Creating and Running a Campaign: One User's Guide

[SoBad]

I keep notes on pretty much everything because I’m old and tend to forget things if they don’t come up after a while. For example, I have a text file of BMS notes that relate to creating a campaign, Mission Commander ins-and-outs, fragging/running missions, and so on. Whenever I start a new campaign, I refer to those notes, and realize how thankful I am to have them because I forgot at least half of the info since the last time I started a campaign!

After a while, I realized that the text file contained a lot of semi-organized info that others might find helpful. So in Dec. 2023 I started putting together a more organized guide. I just finished it up this week.

If anyone, particularly newer users, is interested in learning tips & tricks of how to create a campaign to suit your preferences, and then frag your own multi-flight packages to fly effective and successful missions, you can click the below Google Drive link to access a PDF document that walks you through the steps in a hopefully easy-to-follow guide. If anyone spots errors of fact or spelling/grammar, please send me a PM here.

EDIT: 2024-05-08 - Below link updated

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XtIYTdQIzDmJ2gl6R_dt8O1wPFGfN3mV/view?usp=sharing

EDIT: 2024-09-20 - This document has been updated to include any relevant changes that exist in
Falcon BMS v4.37.4.2 that was recently released.

Main changes include Link16 aspects as they relate to fragging a mission, more info on Force Ratio settings, and other issues/updates. The link to this PDF document is

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kjf1cy4zErmcJhxNhTDjffCSqPcqC19y/view?usp=sharing

[Atlas]

@SoBad
Wow, those were a lot of notes!!
Thanks so much for organising them and sharing! Anything to help with getting to grips with campaigns is very much appreciated!

[Topo 0]

@SoBad These are so many useful tips and procedures, Thank you!

[VDK]

@SoBad outstanding work! My salute to you sir!

Can i ask you a question? Usually i change my starting campaign hour to early dawn (about 2:00AM in the morning) because most of military campaigns start with the cover of the night. As you mentioned in your doc:

“I’ve learned the hard way through trial-and-error
to set the ‘End Time’ to 13 hours after the ‘Start Time’.”

So… i need to change my “End Time” to 13 Hour after 2:00AM? What’s happens if this “13 hour” are not comply ?

Thanks!

[SoBad]

@VDK said in Creating and Running a Campaign: One User's Guide:

@SoBad outstanding work! My salute to you sir!

Can i ask you a question? Usually i change my starting campaign hour to early dawn (about 2:00AM in the morning) because most of military campaigns start with the cover of the night. As you mentioned in your doc:

“I’ve learned the hard way through trial-and-error
to set the ‘End Time’ to 13 hours after the ‘Start Time’.”

So… i need to change my “End Time” to 13 Hour after 2:00AM? What’s happens if this “13 hour” are not comply ?

Thanks!

In my experience, if you want to start your campaign at 2am, you need to set

‘Current Time’ to 1.17:00:00 (Use the Up/Dn arrows)
‘Start Time’ to 1.17:00:00 (Use the Up/Dn arrows)
‘End Time’ to 2.06:00:00 (Use the Up/Dn arrows)

Try a different end time and see for yourself if/why it won’t work. Maybe for you it will, but for me, the campaign won’t start when you click the ‘COMMIT’ button.

I prefer ‘just before dawn’ to start a campaign because the beautiful sunrise comes up as you ingress your first campaign target.

[VDK]

@SoBad thanks for the answer buddy!

Greetings from Brazil!

[Eagle10]

That’s very useful.
Thanks a lot.

[Mike_Bravo]

@SoBad Thank you for this very useful doc

[Ironman53rd]

@SoBad

This is a good document …

You mention how to do almost everything BUT why no mention of WDP so that you can put all that good info to use and for ref onto your kneeboards?

I would not fly without setting up my kneeboards with WDP.

Just my thoughts.

Ironman

[SoBad]

@Ironman53rd said in Creating and Running a Campaign: One User's Guide:

@SoBad

This is a good document …

You mention how to do almost everything BUT why no mention of WDP so that you can put all that good info to use and for ref onto your kneeboards?

I would not fly without setting up my kneeboards with WDP.

Just my thoughts.

Ironman

Excellent point, Ironman. I didn’t think to include it because, although I rely on WDP for many things, I don’t use WDP for mission-to-mission planning. Long ago I built my own Excel workbook that I keep on a side monitor that has all the kneeboard info I need.

I also track my missions and chart the performance data with another worksheet I created:

Because I use these worksheets, I don’t use WDP. But I think you’re right-- SOMEBODY (hint) might want to put together a document about the advantages of WDP!

[1973emi]

Really great work. Thank you

[A Former User]

This document will help us create our own campaign.
Good document,Thank you for you great job SoBad!

[Dan]

@SoBad
The talent and generosity of this forum never ceases to amaze me!
Bravo, for a clear, simple and VERY helpful guide to get a campaign off the ground.

[Carbide]

@SoBad Thank you for sharing.

[Killroy]

@SoBad
Thank You!

[Martinus]

Thank you for these tips and tricks!

[Atlas]

@SoBad
dadgummit, even more useful info!! Thanks!

[Killroy]

@SoBad I used your users guide on a fresh new campaign in Nordic Theater called Skyfox. Used latest Mission Commander edition and established three squadrons not HQ committed. When i pushed the Tab Campaign in Mission commander, i got a notice, but i am not sure what it means.

I flew alone my mission, with 5 flights together in a Harpoon Tasmo mission, 2 flights Tasmo, 1 flight Tarcap and two flights Havcap. Everything was OK.

To night, me and 4 others tried to use my scenario, but they got a lot of failures loading my scenario, and immediate got CTD. Anybody has a clew whats wrong? We then took and old mission in Nordic and everything worked fine as multiplayer.

[SoBad]

@Killroy - I’ve always gotten (and ignored) that caution window. I have no idea what it means. I’m sure someone else might know. I’ve never had any issues, whether connected to that caution window or not.

I can’t speak for other theatres, and I can’t speak for doing MP either, because I lost my riding partner years ago and can’t find another person with similar A/G interests in my time zone.

If you get any insight that points to possible issues playing MP with others using such a customized campaign, I hope you comment in this thread so others can know and either confirm or deny if they try it themselves. If the issues you’re having are confirmed for whatever reason, I’ll add a disclaimer in my document as well. Thanks for the heads-up.

[Atze 0]

@Killroy
Maybe they need to copy the exact same Nordic folder after your changes over their stock ones?
Because so they now have a different version. Or would it be sufficient to just overwrite the CAM and SAV files for the campaigns?