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A10C campaign: The Enemy Within


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This is a 7-mission, story driven campaign taking place in 2015 in Georgia. A squad of A10s is sent to Kobuleti by NATO in order to help the Georgian government tackle the rising terrorist threat...

 

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THE STORY SO FAR

 

Fall 2014

 

Georgia is granted NATO Membership Action Plan at the summit in Wales.

 

November 2014

 

Russian Ambassador to NATO, Aleksandr Grushko, warns that any expansion of the Alliance to the East will be seen as a direct threat to Russia.

 

Suicide bomber kills 45 people and wounds 112 during a concert in Freedom Square in Tblisi. A previously unknown organisation calling itself 'Caucaus Liberation Army (CLA)' claims responsibility for the attack.

 

December 2014

 

Two bombs explode during a friendly football match between Georgia and Armenia in Tblisi, attended by the presidents of both nations. 24 people are killed, at least 50 wounded. CLA warns that this is just the beginning of their campaign, though refuses to state its goals.

January 2015

 

Russia strengthens its forces in North Caucasus in response to the "imminent terrorist threat", claiming links between CLA and the Caucasus Emirate.

 

A few rockets are shot at Georgian military base in the north of the country. 3 soldiers are wounded.

 

February 2015

 

Another two CLA attacks claim lives of 25 people. Georgian authorities ask NATO for assistance.

 

March 2015

 

Georgian Mi8 is shot down in the mountains north of Tblisi. Georgian military claims that the terrorists are establishing bases near the border with Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Border Police arrests more than 100 illegal immigrants trying to enter the country from Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia, some of them of Lebanese origin, many carrying weapons and explosives.

 

Without official NATO decision being taken, US President decides to support the Georgians with the squadron of A10C's from the 74th Flying Tigers. 8 planes are scheduled to land in Kobuleti Airbase on March 29th.

 

AUTHOR'S NOTE

 

 

This is the first stage of a longer campaign, where player lands in Georgia as a part of small US Airforce detachment. The campaign is focused on realism and does not involve huge air or land battles - the main enemy being lightly armed terrorists and insurgents. However it offers 7 varied missions with a continuous storyline and evolving situation.

 

The difficulty level is not high and this part of the campaign is linear (with exception of one mission). It is not about very intense combat, as the main threat (at this stage, at least) are terrorists and insurgents - but can be challenging at times.

 

NOTE: as part of realism setting, I am using "radio transmit" instead of "message to.." system within the missions. The difference is that unless you don't have your radio tuned in to correct frequency (and you are in range, which is important in some of the missions), you won't hear your orders!

 

I've used text-to-speech program for all the messages, but the final result is much better than one can expect from this kind of program. Check for yourselves!

 

Please report any questions / issues / bugs here or via PM.

 

Also, should after playing you would be interested with preparing a second part of the campaign (by play-testing some of the missions), let me know!

 

Hope you like it. Enjoy!

 

 

LINK TO THE FILE (version 1.21)

RalfiDude's

from one of the missions
Edited by baltic_dragon
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Nice job

 

I haven't played it yet, but took a look through the ME...

 

Nice campaign. No spoliers, but some of my own thoughts for your next update if any.

 

I'd add some RU flights/SAM sites to the first couple of missions on their side of the border/international limits. You have to figure that they would be interested in showing the flag just as much as the blue side. Even if on a "low key" aspect. If they can force the Blue side off their game all the better.

 

To a Hog pilot, the constant chirping in their ear of search radars will be an added touch of realism. "What have they gotten me into..."

 

I'd also add some static C-130/C17 birds on the tarmac at Kobuleti. 8 A-10C's are going to need some maintenance personnel, engines, weapons, etc.

 

Nice job.

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I haven't played it yet, but took a look through the ME...

 

Nice campaign. No spoliers, but some of my own thoughts for your next update if any.

 

I'd add some RU flights/SAM sites to the first couple of missions on their side of the border/international limits. You have to figure that they would be interested in showing the flag just as much as the blue side. Even if on a "low key" aspect. If they can force the Blue side off their game all the better.

 

To a Hog pilot, the constant chirping in their ear of search radars will be an added touch of realism. "What have they gotten me into..."

 

I'd also add some static C-130/C17 birds on the tarmac at Kobuleti. 8 A-10C's are going to need some maintenance personnel, engines, weapons, etc.

 

Nice job.

 

Thanks bdlarkin!

 

In the first mission, there are some C-130s which brought the personnel and equipment, they also appear in later missions as more assets are coming from home. But perhaps I should make the airport more alive before each combat sortie :)

 

As for the RU flights / SAMs, it works exactly as you've described in one of the later missions (6th I believe).. since Russia is not officially involved in the conflict (don't want to spoil anything, so I'd only say - at this stage at least, but everything is nicely explained in the briefings) it is not that important in the first missions. But I like your way of thinking and I will use this more in the second part of the campaign (working on it as we speak).

 

Let me know what you think once you play it through!

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Ok, here is my take on one of the missions. I could never get it to complete beyond JTAC telling me I'm hot shit and my presence is all but too much for a peasant such as him but whatever, I got the gist of it.

 

 

Awesome video! I have to admit, when testing it I dived so hard into action only once... and it didn't end too well :music_whistling: Great choice of music, too. Thanks!

 

Enjoying this one very much. :)

Thanks for your work.

 

By the way, which text-to-speech program did you use?

Seems really good.

 

I used two, for player and wingmen I've used Oddcast, for Overlord and some ground forces - Ivona. The key here is to adapt the dialogues to the way the program reads, and not always make him read what you want. So I ended up re-writing parts of dialogues for the sake of them sounding better. For instance, both programmes hate pronouncing word "Georgian" for some reason... :smilewink:

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  • 2 weeks later...
Enjoying this one very much thank you.

only thing when i fail a mission i must replay previous one??

 

Hmm, true - this is how the campaign works, if you get below 50 points you go one step back. Actually what I should do for the missions in this type of campaign is to start with 50 poits whatever happens - that way even if you fail, you will just replay the same one. Thanks for this comment, I will try to change it in this part and I will definetely keep this in mind for the second one I am building.

 

Also, remember that in order to actually pass the missions, you have to land in the end, as it normally grants points enough to do so.

 

Glad you are enjoying it!

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Hi Baltic_Dragon,

 

I would like to thank you for this mini-campaign, lots of ful 'til now (mission 3 done actually)

 

If you didn't know, the famous "Ralfi_Dude" made a video with one of your's mission ;)

 

 

Hey, I've seen it - couldn't imagine a better promotion for the campaign ;) I am working on the second part that will have branching missions and - if all goes well - real voiceovers (points fingers at pilots from 319th Avenging Angels vFighter Wing :thumbup:)

 

JaBoG32 - I am not in front of my PC now, will only be able to point you there tomorrow, unless someone can help you before that.

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Sorry, but how do I install tis campaign.? Dunno where to copy the files? :helpsmilie:

 

The most reliable way should be to put the campaign files in your A-10C Campaigns folder. In my case, the path is:

 

C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Mods\aircrafts\A-10C\Missions\EN\Campaigns

 

I just extracted the entire folder "A10C The enemy within part 1" from the ZIP-archive to that location and now the campaign shows up in my list of A-10C campaigns. :thumbup:

 

In theory, it should be easier to copy campaign files to Saved Games\DCS, but in most cases, campaigns I copy to that folder don't show up in DCS under the Campaign's "User" tab. :(

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Fnished it yesterday, the last one is soooooo haaarddddd :pilotfly: :joystick: :D

 

Can't wait for the second release !! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

 

Many thanks again !

 

2nd part in production - 3 missions complete (out of around 12 planned). It will take some time, but there should be some surprises waiting for you once finished :)

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Glad to hear that! Let me know how it feels further down the road!

 

I just finished the last mission. It's an awesome campaign, outstanding job! Can't wait for the second part. :thumbup:

 

I really liked the level of detail in the briefings and the way that the story progressed throughout the campaign. The text-to-speech software did a pretty good job, and if you manage to get native speakers for the next part it's only going to be even better. :)

 

One thing that was a bit annoying was that the campaign progress jumped back one mission after a failed one. I ended up editing my logbook in such cases because I didn't feel like repeating a successful mission just because I'd failed the next one.

 

Especially towards the end of the campaign I had a few issues with some of the missions:

 

 

 

I think in Operation Hammerfall 2 there were a TGM-65D and a CAP-9M loaded, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

In Operation Hammerfall 3 the JTAC acted weird. The first target he assigned to me was the SAM unit, just like the briefing demanded. But after that, the JTAC insisted I destroy vehicles from an attack heading of 120-300 but never cleared me hot when I came in with a heading anywhere between 120 and 300 (*).

But even after three vehicles were destroyed (I could never spot more than these three vehicles inside the camp), the JTAC insisted not all vehicles were destroyed and didn't assign new targets. I sort of suspect the JTAC counted the bunker entrances as "vehicles", but I never got far enough to be sure about that.

 

Accompanying the JTAC problems were my wingmen that either didn't attack anything after the SAM was destroyed or they got themselves killed.

I finally managed to get through the mission by loading my A-10 up with 6 Mavs and 4 JDAMs, ignoring the JTAC altogether and taking care of everything with the superb standoff-capabilities of these weapons - dropping 3 GBU-38s from 22,000 ft on markpoints in quick succession felt kind of rewarding during my third attempt on the mission. :)

 

The final mission is not that hard in itself, but the choice of weapons and wingman stupidity make it a lot harder. I completely failed on my first attempt. On the second attempt, I loaded the Hog up with my usual load of 6 Mavs and some JDAMs. I took 3 Mavs back home and ended up dropping the JDAMs on the surprise target where they came in very handy (once more ignoring the JTACs request for gun runs that close to the border).

 

I think in a two to three player coop scenario, the choice of weapons would be okay, but the wingman AI and potential JTAC hiccups make the missions a bit harder than (I think) they're supposed to be.

 

(*) Attack heading 120-300 means I'm supposed to fly between 120 and 300 degrees during the run-in, doesn't it? Otherwise, I might have done something wrong.

 

 

 

But other than that, it's really a great campaign and as I said I can't wait for part 2! :thumbup:

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I just finished the last mission. It's an awesome campaign, outstanding job! Can't wait for the second part. :thumbup:

 

I really liked the level of detail in the briefings and the way that the story progressed throughout the campaign. The text-to-speech software did a pretty good job, and if you manage to get native speakers for the next part it's only going to be even better. :)

 

One thing that was a bit annoying was that the campaign progress jumped back one mission after a failed one. I ended up editing my logbook in such cases because I didn't feel like repeating a successful mission just because I'd failed the next one.

 

Especially towards the end of the campaign I had a few issues with some of the missions:

 

 

 

I think in Operation Hammerfall 2 there were a TGM-65D and a CAP-9M loaded, which doesn't make a lot of sense.

 

In Operation Hammerfall 3 the JTAC acted weird. The first target he assigned to me was the SAM unit, just like the briefing demanded. But after that, the JTAC insisted I destroy vehicles from an attack heading of 120-300 but never cleared me hot when I came in with a heading anywhere between 120 and 300 (*).

But even after three vehicles were destroyed (I could never spot more than these three vehicles inside the camp), the JTAC insisted not all vehicles were destroyed and didn't assign new targets. I sort of suspect the JTAC counted the bunker entrances as "vehicles", but I never got far enough to be sure about that.

 

Accompanying the JTAC problems were my wingmen that either didn't attack anything after the SAM was destroyed or they got themselves killed.

I finally managed to get through the mission by loading my A-10 up with 6 Mavs and 4 JDAMs, ignoring the JTAC altogether and taking care of everything with the superb standoff-capabilities of these weapons - dropping 3 GBU-38s from 22,000 ft on markpoints in quick succession felt kind of rewarding during my third attempt on the mission. :)

 

The final mission is not that hard in itself, but the choice of weapons and wingman stupidity make it a lot harder. I completely failed on my first attempt. On the second attempt, I loaded the Hog up with my usual load of 6 Mavs and some JDAMs. I took 3 Mavs back home and ended up dropping the JDAMs on the surprise target where they came in very handy (once more ignoring the JTACs request for gun runs that close to the border).

 

I think in a two to three player coop scenario, the choice of weapons would be okay, but the wingman AI and potential JTAC hiccups make the missions a bit harder than (I think) they're supposed to be.

 

(*) Attack heading 120-300 means I'm supposed to fly between 120 and 300 degrees during the run-in, doesn't it? Otherwise, I might have done something wrong.

 

 

 

But other than that, it's really a great campaign and as I said I can't wait for part 2! :thumbup:

 

I am glad you liked it :thumbup:

 

About the progress, I got that feedback before and that won't be happening in the 2nd part - doesn't really make much sense in a story-driven campaign, and I found a way not to get rid of that (and only to repeat a mission in case of pilot's death).

 

As for the other issues, I will respond in a spoiler below:

 

 

 

Loadout in Hammerfall 2 - didn't notice that before, I will fix it. Thanks.

 

As for AI and JTAC in Hammerfall 3 - there are three options I had as regard JTAC, all of them had their flaws:

 

A) Forget about JTAC and just give more information in briefings / messages during the flight

B) Prepare all the info from JTAC in form of transmission to player (i.e. create and record messages and orders and forget about the AI JTAC). This is very time consuming and will always miss part of fun you can have using the AI JTAC.

C) Use AI JTAC with all its flaws. I know he goes dumb sometimes or asks you totally unreasonable things, but there is no way I can influence him other than setting up type of munitions he will ask the player to use (and I left that on AUTO, which was a mistake). My advice is to use him to locate your target, but then just adapt the weapons to the situation..

 

and the attack heading 120-300 if I understand it correctly means that you should come from the direction 120 towards direction 300. :)

 

Now, as for the wingmen and AI - this is the biggest worry of the mission builder. Some things can be scripted and will work just fine, others... well... depends on the mood of the AI, really. I've spent hours trying to make the chopper in mission 3 land exactly where I wanted it to and then make two other choppers with help land close to it and not RTB as soon as they see a muzzle flash. But it worked. However things like AI CAS - it is entirely different matter. In the mission with the Mosque sometimes two helos would beat the s**t out of the insurgents, and sometimes they will just fly around doing nothing. So the same mission will look totally different for different people - all depends on the AI's mood. In Hammerfall 3 I never had any issues with my wingmen and they helped me a lot, but I can imagine that it is not always the case :) so perhaps you are right that the load out should be different for this one.

 

 

 

Anyhow, many thanks for the feedback, you pointed out some issues I will make sure to eliminate in the second part of the campaign. And as I learned a lot creating the first part, I have a feeling that the second one should be more interesting and sometimes surprising.

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As for AI and JTAC in Hammerfall 3 - there are three options I had as regard JTAC, all of them had their flaws: [...]

 

Yeah, I've had my share of frustration coming up with ideas for missions that the AI or some other part of the scripting engine didn't seem to want to go along with. :D

 

and the attack heading 120-300 if I understand it correctly means that you should come from the direction 120 towards direction 300. :)

 

Huh, that sounds kinda plausible. In that case, disregard my statement concerning bad JTAC directions. :music_whistling:

 

Now, as for the wingmen and AI - this is the biggest worry of the mission builder.

[...]

In Hammerfall 3 I never had any issues with my wingmen and they helped me a lot, but I can imagine that it is not always the case :) so perhaps you are right that the load out should be different for this one.

 

It's hard to tell. In my case, the wingmen didn't act all that well, but in other cases they might be very efficient.

 

Of course it's boring to load up the player's A/C in a way that the player can finish the mission all alone, but having to rely on above-than-average wingman performance can easily lead to frustrating missions.

 

Well, no one ever said designing missions for DCS was simple... :music_whistling: :D

 

 

 

And as I learned a lot creating the first part, I have a feeling that the second one should be more interesting and sometimes surprising.

 

Sounds good, can't wait! :thumbup:

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Seeing all the positive reviews, I decided to have this campaign be the first campaign I have played with the A-10C. I have enjoyed the banter between me and my wingman in the first mission.

 

My questions/observations:

1. To trigger the end of mission one, are we suppose to shutdown on the apron next to the large planes (in front of the crowd) or park in any of the small square parking areas? When I landed, I shut down on the apron and never received a "end of mission" indicator.

 

2. Is the A-10C AI insane when it comes to landing? I watched the other squads of A-10Cs attempt to land and several times both planes would try to land at the same time and would trigger both of them aborting. Took forever to land all but two. The other two would have crashed if it wasn't for the fact that they dove straight into the ground and broke through world geometry (they were bugged from then on).

 

I ended up the mission myself and it was counted as a success so I can move on. I can't wait to continue.

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