Feedback, bugs, suggestions.

Hi

Great campaign, I'm on mission 16, not too many problems or repeated missions so far, very atmospheric.

Apologies for being a bit vague, I can't remember exact mission numbers and bugs.

- Mission 15, escorting the Yak, Yak climbs at 135kts, cruises at 200kts then only 222kts when asked to go as fast as possible. I guess this is a DCS bug though?

Fishbed 1 & 2 split and do a pincer move, Fishbed 2 then overflys your home base, and dives down and crashes into the AWACS parked there.

- Mission where you relocate base, if you tell your wingman to RTB, he flys all the way back to the original base from mission 1, instead of the new one.

On that note, if you RTB your wingman at any distance from home base, he flys to a random base, sometimes into Russia, I learnt to ask him to join up then RTB close to home base, but this isn't always ideal when he is bingo 1st, which is often the case.

- The mission where you are asked to rearm and refuel, you are told to do so then await new instructions, but these instructions never come.

Some missions would be better if you had the chance to rearm and refuel, get back in the air and finish off some bombers or a new group of bombers.

A2A refuelling would make the campaign more interesting.

The AWACS is flying it's orbit very close to the front line from about mission 8 or 9 onwards. It's also flying at less than 200kts so you can't formate on it if you want to. Not a big deal but not so realistic.

Many missions would be a bit more atmospheric if there was some other air traffic using the base. I understand the story line, but something taking off or landing would make it more interesting.

All in all, a great campaign, learnt a lot about the F15 and it's tactics, looking forward to the last mission.

Lastly, I read and watch a lot of documentaries on wars, was 7 years old at the Falklands war and followed it intensely, 16 years old a Gulf war I, I lived in an RAF training area in Scotland so Xmas 91 was pretty special with non stop low level flying over my house! I didn't know anything about this area and this war so now I am reading up on it, very interesting so far.

Thanks for the feedback!

That's actually the fastest the Yak can go; unfortunately we're not able to control his speed throughout the climb.

I'll look into the Fishbed; he should be going after Seagull and your flight obviously, but if he's developed a sudden interest in the AWACS it can likely be remedied fairly easily with a few tweaks.

We have no control over where the AI RTBs; his "landing" waypoint is set to Kutaisi in the op you've mentioned, as is yours, but I guess the "RTB" command just sends them back where they came from.

You should see the MISSION COMPLETE message on all operations when no further scripting/tasking will occur; the line of dialogue you're referring is just intended to imply that the next op will happen immediately in the campaign's timeline as opposed to some others where hours or days have passed.

Given that there is no save function, we tried to keep missions around the 45 minute mark; while some people enjoy longer ops (myself included) the absence of a save function makes this a touchy subject with people who may not have a lot of time to play.

Similarly, AAR is something that a lot of players are not able to do comfortably; requiring this has almost always met with complaints from the community so we elected not to do so. It is an optional component of mission 16, however, so tank away to your heart's content. :thumbup:

The AWACS orbits are dictated by the AI's ability to detect and call targets; he may appear to be a bit near to danger sometimes, but in order for him to have a shot at calling some of the low-flying helo targets for you he needs to be in close proximity. He is also set to be invisible to enemy aircraft so you shouldn't need to worry about escorting him. Also, keep in mind that at 30,000ft 200 kts IAS is still pretty quick. :)

Hey Dr_Watson, many thanks for taking time to write the feedback and your feelings / ideas about the campaign. That kind of thing is very important to every mission creator. My answers below. Plus of course I completely agree with what Viper said above.

Great campaign, I'm on mission 16, not too many problems or repeated missions so far, very atmospheric.

Apologies for being a bit vague, I can't remember exact mission numbers and bugs.

- Mission 15, escorting the Yak, Yak climbs at 135kts, cruises at 200kts then only 222kts when asked to go as fast as possible. I guess this is a DCS bug though?

Just to add to what Viper said... making AI do what you want her to do is THE most challenging part of the whole mission building business. ED has added a lot of cool options, but still AI behaviour and tweaking it takes the biggest amount of time. And yeah, 222 is maximum Yak can do!

Fishbed 1 & 2 split and do a pincer move, Fishbed 2 then overflys your home base, and dives down and crashes into the AWACS parked there.

Didn't I read somewhere about the use of Kamikadze tactics in that war? Hm.. guess not.

- Mission where you relocate base, if you tell your wingman to RTB, he flys all the way back to the original base from mission 1, instead of the new one.

See the first remark. Sadly, mission builders have very little control over player's wingmen

On that note, if you RTB your wingman at any distance from home base, he flys to a random base, sometimes into Russia, I learnt to ask him to join up then RTB close to home base, but this isn't always ideal when he is bingo 1st, which is often the case.

In the ideal world, wingman's fuel should be linked to that of a player in order to avoid such situations. Still, it might be a good idea to switch all the Russian airfields to RED side to prevent our F-15 from landing there (if it isn't implemented in most of the missions)

- The mission where you are asked to rearm and refuel, you are told to do so then await new instructions, but these instructions never come.

Some missions would be better if you had the chance to rearm and refuel, get back in the air and finish off some bombers or a new group of bombers.

We have considered it but the problem is that AI wingman is unable to do so and it would be difficult to justify him staying behind. We did it once... and that is why he had a malfunction.

A2A refuelling would make the campaign more interesting.

Tempting, but obligatory AAR could scare off many of the pilots. In the campaign like this things like this could only be optional (for instance: if you do that, you get an extra tasking, but it is all entirely up to you)

The AWACS is flying it's orbit very close to the front line from about mission 8 or 9 onwards. It's also flying at less than 200kts so you can't formate on it if you want to. Not a big deal but not so realistic.

Many missions would be a bit more atmospheric if there was some other air traffic using the base. I understand the story line, but something taking off or landing would make it more interesting.

We tried to stick to the facts that we researched as far as possible. In reality all the Georgian Frogfoots were grounded from the second day of the conflict, and all the helos after initial strike were moved to a FARP from which they launched only once and IIRC demaged or destroyed only one Russian truck, and didn't participate in the war in any other way.

All in all, a great campaign, learnt a lot about the F15 and it's tactics, looking forward to the last mission.

Don't get your expectations too high, IIRC it is just an epilogue with thanks to all those that helped us with the campaign. Still, I find it very climatic - you'll see what I mean

Lastly, I read and watch a lot of documentaries on wars, was 7 years old at the Falklands war and followed it intensely, 16 years old a Gulf war I, I lived in an RAF training area in Scotland so Xmas 91 was pretty special with non stop low level flying over my house! I didn't know anything about this area and this war so now I am reading up on it, very interesting so far.

Thanks. One remark - take everything you read with a pitch of salt, especially the political part. Depending which authors you read (western or Russian) you get a completely different set of information. As far as the tactical situation goes (the casualties, smaller scale ops described etc) these mostly come from the Russian sources and I think are quite reliable. One interesting example are real aircraft losses of Russian side - Russians admitted loosing only a handful (2-3) aircraft, Georgians were talking about shooting down dozens. The truth is in the middle, but probably much closer to what the Russians were saying - and most of what was shot down was friendly fire anyway... still, it is a very interesting and not that well known conflict.

Finished it, and I got to do some A2A refueling after all :)

Amazing campaign, the first "real" one I have done. Those R33's are tough but managed to find some good tactics which came good.

Thanks for your replies, I understand the limitations of the game, what you achieved is crazy, I never new such dialogue and triggers were possible.

A2A as an option would be great, but I could imagine such an option adds great complexity and time to an already complex mission!

That's me done with the F15, I know the A10c pretty well, so it's "The Enemy within" next, looking forward to it, especially with the 2.5 map.

Cheers

Thanks for your kind words, good luck with TEW!

Amazing campaign, the first "real" one I have done. Those R33's are tough but managed to find some good tactics which came good.

Tell me please, I'm stuck on Mission 14. It's not only the R-33, but the Radar on the MIG-31 seems very good too.

Edit: Not stuck anymore, but tell me anyway, I think I was lucky with the MIG-31s

Tell me please, I'm stuck on Mission 14. It's not only the R-33, but the Radar on the MIG-31 seems very good too.

Edit: Not stuck anymore, but tell me anyway, I think I was lucky with the MIG-31s

Notch. Notch like there's no tomorrow. Basically you fly low to the ground and perpendicular to the enemy, so that you become effectively invisible to their radar and thus trash their missiles.

Last time I did that mission, I had to evade a total of 6 missiles from both Foxhounds, and some of them were still very close calls.

It's like fighting against Tomcats in a Flanker, only easier (Foxhounds use SARH missiles)