Campaign Feedback

[ChillNG]

 

[ChillNG]

 

[daryldom]

Only through Missions 1 & 2 so far but stopping in to say I'm really enjoying it!

First time I've found myself going through the briefing on my phone earlier in the day, looking up expected threads in the Intelligence Report, and being excited to fly.

It would be nice to have a checkpoint system simply because the campaign, and weaseling itself, is built around intentionally getting shot at so it's easy for a small slip up to result in another long flight in, but that's a DCS level complaint more than a campaign one.

Great job on this! Excited to play more.

[ChillNG]

7 hours ago, daryldom said:

Only through Missions 1 & 2 so far but stopping in to say I'm really enjoying it!

First time I've found myself going through the briefing on my phone earlier in the day, looking up expected threads in the Intelligence Report, and being excited to fly.

It would be nice to have a checkpoint system simply because the campaign, and weaseling itself, is built around intentionally getting shot at so it's easy for a small slip up to result in another long flight in, but that's a DCS level complaint more than a campaign one.

Great job on this! Excited to play more.

Thanks very, that's great to hear and love that you are using the intel guide to plan missions, that was always my hope for it!  Agreed, would love a save system...maybe one day!  But that's why I put the immortal option in...as you will get shot at quite a lot!

Edited October 30, 2023 by ChillNG

[daryldom]

11 hours ago, ChillNG said:

Thanks very, that's great to hear and love that you are using the intel guide to plan missions, that was always my hope for it!  Agreed, would love a save system...maybe one day!  But that's why I put the immortal option in...as you will get shot at quite a lot!

 

Going to try to refuse to use immortal.

The threat makes for great practise against the different SAM sites, and the system you've built with flight members and all the comms makes it much nicer to manage.

There are useful callouts and info from the flight members that you don't get from default AI.

So I kept finding myself pushing my luck to try and get my own shot off out of habit, even while a missile was incoming. Eventually I started feeling like I could actually make use of my wingman, which is not something I'm used to in DCS outside of hitting basic ground targets. Now I find often than I'm baiting and going defensive, and instructing him to take the kill shots.

You've built something really impressive here. Looking forward to flying the next mission.

[ChillNG]

3 hours ago, daryldom said:

Going to try to refuse to use immortal.

The threat makes for great practise against the different SAM sites, and the system you've built with flight members and all the comms makes it much nicer to manage.

There are useful callouts and info from the flight members that you don't get from default AI.

So I kept finding myself pushing my luck to try and get my own shot off out of habit, even while a missile was incoming. Eventually I started feeling like I could actually make use of my wingman, which is not something I'm used to in DCS outside of hitting basic ground targets. Now I find often than I'm baiting and going defensive, and instructing him to take the kill shots.

You've built something really impressive here. Looking forward to flying the next mission.

Ha ha you do start to get over confident after a while!  Glad the wingman is being useful...I remain determined to prove that the AI in DCS isn't always bad .

[ArmChairPilot]

Another great campaign from Ground pounder. If you played any of his other ones and want to see the wild weasel side of the story this is a must buy and the addition of gauntlet ops ups the replayability over other campaigns

[vitae]

If you are familiar with any of the Ground Pounder's campaigns, you'll already have huge expectations. That was the case for me as well, I've played Operation Cerberus North last year and from that moment, way I look at DCS and military aviation overall has changed drastically.

1. First of all, you have to expect this campaign strikes for realism at it's best, you have to invest some time to it. You have to look up for briefing document or read it before jumping into the cockpit otherwise you may find things happen too quickly. Don't get me wrong, briefings do not hold you hands but it gives you an idea about what you may encounter in skies, just like in real deal. You have to know F-16 well enough, F-16 is a very capable aircraft in experienced hands, if you know what you can but more importantly what you can not do, you won't have many issues. And lastly, I see some people complaining about flight times, well, it's a solid realistic campaign. Enjoy your cockpit view
2. The dynamic environment is just too good for DCS World. You'll actually feel like you are a part of something way bigger than your single airframe. This was also the case in Operation Cerberus North, which I highly recommend as well, you can not just load your aircraft with whatever loadout you want and go do whatever you want and return whenever you want in military, there is always a mission that needs 'you' and 'your' aircraft.
3. Optional chat is a thing you really don't ever listen to buy I highly recommend. It makes the whole experience better by making you feel you are not flying with dummy dumb AI

These are the only things I can say without giving any spoilers. But believe me, I can literally write anything as a positive for this campaign. Only thing I'd ask is probably better liveries, I actually changed the default livery to this livery made by "lee1hy" edited it a bit and add Forrest's name etc. But still, very very tiny thing, me trying too hard to find something to write as "can be improved" 

Thank you Chill. Already looking for your new campaigns and I am already sad that this one will be finished one day  
 

[DCS_moldy]

Really enjoying this campaign. I appreciate the focus on authenticity and immersion rather than strict "realism." The scoring system provides incentive to really push for extra objectives, and I love the balance of risk vs reward. I like that I get to make the call on whether or not to go on that last gun run, it isn't a mission fail if I don't, and there are missions I've scored less on but still feel good about because I feel like I made the smart decision. 

I've only completed 7 missions, a little over half the campaign, but so far the scripting of the AI has worked really well, and the AI wingman is actually useful. Mission variety has been good so far. I enjoy the missions that give you flexibility in how you complete the objectives, but it is also satisfying to be part of a well coordinated strike. And even though I don't plan on using it, I appreciate the option to set yourself as immortal in the campaign. Just another example of how this campaign is much less restrictive than others.

One issue I've had in other campaigns is the worry that I've missed a trigger or done something wrong to break the mission, but this campaign has done a great job of not only not breaking, but also semi-regularly giving you updates which reassures you that everything is still working properly. Only "bug" I've had so far is that when my radio got knocked out by AAA in a mission, my pilot kept saying things on the radio and responding to people despite the fact that I couldn't hear them. It was only some of the radio chatter, I could still hear Sentinel and H4. But accounting for every possible way your jet can be damaged is probably a bit much to ask for.

I'm not a huge fan of some of the voice acting, but I get it isn't a AAA game. I've seen other people praise the voice acting, so maybe it's just my personal preference.

But overall the experience has been great. Knew this would be a day one buy, and so far it has not disappointed!

[ChillNG]

3 hours ago, ArmChairPilot said:

Another great campaign from Ground pounder. If you played any of his other ones and want to see the wild weasel side of the story this is a must buy and the addition of gauntlet ops ups the replayability over other campaigns

Thanks for the feedback!

[ChillNG]

4 hours ago, vitae said:

If you are familiar with any of the Ground Pounder's campaigns, you'll already have huge expectations. That was the case for me as well, I've played Operation Cerberus North last year and from that moment, way I look at DCS and military aviation overall has changed drastically.

1. First of all, you have to expect this campaign strikes for realism at it's best, you have to invest some time to it. You have to look up for briefing document or read it before jumping into the cockpit otherwise you may find things happen too quickly. Don't get me wrong, briefings do not hold you hands but it gives you an idea about what you may encounter in skies, just like in real deal. You have to know F-16 well enough, F-16 is a very capable aircraft in experienced hands, if you know what you can but more importantly what you can not do, you won't have many issues. And lastly, I see some people complaining about flight times, well, it's a solid realistic campaign. Enjoy your cockpit view
2. The dynamic environment is just too good for DCS World. You'll actually feel like you are a part of something way bigger than your single airframe. This was also the case in Operation Cerberus North, which I highly recommend as well, you can not just load your aircraft with whatever loadout you want and go do whatever you want and return whenever you want in military, there is always a mission that needs 'you' and 'your' aircraft.
3. Optional chat is a thing you really don't ever listen to buy I highly recommend. It makes the whole experience better by making you feel you are not flying with dummy dumb AI

These are the only things I can say without giving any spoilers. But believe me, I can literally write anything as a positive for this campaign. Only thing I'd ask is probably better liveries, I actually changed the default livery to this livery made by "lee1hy" edited it a bit and add Forrest's name etc. But still, very very tiny thing, me trying too hard to find something to write as "can be improved" 

Thank you Chill. Already looking for your new campaigns and I am already sad that this one will be finished one day  
 

Thanks for the feedback .

[ChillNG]

3 hours ago, DCS_moldy said:

Really enjoying this campaign. I appreciate the focus on authenticity and immersion rather than strict "realism." The scoring system provides incentive to really push for extra objectives, and I love the balance of risk vs reward. I like that I get to make the call on whether or not to go on that last gun run, it isn't a mission fail if I don't, and there are missions I've scored less on but still feel good about because I feel like I made the smart decision. 

I've only completed 7 missions, a little over half the campaign, but so far the scripting of the AI has worked really well, and the AI wingman is actually useful. Mission variety has been good so far. I enjoy the missions that give you flexibility in how you complete the objectives, but it is also satisfying to be part of a well coordinated strike. And even though I don't plan on using it, I appreciate the option to set yourself as immortal in the campaign. Just another example of how this campaign is much less restrictive than others.

One issue I've had in other campaigns is the worry that I've missed a trigger or done something wrong to break the mission, but this campaign has done a great job of not only not breaking, but also semi-regularly giving you updates which reassures you that everything is still working properly. Only "bug" I've had so far is that when my radio got knocked out by AAA in a mission, my pilot kept saying things on the radio and responding to people despite the fact that I couldn't hear them. It was only some of the radio chatter, I could still hear Sentinel and H4. But accounting for every possible way your jet can be damaged is probably a bit much to ask for.

I'm not a huge fan of some of the voice acting, but I get it isn't a AAA game. I've seen other people praise the voice acting, so maybe it's just my personal preference.

But overall the experience has been great. Knew this would be a day one buy, and so far it has not disappointed!

Thanks for the feedback, always appreciated!

[Heidi]

Hi folks!!!

it's time for a first feedback!!

actually i'm at mission 7 (today i'm gonna do an attempt) and yesterday I tried for the first time Gauntlets Ops in mission 1

what I can say..it's unbelievable!! i never tried any campaign so well structured before. (my experience are on M2000, p51, bf109, huey and f14 campaigns and i was always amazed how reflected ones are)

You have to study, not like in real life, but you have to study before to approach the campaign ( you will have pdf of extended information of the campaign - also game guide ) and then study before every mission (briefing with detailed intel and kneeboard).

then once in the cockpit you  have to strap in and be prepared to follow a minimum of procedures before to find yourself inside the real action. This is not real life, but I really love the effort that ChillNG put to create this smooth process and the result is so enjoyable, immersive, different every time and at the end really fun.

I alway like to use the Viper as wild weasel and I read few book about it ( Viper Pilot by Dan Hampton, Last in last out by Edward Fisher, Magnum by Brick Eisel and Jim Schreiner) and for me this campaign is a dream comes true.

for my humble opinion this campaign is also for beginner because you can really learn a lot (there are a lot of videos on YT that can help) and so on become a better weasel.

And don't worry Popeye will help you giving you advice and hint how to act. sometimes you will be the flight leader and sometimes you will be wingman.

for the moment, this are my 2cent. 

Thank you ChillNG for the stunning experience you gave me.

cheers

Edited November 2, 2023 by Heidi

[ChillNG]

12 hours ago, Heidi said:

Hi folks!!!

it's time for a first feedback!!

actually i'm at mission 7 (today i'm gonna do an attempt) and yesterday I tried for the first time Gauntlets Ops in mission 1

what I can say..it's unbelievable!! i never tried any campaign so well structured before. (my experience are on M2000, p51, bf109, huey and f14 campaigns and i was always amazed how reflected ones are)

You have to study, not like in real life, but you have to study before to approach the campaign ( you will have pdf of extended information of the campaign - also game guide ) and then study before every mission (briefing with detailed intel and kneeboard).

then once in the cockpit you  have to strap in and be prepared to follow a minimum of procedures before to find yourself inside the real action. This is not real life, but I really love the effort that ChillNG put to create this smooth process and the result is so enjoyable, immersive, different every time and at the end really fun.

I alway like to use the Viper as wild weasel and I read few book about it ( Viper Pilot by Dan Hampton, Last in last out by Edward Fisher, Magnum by Brick Eisel and Jim Schreiner) and for me this campaign is a dream comes true.

for my humble opinion this campaign is also for beginner because you can really learn a lot (there are a lot of videos on YT that can help) and so on become a better weasel.

And don't worry Popeye will help you giving you advice and hint how to act. sometimes you will be the flight leader and sometimes you will be wingman.

for the moment, this are my 2cent. 

Thank you ChillNG for the stunning experience you gave me.

cheers

 

Thanks for the feedback!

[ChillNG]

 

 

[vitae]

So I finished up the campaign and here is my full review on it. Keep in mind this review may contain spoilers.

• M01: 
  What a start to the campaign. If you have previously played the Operation Cerberus North, you'll instantly feel the change in atmosphere, H4 is a very very small air base with lack of pretty much everything. Even though it only effects your virtual pilot, you still feel the poor conditions. Back in OP: Cerberus North, we had the best scenery, our base, İncirlik, was located inside of a big city, Adana, and we encountered civilization for not to feel alone, this isn't the case with H4. You can argue that base do not matter that much since we don't actually live in it but thing doesn't differ after you take off, it's miles and miles of nothing. Don't get me wrong, none of this is a bad thing for campaign. Apparently Chill was also aware of this and supported it with dialogues. Enough on scenery. Well the mission was available as demo so nothing much more to say about it. Solid start as I told. It was full of dialogue and briefing material was enough for me to understand the task. I really don't know what else could be added to make it better so, I'd say it's 10/10!
• M02:
  After a great start in a safe environment, things get heated quickly. Our small fleet had planned an entrance mission and it's time to put some effort to open up a corridor. Mission goes as planned, no need to stress about it too much if you pay attention to briefing. But still that unexpected KS-19 hit was a reminder that things can escalate very very quickly and it feels like it's going to be! I'd say it's a solid 9/10
• M03:
  We start to deal with TOT and TOS in this mission, not a hard requirement but it's better to obey this timing windows. In this mission I started to feel like my landing gears are in danger Dialogues, briefing materials and scripting behind the scenes was amazing. Another great mission that deserves 9/10 
• M04:
  I think this was my favorite mission! It's always so sweet to work with ground. It has pop up challenges that you have to deal with in a certain time gap to make sure helicopters will be safe in a very dense high threat zone. I really love this mission, 11/10!!!
• M05:
  Very well planned mission. You feel the urge to extend a little bit more, I did exactly that and I had a SAM missile blow up right behind me, that was a very close call and a wake up call actually. You always have to remind yourself that you can get yourself killed in this kind of an area. Loved it. 8/10
• M06:
  One thing. How did you managed to convert F/A-18Cs into Growlers?! Outstanding. Great flow in mission 8/10
• M07:
  Everybody loves low level! Cool mission to enjoy, that "wait" was tense ngl, 8/10
• M08:
  From the briefing PDF, I felt like things were not going to turn out well for us. But still, living that intense moments is a different thing and a proof that you can only prepare yourself until the first contact, rest of it is just a chaos. Good to see old friends and İncirlik! You instantly feel the campaign is going to hit it's peak after this one, great mission overall, 9/10 for mission but for the OP:CN fan service, I'm going to give it a 10/10
• M09:
  So at this point, irl I had to take my time due to multiple stuff going on my job etc. so I had prepared myself a lot about that rescue. With each day passing away from the cockpit my expectations went even higher. So glad that Chill was there to deliver what I asked for. After the first rescue I had a half smile on my face, it turned to a full smile with the surprise of the second pilot showing up at last second! Great story writing. 9/10
• M10:
  Everybody loves B-1s! You feel like things about to get serios, dense air space and even denser SAM sites to deal with. Amazing briefings makes all the difference at this point. 8/10
• M11:
  Only mission that I didn't liked as much as others in the whole campaign. First of all I thing penetrator JDAM's would be better in this kind of a scenario. But that's alright, the problem is the MiG's chasing us. I don't understand why I have to wait until they fire a perfect rear aspect aam in such close distance. Anyways I've written about it in Discord server so I'm skipping it. 5/10
• M12:
  Such an amazing ending to the campaign. I was expecting to see more B-1s or B-52s but this is still fine by me. TBC writing at the end of epilogue hyped me so much I already can't wait for it.  9/10

Alright for the Last Out, I'd say please let's go back to İncirlik. I know we are moving to some elsewhere so İncirlik would be so nice to take as a base. Other than that I'd really love more dialogues and filler missions that we'll take off with very light loadout, such as no AAM and 2x Mk82, take it like an ordinary routine CAP mission, that we'll discuss what's happening on our lore, nothing too serios, and even eventless filler missions would be soooooo nice to have. 
Overall I really liked the effort man, hope to catch you in Last Out! null

On 11/1/2023 at 6:13 PM, vitae said:

If you are familiar with any of the Ground Pounder's campaigns, you'll already have huge expectations. That was the case for me as well, I've played Operation Cerberus North last year and from that moment, way I look at DCS and military aviation overall has changed drastically.

1. First of all, you have to expect this campaign strikes for realism at it's best, you have to invest some time to it. You have to look up for briefing document or read it before jumping into the cockpit otherwise you may find things happen too quickly. Don't get me wrong, briefings do not hold you hands but it gives you an idea about what you may encounter in skies, just like in real deal. You have to know F-16 well enough, F-16 is a very capable aircraft in experienced hands, if you know what you can but more importantly what you can not do, you won't have many issues. And lastly, I see some people complaining about flight times, well, it's a solid realistic campaign. Enjoy your cockpit view
2. The dynamic environment is just too good for DCS World. You'll actually feel like you are a part of something way bigger than your single airframe. This was also the case in Operation Cerberus North, which I highly recommend as well, you can not just load your aircraft with whatever loadout you want and go do whatever you want and return whenever you want in military, there is always a mission that needs 'you' and 'your' aircraft.
3. Optional chat is a thing you really don't ever listen to buy I highly recommend. It makes the whole experience better by making you feel you are not flying with dummy dumb AI

These are the only things I can say without giving any spoilers. But believe me, I can literally write anything as a positive for this campaign. Only thing I'd ask is probably better liveries, I actually changed the default livery to this livery made by "lee1hy" edited it a bit and add Forrest's name etc. But still, very very tiny thing, me trying too hard to find something to write as "can be improved" 

Thank you Chill. Already looking for your new campaigns and I am already sad that this one will be finished one day  
 

[ChillNG]

Thanks so much for the detailed feedback, really appreciate it!

[Wiggo]

This might sound noob, but as this is first time a have came saw this: Why does mission 2 (i havent played more yet) load very long time and use a lot of hdd drive? (My DCS + windows + saved games folder / everything related to dcs is on SSD where there is over 100gb of stuff).  Yes, i have only 20gb of RAM, but still shouldnt it make possible pagefiles (swaps, dunno how dcs does em..) to ssd. The usage of HDD is so high, that it even has impact on my sounds. Ok this is the mission, that takes HUGE amount of ram. When I get off the ground for some time it keeps loading clearly stuff from HDD (i have 2x SSD SATA drives + 1 HDD just for data / music etc. There is not even windows restore or pagefile set on HDD so I cant figure out what is going on.) When playing DCS, any other mission / campaign, there is pretty much zero the usage of HDD. Yesterday I, just to be sure, re-installed the campaign, but ofc that is not the case as it is located is SSD anyway. Any clues? Any tips? Is this a windows thing? I have pagefile on automatic in windows 10 (windows can deside itself the size of possible swaps). Does DCS make swap files, and if / when so, where do they go? Can I see somehow that why and what is using that HDD. For example now the mission 2 is loading in the background and I really struggle writing this, as letters come in bursts. I would otherwise say that my computer is broken, but when it is ONLY this campaign, at least this mission, I though i would ask here.  As mentioned I dont have ANY clue how DCS works in swaps, if it even makes one. Is it possible somehow that the mission code itself puts stuff on some drive letter that is just HDD for me? Why the mission even takes so much RAM? Here is  a lot of questions, but I just would like to no what the heck?   The campaig itself is GREAT. Have played a lot of DLC campaings with other planetypes, and havent really seen campaing this nicely built before. As noob what i would like, is possibility to se own mission settings (labels, damage feedback etcc etc.) I understand the learning value of this fullsim setting forcing, but still - IMO they would be nice But BIG points for coms, sounds, airfield rules (gets one learning em for MP). Hard to say as I´m on msn 2 but so far there is a pinch of quality, that i can feel somehow. Perfect finishing it seems..  But yeah - any tips for that HDD stuff? Any clue what is going on? I can play the mission, but the loading takes for ~10mins "ratling ratling ratling", its like i was starting up 30 year old laptop with Windows Vista or something, what comes to HDD  Well you can imagine. ANY other thing in DCS does not do this. And oh ... I use Single Thread version of DCS (if thats important here.. dunno) , MT is laggy for me ATM. 

[ChillNG]

Hi thanks for all the feedback, option to have coloured dot labels has been added for next update.

Regarding HDD, actual mission memory size is pretty small, around 25mb IIRC, but as all these missions are quite big and complex I think you're system specs are causing you a few issues, although you're within the minimum RAM requirements for DCS, the recommended specs are really where you need to be for good performance, think most users would say 32GB is the ideal starting point these days, DCS likes lots of RAM.  Couldn't work out from what you said if you were on a HDD or SSD, but again recommended specs is SSD and if you are on a HDD think that will give you very slow loading times.

Would always recommend multi thread version as well if you can get it working ok, again these are big, complex missions with a lot going on so every bit of extra performance you can squeeze out will be beneficial.

[ChillNG]

 

[Jayhawk1971]

Ok, finally managed to finish mission 8. Holy cow, that was quite the step up in difficulty (IMO)!

Rewarding in the end, though, especially the Cerberus North callback /easter egg.

Here be spoilers:

Spoiler

Dealing with the SA-11, the Fire Can and those two pop-up SA-8's was a little much WRT to the weapon loadout. I suppose the first HARM is supposed to "miss" as per scripting (radar going dark - although in the debrief it seems Rotor's HARM did hit the SA-11 partially)? Defending against the SA-11 isn't easy either, due to its proximity. 

Anyway, after some unintentional trial-and-error, what I did was I used Rotor to suppress the SA-11 when it first popped up, then waited for it to appear again, immediately launched my AGM-88 and dove straight to the deck. Unfortunately, my HARM didn't do enough to get the SA-11 off the air, so I had to order Rotor to use his second HARM. 

Edit: on all previous attempts at that mission, my HARM killed the SA-11 every time. This time it must have missed (didn't get confirmation that it was off the air). Twice in previous attempts the SA-11 shot me down after I launched my HARM, third time I killed it and stayed alive, but I took too long to take out that Fire Can so the second flight member reported being hit. 

Then I decided to strafe the Fire Can to save my Mavericks. Oh, and I cheated a little and replaced the EO Mavs with IR (D) ones. The EO seem very unreliable to me ATM (not to mention shorter acquisition range than the D). 

Finally took out both SA-8's in that convoy, and made it back to Incirlik. Nice touch with that little dig at "Steep" (the "squadron members who provides history lectures every chance he gets"  ). I actually remembered the arrival procedure for Incirlik from Cerberus North. 

Any tips on how to do it differently, or how you have envisioned the mission to be played when you built it?

All in all, a rather tough but fun mission. Looking forward to mission 9 tonight. 

Edited November 15, 2023 by Jayhawk1971

[ChillNG]

32 minutes ago, Jayhawk1971 said:

Ok, finally managed to finish mission 8. Holy cow, that was quite the step up in difficulty (IMO)!

Rewarding in the end, though, especially the Cerberus North callback /easter egg.

Here be spoilers:

  Hide contents

Dealing with the SA-11, the Fire Can and those two pop-up SA-8's was a little much WRT to the weapon loadout. I suppose the first HARM is supposed to "miss" as per scripting (radar going dark - although in the debrief it seems Rotor's HARM did hit the SA-11 partially)? Defending against the SA-11 isn't easy either, due to its proximity. 

Anyway, after some unintentional trial-and-error, what I did was I used Rotor to suppress the SA-11 when it first popped up, then waited for it to appear again, immediately launched my AGM-88 and dove straight to the deck. Unfortunately, my HARM didn't do enough to get the SA-11 off the air, so I had to order Rotor to use his second HARM. 

Edit: on all previous attempts at that mission, my HARM killed the SA-11 every time. This time it must have missed (didn't get confirmation that it was off the air). Twice in previous attempts the SA-11 shot me down after I launched my HARM, third time I killed it and stayed alive, but I took too long to take out that Fire Can so the second flight member reported being hit. 

Then I decided to strafe the Fire Can to save my Mavericks. Oh, and I cheated a little and replaced the EO Mavs with IR (D) ones. The EO seem very unreliable to me ATM (not to mention shorter acquisition range than the D). 

Finally took out both SA-8's in that convoy, and made it back to Incirlik. Nice touch with that little dig at "Steep" (the "squadron members who provides history lectures every chance he gets"  ). I actually remembered the arrival procedure for Incirlik from Cerberus North. 

Any tips on how to do it differently, or how you have envisioned the mission to be played when you built it?

All in all, a rather tough but fun mission. Looking forward to mission 9 tonight. 

 

To be honest there's a bit of randomization at play so there's not always a 'set' way to approach these missions. 

Spoiler

That said the best way to handle the SA-11, but also difficult to execute correctly, is a pre-emptive HARM shot - firing somewhere around the 2 mins warning message from the GR4s.  That should hopefully take out the SA-11 and save Rotors HARMs for the SA-8s.  Things like radar shutdowns and how long they are off air are at time randomized, but can't remember exactly what I set for mission 8.  There's also an SA-11 at An Nasiriyah airbase so get out of position and enter it's MEZ and things get more lively - it's not always immediately obvious you've got 2 of them after you.

 

[Wiggo]

On 11/15/2023 at 3:54 PM, ChillNG said:

Hi thanks for all the feedback, option to have coloured dot labels has been added for next update.

Regarding HDD, actual mission memory size is pretty small, around 25mb IIRC, but as all these missions are quite big and complex I think you're system specs are causing you a few issues, although you're within the minimum RAM requirements for DCS, the recommended specs are really where you need to be for good performance, think most users would say 32GB is the ideal starting point these days, DCS likes lots of RAM.  Couldn't work out from what you said if you were on a HDD or SSD, but again recommended specs is SSD and if you are on a HDD think that will give you very slow loading times.

Would always recommend multi thread version as well if you can get it working ok, again these are big, complex missions with a lot going on so every bit of extra performance you can squeeze out will be beneficial.

Found reason. Had nothing to do with the campaing it self. Just had my virtual memory settings weirdly. Windows had put automatic pagefiling to drive F: instead of drive c : dunno why.. Pff. No wonder it snapcracklepops my computer if exceeding the RAM. Maby this mission was just first so big, after 2.9, in syria map, for me that I had never just noted that before, or then windows patches have done something weird. Or then it is just typical microsoft and it chooses in automatically pagefiling mode drive that just has most space. One more reason to use Linux-> one can make (and kinda needs to) own separate swap partitions... But yeah clearly got my "prob" solved.  

EDIT: I REALLY want to note that _in the end this had nothing to do with the wild weazel campaign  or even DCS_ (maximum: only if RAM usage has went higher with 2.9 but thats another case. It was just that I have only 20gb´s of ram and older GPU +CPU. Now campaing rolls amazing (for my computer) steady 29-30fps with ssao + sslr + msaa x2 and I have GTX 960 4gb XD. All the time i have felt stuttering and claimed about it around forums, has just been windows writing pagefiles to HDD instead of SSD. Stupid me. 

Edited November 16, 2023 by Wiggo

[flatdarkmars]

Overall I really enjoyed this campaign.  Great immersion, realism seems good, missions make sense.  Mission length and complexity were right on.  I'll definitely buy Part II when it comes out.

That said, there were a couple of minor issues that I did notice.  Spoilers hidden.

Spoiler

In Mission 10, the B-1s are attacking high (30k ft) and fast with JSOWs, so I'd think they'd be launching many miles from their targets.  But on my playthrough, it certainly looked like they directly overflew the target area, needlessly exposing themselves to AAA fire and defeating the point of JSOWs.  Taking out the Fire Can radar isn't a big deal, but the mission could have been written more plausibly, like if it was an SA-15 defending the target that could shoot down the JSOWs and therefore needed to be destroyed, or if the B-1s were carrying regular non-standoff bombs which required them to approach more closely.

In Mission 11, if you're pro-active and positively ID the MiGs with the TGP or NCTR while still BVR, it doesn't seem to accomplish anything practical in game terms.  I expect this might be a limitation of the DCS scripting/triggers system and not really an oversight in mission design, but the end result is that I still feel like this mission punishes the player for using all the tools in their toolbox.  Why risk an AA-11 to the face when you have such useful sensors?  Also, in the scoring guide, it just says 5 points for each "MiG-29 killed" but doesn't specify "by player"; but I definitely only get 95 points if my wingman kills one of the MiGs.  Not sure if this was intentional or not, but it makes getting 100 points pretty tough since the wingman is definitely no slouch.

In Mission 12 the altimeter setting voiceover says 29.60 while the subtitle shows the correct value, 29.80.  I'm pretty sure this happened at least one other time in the campaign but I forget which mission it was.  Not a big deal since I can always set my altimeter by the known airfield elevation during startup anyway.

Anyway once again this was a great campaign and I'm very happy that I played it.  Keep up the great work!

[ChillNG]

5 hours ago, flatdarkmars said:

Overall I really enjoyed this campaign.  Great immersion, realism seems good, missions make sense.  Mission length and complexity were right on.  I'll definitely buy Part II when it comes out.

That said, there were a couple of minor issues that I did notice.  Spoilers hidden.

  Hide contents

In Mission 10, the B-1s are attacking high (30k ft) and fast with JSOWs, so I'd think they'd be launching many miles from their targets.  But on my playthrough, it certainly looked like they directly overflew the target area, needlessly exposing themselves to AAA fire and defeating the point of JSOWs.  Taking out the Fire Can radar isn't a big deal, but the mission could have been written more plausibly, like if it was an SA-15 defending the target that could shoot down the JSOWs and therefore needed to be destroyed, or if the B-1s were carrying regular non-standoff bombs which required them to approach more closely.

In Mission 11, if you're pro-active and positively ID the MiGs with the TGP or NCTR while still BVR, it doesn't seem to accomplish anything practical in game terms.  I expect this might be a limitation of the DCS scripting/triggers system and not really an oversight in mission design, but the end result is that I still feel like this mission punishes the player for using all the tools in their toolbox.  Why risk an AA-11 to the face when you have such useful sensors?  Also, in the scoring guide, it just says 5 points for each "MiG-29 killed" but doesn't specify "by player"; but I definitely only get 95 points if my wingman kills one of the MiGs.  Not sure if this was intentional or not, but it makes getting 100 points pretty tough since the wingman is definitely no slouch.

In Mission 12 the altimeter setting voiceover says 29.60 while the subtitle shows the correct value, 29.80.  I'm pretty sure this happened at least one other time in the campaign but I forget which mission it was.  Not a big deal since I can always set my altimeter by the known airfield elevation during startup anyway.

Anyway once again this was a great campaign and I'm very happy that I played it.  Keep up the great work!

Thanks for the feedback and glad to hear you enjoyed the campaign!

Spoiler

The Migs could be Russian, which is why you're forced into visual range or need them to fire first.  I'll check the scoring, pretty sure it's set so it just needs the kill, would be unnecessarily complex to make it a player kill only trigger.