There is a N1k campaign I redid my iwo_09 which was a J2M into a N1K campaign: it should be out on mission4today.

As far as my best effort im quite happy with my Kiev battle pack campaigns, pe-2 /lag etc or my all time favorite I-16 smolensk.
Nothing quit elike being swamped in an inferior plane and learning the hard way.

ooh great recommendations in this thread, I've been looking for campaigns to play.




I made an "Air Pirates" campaign recently, it's my first attempt at a campaign so it's probably sorta noobish. The link to it is in my sig if anyone is interested.

Enjoying "Storm Clouds" so far, I hadn't encountered Fw-190D's or Me-210's before...I even bounced some Me-262's flying at low level and killed three of them before the fourth zoomed away...heh...Tempest FTW!

Next I'll try Green Hearts.

I've made several campaigns which are mostly on the east front. I've gotten better at adding ground objects as a lot of my missions are for ground attack.

My main weakness is the immersion factor in creating a storyline and dialogue. I tend to focus more on a generic pilot and the historic battle taking place. It's hard for me to create a dialogue so I guess I'll continue with the way I've done things so far. I don't mind criticism because it does help. I just build missions that try to re-create battles for my own enjoyment and then share with others.

I have not played too many others' campaigns but a couple that come to mind are Zeus cat's Rufe campaigns and Browning50's new The Siege.

I'm currently playing Dunkelgrun aka 242sqn Cat's Hurricat campaign. At first, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I am enjoying it very much. You have to use your hurricat protect your fleet, 600 miles from ireland in the atlantic, from praying condors! Then, either bail or ditch near your convoy to win!

On the first mission, you have to destroy a condor. First try, I shot it down, but when i bailed, my shoot caught on my plane, and killed me. Second try, I see a big yellow flash and my screen went black. Died again. Third try, I shoot him down, but im to low when i bail, died AGAIN! Finally, the last time, i shot him down and safely ditched. Haha! Don't make fun of me!

This thread has remained on the forums front page for as long as it took me to mod Murmansk to Morocco
I now think that due to the maps and alterations in the scenario (24 new missions)it is more immersive than the previous version.

I remember scaling down missions for the first version ever published (for 4.04m) because I had received comments from the testers on the frame rate they had.

This time around, almost 3 years on, I used "realistic" formations, i.e. formations a size that was impossible then, but doable today because most systems will do this stuff easily.
In the BoB sequence there's more than 100 aircraft in the air a some stage....

So, I am now in favour of that one

quote:

Originally posted by FlatSpinMan:
@Kernow -if you're still reading, which of your campaigns do you suggest? I thought the Stuka one that includes training missions/information looked like a really good one. I'll try it one of these days.

Hi FSM, yep I'm still reading when I get the chance. Was away earlier this year and must have missed page 2 of this thread as it was being posted, as I've only now read your post. Thanks for the interest.

For most people I'd probably say the training Stuka campaign you mention, 'StG 77 in the Balkans', is the best. It was designed to take a total Stuka novice from first flight on-type to a decent level of competency and give a grounding in the use of every bomb the 87B can carry. I think it does that in the 12 relatively short missions of the campaign, and the reviews seem to bear that view out.

My Burma campaign would also have a reasonably wide appeal, as you fly Hurricanes and Spitfires in air-to-air and fighter-bomber roles. However, for me the Stuka campaign would get the vote, as it does what it sets out to do and probably introduces many people to a type they haven't flown much.

The 'Stuka Leader' series are for the more dedicated Stuka fans (or for any graduates of 'StG 77 in the Balkans'). Not only is your dive-bombing skill important, but the ability to lead and direct your Staffel can be even more important. I'm currently doing the final testing of the third - and final - campaign in the series (Kursk) and I get the feeling in some missions that the commands available to give to the AI (and the AI responses) aren't quite flexible enough for the missions to meet my original intentions, so none of them quite match my expectations like the Balkan Stuka training campaign managed to do.

I wish I had more time to fly some of the campaigns I've downloaded. I've cut back on my online flying, but most of the time gained is spent making, not playing, campaigns. And when I'm away 'making' is all I can do on the laptop anyway.

**************************************
It was getting late last night when I posted; I could probably add a bit more now.

The 'Stuka Leader: Poland' campaign pretty much follows accounts from Maj Oskar Dinort of various missions during the campaign - almost as if following a diary. For me that ought to give the max immersion factor, although a proper map of Poland would have helped with that too. The next campaign - Tobruk - also used a few first-hand accounts for the initial month or so of the siege (Mahlke), but much was also 'made up' from information gathered from other sources - both general history sources and first-hand participants (Rommel's ADC, Schmidt and one of his staff officers, von Mellenthin - both army, of course, so little direct info on Luftwaffe or Stuka activity day-to-day). The missions are therefore historically plausible or typical rather than recreations of actual missions. The final, Kursk, campaign moves further in that direction, with only one mission being based on an actual participant's account. That was the raid on Kursk itself, which opened the offensive, and which turned out to be the last precision, strategic, dive-bombing mission for most of the units involved. From Kursk onwards tactical battlefield support consumed all the Stukagruppen's efforts.

For historical accuracy and immersion 'Stuka Leader: Poland' ought to be the best, but I suspect a dedicated, historical - and hopefully realistic - Stuka campaign probably lacks wider appeal. So, I stick to my earlier choice of the Stuka training campaign, as I think more 'fighter pilots' might be tempted into the Stuka by a relatively short campaign with a training syllabus that keeps things 'new' enough to be interesting & challenging for the non-ground-attack types right to the end (I hope).

BTW, this has proved to be a very good thread, not only for the reccomendations, but also for the comments on campaign design, inspiration etc.

Although I do start some missions with instant or near instant action, I tend to try to emphasize the aviation aspects rather than the action aspects of the sim. Many people do 'action packed' very well - and I've played & enjoyed quite a few, which is why I know mine can tend to be less intense for some periods of each mission. I attempt to go for accuracy, realism, detail and immersion in my campaigns, partly due to natural preference, but also because I think there's a little less competition in that area than there is in the action-packed category. The downside to that is probably a smaller potential audience and an audience that is knowledgeable and often experienced in the sim. However, I'm always keen to hear what people think - good & bad (so long as it's constuctive and comes with reasons and not just 'this sucks dude' - as it's only by getting feedback that you can progress and move on in future projects, (it was the response to the Balkan training campaign that persuaded me to do the 'Stuka Leader' campaigns) so maybe an experienced, potentially critical target audience is no bad thing.

Time to stop; seem to have gone on a bit

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kernow,

Found this one while trawling through for some other info on Defence of the Reich. Thought it might make interesting reading for some of the new arrivals.

Thought that was an interesting post, Kernow. I'll download your campaigns and have a look-see. Don't have much time for flying anymore but when I can I'll try them out.

I think mine would be "Cactus Diary", but if you can get over the twitchy flight characteristics, Cat O'9 Tales is pretty good too.

I'll check back in a bit and see if anyone here still remembers me. I was just reloading FB on my computer to give it a fly after an extended vacation.

Hey bird_brain, I just played Cat O'9 Tales and enjoyed it a lot. I posted a review a few days ago. I also really liked Cactus Diary.

quote:

Originally posted by bird_brain:
I think mine would be "Cactus Diary", but if you can get over the twitchy flight characteristics, Cat O'9 Tales is pretty good too.

I'll check back in a bit and see if anyone here still remembers me. I was just reloading FB on my computer to give it a fly after an extended vacation.

Played both, thought they were fantastic. My only problem was that some missions on both campaigns were pretty slow, but that's my PC's fault, not yours.

I really enjoyed Cat 'O Nine Tales because you get to fly the Hellcat, which seems to be rare in a lot of campaigns. Most PTO campaigns seem to focus on the Wildcat or the Corsair, which is fine, I love both of those planes, but the Hellcat doesn't seem to get enough use in campaigns.

Hi Zeus-cat, I would be interested to read your review and see what I forgot however long ago it was. Where did you post it?

My review WAS at Mission4Today. I posted one, but I don't see it now. I'll do it again.

Hey BB, welcome back.

quote:

Originally posted by FlatSpinMan:
Hey BB, welcome back.

Hi...again.
I thought I'd drop in and see what's up in the FB world now. I was hoping for a new patch or something or maybe even a Storm of War release, but no such luck. My HOTAS Cougar crapped out a while back, so I haven't played much, but I'm ordering a new one and reloading all the old stuff. I tried installing the AAA thing a while back but never could get it to run, so I pretty much gave up. We'll see how it goes.

quote:

Originally posted by crucislancer:

Played both, thought they were fantastic. My only problem was that some missions on both campaigns were pretty slow, but that's my PC's fault, not yours.

I really enjoyed Cat 'O Nine Tales because you get to fly the Hellcat, which seems to be rare in a lot of campaigns. Most PTO campaigns seem to focus on the Wildcat or the Corsair, which is fine, I love both of those planes, but the Hellcat doesn't seem to get enough use in campaigns.

I'm glad you liked them. They both had alot of objects in them, so they need a pretty high end machine to run well. Believe it or not, the Cactus Diary version that is posted on M4T is significantly reduced in AA & objects due to requests for a "light" version.
With as many PTO actions as it flew, it is amazing to me that not many people write any campaigns for it. I think it's because it doesn't perform in the game as well as it did IRL, and it was very twitchy on the controls for quite some time. I think v. 4.8m was the worst, but hopefully it will get fixed or maybe it was just the pots on my Cougar going out.

Just played missions of Cat O Nine Tails now, actually. Surreal to see USN planes flying over sanddunes.Really enjoyed shooting down the French P-36s. Unfortunatley I collided with one though, and another exploded too close and took me out with it. This thread reminded me that I hadn't done it.
In most PCs now I don't think it'll have any problems running.

BB - There's a unified installer available at the modding site which includes many major mods..

By the way, there's supposed to be an official 4.09 patch with new planes and stuff coming soon. soon is a relative term, especially in the Olegian sense.
It looks like there'll be more patches after this one, too.

quote:

Originally posted by bird_brain:
I'm glad you liked them. They both had alot of objects in them, so they need a pretty high end machine to run well. Believe it or not, the Cactus Diary version that is posted on M4T is significantly reduced in AA & objects due to requests for a "light" version.
With as many PTO actions as it flew, it is amazing to me that not many people write any campaigns for it. I think it's because it doesn't perform in the game as well as it did IRL, and it was very twitchy on the controls for quite some time. I think v. 4.8m was the worst, but hopefully it will get fixed or maybe it was just the pots on my Cougar going out.

I find with the Cougar that you need to warm up the pots before use. I do it just by rotating it around 360 deg. a couple of times as soon as the game has loaded. If I don't I get a great deal of twitchiness - once done the response is fine.

Any chance of uploading the high-object version of CD, BB?

@ FlatSpinMan

Well, unless the Maddox Games office burns down, soon is quite a good description this time.