Mission 15 - Result of 50 even after being instructed to RTB

[Funky Monkey]

I played through mission 15 and ended up with a result of 50 even though I successfully RTB'd to Kutaisi after receiving the message "[Magic] Both bandits are down, good job.  Dodge 4, you may RTB.  Dodge 5, continue pressing." after killing 2 of the Su-27s and both of the MiG-29s.

I'm attaching the TacView for the playthrough.  I don't know how this mission is supposed to go, but I noticed that the dialogue instructs Dodge-5 to anchor 15 miles west of Gori.  In my playthrough, it looks like at this point Dodge-5 RTBs to Kutaisi instead of anchoring west of Gori.  Then later when the Su-24s come in from the northwest, Dodge-5 is not in the game anymore to kill them like the dialogue seems to indicate they should.  If mission success is tied to those Su-24s dying, then I guess that would be explain my insufficient result.

I ran through another playthrough, watching on live TacView, far enough to see that Dodge-5 went back to RTB at Kutaisi again instead of anchoring west of Gori, so the problem is at least consistent enough to have happened twice in a row for me.

Tacview-20241202-155714-DCS.zip.acmi

[baltic_dragon]

@feefifofum any thoughts on that?

[Funky Monkey]

I took one more stab at it and got through it successfully.  This time I got lots of dialogue while I was RTB that I didn't see in the previous playthrough.  I'm attaching the TacView for the successful playthrough in case there's something to be found via comparison.

I don't think I consciously did anything differently except maybe go a bit easier on the throttle on the way to WP2, anticipating that I might need to save fuel to chase down those Su-24s at the end myself.

Thanks for your support and for the great campaign.  I enjoyed it immensely.

Tacview-20241203-125206-DCS-F15C TGW M15.zip.acmi

[The Stick]

How many Flankers were there? If memory serves, for full points your element needs to splash all 4. Survivors would have a tendency of disengaging and retreating back back over the mountains into Russian airspace after the first pass - you might need lurk below the horizon and hit them again when they circle back - this can be tricky with dwindling fuel.

[Funky Monkey]

5 hours ago, The Stick said:

How many Flankers were there? If memory serves, for full points your element needs to splash all 4. Survivors would have a tendency of disengaging and retreating back back over the mountains into Russian airspace after the first pass - you might need lurk below the horizon and hit them again when they circle back - this can be tricky with dwindling fuel.

If you ever had to kill all the Flankers, I don't think you do now.  In my successful playthrough, there are still 2 of them flying around at mission end.  After killing the first 2, I got the message "[Magic] Dodge 4-1, the Flankers are bugging out.  Disengage and return on station, steer 2."

The biggest difference I can see in the TacView for the failed vs successful playthroughs is that in the failed one, the Dodge 5 flight RTB'd as soon as the Flankers got close even though it doesn't look like the Flankers shot at them, so they never engaged the Frogfoots or the Fencers.  In the successful one, Dodge 5 flight hung in even after getting shot at by the Flankers, and proceeded to engage both the Frogfoots and the Fencers.

[feefifofum]

On 12/3/2024 at 3:08 AM, Funky Monkey said:

I played through mission 15 and ended up with a result of 50 even though I successfully RTB'd to Kutaisi after receiving the message "[Magic] Both bandits are down, good job.  Dodge 4, you may RTB.  Dodge 5, continue pressing." after killing 2 of the Su-27s and both of the MiG-29s.

I'm attaching the TacView for the playthrough.  I don't know how this mission is supposed to go, but I noticed that the dialogue instructs Dodge-5 to anchor 15 miles west of Gori.  In my playthrough, it looks like at this point Dodge-5 RTBs to Kutaisi instead of anchoring west of Gori.  Then later when the Su-24s come in from the northwest, Dodge-5 is not in the game anymore to kill them like the dialogue seems to indicate they should.  If mission success is tied to those Su-24s dying, then I guess that would be explain my insufficient result.

I ran through another playthrough, watching on live TacView, far enough to see that Dodge-5 went back to RTB at Kutaisi again instead of anchoring west of Gori, so the problem is at least consistent enough to have happened twice in a row for me.

Tacview-20241202-155714-DCS.zip.acmi 12.06 MB · 5 downloads

That was bizarre indeed.

What is supposed to happen -

 

Spoiler

Your element engages the Flankers, the second element should engage the Frogfoots. After engaging the Frogfoots, the second element should be asked to return on station, then eventually be tasked to intercept a group of Fencers inbound near the coastline (which is the second batch of dialogue you got on your successful playthrough) The engagement is configured so that the second element does not have to kill all the Frogfoots, only one more in addition to the one shot down by MANPADS on the approach.

 

What happened in your provided playthrough was an issue that stemmed from my arguably crazy decision to have all the referenced events actually occur in-game. A MANPADS does engage the Frogfoots on ingress, and does kill one. During the aftermath of the evasion maneuvers they performed after the MANPADS downed the lead Frogfoot, a second Frogfoot performed a CFIT before the second element of F-15s could approach and engage them. The second dead aircraft triggered the Frogfoots to RTB, and AI did not pursue because they were already near the Russian border. Since they never entered the zone marking the area of engagement, their retreat wasn't registered to trigger the next batch of dialogue/events. This meant the second element of F-15s never got their next AI cues to hold/intercept, because the second batch of events is based on the end of the first batch. Comedy ensues, and it looks like the second element eventually just decided to go home and land which blocked the last bit of dialogue from occurring when they intercept and shoot down the Fencers.

 

Thanks for the report! Glad the Frogfoot pilots got it together to die properly on the second pass. I'll see if there's anything I can do to keep things moving along in the event this occurs again. It looks like enough other measurable events occurred that I could still build in some kind of contingency for this. Please let us know if anyone else experiences the same issue!

Edited December 24, 2024 by feefifofum

[Funky Monkey]

Thanks for the explanation.  That is certainly an entertaining chain of events.  You've enabled my software engineer brain to sleep a little easier at night.

Edited January 3 by Funky Monkey