What Campaigns are worth it?

[wizav]

I am A-10C beginner still learning advanced avionics and aircraft features.

 

(I do know what's CCIP, CCRP how to change modes, quantities, how fire Mavericks etc.. but still with little practice)

 

I've been wandering about Campaigns, how good they are?

 

There are many of them for A10C.

 

Should I get Basic, Advanced, Tactical ones or should I skip them and focus on manual?

 

What about Red Flag Campaign and others?

 

Would like to hear opinion from someone who went through all of them.:helpsmilie:

[vliegtuig]

I just fly the combat ones (Stone Shield, Piercing Fury). I find that to be more fun. If you need something you can just learn it on youtube and apply it in your missions. But I can image other people having more fun in the mastering/perfecting of the maneuvers.

[otaolive]

Why dont you try the standard Sturmovich campaign...I think its good and with some good challenges

[Eviscerador]

I have finished the Basic qualification campaign and I'm currently playing the Enemy Within.

 

All I can say you is that the qualification campaigns (I have also the advanced one and I plan to get the tactical) are NOT tutorials. They are the final exams!

 

So before you get even the basic qualification campaign you will need to be at least proficient in everything that the manual can teach you.

 

My recomendation is as follows:

- Read the manual. Do not study it, but read it and mark the important stuff.

- Fly around, play some single player missions, do the tutorial missions (you can practice as much as you want with the tutorial missions. No death, no friendly fire, feel free to bomb your own base!)

- After 20 or 30 flight hours, READ THE MANUAL AGAIN! Now you will understand most of what it says, and you will learn how to be handle the Hog in a daily basis.

- Play a campaign: I recommend you to do at least the basic qualification campaign. It is made of 24 missions (12 test mission and the practice mission, which is the same without the cold start) and it will help you to hone your skills in the basics. Taxiing, landing, cold start, shut down, navigation, formation flight...

 

You won't fire a single shot through the campaign, but you will learn a LOT about the basic procedures and if you are able to complete it means you will have practice enough so landing in any weather or any condition won't be a problem, start up and shut down will become a second nature and you will be able to do things "as per the manual"

 

I still haven't mess up with the inbuilt campaign (georgian hammer) but I expect it to be good as well.

 

Concerning the Red flag ones, I don't own the Nevada map so I can't tell you.

 

All I can tell you is that currently you have plenty of options for DLC content in this module, and so far most of them are good. Specially considering Steam Sales are on the horizon.

[Yurgon]

I think the training campaigns are really excellent, but I haven't actually played them.

 

IMHO, Operation Piercing Fury and The Enemy Within are among the best A-10C campaigns. They're focused on fairly believable and realistic combat scenarios, where the player doesn't have to fight through endless waves of enemy tanks for no good reason, but more like striking pre-planned targets or reacting to imminent threats against friendly ground forces.

 

The skills required are certainly not suited for absolute novices. Making good use of all of the A-10's weapons, punching in waypoints in MGRS, Lat/Long and Bullseye Offset, setting radios to the briefed freqs, following flight plans without too much deviation, and solid mission preparation with the supplied briefings and documentation are all part of the campaigns. Cold start is mandatory, of course. ;)

Finishing such a mission with a perfect score is really rewarding, though. :)

 

And I think going through an actual mission is a great opportunity to learn those aspects that are new. I like to get proficient in an aircraft before I fly a demanding campaign, but in the end, flying campaigns has always taught me more than months of preparation. :thumbup:

[ZeroReady]

Basic, advanced, and tactical training campaigns are all worth it. I have completed all 3 and I'm now on mission 12 of Piercing Fury. I really learned how to fly the Hawg from the three training campaigns. I can't recommend all four of those campaigns enough, they are all amazing. After Piercing Fury I'm going to do all the training campaigns again, they are that good.

 

With the training campaigns you get the actual missions, plus training missions you can run over and over without having to do the ramp starts, so you can quickly get some practice in. Voiceovers for all four campaigns are spot on, especially your boss in Piercing Fury.

[Eviscerador]

Basic, advanced, and tactical training campaigns are all worth it. I have completed all 3 and I'm now on mission 12 of Piercing Fury. I really learned how to fly the Hawg from the three training campaigns. I can't recommend all four of those campaigns enough, they are all amazing. After Piercing Fury I'm going to do all the training campaigns again, they are that good.

 

With the training campaigns you get the actual missions, plus training missions you can run over and over without having to do the ramp starts, so you can quickly get some practice in. Voiceovers for all four campaigns are spot on, especially your boss in Piercing Fury.

 

I recommend you to also play The enemy Within. Currently at mission 6 and enjoying it so far.

[Redglyph]

I am A-10C beginner still learning advanced avionics and aircraft features.

 

(I do know what's CCIP, CCRP how to change modes, quantities, how fire Mavericks etc.. but still with little practice)

 

I've been wandering about Campaigns, how good they are?

 

There are many of them for A10C.

 

Should I get Basic, Advanced, Tactical ones or should I skip them and focus on manual?

 

What about Red Flag Campaign and others?

 

Would like to hear opinion from someone who went through all of them.:helpsmilie:

 

On top of what was said, I'd recommend the Basic, Advanced and Tactical, starting with the Basic to be sure you like this kind of campaign. But read the parts of the manual that are relevant to the next mission, then try the practice mission, and once you are comfortable with it, pass the same campaign mission.

 

If you're willing to spend the time, only do the training missions then do the full campaign as a whole when you feel ready, that will effectively be a full review and repetition helps learning.

 

You can also read the next manual part and check if there's a stock training mission on the same topic, I usually find it easier to get the info from two sources of different nature (book and hands-on), but that depends on your personal character.

 

EDIT: Oh, Red Flag is a very nice experience. It's a bit easier than most of the other campaigns IMHO, so you could try it after the Basic qualification. Piercing Fury and Enemy Within are awesome too, though more intense. I haven't tried Stone Shield.

Edited June 7, 2018 by Redglyph

[ouseler]

The Maple Flags Training Campaigns are worth it.

 

I have finished the BASIC and ADVANCED and am currently on mission 22 of the TACTICAL CAMPAIGN. I found the RECON STEWART's you tube clips of the Maple Flag missions was most helpful. However, he stopped producing the you tube clips on mission 19 due to some flight communication problems and did not finish the campaign once the problems were fixed.

However, I find that the campaigns are excellent.

[mastersetter]

Did the training campaigns too, and I learned a lot, but they can be incredibly frustrating! I completed red flag, it was ok. I found it really repetitive, and pretty easy to be honest. I'm working my way through the enemy within now, on mission 14. Enjoying it so far, quite challenging and I have found myself overloaded with radio calls, looking for targets etc all while continuing the mission. After this I will most likely try piercing fury and see how that goes.

[AMEDooley]

I really enjoyed the Maple Flag missions I highly recommend them. If you don’t want to do the basic on and just get to bombing stuff then skip it. OPF is really good, anything from Baltic Dragon has been fabulous so get that one. I liked Red Flag but it’s not as good as OPF and TEW.

[ZeroReady]

I recommend you to also play The enemy Within. Currently at mission 6 and enjoying it so far.

 

Nice I have it, haven't started yet though. Looking forward to it.

[Sylosis]

I think the training campaigns are really excellent, but I haven't actually played them.

 

IMHO, Operation Piercing Fury and The Enemy Within are among the best A-10C campaigns. They're focused on fairly believable and realistic combat scenarios, where the player doesn't have to fight through endless waves of enemy tanks for no good reason, but more like striking pre-planned targets or reacting to imminent threats against friendly ground forces.

 

The skills required are certainly not suited for absolute novices. Making good use of all of the A-10's weapons, punching in waypoints in MGRS, Lat/Long and Bullseye Offset, setting radios to the briefed freqs, following flight plans without too much deviation, and solid mission preparation with the supplied briefings and documentation are all part of the campaigns. Cold start is mandatory, of course. ;)

Finishing such a mission with a perfect score is really rewarding, though. :)

 

And I think going through an actual mission is a great opportunity to learn those aspects that are new. I like to get proficient in an aircraft before I fly a demanding campaign, but in the end, flying campaigns has always taught me more than months of preparation. :thumbup:

 

In total agreement with this. I am doing The Ennemy Within and it's a great campaign. But, more importantly, as Yurgon says, it is realistic.

 

On many campaigns, you have weird "arcade like" missions, where you are up against 20 planes, in a "shoot 'em up" style thing...

 

Which is weird, considering DCS is mostly appreciated by a base of player that enjoys simulation. So why do people create campaigns that are like that? I don't know... apart from the fact that I assume it is just less work and the easy thing to do.

 

Therefore, I very much recommend The Enemy Within, and it'd be great if there were more campaigns like this one in other modules.

[mastersetter]

The only real issue I have with the enemy within are the voice overs, they are not that great and some just don't fit in at all, ie English and Scottish pilots, sound a bit odd flying a-10s and breaks the immersion for me slightly, but I'm being fussy here, it's an excellent campaign overall ;)

[baltic_dragon]

The only real issue I have with the enemy within are the voice overs, they are not that great and some just don't fit in at all, ie English and Scottish pilots, sound a bit odd flying a-10s and breaks the immersion for me slightly, but I'm being fussy here, it's an excellent campaign overall ;)

 

... agreed... this will change :)

[sze5003]

I really enjoyed the Maple Flag missions I highly recommend them. If you don’t want to do the basic on and just get to bombing stuff then skip it. OPF is really good, anything from Baltic Dragon has been fabulous so get that one. I liked Red Flag but it’s not as good as OPF and TEW.

I enjoyed these too but I'm still stuck on the tactical maple flag campaign-csar day misison..can not pass it for the life of me.

 

Tried so many times but how I got past the others I had to watch videos of them in order to understand when and where I should be doing what.

 

Now I'm busy with the hornet but I also recommend anything Baltic has done. Have the enemy within campaign and the mirage one too. Both are excellent and they gradually increase in difficulty so you don't feel stupid all of a sudden.

[Watari]

Do you plan to make a hornet campaign baltic?

[baltic_dragon]

Do you plan to make a hornet campaign baltic?

 

Absolutely, I have to finish some other projects first and I will let the Hornet mature enough. But I wouldn't pass on such a beauty!

[nessuno0505]

What DCS version do you use to play campaigns? Never played a campaign before, just single missions and tutorials; but since a-10c in 2.5.x is still quite buggy (jtac not always responding, datalink issues and so on, just not to talk about night missions), I wonder what is the best DCS version to play campaigns. Just to be sure before trying one.

[Puma]

I just finished that one. Pretty lucky I think I was! Once on station I cleared my flight ai go emgage AIr Defenses. Ince that was done We worked together to clear attackers moving in in the pilot which was just like other missions.

[Eviscerador]

Absolutely, I have to finish some other projects first and I will let the Hornet mature enough. But I wouldn't pass on such a beauty!

Great news! After playing the enemy within your have a faithful buyer here. Keep up the good job!

Edited June 9, 2018 by Eviscerador

[aniron]

Do you plan to make a hornet campaign baltic?

 

Absolutely, I have to finish some other projects first and I will let the Hornet mature enough. But I wouldn't pass on such a beauty!

 

Totally read that as "Baltic Hornet Campaign"...

 

[baltic_dragon]

Totally read that as "Baltic Hornet Campaign"...

 

 

LOL :) If I get a map I’m all game :D

[Watari]

Absolutely, I have to finish some other projects first and I will let the Hornet mature enough. But I wouldn't pass on such a beauty!

 

 

That is good to hear dude !!!!

[fierceBeaver]

What DCS version do you use to play campaigns? Never played a campaign before, just single missions and tutorials; but since a-10c in 2.5.x is still quite buggy (jtac not always responding, datalink issues and so on, just not to talk about night missions), I wonder what is the best DCS version to play campaigns. Just to be sure before trying one.

 

I'm also curious how to play those a10c campaigns. Any hints?

Edited June 23, 2018 by soundslikerust