lt_Jaeger]

That was a pain in the butt. Those pesky 21s...One realy has to hold on the head on shot. I did the mission a couple of times (first was actually the best, but I ran out of fuel because it took me some time to tangle these MIGs) and they never hit.

I was a little confused what has to be happening after the Report of the SA-5 being up and Paco doing some "fancy flying" in the hold, so I deceidet to go for myself. Looks like the Triggers fired anyway, because he fell into trail and the rest of the mission came together as intended, I believe.

Again I was very short on fuel, so I really would have appreciated a recovery tanker. 1 - 2000 lbs would have been enough to make it back save and sound, but since I did not had that luxury, I had to be inventive to bring the plane back.

 

Maybe think of adding an tanker.

One note: I skipped the first part of the mission. I cheatet a little and used time acceleration to get into the hold without spending half an hour, since I was running out of time. Cudos to Reflected, all the triggers worked.

Edited March 17, 2023 by Lt_Jaeger

[Jayhawk1971]

Good effort! 

Regarding the Fishcans and fuel situation:

When I was re-flying this mission a couple of days ago as part of my second campaign playthrough, I remembered that the Air Wing's Air Intelligence Officer was my mentor at the Academy, so I paid him a visit, and pointed out to him that , given that we saw aggressive Chinese defensive counter air operations on every sortie, bringing only two heaters (also given their disappointing performance head-on) each would be rather risky, even against Fishcans. And getting into a WVR engagement with a full load of bombs (that inexplicably weren't loaded in the tunnel, where they would cause less drag, but on the glove stations for some reason) would not make the mission go any smoother.

He said that replenishment was difficult under strict EMCON and so close to Guam, and therefore the Air Wing's ammunition stock was rather depleted.  He also explained that the Wing's Weapons Officer wasn't quite the same ever since he smashed his head against the bulkhead during last week's storm and now insisted that the tunnel was somehow "jinxed", and no A2G ordinance should be put there, at least that's what the voices keep telling him.

But he also somewhat conceded to my point. As it turned out, one AIM-7MH came back from maintenance just in time for the mission, so he grudgingly permitted the red shirts to mount it on my number 4 station.

Just as I began heading for the deck, he mumbled "a Sparrow a day keeps the flameout away". Don't know what he meant by that.

[starting the missions individually allows for access to the mission editor]

 

TL;DR 

I couldn't be arsed to go through the whole ordeal again (!!) and asked myself "what would Snort have done?!". My answer was to add one Sparrow, which conveniently exploded in the first Fishcan's face with a comfortable pre-merge margin, so I had enough energy, turning room and two heaters for the second bandit.  

Edited March 17, 2023 by Jayhawk1971

[Reflected]

CHEATER!!!    

[Jayhawk1971]

"If you ain't cheatin', you ain't tryin'" - Hamlet (probably)

 

(and, to be fair, I did it the hard way the first time around. And that was quite the experience, thankyouverymuch  )

Edited March 17, 2023 by Jayhawk1971

[Reflected]

BTW do you guys drop your tanks before merging with the Fishcans? If I drop them and I don't waste a sidewinder on a head on shot, I find they are not too hard to defeat.

[Jayhawk1971]

Actually I didn't, since I didn't know how much fuel I would need to go "there and back again (not a Hobbit's tale)". Incidentally, right after the dogfight, Jester jettisoned the tanks anyway (without any comment; I just hear the jettison noise), without me ordering him to do so. 

That might be related to VAICOM though, because it has become so sensitive that it started to register me breathing (microphones on my VR Headset are apparently very close to my nose) as I keep hearing a random "confirmation beep" once in a while. 

[Roosterfeet]

On 3/17/2023 at 6:34 PM, Reflected said:

BTW do you guys drop your tanks before merging with the Fishcans? If I drop them and I don't waste a sidewinder on a head on shot, I find they are not too hard to defeat.

I wish you would post a video or a tacview. I've spent many hours trying to get past those Fishcans without success.

 

Edit: was able to pass by rearming with 4 mk82 in the tunnel, 3 winders, and a sparrow. I would still really like to see it done properly.

Edited March 19, 2023 by Roosterfeet

[Dentedend10]

Finished the mission. Was able to defeat the fishcans with the two winders, but yea, no margin for error

missed the bombing target tho. Well Paco helped out there. So I guess fair exchange of help there for the fishcans. Teamwork it is! 
very fun flying in formation with 3 Cats!

 

[Whistler_RIO]

paco makes no sense in this mission.  when intercepting he comes to the merge at 9k while the bandits merge at 14k. He doesnt even use his heater.

i really like the formup and formation while waiting to push. that all plays out really nicely.

also the tomcat on the right side of us when starting the mission has his wings open and damages your aircraft. 

[Reflected]

4 hours ago, Whistler_RIO said:

paco makes no sense in this mission.  when intercepting he comes to the merge at 9k while the bandits merge at 14k. He doesnt even use his heater.

i really like the formup and formation while waiting to push. that all plays out really nicely.

also the tomcat on the right side of us when starting the mission has his wings open and damages your aircraft. 

I have absolutely 0 control over how the AI fights once it's set free to fight. 

Also:
 

 

[Whistler_RIO]

16 hours ago, Reflected said:

I have absolutely 0 control over how the AI fights once it's set free to fight. 

Ya sure.  that makes sense.   once we commit to the inbound contacts , i have to say that you make it work so well with the 3&4 element breaking off 40degrees and our splitting of the hostiles just works so well! Its really compelling and one of the best scripted campaign missions i have ever seen (and ive flown them all really.)
I guess maybe what you are saying is that you cannot control the hostile Fishbeds from climbing to 14k at the merge?  that is somewhat smart of them to do really!  #AI

RE: startup wing damage - the damage seems to not affect the aircraft even though you get the messaging saying youve taken damage.  i think i saw that this was a recent fix they made was to just have spawning aircraft be immortal while in coldstart? i think i recall that.

[RimanDk]

On 3/18/2023 at 12:34 AM, Reflected said:

BTW do you guys drop your tanks before merging with the Fishcans? If I drop them and I don't waste a sidewinder on a head on shot, I find they are not too hard to defeat.

Doing this mission again for my second playthrough and I find them near impossible to deal with. I have a thread on hoggit about it, actually. Would absolutely love to see a video of you doing it. No matter what I try, they tend to fly rings around me and tag-team me to death.

It's gotten to the point that I'm just practising that one encounter in a separate mission that attempts to recreate the parameters without Paco, as he's utterly useless in that fight.

Say, it's not possible to just blow through them and keep going with the attack, is it?

An optional tanker would really mean the world in this mission...

Edited September 17, 2023 by RimanDk

[Reflected]

Btw I recently even lowered the skill of those Fishbeds. 

[RimanDk]

7 hours ago, Reflected said:

Btw I recently even lowered the skill of those Fishbeds. 

What are they set at? I think the ones I added to my own mission are set pretty high - would like to practice against the right difficulty, if possible =).

[Reflected]

Both are 'trained'

[RimanDk]

On 9/18/2023 at 10:05 AM, Reflected said:

Both are 'trained'

Okay, cool! Thanks! I set mine up on Ace, which is... more than a challenge!

I will adjust my own training scenario to reflect this change. Hopefully, I'll start getting some results and building the confidence to get back to doing the mission proper!  

Cheers!

 

EDIT: Lowering the difficulty definitely made the fight more approachable in my custom training scenario and I have started to see some success. Hopefully, I can translate that to the real mission!

EDIT2: Managed to pass it. Turns out practising against considerably harder opponents pays off! =). It's still a hard fight, but it's approachable now, whereas before it would take a combination of skill and luck to survive it and would lead to a lot of frustration and painful re-do's. The way it is now, 15 is an amazing mission that offers a bit of everything, from carrier ops to strike coordination and tough formation flying (quite a tight turn with quite a lot of bank!) to air-to-air knife fighting to strike and cas... it's a ton of stuff crammed into a single mission! Marvellous fun! One of the best-designed missions I have ever flown (could only be improved by an optional tanker en-route home  - which would be far from unrealistic for a strike of this size). 

Edited September 22, 2023 by RimanDk