So uhh..about that default KA-50 campaign

[Kilgore]

I've owned the game for ages but never really bothered with any of the campaigns apart from the super old A-10A one before I owned the A-10C.

Been getting back into the game recently and refreshing myself on the KA-50. Been watching some youtube tutorials on the more complex systems like ABRIS etc because the in game tutorials are a lot of talking and the highlight squares are terrible and not accurate, quite tricky to see which switches they're pointing at, at least in VR.

ANYWAY, fired up the KA-50 campaign, first mission is a familiarisation flight. Being led around the area of the FARP by a guy in an Mi-24...trouble is, after we're meant to start climbing for one of the later waypoints....well he struggles.

I was a few hundred metres behind him, saw him start to wobble and struggle to climb, due to my speed I passed him, slowed down to wait for him but noticed he wasn't getting any closer, as I turned around to go see what's up, the radio goes silent. Turning around i get a visual on a nice bonfire on the side of the hill, circled around to check for survivors but the only thing I could see was bits of rotor blade.

Reading the post flight logs it seems there was a flight of SU-25's at somepoint and it appears one of those crashed too.

What I want to know is, is the campaign actually worth playing or has the physics/AI pathing all broken in the time between the campaign was made and the switch to the new engine etc?

RIP whatever his name was, I'm sure he was a great man...just a terrible pilot

[spike2071]

Yeah, I just tried playing it again and had the same thing happen. Which is a shame because it's a great campaign, and it's been broken for years.

I haven't looked into it yet, but a user named MadDog used to update that campaign. Check the User Files on the DCS site and see if there is a current fix. (There was one last time I played it a few years ago.) I had hoped ED would've fixed it on their own, but that's obviously not the case.

[Kilgore]

Ah cool, thanks for the recommendation - I'll take a look when I get a chance tomorrow.

A fix would be a nice thing indeed.

[Sizigmund]

There is a lot of campaigns with broken missions. I played "Flaming Cliffs 3" and found about 1 - 2 missions broken in each campaign. The good news were, that they was easy to fix using mission editor. I just checked what went wrong in the mission, then went to mission editor and fix it. Sometimes it just a trigger point that was set in the wrong place, sometimes it is a trigger that is wrongly set. So it took me about 3 - 5 minutes for each broken mission to fix it. So all after all I finished all "Flaming Cliffs 3" campaigns and had a lot of fun. But yes AI in this game is not so smart, so usually you can't rely on your wingmen, but sometimes they do well. Anyway, it is up to you. If you prefer playing online then don't bother about campaigns. As for me, I just like games with a good storyline, so for me campaigns are a kind of storyline and I prefer them more then just PvP battles.

By the way. KA-50 have a very good manuals in "[your steam installation dir]\steamapps\common\DCSWorld\Mods\aircraft\Ka-50\Doc\". I'm just learning it now. Abris explained very well. I even think that a lot of it's implemented functions are never used by anyone, but anyway it is good to know that they are implemented and can be used.

[Kilgore]

Originally posted by Sizigmund:

There is a lot of campaigns with broken missions. I played "Flaming Cliffs 3" and found about 1 - 2 missions broken in each campaign. The good news were, that they was easy to fix using mission editor. I just checked what went wrong in the mission, then went to mission editor and fix it. Sometimes it just a trigger point that was set in the wrong place, sometimes it is a trigger that is wrongly set. So it took me about 3 - 5 minutes for each broken mission to fix it. So all after all I finished all "Flaming Cliffs 3" campaigns and had a lot of fun. But yes AI in this game is not so smart, so usually you can't rely on your wingmen, but sometimes they do well. Anyway, it is up to you. If you prefer playing online then don't bother about campaigns. As for me, I just like games with a good storyline, so for me campaigns are a kind of storyline and I prefer them more then just PvP battles.

By the way. KA-50 have a very good manuals in "[your steam installation dir]\steamapps\common\DCSWorld\Mods\aircraft\Ka-50\Doc\". I'm just learning it now. Abris explained very well. I even think that a lot of it's implemented functions are never used by anyone, but anyway it is good to know that they are implemented and an be used.

Well I've been watching a youtube channel called 'The Grim Reapers'. They seem to have some decent tutorials for the KA-50, they were the first to pop up on youtube when I searched for it but they've been super helpful.

[Sizigmund]

Originally posted by Kilgore - Someday <3:

Well I've been watching a youtube channel called 'The Grim Reapers'. They seem to have some decent tutorials for the KA-50, they were the first to pop up on youtube when I searched for it but they've been super helpful.

Each time somebody mention "The Grim Reapers", a lot of people here starts to complain about them. It looks like there is a lot of people that don't like these guys. Anyway, youtube is good and it can help to sharp the edges, but nothing is better than manuals. I'm reading it now and I realize that there is a huge amount of things in this not so big helicopter. I just don't believe that any youtube channel can describe them all. But again its up to you ofcourse. I prefer to read and after that start practicing, using manuals as a reference.

[Kilgore]

First time I've heard of them but I've not played DCS for a long while :)

[Kilgore]

Originally posted by spike2071:

Yeah, I just tried playing it again and had the same thing happen. Which is a shame because it's a great campaign, and it's been broken for years.

I haven't looked into it yet, but a user named MadDog used to update that campaign. Check the User Files on the DCS site and see if there is a current fix. (There was one last time I played it a few years ago.) I had hoped ED would've fixed it on their own, but that's obviously not the case.

Looks like this might be the best shot for those missions being fixed. As you said, done by that maddog guy.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/?CREATED_BY=MadDog-IC&set_filter=Y

[spike2071]

Originally posted by Kilgore - Someday <3:

Originally posted by spike2071:

Yeah, I just tried playing it again and had the same thing happen. Which is a shame because it's a great campaign, and it's been broken for years.

I haven't looked into it yet, but a user named MadDog used to update that campaign. Check the User Files on the DCS site and see if there is a current fix. (There was one last time I played it a few years ago.) I had hoped ED would've fixed it on their own, but that's obviously not the case.

Looks like this might be the best shot for those missions being fixed. As you said, done by that maddog guy.

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/?CREATED_BY=MadDog-IC&set_filter=Y

Yeah, that's the guy. He fixed it a few versions ago, but I haven't tried the 2.5.6 fix yet.

As for the Grim Reapers, people either love them or hate them. I tend to be on the hate side. I don't really hate them, but I followed some of their tutorials a few years ago and found out the hard way that they were wrong in a few areas. I also didn't like the presentation of Cap just fumbling around and flipping random switches until someone else tells him what to actually do. In the larger scheme of things, they steal artwork from other users, claim to be associated with ED (when they're not), etc. There are also some nice videos with slurs during their whole kekistan campaign.

The reason they pop up first in the tutorial list is because they flood YouTube with their videos and game the algorithm with tons of tags. I just looked up a tutorial on the Mirage and these are some of the tags: "JF-17, Thunder, F-16, Viper, milsim, fighter, aircraft, F-22, F-35, F-18C, Hornet, Raptor, DCS, DCS world, formation, flying, stunts, pvp, " They also started charging people 25/hr for private lessons. I don't care about that (they apparently have a market for it), but it gets a lot of people steamed.

I've heard their tutorials have become better in recently, but I prefer the tutorials from RedKite, Jabbers, Growling Sidewinder, etc.

Good luck with the Ka-50 Deployment campaign. Hopefully the MadDog fix works!

[Randy Lahey]

The Ka 50 'Deployment' campaign is completely broken without MadDog's fixes. I recently played his version and ran into a few issues that he promptly fixed and re-uploaded (July-ish). You should start with the other campaign (the Oil one) as it is a lot easier and quicker to get into.

I don't bother with the manuals unless absolutely necessary. Overkill, Ravagetalon, and Redkite all have excellent youtube channels where you will learn things a lot faster than falling alseep reading a boring manual.