OK, I’ve started getting back into the Harrier, running through a cold and dark start with Chuck’s guide (revision 050918), and I’m getting stuck at the INS alignment stage. Followed the steps to input starting aircraft location using the UFC, but my trouble starts when it won’t take my input for magnetic variation:
I figured ok, maybe that’s a bug, I can work around it. Flipped the INS mode switch to “INS Align Ground”, saw this as the starting point, pretty much like the guide said I would, and started waiting:
Except the clock never started counting, and I never saw any quality improvement from the INS fix. Waited about three minutes, nothing. Flipped the INS switch back to “off” started over from scratch, still nothing.
One question on the INS alignment that goes beyond the procedure: why do we need to put in the MAGVAR?
Every INS I operated detected true heading during alignment (sensing the Earth’s rotation and doing a 90 degree offset), and used MAGVAR only when slaving the HSI to a magnetic heading. Even then, the MAGVAR was determined by the INS database based on present position. According to RAZBAM (I asked Larry about this directly), the procedures say that MAGVAR must be entered for a ground alignment.
Less sensors required, one lesser point of failure, simpler INS unit? You obviously trade in the chance of a pilot or ground crew putting in the wrong MAGVAR.
Just throwing idea’s out there. Not much else I could come up with except for systems simplification on the technical side.
I am (still) stuck on mission 4 of the Kerman Campaign in the harrier. It is a night mission, a strike on a bunch of MRLS units defended by MANPADS and some AAA.
The loadout for this mission is two laser Mavericks, two rockeyes and two packs of APKWS. For some reason, I just can’t pass this b’stard of a mission. I either eat a missile, catch a golden BB or waste all my ammo leaving the targets mostly intact.
The LMAVs I can work consistently. The rockeyes, well that’s user error. But those APKWS… I know how to work the pod now, I got clean designations, laser’s firing and on the right code.
But for some infuriating reason, only the very first of the APKWS shots guided. The rest went wildly off the mark! WTF?! Is this a bug? Am I doing something wrong? (pod on target, laser set to armed and LSR (not TRNG or anything), fire the rocket in the general direction of target, range below 3m)
Been a while since I flew the Harrier, IIRC it has some odd procedural stuff with the laser in auto mode. Might just manually fire the laser whenever you have a APKWS in flight and see if that works?
Also can you swap out the rockeyes? Those have been bugged since FC3 (or did they finally fix them?), any of the CBU titled munitions should perform much better.
Nope, campaign creator says explicitly not to re-arm and swap weapons at the start of the mission, since it may break scripting.
@schurem Remind me, is this the one with the targets in the valley that you approach from the south?
If so, I never managed to kill all the MLRS either, but staying high kept me safe enough to shoot a few. You start out by killing the SAM with LMAV2 from a nice clean distance, then on the second run you can fire the second LMAV or an APKWS at the next target.
I also had trouble getting to grips with APKWS. What helped me was:
Having a good dive angle as per the manual. I try to be at least 10k feet above the target at the start of the attack run, preferably 15k
Manually turning the laser on AND OFF with the FIRE button on the right MFD
I have gotten close to killing them all, but for some reason I keep either eating MANPADS (who indeed should not see me) or running out of ammo/gas. I fire the other maverick next as having assymetric loads make the harrier a bish to fly. Blow up an AAA unit with it, then drop the clusters on the HQ if I can. Work the rest with the rockets, but that’s where I usually run into problems.
I’ve been debating getting Kerman. OK, not so much debating “getting” as it is only a few bucks. But like Beach, the giant sucking sound of yet one more addictive distraction scares me. I find the rotorheads server great for the AV8 fix. There are only two available but almost nobody takes them because they easily get eaten by manpads. (For me, landing back at the FARP is both intensely satisfying and frustratingly rare.
Sounds like you are (mostly) doing a lot better than me. I only killed a few. There’s just one thing you gotta work on: not dying.
I highly recommend staying above 11k as much as possible and being less ambitious about killing them all. Focus on staying alive. Take your time to set up for the next run, relax, get high.
You know you don’t need a 100% score to continue to the next mission and continue enjoying the campaign right? Just shoot the first one, tell your buddy to help shoot the rest, and go home when ammo or (more likely) fuel runs low.
I would bet that if you played it for an hour you would be wondering why you waited to buy it. Steam lets you refund if you have less than 2 hours of play time, so you really have nothing to lose.
Oh shoot man, load it up and give it a go. The controllers will feel odd for probably an hour or two. I was looking at some hardware options to emulate the feel of my HOTAS with the the hand controllers, because of the feel initially. After a couple of hours I have no idea why I didn’t like using tht hand controllers, they are great. Even flying the helo and not using my pedals works just fine.
I’ll make you a deal if after 4 hours of flying you don’t like it, I’ll refund you cost of my advice just now
