norman99

+1 From that video, the speed needs a big increase.

Absolutely this. What we need first, is proper/complete mission planning tools, for both single and multiplayer. Then once that is complete, a cool briefing room interface could be implemented to creat a unique way of accessing said tools. Seems very much the cart is being put before the horse here. What can meaningfully be briefed in our new briefing room, when there’s now way to currently plan a mission correctly?

I’d be very surprised if there is any substantial improvement on core DCS features. Dynamic WX, Dynamic Campaign, Vulcan, AI improvements, ATC etc have all been openly discussed for years, and minimal progress has been made. The unfortunate fact is time spent developing these, simply doesn’t generate any significant revenue. New modules do, so expect a few new early access releases, slower development for current modules, and even a new module or two announced by years end. In other words, more of the same. Not that that’s a bad thing. (Sometimes I wish ED would truly rock the landscape, and charge us a one off ~$60 for DCS 3.0, with all the core improvements that have been discussed for decades and are desperately needed. ED would get their revenue, we’d all get the core sim we always wanted. Win-win. But, I digress….)

Have a look at the MOOSE scripts. They can do exactly what you want, but can be a bit intimidating for the inexperienced. Highly worth the time needed to get your head around however.

This sounds absolutely incredible! DCE is already my most enjoyable way to play DCS, your new version sounds like it improves it 10 fold! Can't wait.

indeed. Sounds awesome.

So not simply centring on the L&S? That’s interesting, and significantly more useful.

I’m interested in this too, as playing DCE missions require accurate TOT to integrate correctly with the rest of the package aircraft.

This can be done currently, by careful editing of the USS_Nimitz_RunwaysAndRoutes.lua file. Unfortunately, this file is loaded once, upon the initial startup of DCS. What would be great is to have the ability to reload/refresh this file in game, so different deck "templates" could be loaded as needed.

Could you really call it "MODERN Air Combat" without these aircraft?

And that’s despite this little gem from a few years ago. Now I don’t want to call out ED as blatantly lying, but I would have thought a genuinely playable, alpha/beta version of a dynamic campaign would have received significantly more PR. Instead, it’s been the total opposite, near silence.

Honestly, I doubt we even see it next year. Just the basic AI improvements required for a dynamic campaign to be viable are a huge undertaking. There’s no point in a DC if aircraft just “go stupid” and fly off into the abyss, crash into each other on the carrier, burn fuel like it’s inexhaustible and inevitably “bingo and eject” etc, etc. With the current AI, both sides would run out of air assets within a day of the campaign starting. I’m not trying to be a pessimist, as I desperately want something approaching what is available with B**, but unfortunately there’s just a really, really long wag to go.

On the 4YA servers, using the F10 menu to display Carrier & Tanker frequencies (TACAN, ILS & Comm) also restarts the TACANs. I think this manual reactivation method is a better solution and seems more reliable.

I didn't know that. Unfortunately, the mission present in the debriefing folder isn't the mission I just flew, for some reason it hasn't been saved. I'll turn on the save option for use in the future however.

I'm so sorry, I literally just over wrote it generating the next mission . If I see it happen again, I'll send a copy to you first. Great news about the updated brief, DCE just keeps getting better. Thanks so much for all your work. Lastly, I added a "Weapons Check" function to my earlier fuel check script, so now I can tell what my wingmen have remaining. Again, it's just a simple text output, and only formatted for the Hornet again (sorry). It ignores the gun when reporting weapons. Feel free to use it, modify it, if you think it'll be useful. If not, no problem either. Fuel_Weapons_Check.lua

HI, I just experienced a problem in Crisis in PG - Hornet. A 2 ship CAP flight scheduled for departure roughly 1 hour after mission start, was spawned inactive immediately upon mission start. As is normal for mission start spawns, they took spots 1 & 2 on the "6-pack" (behind CAT 1 & 2) effectively blocking all other aircraft from departing. A solution would be to ensure all carrier aircraft have delayed spawns of at least 1 second, to ensure the 6-pack spawn positions are not used. Secondly, I absolutely love the detailed briefs included with these missions. The COMM plan is tremendous, as well as the flight plan details, TOT for each waypoints, correct waypoints names etc. However, would it be possible to include a distance (nm) for each waypoint leg in this table? It would be great to know for example how close waypoint 3 is to the IP, IP to Target etc. Cheers.

That’s very true, I know C-130s have no problem landing there. I was mainly referring to fighter aircraft, which would struggle there, with their high landing speeds, poor braking and fragile undercarriage.

If anyone is interested in having a look, the error I'm getting is the following: Please Wait... F:\- DCS -\DCS World\bin\luae.exe: ../../../Scripts/DC_UpdateTargetlist.lua:103: attempt to concatenate field 'name' (a nil value) stack traceback: ../../../Scripts/DC_UpdateTargetlist.lua:103: in main chunk [C]: in function 'dofile' ../../../Scripts/MAIN_NextMission.lua:137: in main chunk [C]: in function 'dofile' ..\..\..\Scripts\BAT_FirstMission.lua:43: in main chunk [C]: ? C:\Users\Michael\Saved Games\DCS\Mods\tech\DCE\Missions\Campaigns\FA-18C Battle Group Delta> I've had a brief look at the mentioned DC_UpdateTargetlist.lua. It would seem the latest DCS update has changed something that is required by this script, but don't know enough about DCS scripting to identify what it is.

Thanks for the technical explanation guys, I really appreciate it. So in a nutshell, for a large target like a tanker, at close range and same level, IRL there’s enough advanced signal processing available that if the aircraft turns through the notch relatively quickly, it probably won’t get “dropped” so to speak. At least from what the pilot sees. Maybe one or two sweeps of the scan don’t pick it up correctly, but the trackfile would remain in memory, and be quickly updated when the target becomes visible again. Now for DCS, the above would require an extremely advanced radar simulation, accurate and dynamic RCSs etc. These are most likely beyond what ED is willing to simulate, and therefore the current implementation and and limitations are reasonably accurate and acceptable.

Interesting you say that, as it's constantly mentioned as one of the most important missing features.

Wow, Jesus mate, slow down. No need to be completely condescending. We're all here because we enjoy DCS, learning and growing our knowledge, and maybe even through robust discussions, improving the product that DCS is. Unfortunately, "holier than thou" attitude posts like yours, really add nothing, and only derail these discussions. I'll be the first person to admit when my assumptions are wrong, as I'm here to learn, not prove how smart I am. However I do expect to be treated with courtesy and respect during this process. It's the least we can do for each other among what is already a small community. Anyway, are you saying that no matter the size of a target, or it's position relative to the radar, when in the notch, contacts are always lost? There is nothing modern signal processing can do to overcome this, even in the most exterme circumstances? Such and an A380/Antonov 225 at 10 nm?

For a North Pole map, the map size would have to be enormous just to include a handful of airports. I think the distances between airports would surprise you, and therefore make for some extremely long missions, not exactly to everyone’s taste. Great for AAR practice however . (Granted, Alert is not on the map below, but as a ~1500m dirt runway, it’s not exactly usable by everyone.)

My question; Is it normal and realistic to loose a tanker completely, when it's 10nm ahead same level at 20,000ft, just because it turns and changes direction? I understand PD notch etc etc, but that tanker has the RCS of an apartment block, surely it shouldn't just disappear?

A flight of Iranian F-14s came and had a feast! Please don’t take this a bug report or complaint, just poor flying from the blue side, myself included. I just thought the result was rather funny.

I genuinely don’t know, but should there be some weight-on-wheels logic that identifies when the NWS button is used for NWS/NWS Hi selection, and when it is used for radar L&S target selection?