cfrag

Check your main DCS folder, Mods/Terrain - there should be a GermanyColdWar folder null

I wish my frame rate was that bad to allow that - congratulations on your refined taste. Also: Paulaner is known for some time dilation effects when consumed enthusiastically, so no matter what frame rate, I'm sure it was an excellent experience For a less ethereal experience I recommend Flaschbier from Flensburg, though... My frame rates currently are fine until I switch cockpits, which leads me to believe some bad VRAM resource management in the DCS app itself rather than the map that merely gobbles up VRAM like my godson does Easter eggs.

I think that is universally understood. The best approach here seems to me to have a gentleman's agreement to not violate commonly accepted rules of usage -- instead of using software to enforce them. And should a squadron unexpectedly show in full strength, and for whatever reasons you are short a slot, the agreement can be made to utilize a plane that would - per agreement - not be available. If enforced by software, that squadron member is out; for them the evening of a common fun experience is gone. That's IMHO a worst case scenario for a group of friends who want to experience something together. That is the reason I'm not enthusiastic about restrictions enforced by software: inflexibility and exclusion. An agreement among friends is much simpler. If you can't get your sqn to agree and adhere to some simple rules, methinks you should address that first. To me, It's not a lack of motivation, it's a lack of trust in your squad mates that they will to stick to agreed-upon rules. To me you are attempting to provide a technical solution for a cultural challenge. The solution won't be elegant, the results can be ugly. A bad match.

That is always a good idea. I have a no mods DCS install, and Germany does run on my decidedly low end system.

Indeed. Looking at the map with a mission designer's eye, my mind is already envisioning logistics as one of the prime missions objectives 'down there' (as viewed from Hamburg, of course ) in the Fulda Gap. If/when the Herc rolls around (and some decent scripting support in DCS for cargo), it's going to be "Hog Waiter's Heaven".

Oh, and of course, as @DD_Friar kindly chimed in, there's the matter of wasting a player's quality time through enforced wait states. That of course ranks even higher than the others in the book of "unforgivable mission creation sins"

I think that's a Bad Idea, you'd get more and better traction if you did it alone, without AI. This may change in a couple of years, but today with mission scripting, the AI results are bad indeed. They might give you an idea where to look, but only if you are already good at mission scripting (which you may well be, dear @Panthir, since, as I know, you have a lot of experience with mission building ) That's easy enough accomplished, and using zones you can put in checks to ensure that the aircraft must also be close enough to a base's maintenance shop. Using a slot blocking mechanism, you can then boot the pilot and (unless it is dynamically spawned) block the plane's slot. Implementing that isn't too difficult, merely some busywork. The real issue lies somewhere entirely different: I discovered (and this is confirmed by other server owners) that players positively loathe missions that try to impose rules on the availability of aircraft/slots. As a result, players won't return to the server, and the mission gains a reputation as 'not fun' or 'player hell'. The mission is kicked off the server's rotation. Not for being a bad mission, but because it tries to assert control over the players who come to play, not bossed around. DML has some modules that can do similar things: "ungrief" punishes fratricide, "taxipolice" punishes speeding on taxi ways, "limitedAirframes" limits the number of losses per slot. While the ungrief module is accepted (antisocial behavior should be dealt with swiftly), "limitedAirframes" is begrudgingly accepted by roughly half of the players, "taxi police" has almost universally been deemed excessive. There are some players who appreciate enforced order. The majority does not, however, and they avoid missions that are known for imposing (what players deem to be) restrictions on their playstyle. Since server owners want their servers to be popular, they eschew missions that players dislike. Mission creators (like I) want their mission to be popular, and so we would not add a module that is known to cut the potential popularity by 90%. Long story short: it's not that difficult an idea to put into reality, and it's currently not a direction (rule enforcements) that I want DML to take.

Unlike hobby planes, Combat Aircraft are being maintained. And bugs, dirt, sand etc. are removed meticulously. For each flight hour, a modern (combat) jet spends some 40 hours in maintenance. Yeah, they'll have time to clean it. Put differently: few pilots are suicidal enough to fly a badly maintained aircraft, much less a badly maintained aircraft designed to carry weapons. So it wouldn't be immersive at all. It would be completely unrealistic - but perhaps a nice visual gadget, like lens flare.

nullSee the vehicle and others flash between red and white. Miz included. Simply enter huey, look straight ahead nullnull z-fighter in finkenwerder].miz

The Finkenwerder ("MBB") airfield south of the Elbe in Hamburg has a lot of nice objects placed on the ground around the hangars. Unfortunately, many of them exhibit strong z-fighting, their surfaces alternating between green and other colors.

Preamble: I was born and raised in cold-war Hamburg; when I was 16, Nena published "99 Luftballons" and I met Barbara. I lived in Hamburg, served in the western military in Northern Germany, and left Germany for University a few days before the "Mauer" fell. In other words: I lived and breathed what this map intends to re-create. Summary: It's a great map to explore: beautiful, great color palette, green(!), a gazilion objects to look at, and performance is well contained even when flying in VR on low-end rigs like mine. Strategically, this map looks like it is begging for the A-10 (any version) to wallow in the mud; in the real world, it's of course the other way around: the Hog was made to live here. The map is filled with small airfields and enough objects to create a veritable smorgasboard of missions. The map has some short comings, but as a background (and - importantly - a Non-Dust Map) for missions, it seems really, really promising to me. The Long Form The map is great as a backdrop for combat missions with a veneer of authenticity, very much like Normandy II and Syria: there are landmarks rendered in beautiful detail that can help put you, your aircraft and your mission into context of some larger history. The visuals are exquisite, and performance is good even on my decidedly low-end rig (in VR!). The arrangement of airfields, military bases and points of interest on this map makes my 'mission creator' sense tingle, and I hope that it also encourages other content creators similarly (I'm aware that my initial feelings for the Sinai map were similar, but somewhere along the way, ORT dropped the ball, and long neglect of the map made people drop it from their "future project" list, making Sinai, beautiful as it is, a fading map). Now, as someone born and raised in Hamburg, is it worth investment based purely on accuracy? No. The good thing is that flying over Hamburg in a Jet, any local can instantly place themselves: dead reckoning is easy -- Hamburg is flat, and there are enough landmarks visible at all times to immediately know where you are if you were raised here. Look for the "Fernsehturm" (TV Tower), look for the "Michel" and by their relative locations you know where you are. The river Elbe makes this even easier should you get disoriented. But... You also instantly know that you are not in Hamburg: the building's colors and style are wrong. Most buildings in Hamburg are made from red bricks, and that color (in dark shades) permeates Hamburg; occasionally buildings may have whitewashed walls, but Hamburg is not nearly as colorful as the map makes it out to be. The Rathaus, Michel, Nikolaikirche and Fernehturm are fantastically made objects. They are, unfortunately, surrounded by too much generic stuff. And then, there are big, HUGE gaps: every kid knowns that moving up Mönkebergstrasse from Rathaus, you get to Hamburg Hauptbahnhof (Main Station), an imposing building that served half a million passengers on a daily basis even in 1980. Not on this map. There's a dinky rail, and a bridge. Following the rail west, every Hamburg-bred kid knows that you reach Dammtor, Sternschanze and Holstenstrasse, before you reach Altona. All really, really big, imposing buildings with vaulted roofs, built for steam locomotives. Not on this map. Altona is unrecognizable, the other stations are better ignored. The Süllberg, Hamburg's famous picturesque rich people quarter, is empty, and the less I speak of Hamburg's Harbor in the current state, the better. And no Köhlbrand Bridge. So, don't get this map for accuracy reasons. It's a GAME map, and although initially disappointed, the amount of beauty, compromises made and love invested in details, to make the compromises not too jarring, recaptured my interest. I've only occasionally been to Berlin and Frankfurt, and as someone who isn't native to either, those cities seem incredibly realistic from the air even in a helicopter. Knowing that they probably are as unrealistic as Hamburg does NOT diminish my enjoyment, so I'm thinking that my misgivings about Hamburg is a "me" problem. Simply don't fly (a Helicopter) in the city you grew up in, and the rest of the map is fantastic. Berlin's Wall area is drop-dead beautiful. Frankfurt is fantastic (mostly). Airfields abound on the map, and the Fulda gap beckons my Hog in a frankly disquieting way. Sure, Kiel is currently missing (never liked it much, but it is where the Bundesmarine is home), as are some other important cities. But Helgoland is there! (sans airfield, yet grinned when I discovered it). So, do I like it? Yes, even though Hamburg disappointed this kid from Hamburg. I doubt that this will bother anyone not born and raised there, listening to Neue Deutsche Welle while walking through Altona's streets, courting Barbara and trying to coax a smile from her icy blue eyes. Outside of that, a green map (the trees could use some more Birch, though), some fantastic (and truly deadly) topography (evading missiles in flat northern Germany is difficult), lots of POI, military objectives and well-rounded performance make this a promising map. It remains to be seen how content creators pick it up; I'm already thinking about creating a version of "Angels" (SAR) for this map; and yes, it's begging for "Der Himmel über Berlin" as title (a 1987 Wim Wenders film, "Wings of desire" in English, cheaply remade later as "City of Angels"). My personal verdict So: good/bad? I like it. YMMV. Let's see how other people enjoy it and it it gets picked up by the multiplayer community. Hummel, Hummel!

Great news - thank you, @BIGNEWY

I believe the feeling is that realism is a nice-to-have, not conditio sine qua no.

I know it's an anachronism, and people may dislike their existence. Personally, I like the fact that TACAN is present, as I'm not trained in Eastern nav procs.

It's not weird, merely an artifact I left in because goldfish brain. It should not be a factor in the issue. The zone looks fine, I can see no obvious mistakes so hopefully we can resolve this quickly. If you can't get it to run, please pm the mission (no mods please) to me so I can have a look.

This unfortunately is a DCS/Mission Editor issue that I do not think currently has a work-around. I believe that it works for Helos, though, so it appears to be some ME idiosyncrasy.

1.1T, without missions. All maps, modules, tech, no unofficial mods nor liveries.

Check the other signs on the map (e.g. what VW becomes) and I think you have your answer. I still think that Ugra should go the Arthur C Clark underhanded ribbing way like he did in 2001: calling the computer "HAL", as in "One step ahead of IBM": H->I. A->B. L->M. "Luftganza" does sound tongue in cheek, though

No kidding. I've just dropped an ungodly amount on an PCIE 5 M2 just so DCS can wholly fit (along with some other choice titles) on my main disk. DCS already exceeds 1T, so hit me, Ugra, I now have 3T for you. AND my credit card still is lukewarm.

Update 20250412 - Fog & Maintenance - added player-controllable fog - Hardening against DCS bugs WARNING: DO NOT USE DCS' "SAVE MISSION" FEATURE - THAT *WILL* DESTROY THIS MISSION. DO NOT REPORT BUGS FROM A SAVED MISSION. IF YOU SAVE A MISSION IN DCS, IT IS DCS THAT IS F***ING UP THE MISSION. HARD. DCS'S "SAVE MISSION" FEATURE IS NOT PRODUCTION-READY.

Version 2.4.7 - minor update - 20250410 I'm still reeling from the near-trollish low quality of DCS' new 'Save State' function that is generating a steady stream of bug reports from people who trustingly used 'Save Mission' and it then destroyed their mission. I'm exasperated that anyone at ED green-lit releasing to production something that is this obviously broken. DCS can't "save state", period. Create a new mission, add a vehicle, set ROE to 'weapons hold'. Start mission, immediately save mission, run saved mission. The vehicle's ROE state now is weapons free. Failing on such a trivial level can perhaps be explained, but IMHO it's inexcusable if you want to claim any level of quality or professionalism. Furthermore, calling this function "SAVE MISSION" in the game's UI to me demonstrates a strong disconnect between ED dev team's abilities and their users' expectations. Communication is difficult, I know. This is a complete failure, though. I strongly recommend that ED removed "SAVE MISSION" from the UI for now. So I spent the last weeks telling upset players some truly sad facts: No, DML isn't broken - DCS's "Save Mission" feature is. No, unless you have a backup, the mission that you crafted is gone, you overwrote it with "Save Mission"'s broken version. No, I'm not joking, the joke's on you, and ED are the jesters. No, I don't think it funny either. I had very little time (and energy) left to do actual work on DML. The biggest item is that I provided a playerScore API for @Special K's Bot - and that's completely under the hood. Changes Documentation Manual QuickRef Demos Modules csarManager 4.5.0 - better playerScore integration heloTroops 5.2.0 - better playerScore integration playerScore 5.3.0 - API / callbacks unGrief 2.0.1 - DCS bug hardening -ch

Thank you so much for the feedback! It helps a lot. @Ebphoto! That's the one I do not worry about. I have tracking stations, and find them so much superior to inside-out tracking that not supporting them would be an issue to me

It's the Scribe module. Yes Valet currently does not support this. You could assemble this functionality with unitZones and messenger, messenger can be de-activated.

We don’t really need to do that, and yes, it would be nice to have. REALLY nice. I believe that the issue why wo currently don’t is two-fold: one is performance, and I think that this can be well-controlled. The other is cost. IIRC, DCS uses a licensed version of SpeedTree, licensed a very long time ago. Adding new trees to e.g. Caucasus (which is free) can add significant cost with little to no tangible returns (the occasional better-looking tree will not convince many players to buy more modules). I’m too hoping for a generational leap in wooded quality, maybe in DCS 3. Seeing how little ED invests in the core versus new modules, I’m not holding my breath.

It needs DCS to issue a 'landed' or "runway touch" event, whatever those may be. From my tests, DCS regards an aircraft as landed when the main gear (and probably nose/tail-gear) or skids (helos) are firmly on the ground for longer than a second. Moreover, DCS seems a bit particular when invoking those events for fixed-wing (helicopters can generate those events outside of airfields; fixed wing only in some versions of DCS. This may become relevant if you are setting up missions with road-based runways). So whatever is coded into DCS, the LZ module uses that to determine a landing / runway touch-down. This arrangement may make it difficult to count the number of 'hops' -- i.e. if players bounce on their landings it may only register as one landing. Also be aware that an LZ doesn't differentiate between players, so counting touches on a runway doesn't work in MP.