Tank50us

Eh, let the SHFGs come for me, I'm ready for'em

Is there any map of the Marianas map as we'll be getting released yet? It would be a very nice thing to have for those of us planning campaigns on it to have something to start putting thumb tacks onto.

So, as it's been batted around the forums since DCS was LOMAC, I've decided that the best course of action is to "Screw it", and design the UI element that I've been harping on about every time the topic comes up. This is just a concept image of the visual aid in action, and others can be made as well if people can supply me with some decent screenshots for drogue equipped planes, but I do have some ideas with some of my own screenshots. Anyway, to explain the concept, it goes like this: (Not Pictured, yet), when you first call to the Tanker your intent to refuel, a small, dot will appear on the tankers port side, indicating where you need to be to form up with the tanker. At the same time, the throttle bar (pictured) will appear, and give you an idea of the proper throttle settings your plane will need to be at to catch up to, and form up with the tanker. When it becomes your turn to get in position for pre-contact, the 'dot' moves to the pre-contact point, and all you need to do is get there, and call pre-contact. Post Pre-contact: Once you're ready, and the drogue is out, or boom is down, a diamond will appear. Where it appears depends on the type of plane you're in, if you're in a boom-refueling jet (like the F-16 pictured) it will appear at the form-up lights, if you're a probe and drogue refueling jet, it'll appear on the 'reel' of the Drogue system. A second diamond with cross hairs will be present inside the larger one. This smaller diamond represents your plane, and a perfect alignment and positioning should result in the diamonds becoming a single diamond. In the picture here, the plane is slightly offcenter and slightly back, but still connected (as indicated by the lit up CTCT under the throttle bar). The Throttle Bar: throughout the entire refueling process, from form up to peel off, a throttle bar will be on screen guiding you on the proper throttle settings for your aircraft to stay with the tanker. The yellow field will move up or down depending on the tankers speed in relation to your plane, and the red bar represents your throttle. The 'CTCT' at the bottom will inform you that you're connected to the tanker and taking fuel. The 'BRK' above the throttle bar is there to tell you if you need to use your air brake. In this image, it's greyed out, as the brakes aren't needed. However, they will change color depending on how much braking is needed. If it starts flashing, it is a warning to brake away from the tanker. This last bit made flash when you're fully fueled up as well, so don't worry. Some things to note though. First: This is just a concept made using a screen cap, and a few minutes of Paint Tool Sai. It is not programmed in any way, as that is not my cup of tea. Second, the idea behind this item is that it is a localized training aid. Meaning, that even if you're connected to a server and flying a multi-crew aircraft, if someone is using the system, and you aren't, you will not see it. Third: it is designed to be 100% optional. elements of it can be turned on or off as needed. Fourth: This is a feature designed to increase accessibility to DCS. Right now, DCS has a bit of a learning cliff in some areas, something that Nick himself has expressed as a potential issue. This is designed to mitigate some of the issues people have with this very difficult task. Finally: Hating on people who may have to rely on such a system should be strongly discouraged at every turn. Those people who come down on those for needing a little help, or who are just too busy with their real lives to learn the systems should not be given flak. We should be looking for solutions to support them, and make the transition from arcady sim to real sim as easy as possible. If they're scared off, they simply will not come back, and if they don't come back, they don't spend money on the game, and improve its development. Now, let's keep things civil. Tank out.

A-10 Pilots: "What is this maximum range you speak of?" Still though, if that system were implemented, and made optional, would you have an issue with it?

3 (F16 [pictured], F15C, and A10), with more on the way. If this were a Hornet, and you were trying to hook up to an MPRS, the 'line-up' indicator would be on the reel, as that is where you're supposed to be looking anyway. As for the throttle graphic, I don't know about you, but when I'm looking at my screen when flying, my eyes tend to be all over the cockpit anyway (as I primary the Tomcat), so seeing that on screen if I was hooked up would just be another thing to check every couple seconds while I'm taking fuel... along with all the other things I'd be checking while taking fuel.

Since I've had to explain it several times by now, and people still think it would be bad to have, I created this handy concept of how I think it should look, and designed it to be as unintrusive as possible, as well as something relatively easy to understand. This screen cap was taken while one of my unit members was doing some AAR practice, I opened up Paint Tool Sai, and added the bits I've been talking about. In this shot, you can see he's slightly behind and off center, but still has contact (the red CTCT in the bottom left), his throttle (the red bar) is in 'the zone' to maintain position, and as he has no use for the air brake, it's grey (if it were a different color, he'd have to use it, if it flashed, he'd have to break off). Fairly simple concept, no more intrusive than the IFLOLs bit on the Super Carrier, and if this was present in the game, and he was online, and he had it turned on, there wouldn't be an issue as it would be local to him, and him alone. And given that these are simple graphics, it would mean that people playing the game on potato powered PCs could still use it when the lights on the tanker aren't working as advertised. Now, if someone can come up with a valid reason why this system wouldn't work, and has an actual critique and or better design, then I'll happily redesign it. But until then, I think I'll submit this to some of the ED guys I have talked to, and see what they have to say about it.

Except, they said that about the AH64, mere months before they announced that they were working on it. So the idea of them changing their mind depending on which day of the week it is, isn't that far fetched. This would be especially true if the visual aids are in the places your eyes are supposed to be looking anyway. Because that 'extra investment is typically very expensive, and for a period of several months, prohibitively expensive due to a lack of supply.

This line got me thinking of the TItan AE scene "Where does the probe go?" And every single video tutorial says "Don't look at the probe, look at the lights" since looking at the basket/probe the basket/probe results in pilot oscillation, which irl, usually results in very expensive screw-ups (That Jag taking the basket, and that Super Stallion chopping its probe off comes to mind). This is ultimately why the tankers have people talking to the pilot, giving them the critical data necessary to link up, which we currently do not have in DCS.

Again, to back up what has been said several times by now, this is what works for you. It doesn't necessarily apply to everyone else, and that's the thing we're trying to get across. Right now, the DCS learning curve is a freaking cliff, with many MP groups basically going "No, if you can't do X, you cannot join". The idea here is to smooth it out, and try and figure out ways to ease new players into these incredibly difficult and complex tasks as quickly, efficiently, and painlessly as possible so that more people are willing to stick with the game, and it expands. Ultimately, those people who speaking as you do, all you're going to do is push those people away from the game before they can even start to have fun, and they simply will not come back. Listen to what the devs have said countless times. They want the game to be accessible, they want more people to enjoy it. Going "here's the Mirage 2000s complete flight manual, study it and gitgud, and btw, learn French" isn't going to accomplish that. Having some optional 'training wheels' for some of the hard things, like flying formation, AAR, Carrier Ops, and more, will ease those new people into the game, and eventually, if they want to start flying without the aids, they can start turning them off... when they're ready.

"Yeah, sorry, I can't taxi down this part of the airfield as there's a crater big enough to fit a small destroyer blocking my path."

Yeah, so many people forget that COVID had to force the ED staff to effectively work from home, and having now had to experience the whole 'cloud sharing' thing when it comes to a project (a recruitment video for my own group), I can certainly understand how frustrating it's gotta be now to upload stuff to a cloud, and wait for someone else to download it, probably over shitty internet, compared to uploading it to an in-building cloud inside a studio with lightning fast intranet.

in this case, yes, because for most people, while the battlespace is in 3D, it's still a 2D representation because it's on a screen rather than through real space and our eyes. Game designers have struggled with this for a long time, and as it currently stands, outside of VR, there isn't much substitution for the human eyeball when it comes to depth perception. Look at indoor practice ranges as an example. The system is able to perfectly model the flight path of a bullet, but when a soldier with the rifle is aiming at the target on the screen, they have a hard time judging how far away their target is, and more often then not have to be told. Compare that to an actual rifle range, where the exact same soldier can go "That looks to be about 250yrds", and could probably expect to hit the target at that distance, or get close enough to adjust with one or two rounds. There's also other things that just can't be simulated in DCS, no matter how hard ED tries. The feeling of acceleration, the slight pull of G, the vibrations in the aircraft, and all the things the pilot can feel that tell him/her what their plane is doing without the need to look at the instruments. Also remember that unlike the real world, you don't need perfect (or near perfect through correction) vision to fly a plane in DCS, but you do in order to fly a real F/A18 or F-16. Basically, accessibility is going to be key to the future DCS expansion. If someone wants to play the game, they shouldn't get told 'no', because of things outside their control. The only thing that should stop them from playing DCS, is if their computer simply can't run it, which they can most certainly overcome given enough time. But being told "Nah, you can't play with me because you don't have a $5,000 sim pit with VR", or being told to just "Git Gud", will turn people away, and ultimately hurt ED, and you because no one else will invest in DCS to add content if they won't see any money from the work.

OK, you do realize that not everyone plays DCS with $1500 machines and $300+ HOTASs right? Heck, for the better part of about 8 months last year actually getting a HOTAS for anything less than $500 was like finding a dinosaur fossil in your back yard, and right now if you can get a decent GPU for anything less than $700 you're doin' pretty good. DCS is a free to try game, we all know this. But it had very serious competition from games like War Thunder, Ace Combat, World of Warplanes (for the WW2 stuff), and of course, MSFS. Many of these games can be played with just a keyboard and mouse with little to no difficulty, and as such, have a much easier learning curve compared to DCS's learning cliff. Those two factors alone mean that if ED wants to continue selling modules, they have to be more open to the more 'gamey' players, instead of the super-hardcore sim players like the people who make similar statements to the one you just made. Not everyone has the money to buy those high end setups, and not everyone has the time to build those custom pits even if they can afford them. Not everyone can afford VR, and not everyone can afford an X56 or better. Some people just have to make do with an old Sidewinder stick or 360 controller on a machine that can barely run DCS as it is. Are you seriously suggesting that DCS should only be played by those willing to dump upwards of thousands of dollars into hardware before they even download the game in the first place? Or would you rather the game be open to anyone, regardless of what kit they have available? If you want the latter, you'll have to accept some gamification. And that means training aids to help people get up to speed. Hell, as someone who runs a group that is dedicated to be an open group to new and experienced players alike, with absolutely no requirements to join, I would rather build a mission knowing that the people flying it can do everything asked of them, even if they have to rely on training aids to get the job done. The whole "Git Gud Scrub" attitude is only going to drive new people away, and when they go, they don't come back. And worse yet, because they don't come back, the 3rd Party Devs and ED aren't selling modules, and if they aren't selling modules, how can they fund the development of new modules? More players means more chances for selling modules, more modules sold means more development and interest, and more interest means more 3rd party devs who come in to make more content.

Outside of the normal ones, like "Will we have Super Carrier functionality?" (which, the answer is yes, eventually), there are a few things I'm curious about. Will we have an animated deck crew? I've seen the WIP shots of the crews, and I'm wondering if they'll be animated, or static. How many parking spaces will there be by default for the Forestall? As in, how many humans can spawn in total on the deck Will we have a paint-kit available for the ship? I ask this, because I know some units out there would like to have their own 'custom' ship skin for their carriers, and I'm wondering if this will be a thing for the Forestall Finally, what aircraft, either coming or already released, will be able to interact with the Forestall? (As in, land, rearm/refuel, repair, and launch again)

The issue I have is throttle management, especially since I like big, heavy, and fast jets (like the F-14, which is my main go-to aircraft in DCS), and trying to link up with an aircraft that is significantly slower than me isn't exactly an easy thing to do for me. To that end, that's why I make the suggestions that I do, because while I can fly in formation with some marginal success in some aircraft (namely the Harrier), it's not that easy to maintain the formation for me. That said, when it comes to the actual process for hooking up, assuming it's your turn, I see it going like this: when you back off to get in position for 'pre-contact', a small, barely noticeable dot will appear in the spot where you need to be in order to call Pre-contact, as well as a 'throttle ghost' showing you the correct throttle setting you need to catch up to the tanker, this will move back and forth depending on your speed, and the distance to the tanker. When you get in position for pre-contact, and call it, a diamond will appear over the point where your eyes should be when linking up. For example, if you're hooking up to a KC10 (I know there isn't one in DCS officially, but hear me out), this diamond will appear at the form-up lights under the plane (this should train your eyes to look at them). This diamond will have two lines in it, as well as a smaller diamond that grows and moves, the one that moves represents your aircraft, and its size represents how close you are to the hook up point. Assuming you follow the prompts, it should guide you into the near exact position to link up, and start taking fuel. While linked up, if the tanker is about to make any turns, a warning will appear on screen telling you that the tanker is about to make a turn, and what you'll need to do to stay hooked up. Once you've taken all the fuel you need, or are topped up, the next thing that happens is another dot will appear on the starboard side of the tanker, indicating your position to wait for your wingmen to gas up before continuing the mission. Now, the key thing to remember here is that at the end of the day, all of these visual indicators should be designed to be as non-intrusive as possible, while at the same time, being easy enough to understand that a person can use them, and eventually, remove them when they feel they can kick off the training wheels, which should always be up to the player in question. Also, each of these should be local to your machine only, no one else can see it, and no one will know you are using it unless you specifically state it to the other players that you're using it.

Yup. This. Very much this. All of it. If I pull a hard turn in my Tomcat, and the wings snap off, and I eject, oh well, I just respawn. I won't get a bill from Congress for the $35,000,000 pile of scrap that landed on someone's $150,000 house, and I won't be facing charges for the countless lives my reckless actions put at risk. If I shoot down an enemy plane on the wrong side of a DMZ, there's no war kicking off, no need to get ambassadors to a negotiating table to try and avert a major conflict. If I land my plane on an airfield I'm not supposed to, I'm not facing charges for it, I'm not getting questioned my multiple DAs, with my JAG constantly telling me "Don't answer that". It's a game at the end of the day, there's no real world consequences for making a mistake other than just having to respawn and try it all again. Heck, I don't even have an Instructor chewing me out while I'm in Front-Lean-and-Rest for making a bone-headed mistake in a simulator. As @cfrag stated, we should welcome every training aid suggested here, and talk about the merits of any specific idea, and maybe come up with something that will help those new players before they get frustrated and give up. We want this game to expand, and more people trying the game means more people buying modules which funds the development of new modules so that we finally get the planes we really want. The people who are here love aviation, and are currently starved for a realistic portrayal of modern aircraft, which DCS offers, and few other games even attempt. War Thunder? They're stuck at mid cold war right now, and even if they do add more modern jets, it will take years for most players to get access to those planes, unless they are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to get access to them... far more than what it costs to get a single module in DCS.

Not everyone learns that way though. You can show me a million videos how to disassemble and reassemble an AK47, and odds are, I'll still mess up. Give me the instructions and let me do it myself, and I nail it in two tries. I've tried watching videos on AAR, and I simply cannot do it as shown in the video, and I have maybe a couple hours where I'm not either working or sleeping, and most of that is dedicated in some way to one or the other. When I talk about people who don't have hundreds of hours to dedicate to learning how to AAR, I'm not talking out my tail-pipe, I'm talking from experience. The hours and hours of practice that people dedicate to learning it and perfecting it? Dead serious, not everyone has that. So maybe some visual aids for those who don't have the hours and hours and hours to dedicate, as well as those who don't have the $5,000 sim pits with VR, can at least get a little bit of help from ED learning this skill. You don't need it? Fine, don't use it. Turn the aids off. But for those that do need the help, they should have it available should they want to use it.

I can agree with this, but having new assets at the same time isn't a bad thing either. Like, for example, take the HMMWV. I'd personally like to see it remodeled, but also get some new variants not present outside of mods (such as the ambulance version, or one with a MK19, or a command version, etc). Kinda like they did with the Leopard 2s when the new model for that dropped.

Hell, the tankers should be talking to us the whole time from the moment we call them, to the moment we leave formation with them. One viable option to solve this would be to allow humans to sit in the operators seat and manually control the whole procedure (similar to the SCMs LSO slot), or, allow some visual indicators that are client side only (IE, if someone has it turned off, they won't see it if someone else has it on). Such indicators could greatly assist newer pilots who just don't have the hundreds of hours per month to dedicate to flying virtual fighter jets.

Very. Actually. And again, it'd be an option that can be turned off if the player doesn't want to have it, just like the dots and labels we already have in DCS. It doesn't magically make you better at flying the plane, it's just an aid to give pilots a visual reference where they need to be in order to perform one of the most complex tasks in all of aviation. Sure, to someone who's done it hundreds, if not thousands of times ever since DCS was just LOMAC, it's "easy", but imagine yourself as someone new to the game, trying to learn it all for the first time, and for bonus points, we'll say that this person isn't in a group willing to help him learn. The videos show you the technique, but not everyone learns by watching a 20min tutorial video on YouTube (I certainly don't). Many learn by actually performing the act in question, preferably with someone watching them in F2 guiding them. Those "arcade gamey dots" can help you figure out "Ok, this is where I need to put my aircraft in order to be formed up with the tanker.", then it moves to where you would have to be in order to call pre-contact, and then you get the visual indicator (again, similar to the meatball for the SCM) that gives you a visual aid to help you link up. That's all it does. Nothing more, nothing less. It doesn't do the job for you, it's no 'easy mode', it's just "Fly here, now here, now here", similar to the other training aids and even the tutorials for literally everything else in the game.

I could agree with this.... but there's a simple problem with it... there's too many helmets for a single skin to work with. What would have to be done is ED creates a 'custom helmet maker' within the game that allows us to make custom helmet paint jobs within certain limits.

@NineLinementioned that in his interview with the Air Combat SIm Podcast, as it would make the game more 'mod friendly', and give you access to liveries you don't already have. Obviously the livery bit would have to be something optional for people to download, otherwise people might end up downloading d--k plane liveries. But then again, if the server runner is allowing that on their server, I think I know where the problem is....

When it's ready? I dunno, I know it's in the roadmap, but remember that these guys aren't working in a studio atm, they're likely still working from home, and moving a few hundred megs to a gigs worth of data can take a bit over cloud services since everyone is a slave to their internet connections.

Funnily enough, this is another thing that ED can learn from another simulator, and add as a function that can be turned off: A formation 'dot'. Basically, when a player spawns into a squad leader position in that game, they don't see this dot, but everyone else does, and that dot shows them where they're supposed to be in the formation. This could take the form of a HUD indicator, or as a little grey dot that appears in a point in space with the thing you're trying to form up on (in this case, the tanker). Once it's 'your turn' to refuel, the tanker can give you audible instructions on what to do next, and a pop-up... well... pops up similar to the meatball for the SCM. It's a thing that can be turned off for those that don't need it (although the audible stuff is in dire need anyway so the tanker can manage the chaos of planes lining up for gas). This is I think the best way to help people learn. Remember, you cite real pilots, but they spend hundreds of hours in a simulator learning how to do it before they do it for real, and they also benefit from things that we sim pilots will never have, like actual depth perception and aircraft feedback (IE, a real pilot can feel what his plane is doing much better than we can in DCS).

There's also a 7. Learning with aids will get a person used to getting the muscle memory in. Those denying this fact have never taken apart and reassembled a rifle, and it shows. Those of us who've been in the military all learned such a thing by studying a manual, and eventually got to the point where we could do it nearly blind-folded. Comments like this don't do any of those who struggle to refuel when attempt after attempt results in them hearing their engines spool down and the blasted tanker constantly telling them to "Return pre-contact"