Campagin tips
-
adjust PAKs so that only the border regions are selected, most of the default loadouts are garbage, make them yourself. you may wish also to review threats-along-steerpoint and adjust them accordingly, though i find the AI does an OK job of plotting steers for non-complex stuff. once you get into multi-package NOE-ingress, popups and complicated tanker setups you’ll of course have to set it up more directly.
you may wish to learn how to use the ATO and plot your own missions entirely though. i find the AI’s tasking kind of silly alot of the time, though sufficient for the squadrons i don’t care about.
generally you should be making decisions about following steerpoints and stuff in-pit. i generally just use the altitude based on threats encountered dynamically; no reason to follow the AI-planned steers slavishly if it puts you in danger.
-
You could do that, or you could just fly whatever is put up and hope for the best, which is what I do now for Korea Campaign, it feels good knowing I haven’t interfered with the workings of the war, if the mission looks impossible who cares?, just get out there and do your best, the challenge is what keeps me interested.
-
that’s fine, though if it gives you a mission “fly to the chinese border and bomb this factory” but doesn’t give you fuel tanks you should probably change it.
-
I think the issue with that is that sometimes the AI will assign long range missions that are just exactly possible to accomplish without AAR or drop tanks, but only if you go there and back in a straight line, with no space left in for combat maneuvering which makes it rather impractical.
-
@Al:
Just Win Baby.
-
One thing I forgot to highlight - in case of a package mission, I’m sure the push point (rendevous point with the other flight) timing is very important and that timing should be maintained?
Also timing over the target should be maintained? -
Only in package flights which any flight of significant resistance should be.
-
it’s moderately important if you are an escort that you arrive on time, though you could, for example arrive a little early and there’s no issue. TOT is also flexible; if the factory explodes a minute after TOT there’s no big deal about it. the only time TOS/TOT really matter is in really precision OPs, where multiple packages are converging on target and the SEAD must get there on time in order to clear the area for the strikers, AND the threats are nasty enough that the strikers will die if alone. that’s all.
-
One of my friends would play the campaign by taking control of a squadron, cancelling all the missions, then fragging missions individually just for one flight that he commands. Naturally, he picks targets that he wants to engage and sets up the steerpoints and everything manually. He says he was able to win the campaign like this. Anyone have a similar experience? I want to plan my missions individually but I don’t want to have to manage multiple packages or flights in a package, except for the occasional SEAD escort flying with me.
-
My advise is to learn to use the ATO. The Air Tasking Order (ATO) is on the bottom of the screen and you can delete for instance (what happened to my campaign) 15 SEAD strikes and Deep strikes when there was a clear need for air superiority first. All my strikes were being shot down or aborted. Also, you can right click on any target or installation and choose ‘add package’. You can then add and make your own mission. Try it out it’s easy enough.
When you have a flight or package ready, don’t forget to use the OOB for sorting threats that are a factor for your flight/package. -
One of my friends would play the campaign by taking control of a squadron, cancelling all the missions, then fragging missions individually just for one flight that he commands. Naturally, he picks targets that he wants to engage and sets up the steerpoints and everything manually. He says he was able to win the campaign like this. Anyone have a similar experience? I want to plan my missions individually but I don’t want to have to manage multiple packages or flights in a package, except for the occasional SEAD escort flying with me.
it’s the best way to win IMO. tasking your own stuff is way more efficient and it’s likely to result in a much higher % of completed missions.
-
One of my friends would play the campaign by taking control of a squadron, cancelling all the missions, then fragging missions individually just for one flight that he commands. Naturally, he picks targets that he wants to engage and sets up the steerpoints and everything manually. He says he was able to win the campaign like this. Anyone have a similar experience? I want to plan my missions individually but I don’t want to have to manage multiple packages or flights in a package, except for the occasional SEAD escort flying with me.
@Cik:
it’s the best way to win IMO. tasking your own stuff is way more efficient and it’s likely to result in a much higher % of completed missions.
Yeah. Doesn’t everyone take control of at least 1 squadron they’re going to fly in?
-
Yeah. Doesn’t everyone take control of at least 1 squadron they’re going to fly in?
Yes, but many people just fly the default squadron tasked flights (when the ‘set by HQ’ checkbox is checked in the squadron page) rather than fragging all the flight themselves.
-
I suppose you can just disable the AI tasking when you feel like it, and enable it again afterwards. One of my favourite things about BMS though is to do frag packages myself. It allows so much flexibility in which targets I strike, how, when, with what, and just setting up the strike package, oh man, that makes me feel like Napoleon or something
-
I’m not well experienced, every now and then after a new update I restarted a campaign,
currently I am doing the BFB SP campaign, and up to now i played it most active of any I started.
Still I am only at day 2 ~1500.At the beginning I was using the italian ABs to attack ships. After a few flights I saw that enemy tanks pushed far into our northern regions.
At this point I switched between zagreb and Pula, attacked the tanks. I almost always created my own flight (but without modifying the flight plan).
I also took care of other packages and deleted some of them, IMO they seemed like suicide to me (flying through the whole enemy territory for a sead strike - without external tanks)
First I did leave the PAK set by hq setting checked until day 2 ~03:00, then I changed the priority of regions to the borders, and because enemy Tank batt. already pushed far into northern regions, I set Armored Targets and air defense to higher priority.
Later on I started also creating all the flights of Zagreb and pula. But I still try to take every possibility to get up in the air.
If I don’t land, I reload at the last point before the flight and try to change tactics.If this leads me to a successful campaign? I don’t know it yet, every now and then there are again new troops in our northern region, I can’t get them out.
Pushing into the enemy is still hard for me, SA10s or SA12give me a hard time, and they are up to now rarely visible on map, So I can’t create SEAD Strikes on them.
I also don’t know how to defeat EWR Sites, Sead Strikes seem to be not compatible with them, and when I tried to do a Sweep and Sead Escort Package on my desired Area, I totally fail.So I still have to collect more skills.
-
Any tips regarding playing in a campagin? I’ve read a few threads on campaings, and found most of it mentions about adjusting this setting or that setting, but I’d like to get an overall picture of what should be adjusted & what not.
I think the first question to start with is what do you want from a campaign, because from reading other threads I see some people want to fight a campaign like a real war and play the strategy aspect of it taking total control and doing their own tasking, whereas others will write they have never completed a campaign and only play for interesting missions. However, you don’t need to play the strategy aspects to “win”, whatever “winning” really means. My understanding from browsing this forum, is the campaign is to some extent smoke and mirrors - that you win by flying missions with excellent performance, as long as you fly missions at a minimum frequency. A limiting factor is supposedly the AI tends to generate missions to blow up bridges your own troops will need to cross later, which is why the Infrastructure slider is moved all the way down. Supposedly the campaign engine also generates too many naval missions, which should also be turned down.
Personally, I play for interesting missions with ambience (the feel of being in the middle of a theatre with lots of stuff going on) while trying to keep it reasonably real. If that is what you like, then I’d say (a) pick interesting missions and if there are no interesting missions then task one of your own (and bring enough support), (b) avoid suicide missions, bring a reasonable loadout which should pretty much always include two bags of fuel, and never jettison except in actual emergencies. Also perhaps (d) pick or generate missions which give reasonable separation in space and/or time from other missions. Some times the skies over Korea seem to be rather crowded. So you are going on a sweep mission and are looking forward to kill some bandits. However, every friendly pilot and his grandmother is out flying in more or less the same volume, and by the time you reach the bandit they have been shot down by some other flight - again. And (e) focus on your mission; you don’t need to blow every bandit out of the sky; if you are on an A/G mission, then hopefully you brought an escort and can leave it to them. Role-play the mission, trying to be on time, keeping your package alive and doing stuff more or less “by the book” whatever that means; us mere armchair pilots can only make educated guesses about that.
Edit: oh … one more thing, (f) check for enemy air defenses and adjust the flight plan for your mission accordingly (or at least mark threats). E.g. flying an AI generated TARCAP which puts your patrol over an enemy SA-2 is perhaps not the best idea. Tweak the flight plan so it keeps you out of air defense engagement envelopes.
I don’t really care about winning campaigns, because “winning” really only means you consistently played missions with good rating. Which also may not always really mean anything, as mission score may be completely off. You got an excellent score though you know you actually really messed up, or you got a failed mission because though you planned for “one pass and haul a%#” and you perfectly dropped your bombs, they were only sufficient to damage the target and wingmen like to drop single GBUs - so you are flying home with a damaged target and 3 wingmen with a GBU left. Or you got a court martial because your wingman decided on his own to go dogfighting with the Mig-29 that you were turning to re-engage, and was acquired by one of the two AIM-120s you fired.
Whatever your play style, happy campaigning
-
One thing I forgot to highlight - in case of a package mission, I’m sure the push point (rendevous point with the other flight) timing is very important and that timing should be maintained?
Also timing over the target should be maintained?If you want to make the comparison to the real life, it is almost the most important. Simply because everything is synchronized and it is the key of a efficient COMAO.
The Push is the TRP = the base of all timings and … the key for deconfliction between flights of the package, but also between preceeding and folowing other packages that are not working on the same freq. and unrelated to preceeding/folowing packages.
Imagine the Push as a common gate, everybody pass via this point alternatively (there are several gates of course) but timmings have to be respected at +/-10 especially at push, because a flight being late could mean the preceeding package delayed (=> need a lot of coordination to give a proper rolex to all players) or could even scrub the entire package (possible lack of playtime … etc …)Remeber aslo, in an AWACS, there is only three guys (or more exactly only two) to manage the mess that an undissiplined pilot could brings (dealing with each MCs) … so … the music is to be strictly respected (at least, as much as possible … This is one of the drawbacks of the COMAO concept.)
-
(e) focus on your mission; you don’t need to blow every bandit out of the sky; if you are on an A/G mission, then hopefully you brought an escort and can leave it to them. Role-play the mission, trying to be on time, keeping your package alive and doing stuff more or less “by the book” whatever that means; us mere armchair pilots can only make educated guesses about that
100% this is one of the best advice and the key of mission (actually task) success. If you estimate that it is a no go… Abort, save your a/c and you wingmen and come later. It is extremely rare to have an absolute priority level. Up to you as a (unfortunately, limited because no control of other package members once in 3d) MC to evaluate the benefit vs risks of your task.
-
Winning a campaign means you won the war and get a fat medal. Managing the campaign for me is interesting and challenging. Learning how to complete your mission though the odds against it are daunting; not engaging aircraft and running from others to achieve your mission goal provides true fun and sometimes you know you won’t make it home. BMS provides scenarios that are extremely challenging being regularly outnumbered while frantically trying to stop the advancing ground attack and saving your forward airbases from being shut down.
-
Some of the best and most exciting missions I’ve flown were the one’s that went pair shaped and we had to abort and fight our way home, strange but true, I get excited when the mission looks impossible, and it probably will be!..…but you can guarantee a great experience.