Mission 4 tips

[Jasonmoofang]

I passed the mission fine because the primary target was like the 3rd ship I checked after freelancing, but how are you guys doing SSSC? I feel like I'm behind the curve on everything, and Olive pretty much did all the important callouts which was pretty embarassing (I never spotted the fast mover that was supposed to be with the primary). How are you guys keeping track of the piece of sea you're supposed to be searching and how are you scanning it? I tried keeping a 90 degree line from mother and then mentally imagine a 30 degree slice northwards, but everytime I lock something for the FLIR the line goes away. Just keeping track of the piece of sea I'm supposed to scan feels like a constant tussle. I feel like I lucked out being instructed to RTB after stopping the primary and don't have to continue the actual SSSC lol.

[baltic_dragon]

Use your A/G radar in sea mode, it helps a lot. Then ATFLIR to spot the targets and then just fly over them low enough and close enough. There will be moments in this campaign when you will feel being behind your jet a lot, but since the aim was to make it as realistic as possible, this is normal. And the more you play it, the better you will get.

[jmarso]

For keeping in your sector, head straight to WP2 which puts you roughly on the 60 degree line, and then freelance back and forth with your radar in the general direction of WP3. Lock up targets with your FLIR, RIG them, then occasionally bring WP3 back up for orientation. You can spot surface targets with your eyes as well as radar. If you see one nearby, just turn towards it and lock it with the FLIR, then execute a quick rig. 

On an unrelated note, I think I may have taken off too early on this mission. I found the destroyer and helicopters on the way to WP2 (freelancing) and at that point I hadn't had a single comm or frequency change since the radio checks on deck. When the quiet got suspicious I just switched over to Knight, but no F10 options came up. I figured at that point I'd borked the script somehow, but decided to keep going. Near WP2 comms suddenly started up, and Flip started making reports on RIGs. The rest of the mission seemed to go normally, up through the find of the ship and the fast mover, dropping a rockeye to stop them, and being relieved. Then on the way back I was on Marshal and got a message asking to confirm or ask Knight to repeat. So I switched back to Knight, asked for a repeat, and got vectored to the destroyer and helos again. This time I could report them, and when cleared to proceed to mission I just returned to marshal and finished the RTB. I got the feeling things were happening out of order, or I was hitting trigger points at the wrong time in the mission, or something. In any case, it all worked out in the end and I finished with a score of 100, so I must have hit the high points. Next time I'm going to wait for the signal that I can taxi (I was out of the chocks pretty early) and see if that fixes things. 

[baltic_dragon]

Yeah, in scripted campaigns it is super important to do as briefed: wait for taxi signal (it is there for a reason), go via the waypoints in order etc. Otherwise things may easily break down. We (mission makers) are getting better and better in introducing safeguards, but in older campaigns better to be safe than sorry. 

Edited January 16 by baltic_dragon

[alboon2000]

Hi, if I wait to take off in last position, the E6B aircraft (I think it is a E6B, not sure, the one on my right) gets stuck and mission is stuck. So I believe we should take off before this aircraft ?

[baltic_dragon]

Not sure, unfortunately things tend to go wrong with new taxi directors sometimes.. it shouldn't get stuck, but just wait for the indication that you can taxi and follow the procedure and you should be fine: 

1. Battery and APU on
2. Salute for engine start up (deck crew raises arm)
3. Finish Starting Up
4. Wait for the on screen pop up that says I can start taxiing OR as per the mission brief - Designer Notes at the end
5. Salute Again for taxi clearance
6. Follow Taxi director orders

 

[alboon2000]

Thank you for your feedback. When taxiing as soon as I'm cleared, what happens is 406 (Olive) gets stuck, so mission can't be played...

[baltic_dragon]

Did you follow the steps above? Unfortunately I don't have too much control over the taxi directors and for others this seems to be fixed. If it persists, can you check if you don't have any unofficial 3rd party mods installed?

[paulw10]

Hi all,

Re: DCS 2.9.15.9509 (21/APR/2025)

Salute gives 'no crew member available'. Flight deck very busy. Waiting leads to very delayed launch relative to 'taxi' signal. I found it necessary to engine start without clearance (slightly naughty). 

After launch no comms to switch to Knight. I switched at WP1. Probably should switch after clearing mother beyond 7 miles (after the Case I departure).

Case I recovery with ILS on channel 4 as briefed. ILS was ON. No needles! Thankfully it is a bright and sunny day so time for a bit of seat-of-your-pants flying.

Hope this is helpful.

[baltic_dragon]

We checked the mission and it all works as intended, so I suspect a user error. Have you saluted twice? Once before engine start, and then when ready to taxi? Also, do you have easy comms set to OFF? You should get a prompt to switch to Knight, but it might not work because of departure problems.. @Jakes you or Pete flew this mission recently, no?

[Jakes]

10 hours ago, baltic_dragon said:

We checked the mission and it all works as intended, so I suspect a user error. Have you saluted twice? Once before engine start, and then when ready to taxi? Also, do you have easy comms set to OFF? You should get a prompt to switch to Knight, but it might not work because of departure problems.. @Jakes you or Pete flew this mission recently, no?

Correct, myself and Pete(in this week) have flown it with no issues.
@paulw10 are you running ANY mods?

[paulw10]

22 hours ago, Jakes said:

are you running ANY mods?

I run on a standalone install which I keep up to date. I have mods like the usual asset packs, range targets, echo19 audio mods, SRS, lots of liveries and kneeboards. Missions 1, 2 and 3 were fine for me - all giving procedures, comms and queues as briefed. Mission 4 was the first one that seemed to behave oddly. I might do a re-fly after I've finished the campaign. I don't wont to reset my current progress at the mo. Thanks.

[paulw10]

BTW.

Easy comms = OFF

Because I did an early engine start I didn't get the first salute prompt. Maybe that messes it up.

The first time I tried the mission I had to wait a long time for start clearance due to high flight deck activity and no groundcrew available. By the time I got clearance my buddy had already launched. I re-started the mission and started my engine straight away. We both launched togther this time.

[Jakes]

On 4/26/2025 at 9:02 PM, paulw10 said:

I run on a standalone install which I keep up to date. I have mods like the usual asset packs, range targets, echo19 audio mods, SRS, lots of liveries and kneeboards. Missions 1, 2 and 3 were fine for me - all giving procedures, comms and queues as briefed. Mission 4 was the first one that seemed to behave oddly. I might do a re-fly after I've finished the campaign. I don't wont to reset my current progress at the mo. Thanks.

The No.1 Rule with DCS Campaigns... If you have ANY mod that is NOT purchased from the DCS Store, it will probably cause issues. 
This may not happen on every mission, it may not even happen consistently, but it can and will catch you at some point.
Every update can be different, any change in DCS Core, or to a module or any kind of assets that mod may piggyback/overwrite can  cause huge issues in campaigns.

SRS and OpenKneeboard(Mostly VR users) seem to be ok, as we test these missions using both.
Make sure to remove any and all mods before flying campaigns. (Check out OVGME, I use it daily and it works well)

If you have no mods, or if removing all mods still does not fix the issue, take the following steps(Test after each step):
1) Delete fxo and metashaders2 folders in your saved games. Can get gummed up with old files.
2) Rename you DCS Saved Games folder, run DCS and let it create a new one. Close DCS and then just copy the Config folder from the old to the new so you don't lose your bindings and also copy your logbook.lua from saved games mission editor folder, that way you don't lose campaign progress.
(Some mods can write to places like your scripts folder in your saved games location as an example. Also seems to help sometimes even if you never run mods at all)
3) Do a full deep repair of DCS to clear up any unwanted stuff in your main game folder.

Some settings to check:
1) If you have easy comms enabled, disable it.
2) Under Gameplay options, make sure the tick box on the bottom right for "No force from mission, use mine" is NOT ticked.
3) Try disabling TacView under special options. It can cause issues, usually performance, that can lead to bugs if your cores are overloaded/too busy and it misses a trigger point due to that.

For start ups, these are the steps I always follow and have not had issues.
- Battery and APU on
- Salute for engine start up (deck crew raises arm)
- Finish Starting Up
- Wait for the on screen pop up that says I can start taxiing OR As per the mission brief - Designer Notes at the end
(Some missions have you waiting on deck a long time before you get to taxi)
- Salute Again for taxi clearance
- Follow Taxi director orders