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In general, using AI for creating DCS mission scripts at this point in time only works if you already know mission scripting very well. AI do not (yet) understand context, so they are offering up pieces of information filtered through your question. If you know DCS mission scripting well, that can help a lot since you can take the idea presented in the code snippets and make a working whole out of it. If you do not know DCS mission scripting at all, you will not understand what the AI presents you, and it won't work. Now, there are multiple other things that you may want to look at and clear up: You seem to conflate creating and editing a mission - which implies that you first want to create a mission, and then, based on that mission, want to refine the results by editing it. This is of course a sensible approach; still you may want to explore simply editing an existing (created by some other author) mission to discover how the mission was put together, and to learn the tricks of the trade. That's how I started creating missions, and I saved myself a lot of grief learning mission crafting that way. Using an AI chat bot for this is something I haven't tried - maybe it helps have an AI dissect a mission but since AI can't yet understand context, I'm dubious about the prospects. Finally, you seem to have concluded that you need mission scripting to achieve the goals that you envision for your mission. Using AI to tie together a mission and mission scripting *requires* that an AI understands the context of both your question and the missions that it learned from. This is impossible today. At best you can get AI to provide hints on how to script a certain element of a mission, tying these things together is beyond today's AI competencies.

Thank you for your kind words. Wrt StopGaps, it's eye candy over realism - and I'm (unfortunately) a visual kind of guy -- since sg is easy to turn off, I hope you can live with the extra work to remove it

Hmmm. It could be advantageous to think this further through... The CSAR pilot side of this indeed is interesting, and a CSAR mission to evacuate someone can be a great mission. Being the evacuee, though - not so much. You essentially sit around, and wait - say 40 minutes for the rescue helo(s) to arrive (tbh, 40 minutes is unrealistically short). You then get on board, and sit around for another 40 minutes while the helo is RTBing. You may want to pick up a hobby like watching paint dry to train for those missions. Also, the FPS aspect of DCS is quite underdeveloped, and I think it will stay that way for a long time. So you are likely to sit around in really bad scenery for 40 minutes to be picked up and shipped home. Oh, and if present-day enemy DCS AI spots you (a Soldier AK), they are likely to snipe you from 1 mile away. Good times.

It was. The folder name for the theatre map doesn't match up with the theatre name, so I had to patch twn for this. It's a simple patch and now should work: twn.lua

Agreed. I've run across a similar issue with Nevada that has a non-ASCII character in a city's name that brought lua2json to a grinding halt. I'll investigate to see what may be the issue here, thanks!

You control which helicopters are accepted for CSAR missions with the 'troopCarriers' attribute in the csarManagerConfig zone troopCarriers A list of helicopter types that are allowed to carry/rescue troops in this mission. Defaults to DCS Common’s list of troop carriers (which is usually Mi-8MT, UH-1H, Mi-24P), but you can provide your own list (for example to add non-official types). Example: “Mi-8MT, UH-1H, SA342Minigun” removes the Hind and adds the Gazelle in Minigun configuration to the list of legal troop carriers. Supports wildcard type endings: if a type ends on an asterisk (“*”) all types that match whatever precedes the asterisk are accepted. For example, “Mi-*” will match both “Mi-8T” and “Mi-24P”. You can supply the type ‘helos’ to allow all player helicopters (including unofficial Mods like Blackhawk) to carry troops. You can supply the type ‘any’ or ‘all’ to allow all player aircraft to carry troops. Default <none> (use dcsCommon’s list of troop carriers) Please be advised that the autoCSAR module does not provide the CSAR services, it merely automatically creates a CSAR mission for a pilot that successfully ejects.

Can you (after removing all mods should they be in there) please allow me to look at the miz? The changes are new, and I'm sure I may have missed something.

Hmmmm. I had a quick look at the miz that you kindly attached. Using Comms -> F10 Other->Kill does not kill anything You do not seem to be using DML to spawn the units. You are using RND to trigger a trigger rule that activates a late activation group. I recommend using a cloner for each, and trigger each of the cloners using RND. Although you can mix old-school trigger rules with DML, DML often has much better, easier tools ready for you to use.

I went with something very similar: use a 'recon' zone, and now it also collects static objects inside that zone. I've slightly changed the semantics of the recon attribute value - it still defaults to 'prio' and now you can add something other than 'black' or 'prio' to indicate non-prio/blacklisted. So if you want to add a static object to recon, and do not want it to be a priority target, simply add something other than a word starting with "black" or "prio" as value, and you are set. Preliminary version and demo miz below. Note: requires updated version of cfxZones. Enjoy, -ch reconMode.lua cfxZones.lua demo - recon mode - reloaded.miz And here's the updated info from the doc: recon Marks all ground groups that have at least one unit inside the zone or static objects inside this zone as recon relevant. Furthermore, · if the value for this attribute starts with “black” all groups that have at least one unit inside this zone are added to the blacklist · if the value for this attribute starts with “prio”, all groups that have at least one unit inside this zone are added to the priority list. If such a group / static object is spotted the module’s prio! output is triggered. · if the value is neither “black” nor “prio”, the units inside are neither priority targets nor blacklisted yet can generate the reconMessage and output signals when spotted. Defaults to “prio” – all groups / static objects inside this zone are priority targets. Additionally, if a priority target is spotted, a signal is sent over the modules ‘prio!’ output. MANDATORY

First of all, this is not a joke request - I really think that we should have a C-172 or PA-28 in DCS. And it should be one of the free planes, available for everyone. But why? First and foremost for contrast. So many people know the other flight sim, and when they come to DCS they want to first experience the unknown in the known, e.g. take off from Batumi in a 172. If it has a good flight model (unlike most of the dinky 172s in the other sim) and realistic stall behaviour, they'll immediately see that they "aren't in Kansas any more, Dory" - even without making things go boom. I think it makes DCS much more approachable, as a simple 172 or Cherokee is also simple to set up, experience, and immediately makes the neophyte user want more - after they know how the basics work in DCS (I've watched by godson getting frustrated with DCS trying to set it up himself, he quit half way through - not because it was difficult, but because DCS is s#|7 to set up, a horrendously bad UX). Make them hunger for more, allow them to cross into DCS more smoothly. It also makes such a great difference when you've 172'd Senaki-Kolkhi's 09, and then try the same in a jet (e.g. Su-25T). That way the difference between other flight sims and DCS becomes much more palpable, and DCS can show off, put it's best foot forward. Being able to compare something known with something new helps players to be convinced that DCS really is better than that other sim. For other players, I also assert that a slow, easy to fly modern prop plane - especially for those who are licensed - is something that they'd appreciate and use to get to know new airfields/maps. Perhaps use the YAK-52 (nobody believes anymore that it will ever leave EA, so we might as well use it for something useful) as a Cherokee spring board and make it available to all for free after stripping the more complex parts (retractable gear, constant speed prop etc). A low complexity SEPL for all could be what people want to see in DCS - if just to compare that plane's performance to the Hornet that they stap on a minute later. Heck, I'd even pay for those, but I also paid for the YAK - simply to have some low complexity plane in DCS.

Well, living in Switzerland (and Europe by association) does have it's advantages. La fée verte never really went away here (from Neuchâtel and some other Cantons) and has returned in earnest some 30 years ago. That psychedelic brouhaha surrounding thujone appears to have been a bad-faith rumor placed intentionally by some other spirit industry magnate and now turns out to be incorrect. "Death in the afternoon", unlike the book, is worth it, if not in the quantities recommended by Hemmingway ("5 before 5") . I'm thinking along similar lines, any experimenting with some set-ups that hopefully allow for both good QoL and good performance. Agreed.

I've mulled this idea a bit. Depending on how people add statics to embellish a mission (I do add quite a bit of statics for eye candy purposes) this could add quite a bit of overhead. So, sitting on a deck chair, holding a glass of 'death in the afternoon' (a cocktail invented by Ernest Hemmingway and seriously debilitating), and mulling this question I had a couple of ideas that I can no longer recall. BUT, maybe I can come up with something that allows both static objects AND map objects to be included as recon targets. I'll see what I can do. Since that bottle of Champagne is empty anyways, there's a good chance that the idea survives the week-end...

20250705 - added missing audio Yeah, I forgot to include the audio files for some aural mission embellishment. Added. Enjoy, -ch

This would be a tough nut to crack, as - the way that you phrase it - the objective is intentionally insufficiently defined. I think what you are looking for is a mission generator that either randomly picks 3 types of missions from a set of e.g. 12, and assembles those three around you and leaves it up to you which one to go after when you discover it. This mission has a limited 'shelf life', as when the mission is created, DCS currently has very little means to randomize the mission itself. Another approach would be to create a mission that offers all (or a good portion) of the missions that you are interested in, randomizes them for replay-ability and allows the pilot to pick whatever they like. These missions already exist - not from ED, but from mission authors who post their missions on ED's User Files. The type of mission usually is called a 'sandbox' or similar. So, yeah, I'd love if there was a more flexible, more randomized mission 'configurator' that could randomly pull down some mission types around you. I wouldn't hold my breath though, as the kind people at ED have shown their very limited abilities in content creation tools with that QAG thing that IMHO can't do anything right. WRT the living, breathing world, you would again need to resort to third party tools (civil air traffic etc), and be mindful of the fact that each and every moving part will draw processor cycles. So if you populate all airfields, your CPUs may crumble from that load alone. To curtail this, you'd need to create a living bubble around your base of operation. I agree that DCS's Mission Editor should be able to place 'bubbles of activity' that automatically provide that living, breathing semblance of life, while not having it outside to calm your CPU's nerves.

Plus, it performs really, really good...

Version 2.5.2 - 20250703 - minor update Dog days. A heat dome sits across Europe, and it really doesn't agree with me. So I got very little done (except putting the finishing touches on "Ferry Sinai", see here (ED User Files) and, by the looks of it, forgetting to include audio. I'll do that when the temperatures become more agreeable, probably next week. I've done some re-writing of the docs, and some debugging. In all, this is update has few exciting updates, if any: Documentation Main - various updates Quick Ref - small updates Demos Modules - artillery zones 3.0.1 - corrected typo and removed deprecated attributes Time to jump into Lake Zürich!

Version 20250705 - added some audio Download here (ED User Files) Do you know that feeling? When you can't be bothered, and you just want to FLY! This mission scratches that itch. Any plane, anywhere, hot or cold, any livery. Just jump into that cockpit and take off into the wild blue yonder. Fly that aircraft from one location to another and have a blast. Switch to any other plane that you own at a moment's notice. Enjoy yourself! And if you *can* be bothered, this mission can suggest some location to fly to, and maybe even navigate to a beacon on the way. Of course it allows you to choose any airfield on the map as destination. And yeah, the mission will look up frequencies and other stuff for you. Because it knows that you can't be bothered otherwise, and you simply want to have fun. This mission is so simple and so much fun, I'm surprised that I had to create it. So here it is - slightly embellished with some bells and whistles like civil air traffic, fog, etc. to keep you interested. For example, it can keep a log of your achievements, per type and a total: And since you guys asked for it: Ferry can and does keep a record of your flight time, distance etc. per airframe, and even shares it with the other "Ferry" missions (Caucasus, Germany, ...) IMPORTANT NOTE Due to the way that DCS works, this mission can only grant access to all your aircraft if it is run as "multiplayer" even if you are flying all alone. That "Freebie Plane"? It's only there to mock you in single player. So, press "LAUNCH MULTIPLAYER SERVER" to start this mission for real, join BLUE, and then click on DYNAMIC SLOTS to gain access to ALL airfields, stocked with ALL aircraft that you own. And yeah, the mission does support multiplayer. I never tested it with more than 40 concurrent players, but it should support even more if your server can take the load. NOTE In order to persist your achievements (and to share them with other Ferry missions) you must de-sanitize DCS

Version 2.35 - 20250630 -- Corsair Added the corsair (and Essex), and some maintenance code to guard new DCS bugs.

Yeah, the manual is old in many places, and needs amendment. I corrected that, too - thank you!

They are now -- i.e. next release.

IIRC, all flags in DML can be names, and can be local.

Thanks for reporting this. I traced it to a small typo in arty zones. It was forced into the open by using the (now legacy , deprecated) "f?" attribute. It's fixed in the update below. Enjoy, -ch artilleryZones.lua

This is a GREAT find, thank you @Actium - and IMHO it might help put to shame the sorry excuse that we currently have as 'mission save state' - if this works out well, we can finally create create mission persistence where a unit can be restored to a saved location and health (of course, it still has full ammo, but beggars can't be choosers). It's sometimes depressing to be reminded just how godawful ED's abilities are when following what content creators desperately need and are clamouring for (or designing sensible API)

Thank you so much for looking into this. I cannot confirm that the Tigr's lights are active, the scene is still pitch black dark:

At least you acknowledge that you are already filled with hate, which can be a first step in recognizing where a problem may be. Of course two things can be true at once, and yes, there are definitely toxic people around. AFAIK, @Kanelbolle is not amongst them. I usually recommend that you do not interpret, and simply try and find out the facts. You already have everything you need, and it would have taken you another minute - less than it would have taken you to write your angry post - to find out (and I do agree that DCS documentation is bad. Really bad. That's why it's better to try and find out). Are you sure that you weren't just looking for a way to vent your anger? You do sound angry to me. If you want to force your will on others (instead of talking to them and coming to a mutual agreement), that is of course your prerogative. Your server, your rules. It won't be a popular server if the rules that you enforce go against the mainstream, and that may not be your goal. I run my servers so people can have fun which ever way they want.