Photon

Maybe I'm misinformed, but from all the publicly available info about the SA-11 system, it should be (and was designed to), intercept and shoot down cruise missile type weapons. However, I don't think I've seen a SA-11 site, engage HARMs or any other missiles a single time, during the many many times I've engaged them. Is this intended behavior ?

So first of all, voice-attack/vaicom has been an amazing addition to DCS for me. Both in voice commands to keys, and talking to all manner of ATC/units without having to browse through long menus. There are however, some problems I've not been able to fix, and was hoping someone here could help. Maybe they are related to a root problem I've been unable to see Problem nr1: The communications menu keeps popping up every half minute or so. This has been my main gripe with Vaicom. I have tried to follow every topic I've seen, but to no avail. - I've reset lua from the reset tab - I've done a full uninstall and re-install of Vaicom and Voice-attack, after doing a full reset (all options) from the reset tab - Deleted the vaicom line in export.lua, and deleted the vaicom folder from the scripts folder in saved games - Made sure my custom game path is set in options, and did a registry fix Even with all of this, the comm menu keeps popping up all the time. Is there something I can do to fix this? Problem nr2: I'm unable to call the correct recipient using vaicom, when there is more than one in the mission. The best example will be when I'm on a server/mission (multiplayer as well), where there is a bunch of tankers. Say 4 tanker spread across the map. Shell 1-1, Shell 2-1, Texaco 1-1, Arco 1-1. I tune the correct frequency for say Shell 2-1, and use the vaicom command for refuel "approaching for refuel" IIRC. However, even though I'm tuned to the correct frequency, I will very often call the wrong tanker, which sits on another frequency, so no one answers me. (I.e calling texaco instead of arco etc). Is there something I'm doing wrong there? Can Vaicom identify the correct recipient on a set frequency, or will it always call the closest tanker or something like that? Problem n3: This is related to problem nr1. Because the menu pops up all the time, I've used the work-around of disabling menus from the Vaicom options. This fixes the problem of menus popping up, but does of course mean that I have to use other means to utilize the menu, if need be. For this, when contacting for example a tanker, because of problem nr2, I use the "options" command to open the comm menu. However, here is the problem. I use two PTT buttons. One for VHF radio, and one for UHF radio. When I use my PTT for UHF radio, and use the command "options", it will always transmit my selected menu option on the VHF radio, thereby failing to reach the receiver. Is there a way to fix this? Or will using the "options" command always open a comm menu that will transmit on VHF? Hopefully this wasn't all too much at once, and I hope someone can help me.

Still getting mudspikes from across the map, when the LOS is not even close to being lined up between the radar, the actual target, and me.

I believe this is still an issue in the lastest patch

Vaicom and Dice are the only mods I really use. Now none of them pass IC. Dice is needed, because DTC is still not implemented, so instead of setting up countermeasures every time you sit down in a plane, having something by default is such an immense time-saver. Vaicom is just the best. I can't imagine going back to navigating through the com menus in the old fashion. Seems like you flushed the baby with the bathwater with this decision ED.....

Yea, running the latest version of openbeta. Happened in the F16 red flag campaign, but I had it once in the Raven One campaign as well. Those campaigns seems to be updated rather regularly, but stil get it from time to time

@BIGNEWY any update on this? Playing the F-16 Red Flag campaign at the moment, and I'm still getting RWR spikes from Flankers locking up friendlies across the map, not pointing in my direction at all. This was reported 3 years ago, then promised an update a year ago.

Once in a while, when flying night missions, the entire plane will be illuminated as if by some invisible light source. Kind of like flood lights are around the plane, even while airborne. Usually, restarting DCS and running the mission again fixes the problem.

Mission 1. The steerpoint for the target, is at xx (16 or something) thousand feet. I thought maybe this was a design decision, and we should change it ourselves in the planning stage. However, in the next missions, the steerpoints over target areas seem to be on ground level. Mission3. There is some sort of truck (named Refueler M978 or something) parked in front of the F15E, parked at the very south of the airport (named Dodge Departure / Dodge 11 etc). When the Dodge flight starts to taxi, the southmost plane immediately impacts the truck, and explodes. I moved it in the planner, so I could play the mission without planes exploding behind me :p. But fyi

I'm having this same issue. I've tried so many ways to fix it, but nothing seems to work. Even when just doing an instant action, free fly mission, flying around and not interacting with anything, the coms menu will still pop up by itself, every 20 seconds or so. - I've deleted the export.lua file in saved games dir - I've set custom path in the vaicom config - I've done a reset of lua files in vaicom config - I've repaired the DCS installation (while voice attack / vaicom was not running) - I've checked regedit, and the correct install path is listed there. I deleted the vaicom log file, turned on debug, then ran a free flight mission for about 5 minutes. Getting quite a few pop-ups during that time. Here's the log file: VAICOMPRO.log For now, I guess I'll go with disabling the coms menu, and using the option voice command.

I also really miss having something like this. Also would be nice if the waypoint over the target area would be set to ground level by default, so the TGP doesn't slave to something high up in the air

I don't remember the particulars myself, as to how it was presented. I did however see that text, and continued on to the next mission edit: here's a few seconds showing what it looks like

Are you talking about how the mission "ends" after you have delivered the package, and you are trying to head back to safety? AFAIK that's intentional, and it will say in the top right "the mission will now end". Have you tried pushing "end mission" in the post-mission menu that appears? The next mission, starts you in the air, on the way back from the target, where the previous mission ended. I believe it's created like this, to avoid frustration of dying on the way back, as stuff happens then, that are quite challenging.

Hopefully they will improve it some more in future patches

Where do you see this? When looking at the kneeboard for mission 14, I see the LSR Code for the GBUs to be "1665" ?

First of all, thank you for creating this campaign. I read the book a bit over a year ago, and it was fun to see it all pan out during this campaign. The voice-overs were all excellent, and all in all the missions were created well. Even so, I must say that I had a lot of frustrations playing though this campaign. I think I run almost every mission 2+ times (with some exceptions), because something broke. I'm sure 90% of it is due to DCS things, and things that changed after the campaign was created, while a few things I'm sure could be polished. As they always can be. Must be a small nightmare to design something so complex with the tools, and the AI available. That being said, here's my rundown, and the bugs I think I encountered during the campaign. Hope I remember most of it, but there might be some things that are not remembered 100% correct, as I played this campaign over a course of a few weeks :). All of the playtime was in this current patch I believe (OpenBeta). I'm not an actual F18 pilot, nor am I the most knowledgeable pilot in the DCS skies, so there might be some issues below, that are just user error. General problems I've had, or things I've wanted during the campaign: - I believe I've read through the documents, and the abbreviations and terminology used etc, but there still were some things I had to google to figure out what it was - You hear the AWACS talk about bandits, their position etc, however I think I've never seen the SA page work in this campaign (as in, I've never seen surveillance targets on the SA page, even when they were called out etc). I believe I've seen donor targets from other aircraft, but never from the E-2. This might just be a DCS bug which is impossible to rectify as of now, or something that only happens to a few people for some reason or another? - I've also never been able to see the abbreviated callsigns on the SA page of friendly aircraft. They always show the 4-digit designator (such as 0811, 0812 etc), but never the alpha-numeric one shown in the briefing - Is there a way to dim the kneeboard? The bright white kneeboard pages during night missions can be quite disturbing - I found it hard to understand sometimes in what format the different controllers (JTAC, STRIKE etc), were trying to transmit their waypoints in. If it was always minutes and seconds, or if they used decimal seconds etc. Mission1: - Fun introduction to the mighty Saint - Even though everything about Saint is designed to be annoying, it would be nice if one could call it off because Saint is flying way below 5,000 feet. I played through this mission 2-3 times, to see if I could get a perfect score, and pretty much every time I had to circle close to the hard-deck while Saint was happy playing around far below it. Maybe add a trigger if Saint goes below say 3,000 feet or something, to call it off for him? Mission2: - I had a longer break from DCS, and this was actually my first time using Bullseye reference inside the hornet. Was fun to learn! - For some reason, I had this guy bugging me about approaching Waterloo Red, even when I was connected to the tanker and taking fuel. Should be far away at that point - I believe it was on this mission, I opted to get fuel on the way back. Unfortunately, the tanker started to descend through the cloud layer, while I was approaching him, and I guess he entered a landing sequence? Maybe the AI tanker is set to RTB a bit too early, if you use too long on some parts of the mission? I don't know. - Tried this mission a few times, but poor smoke never was able to return to the ship with me. Mostly because of the tanker running away, or smoke doing other things. Mission3: - One of the first "long range" missions I've tried in DCS. Was fun to see yourself traversing the maps, and several countries on the way to the destination - Also had to do this mission two times. On the way home from our mission, poor smoke I guess ran out of fuel. I still had around 3-4000 pounds when approaching the tanker, but he just started going in another direction, and then ejected. I guess due to fuel starvation. Problem then was that all other triggers in the mission stopped working, so I didn't get to hear anything on the way home. After learning that there was quite a few fun voicelines, I ran the mission again. This time I tried to do everything myself, and to be faster. As I already knew where to find all the targets, it wasn't that hard, and I got to hear about Saints fun bombing run Mission 4: - This was a fun mission, and one of the first times I've used the A2G RADAR in SEA-mode, checking out different contacts - All in all I had no problems during this mission, and it was fun to execute Mission 5: - This mission was quite fun once I got past the first part of it - Unfortunately, the AI Prince had quite a few problems during the dogfight part of the mission. Primarily the problem was when the dogfighting was over, he would just go into a stall, with afterburners on, and just keep descending while stalling in this fashion. Maybe there's a way to change him back to blue aircraft faster to avoid this? - Meeting with the trigger happy Iranian ace was an exciting prospect, and I tried to keep myself out of his forward section for as long as possible. - On the way back, I was of course low on fuel, so I climbed to a higher, less fuel burning altitude. I believe I turned back toward the coast at 2,000 remaining, and got to the coast with about 1,200 remaining. Using the FPAS best range mach for that altitude (I climbed to about 25,000 feet). - At some point I was asked to contact departure on AUX. Departure however, is not listed in the AUX list on the kneeboard, was I supposed to tune it manually? I just tuned it on primary anyway, as it was listed there. - I then went to meet the tanker, and I arrived near his position at the same altitude as he was, around 20,000 feet. We were nose to nose, and I asked him to do a 180. Unfortunately, for some reason, he also wanted to/was instructed to descend down to a very low altitude while doing this. I'm at a lower fuel burning altitude, same altitude as him, and we want to descend to a lower altitude for the refuel? Would be nice, if it was possible to code the tanker to stay at your altitude. (Might be a "book limitation", or a coding limitation, but it didn't make much sense to me, in the situation I was in). However, maybe there was some logic behind it that I can't seee Mission 6 - Everything worked well here. Sombre mission. Mission 7 - Cool mission, everything ran as it should IIRC - There was one point during the middle of the mission, where we were asked to push towards mother, but then got no more information for a good long time. I was wondering if I had misunderstood something, if we were supposed to RTB (land), or done something wrong, as I was circling there for a few minutes. Eventually we were called back though. Mission 8 - I really like night missions, and the setup for this one was really good - First part of this mission was frustrating however, and I guess this is all DCS' fault. Seeing these small boats with the FLIR/NVG was next to impossible. I think I managed to down 1 boat total, on my two attempts at this mission. Without turning on markers, it would have been even harder, as I didn't see a single thing on the FLIR neither, no matter how much I tried to adjust it. Was able to see the big ships, but not the fast-boats. I think this has been a problem way after the campaign was created, as I can see from other forum posts. - One of the few times I was shot down during this campaign, as the naughty Iranian ship went hostile while I was right on top of it Second time around, I made sure to keep some distance Mission 9 - Really liked this scenario, and it was a fun mission to play. Unfortunately had to play it a couple of times, due to ingame events though - First playthrough of this mission, when shooting at the helicopters, the helicopters unfortunately were able to pilot-kill Dutch. However, I guess the possibility of Dutch dying was not scripted, as the rest of the mission, Dutch kept talking like he was still there. I wasn't able to take out all the targets myself, so I had to restart this attempt - Second playthrough, the SEAD/DEAD element failed to take out their target, and there was no more scripting after this. They did not do a second strike, or say anything. Eventually I figured something must still be alive, and I did a gun-strafe run on the remaining element in that site. After that, the mission resumed as normal - During the rest of this second attempt, everything ran smoothly, except for when we were RTB. We took a drink on the way back, but when Dutch was finished refueling, he just did a 180, and went back towards the direction of the island. Later, when I was prompted to "hit space to kiss of your wingman" I could see on the F2 view, that he stopped flying in the other direction, and I guess got scripted to do something else Mission 10 - Was really hard to find the lead in this mission, as the SA page only gives me 4-digit callsigns (812 etc), and not the callsigns listed in the kneebard. I'm not sure if this is user error, a (slightly) hard to replicate bug, or a general bug in this version of the game. Either way, after Cajun had nagged me for a good many times on the way there, I was finally able to find him - The rest of the mission was exciting, however I missed most of the action over the target zone, as I had to evade a sa-15 and drop my bombs by myself - On the way back, one of my wingmen just went to refuel without being told, or said he would do so, and never came back Mission 11 - A fun mission, I didn't have that many problems here. There were only a few issues - When asked to fire my JSOW on a said target, I was told it didn't hit, and given new coordinates, way before the bomb actually impacted anything. It was still mid-flight when this call came in - After all the action, when the Harriers come in, I had tried to conserve my fuel as much as possible, and still had quite a bit of playtime. I told them I would anchor and provide cap. However, I failed to find any way to continue the mission in a good way after this. I orbited, while watching the Harriers deploy all their LGBs, and rtb. However, still there was no call from anyone to say "ok thanks, we're RTB", or anything like this. So I had to go with the remaining F10 menu option, which was basically us saying "sorry, we can't hang around, happy hunting (everything is dead)" (the second option initially). Mission 12 - Liked this mission, fun to try some good A2A mass intercept - Again, the AWACS calls out bandits, but it not transmitted over datalink to the SA page. The SA page was basically blank of all bandits throughout this mission. Again, I guess this is some DCS bug, which is hard to fix without ED. Almost got blindsided by a remaining aircraft, but just barely made it Mission 13 - I can't remember any issues during this mission. Was fun to track and kill the submarine, and watch the wingman take out the site Mission 14 - One of the harder mission. Had to try this one 2 times IIRC, as I got shot down on the first try. - Very fun execution, and trying out the stealth approach - Never got the thunderstorm callout thankfully, I did however wait until I was across the gulf to turn on my RADAR - Had some issues with part of the strike package not doing as they were supposed to. With some elements turning away, and/or ejecting, and doing other strange stuff - The jamming didn't seem to have a great effect, as I was shot at by what feels like everything, including a nasty one that killed me while I was lasing the target. On my second try, it again shot at me while lasing the target, and this time I went more aggressively into defense, and managed to defeat it. However, that ended up fouling my laser, so the bombs didn't hit. The mission was still a success however? Maybe the hit after all, I'm not sure. - During the flight over land (Iran) there were a lot of messages, that I believe the player was not supposed to see. Such as "FLAK ON" " WEST SAM ON" "SA15 ON" etc. Seems more like something that was supposed to be hidden in code no? Mission 15 - This turned out to be a bit of a mess, and a bit of a let down for me. First attempt, we manage to defeat the F4s, but then get show down by the Ace. Fair enough - Second try, my wingman gets show down, and I manage to eventually kill the last F4 with guns. I never see any sign of the ace, and I just fly away to the tanker as instructed. Guess he didn't wanna play that time. - While on the way to the tanker, everything around me seems to be a mess. There some airplanes flying backwards, and after tanking, when trying to find my wingman, there is not a single F18 in the Persian gulf. Except for some that are almost back at the carrier. I'm not sure if there was something more to the story here, as Flip wanted to help with the SAR? Either way, I didn't find any other option than to fly back to the boat, and kept getting voicelines as if my wingman was with me. Turns out he ejected over Qatar or something like that. All in all, this campaign was definitely worth the money spent. I hope this topic won't be taken as just one-sided criticism, but rather as observations of one DCS player going through the campaign, and the difficulties faced. I understand coding a campaign in this game must be very hard, especially with the AI being what they are, and with bugs introduced after the campaign is launched, makes it a ongoing project. Hopefully, some of the feedback will be of value, and I look forward to your future campaigns

I did do that. I watched him on F2 while I was flying high. It was like he was trying to point his aircraft where he wanted to go, but bleeding off all his airspeed doing it. He didn't just split-s into the sea, he was stalling for many minutes into the sea.

1. Is there something I have not enabled then or something? In all missions, I only get 4 numerals as callsigns, not the alphanumerical like mentioned. It might be there is some step that I'm unaware of? I turn on IFF, and datalink after start on every mission. Even then, I never see the shortened callsigns, only the 3-numeric callsigns (811, 812 etc). I also never see anything on the SA page from surveillance aircraft. I believe this has been reported before. 4. To me, it more seemed like the trigger to kiss off your wingman, only came when you were within x miles of the carrier. As I opted to go straight for the holding point, and not via the carrier, and then track the radial outbound, I guess I never got that trigger? So the option to make my wingman depart was only when I was on final? Not sure how this was coded.

Yea, I was wondering the same thing. Just played through the mission, but could hardly see anything on the datalink, except for friendly flights. Maybe someone is better at this than me, but for me having to go cold, and re-engage, is really hard when you don't know where everyone spread out to

I remember having that visual bug once. Not sure what triggered it, but after restarting everything, I never saw it again. I also heard basically not a single word being said, until Cajun started asking me where I was at. Took me a while to find him, since the SA page doesn't match the kneeboard.

Instead of starting a new one, just thought I would share my input on this one. 1. The SA page is still just showing numbers, instead of what's on the kneeboard. Maybe edit the kneeboard to reflect the numbers that are on the SA page? Was a bit of a hassle to find my flight, but did eventually. 2. That SA15 did fire on me on the way in, so I had to break off the formation and dodge the missile. Was to close to rejoin the formation at that point, so just dropped my bombs by myself, and egressed alone. 3. Did eventually rejoin with the rest of the flight. In the beginning, Dutch stayed on my wing, but after a while, he just felt like being insatiably thirsty, and went to the tanker by himself, and stayed on that tanker for the rest of the mission, refueling on and off and on and off for 30 minutes. Maybe he is still coded to go there or something? I don't know. 4. My second wingman, stayed with me in formation. All the way through the case III marshall stack at 21 dme, while I did the holding pattern. I was not given any option to dismiss her, before I was gear down on like a 3 mile final or something like that.

After fighting with Prince, and doing 2 Aim9 hits, and 2 gun hits, and then me calling Joker, Prince just does a strange maneuver where he stays in full burner, at stall speed (around 100kts) and keeps this position until he pancakes into the ocean. After the Joker call, Prince will say he's going to climb, and maintain 250 kts or so, but he still remains an enemy fighter (red aircraft on SA), not sure if this is intentional. Edit: Tried again. This time I got him with guns until he called out Joker himself. Again he claims he will climb, but again he did the same maneuver where he slowly goes into a stall-burner config, and descends slowly. Not sure how to get past this mission? edit2: seems like it finally worked, somehow. Prince again did his "falling leaf while afterburning" thing, but at 3,000 feet he suddenly leveled off, gained speed, and then finally changed back into a blue aircraft 15,000 feet higher. Not sure what causes this strange behavior

My main issue with mission 1 is that Saint goes below 5,000 feet all the time. Wish there would be some trigger where you could "call it off" because Saint is playing around underground. Think I played mission 1 4 times or so, saint got below 5,000 feet on every attempt. The moment I go 4,990 feet we call it off, but when he's skimming the waves no one bats an eye

Same thing happened with me today. Smoke was supposed to refuel first, but just stayed in formation with me. Also, when tanking on the way back, the tanker keeps descending into clouds, and doing these sudden 10 degree dives. Said initially it was holding 12,000 feet (down from the initial altitude), but descended into IMC, and then below the cloud layer, all the way down to 6,000 feet or so. (I guess it started a landing sequence before we could get to it? ) edit: Also a similar(?) problem in mission 3. On the way back, Smoke just started drifting into a strange far away abreast formation, before he just descended and ejected (guess he ran out of fuel), just before we were gonna tank. I had approximately 3,000lbs left at that point, guess he had used more fuel than me.

I see I replied to this topic over a year ago. I still get this issue from time to time