I just completed Baltic Dragon's new 'Raven One: Dominant Fury' campaign and I was absolutely blown away. Let me share my impressions from a campaign maker's point of view.
Great video, Reflected. I absolutely love the level of detail that BOTH you and BD put into your creations. Couldn't agree more with your approach - make it as real as possible and be unapologetic about the skill level required. Can't tank? Practice. I definitely fall into that camp. The first time I trapped in the hornet with an OK pass was magical. Same thing when plugging that AAR basket. Did it take hours of practice for me to get there? Yes it did - and the sense of accomplishment/pride because of it will never be forgotten. A HUGE thanks to ALL the folks creating DCS campaigns. You and BD have it nailed and anything from either of you are instant buys for me. Heck, I've even purchased modules because of campaigns you've created (Mustang, Spitfire, Jug)! Single player campaigns are where its at for me on DCS because well made campaigns keep the experience authentic (at least they feel that way to this wannabe). I feel like I'm part of something bigger - almost like being IN the movie, so to speak. Sounds like DF takes that experience to the next level and I can't wait to start it. Here's hoping DF is a huge commercial success. IMHO, we need MORE of these and I believe it would be a great investment on ED's part to make it easier to create/maintain these works of art. Thanks Reflected and BD!!
To all that you said, I have to add the continuous support offered in prod by BD after the campaigns are released to fix the small bugs that are found. I read KM books, flew R1 twice, and now I’m enjoying R1DF. It’s simply a masterpiece.
Considering this was a review of a Hornet campaign I noticed there were a lot of long, loving shots of the F-14 in the video. You trying to tell us something Reflected? 😁 Can't wait for your upcoming F-14 campaign. Single-player content is like gold dust, especially done to the standard you and Baltic Dragon strive for.
I’m not a big hornet fan, but the R1 campaign was solid, now I need to hop back in it and do the DF campaign. I really can’t wait for some more solid F-14 campaigns from you and hopefully some F-16 campaigns from you and BD!
yes ! this is the kind of campaigns i love. immersion, realism. you and him are the two only campaign makers i know who make those kind of campaign, so thank you for this amazing work
It took me a YEAR to complete Raven One. I did it in fits and starts and some missions (cough mission 8 cough) took months of do overs until I got it right. The result of that though, was my first night trap and I finally became comfortable with the TGP. On the final mission I tanked bit by bit until I finally had enough to reach the boat and managed to trap without boltering. I cam practice all these things outside the campaign, but the missions make the lessons stick.
I think that the best way to really learn a module is under the duress that one gets in an RS or BD campaign LOL. You develop solutions and procedures not always by the book in order to survive.
Nice review, I couldn't insist more on the surprises in the campaigns, this is fantastic...when am so focused on the task ahead then suddenly a change of plans. Thanks for this great review
Just saw this vid. Reflected, I love YOUR campaigns. I get why everyone loves BD campaigns as they tell a story and are of a VERY high quality. But I don’t care for all of the non combat.training missions. Less than half of Raven Ones missions had anything other than training in them. I want to use my digital combat simulator to simulate combat…not to simulate simulated combat. So keep doing YOUR thing. I’ve found your work to be the perfect balance between realism, work up and combat.
Great Review! Honestly don't know why people would do a "Skip ahead" in a campaign - surely that's the point of a campaign. Campaigns are ahead of my skill level at the moment, but really glad people are doing this :-)!
This looks fun. I love Case 3, but hate AAR. Is it in most missions here? I may buy it anyway and just force myself to learn AAR. This is the only thing I've seen that might make it worth it.
AAR is almost as important in naval aviation as carrier landings. Especially if you’re flying a Hornet :D it’s worth mastering it, and it’s pretty rewarding
I bought the original Raven One campaign not too long ago, and I loved it! However, since the original one is quite old and I'm currently running the campaign with multithread enabled, there were lots of script bugs, I had to play mission 3 for 3 times because out of the blue the script just stop working, which is really annoying. I really want to buy Raven One DF as well, but I'm not if this campaign would have a similar issue due to the updated version of DCS.
Why don't you report this to Baltic Dragon? He can check the issue for you, either an update broke the mission or you misunderstood some instructions. Either way, he keeps his campaigns up to date at all times. We don't just release a campaign and forget about it, maintenance is a huge part of the work.
I love how this campaign looks and feels from what I've seen however as a harrier fanboy what dcs needs I feel is campaigns for the harrier in the same quality as this.
Been flying the hornet for 2,5 years now. It's my first and main module and I consider myself to be quite up to speed with it. Read the Briefing for the first mission the other day (didn't have time to fly it yet) but I was immediatley intimidated. I still have Raven one in memory quite well. I somhow doubt it'll have many missions I complete on the first try
Reflected awesome review man! I just purchased the F18 (and some other luxuries) and I am super excited to fly it!. However, I did not find a learn-to-fly campaign with it, like with the P-51D for example. Do you have any suggestions on which campaigns would be the best to buy for learning the systems (+flying) of the F18?
@@ReflectedSimulations Yeah the guides from Waggs are amazing, would be sweet to have a Top Gun school campaign. Anyway, great content as always!! Loved the B-roll, no spoilers just stunning.
I just have one question. Which campaign shall those noobs pick who want to pick a qood quality campaign but have no time to invest to be trained to Navy pilot level? I'm not interested in Rising Squall type campaigns but I'm also sure I won't do a 3 hour mission with 2 AAR (even one AAR is a challange:) ). Fear the bones was a really good middle ground in my opinion but it seems it's not the aim anymore to do. Not the movie like story was the best in that for me but is was challanging but at the same time it was doable with limited time to learn the things you have to know to finish it. I think there is place for both kind of campaings.
Próbáld ki szerintem Badger Hornet kampányait, azok egy fokkal könnyebbek. Meg most dolgozok egy új Tomcat kampányon aminek az első 10 bevetése tréning, és csak utána doblak a mélyvízbe :)
@@ReflectedSimulations Király! Tomcat campaignból bármi jöhet:). Megnézem a campaignokat is amit mondtál bár kicsit tartok tőle, hogy a minőség nem ugyan az lesz. A lényeg, hogy nem a minőségből szeretnék engedni hanem a komplexitásból. Esetleg egy training campaign nem lenne rossz.
Hey Reflected! I'm mid-Dominant Fury and otherwise flown every Baltic Dragon campaign, some twice!, except the one that comes with the MiG19 module...do you have a favorite campaign recommendation that isn't one of Baltic's?
I really enjoy Bunyap’s campaigns, like Red Flag for the F-16 or Epsom for the Spitfire. What I like about them is that as opposed to Baltic (or me for that matter) he doesn’t script the AI too hard, he relies on as much of the stock AI functionality as he can, and this makes the missions quite dynamic and replayable. Also he puts a lot of effort in research too, and his documentations are second to none.
@@ReflectedSimulations thanks Reflected! Now to fix/replace pedals so I can practice more Spitfire 😂😂 btw have you played Museum Relic? It is one of my favorites, I'd rank it 2 on the hardcore scale. It's older but the triggers still hold up after all these years/updates.
I would play the original Raven One first. Even though Raven One: Dominant Fury would be the prequel chronologically, there are a lot of improvements in Raven One: Dominant Fury. If you would play RO:DF first, Raven One would feel like a step backwards, even though its still the second best campaign out there, after RO:DF :P
mission editor and ground units provide endless potential but its hard to utilize and this games menu and systems are extremely outdated feels like sth from early 2010s at most and tons of simple settings need such complicated procedures in the mission editor. If they freshen it up I think many people will jump on it
I think the menu and systems are really good, very straightforward and user friendly. The problem is that the triggers and tasks rarely work as advertised, there's always a *fine print*, and one has to use an insane amount of workarounds.
We are most definitely not competitors. If you think about it, you’d want every campaign to be good. Otherwise a player buys his first campaign, it sucks and never tries any others ever again. This is - partly - why we help each other the best we can. And also because we’re all in the same boat :)
The more complex a mission, the more difficult it is to offer alternatives/ versions because with the current engine you’re basically multiplying things. So I’m sticking to a single version, the one that I like, because fortunately money is not my main motivator, but to create content for the people who want the same as me. I understand it’s a niche but that’s alright with me.
There are plenty of more casual missions and campaigns out there. I applaud BD & Reflected for providing deeper content for those that want it; there isn't enough of that kind...
