Tours of Duty

The heart of ADF is the Tours and the AWACS interface. The Tours are progressively more difficult and missions must be flown in sequence; you will not have access to the next mission until you successfully complete the first. This allows for a sense of progression since the flow of political and military will is pre-configured in the tours.

Red Sea Tour

There are three Tours: Red Sea Tour, Eritrea Tour, and Arabian Tour. The Red Sea Tour is composed of ten missions. The first mission in the Red Sea Tour is "Prelude," and here is the description:

After long negotiations, Egypt has bought military equipment from the USA. In 2007 they bought a small number of F22s, and three years later the Egyptian army seized power and has begun to threaten Sudan to the South.

Your mission is to fly an Egyptian F22 on a dry run for planned strikes, probing Sudanese defenses for weak points. Note: your alter ego is Egyptian and you will notice the accents!

Eritrea Tour

The Eritrea tour is composed of ten missions. The first is "Deny Flight." Here is the briefing:

Ethiopian troops have invaded Eritrea, who have called on the UN for help. Both Somalia dn Sudan have claimed neutrality and have threatened to shoot down any foriegn aircraft who violate their airspace. The UN has pledged French forces in neighboring Djiborah, US forces in Saudi Arabia and British forces to be placed in northern Eritrea.

You will fly a CAP with wingman, preventing any Ethiopian aircraft from violating Eritrean air space.

Saudi Arabia Tour

Like the other Tours there are ten missions in this tour. The major difference in this final tour is that you will have to be a Class One Black Belt Top Gun to complete it! The first mission is "Border Patrol" and here is the briefing:

The border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen has long been in dispute. Recent discoveries of oil reserves has split the Saudi government into two factions. One faction has used force to gain control of the far south west of the country, claiming independence and forging close ties to arch-rival Yemen.

The Saudi government retains control of the rest of the country and is now set, with UN help, to retake this independent area by force and at the same time deal with the increasing border incursions by the three Yemeni armed servies. The US will use this opportunity to reduce Yemen's strike capability.

You will fly a CAP. Rules of Engagement are strict: ALL contacts must be VIS-IDENT and you are not to fire until fired upon. You are not permitted to engage ANY ground targets.

Support arrives from Allied A10s

In keeping with increased difficulty the first mission in this tour must end by your landing at the airbase to the north. The second mission both begins and ends on the ground.

Gameplay in the Tours is challenging. However, its not necessary for you PERSONALLY to accomplish all goals. If your wingmen can take a few and a few are taken by other allied sources (air or ground) they still count as completed goals. However, you have to also SURVIVE long enough for this to happen!

The point of the tours is to give the player a greater sense of immersion in an ongoing effort to gain or maintain a hold on territory. Is this accomplished?

I would answer that question with a qualified yes. The first couple of times through a mission or the first time you complete a tour you may feel that you have participated in a dynamic and immersive virtual battlefield, but obviously scripted missions have limitations in this regard. Still, ADFs ability in the area of comms contributes a great deal, as does the graphic detailing of the sim. For more discussion of comms see the Wingmen and Comms section below.

The lack of a dynamic campaign does leave a gap. Replaying some missions more than a couple of times gives one that deja vu feeling. The same bandits generally show up in the same positions at the same relative times. (The AWACS interface is almost an exception since the interaction of so many aircraft over a longer period of time creates more possibilities).

On the positive side, you can replay a mission trying different tactics and do some serious learning. In fact, once the mission goals are accomplished you can choose to end the mission or keep playing. If you keep playing you will get AWACS calls for new mission goals, even though you have already done enough for the mission to be rated a SUCCESS on debrief.

ATC and Avionics

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Any simulation which lays claim to being of the "serious" variety has to pay close attention to avionics modelling. ADF does very well in this area, surpassing even iF22 in this regard. iF22 did what it did very well, and gave us great wingman control, but left too many things undone, lacking a variety of autopilot modes, a moving map display, ability to change waypoints in flight, and not addressing LANTIRN capabilities (although this last point is up for grabs in terms of F22 future abilities). Lets look first at the MFDs and related systems.

The Attack display is one of the most critical tactical displays. It has four modes: 1. Display sensor information with the emphasis on ranges and heights, 2. Display LANTIRN TV image from the under-fuselage 'eyes' for targeting laser guided weapons, 3. Display interactive Auto-pilot, 4. Display images sent back by a camera equipped weapon (such as a Maverick Air-to-Ground missile). Pull up the LANTIRN display to see this:

As I mentioned, the autopilot is actually even MORE advanced than that in EF2000. In the F22 there are some additional control modes added to the ap system: landing, refueling, and takeoff. Here is the display itself:

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If you pull up the larger image you will see the new functions on the mfd. Not only is the AP this sophisticated, the system can be controlled from any one of three mfds in case of damage to others. And at 800x600, the display looks like the real thing!

Next lets peek at the general Systems mfd. On the default display you get a quick glance view of your weapons and engine status. From here you can move to the fuel systems display for a graphical picture of your situation and can manage the flow accordingly. You can also access the Startup mfd which is like a pilots checklist. The status screen gives you a summary of operation systems and will tell you when a system is down. This mfd also allows access to the autopilot.

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The Situation Display allows access to the MFD map. The display is extremely detailed, and you can access the EMCON system, increase or decrease sensor range, display the artificial horizon (handy when you are head down for too long), and filter air and ground targets or even your own sensors. You can also display the AP system and display waypoints and place names.

You can also access a waypoint editor on the Situation display. This is especially handy since we don't have a mission planner or tasking features in ADF. When you first find yourself in the air or even at the runway you can pause the sim and adjust waypoints as you choose. At times waypoints take you directly over enemy emplacements, and the risk is usually unnecessary unless you have a target at that waypoint. You can click on the waypoint and drag it to a new location, you can delete it, and you can also adjust the altitude to the waypoint.

The Defense display has two modes: Autopilot display or Defense mode. In the latter mode these switches are available:

• A Auto EMCON
• B Cycle EMCON backwards
• C Cycle EMCON forwards
• D Increase sensor range
• E Decrease sensor range
• F Display artificial horizon
• G Launch a string of six flares
• H Launch chaff
• I Launch decoy drone
• J Display autopilot
• K Display ground threats
• L Display enemy weapon range
• M Display enemy radar range
• N Display attack MFD

The most useful toggles are enemy radar ranges and weapon ranges. When there are a lot of bandits in the air ability to toggle those items off helps your SA, and when you only have two or three bandits or ground threats those ranges are very useful indeed. Decoy drones are one of the more interesting possibilities of the F22, but because they are bulky you will only rarely carry them.

The CC&W (Combined Communications and Warnings) MFD has only one mode: it transcribes all messages sent to you (handy when you were too busy to listen) and it also displays text reports of system malfunctions and warnings.

Unfortunately, one of the first systems that seems to malfunction when you take a hit.... is this one! As a result you are sometimes left guessing what in blazes is blowing up behind you... =) But there is another problem here related to damage modelling in ADF.

In short, the messages regarding damage that you will see here will give you damage as a PERCENTAGE of the system. But what does it mean that your radar is 40% damaged, or that your ability to use your cannon is now 65%? If this is a realistic method used by the actual F22 its a confusing one. The red, green and yellow lights of EF2000 were a lot easier to interpret. Am I being warned about possible failure or is this system history? If your general Systems mfd is still up you're better to go there for a status check.

Go to F22: ADF Review Part V