Finished the campaign - My Conclusion

[TimSell75]

This was my second Ground Pounder Sim Campaign. I had previously played Persian Freedom for the A-10. In my opinion, Persian Freedom is the best campaign available for the A-10 right now. So that's why I saved Kerman for last among my Harrier campaigns. And I was not disappointed!

Ground Pounder finds the perfect sweet spot between "as realistic as possible" and "still manageable for someone without real combat pilot training." No other campaigns felt this "realistic." I've never been a combat pilot, so I probably can't judge it accurately. But I've listened to hundreds of hours of military podcasts and audiobooks, and no other campaign made the DCS experience feel as close to what you hear there.

One reason is that in Ground Pounder campaigns, you are just a part of the conflict and not the center of it. I've played other campaigns where you fly out, destroy 20 tanks single-handedly, land, rearm, and then destroy another 20 tanks. You basically win the war on your own, which is great for those who love action but absolutely unrealistic.

The best missions are those where nothing happens for an hour and then you drop one bomb on a target that you were detailed to by the JTAC. When you hear accounts from real combat pilots, this is more the reality, rather than returning from each mission as a superhero without weapons but with dozens of kills.

Additionally, the immersion is top-notch: FOB Juliet is designed with a lot of attention to detail. You can still see the burned-out tanks left over from the previous battle. I even had the impression that things on Juliet changed over the missions. The briefings, the story, the voiceovers, the characters are top class, and I was always excited to see how the story around DET B continued, almost like a little novel.

Criticisms:

There are actually none. But one point that I've noticed in other campaigns as well: I try to play as realistically as possible, so I do a cold start according to NATOPS guidelines. Unfortunately, there's never enough time for that if you have to meet a TOT target. In the Harrier, it takes about 20-25 minutes, but usually, only 10 minutes are given. So, a request: Please allow a bit more time for the cold start!

Something that was very unfortunate: I played the campaign at a time when DCS had changed or bugged the way wingmen respond to orders. This is absolutely not Ground Pounder's fault because I'm sure it worked flawlessly at the time of release. Especially in the second half of the campaign, you are almost reliant on the help of your wingman. Unfortunately, they currently do not respond to orders, leaving you on your own. This is particularly unfortunate because the one mission that worked as intended was pretty much the best thing I've experienced in DCS. I hope the bug gets fixed soon, then I will start the campaign again.

Edited May 21, 2024 by TimSell75

[ChillNG]

1 hour ago, TimSell75 said:

This was my second Ground Pounder Sim Campaign. I had previously played Persian Freedom for the A-10. In my opinion, Persian Freedom is the best campaign available for the A-10 right now. So that's why I saved Kerman for last among my Harrier campaigns. And I was not disappointed!

Ground Pounder finds the perfect sweet spot between "as realistic as possible" and "still manageable for someone without real combat pilot training." No other campaigns felt this "realistic." I've never been a combat pilot, so I probably can't judge it accurately. But I've listened to hundreds of hours of military podcasts and audiobooks, and no other campaign made the DCS experience feel as close to what you hear there.

One reason is that in Ground Pounder campaigns, you are just a part of the conflict and not the center of it. I've played other campaigns where you fly out, destroy 20 tanks single-handedly, land, rearm, and then destroy another 20 tanks. You basically win the war on your own, which is great for those who love action but absolutely unrealistic.

The best missions are those where nothing happens for an hour and then you drop one bomb on a target that you were detailed to by the JTAC. When you hear accounts from real combat pilots, this is more the reality, rather than returning from each mission as a superhero without weapons but with dozens of kills.

Additionally, the immersion is top-notch: FOB Juliet is designed with a lot of attention to detail. You can still see the burned-out tanks left over from the previous battle. I even had the impression that things on Juliet changed over the missions. The briefings, the story, the voiceovers, the characters are top class, and I was always excited to see how the story around DET B continued, almost like a little novel.

Criticisms:

There are actually none. But one point that I've noticed in other campaigns as well: I try to play as realistically as possible, so I do a cold start according to NATOPS guidelines. Unfortunately, there's never enough time for that if you have to meet a TOT target. In the Harrier, it takes about 20-25 minutes, but usually, only 10 minutes are given. So, a request: Please allow a bit more time for the cold start!

Something that was very unfortunate: I played the campaign at a time when DCS had changed or bugged the way wingmen respond to orders. This is absolutely not Ground Pounder's fault because I'm sure it worked flawlessly at the time of release. Especially in the second half of the campaign, you are almost reliant on the help of your wingman. Unfortunately, they currently do not respond to orders, leaving you on your own. This is particularly unfortunate because the one mission that worked as intended was pretty much the best thing I've experienced in DCS. I hope the bug gets fixed soon, then I will start the campaign again.

 

Hi, thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!

The cold start time is always a tricky one when doing TOTs, if you allow for an extra 15-20 mins those that do want to do the full startup then it will likely be a frustratingly long wait for those that like to do a more truncated cold start and get in the air faster (who i suspect are in the majority), hard one to call but something to think about it.

The wingman issues are seem to be dis-proportionally affecting you from what I've seen and heard.  This is what is known to the campaign devs as the 'stop follow bug', where DCS seems to almost skip/stutter past a flag that will release the wingman from the follow command.  It's not totally uncommon but it seems unusual that you saw it so much, especially with your system specs, we tend to see it on weaker systems when the CPU gets heavily loaded.  ED says it's isolated the issue so fingers crossed that is correct and it disappears soon.

 

[TimSell75]

vor 23 Stunden schrieb ChillNG:

Hi, thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!

The cold start time is always a tricky one when doing TOTs, if you allow for an extra 15-20 mins those that do want to do the full startup then it will likely be a frustratingly long wait for those that like to do a more truncated cold start and get in the air faster (who i suspect are in the majority), hard one to call but something to think about it.

The wingman issues are seem to be dis-proportionally affecting you from what I've seen and heard.  This is what is known to the campaign devs as the 'stop follow bug', where DCS seems to almost skip/stutter past a flag that will release the wingman from the follow command.  It's not totally uncommon but it seems unusual that you saw it so much, especially with your system specs, we tend to see it on weaker systems when the CPU gets heavily loaded.  ED says it's isolated the issue so fingers crossed that is correct and it disappears soon.

 

Yes, I tested very intensively. All missions from mission 5 onwards several times in both the single-thread and multi-thread version. Except for one attempt (out of approximately 30-40 attempts in total), my wingman did not respond to the commands and stubbornly stayed in formation. Unfortunately, I can't say what exactly was different about the one mission that worked. In all the attempts afterwards, I had the same problem again.