Initial feedback

[urraca]

Good afternoon,

I am a strong follower of DCS creators, following the very good and realistic feelings they achieve through their campaigns and missions.

After giving several attemps to this campaign, sadly I cannot recommend it due to following issues:

-"triggers" do not work in a huge number of missions.

-In the missions with different parts, the FRAGOs are not given, so that is very easy to fell lost.

- Dialogs are not written, and is very hard to understand some converstions...

- The missions pdf are very poor and  during missions you are given with the order like "return to the FARP" not knowing which FARP are refering to, the FARP Zulu, the "hidden FARP" or the Enemy FARP (for TSE OPS and EVbO OPS)....adding the lack of mission information and lack of radio dialogs to review, it is a frustrating thing, not to mention the outstanding numbers of "triggers" failures.

Please fix it ASAP.

Best,

[SorelRo]

Hello, 

Thanks for the feedback. Much appreciated. 

Any chance you can give me some examples where triggers do not work?  I find this quite intriguing, because triggers in any of my missions are based on simple things, the position of your heli, sometimes altitude and speed, previous event and so on. Knowing what it does not work it may be helpful. I am assuming that you are navigating accurate enough to be in the right zones. The zones are quite large. 

Written dialogues create a huge wall of text and that kills the immersion, since i can't turn subscriptions on or off they will stay as it is, all the needed informations are offered to you in text. 

I'll review the pdf's for any confusing info's 

Cheers.

Edited August 7, 2023 by SorelRo

[Mistermann]

51 minutes ago, SorelRo said:

Written dialogues create a huge wall of text and that kills the immersion, since i can't turn subscriptions on or off they will stay as it is, all the needed informations are offered to you in text.

I agree.  Something you may want to consider.  I just started doing this for the missions I create for my buddies.  If you send spoken text to the screen followed immediately by a blank message, no text appears to ruin immersion, but exists in message history for anyone that misunderstands or needs to review.

Maybe a solution, just in case you hadn't considered this option.

[SorelRo]

That's an interesting way to look at it. Thanks 

[MAXsenna]

That's an interesting way to look at it. Thanks 

I agree, lots of text can be immersive, so I turn all text off, and rely on the message history which I just bring up with VoiceAttack, without pausing the game with Taz1004 no pause mod.
Heck, I even turn off the pilots voice with VAICOM.

Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[jetsimace]

I have the impression that some important tasks (required to trigger the next event) are deleted from the message history (e.g. in misasion 5)

[SorelRo]

12 minutes ago, jetsimace said:

I have the impression that some important tasks (required to trigger the next event) are deleted from the message history (e.g. in misasion 5)

Mission 5 is a 3 parter, do you remember what part? 

[jetsimace]

Please don't get me wrong, I am really enjoying this campaign  that I personally also do recommend, good job 
Though here I have some questions and/or hints for improvement (please note that there are some spoilers included!) - that in my opinion are minor issues only, absolutely not ruining the fun / immersion:

Spoiler

Overall:
1. It would be helpful if the names of the missions in the campaign window would start with mission number for easy identification (e.g. "Mission 2: Reccon" - instead of "Reccon" only).
2. A campaign introduction PDF seems to be missing in the "doc" subfolder (running latest Open Beta as of Aug 19 2023) - already mentioned in another thread and SorelRo will already look into this.
3. TACAN navigation guidance should be available at the FARP and mentioned in the mission descriptions, but this is not available/helpful for the Huey. So I would rather get rid of this as this can be confusing.
4. The FARP's NDB guidance at 650 kHz I have not been able to track so far. Just some strong NDB signals at about 625 and 675 kHz but nothing in between.
5. (Already mentioned in this thread above): Some dialogues are hard to understand (native speakers - e.g. probably from Australia - which sometimes is hard for me to understand), so it would be helpful if really all required actions (to trigger subsequent events/triggers) would be listed in the messages history in a way that these can be clearly identified as mission specific (like for some already framed like === <text> === ). Most are available, but not all of them - please see below.

Mission specific:

Mission 2 ("Reccon"):
Flying south from waypoint 1 (at Krepostnaya) I followed the road (as I was told by voice) for quite a long time but nothing happened. So turned back north and followed the mission route (as good as possible in the Huey) and got the "mission accomplished" (or similar) message. If I remember correctly, the voice told me that we had been shot at which did not happen in this mssion. But this might also have been a misunderstanding.

Mission 5 ("Transport to Zulu Base") - Part 1:
Messages history:
This mission has 3 parts. Next part will load as soon as the conditions are met -> would be great as this could be framed with: === <text> ===
===Form up with 1===
=== Heading 230 to your Landing Zone ===
=== Land at Blue Smoke ===
-> after landing at the cearing with blue smoke it was not clear to me what to do next (also no entry in the Messages history, so I started and flew back to the "hidden FARP" -> In my first attempt I flew back to the FARP which is not the right procedure)
-> after being shot at, the voices tell me to "get back" (still no entry in the Messages history), so I proceed to the hidden FARP
-> after landing at the hidden FARP -> === Loading next mission ===

Mission 5 ("Transport to Zulu Base") - Part 2:
Messages history:
Have your radios up as soon as possible
=== Head to the LZ you dropped your supplies earlier and MEDEVAC. The LZ is hot! ===
=== Watch for right smoke color ===
-> after landing at yellow smoke and onboarding of troops, a voice tells me to get back (to hidden FARP I assume), but there is no entry in the Messages history.
-> after landing at hidden FARP -> === Next Mission will load ===

Mission 5 ("Transport to Zulu Base") - Part 3:
=== Set up the radios, FM 43.40 ===
-> voice tells me to get back to the clearing, but there is no entry in the Messages history.
-> approaching the clearing a voice tells me something I couldn't understand, but there is no entry in the Messages history.
-> enemy helicopters approaching
=== Look for the MI-8 HIP ===
=== Clear to engage the MI-8 HIP ===
-> after taking down both enemy helicopters voice tells me to pick someone up but there is no entry in the Messages history.
-> I see a friendly object marker in the distance, when approaching ->
=== Land and pick up Angus ===
-> after landing near Angus ->
=== Take off and go to London FARP ===
-> after taking off
=== Mission complete ===

Remark: maybe there should be just one name for the "Zulu Base" = "Hidden FARP" = "FARP ZULU" (in mission description/messages history/voice audio)

 

[SorelRo]

3 hours ago, jetsimace said:

Flying south from waypoint 1 (at Krepostnaya) I followed the road (as I was told by voice) for quite a long time but nothing happened. So turned back north and followed the mission route (as good as possible in the Huey) and got the "mission accomplished" (or similar) message. If I remember correctly, the voice told me that we had been shot at which did not happen in this mssion. But this might also have been a misunderstanding

Following the road, you should have had a few messages as you recce several clearings, then you should have found more things, i don't want to spoil it all away. If you feel that you are lost why not using the kneeboard and drop a carrot there and get your bearings. Navigation is hard anyway and navigation by map and compass is not easy. 

 

Mission 5, you are right, easy to implement and add it. 

 

NBD is due to my stupidity. I added 650 in the trigger and not 0.65 as it should be and it carried over to the missions that use it. Update is on the way for that already. 

Thanks a lot for your feedback, much appreciated. 

Also, looking at the docs i see that the innitial doc is missing. I'll re-send it. 

 

Cheers, 

[jetsimace]

Thanks! In my second  attempt in mission #2 I got those messages and the events unfolded - Good story telling! 
Editing and formatting those posts drives me crazy...obviously there is no possibility to keep screenshots in the "Spoiler" section (?)

Spoiler

There should be a hint in the Messages history to follow the two trucks (currently given by audio only) - see attached screenshot #3

This message appears twice in the Messages history - see attached screenshot #2

The should be more hints in the Messages history as some might have (even partly only) missed the instructions given by audio, like land to let Angus disembark, take off etc. Things can quickly get quite hectic... - see attached screenshot #2

Finally after departing at 290 degrees (as I was told), I must have missed the trigger zone as nothing happened. I remembered from my first attempt that the "mission accomplished" message showed up at the road leading north to Ubinskaya, so after following that road I finally got the  "mission accomplished" message (location see attached screenshot #1). Maybe the trigger zone should be bigger and/or some hints should be given to follow the road north to Ubinskaya.

 

Edited August 20, 2023 by jetsimace

[jetsimace]

Strange is, that altough I had achieved a score of 100, the following missions
# 7 (Rescue the Handy Wind),
# 8 (Fast Boats in the night) and
# 9 (FAC over Pshada)
have not been completed properly (are still listed in campaign list as Active without any score)

Edited August 24, 2023 by jetsimace

[SorelRo]

That's a bug with ED. I'm trying to escalate it, it happened with other campaigns but i don't have a resolution, unfortunately.

[SorelRo]

Hi guys, it looks like this will be fixed soon. It is a bug that was acknowledged by the dev team at Eagle Dynamics, and they are adding a fix. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 8, 2023 by SorelRo

[spinaker]

December, still not fixed.

[SorelRo]

I'll follow up with the ED team on this. 

[spinaker]

Maybe campaigns should be properly tested before selling?

[SorelRo]

This is not an error that I can prevent while testing it. This is an error in the core of DCS, this is not something that I can fix or prevent. Campaigns are tested, properly and are flown many many times by multiple testers. However, there are changes at every update that could mess up AI behavior, FARP numbering, the way AI is doing its pathfinding, the way AI reacts to various threats, and other multitude of factors that could break a mission. As you may have noticed from the other threads, every time an error is reported in less than a few days a fix is also provided, the fix is made available ahead of the DCS update schedule. This is something not many campaign creators do to protect their IP, however, I chose to make the fix available as soon as possible. 

This is not something I can fix or reproduce. It has been reported to Eagle Dynamics and they took steps to fix it, as far as I know. As I said in my previous step I will try to escalate it. 

Is there anything else I can help you with?