Great Campaign

Two years ago when I started DCS, I could complete the Spring Tension campaign by navigating only through dead reckoning.

 

I had a hard time but I did it.

 

Now with the Oilfield campaign, I was forced to learn the Doppler system, NDB navigation, and sling load operations.

 

So thanks for that :)

 

At this time, I'm at mission #8 "Rotation".

Spring tension campain was also one of the best campain mission so far for me, and I really learned the Mi-8 through it.

Mi-8 is one of my favourite module, so I will have to grab quickly that new one ;-) thanks for your review.

You are very welcome even if my "review" was a very short one ;)

How is the difficulty level of this campaign? I'm "new" to the Mi-8 (but have more than 100 hours on the Huey) and I actually just finished the first mission of the campaign that came along with the module. Since the Mi-8 seems an interesting helicopter, I might also get the Oilfield campaign. I'm not good at hovering in bad weather condition or in general in picking up sling load cargo, but I managed to finish the Argo campaign with the Huey. Some missions were really challenging to me though.

I'm an average Mi-8 pilot and I consider the difficulty of this campaign to be easy/medium. Please note that all flights are civilian (no use of weaponry).

You will have to learn the Doppler to navigate.

I'm at mission #12 and so far no hovering in bad weather.

You will have to learn sling operations too. Not a big deal though. You can create easily a training mission for that. If needed I can send you mine.

Another good point of this campaign is that the triggers work properly (unlike in some other campaigns or even the default Mi-8 campaign).

Personally I like civilian flights and I recommend this campaign :thumbup:

And welcome to the world of Mi-8 :) (I read that you have just bought the module with the summer sales)

Thanks for the feedback. I think it doesn't matter that it's civilian. Many Huey missions also are w/o weaponry but they're fun anyway.

The Doppler doesn't seem that difficult to understand according to the training mission. I'll probably get the campaign, but I first one to do a few more of the original missions. I'll come back to you in case I'll have problems with the sling load.

I am really looking forward to getting this campaign for the 2.5 Caucasus (deleted my 1.5.x install some time ago).

I only flew 2 missions so far, so it's too early to really judge on it. So far, I like to "slow pace" though. It's different than the other campaigns, but to get most out of it, I play it quite different than Spring Tension. In Spring Tension, I was using auto start, sometimes a little bit "cheating" by checking the F10 map or pressing ctrl-k on the kneeboard - and sometimes time compression.

But since the tasks seems "easier" (at least atm) and there's less risk of having to redo the mission, I'm starting up the Mi-8 manually (nice to have some crew comments), doing the radio with the tower and all that stuff. It's just a lot more "calm". Take your time, do the transport, concentrate on navigating. In fact, I'm a bit surprised that I like it - I was first concerned it might be "boring" to just fly from A to B. But it's actually nice to watch the landscape and to check with the kneeboard map to see if you're on course. I even manually turned off the Hip when arriving at the sub base again. It might change if there will be harder missions (....sling load).

The oil rigs/scenery look cool btw.

And lesson learned in mission 2: double check your input in the Doppler. I entered 132 instead of 213 and flew the 20km. When there, I saw an oil tower and thought "there it is". I landed and nothing happened. Thus, I checked the kneeboard and noticed the error. So yeah...the only solution (without cheating) was to set the Doppler to 20km forward to fly back to WP2. From there, entering the correct navigation data to finally fly to WP3. Good luck the bird had more than enough fuel loaded. The mission simply took me a lot longer now ;-)

Just finished the campaign (oh wow, my previous post from mission two is from September 1st, so it took me 7 weeks). It was enjoyable and therefore I'm now a bit disappointed that it's over ;-) Anyway, thanks for the campaign and your great work - time to move on to the Border Campaign now in that case.

I'll for sure replay it in DCS 2.5.

Just wanted to say thank you for making this great campaign! :thumbup:

Just finished mission 2, and really enjoying it. the radio chatter is really nice by the way, it ads realism :thumbup: going to go try mission 3 now...

also "Oilfield" has really taught me finesse in my piloting and nav. skills, so thanks for that!

Yes! I just finished playing it. Thank you for the thought and effort that you put into this campaign. It was awesome! The last few missions really upped the ante with weather, low ceiling, evening light, etc. Simply brilliant!

Finished the campaign, really liked it. Would recommend to anyone who want to become better Mi-8 pilot, or just like flying more than blowing stuff. No glitches worth mentioning, except on the last mission: for some reason NDB on landed helicopter do not work. Or maybe I just did something wrong. In the end had to fly approximately in the area and use labels to locate the chopper.

I finished the campaign and I have to say I loved it every flight minute.

People say that combat missions are tiring and full of adrenaline rush. Well, try to land in bad weather with 4 tons of slinged cargo on your belly and with 500 m overcast ceiling!

The only "but" I have, albeit a minor one, is that in the final mission the friendly chopper landed in the middle of a forest, so I had to land on the forest border and then "navigate" on the ground between the trees to reach the trigger zone (which was 30 m inside the forest)

It was a minor bug, probably due to some changes on the new Caucasus map.

Good job!

Just wanted to say thanks for making this excellent campaign. It has a pleasant atmosphere and the voice overs as well as the radio communications are very well done. It's brilliant, glad to have purchased it! :)

Hi,

Same.

Just finished this campaing. 0 bug. I enjoyed every single mission! Thanks a lot fort the great work.

Goz.

Hi Laivynas

Thanks for the great campaign. I was sad when it finished, I just wanted to keep working around the oilfield.

It all worked perfectly with no problems.

The campaign made me really get to know the MI-8.

I hope for a continuation. :thumbup:

Currently working my way through the campaign as we speak, it’s a fantastic campaign especially to learn the MI8. While I appreciate blowing things up and making big bangs is what most are here for, personally for myself, using the helos as the utility craft they are meant for and doing ass and trash missions like the ones in this campaign, are really where I get the true enjoyment out of the helicopter.

I just wished we had more campaigns like this one, that shows off the standard work of the Helos, and one for the Huey especially. A medivac campaign, slick driver etc. Argo is great but low and behold they stick the darn weapons on and turn it into the gunship model half way through, which for me ruins it.

Huge congrats for doing a civilian campaign.

Thankyou, Best campaign in DCS as far as I’m concerned