Mission 4 - Seriously?

Okay, I gave up on doing the campaign trough the campaign menu as I constantly get DCS crashes on mission 1 or the cargo gets damaged or what ever.

I went on mission 4, everything was fine. Flying towards Batumi. I decided to check if the NVGs were actually disabled ( as I thought it is possible to remove them as on the Ka-50 ),

I flipped them on, got the instant message to turn them off, AS I DID, but I kept getting warnings....

My pilot went out, next my co-pilot and next thing you know, no one was flying the huey.

You might want to do that trigger or whatever is you use there.

Okay, I gave up on doing the campaign trough the campaign menu as I constantly get DCS crashes on mission 1 or the cargo gets damaged or what ever.

 

I went on mission 4, everything was fine. Flying towards Batumi. I decided to check if the NVGs were actually disabled ( as I thought it is possible to remove them as on the Ka-50 ),

 

I flipped them on, got the instant message to turn them off, AS I DID, but I kept getting warnings....

 

My pilot went out, next my co-pilot and next thing you know, no one was flying the huey.

 

You might want to do that trigger or whatever is you use there.

Its meant to simulate getting blind by NVG and lightning flashes. The mission is perfectly doable but needs a little more planning. If you are unsure you cleared the mountains, you can do a circling climb until your height is +1000-1500 from the highest peak in that region. Next, tune to ADF Batumi and fly coastline until the needle points to roughly 127°. Once there hard left to ADF and initiate descent slowly and at 80 knots or less while keeping tabs on that ADF needle. If timed right, you should descend to runway threshold where PAPI/VASI usually give clues to orientation.

Finally word of advice, follow your AC and dont get creative.

Its meant to simulate getting blind by NVG and lightning flashes. The mission is perfectly doable but needs a little more planning. If you are unsure you cleared the mountains, you can do a circling climb until your height is +1000-1500 from the highest peak in that region. Next, tune to ADF Batumi and fly coastline until the needle points to roughly 127°. Once there hard left to ADF and initiate descent slowly and at 80 knots or less while keeping tabs on that ADF needle. If timed right, you should descend to runway threshold where PAPI/VASI usually give clues to orientation.

 

Finally word of advice, follow your AC and dont get creative.

I even put it in Bold.... I switched off the NVG, it was just for less than a second on, so I can see if it was really out.

I clearly realize it was meant to simulate that, but it bugs out

Dunno if this is still a living thread, I see it hasn't been posted in for a while.

Anyway just in case, I'll give my 2 cents. My main gripe with this mission is the chopper is so massively overloaded it doesn't really perform well enough to maneuver in the terrain. In saying that, it's an awesome mission from a navigation perspective.

I couldn't pick up the Batumi NDB initially, you just have to rely on your heading once leaving the ship. If you do get lost, try another NDB and once you find the coast, change to Batumi NDB and you should get it once close enough. As for navigating to the refugee camp, once you cross over Batumi airfield, track the tail of the ADF needle to maintain a track of 110 degrees for 9nm. If you're really pedantic you could rely on your clock too (at 60kts it should take you 9 minutes to reach the camp), the critical thing is maintaining a reasonably good track of 110 degrees from Batumi using the tail of the ADF needle.

I've not made it further than finding the convoy since the chopper is so overloaded it just falls out the sky once you lose too much speed.

follow the big river south of Batumi.

you cant miss it even in the pea soup.

the valley you want is the 2nd or third tributary off that river. (cant remember so count on the map) its where the big river turns south to turkey which helps.

follow that tributary right to the camp.

because the camp is built on that tributary.

in these conditions you don't want to lose visual contact with the ground.

and this route takes you round all the hills instead of over them. so you cant fly into them.

and you don't have to descend through cloud into a blind valley. which, if you have read chickenhawk. you know is helicopter suicide. :)

if lost in cloud with no visual reference, you try to break out the top of the cloud. never the bottom.

use the rivers like helicopter roads. they follow the best (lowest) routes through terrain..

Are the landing/search lights weaker in 2.5?

It seems that by the time I get close to the refugee camp, it's almost impossible to see the road unless I fly dangerously close to trees.

I haven't flown that mission in DCS 2.5 so I don't know if the landing/search lights are weaker but if I recall correctly, in 2.5 the trees density is higher than before for the same setting (tree visibility). That can explain that you get a harder time spotting the road or refugee camp.

Yes. Lighting in general has been broken in numerous different ways ever since deferred shading was implemented — lighting of terrain in particular — going back so far as its first 2.0 OA implementation. With the release of 2.5, deferred shading was made the only option and ED is still working to make the lighting work as well as it did in the olden days.

Anything design before 2.0 that uses night (or really any kind of low) visibility as a challenge and which hasn't been updated will remain next to impossible until core changes to the engine and its rendering pipeline have been completed.

Hi, yes lighting seems weaker that's why I changed the time of the mission.

Will check how to improve this even more.

Greg

I can't see anything when met the truck.

Even I turned on the landing light and search light, Nothing visual.

It's quite frustrate mission. It is getting darker and darker and finally nothing visual when met a convoy.

I increased gamma value but no effect. Nothing can See !

What a xxx mission!

Nah, the mission is fine, as such. The current state of world lighting is the problem here — that's on the engine, and not on the mission itself, and as the engine is improved back to its previous capabilities, this will sort itself out.

Just flew this mission. Searchlight just doesn't work in the latest Beta bearly any light is cast on the ground and none at all over water. unless you fly practically along at ground level which is now not possible with all the (now collidable) trees you just cannot see anything. Such a shame as I was enjoying the campaign up to this mission.

Guess I'll give up until this issue is fixed by ED.

SD

I haven't flown this Campaign since I first posted.

I never could manage this mission (a bit unrealistic IMO).

So I have no idea what if anything has improved or broken since then.

I had a think and as I was enjoying the campaign so much I decided not to give up flying it Instead I edited my logbook to skip mission 4 so I now have to fly mission 5 slinging the huey parts back to Batumi.

I REALLY hope ED can sort the lighting issues out though.

SD

Edited you Logbook ?!!

I didn't know you could do that. Let alone edit it to skip a mission.

I'll have to take a look at that.

Thanks for the idea.

This is from a post by fearlessfrog and tells you how to edit your logbook.

There is a file called 'logbook.lua' and you can use Notepad++ to edit it and set the current mission in the campaign. It is located here:

X:\Users\(YourWindowsUsername)\Saved Games\DCS\MissionEditor

The section looks like this:

["campaign"] = "./mods/aircraft/Uh-1H/Missions/en/Campaigns/en_UN-Pilot.cmp",

["status"] = "Active",

["history"] =

{

[1] =

{

["stage"] = 3,

["mission"] = "en_UN-Pilot_03.miz",

}, -- end of [1]

}, -- end of ["history"]

..so you'd edit the 'stage' and 'mission' values to whatever you like.

Just follow this and you should be good to go.

You can also take a look at this post by Yurgan telling you how to do it.

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=2830501&postcount=181

SD

I was able to finish Mission 4 in DCS 2.5.3. (meaning you literally don't have a searchlight), but I have to use some tricks.

SPOILER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:

The goal is to be in destination place ASAP when you have still some daylight.

How to achieve this:

Prepare to do many things at the same time, which is:

1. Press Fly (time strarts ticking)

2. IMMEDIATELY start the helicopter. During holding start button you set Radio to INT and call for rearm (I use VAICOM PRO) and leave only front machine guns. Ground crew will tell you several time "What are you doing?" because Huey moves on the deck due to rough sea. It is not the problem. It will get rid of heavy gunners. ALso during startup you change the ADF to Batumi.

3. From this moment you take off ASAP, don't wait for any announcements from copilot.

4. Current OpenBeta is not so restrictive for EGT, so you set your collective at 600 deg. sharp and Fly 120 or alomost 120 knots. I fly 30-50 feet over the rough sea.

5. After setting collective to max allowed value and during flight, turn on the light switch, radar altimeter, lightning, etc. I use Thrustmaster TARGET to map 1 button for all 6 lightning knobs.

6. During flight you will have to keep little bit left rudder, because you are deviated right.

7. From Batumi you follow the road, don't need to fly over refugee camp, you follow the canyon all the time.

8. After some time you meet 3 vehicles which you destroy still during last sunlight.

9. Try to land near the trees just some distance after you killed convoy. I have landed not in proper space, but I didn't have to struggle with wind.

10. Then you have to wait for second Huey, because he was not so fast, maybe 2-5 minutes. I don't remember exactly. When huey arrives it is almost dark.

11. Second huey deploys troops and there is radio transmission about it.

12. You get close to the second huey in ground effect (easier). This time searchlight is a little bit useful. When you land near the huey you are done.

I am looking forward to make this mission again when lightning will be corrected by ED.

Went back to the Argo campaign for the first time in a few months today, just in the tiniest hope that this mission might be playable... and that screenshot shows what I was greeted with by the time I had only flown over the refugee camp. I mean, that is somehow worse than pitch black. That is a black hole. Incredibly, the lighting is even worse than I remember it being! At least the last time I was able to find and follow the road for a while....

I tried to descend in the hope the searchlight might illuminate, you know, something. The first sign of the searchlight was as I hit the ground.

This is not a pop at the campaign creator (although I do think he should edit this mission until lighting is sorted out) this is a pop at ED, who frankly, should stop their work on new modules and sort out the basic freaking game-breaking problems such as lighting which have plagued 2.5 for almost a year now. I love all the updates and work going into the Hornet, but I think we deserve a reason as to why this hasn't been improved in all that time. Is nobody working on it?? Has it been forgotten??

I quite agree. the lighting in this sim needs some serious TLC

SD

It seems that searchlight is bad only in some modules like our UH-1H or Mi-8.

I recently was flying TF-51D and its landing light was really OK, so it could be great for this mission to have it corrected.

I can say that this mission is still unplayable. When you reach the first target, the night is pitch black and you just can't fly at low level due to the amount of obstacles, trees and power lines. Search light has no reach and you can't see anything.

Skipped and I keep playing the campaign. so far I'm enjoying it!

the problem in 2.5 is the lack of "power/distance" of the searchlight and landing light... navigation by ADF is cool and the "right way" to do it, but now navigation in pitch black (even in 3.4 gamma) is really "impossible" i only see my searchlight if i 30m altitude.... i am stuck in this mission.

the problem in 2.5 is the lack of "power/distance" of the searchlight and landing light... navigation by ADF is cool and the "right way" to do it, but now navigation in pitch black (even in 3.4 gamma) is really "impossible" i only see my searchlight if i 30m altitude.... i am stuck in this mission.

You can edit your logbook to skip the mission. In fact iirc the mission itself gives you the option via the F10 radio menu to skip the mission.

ok, thanks, it is the easy way to overcome this problem... but i really think, at this moment the searchlight is too weak, to pass this mission normally.

At the moment there is little the creator can do if he wants to keep the mission as it is. Sure he could just remove the NVG restriction, or maybe remove the overcast and give us some moon lighting, but still...

The lighting is being reworked iirc all across modules (as you know most modules have cockpit lighting problems, and the huey is one of them) so let's hope in the next iteration this mission is playable.