[HOUNDS] CptTrips

Nope. I'll have to re-grade my re-grade of the side gunner. Fail. Moved the target out to 600ft. Closer he was shooting just in off the front of the wind shield like a foot away from the cockpit. I figure further out with dispersion that would more often hit. But the error just increased as well. Now the aim point is well off the nose. At 800ft he stopped shooting all together. That's what I mean by lack of aggressiveness. Anything under 400 yd (1200ft) he ought to be lighting up. It's like he might be doing a blind lookup on angle of lead based on the targets airspeed and distance and aspect angle. Not taking into account the relative velocity which in these tests is near zero. Seems like it ought to calc the perfect aim point based of relative motion and distance and then apply a random offset from perfect aim based on skill level. Even a day 1 recruit would shoot better than this, because a human would see it is miss and adjust his aim point. Even a rank novice human gunner would hit in a couple of squirts because he would intuitively adjust based on where he saw his tracers go. At 800 ft he should certainly still be shooting. That is still prime kill zone. If you were a human gunner, would you not shoot at this target?

BTW, I modified my top gunner mission test to the A-20. Same as the top gunner on the B-17. Will not fire a round. Helpless. (See attached miz.) TestA20Gunners_top.miz

I was wondering if the OP could look at this thread to see if it is a variation of their issue: Thanks in advance.

Update: I did run across this thread. Sounds like many variations of the same issue?

I'll amend my complaint on the waist gunner. (EDIT: NOPE see below.) True he is missing a perfect shot there. No human would miss that shot. you just give it a 1 sec squirt and walk the tracers over. The AI waist gunner is aiming off. But it is exactly off and consistent. I think the problem here is it is so close that there is no dispersion and so the mis-aim rounds miss every time. At greater distance, there might be enough dispersion for the waist gunner to get an occasional hit even if the exact aim spot is off, which the up close scenario reveals. For now I'd re-grade it adequate along with tail and chin gunner. I can live with those. I think the main problem is the top and belly gunner. In my original full mission, I just wasn't seeing the defensive fire that I expected. I originally thought only the tail gunners were shooting. So I created these individual tests to isolate the guns and watch them in a controlled situation. In my normal attack, I would start 1000yd above and offset and roll in a strafing run across the targets 3-9 line, then dive below the target and extend away at high speed to setup another pass. So usually my main fear is the top gunner on the diving ingress and the belly gunner on the egress. I used to fly a sim with mostly human buff gunners and even that pass could very dangerous. I guess if the top and belly gunners were not shooting then I would really notice that difference. The top and belly guns should be my main threat. I just wasn't feeling it. Is there any way to get those to shoot?

That would be awesome. +1

In the sense of not even pulling the trigger on a target just sitting within spitting distance from them in close, stable formation. Please try the attached test miz on the OP in the thread referenced below. The Top and Belly gunners are Vegan Pacifists. The Waist gunners are Mr. Magoo's. But I don't want to hijack this thread. We can continue any discussion on the other thread. I just found the juxtaposition of the God-Tier ground AI gunners with the Bud Light drinking Mr. Magoo B-17 gunners humorous. You need to cross breed them to get something in the middle.

Anyone find any better settings that will make the top and belly gunner shoot in these examples? Or get the waist gunner to hit the broad side of a barn? If not, my view is that: * the Top gunner is 100% broken. Won't point. Won't shoot. * the Belly gunner is 95% broken. Sorta points. Won't shoot. * Waist gunner is 85% broken. Will point and shoot. Couldn't hit a fish in a barrel. * Tail and chin gunners are probably adequate but really need to be a bit more aggressive.

And yet the b-17 gunners (top, waist, belly) are functionally helpless. Reminds me of Pulp Fiction. "Bloody as Hell, or burnt to a crisp?"

OK. So only the server is at any risk, and only from the servers own scripts. (Regardless if it is a standalone or in-game server. ) So no servers file system is at any risk from anything a connected client could do. And the server admin is in control of what scripts he puts on his own server and runs.

I'm new to DCS so there might be some gaps in my understanding of how scripts work in the server\client mode in DCS. When the server is de-sanitized, that only allows access to the servers file system correct? That doesn't expose the file system of connecting clients, right? When the server is de-sanitized, that can only allow access to the file system from scripts running on the server that the server admin himself would have put on, right? Scripts never run on the connecting clients, right?

Lol. I never could get used to that in the times I've tried that game.

Cool, thanks. The advantage of these test missions was to isolate the behavior of each gun separately in each in their own test case in a controlled and repeatable manner. So if you can make those work reasonably, my real mission will work. But I made these because I was essentially seeing the same behavior in a full mission. These tests just remove any other complicating variables.

As I stated in the second paragraph above, I tried both Veteran and Ace skill level. I didn't mention it, but I had also tried different permutations of threat response and ROE including weapons free. None of that had any apparent effect on the tests. Could you download the TestBuffGunners_top.miz (linked above) and edit it and repost with any settings that would make the top gunner actually pull the trigger? That would be educational for me. I could not find any settings to make him shoot. If you get it working you can attach it here for reference. Thanks in advance. (I never approach from 6 o'clock. I almost never attack from head on. 90% of my attacks would be from above and slashing in from high dive across the 3-9 o'clock approach. From this approach, the gunners, especially the top gunner, don't even attempt to defend. Sorta kills any enjoyment.)

I recently purchased the WWII asset pack and FW-190D and I was trying to set up a bomber intercept\escort mission but the results were very poor. It appeared the bombers were completely helpless and made little to no effort to defend themselves. I ran some tests. I setup a lone bomber on a level course. Bluefor. I tried both Veteran and Ace but with similar results. Just run the mission and watch from external view. AI has control. I positioned a Redfor 190 about 500ft off the bomber in a stable formation with the bomber. The fighter was set to not react to threat so he just maintained course. I tried a couple of Tests: 1. Target at 6 o’clock level. Result – Tail gunner was a little shy with the ammo but did fire and easily killed the target. Fine. (But it would be nice to be able to dial in some more aggressiveness for Veteran and Ace skill level.) 2. Target 12 o’clock level. Result –Chin gunner was a little shy with the ammo but did fire and easily killed the target. Fine. 3. Target 9 o’clock level. Result – Side gunner shot but only little squirts occasionally. He should not have even had to aim. Target was close enough to almost fill his view, yet some how he couldn’t hit. I watched for 15 minutes before he actually pinged it once. It made me sad to watch. 4. Target directly above 500 ft level. Result – Top gunner never would fire. Perfect target. He should have shredded him. Never pulled the trigger. He didn't even swivel his turret to point at him. It made me sad to watch. 6. Target directly below 500 ft level. Result – Belly gunner never would fire. Perfect target. He should have shredded him. Never pulled the trigger. He did swivel the turret and point at him, but would not pull the trigger. It made me sad to watch. From what I see, my theory is the AI is refusing to shoot at targets with high angle of deflection. Even when the target is just sitting there. In terms of relative motion, it is motionless. A perfect target. Close enough to open the window and spit at. In practical terms, it means the AI bombers will virtually ignore targets unless they are crawling directly up their 6 or coming directly head-on. In virtually any other approach, they mostly refuse to shoot. (See attached test missions.) Thanks in advance. TestBuffGunners_side.miz TestBuffGunners_tail.miz TestBuffGunners_chin.miz TestBuffGunners_top.miz TestBuffGunners_belly.miz

Trigger zones themselves are just a non-visible logic construct. They have no visual representation themselves. Easiest way I think would be to just use the ME draw tool. Draw a circle coinciding with your zone. Set the drawing layer to common. $0.02. The other way would be with MOOSE or MIST or https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_func_circleToAll

And sometime in the decade after that, perhaps an UnDo key!?!?!? Just kidding. MT was a huge win. Anyone who has done any MT programming would know how prickly that can get. Triple difficulty when retro-fitting code that wasn't designed to work that was to begin with. So hat tip. But yeah, I am new to DCS and spent two days Googling to find how to do a drag rect select in the editor. And undo. I kept searching because I thought, "it's got to be in there somewhere. any visual editor since 1985 is going to have that basic functionality!" Nnnnnnnnnnnnnope. I get that the editor is not a direct income producer, but it is a huge force multiplier for ED. They get an army of unpaid enthusiasts spending countless hours creating free content for THEM! Making sure they have decent tools to do so would be in their interest. It was disconcerting seeing posts from over a decade ago asking for things as simple as drag rect select and undo. However the DCS Web Editor geniuses are grinding away and they have already made huge progress. So that front is covered now I feel. The big need now in my opinion is better ground game. Splash damage, better infantry, better, more believable, smarter ground AI but with more realistic vis and reaction time. Is MT for server in the works? That might help a lot. Things online can sometimes seem empty and sterile and static. Ground units scattered around not moving like a firing range because to kills the server for AI to move. Is it mostly A* cost? Maybe look into baking in precalculated obstruction free navgraphs for the terrains. (e.g. https://www.gamedev.net/tutorials/programming/artificial-intelligence/navigation-graph-generation-r2805/) Basically pre-baking in A* so it doesn't do those calcs runtime. I wanna see masses of ground units moving around doing stuff and fighting on MP servers. I wanna feel I'm flying over a war. I keep hearing, "Yeah, you can't have moving ground AI, it kills the server." The ground game was secondary when DCS was mostly space planes fighting BVR in near Earth orbit. But with all the helo's we have now (and more coming) spending their time at tree top level, ground stuff needs to up it's game. Stuff you don't notice in the stratosphere, is quite noticeable NOE. $0.02.

Ah! That is easier. Well, you learn something everyday!

Well, as I said, I wasn't necessarily suggesting anyone change the labels. It was just about wondering how far the configuration file override extends. If it would apply to things like the dot.fx file. It might just be lua files. I wouldn't mind if servers allowed dot labels. I'd stick with red and blue. Black would just look like a shader dot. I think the colored dot icons are a in between to help old geezers like me who's eyesight ain't a good as it used to be. I'm not lobbying for that, but I wouldn't mind. I guess that's why fighter pilots are usually youngsters. You could toggle label on and off to tell if it's a dot label or just something else. I think the dot labels give you a little help without totally trashing your view with text. $0.02. [edit] I probably want it more for ground targets than air threats.

Just a thought... I was looking at this post: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/40253-mission-editor-hot-tips/?do=findComment&comment=3955123 (And a later post showed this has been applied to a MP server successfully I guess. https://taskgroupwarrior.info/2020/labels-the-love-hate-relationship/ ) I'm not suggesting you much with labels (unless you wanted to.) But I was intrigued on how this was working. I guess if it finds that file embedded in the mission, it allows that to override the one in the clients default install folders? Kinda neat for a MP server to be able to control that. I haven't tried it myself. I'm curious if that works even with IC turned on. Could this same approach work for fx file? I have no idea if that would work. It would be cool if it did. It would be a cool behavior. It would allow the server to control\override the behavior without turning off IC and opening everything for malicious agents mucking with their local files to gain advantage. But again, I have no idea if that would work for the fx file.

Just noting this incase someone else searches for a solution to this... I have a use case where I want some FARPS to start out with NEUTRAL ownership. At first glance in the ME, and a cursory search of posts didn't provide a solution. This is what seems to have worked for me. 1. Go to coalition dialog and move Switzerland to Red or Blue. 2. Go set all the FARPs you want to start as NEUTRAL and set them to be owned by Switzerland. 3. Go to coalition dialog and move Switzerland to NEUTRAL. Save mission. Those FARPs are now set to NEUTRAL and stay that way when the mission starts. They can then be captured by RED or BLUE as normal.

Also noticed the bug if went to Mission Paused dialog->Briefing->x-out (upper right).

Strange one. In this test miz I drew a blue and a green circle through the ME draw tool. In between those I drew a red circle with script: local ref = trigger.misc.getZone("targetArea") trigger.action.circleToAll(-1 , 1, ref.point , ref.radius , {0, 0, 0, 0} , {1, 0, 0, .7} , 0 , true) Then Escape and go to the "Message History" dialog. Notice when the dialog comes up, since it is semi-transparent, you can see the two circle from the draw tool are there but the circle drawn with CircleToAll is vanished. If you hit "close" button on the message history dialog, the missing circle stays vanished. If you hit escape to bring up the mission paused dialog and then escape again, it cleans it up and shows the missing circle again. If you hit screen capture it also brings back the vanished circle which is why I didn't include any example images. (See attached test miz.) Thanks in advance. TestDrawings.miz

UAPs

Has anyone at ED been able to reproduce the OP issue? Were the miz files I attached sufficient? Is there any more information I can provide to assist? Thanks.