Difficulty level

Very interested in the campaign, but...

how hard is it? Are there many 1/2 vs. many SU27 or MIG29 situations, or is there a more prudent Mission design, like in RL the USAF wouldn't engage against overwhelming enemy I think.

Hey!

From my own perspective - and I am really bad in F-15 and dogfights (I do admit it) - it is of mediocre difficulty. There are situations where you will be outnumbered due to the very nature and story of the campaign - there are only four USAF Eagles in Georgia and though in the beginning both sides are very careful not to do anything stupid, situation does escalate and you will find yourself and your wingman outnumbered, but never in some absurd way.

Spoiler below:

As I said, when I was flying I got killed many times, but my A-A skills are not good. For Viper (feefifofum) with whom we built the campaign I think almost all of the missions are quite easily doable, but he is THE F-15 God.

Anyway, this campaign shows a small - scale air conflict with only limited number of aircraft. As was in the real 2008 war, the airpower used by the Russians was surprisingly small.

Hope this helps!

Haha let me stop you there, I am most definitely not the F-15 God! I appreciate the vote of confidence though! :lol:

Oho, I believe you'll find the combat a little bit easier than Eye for an Eye; as Dragon says you are almost never outnumbered by fighters, but the missions themselves tend to be much more complex and realistic, incorporating ROE restrictions and requiring the player to be mindful of international borders.

There are still some challenging scenarios, but we tried to keep things manageable for less experienced players.

From the four missions flown, I'd say keeping to RoE and making sure you don't do anything funny is the more tricky part of the campaign then dispatching enemy aircraft.

With proper tactics i.e. prioritize threats and making use of Eagle's advantages in BVR, it should be fairly straightforward.

I'm currently up to mission 9 and before starting this campaign I had less than 2 hours time logged in the F15 (according to the logbook its probably slight more than that as the logbook isn't on my 1st pilot) and most of that was messing around, not really combat. I've had a little bit of learning to do consequently.

As the campaign has progressed the difficulty has escalated and you get more tasks to do per mission. Most of your engagements tend to be BVR however I have got a couple of guns kills during the campaign, not really had any proper close in dogfights vs other fighters they tend to be over one way or the other way before the merge.

So far I'm really enjoying the campaign and it has actually given me a reason to play the F15 properly and the story driven aspect of it makes some of the missions more interesting than they would be otherwise.

Great, so I will buy it and support you People.

I love flying with F-15C with VR now - it is really like going from Keyboard + Mouse to Joystick + TrackIR flying.

How is it performance-wise? I hope not hundreds of A/C in the air so that I can't fly in VR anymore ?

Will the campaign continue even when you're dead or should I better play each Mission seperately to avoid too much Repetition.

I can't make any promises re: framerate in VR as I don't own a VR system, but we're tried to strike a balance between scenery and performance. During much of the design phase I was testing on a 4th Gen i7 with a GTX 770 without issue FWIW.

If you die before completing the mission you will be required to re-fly it, if you're playing from the CAMPAIGN mode in the main menu. If you'd prefer not to do so, you can find instructions in my other post. :)

Once you have successfully completed the mission, you will be rewarded with extra points and often extra dialogue for RTBing and landing, but the campaign will progress regardless.

I flew some of the missions in VR without any problems - you should not expect any.

What is the difficulty settings of the AI bandits and can we change it in the ME ?

Thanks.

I don’t think you can, as saving any changes in DLC campaigns is disabled by default. I think Chris can tell you more about their specific difficulty level. You have problems with passing one of the missions?

I don’t think you can, as saving any changes in DLC campaigns is disabled by default. I think Chris can tell you more about their specific difficulty level. You have problems with passing one of the missions?

Hi baltic_dragon, thanks for the reply.

No, I am interested to buy the campaign but I hate to face AI in A2A in excellent level (even on high) as they are dodging missiles like ninjas doing an impossible timed maneuvers and their reaction time is above humanity. And add to that the simple flight and damage model they use. Not impossible to kill though but the fights can be annoying and not realistic. - IMHO

I know your approach to missions and campaigns, I own enemy within and mirage and I have no doubt that this one is fantastic as well, the only thing that bothers me is AI aspect of the combat part.

I am not very proficient in AA combat in F-15 (to put it mildly) and I find the campaign to be difficult, but not unbeatable. There are no impossible odds (or unrealistic ones) I think, though at times it can be challenging. As my other campaigns this one focuses on storyline a lot, but after M-2000C feedback i wanted to make it a bit more difficult in terms of A-A combat. Perhaps wait a while and see comments for those who already fly it / finished it.

Hi metzger,

You are not able to edit the campaign missions...for official content, the mission will appear blank if you open the file in the ME as triggers etc. are housed in a separate file.

The AI settings vary throughout the campaign, but we never used "excellent" if memory serves. There may be a couple of hostile flight leads on "high" throughout but it should be manageable. We have tried to construct things in such a way that they are challenging, but never unreasonable.

It all comes down to your personal preference and skill level. Ask 3 different people how hard something is and you'll often get three different answers. In Ralfi's preview, he says everything feels extremely easy. Conversely, you can find a thread in the F-15 forums from someone who was struggling to complete the first combat scenario in the campaign after multiple attempts. This makes me think we've struck a pretty reasonable balance.

Hi metzger,

You are not able to edit the campaign missions...for official content, the mission will appear blank if you open the file in the ME as triggers etc. are housed in a separate file.

 

The AI settings vary throughout the campaign, but we never used "excellent" if memory serves. There may be a couple of hostile flight leads on "high" throughout but it should be manageable. We have tried to construct things in such a way that they are challenging, but never unreasonable.

 

It all comes down to your personal preference and skill level. Ask 3 different people how hard something is and you'll often get three different answers. In Ralfi's preview, he says everything feels extremely easy. Conversely, you can find a thread in the F-15 forums from someone who was struggling to complete the first combat scenario in the campaign after multiple attempts. This makes me think we've struck a pretty reasonable balance.

Thank you guys for the update.

I have my answer - "but we never used "excellent". :)