carrollhead

Had a quick go with some squad mates this evening and you've done a really nice job. Would echo the need to either a heading to missions, or perhaps a lat/long. Night ops would also be very cool :) Lastly - I would extend the hover time over casualties a bit, maybe 20 seconds. Either way it's a brilliant idea, thankyou :)

Just a suggestion - with bullseye functionality coming for the hornet (thanks BTW:)) would it be possible to add a bulls readout in the f10 map so that all other modules have a quick way of deriving their position with reference to it? I know it can be done using a waypoint or using the ruler tool, but it seems like a good thing to have available.

Or shoot 2 Mavericks....

I think the setup is awesome, although we could get more ground attack fun by doing as Frostie suggested and added A10C for blue and Viggen for Red. Just nerf the weapons a bit so it's not trivial to plink SAMs from a safe distance. Maybe add radar SAMs too, since they tend to be more of a challenge. Regardless, I'm grateful for the server and the effort you guys put in. This version feels a lot more "in your face", which is great from a ground attack pilots perspective. Thankyou :)

Thankyou Eddie - very succinctly put. I find it to be very time consuming to write a decent briefing from within the mission editor - usually we end up writing a PDF for pilots in a mission. It's not an option really for public servers (at least if you want people to read it!) I do think that making these tools available would benefit all players, and mission makers too. If I could do it I would, but I'm a bit thick ;)

I didn't say they were a deal breaker - and I believe we were talking about getting higher player numbers into public servers. I also covered why I thought native comms would be a better solution to the current status quo. VSquadron life is not the same as open public servers - there have to be some compromises to allow for the fact that a lot of players don't have a huge amount of time and want to fly reasonably quickly. A serious mission is going to be held on a passworded server with people that know and trust each other to play the part. That's the type of game I like, but if we want more DCS multiplayer in general there needs to be an easy way in. That's all I'm saying. You could implement a respawn timer to stop players from jumping around too much (I.e if you go from one slot to another there is a 5 minute wait). Either way if it was an option in the mission planner - it could be turned off. It would help smaller groups build and fly complex missions though. I don't actually think everyone would do flight planning, but if you were to join and you got a screen showing your waypoints over the map with features (decided by the mission maker) available to you, it would make the whole experience a lot better. I'm not slating DCS - i spend way too much time in it, and I've done a fair bit of making missions too. It's just an opinion ;)

DCS is a sandbox, but it's still missing some bits (in my opinion) that don't help the situation. 1. Flight planning isn't built into the game. I know that sounds boring, but without thinking about how you're going to fly to your objective and kill it (or whatever) then you join a game where it's not so easy to play your role. The briefing system available to mission makers is pretty crude - and we don't have good maps (that match the game) to use as a tool in the briefing. The end result is that even if you join in an aircraft like the A-10 which has a nice shiny navigation system, the flight plan was made by someone else. That kills SA, and immersion. (Again my opinion) It's possible to get around this, but it's not straightforward. It should be. FSFian made a very cool mission planner that helps, but it was built around the game limitations and basically wrote the waypoints into the mission file. Therefore a player joining later (with the mission in progress) couldn't change the waypoints. Being able to join an AI aircraft in flight would be very useful too - I.e. If I'm playing a strike mission and there are AI f-15s around - joining one to help the strike/cas whatever would be very cool. (Yes I know the a-10'doesnt really do strike we use it for all sorts though!) 2. Radio comms. I would be so happy if we could have this built into the sim. TARS was awesome, and so is ARIES. However they both needed teamspeak and a bit of effort on behalf of players. I think MP would be a totally different place if we could talk to each othe natively from whichever aircraft we chose to join in. DCS is awesome, no doubt, and NTTR is stunning. Currently though, it's far easier to play in small groups to get around these problems than scaling it up to a big server. I can only hope we'll see these things as time passes - personally I would much rather see features like these than more planes, at least in the near term. I believe they would help grow a bigger player base......who would then buy more stuff!

Greg - you've got the 31st on blue in the list above - I take it we're still on red and it's just a copy/paste from the last round?

Definitely some lag issues on the server this evening - saw some pretty crazy jumping around :). The air defences (at least what I saw of them) look a lot better too :). Saw a couple of nuke splashes (I mean the wierd texture after one has been used) from Mig-21s around Sukhumi. I know these can cause issues with performance and other odd stuff happening.

Perfect - thanks.

Just to add my thanks to the organisers of blue flag - you have done more for DCS in the past month than anyone in a VERY long time. Thank you, from all of us at 31COG. Again if it helps we'll play red next round. In he meantime well done all on blue :). As for MVP blue I think it was "jimigreen" who spent hours hauling troops in helicopters while we all pissed about in aeroplanes. Couldn't have won without the helo pilots and I saw his name more than others (when i was on at least :)) Can we up the SAM threat a little in he next round? Some TORs around the airfields for example? Maybe some long range stuff around the map too? Anyway thanks again, it is already awesome.

You can always do an in flight alignment :) Just got off the server where there was a bit of a scrap going for Mozdok. It was one of the best nights playing DCS I've had in a long time :) I even bagged an SU-27 from my Hog with a snapshot from the gun, followed by a sidewinder up his pipe:joystick:. (Happens once every century for me!) One thing that I would like to see though is night missions - bad weather would probably hurt performance too much :(. Also maybe a brevity channel on TS - some FAC-A action would be awesome.....

As I said earlier - put the 31st on red :) we'll try to get on as much as work and wives allow :)

Basically, you open multiplayer, pick a server you like the look of (currently ones with passwords have an asterisk to the left) and then double click (or click once and then hit "Join") If you don't see many servers then you probably need to update DCS Once the mission loads you select an aircraft and press fly. The rest should be fairly straightforward. Look for servers with a few players in them and try to join a teamspeak if you can. It's a million times easier to help someone when you can talk to them!

X-com - there's not that many of us, but you could move the 31st over to red if it helps any :)

Had a lot of fun thankyou - some of our guys were having some connection problems, which we think was probably to do with integrity checking. They're reinstalling to see if they can connect ;) Quick shot of me and Ian (FSFIan on these forums) landing after finally hitting Beslan.

This looks good - we'll take part if that's ok :) Squadron name : 31st Combined Operation Group (31stCOG) Active pilot numbers: 5 Pilot call signs: TBC We can do a-10c mostly but all other airframes to a lesser degree.

It will get loads of people flying again, but without changes to multiplayer, it will be back again to where we are now IMO. It takes a load of work to make a mission - you can fly it 2-3 times probably before players start to know where all the targets are, and then it becomes stale. Patches break missions (I understand why!), but it gets quite frustrating from the perspective of the mission builder. Missions are better if you can keep it simple and concentrate on training/"proper flying" etc - but that doesn't work for open public servers. Some sort of automated briefing and flight planning by pilots would change the first thing a great deal. Again - just to stress, this is an AWESOME sim - but it's not yet setup for multiplayer longevity (at least for ground pounders). It's the work of a precious few to keep the missions coming and it's very hard work. Just keeping the thing going for the few guys in our squad has been a lot of work.:) I'm really looking forward to DCS2.0 - and multicrew:joystick:

I think the number of DCS modules being sold is increasing, although I have no scientific reason to back that up. A lot of us who have been flying it a long time however don't spend as much time in multiplayer as we used to, and even then a lot spend it in closed servers. The reasons for this are many, and have been talked about a lot in these forums. I'm really looking forward to DCS 2.0, and especially the multicrew possibilities that have been talked about. Ideally though there needs (in my opinion) to be some changes in the way multiplayer works to really get the online community going. Primarily the ability to setup your own flight and waypoints, returning to the pilots the ability to come up with a flight plan and stick to it. I know this can be done now - but it isn't as straightforward as it could be, and it relies on players to work together. (and it relies on a lot of assumptions about the mission if you fly on a public server) I also think that the game needs built in comms. I know we can use teamspeak, and that there are radio mods out there but these rely on adding in extra software and come with no guarantee that players will use them. Planes have radios, and we should be able to use them! As it stands, I believe a lot of players are simply biding their time and hoping that the sim matures into the product it could be. I say that with the best of intentions BTW, it's simply how I (and the guys I fly with) feel at the moment.

Is it a mission you have made yourself? If so are the planes set to "client"? If not then you wouldn't be able to join anything. Just something to check before going any further :)

I expect both, although the DCS bug is the one we're all most looking forward to. Hopefully we'll have a training program based around the VEAO Hawk up and running over the next few months, but as always that depends on uptake and real life commitments.

That's a very good point - although I'm not sure who put us in there.I had no idea we were even mentioned! I'll fix it - thanks Andy

Just ask on teamspeak if the mission needs retarting or changing. Hopefully I can get on later tonight as well :)

Sniped :D

...named in that post you just quoted:) "=31 COG= Dedicated" usually. It's only passworded when we want to fly a mission rather than just have a free for all type of thing. Anyone is welcome to get onto our teamspeak and get the password if they want to though. (TS details are on the server brief and in the player list) It will probably be offline later this week for an upgrade, but other than that it's up most of the time and open to all.