Well where to begin, from the moment I discovered the Sea Fury mod i wanted to do a fleet air arm campaign set in Korea. I started work on this a few years ago but due to University progress has been very slow. However if uni has taught me one thing its the importance of research. So whilst I was not able to do much actual mission building i read a couple of books on the subject and returned to campaign feeling a little more in the know. But then i discovered 4.09m and UP 2 were rather out of date haha. So after getting upto date with everyone else work has begun again! I have just finished the map template to a level im happy with so now its down to the mission building.

This is where i have encountered my first major problem. Many, if not the majority of FAA missons in Korea were incredibaly boring from a gamer point of view. I do not mean this in anyway as disrespect to the men involved and im sure being there in the flesh it would not have been boring. But for gamers my worry is if i build these missions 100% historically acurate people will stop playing the campaign by the third mission.

So what i have decided to do is this, the Royal Navy only had one carrier on station in Korea at anytime, the carrier would sail from Japan and operate for about a two week period on 'patrol'. After that she would return to Japan to replenish. This campaign will follow one of these 'patrols'. However ive decided to take elements from various korean patrols, from the various Royal navy carriers who took part in the war and condense them down to this one. Basically trying to make it exciting for the player yet historically accurate where ever possible. I only intend one or two mission 's to be a works of fiction and even then they are based on events which did happen, just with differents forces, yet entirely plausible. In an attemp not to offend i plan on the FAA squadrons involved being fictional, but in a plausible and realistic way.

The next issue encounterd is in game models. Whilst we have the Sea fury there is little else from the period for the commonwealth forces. The most needed being the Fairey Firefly. However stand in units will have to make do until mods are released.

In terms of skins im just about there, the only things lacking are a few obscure ones such as a CODS TBM-3R Avenger skin and a few others. (Unless someone wants to skin a whole Sea fury squadron lol) No im kidding!

I intend the campaign to come with a fair amount of printable material such as mission briefings etc as i thought this would add some immersion to the campaign.

So a sumary of what to expect:
-Fly as a Fleet Air Arm Sea Fury pilot on a Korean war Carrier Patrol
-Experiece missions based on historical and pilot accounts
-Around 12-15 missions.
-Acurate units,skins and settings within the limits of the game.
-Im sure i had more planned but my memory has failed me!

I really want to take my time with this to do the men and machines of the Fleet Air Arm justice. But feed back, wish's, would like to see's,comments and critisisms etc are all welcome.

(I hope this is were monty ment) haha

A good start osakaboy, sounds very interesting.

For this type of campaign you might also consider including a fuller picture of those patrols with some recon, rescap, BDA etc. The fact is that the new mods now add many more functional possibilities to the missions, new objects and FMB tasks that may be new to you. I would certainly look up CY6 Command and Control for a Korean campaign.

Meanwhile, one way to make a concrete start is to begin putting the briefings together in a word doc, or similar, to begin fleshing out your ideas and to construct the mission sequence.

Thankyou for the advice Monty! Its exactly what i needed, my head is still thinking of missions using 4.09m when i really need to be making full use of the new tools available.

Oh yeah, mission options have become much more sophisticated than previously with;AFAC/FAC SAR/RESCAP RECON-LOW/HIGH NAV/SPR/GNR/OBS STORMFRONT (some of my CY6 favourites).

I just did a KTO mission in which a single Marine Skyraider goes feet dry to search for a downed aircraft and makes radio contact with the survivor. As the weather deteriorates, and it begins to rain, the downed pilot pops smoke to guide the Skyraider in to land in a jungle clearing to pick him up as the enemy close in on the position...

I keep looking out for a Firefly, it will happen I think. In all other ways Il2 Mods is ready for the KTO!

Hello Monty, thankyou again for your help, ive researched a little more and im now trying to incorperate those features into the campaign.

Your KTO sounds wonderful!

Im sure it will happen too its just a matter of time.

Well two mission are now complete, a third and fourth are at around 50%.
Ive decided on what each mission will be so its just a matter of making them. However its midterm time at uni so i fear profress will slow a little.

Edit: I forgot to mention, I had a small problem when trying my missions via pilot career in game. Sometimes the plan marked as 'player aircraft' in FMB is changed when i play the campaign. The only way i can remedy this is either to set the other flights as being in a different squadron or to stay in the same squadron at the start of the campaign the player must choose the highest rank. Is this normal or is it something thats gone wrong in my install?

It's not your install. The player's plane is assigned based on rank and I think, flight number. Ticking that little box in the FMB doesn't determine it.
Your workaround is the way to do it. You can have other flights in the same squadron, but make the player's flight Flight No.1.

Thankyou for clearing that up.

Well i have got permission to use most of the skins ive collected for this campaign, so that makes me feel things are a little more legit. Im currently trying to find any information regarding ship formartions in the korean war. This is proving slightly more difficult haha.

Out of interest, are you actually in Osaka? If so, I'm 25mins down the line in Kobe.
Actually, even if not, I'm still in Kobe - my location is not causally linked to yours. Just wanted to clear that up.

At the moment no im not, Im in the UK finishing my degree in Japanese Studies. When i first went to Japan i lived in Osaka (shin-osaka) for roughly a year and worked in a eikaiwa in Noda. Ever since then ive just used the name osakaboy when im online. I literally just got back 4 months ago from a year on exchange at a uni in Nagoya. Spent a while living in Tokyo too as my fiance is from there. Have rather bad reverse culture shock at the moment and i have to say I envy you being in Japan. Its funny all the time i was in osaka i never went to Kobe but i heard nothing but good comments about it. My fiance and I and planning to head back to Japan as soon as we both graduate.

Campaign news - 5 missions done. A good fellow named Ccrash is working on a skin for it and im waiting for a book from amazon which will hopefully contain some interesting stuff i can employ in the remaining missions. ^^

On Player flight selection, I always work with three criteria for the Player/Pilot.

1)The ability to fly from any rank, high or low, and still always get the right plane or flight.
2)Getting rid of the HIDEOUS default squadron/staffel insignia and only using proper skins made by expert artists.
3)Ignore ICONS, don't use 'em.

Points 2&3, well you are here, creative home base of the finest skinners in Il2, ask around, pm, share ideas. This is a great community.

Now point 1, how to make the player flight/aircraft unique? Simple rule, assign the player flight/aircraft to a different Squadron to everyone else. You still get to command your flight if highly ranked and more, but can avoid getting kicked around to flights you don't want.

In most nation selections there are several slots without insignia, so I go for these. As long as they speak the right language and wear the right skin, its going to work.

In a soon to be released Spitfire Scramble campaign I can place the player in a single specific aircraft, part of a larger squadron, even though there are 20 other aircraft in the mission. This is done so that you can always start in the centre of a line abreast field scramble, its amazing to see and hear.