Afghan War: "Szatan Arba" campaign

[Raffi75]

13 hours ago, unlikely_spider said:

Trying to prioritize the targets that Petrovich gives me - what is a good resource for me to know what common ground units would be named that I am likely to encounter?

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3312065/

I hope that's what you meant.

Edited May 15 by Raffi75

[unlikely_spider]

43 minutes ago, Raffi75 said:

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3312065/

I hope that's what you meant.

I'll take a look at this, thank you.

I assume most of the enemies' air defenses in this campaign will be of Soviet origin? Or is that not accurate?

Edited May 15 by unlikely_spider

[Fynek]

Great campaign, thoroughly enjoyed it, thank you very much for all these hours of enjoyment. 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

I just finished this campaign, and if you're open to it, here's some constructive feedback (forgive me if I come across as blunt but I prefer clear communication):

Pro:

Spoiler

- Great mission variety;
- You get to use all different types of weapons that Mi-24 can use, which is great for gameplay;
- Petrovich's playlist is awesome, and it's a really good idea to have music playing during some aspects of the flight in a way that is lore-friendly.
- The mission difficulty was perfect: easy enough to allow you to progress without issues and hard enough to force you to pay attention to what you're doing. Some of the hardest aspects of the campaign was actually finding the enemy. At least spotting dots are a huge help (and actually pretty mandatory in VR if you're like me and don't use labels).

Cons:

Spoiler

- The excessive handholding really was annoying;
- There is a ton of redundant communication that serves no purpose other than repeating what you already know (both by Petrovich and Mission Command);
- Petrovich could at least pretend Alex is a somewhat seasoned pilot who knows what he's doing;
- Missions 2 and 18 are not VR-friendly. Mission 2 buried me up to my neck in sand (after I had to take off my headset and walk over to my PC to turn off the floating info bar) and the interdimensional scrolls of text made me nauseous. So I quit the mission, which ended up with a Mission Fail and bumped me back to mission 1. In order to fix that, I had to do significant manual edits in the logbook LUA.
- Speaking of interdimensional scrolls of text: the on-screen messages and profile pictures next to dialogue are probably meant to be a throwback to the sims of the '90s and invoke positive feelings and a cinematic atmosphere, but in VR they have the opposite effect. Those pictures clip through the cockpit and are immensely immersion-breaking, and thus a problem in VR. The major benefit of VR is immersion, after all. At least I was able to quit Mission 18 after a few seconds without a Mission Fail status...
- Command ordering me to use the "F10 radio" and "auto stop" are also annoying immersion-breakers, especially with those keyboard keys hovering in front of your face.
- In most missions the AI wingmen are completely worthless. They refuse to "engage air defences" and "engage targets of opportunity" and only react to the "engage primary and rejoin" order. And even then they often just fly around (or hover) with their finger up their bum without contributing to the mission. Luckily the missions don't break when you fly to a FARP and re-arm - but the mission where you had to destroy the convoy that ambushed your friends was a close call since not all of my 9M114s managed to destroy their targets so I had to run in with the cannon in near pitch black conditions to finish off multiple (smoking but not completely destroyed) vehicles - on my own since my wingman clearly had more important things to do than helping me out.
- Missions that have you follow AI helicopters around are set at an airspeed that is MUCH too low (which in a Mi-24 reduces fuel efficiency - quite ironic if you're given external tanks). 140-150kph indicated is far below optimal cruise speed (for both Mi-8 and Mi-24).
- Punctuation could be improved during dialogue. Minor point I know, but a pet peeve of mine. Wrong punctuation completely changes the meaning of a sentence.

Overall:

Spoiler

 There were enough positives about the campaign to make me glad I played through it to the end, but also enough negatives to prevent me from wanting to go through it again at a later date.
I got to use the cluster container and R-60 which I hadn't used before on Mi-24. The slingload mission was fine too from a gameplay perspective but makes little sense from a lore-perspective: why slingload with a Mi-24 when you have Mi-8s at your base who can simply load it into the cargo hold (a 1000kg load fits perfectly well inside a Mi-8). I don't remember the mission given a lore-friendly explanation for that but perhaps I missed it.

A little story from my experience:

Spoiler

- During the night mission where you have to land on the small platform on the hilltop (as extra objective after shooting down the UH-1s I think it was), I approached carefully and I must have overtorqued the rotor since suddenly it started drooping and I lost both generators. I had to abort the landing, go around and lose some altitude to regain speed without crashing, but I managed to land on the tiny platform smoothly without generators and thus without the pitch/roll/yaw dampers ("autopilot"). At that weight, in the dark, in the mountains it gave me a decent sense of achievement   I got the generators back up and running while waiting for the troops to load so it was probably due to my mistake and not due to battle damage from the UH-1 M-60s.

Closing thought: clearly a lot of effort went into making this campaign, so I thank you for that and wouldn't mind seeing more in the future IF they are a bit more VR-friendly  
 

Edited July 28 by Raven (Elysian Angel)
typo

[YoYo]

37 minutes ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

I just finished this campaign....

Thanks. It's nice to read about the pros and cons. As for VR, I'm actually flying in VR only too (from few years, I hate 2D now ), so it's a matter of taste. I remember that your cockpit seems to be designed that you can see the keyboard from a distance, so this can sometimes be a problem in campaigns (sometimes you have to operate the radio yourself, by pressing the spacebar, or something else). It's a matter of personal preference. Thank you for your feedback, and congratulations on completing the campaign!

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

2 minutes ago, YoYo said:

It's a matter of personal preference.

It definitely is, and what works for one person might annoy another. As I said you have my thanks for giving me an excuse for spending many hours in my beloved Mi-24 (I liked the mission length btw).
The idea behind the missions was great and the objectives made sense. I wouldn't mind buying Petrovich a beer so he could give/borrow me a cassette with his playlist  

[MAXsenna]

It definitely is, and what works for one person might annoy another. As I said you have my thanks for giving me an excuse for spending many hours in my beloved Mi-24 (I liked the mission length btw).
The idea behind the missions was great and the objectives made sense. I wouldn't mind buying Petrovich a beer so he could give/borrow me a cassette with his playlist  

I use VoiceAttack for pressing the spacebar.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

16 minutes ago, MAXsenna said:

I use VoiceAttack for pressing the spacebar.
 

I have a Razer Tartarus V2 next to my trackball. It is fully programmable so I use that for most DCS commands that are there to interact with the game - and not for whichever aircraft you're in: that's where the control panels etc come in. We all have our own solutions. If some people don't mind using a keyboard, good for them.