Campaign Feedback

[ChillNG]

1 hour ago, PluckyUnderdog said:

Brilliant campaign. Just brilliant. Well designed, well scripted, superb voice acting, challenging without being frustrating. Just the right balance and a good advert for not having to AAR in the Viper, as I can't AAR full stop haha.

 

But once again, brilliant work. Looking forward to the next weasels camapign.

Thanks very much!  On the home stretch now for LOWOS, hopefully will be completed soon.

[sirrah]

Just flown mission 1 and 2 (have to redo mission 2 because I already died )

 

I just love the radio comms! All the proper ATC in this campaign is exactly what DCS core is lacking. I've done my fair share of DCS mission editing, so I can imagine what a massive work it must have been to add all the manual comms in these missions. Truly impressive!

(By the way: "Forrest's" voice really sounds a lot like Wags )

 

Only at mission 2 right now, but I already know I'm going to replay this one.

(And also the secret extra missions embedded into mission 1 )

[dggoofy]

Hi,

Just finish for 2 minutes this campaign and join here all reviewers.

Well, well, well mate. What could I add ?

It's just awesome.  Voice acting is just great. Each mission works perfectly. No issue at all. I not always understand why I lose some points, but as I don't care about point, just surviving the mission, it's fine.

The difficulty increases with each mission and, I must admit, the last 3 have been difficult for me. I had to play them twice at least. Again, it's fine.

Something to add ? Maybe one or 2 guys on the ground. I felt very lonely 

No problem I give you a 10/10.

Looking forward for the part II.

Cheers

[ChillNG]

5 hours ago, dggoofy said:

Hi,

Just finish for 2 minutes this campaign and join here all reviewers.

Well, well, well mate. What could I add ?

It's just awesome.  Voice acting is just great. Each mission works perfectly. No issue at all. I not always understand why I lose some points, but as I don't care about point, just surviving the mission, it's fine.

The difficulty increases with each mission and, I must admit, the last 3 have been difficult for me. I had to play them twice at least. Again, it's fine.

Something to add ? Maybe one or 2 guys on the ground. I felt very lonely 

No problem I give you a 10/10.

Looking forward for the part II.

Cheers

Thanks very much, glad you enjoyed!

[Gilligan]

Really enjoying the campaign, but I'm getting some really bad frame rate issues that are starting to make the missions unplayable. Particularly missions 8, 9.1, 9.2, and now 11 I'm getting frame rates in the single digits. Other missions tend to run in the 45-50 range, occasionally dropping to around 30, which is fine. But I can't really dodge SA11's over Damascus at low level with 7fps. I don't have any issues in any of the instant action missions, regular single missions, or multiplayer. All of that runs in the 90-140 FPS range. The Red Flag campaign I was in the 45-90 range on frames. I've tried turning down the textures and load distances however that doesn't seem to have any effect. Is there something going on that I am missing?

 

EDIT: For reference I'm using an i7-9700, 32gb RAM, x64 Win10, RTX 2070 Super. Game is installed on an M.2 2TB SSD.

CPU load during missions is about 55%, RAM at 65%, and GPU load is low at 10-15%. This is where I think the issue is, as in other single player missions and MP my CPU and RAM load is closer to 80-90%, and GPU is maxing out at 100%. So it's almost like something is stopping the campaign from using all the horse power available to it. Definitely seems weird.

 

Thanks.

Edited August 1, 2024 by Gilligan

[ChillNG]

8 hours ago, Gilligan said:

Really enjoying the campaign, but I'm getting some really bad frame rate issues that are starting to make the missions unplayable. Particularly missions 8, 9.1, 9.2, and now 11 I'm getting frame rates in the single digits. Other missions tend to run in the 45-50 range, occasionally dropping to around 30, which is fine. But I can't really dodge SA11's over Damascus at low level with 7fps. I don't have any issues in any of the instant action missions, regular single missions, or multiplayer. All of that runs in the 90-140 FPS range. The Red Flag campaign I was in the 45-90 range on frames. I've tried turning down the textures and load distances however that doesn't seem to have any effect. Is there something going on that I am missing?

 

EDIT: For reference I'm using an i7-9700, 32gb RAM, x64 Win10, RTX 2070 Super. Game is installed on an M.2 2TB SSD.

CPU load during missions is about 55%, RAM at 65%, and GPU load is low at 10-15%. This is where I think the issue is, as in other single player missions and MP my CPU and RAM load is closer to 80-90%, and GPU is maxing out at 100%. So it's almost like something is stopping the campaign from using all the horse power available to it. Definitely seems weird.

 

Thanks.

 

The last update hit performance really hard on heavier missions, seems to be something messing with CPU usage, causing you to be heavily CPU bound.

If you have TACVIEW installed then disable it for now, this has helped me massively.

[Gilligan]

4 hours ago, ChillNG said:

The last update hit performance really hard on heavier missions, seems to be something messing with CPU usage, causing you to be heavily CPU bound.

If you have TACVIEW installed then disable it for now, this has helped me massively.

Oh man that’s a bummer. Unfortunate because otherwise the campaign really is great. 
 

Okay, I do have tac view running so I’ll try that then. 
 

Thanks for the response. 

[ChillNG]

3 hours ago, Gilligan said:

Oh man that’s a bummer. Unfortunate because otherwise the campaign really is great. 
 

Okay, I do have tac view running so I’ll try that then. 
 

Thanks for the response. 

No problem, hopefully that makes it somewhat better.  A lot of us have found that makes it playable again, just waiting now on ED to patch the performance back to what it was.

[Gilligan]

It helped, but not significantly. Was able to ingress and hit the target, however it was running down into single digit frames by the time of the mission's "surprise."


Unfortunately I'll be shelving the campaign until something changes. Which is a shame because I was really enjoying it. 

 

[Istari6]

Just completed FIWOS last night.  Really appreciative of all the hard work that went into FIWOS!  I've now been flying DCS for 8 years (started with the P-51D in late 2016), and this might be the best campaign i've encountered yet.

I'm a fan of Reflected and Baltic Dragon's campaigns, but there was so much here that was new to me.  The ATC system, the scoring system, the political complexity of the theater, and most of all, the strong emphasis on realistic Weasel operations rather than doing a broader "sampler" of mission types.  

While others have already highlighted many points about this campaign, here are a few additional ones that resonated with me:

• The slow handover to memorization.  You start us out by walking through all ATC steps in detail, but by Mission 2 you begin giving us higher level tasks ("return to H4") and have the player practice the ATC techniques without holding our hand.  This was my first time working with a complex ATC system in DCS, and the learning curve was pitch perfect.
• Optional radio conversations.  I listened to each one, and I appreciated how they offered political background on the theater, while sometimes linking to upcoming operations and tactical considerations.  Created quite a bit of atmosphere, and the tension around the Russians was particularly compelling.
• The attention to detail in mission design.  See the Blackhawks taking off and circling in mission #04 while the SOF go in to secure the intelligence. It would have been easy to just have the Blackhawks land and disgorge the troops, waiting there until the end of the op.  But to have them take off and circle overhead in a protective overwatch, that was awesome to watch.
• Excellent voice acting.  Forrest sounded professional and slightly "techie", not a Top Gun stereotype macho warrior.  Popeye was outstanding as an experienced combat leader.  The accents for Jordanian & Turkish ATC, even the British accents in the CSAR mission really deepened the immersion.
• Cool "bonus" touches like the B-52 flying over, waggling wings as it passed in FIWOS #10.  Not needed for the mission, but added to the feel of being at the front-lines of a complex operation with many different units cooperating together.
• The IFR penetration following Devil 1-1 to Incirlik was a fun challenge.  The attention to detail with having the Duluth ANG Vipers forward deployed there with the correct skins (and the H4 det grumbling about the new guys getting better a posting) made that stop in Turkey quite memorable.

All in all, this was my first Ground Pounder campaign and I'm impressed.  I'll be buying Last In as soon as its released, and when I get around to the Hornet (probably next year), looking forward to experiencing Operation Cerberus North.  Thanks again for all the hard work on this excellent campaign.

 

Edited August 29, 2024 by Istari6

[ChillNG]

14 hours ago, Istari6 said:

Just completed FIWOS last night.  Really appreciative of all the hard work that went into FIWOS!  I've now been flying DCS for 8 years (started with the P-51D in late 2016), and this might be the best campaign i've encountered yet.

I'm a fan of Reflected and Baltic Dragon's campaigns, but there was so much here that was new to me.  The ATC system, the scoring system, the political complexity of the theater, and most of all, the strong emphasis on realistic Weasel operations rather than doing a broader "sampler" of mission types.  

While others have already highlighted many points about this campaign, here are a few additional ones that resonated with me:

• The slow handover to memorization.  You start us out by walking through all ATC steps in detail, but by Mission 2 you begin giving us higher level tasks ("return to H4") and have the player practice the ATC techniques without holding our hand.  This was my first time working with a complex ATC system in DCS, and the learning curve was pitch perfect.
• Optional radio conversations.  I listened to each one, and I appreciated how they offered political background on the theater, while sometimes linking to upcoming operations and tactical considerations.  Created quite a bit of atmosphere, and the tension around the Russians was particularly compelling.
• The attention to detail in mission design.  See the Blackhawks taking off and circling in mission #04 while the SOF go in to secure the intelligence. It would have been easy to just have the Blackhawks land and disgorge the troops, waiting there until the end of the op.  But to have them take off and circle overhead in a protective overwatch, that was awesome to watch.
• Excellent voice acting.  Forrest sounded professional and slightly "techie", not a Top Gun stereotype macho warrior.  Popeye was outstanding as an experienced combat leader.  The accents for Jordanian & Turkish ATC, even the British accents in the CSAR mission really deepened the immersion.
• Cool "bonus" touches like the B-52 flying over, waggling wings as it passed in FIWOS #10.  Not needed for the mission, but added to the feel of being at the front-lines of a complex operation with many different units cooperating together.
• The IFR penetration following Devil 1-1 to Incirlik was a fun challenge.  The attention to detail with having the Duluth ANG Vipers forward deployed there with the correct skins (and the H4 det grumbling about the new guys getting better a posting) made that stop in Turkey quite memorable.

All in all, this was my first Ground Pounder campaign and I'm impressed.  I'll be buying Last In as soon as its released, and when I get around to the Hornet (probably next year), looking forward to experiencing Operation Cerberus North.  Thanks again for all the hard work on this excellent campaign.

 

 

Thanks very much, appreciate the detailed comments and great to hear you enjoyed the campaign!

[Gilligan]

On 8/26/2024 at 3:13 PM, Gilligan said:

It helped, but not significantly. Was able to ingress and hit the target, however it was running down into single digit frames by the time of the mission's "surprise."


Unfortunately I'll be shelving the campaign until something changes. Which is a shame because I was really enjoying it. 

 

after the last update performance has increased threefold. Which means I'm getting 30fps over damascus instead of 10 for mission 11, making it at least playable. Was able to complete the mission this way. 

Little bug, I killed one mig but the second de-spawned moments before my aim9 hit it, so didn't get the points there. A little frustrating but oh well. 

Edited October 8, 2024 by Gilligan

[Gilligan]

Okay, so now that I was able to get the campaign finished and had a couple days to remember and digest everything, I wanted to go over the campaign some, mostly for my own purposes but hopefully there is something useful in the following paragraphs for the developers as well.

 

First off, wow. What an incredible campaign, absolutely stellar job from a design standpoint. Overall each mission was engaging and I will definitely be playing through again in the future to attempt a perfect score, but for now I'm just happy to have survived everything, accomplished the main objectives, and come away with a decent score in the end. Difficulty progression through the course of the campaign was good and expectations were realistic but also demanding enough that sometimes I doubted if I was up to each task. There aren't many full campaigns available for the viper at the time of writing this, but of those available I have no doubts that this is the best one, especially when compared against the other "weasel" oriented campaign available. This definitely gave me a new appreciation for the weasel mission, and I think I may just have caught the "Bug" for it in game.  Actual bugs in the campaign were very limited, which is more than I can say vs some other paid campaigns. The only one I actually encountered was during mission 4 when one of the Blackhawks wigged out and crashed into a tree. I don't think this was meant to happen and it definitely caught me off guard but didn't count against me in the end. Otherwise this was actually a really fun mission to fly, watching the SOF team do their thing on the TPOD was super cool.

The campaign really picks up the pace during mission 6, Metro Indigo. I really enjoyed this one as well as Mission 7 - another low level ingress and pop-up attack, this time against an SA6 battery. Mission 8 was another really demanding flight, and I thought I had really screwed up when the Tornado was shot down, but now I know this is basically a scripted action and there wasn't anything I could have done to prevent it. Missions 9 and 10 I consider essentially a single mission in two parts, and Weaseling at night definitely required some extra attention and added yet another level of difficulty. Another very demanding flight that I was happy to have completed. Mission 11 is where I had to shelve the campaign initially for performance issues, however, after a recent update performance was improved enough that I was able to fly and complete the mission successfully. Dodging SAMs over Damascus was absolutely terrifying, and the "surprise" at the end was even more stressful. I did get one of the Migs, however one of the one "despawned" on me moments before my missile hit it. I understand why this happened, but it was a little bit silly. Mission 12 was probably the ultimate weasel mission, escorting and entire strike package over SAM infested airspace and knocking out threats as they popped up. Watching the hornets send their Volley of Harms was Incredible, and I managed to form up with one of the B1's was it dropped it's payload. Just super cool and a lot of fun. Some of the missions I was able to complete first try, and others took several attempts, however each time I was shot down or damaged I learned from it, and was much less likely to make that mistake again.

I really enjoyed the "dynamic" mission dialog options where-by you could direct your wingman to engage specific threats, how the SAM sites reacted to those actions, and how that forced you to think and make decisions regarding those threats and how they might react to being engaged. This really made me feel like the choices I made were important, if not to the overall arc of the campaign then at least important to how I was able to complete missions successfully, or not. This interactive system was really cool and added tremendous depth to the experience. 

 

All in all, absolutely tremendous work - congrats to the Devs for putting this one together. A very fun campaign and I am looking forward to part 2. 

[ChillNG]

9 hours ago, Gilligan said:

Okay, so now that I was able to get the campaign finished and had a couple days to remember and digest everything, I wanted to go over the campaign some, mostly for my own purposes but hopefully there is something useful in the following paragraphs for the developers as well.

 

First off, wow. What an incredible campaign, absolutely stellar job from a design standpoint. Overall each mission was engaging and I will definitely be playing through again in the future to attempt a perfect score, but for now I'm just happy to have survived everything, accomplished the main objectives, and come away with a decent score in the end. Difficulty progression through the course of the campaign was good and expectations were realistic but also demanding enough that sometimes I doubted if I was up to each task. There aren't many full campaigns available for the viper at the time of writing this, but of those available I have no doubts that this is the best one, especially when compared against the other "weasel" oriented campaign available. This definitely gave me a new appreciation for the weasel mission, and I think I may just have caught the "Bug" for it in game.  Actual bugs in the campaign were very limited, which is more than I can say vs some other paid campaigns. The only one I actually encountered was during mission 4 when one of the Blackhawks wigged out and crashed into a tree. I don't think this was meant to happen and it definitely caught me off guard but didn't count against me in the end. Otherwise this was actually a really fun mission to fly, watching the SOF team do their thing on the TPOD was super cool.

The campaign really picks up the pace during mission 6, Metro Indigo. I really enjoyed this one as well as Mission 7 - another low level ingress and pop-up attack, this time against an SA6 battery. Mission 8 was another really demanding flight, and I thought I had really screwed up when the Tornado was shot down, but now I know this is basically a scripted action and there wasn't anything I could have done to prevent it. Missions 9 and 10 I consider essentially a single mission in two parts, and Weaseling at night definitely required some extra attention and added yet another level of difficulty. Another very demanding flight that I was happy to have completed. Mission 11 is where I had to shelve the campaign initially for performance issues, however, after a recent update performance was improved enough that I was able to fly and complete the mission successfully. Dodging SAMs over Damascus was absolutely terrifying, and the "surprise" at the end was even more stressful. I did get one of the Migs, however one of the one "despawned" on me moments before my missile hit it. I understand why this happened, but it was a little bit silly. Mission 12 was probably the ultimate weasel mission, escorting and entire strike package over SAM infested airspace and knocking out threats as they popped up. Watching the hornets send their Volley of Harms was Incredible, and I managed to form up with one of the B1's was it dropped it's payload. Just super cool and a lot of fun. Some of the missions I was able to complete first try, and others took several attempts, however each time I was shot down or damaged I learned from it, and was much less likely to make that mistake again.

I really enjoyed the "dynamic" mission dialog options where-by you could direct your wingman to engage specific threats, how the SAM sites reacted to those actions, and how that forced you to think and make decisions regarding those threats and how they might react to being engaged. This really made me feel like the choices I made were important, if not to the overall arc of the campaign then at least important to how I was able to complete missions successfully, or not. This interactive system was really cool and added tremendous depth to the experience. 

 

All in all, absolutely tremendous work - congrats to the Devs for putting this one together. A very fun campaign and I am looking forward to part 2. 

Thanks very much for the detailed feedback, that was great to hear.  Hopefully you'll like part 2 even more!

[sirrah]

My campaign pace is a bit slow, due to real life time commitments, but this campaign is awesome. Probably one of the best campaings I've played so far! It is challenging, yet not too dificult (although reaching a 100 score is tough). The radio comms and all the AI traffic, make it very alive and compelling.

I just flew mission 8, which definitely is in the top 3 of best DCS experiences I've ever had!

Spoiler

At some point my wingman said something like "I can see through an opening in the cloud deck, that there's still smoke coming from target Metro". And there was indeed at that point a small opening in the cloud deck and I could see smoke on the ground. Amazing stuff!
Getting diverted was also very cool. I had to get some gas first from the tanker and then joined up with Devil and followed him all the way to Incirlik.

Perhaps a tiny bit of feedback for mission 8:

Spoiler

When we cam close to Incirlik, Devil descended to 15.000ft which was right in the middle of the clouds. It was therefor very difficult to follow him (especially as he also made a turn in the clouds. I had to lock him up on radar, in order to follow him. perhaps making him descent to just below the clouds, would be better for this mission. Just a minor comment on, what still is, brilliant mission.

 

 

 

 

[Gilligan]

On 10/12/2024 at 1:20 AM, ChillNG said:

Thanks very much for the detailed feedback, that was great to hear.  Hopefully you'll like part 2 even more!

I'm 3 missions in so far, but preliminary impression is that this one is a banger. Great work.

[ChillNG]

19 minutes ago, Gilligan said:

I'm 3 missions in so far, but preliminary impression is that this one is a banger. Great work.

Thanks!  Glad you're enjoying!

[Gilligan]

Mission 4 I was getting some weird blue artifacting on the bottom of the clouds at 25k. Might just be a DCS thing with the fog update?

Ulimately no impact on the mission playing out but it was weird. 

[ChillNG]

21 minutes ago, Gilligan said:

Mission 4 I was getting some weird blue artifacting on the bottom of the clouds at 25k. Might just be a DCS thing with the fog update?

Ulimately no impact on the mission playing out but it was weird. 

Yeah I think it will be, I've heard of some weird graphical glitches here and there since the update.