Dangerzone

While I agree with you, it's not the world we live in. Look at the bloke who got accused by an Amazon delivery bloke of being racist. Amazon suspended his account. His house was wired up with Alexa, and he could no longer use it. I'm guessing any movies he purchased from Amazon were also off the cards from watching, as was any audiobooks, kindle books, etc. Later, he was proven innocent and Amazon reinstated his account. We're talking DCS and single point of failure, but honestly, ED is the least of my worries. How long until Microsoft decides to do the same as Amazon? They're pushing users to have online accounts for logging in to a "Personal Computer". Is it only a matter of time before they suspend someone's account like Amazon did for breaking their terms and conditions that keep changing consistently, and we're told if we don't like them, we have to stop using the devices that we purchased, even though the purchase at the time was under a different T&C. I suspect I'll loose DCS because of 'someone else' before I will because of ED. Then there is of course Paypal who went as far as bringing in conditions that they could take $2,000 from your bank account if you posted 'false information' online somewhere. Yes, they reversed that relatively quickly, but I haven't held a paypal account since. Honestly, these things need to be before a senate hearing, and legislation brought in that they can't simply take what someone has purchased because 'they don't like' something they've done. If it's legal by law, they should be able to do it without worrying about 'big business' coming to force their social justice upon people. But my rant aside, if ED can tweak it so that authentication credentials aren't cleared when DCS 'crashes' out when their authentication servers go down, we're doing very well with ED. They look after us far better than these other companies we rely on. At least ED give us the option to go 'offline' permanently. Try doing that with Windows 11. Sooner or later windows will 'Deactivate' itself because you haven't been online and it can't quadroople check you're not running a pirated copy of windows. Yes - it's quite some time, but eventually, it switches to requiring activation again. Any electronic license you purchase these days seems to be subject to this potential flaw, but ED is the least of my concerns. What happens if you click CANCEL?

When it fails to authenticate, just click CANCEL. That's when it should give you the option. I mentioned in another post, the only exception I know of this (at least in the past) is it may erase your cached details if you're already logged into DCS and you're kicked out when their authentication servers go offline. That's the only scenario I've encountered where I've been out of luck until they come back online. Whether that's still the case I'm unsure of, but it sounds like it may be.

I believe this is a separate issue. Switching to offline mode is authenticating your PC for permanent offline access. What I believe happens is that when you choose this, it will connect to your account, confirm your credentials, and tag your account as being used in 'offline mode'. (This stops people from going to other computers and doing the same thing and having multiple friends all play offline with a single accounts purchase). The only way it can do this to start off with, is to be online to validate first. Then, once you're in offline mode, you should be able to stay in that forever, without having to worry about any credential checks, etc. If you want to escape to a bunker and live the rest of your days out there (and let's face it, that's been more appealing in the last few years than ever before) - this would be a viable option. Same thing if you're going sailing around the world and want to use DCS, etc. Offline mode is not designed for issues like internet connection being down, or server maintenance, etc. In those instances, a cached copy of your credentials works on your computer exactly as you have mentioned. When you get to the 'cannot authorize' screen, click on CANCEL, and you should get a window saying "Authenticated for 2 days and 23hrs. Multiplayer is unavailable" (or something similar) The OP here seems as though they were using Offline mode exactly as designed, and for some reason it glitched out. In your situation, do not attempt to switch to offline mode. Just click on CANCEL and it should let you load DCS. Edit: (The only exception to this is if you were already in DCS and got kicked out as a result of their server going down. In that case, I think it will clear your local cache, and your stuffed until the server's come online. There's another post describing this here )

Yeah, that second part isn't cool. I would be expecting a message along the lines of "Authorization is valid for xxxx. Multiplayer is not available" or similar. I guess even so, you should still be able to access the mission editor if that's what you were working on (maybe). I reckon I had the same problem as you though another time. Was working in ME, and then was booted out because the authentication servers went offline. I'm suspicious that: 1) DCS continually calls home after activation/logging on to reauthenticate periodically (hence you getting kicked in the first place), and 2) There's some trigger that once you're kicked, your authentication cache is deleted. I don't understand enough how their anti-pirating stuff works behind the scene. I would have hoped that if the server could no longer be contacted it would give a grace period, or that there could be a secondary DCS server up that would advise 'under maintenance' and that DCS could check in with that server and if the under maintenance flag was up, it would allow DCS to continue (without mutiplayer). But I'm also aware that depending on how they've coded this, it may not be a simple 'we'll just whack this in', and such options could create more problems in other areas. It'd be good to have some official feedback on this.

I think there are two different scenario's. You should be able to launch DCS in 'online' mode, even though their servers (or your internet connection) is offline. You should get a 2 day grace period when you do this. However, the ability to 'switch' to offline mode (which is a permanent-offline mode IIRC) does require you to be online first. I believe this is by design for security measures. Otherwise, there would be nothing stopping someone from installing DCS on a friends computer, then disconnecting their PC from the internet and choosing "Offline mode", and that friend having a permanent activated copy of DCS on that computer. By being online, the account is told "this PC is registering at offline mode" which I believe will stop any other computers from being able to use that same account until it's switched back to 'online' mode later. So offline mode isn't for 'temporary offline' connections like now, or when the internet goes down for a few hours. It's a separate feature that's designed for 'permanent offline', so a user is able to take/keep all their modules and use them if they're going to no longer have internet access. (Anyone - Please correct me if I'm mistaken).

I thought if the server was down, it gave us a 2 day 'grace period' from when we last authenticated correctly. I'm not sure, but my first 'guess' is that maybe because you were already in the game when the server went down, the 'kick' it gave you has trashed the grace period somehow. If this is indeed the case, and users already logged in are unable to use their product if they're kicked like this - I would like to see this 'tweaked' so that in future, once you're authorised and in-game there's no kicking out. Or - if you are kicked out and attempt to get back in, you get the standard 2 day grace period like we normally do if the internet connection is down, etc.

Agreed. We know it contains issues, and doesn't work as we would like it. But it doesn't mean it's not usable either. For short track files (and reporting bugs to ED), it's invaluable.

This is pure speculation, but my guess is you won't. I'm guessing focus is probably more on the 'Dynamic Mission Campaign Engine", which will probably completely replace the need for any of this.

It might be worth posting your location and/or time zone, plus best availability time so you get replies closer suited to where you are.

To be fair, I've seen cfrag interact with enough topics before to understand why he was questioning whether that was sarcasm or not. Nothing against your sarcasm, just be aware that some people here have had some very interesting arguments put forward in the past that have some of us hesitant to assume now. Plus, I've laughed a few times thinking my wife was being sarcastic when she wasn't to know it's a bad mistake to make.

Check out line 156. When I copied it back off the forum - it looked like the forum was broken: endfunction tablespawn(tbl, _country, _cat) put a carriage return between end and function and that should resolve the issue. (NOt sure why the carriage return isn't there in the post above - I'm guessing it's something to do with the forum). Also, you will need to desanitise regardless of whether you're running on a server or not because the script requires DCS to write files to the hard drive in order to unzip and extract the required file/data from the .miz file.

You'll need to load in the script to 'load in the functions'. This won't actually load in the file - but like MOOSE it should give you the functions ready for use. Then it's just a matter of calling... missionspawn('c:\\mymissionfolder\mymissionfile.miz', 2) missionspawn('c:\\mymissionfolder\anotherofmymissionfiles.miz', 2) ... I believe in order to load in your template. You can do multiple templates in a row no problems... The above shows 2 being loaded in. I'm currently away on holidays so I'm going by memory at the moment. Just note - I think if you have 2 mission files that have the same group names you could run into issues, so make sure that your mission files have different names or one might 'overwrite' the other for the groups that have the same names if this makes sense.

A bit of a way out there thought - but does anyone know if it's possible to capture the text and then suppress the voice radio calls that are made at a server level? (ATC instructions and clearances, or overlord calls). I'm guessing that it's possible at some level (it looks like VAICOM does at a client level), but I don't know if it's possible at a server level. One of the things I'd thought that would be nice is to have a bit of a 'mix up' when it comes to these calls. One day it could be a Texan bloke accent on the radio, the next an english female, etc - so we don't have the same monotonous voices each time. My thought was with TTS options available to grab the text, get it transcribed to a ogg file and have this play back over SRS instead at the server level. Only something I'm toying with at the moment but I thought I'd check to see if it might be possible, or whether I just put a nail in this coffin before I even start trying.

Thanks. Still interesting that the MSF video has Threaded optimization off - but you've opted for on. I know we have MT now in DCS - but I would have thought MSFS would have had it moreso - yet that video they opted for OFF for threaded optimization. Makes me wonder what effect it would have on DCS turning it off, whether people are setting it On (or Auto) because that's the NVIDIA default, or they believe MT means it shoudl be on - or whether tests have actually been done accordingly? (I"m not in a position where I can test myself for probably a few weeks but just found it curious that the video specifically turns it off).

Cheers - so basically put them all down except the Mistral in the current build and it should be ready for the new release. Thanks for the confirmation.

I have a mission creation question - I see the Mistral is no longer going to be available. Is there just going to be one helicopter now? For preparation (where I don't have access to the new changes yet) - what's the best way to prepare for this in a mission I'm currently creating? Should I just drop L's spawns only and remove the others? Thanks in Advance.

I'm going to be frank here, but my suggestion is to stay away from trains - especially in MP. I've been trying to work with them for years - and have constantly hit issues with them. Over time, some of these issues have been fixed (ie, the train is now visible for others in MP whereas previously in MP - clients weren't able to see a train that was there) which I'm grateful for, but there seems to be other issues that continually pop up where it's more like a game of 'whack a mole' than a flight simulator. The trains are neat and I appreciate them in DCS but I think they're one of those items that has proven to be a lot more complicated than ED first anticipated - and since they're a bit of a niche item - 'bits and pieces' get looked into from time to time - but the entire feature itself needs a real good look at which I doubt is going to happen. There's too many other 'higher priorities' that have been in ED's sights for too long. That link from Flappy that shows this being one of the issues reported in 2018 still outstanding (and now the thread locked) might give you a bit of an indication of how long it takes for each individual train bug to get attention. I'm not saying this to have a dig at ED. I can appreciate that DCS has grown to a size where it's really more triage with issues than it is having everything running solid. As a train enthusiast I can still appreciate that train use to this level of scripting are a niche thing and ED have higher priorities to deal with. So my response is more to just be frank with you that I don't recommend you invest the time and energy like I have in the past into something that when you finally do get something working - you find something else breaks it shortly after down the track (excuse the pun). If you really want to implement them anyway - I'd recommend having them as a 'side objective' in your missions that doesn't matter if it doesn't work or is broken so you can have a 'bit of fun' with them, but if they don't work - it's not going to be a showstopper.

Interesting. The OP had low latency mode to OFF and Threaded Optimization Auto. The video has Low latancy as Ultra - and Threaded Optimization to OFF. Obviously XP12 is a different bit of software - but I wonder what is better for DCS and VR.

To those upset about not having a solid release date - while I understand your frustration - here's a perspective to keep in mind. There's really only a short number of ways of giving a dedicated official release date: 1) Say nothing until the module is ready for release - then give it a release date "in the future". (Who heard Andre C's voice when they read that?". ) This is the only way 'to be sure' that a company can commit to that release date. The pro - everyone get's a release date for a module that's ready. The con - everyone has to wait longer for the release than they would need to - all so a solid release date can be set. While this might work for some customer bases - the fact that the majority of players appear to be playing "Open Beta" - not for beta testing, but for "gimme as quick as I can - worts and all" is probably a pretty reliable indicator that this approach would not be wanted by the majority of the community - even if they say otherwise. 2) Have a 'best guess' at the release date. Then if hiccups are encountered (which - as a dev I can guarantee is almost a definite likelihood) - delay past the release date until they're sorted. The release date then isn't really something you can trust and leaves uncertainty. This leads to more frustration and the "you told us". Not good for the community,, and not good for ED. 3) Have a 'best guess' at the release date and then stick to it - regardless of where the module is at. Again - while some community members may want this - the fact is there would probably be more noise about things not working as expected, crashes to desktop, etc. First impressions count, and I think ED realise this. As such - there is no win answer for ED. It's a 'pick the best of the bad options that will do the least damage'. As such I think what they're doing (Option #1) really is the only option available for them. I'm sure we'll get access when it's deemed "good enough" for Open Beta release. The sad part is - I suspect we probably could have had have access to it already in Open Beta - if OB was being used for what it's designed to be used for.... "beta testing". But since the majority of the community run OB as their main platform because they want everything ASAP - the responsible decision for ED is to make sure that the release is one that is as close as possibly suitable for 'production gaming' as they can get - as again "First impressions" are going to count. When the majority of servers are running OB... that really rules this out of being option #4 (which is the one I would have opted for otherwise).

You will get a mission script error if the server you are running on is launching external files. Many servers don't load their lua scripts into the .miz file, but instead just call something like dofile('c:/scripts/myscript.lua') which will run an external file located on the server. Since you don't have c:/scripts/myscript.lua on your computer - it will break the scripting. More servers that I see are using this method of running scripts instead of loading them into the .miz. Same thing if it's loading from saved data (simplesave, template loaders, etc all use this method). That's not saying that the replay script isn't broken in other areas - but if the server you are running on does indeed fun external scripts - you will run into scripting errors. Just something to keep in mind.

I'm using Visual Studio myself for the .lua files. Not sure what others use. I'm probably not the best source of info for .lua stuff - I'm more of a hack when it comes to lua - I can find my way through it and get (some ) stuff to work. There's probably better ways of doing things than I am doing - but I share my (limited) knowledge where it's useful.

Hi GS. Sure thing - see below.

Also worth checking is to confirm that you also desanitized your missionscripts file in your mail install\scripts dir? Log files would be helpful along with your mission too please.

I'm confused by the poll. Is this a question about: - what you'd like to use? (ie - what interface you like the most), or - what you have to use to get the best performance for your headset (ie, some are best to use OpenXR because that's all that will give them decent performance, others have headsets native to steam, so they will probably go with something that gives better performance with steam), or Because from my perspective it seems like the answer for each person will be dependent on what headset they have and what gives them the best performance. I was running SteamVR on a G2 up until I'm guessing a year or so ago where I almost gave up on VR and came across OpenXR which literally saved DCS. I didn't use OpenXR because I wanted to - it was a necessity. As such - it seems like it's more a popularity contest on which headsets are the most popular? (Although I admit - I am still confused about VR implementation even after using it for years so it's probably my confusion and not the poll?)

Not seeing the contradiction. VR requires rendering twice for the same frame. What I see he's saying is that if he can go to 2D where the same render is used in both eyes and you've got to be cutting down a significant portion of the processing, thus allowing better graphics on older hardware. The logic appears sound to me.