Dangerzone

Wags - you had me at "Hey Everyone". Love your video's! Really excited to be able to use this. Especially in VR, seeing a bigger deck. I'd love to get some clarifications on the following: Wags mentioned to be take care to follow the plane directors carefully. Just I'm curious to know what happens if someone doesn't. Does it break the whole thing, or will they be able to taxi up to a cat like normal and it will still work from 'there onwards'? Also - will a players 'non compliance' break the plane directors for other players? How many plane directors will work at the same time. (How many planes can be spawned on the deck for multi-player missions and moving around to different cats simultaneously, or will it be a 'wait until the plane directors are free' scenario? Will the CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+T option (to reset back to parking) remove/fix the Jet Blast Deflector stuck up problems? Are the directors dynamic with where they send you, or is it hard-set that plane directors are set to spawn you to a fixed catapult locked to your spawn location? With the Airboss, it's possible to disable certain catapults. Will plane directors honor this and redirect you to working cats? How does this work? (Does it disable certain spawn points, or are the plane directors smart enough to know to redirect you elsewhere). Is it possible to have CAT 1 and 2 disabled in mission editor (since the Airboss can do it manually), so that you can have a full/working deck with planes stored on the forward deck? (Or are plane directors aware of static planes on CAT 1 and 2, and will not direct you there if there are obstacles in the way)? Is it possible to enable/disable the plane directors using an API script and/or are their any other API scripts available for this? (Disabling certain CATs, etc)? Is there a template / information on where we can/can't place static planes in order to not conflict with the plane directors and pathing? Cheers DZ

I hear you. I've lost the majority of the drive I used to have for developing for DCS. I had incredible ideas and spent a vast amount of time developing a library of code for this over the past 4 years to come so close but fall so short and hard. I realize now that this is not achievable, and coming to a hard reality that this may never be (at least within DCS). Not because it can't happen, but because ED's current focus, objectives or methods are hostile to 3rd party community dev's. I'll forever be within finger-tip reach of my goals, but never be able to cross the line. The carrot will always dangle just that little further out. My first wakeup call was their treatment of RJ. Oh boy - that was a real eye opener for me, and I've just observed more since. (Ironic, as since joining a server with Overlordbot was what got me hooked on DCS in the first place). Up until RJ's departure I thought it was just ED having too many irons in the fire and I battled through with hope that things would get to a working point and that the 3rd party dev's were wanted to increase DCS's footprint. But since then I'm beginning to come to a different possibility. In part, whether it may be intentional to support their ecosystem. 3rd party multiplayer servers bring little direct finance into the bank - especially if the vast majority of DCS players are SP, but they expose numerous bugs, and encourage more older modules to be used more often. Servers like ours could actually be a curse, not a blessing to them. Also, maybe my objectives (and others like yourself) could even be considered competitive to ED's goals - such as their dynamic campaign engine? Maybe there's far more money in having DCS as a sandbox simulator where people buy a module, fly it for a while, and then move onto the next module, forgetting their old ones, and that having MP communities keep these old modules ticking create more PR problems than benefits for ED? If so, it would make sense if so, as to why RJ was treated the way he was, or why things like dynamic spawn come out without the option to apply it to dynamically created FARPS, or bugs with events introduced, and then not corrected quickly. I mean - for years we've been asking for such features. And when Dynamic spawns was created, and it was possible to include - it's been excluded and nothing but crickets since. I'm no longer thinking it was an oversight, but wondering if it was indeed intentional. It would also make sense why people like you (who give so much to the community, and have developed new ways of achieving these things) haven't been invited into the CB testers - given the amount of pre-release testing you would be able to offer. I always scratched my head as to how DCS updates could be released with so many bugs so often and ED not want the people who would see these kinds of bugs first on their testing team. But, given that the majority of ED's player base is supposedly single player, and understandably $'s dictate the direction of a company - it seems to be plausible that ED have a different goal/objective that is opposed to non commercial 3rd party community developers. Of course, this is all hypothasis, trying to make sense of their actions. I could be way off the mark, but even if I am - the outcome still seems to be same. Us creating unmaintainable libraries of code that breaks when new bugs are introduced with new updates that aren't fixed, an unstable environment, no official documentation for API's, unwillingness to include into new features what community has asked for years (like the Dynamic spawns on dynamically created FARPS) to be usable with dynamically created FARPS, or open up the API to toggle dynamic spawn on/off at runtime, or the numerous items that RJ had on his list. It makes me stand in awe at the achievement of the MOOSE community, where it has successed so well, and really in spite of ED's lack of support. But it also has made me end my development, and seriously consider moving on from my passion of developing for DCS and just use DCS for more basic occasional flights.

At present my hopeful and optimistic view is that some things are getting dated because ED is focusing significant resources on major tasks at the moment (Vulkan, Multithreading, and the Dynamic Campaign Engine). Once more of these are completed, I'm hoping it means that it will free up a significant number of devs and resources and we'll see the floodgates open where these other things we desire will start to get more attention in a significant way. However... ^^^ this. I can understand working modules (even if old) not getting updated at the moment. (I love the UH-1, and would love to see it updated). But I can use the UH-1 as it currently is. It's bugs that are introduced with updates, that aren't looked at or addressed for years that has sapped most of my enthusiasm away from DCS. I've seen our community shrink from a core group of 15 strong, (not including others who pop in from time to time) dwindle down to 3 people being semi-regular - and it's largely due to being sick of dealing with various bugs over an extended period of time. I'm really hoping my personal observation isn't reflective of the wider community, but seeing video's like this come out, comments on ED's youtube trailer video's, etc gives me the impression we're not alone. I can wait for older models to be enhanced to more modern standards if my optimistic views above reflect reality. However I have concern that the community is going to remain as strong between now and then if bugs that are introduced aren't addressed with more urgency. I feel for everyone involved. The creators have developed an incredible simulator - beyond what I could have ever have hoped to be flying. Something to be real proud of. I can't imagine the ongoing countless hours, effort, and passion that has gone into creating what is. For this to be so undermined because somewhere in the mix, someone is deciding that bugs aren't as big of a priority as they should be and can wait years to be addressed - or not realizing the true impact they're having on a community is a real letdown not only for customers, but also for everyone else involved in the development of DCS. That being said - I should also note that the last 2 updates have been significant patch fixes - and this needs to be recognized. Maybe there is a shift changing within ED? I also see in the latest HIP video that we've got drag and drop coming to the Mission Editor, as well as an option for the updater for those who are limited with drive storage. Maybe ED is beginning to listen to the community a bit more? It's important to give credit where credit is due. So, I am watching with anticipation with the next few release cycles to see how other outstanding bugs are being addressed, and if we are seeing the beginning of a shift in ED's priorities, or whether this was more of an exception to the rule.

As in have the AI do some friendly fire / teamkilling? While I'd have no objection to anyone having this feature as an option if they want it - I honestly don't believe it would bring good return on investment in the ED ecosystem. I suspect it would be something that would be very seldom used, and AI is already problematic enough with it's logic, without introducing more functionality that could go buggy. Taking dev's off more important tasks to implement this, with the additional risk - I see little to no gain, to outweigh the negatives personally. (My own observation - there may be a bigger picture I haven't seen). The only scenario I could see this being handy is a similar scenario I played in Raven One. Where you go into a simulated dogfight environment. With that, I'm fairly sure they despawned the wingman, and spawned in an enemy at the same time. Once the simulation was over, they reversed that back. As such, I'd suggest anyone wanting this feature code in a 'flip' function in lua. I imagine that it could be done by obtaining the position of a unit, along with the unit's parameters, and then despawning them, and spawning in a unit with the same parameters. There may be some API missing, such as the ability to specify matching fuel, and armaments (if any were previously shot off), and damage - but it worked reasonably well for Raven one.

I've noticed some strange things such as: Discord - I can hear people, they can hear me, but the notification sounds are going elsewhere DCS and SRS seem to work OK - but Voice Attack doesn't send sounds to me (or can access my microphone). HOWEVER - if I go into Windows Mixer, and set the default sound devices to Pimax (they default elsewhere on each startup) - this appears to fix the issue. My current conclusion is that Discord's voice input and output is different to the notifications. Notifications use windows default, where the other stuff you can set yourself. I think it's also the same with Voice Attack - it appears to use the windows default sound (which changes/defaults on each startup because Pimax device isn't detectable until after their app is running). So my fix for this is: Start Windows Launch Pimax Play Open Windows Mixer - and change the default input and output. (if it's on pimax, switch to something else and back again). Only after all those - then open up Discord, and Voice Attack. Give that a try and see how you go. Cheers DZ

So are many of it's users.

To be fair - I think the only ones that frequent here have nothing else to add to the discussion. I suspect that whomever they talk to about issues in house - their requests also fall on deaf ears too - so they're stuck between a community that gets angry and takes things out on them, and ED who doesn't listen to what they're saying the community wants - plus having to walk a thin line as they're employed by ED to work for ED. I suspect on many occasions, agree with us but have to be very careful how to handle it. I mean - if ED implemented the ability to turn these things off like we had 2 patches ago - there would be less contributors to this thread, and thus less reading and work for both BN and NL. So, I'm pretty sure they'd love to see that implemented. But it hasn't been, and there's zero they can do. And if they came back, and agreed with it but admit they're also not being listened too (seriously enough to bring it back) - they'd not only potentially have their employer to give an account to - but they'd have a number of others jumping on them complaining about how not having a dot would be 'cheating'. It erks me to no end to see actual bug reports submitted here, and not acknowledged, but in this particular thread I do have some level of understanding why contribution to this particular thread with over 50 pages is more on the light side.

This. What I'm seeing now is that the world (generally speaking) is shifting direction. In many places, it's the first time in over 100 years where the latest generation has it harder than previous generations with income and living expenses, and the next generation after will probably have it harder again due to incredible debt many nations are in. This doesn't just traverse to sales - this also traverses to enthusiasm. Less disposable income also normally equates to having to work harder, and having less disposable time. Where people in the past have had ample of both, 'putting up' with bugs, and extra time to work around them, I think that the walls are going to slowly, but surely close in on this. People are going to just want to sit down and relax with something that distracts them from their problems and hard times, to something that 'just works'. To escape from the grind, problems that life brings. As such, I suspect people will start avoiding more things that introduce new problems and hurdles to overcome. This won't be everyone, but I do believe there is going to be a trend in this direction. I know even in my own life, even though I'm fortunate enough to maintain a comfortable amount of disposable income at the moment compared to many around me - I'm working harder, are more tired than normal, and have less patience to put up with bugs. I'm seeing many friends drop off from DCS completely due to lack of enthusiasm (largely caused by bugs), plus dealing with many bugs myself - has found myself playing DCS maybe a quarter (if lucky) compared to what I used to. With stable release now gone (let's face it... what we have even though it was supposed to be the destruction of Open Beta leaving Stable behind), is really Open Beta, with Stable release gone - so gone with it seems any chance of having something more stable. But we also need to be realistic. Bugs will come. This needs to be accepted. However - I perceive ED's attitudes to the bugs it's introduce is going to get DCS into far more trouble than they expect. What we're seeing with video's and youtube comments at the moment is a significant warning. I'm already at a stage where I have no desire for ED's maps anymore - focusing only on 3rd party - because I feel as though if 3rd party introduce bugs, they will attend to it much faster than what ED does, and as much as I love DCS and want it to thrive, rumors that I dismissed earlier I'm beginning to question if there's substance. I've been told that with marriage, often the problem isn't when a couple fight - it's when they stop fighting. Councellors tell me that there's a good chance to save a marriage with fighting couples. But once couples get to a stage where they've stopped fighting and no longer have the effort/energy/care - it can be near impossible to save the marriage. If so, the good news (at present) - is it seems even though many people are very upset - they are still passionate - passionate enough about DCS to care enough to make video's, write blasting comments on trailer video's, or writing stuff here. However - I do fear that the next step (if unresolved) will be people not caring anymore... and that's when the comments, video's, etc will just stop. It's then that this issue will become irreversible, and I don't know how close that is, but feel it's close. So while bug free expectations isn't realistic, stamping on those bugs as soon as they've been made is critical. This whole waiting 2+ years for bugs to be fixed needs to stop. Failure to address this I think will have significant and irreversible effects on the long term success of DCS. It really feels like now is a pivotal 'making or breaking' of DCS's future. I'm hoping with all the enthusiasm I can muster that the last 2 major updates (that were filled with 'fixed' is a sign that ED is changing direction, and not just a momentary gesture to try and appease customers.

Don't forget to check windows sound mixer after opening pimax and re-setting your pimax devices in there too.

Re the Mic - I had a lot of trouble to start with, but I found a particular way I need to launch my computer in order to get it to work. I need to open up Pimax Play first. Then go to windows sound mixer, and select Pimax for the source of both. Then after that, launch Voice Attack. It seems that Pimax Mic/Speakers is not recognised by Windows until after Pimax Play is launched, and inbetween that time, since Windows can't find the Pimax hardware, it resets the sound devices back to what it see's as being available. It doesn't quite make sense to me. The hardware is connected right from the start, and I never had the issue with HP Reverb, even if WMR wasn't launched - but have just accepted for now that it is what it is. As for the tracking issue, I haven't had issues with that myself, but have heard that some people find LED room/ceiling lights an issue with it that might be worth a consideration.

Before you do - I would just like to second what MAXSenna wrote - it might save you a lot of time and frusturation. That is - before loading DCS - rename the DCS folder (or DCS.OpenBeta - whichever you have) to something else. (Like DCS.OLD) and then start DCS. This will reset the DCS configuration for you, so if there's something corrupt in saved games causing this issue, it won't be there. (It's kind of like doing a full reinstall without actually doing the reinstall). If it fails to fix issues, you can close DCS and simply delete the new folder DCS created, and rename the old one back to the original. This will debug a tonne of different possibilities in one quick pass. If it does fix the issue, you can either start narrowing down what the difference is, or othewise just copy across your config/inputs directory so you don't have to remap your controls and then reset up the settings how you want.

I don't trust how intrusive smart TV technology is getting these days. (My TV's are completely isolated from the whole internet. I use an external HDMI device connected to it that I trust more for my streaming), but even so... daymn - I never thought they'd interfiere with a PC like this. That is to say I have no idea of what is happening per say. I do have some thoughts on workarounds: If your router supports it, you could have the smart TV's on a different subnet. (So if your server is on a 192.168.0.x network, create a second IP for your router on 192.168.1.x subnet, and assign IP's for your smart TV's there. They should still be able to look at the router and use the internet, without connecting through to your DCS server. Likewise, if your router supports VLAN's - you could get the TV's isolated completely. Alternatively, with windows firewall, have you checked to confirm that you have blocked in BOTH directions. It could be that somehow your server is connecting to the smart TV's, and not the other way around. Also maybe check to see if the smart TV's are being detected by Windows as a device in the device manager, or external/network monitors, etc. If so, don't delete them from Device Manager (this will just cause them to come back on the next time you restart the PC) - but rather right-click on them and choose Disable. The logs seem to show that the smart TV's are being detected as an actual connected device - more than just a remote machine, so this might be the first place to start. Also - consider disabling hotplug in DCS by adding the following line to DCS's autoexec.cfg file. This may possibly stop it from reconnecting in DCS the first time it disconnects. no_device_hotplug = true I'm hoping someone who's more familiar with smart TV's and their inner workings might be able to give you a definitive answer, but if not - there's some ideas on what you may be able to do to stop the interference with DCS, but if not, hope the above is helpful.

If you have version turned on in windows, you may be able to recover it by right-clicking on the mission in file explorer, choosing Properties, and go to Previous Versions - and restore it from there if available. If you don't have version history, as Wrecking Crew mentioned - if you played your mission at some stage, then track files will probably be your best chance. Find a track file that contains your mission, and rename it's extension from .trk to .miz and open it up. Failing that, maybe a recovery program for recovering deleted files might help. Something like EaseUS Data Recovery. This is no guarantee, and the more you use your computer since the deletion the more chance any trace of it could be overwritten by new data - so this is something to get onto sooner, rather than later. This may also be a good time to consider doing regular backups of your entire saved games directory. This means if you ever have a corruption, or any other faults - you don't have to rebind all your controls again, and have backups of all other things as well as your missions. Obviously this is not helpful for trying to recover the file now that the horse has bolted - but it may save you bigger headaches you haven't considered down the future.

A Q&A might be interesting, but in the end I think it would achieve very little than a PR stunt. Instead, I’d prefer to see more ongoing community connection that would bear good fruit. Especially with significant community contributors. After what happened with RJ (OverlordBot creator) I’d love to see a shift in direction when it came to connecting with the community better, and providing support and direction for the community needs. ED have had an incredible free resource with a number of contributors in the community (and still have some). I don’t think that was/is fully realised or appreciated by ED. I’d love to see some real changes in that area and better support and connection for API, and community module developers.

That's exactly what I was looking for. After many years I've given up on the idea. I don't think DCS is the platform, nor will ever be the platform for this. But I'm certainly happy to entertain the idea. My first question is how are you planning on using zones to accomplish this? Are you going to have zones around every group, or a moving zone around the player? If so - would it be better to avoid zones altogether and just calculate the distacne between 2 groups?

Can't help but wonder - if this bug was introduced into Syria during an update - how long would we have to wait for a fix from them? There seems to be a very big difference between ED's pride in their map and fixing their bugs, vs Urga media, and what they do with Syria.

I would imagine all those details will be in your saved games/DCS folder - so backing up that should contain all the campaign information. With the reinstall - just reinstall DCS, and then copy your backed up saved games/DCS folder back. The main issue you will run into is with you Config/Input directory, as the filenames and UID that is used for your peripheral will most likely have changed. You can right-click and choose IMPORT from the controls and select the relevant file to import into the new UID that is given to your controller if you don't have too many modules installed. If you're like me (with the majority of modules) - this can be a bit tedious. In that instance, it's better to write a script or similar that will rename those files form the old GUID to the new, and also do a search/replace in those fies for that old UID reference, and replace those to the new as well. Apart from that, I absolutely love how DCS's settings are all in the saved games. Another tip - if you have any VKB products - your file names may start with a space in front of the input controls. In this case - make sure that you use command prompt (xcopy or similar) as windows explorer will strip the space off the filename when copying them. (If you don't have VKB controls, or your input filenames don't start with a space - you can completely ignore this).

Am I right in assuming that the Pimax software has to be running in order for Windows to detect (and use it) as the default device? I thought this was the case but reading above, I'm wondering if I am wrong. In my instance - when I first start windows, and then launch the Pimax app - I have to go into windows mixer, and select Pimax as the device every time in order to have it be used as the default windows device. it's as though when Windows first starts, it can't see it - so defaults back to something else, and then the device is loaded, but it's too late - windows has reset it. I've been able to get around this by setting it every time I start the PC as part of my manual start-up procedures and thought this was normal, but after reading this - wondering if I'm doing something wrong?

Then again, I could be wrong. After all, "apple" is a common word too, but yet it's trademarked. I didn't know about the Halton - so thanks for sharing. In the last 24hrs I've learned about that and the "Miracle" fast food takeaway. So it could be intentional. It'd be nice to know if this was an accidental flip of a texture file, or intentional. Do the Urga media folk post in here and confirm from time to time, or is it left for us to guess, and create conjectures? (If the latter, I could come up with some great conspiracy theories given enough time).

I wouldn't think so. Air port would be a generic term I would think. If it was an actual trademark/registered name that could be another story.

The way the DCS updater works is that it downloads all the changed files first (caching them), and then copies them across into your DCS folder. It's done this way to ensure that if you cancel your download half way, it hasn't broken your DCS installation. The downside to this is, if you have a 200GB DCS install, and there's 150GB of files that have been updated, the end result is that your DCS install might still be 200GB after the update, but DCS will occupy 350GB of HDD space during the update until the update is finished. The quickest/easiest way to overcome this is to uninstall a couple of maps (preferably the maps that have been updated). This reduces the size of your install, and also the size of the download. Then when you reinstall the map(s) you uninstalled, they're not on the HDD, so they can download and copy across. Uses more bandwidth, but gets around low space issues. There are also ways where you could move these files to another storage and use dcs_local_source.txt and copy DCS somewhere else before uninstalling the modules (network location, portable HDD, etc) to maintain a local cache of the files that aren't needed to be changed to reduce bandwidth. (Search for dcs_local_source.txt for more information on this). But honestly - depending on your internet connection - the easier option may be to uninstall a map or 2, update DCS, then re-install the maps and go to bed and let the downloads happen overnight. Not sure about using the launcher, but I believe using the command prompt you just need to go to the DCS BIN directory and type in: DCS_updater.exe update 2.9.8.1214.1

Just wondering where are you getting this "news" from? Is this official? Or just speculation / rumor?

I've always used that file. (Can be used across network as well - if you have a copy on another PC, etc where the registry "won't know". Interesting though - I had no idea that DCS also scanned the registry for other installs for updating. (I didn't even know that DCS used the registry. I thought all the settings were stored in the saved games directory alone.) There you go.

This is disappointing news.

I had no idea about this myself TBH. Thankfully my system was pre-built for me, but man - I honestly had no idea. Thanks for sharing.