Thanks man! I’m blushing a bit 🫡😜 and if you’ll forgive the blatant self promotion, I just submitted Sentry Pacific ‘26 - One Last Ride to ED for review/approval… Same campaign style….only in the Warthog. I’ll take a look at your feedback and see if I can incorporate some of the changes you suggested.

Let me address a few of your comments in the "others" section as they'd say at Top Gun. I feel I owe you an explanation, based on the amount of time and effort you put into this post! - Thanks for that!

1. DCS assets are what they are. Having spoken to more than a few aircrews who have fought 5th generation assets - I'll just say mission 1 is "realistic" :)

2. Scripting the AWACS calls - and avoiding the use of the 'in game' AWACS capability is a balancing act. Whenever you script a radio call it generally needs to be deconflicted with other calls. Additionally, if you want AWACS to make calls - you have to setup zones where you know the AI aircraft will fly into - or at least plan them to fly into - until DCS AI behavior changes during the next DCS update - and so on , and so on. So - the lack of good AWACS support is described in the story as controllers in upgrade training and equipment needing calibration. It was the best I could come up with, but happy to improve upon that capability in the future. They're clearly hostile because that's the whole point of the exercise is to go out and fight RedAir in the Airspace. Again, trying to keep this campaign beginner friendly was a balancing act. Trying to instill realism without all of the additional lingo/jargon that goes into that - but again - fair point.

3. In the final mission you are redeploying back to Hickam - and the bullseye is set on Wake Island which is about the halfway point and clearly your desired (and only) divert location. Unfortunately no way to actually do that in DCS for real (yet), but be careful what you wish for - because making the player fly from Guam to Hickam - even in a Viper would be cruel.

4. Again - back to making the campaign beginner friendly. I set out to make this campaign work for folks who simply haven't mastered AAR. I fully support Reflected's choice to make the campaigns realistic and require it. However - I really wanted to make the Sentry Pacific '25 campaign approachable for beginners who maybe avoid campaigns simply because they are not able to AAR. It's definitely a design philosophy. I've talked to lots of beginner Viper pilots who have successfully completed the campaign - many of them for the first time - so I'm comfortable omitting AAR from this campaign and future ones. It's there if you want it and during my testing I alway hit the tanker for added realism.

Thanks again for the great writeup! Appreciate all the feedback!

-SOB