Mission 4 - SAMS and SU and BUFF's oh my

[speed-of-heat]

Ok... 

Spoiler

The BUFF's get way too close to launch their load and either get pasted by the SU27 or the SAMs f they launched at the same range as the hornets they would be fine 

The SU27 virtually unopposed because everyone is defensive 

my flight spends a huge track of time defensive and not actually engaging , even when they are not actually being fired on ... 

 

Edited December 14, 2024 by speed-of-heat

[speed-of-heat]

@SorelRonot sure if this is related 

 

[SorelRo]

The fix got unfixed and then it got fixed again and now it's unfixed..... Unfortunately I was away from my PC for the past  4 days. I'll test it most likely Monday evening PST and I'll report and try to escalate the bug. There will be another update in December, and hopefully the fix that will fix the unfixing will work.....maybe .... 

[speed-of-heat]

well at least it's consistent... i mean it's either fixed or not

[speed-of-heat]

@SorelRoOk after replaying this many ... many times... the issue seems not to be the SAM's but actually the J-11's or the F-15C's take your pick, the F-15's just don't engage the J-11's or not very well and certainly not early enough in one mission i saw them pickle their tanks at WP1, in my last mission they got 1 - 2 of the J-11's for a total of 3 slammers fired...  my "fix" was to load up with 4 120C's and fire of my 4 HARMS as soon as I got PGM2 then got my wingmen to engage the SU-27's alongside me (their parents have all been notified) I got 5 kills on the J-11's one with a gun and my 4 slammers all found a home... and we had 5 of the buff's actually make an attack and exfil.  

The issue seems to be a few  things:

1) The SAM's trigger completely defensive behaviour in nearly all the flights regardless of if they are actually threatened or not , which costs them energy and initiative and time 

2) meanwhile while they are all diving for the deck the J-11's slaughter the buff's and anyone silly enough to try and climb up to meet them from the deck, meanwhile the Buff's also get slaughtered 

3) the Eagles just don't engage (but 3 of them survived, 2 with a full set of Slammers and Sidewinders), and that can be said of Uzi 1-2-4 as well who all died very bravely for their country  2 of Uzi 2 survived and they either fired weapons or jettisoned them 

dragon 04.trk

[SorelRo]

You are right, not the way they were behaving when this was made, I'm working on a fix already. 

[speed-of-heat]

Thanks!

[gonvise]

Hello, first of all I want to say that I am completely sure that these missions worked in the DCS version when the campaign came out, but I have been through missions 3 and 4 without being able to finish them and I would like to know if I am doing something wrong. Without going any further, in mission 4, I locate the ships, using the HAD I fix several of their SAMs and I launch the HARMs at them, and I start to maneuver so that they keep launching me. So far, so good. Previously, just before starting the attack I had given the order of "mission and rejoin". Well, the entire flight is shot down except me. Even so, I understand that I have done my job, and I still have enough to shoot down two bandits... I rush out of there, but there is no longer any mission callouts, I arrive at the base, I land, 50%, mission not passed. What is the objective for the mission to appear as completed?

[speed-of-heat]

The mission objective is to get the buffs into range to fire, when you are firing your HARMS make sure you PGM2 (at least) on HAD before releasing them .  Most likely you are being launched at by J-11 , they will murder everyone unless you take them out

[gonvise]

52 minutes ago, speed-of-heat said:

The mission objective is to get the buffs into range to fire, when you are firing your HARMS make sure you PGM2 (at least) on HAD before releasing them .  Most likely you are being launched at by J-11 , they will murder everyone unless you take them out

Yes, PGM2 all 4 HARMS, I don't know who killed the rest of the flight, I was too pissed off to watch the debriefing ;-)... And I don't even know where the CAP was to deal with those J-11s.

[speed-of-heat]

As above , they don’t … @SorelRois working on a fix

It was likely the J-11’s who took out your wingmen, the harms almost never get through, they are there as a distraction really for the massed harpoon firing from the buffs 

[Gilligan]

Just plan on doing 90% if not 100% of the work yourself. HARM launch, weaseling, and clearing most of the enemy fighters. The ships are going to have most the allied flights going defensive the entire time. Launch harms. Get low and defend. Try and get an AIM120 Launch or two off each time you turn back hot then defend aggressively again.

 

If you fix a rough location of the ships on ingress, you can create a markpoint in that general area and then launch your harms in POS mode at that point as well. just make sure you have the HARM codes correct when you're setting up your jet. Its a little quicker than having to re-lock a radar emitter after each shot. 

 

EDIT: heres a tac view files of a success. I got 2 legitimate kills and one more where the J11 defended into the sea. 

Tacview-20241102-153008-DCS-F-16M4.zip.acmi

Edited December 19, 2024 by Gilligan

[speed-of-heat]

Yeah , I did that yesterday, but thanks for the tips

[SorelRo]

Shouldn't be like this the J-11 shouldn't be that much of a factor, I'll publish a fix soon and I'll make it available for your guys first, before it makes it to the main update. 

[Youtch]

What are the exact conditions to get a success in this mission?

 

I played this mission 4 times and I am getting at best DRAW, even if i shot my HARMs, forced the fleet to shoot a lot of missiles at me, and shot down 2 planes.

How many MR needs to be shot down to register a success?

[QuasarZero]

Same question above, what are the success conditions for M04 design script?

Cannot stop our PLAN Fleet only with those poor HARMs and Harpoons, it's mantis trying to stop a chariot completely, I know. However, destroying all flankers is feasible.

So, in the current DCS environment, is it possible to complete this mission? Even after 4 retries, the score is still 50, and I couldn't succeed. I am tired...

[SorelRo]

The BUFFs have to hit at least one ship. It's a game of math; if they don't launch enough SAMs towards you, they will have enough to take all the Harpoons off. If you are lucky enough to hit with your HARM that's even better. I'll test it tomorrow and see. But last update, the mission was working properly. This is about weaseling. Making them launch as many missiles towards you is key. Unless they changed something about how much ammo those Chinese ships have. I'll test it tomorrow and let you know. 

[SorelRo]

On 11/18/2025 at 8:13 PM, QuasarZero said:

Same question above, what are the success conditions for M04 design script?

Cannot stop our PLAN Fleet only with those poor HARMs and Harpoons, it's mantis trying to stop a chariot completely, I know. However, destroying all flankers is feasible.

So, in the current DCS environment, is it possible to complete this mission? Even after 4 retries, the score is still 50, and I couldn't succeed. I am tired...

I found the problem; some of the BUFFs are not launching when they have to. So 2 times out of 3 tests, at least for me. The mission did not work. I'll come up with an update in the next day or so, publish it here, and then include it in the next official update. 

 

Thanks for reporting it. 

Cheers, 

SorelRo 

[QuasarZero]

Thank you for taking the time to verify this issue. Respect your efforts! SorelRo.

 

Quote

The BUFFs have to hit at least one ship.

Is it about hitting but not destroying?

A few harpoons or harms managed to slip through the fleet's defenses, successfully infiltrating and hitting two Type 071 vessels.
Because the game didn't progress to the next stage for a long time, I opened F10 and noticed that the health bars of two Type 071 vessels were only half full.
I could confirm that two landing ships had been damaged, but no further plot triggers appeared.