Not really good

[Swson]

I’ve played only 3 missions but this campaign is already boring. The Caucasus map is already very difficult with hills and hidden spots so why having complicated from the very beginning the action making a weather full of fog from angle 11 or 12 so in the middle of mountains?? in addition the whole terrain is made gloomy by this fog and you loose the pleasure flying over those beautiful forest. Then the density of threat is impossible to manage whatever the weapons used because if you climb you are in the clouds and so no TGP and lasers and if you go down you loose the target due to the relief….So yes this is probably realistic but after being shot down 3 times I stopped. if you add that your wingwoman does not respond to your order and is useless except to speak about her wedding…and that you need going through the ATC which is horrible in place having a real radio interface…..for example .in mission 2 if you follow the flight plan to reach the bridges you overflight a full column of armored vehicle with AAA impossible to survive. I tried other road through the valley but it is impossible to change the waypoints on a map. I finally launched a JDAM hopping it will aim on the waypoint SPI and effectively I blow up a bridge before being shot down. But the debriefing considered I had destroyed both bridge and gave me 70/100 ??? So globally for now I’m very very deceived I hope next missions will be more interesting because I’ve bought campaign mulch more good like those of Baltic dragon…

[King39]

So, I'm not going to address all of your complaints but I will address some of them.

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I’ve played only 3 missions but this campaign is already boring. 

Well, not much I can do for you there. I won't apologize for the campaign because I'm very proud of it but I am sorry you're bored with it. I created this campaign for people who were of beginner to moderate levels of experience in DCS and flight simulators in general. As with most things in life, the campaign starts out a little slow and allows the player to build up towards a climactic finish.

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The Caucasus map is already very difficult with hills and hidden spots so why having complicated from the very beginning the action making a weather full of fog from angle 11 or 12 so in the middle of mountains?? in addition the whole terrain is made gloomy by this fog and you loose the pleasure flying over those beautiful forest. 

I must say that I've come to really enjoy flying the Caucasus map BECAUSE it can be so difficult. But the thing I like most about Caucuses map is the differential of the region, Alpine mountains to the north bordering Russia, the western and central plains, the bordering ocean, and the rolling hills to the east. The difficulty of differing terrain makes it my favorite of all the DCS maps.

That being said, I also believe in reflecting "real-world" weather conditions as well. If you want bright sunny days all of the time than you should look to other campaign developers. I enjoy the challenge of flying (in flight simulators and in real flight) in realistic conditions; at night (when MOST A-10 CAS missions are flown), rain, wind, clouds and fog. I think that is what separates the men from the boys and women from little girls. 

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in mission 2 if you follow the flight plan to reach the bridges you overflight a full column of armored vehicle with AAA impossible to survive. 

I have to take issue with this statement. Many, many people have successfully completed this mission and the campaign. One piece of advice: never forget that altitude and distance are your friends when faced with the possibility of confronting people who would do you harm. Altitude and distance my friend. And yes, this mission CAN be completed. One other thing, An A-10 pilot once told me that the the best way to defeat a SAM is to see it (and evade). Keep your head on a swivel and always jink when you hear the RWR. Don't wait or you'll get hit.

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I hope next missions will be more interesting because I’ve bought campaign mulch more good like those of Baltic dragon…

Well, I've created the campaign the way I would want to fly one and did NOT want to copy someone else's technique. By all accounts, B.D. is THE master in DCS campaign creation. He should be as he's been doing it for 10+ years? I've only been at it for 2. 

Thank you for your inputs and I will take them under advisement.

All the best,

John

Postscript - if you are still interested, I will be submitting the updated Operation Agile Spear 2.0 within the next two weeks and it will be a free update to everyone who purchased the original campaign. I hope you like it better.

Edited March 29, 2023 by King39

[Swson]

Well John,  I admit being a bit rude, (boring was not appropriate at all but I’m not a native English language and I often don’t use  the good terms, I’m sorry about that), in my last message and I apologize a lot for that, it is usually not in my habits. Anyway I thank you for your answer that illustrates you take user’s comments into account. I was just shot down in the mission for the third time after more than one hour of VR flight and I must admit I was a little upset . Making myself extensive use of ME (very time consuming particularly when you hit DCS AI limitations….). I know what amount of effort you must have devoted to this creation and you can be proud of it.  In fact I play simultaneously (i mean switching often one by one of course) 4 or 5 campaigns with different modules: Agile spear, Persian freedom, raven one and raven one dominant fury, MAD AH-64 and M2000 red flight campaign….I guess so I have elements for comparison that is perhaps driving (too much?) my judgement. More precisely what I wanted to underline is that for me ( but also it seems for you), a campaign must address generally (or at least it must be very much quoted In the description) a large panel of users from let’s say rookie, but not full beginners, to experts. Saying that, the progression of difficulties of missions is, according me once more, essential to give time to player to accustomed with the environment (not the module but the theater or the module in the theater) and almost all to reward him and give him really desire to switch to the next one. This would not at all imply simplified or too easy things but only a more progressive approach. I’ve agreed about the fact your missions are probably representatives of the real weather environment and that the terrain is challenging but the part chosen introducing an additional difficulty dimension from the very first mission where you discover the theater and have so many threats or targets is not a good idea specially because you lack the level of intelligence you necessarily have in the real life to conduct such a mission and would allow you to well prepare it on a map before flying. In fact in real life you will never send 2 A-10 alone, just arrived, against such numbers of opponents, in the relief and covered by AD….A coordinated approach with first SEAD or DEAD mission would have been made and the bridge destruction could be managed by JDAM from quite safe range of geographical coordinates are available etc…etc…The player has not really the means to brief the mission seriously before take off…But I don’t want entering in the realism debate which can be seen differently but only staying on the game level. The Caucasus is surely a nice terrain and I see you appreciate it as I do, but the part and weather you selected for first missions is surely not for beginners.  I can just bring my comparison with other campaîgns whose first missions are much more progressives and rewarding for players even if they are longer. For me these missions are for trained while veteran pilots. For good things the fact that you can change your weapons at the beginning of missions is nice and I appreciate that. It allows knowing better the effects of every weapons and allows to repeat the same mission to find the good one. The fact that you cannot communicate with your wingwoman and that she is not taking your orders is definetely bad but perhaps inherent at DCS AI limits. I suppose voicing over and management of radios via F10 must be very much costly in the process of the development but it is really what bring the immersion in other campaign In place of using built in commands. It is not a spell to copy what is done elsewhere but just my feeling don’t take badly my sentences.

Well anyway I’m going to restart your campaign and tried this time to find the good weapons and flight path  and of course continue the whole story …have a nice we

Jean-Philippe

Edited March 31, 2023 by Swson

[King39]

55 minutes ago, Swson said:

Well John,  I admit being a bit rude, (boring was not appropriate at all but I’m not a native English language and I often don’t use  the good terms, I’m sorry about that), in my last message and I apologize a lot for that, it is usually not in my habits. Anyway I thank you for your answer that illustrates you take user’s comments into account. I was just shot down in the mission for the third time after more than one hour of VR flight and I must admit I was a little upset . Making myself extensive use of ME (very time consuming particularly when you hit DCS AI limitations….). I know what amount of effort you must have devoted to this creation and you can be proud of it.  In fact I play simultaneously (i mean switching often one by one of course) 4 or 5 campaigns with different modules: Agile spear, Persian freedom, raven one and raven one dominant fury, MAD AH-64 and M2000 red flight campaign….I guess so I have elements for comparison that is perhaps driving (too much?) my judgement. More precisely what I wanted to underline is that for me ( but also it seems for you), a campaign must address generally (or at least it must be very much quoted In the description) a large panel of users from let’s say rookie, but not full beginners, to experts. Saying that, the progression of difficulties of missions is, according me once more, essential to give time to player to accustomed with the environment (not the module but the theater or the module in the theater) and almost all to reward him and give him really desire to switch to the next one. This would not at all imply simplified or too easy things but only a more progressive approach. I’ve agreed about the fact your missions are probably representatives of the real weather environment and that the terrain is challenging but the part chosen introducing an additional difficulty dimension from the very first mission where you discover the theater and have so many threats or targets is not a good idea specially because you lack the level of intelligence you necessarily have in the real life to conduct such a mission and would allow you to well prepare it on a map before flying. In fact in real life you will never send 2 A-10 alone, just arrived, against such numbers of opponents, in the relief and covered by AD….A coordinated approach with first SEAD or DEAD mission would have been made and the bridge destruction could be managed by JDAM from quite safe range of geographical coordinates are available etc…etc…The player has not really the means to brief the mission seriously before take off…But I don’t want entering in the realism debate which can be seen differently but only staying on the game level. The Caucasus is surely a nice terrain and I see you appreciate it as I do, but the part and weather you selected for first missions is surely not for beginners.  I can just bring my comparison with other campaîgns whose first missions are much more progressives and rewarding for players even if they are longer. For me these missions are for trained while veteran pilots. For good things the fact that you can change your weapons at the beginning of missions is nice and I appreciate that. It allows knowing better the effects of every weapons and allows to repeat the same mission to find the good one. The fact that you cannot communicate with your wingwoman and that she is not taking your orders is definetely bad but perhaps inherent at DCS AI limits. I suppose voicing over and management of radios via F10 must be very much costly in the process of the development but it is really what bring the immersion in other campaign In place of using built in commands. It is not a spell to copy what is done elsewhere but just my feeling don’t take badly my sentences.

Well anyway I’m going to restart your campaign and tried this time to find the good weapons and flight path  and of course continue the whole story …have a nice we

Jean-Philippe

 

Jean-Philippe,

Once again thank you for your insight regarding Agile Spear. I'm sorry you're having a hard time going through it but I wouldn't restart the campaign just yet. I've made significant changes to it and will be releasing version 2.0 within the next 2 weeks. While I do not control when the updated campaign will be made available through DCS World updates, I would tell you that the updated campaign should make your experience much more enjoyable.

Again, thanks for your insight,

John

[Swson]

Yes I will be very pleased to check the version 2.0. It is your honor making this version free for owner of the previous one because other campaign makers are not doing this, I speak about the enemy within I bought 2 times with the 3.0 version…..Just to add one more thing, my remarks about the weather making the mission difficult was about the mission 2 not the 3. I just made the mission 3 that is easier however, and I know it is not your fault, as radios count on the built in AI, my female wingwoman made a quick transgender shift while rolling and announcing that with a male voice to speak then again with a female voice about her fiancé (LOL)…also in this mission it is impossible to command her so she was immediately shot down without any communication between us. The supporting F-18 were also shot down by the SA9 immediately which is very surprising and not realistic at all I will not explain why….it would be too long….personally after killing 3 ZSU 2 MLRS and 1 SA9, I was also it by an SA9 but managed to land at Senaki. As it looks like my gear tyres were damaged during the mission I was unable to reach the parking even having landed safely and so to be repaired and rearmed so I got only 50, but the mission pleased me and I will redo it with pleasure to check my GBU38 on the bridge and my BLU97 on the arty. Keep going ….

[Rudel_chw]

On 3/31/2023 at 3:23 PM, Swson said:

I speak about the enemy within I bought 2 times with the 3.0 version…..

 

Hi,

In my opinion, when you offer a refreshed Campaign that has been completely re-done, keeping just the storyline (that's why it was a v3.0 rather than 2.0), it is understandable that such a development time investment can't be given away for free.

I purchased the original Campaign on 2016 for US$ 5 (during a Steam sale), and when v3.0 comes out on 2019, the developer offered a very reasonable upgrade discount of 65%, so I paid US$ 2.80 to upgrade ... didn't have to think twice about it and dont regret the small expense.