Frogisis

Step one! I finally got a chance to get down and modify the dust trails to make them into something I think is a little more realistic and satisfying: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/339335/ I'd like to have some more variation in how long the dust trail particles last, so that every once in a while you get a little wad of dust that lasts for a minute or two, but I'm just doing this by trial and error and still don't fully understand what those two-number parameters mean. EDIT: I actually shortened them a bit, I think they were getting too long. Someone would probably get an FPS hit and it looked a little silly on grass as opposed to dirt or sand. I modified the contrails, too, by changing things in "contrail.cfg" in the three LOD subdirectories in bazar/Effects/SmokeTail to make them look something more like the ones we see overhead everyday, but the missile trails seem to be aloof from whatever files I'm tweaking. EDIT: They're in "Config/Weapons" (duh, search the root directory for "missile"). I made all the AA, AT, and rocket trails about 30% more opaque, which more or less preserves their relative visibility while making all of them that weren't already maxed out more conspicuous. The only one I decreased in relative terms is the AIM-9X, which had more visible smoke than the other AIM-series missiles except the Sparrow, but I keep hearing that a reduced trail is some kind of big selling point with it, so I left it at ~30%, as opposed to the other Sidewinders' and AMRAAMs' 50% (up from 20%). All the Russian AA missiles were already at 100% which strikes me as odd, but oh well. The one place I took a little straight-up artistic license was in having the Russian S-series rockets put out denser smoke as they climb up the weight brackets: If you're firing a 13cm or 24cm rocket, it should feel bigger...! I was also able to increase the damage from the rockets and shells, after extensive googling and number crunching, looking up things like the megajoules/kilogram of various explosives ("Composition B"? "Tritonal"?), and it seems like most rockets and shells use a chemical just a hair more powerful (and fragile) than that used in bombs (I couldn't find any info on what explosives the Russian weapons use, so I just assumed the same setup), so I added few percent to the same damage calculation bombs use (basically doubling their "warhead weight" parameter, instead of leaving it be like the rockets and shells), making all the rockets and shells just a shade over twice as powerful, and now a Hydra is ~0.06 the strength of a Mk.82 instead of ~0.025, and about 3/4 the power of a non-shaped-charge AA missile. Artillery shells are now about 25% stronger than a basic small AA missile, instead of 50% weaker. I decided to ignore fragmentation effects because A) they seem to be calculated separately and B) while the shrapnel is a bit lighter than a bomb's, I figure it would be propelled proportionally faster by the slightly more powerful charge, and either way the bombs are still far more powerful, using exactly the same "simple_explosion" logic - I think this is just correcting the way rocket and shell shrapnel was essentially worthless. I only upped the AP rockets by 1.06x, though, since they have some other parameters going on involving cumulative damage. I applied this to the little shells, too, however, so now a Bradley's autocannon will set a truck on fire with one shot (instead of like, two). Maybe it should - They're incendiary, right? It seems a little much, though, so I might just revert everything smaller than 120mm, but for the sake of consistency I kind of want to keep all the power parameters that use the "simple_explosion" logic with the same "2x warhead weight in kg" system the bombs use. Presumably people more knowledgeable than I am could figure out more accurate relative power, but even for just the modified smoke these almost certainly aren't MP compatible because the files I had to modify also contained a bunch of performance parameters. So I haven't uploaded any of this yet - I only figured it all out an hour ago - I'm just telling you about it. Still to do: Increase crater decal size (found the sprite, where is the config file?). Increase explosion duration and maybe size to cover up mesh changes (uhhhhh...).

This, definitely. I'm playing around with some files to mod this manually in the interim, but, y'know... Anything that gives you more information about the sim world or otherwise helps you see it more clearly and increases your situational awareness is a welcome addition.

Would seriously love this as well. Even if there weren't unique dynamic music so much as tracks you could set to always play under certain circumstances. I think at the moment it's pretty unrealistic that I know nobody's actually in danger, and a little music helps bridge that emotional distance. Another way to look at it is that the radio model only has so many prerecorded phrases, but in real life you can communicate a great deal more information, so something more abstract like contextual music can stand in for what in actuality would be a more personal, directed message. It's a bit like the F10 map - You wouldn't really be able to look at something like that, but a real JTAC would also be able to describe much more specifically where a target is, or give you an estimate of whether it's damaged or not, which, say, you might see in the sim as a "health bar." It could be seen as visual elements standing in for auditory ones. Long story short, while contextual music isn't realistic in the literal sense, I think a case could be made that it covers for what in reality would be a more detailed verbal report on a situation than prerecorded samples allow. But all that aside, it would just be cool.

I wish I had the time to contribute but I'll offer what moral support I can. GO TEAM! YOU CAN DO IT! I guess the only thing to do until EDGE is released, though, is to gather reference materials and decide on what's "canon" for the Balkan Peninsula. Hopefully EDGE will be smarter with blending the various assets together - Given the staggering immensity of simulator maps it's no wonder people build an engine and then fill it out from a catalog of tessellating parts, but sometimes I wish they'd bite the bullet and craft the maps more by hand, to get that sense of a natural, idiosyncratic landscape you get in smaller arenas where they just paste a satellite photo onto a topographic map. ...Maybe then they could have an engine tile in smaller assets when you get closer, like the current ground clutter, based on the colors or other set characteristics of that pixel/region (trees, buildings, rock), like those programs they use to make those posters where the main image is made up of hundreds of smaller, related pictures, their colors averaged out... A guy can dream...

Thanks - I somewhat miss the liveliness of it but I always thought the smoke looked kinda wonky anyway. It definitely helps FPS a little.

At first I was kinda underwhelmed, but then I realized it was just the first few steps. Now I'm like, "this is absolutely amazing and I want to download it and put it in you, DCS." I made my "ideal" basic gray Hog skin for my own personal use, and now this pit is gonna make it feel even more like my baby.

It shows, because they look amazing. I downloaded BMS but sadly my copy of Falcon 4.0 is in a box in my dad's attic. I'll order another copy or something once I get paid. I'm not sure how the explosions in DCS are structured, but hopefully ED won't have to start from scratch or anything to reach that standard. They're definitely on the right track, they just need to approach them with a little more gusto and an eye for copying from life. In the mean time I think I just want to find and tweak the numbers that correspond to, uh, panache.

Thank you so much! I will get cracking on experimenting with these as soon as I have the free time. For sure - In literal terms that kind of stuff in real time is at least five years away, probably closer to ten. But it's not actually necessary to model them perfectly to achieve explosion special effects that are almost as convincing. That's where the "art" portion of game design comes in. A lot of the explosions in that video, for example, have a big spike in the center of a funnel-shaped spray, or are just lumpy amoebas of dust. Any of those are pretty simple to build from just a few chunks - Even those last ones are really just a few lobes of dark dust and a ring of light dust. You don't have to show grass and concrete flying in the air so much as little irregular dots, and the brain will fill them in just like how a couple jagged brush strokes in the background of an impressionist painting becomes a convincing human figure when you step back. You don't have to model every curl of the dust cloud, when some different colors and a little movement in the "sky" clouds we have now would create some pretty effective kabooms. What I'd love for the explosions to do right now more than anything, though, is be large and long-lived enough to believably cover up the disappearance or switching of a model. Right now, when a plane crashes (or is completely blown away by a missile), or a building collapses, it whimsically pops out of existence to be replaced by a little cylinder of flames. That would be a great place for a tremendous fireball to act like a dressing room changing screen to cover up that "costume switch." Again, I think just some modifications to the puffy weather clouds we have now could create a pretty decent inferno of jet fuel or dust envelope around the regular fireball and smoke. Yeah, that's pretty low on the priorities list. Obviously an SA-10 launch isn't going to look like the space shuttle, but I think some of the bigger ones and the MRLSs might be a touch thin in the initial "boost" part. EDIT - I'm back with examples: http://youtu.be/oBXgpTt_JB8?t=1m43s and http://youtu.be/OIcJlOetsT8?t=1m12s <- Especially cool Bottom line, it depends (of course), but more often than not it's quite a spectacle. ...Though I suppose the anemic-looking shots don't make it into video compilations. But since our effects are collections of a few of pre-rendered animations to represent all events of each type, why shouldn't we choose the most photogenic examples as the model? I know... In those instant action missions where you attack the patrol, I pepper that collection of infantry with the full salvo and rarely nail more than one guy. I feel like they're about as on-target as you get them given wind and spread, but maybe I'm just forever bad at rockets. Definitely, thanks for the warning. This is where the Trial & Error part really comes in... Ideally there's a way to be clever about it where you cover up lower absolute detail with some artistic repurposing of the parts.

tl;dr Please show me what files to modify to make various dust and pyrotechnic effects last longer, and if possible increase certain splash damages and make the crater decals larger/more conspicuous. ***** In the spirit of Kuky's excellent Better Fire & Smoke mod, I was thinking the dust effects could use a little tinkering as well, but I don't know what files to modify in order to change any of the parameters, and I was hoping one of you with more experience could point me in the right direction. I will do the gruntwork of fiddling with the numbers by trial and error until I get something I think looks right and doesn't kill FPS, but first I'd like to be able to narrow things down to the relevant files or even sections of code - Being able to modify the smoke from burning vehicles makes me think there are equivalent configuration files out there for the other "vapor" effects. To give you a better idea of what I'm talking about, I was watching some videos of Falcon BMS and sighing with envy over their gorgeous explosion effects, but the thing that struck me the most was how they way they linger gives a much better sense of their actual scale, like the smoke and dust from pretty much any actual bomb footage I've ever seen: ED's given us some much better effects lately, but they still seem a bit "timid," maybe for fear of looking unserious, and I don't think it's providing appropriate visual feedback in terms of the real-world scale of things like tanks and buildings. The current effects seem more like something you'd see on Mythbusters, with household items quickly going up in flames and then dissipating, or a bit like a special effects model not properly filmed in slow motion, instead of dedicated concentrations of high explosives excavating a chunk of earth and setting it on the wind. Right now there's a big puff of tan smoke when bridges or some buildings collapse, so maybe it's possible to invoke that asset as well for some of the larger munitions, and slow it down a bit. Same with the vehicle smokescreens - I'd think there'd be some parameter somewhere that controls the speed of the animation so that it doesn't dissipate within a second like it does now. Finally, while the vehicle dust trails are a huge improvement, they still don't seem to linger like real dust, so I'd like to be able to thin them out and have them persist a bit, and, like a lot of other people have wished for, I'd like to know if there's a file somewhere I can tweak to make some of the missile smoke a little beefier. Getting Greedy: Here are a couple things I'd also like to change that I think are related enough to not need their own thread: - If possible, or unless someone convinces me they're accurate the way they are, I'd like to know how to increase splash damage for some of the weapons, namely rockets and the Mk 84, both of which seem to barely dent even a jeep or put some shrapnel in a guy unless they're actually engulfed in the fireball. In fact all the "dumb" AG weapons except the GAU seem rather weak in general; even the daintiest love-tap from the GAU will obliterate anything unarmored, but a half dozen rockets, CBU bomblets, or artillery shells exploding essentially on top of a truck only seem to ruin its paint job. Again, maybe that's realistic - Life is weird that way sometimes - but it definitely does not seem right. If it can be tweaked, though, I'll start doing my homework to figure out what an appropriate level would be. - Also, if possible, I'd like to increase the crater decal size and usage, so that damage to the landscape is actually noticeable from the air, and so that shells leave a mark as well: As helpfully Green as it would be, I doubt we've invented sci-fi weapons that can annihilate a tank or shred a runway while leaving grass unharmed. You can see heavily cratered areas around those low, square warehouses that keep on exploding for like an hour if you hit one, and I'd like the rest of the landscape to get in on that action. They already come in different sizes and a while ago someone posted a bug where they suddenly encountered a town-sized crater, which makes me think it's possible to modify them. I know there's some z-fighting going on, but someone had a similar problem with the text on new textures for the Russian missiles and solved it by doing... something with the alpha channel so maybe a similar approach would work here. ***** Anyway, thanks - That was a lot of stuff and it's probably not all doable with the way the assets are organized now, but it'll almost certainly be a while before ED can get around to working on superficial things like effects again, and I figured one of us should take a stab at it in the meantime.

Even just taking the IL-2 or Orbiter route of hooking it up to a folder where you could put your own collection of MP3s would be awesome. I feel like such a bum running a music player in the background.

You and me both. I still haven't *mastered* the A-10 or made much of a dent in the Shark, though, so I'm solid for a while. But I am fiending to shoot AMRAAMs from something that doesn't feel like it's on rails. I might suggest the Mustang. It's not a crazy-fast modern jet, but it feels much, much zippier than the Hog. And those .50s sound just as baller as the GAU in their own way. With a little suspension of disbelief you can use the more "basic" ground units to stand in for their WWII antecedents, too. New terrain would make it all feel fresh, though. I am actually getting nostalgic for places in Georgia I have never been to: A couple months ago I overheard a guy at a bar telling a buddy about Falcon BMS, and when I asked if he'd ever played DCS I got all gooey inside when he talked about flying out of Batumi.

This seems to give me a bit of a boost, but even looking at the numbers it's not enough to be sure it isn't all in my head.

Really like this mod, it's a much more "tasteful" sun that's a lot closer to what it actually feels like to get it in your eyes.

Moving obliquely to the enemy seems to neutralize the effectiveness of AT missiles pretty well. I can send 4 M1s against 4 Russian tanks of any kind, and as long as they're moving sideways, the missiles whiz by them harmlessly over 90% of the time. The Russian tanks expend all their missiles, and then you can just approach them head on. For whatever reason it seems the T-72 has much better aim with the missiles than the 80 or the 90, though - 4 M1s on "excellent" regularly annihilated 4 80s or 90s also on "excellent" by going diagonally across the field in an echelon formation, but the 72's missiles would connect with some regularity.

Yeah, the Mustang is super fun - I think it'll come into its own once it has more unique things to do or a WWII patina can be put over the setting. What I really want is a DCS-level fighter, so the F-15E, Super Hornet, or F-16 all sound great to me. The F-18 Classic would be awesome, too, of course, but it's harder to get as excited about it when you know there's a better version out there. Edit: Would seriously be down for co-op in an Apache or a Hind, too, but I think I'll stick to single-seat jets; I find single player kind of meditative and relaxing, like the cockpit is my own little cocoon.

I haven't seen anyone here mention using mission assets - If you've got allies in that particular mission, they're usually a HUGE help, especially against things like enemy fighters and the bigger SAMs. So make sure to get on the radio if they're available. Also, just be a huge coward. People call it "flying conservatively" or "terrain masking" but thinking of it as pure cowardice always helps me remember to actually do it. Once I really started hanging back and looking out the window until I was absolutely SURE where everything was that could hurt me and what was going on, I finally ended up consistently completing missions. And the value of Tacview cannot be overstated. It's like the pure Platonic ideal of debriefing, plus it always makes me feel like I just beat an Ace Combat level.

Binding the zoom controls to something easy to use, especially if you have a HOTAS, is really helpful as well.

F-15C? Su-27SM? I very much believe that yes, I will partake. Oh, there will be furballs. Maybe even some final showdowns. Will almost certainly pick up the Bug, too, but I just have... reservations about multirole jets, even though it can probably hold its own just fine against any other 4th gen bird. And yeah, DCS-level carrier stuff and SEAD will be nice additions. Gotta say I find the Hind a bit intriguing, as well. We'll see... One old warbird is enough for me, but I'm really glad it now has a proper opponent.

We definitely need some good Western European fighters. Just looking at the Gripen or the Rafale makes me feel like I'm living in a speculative utopian fiction novel or the world from the Ace Combat games. They've got the same "here comes the 21st Century" aesthetic as municipal bike-sharing stations or maglev trains (and other things they exist to theoretically defend).

Engines seems to be the variable, at least in 1.2.2. I've gotten repairs with only the engines shut off (used the APU instead of ground power the first time since I forgot that was an option).

It takes a little getting used to but I like it a lot. Great work! It's one of those things that never even occurred to me as an improvement until someone else went ahead and did it.

Cool, I like the civilian traffic and making the world feel more inhabited. Wish we could see pedestrians, sometimes, too. I wish their scripting behavior were a little different, though: I ended up bumping it down to medium because they'd often just wander right into the middle of a battle, and I have trouble imaging even the most dedicated bus driver and his/her passengers braving constant explosions and falling JDAMs to make it to the next stop on time. I think most people would call into work with a bad case of "spending time with their loved ones in the basement." So I just think they're kind of bothersome - There always seems to be a truck passing on the road when I'm trying to Mav the heck out of a tank column. I'm gonna try this mod, but I think it would be amazing if this kind of density could be reserved for the areas just outside of the battle, as if people trying to evacuate were causing traffic jams. Maybe there could be some kind of logic where they're "repelled" by burning vehicles within a given radius and interesting behavior would emerge from that?

I think they mean the black chunk of jagged debris sometimes left behind when a soldier is hit by something heavier than a small arms weapon. It was kind of a weird choice to have in there but it did seem less tacky than just having them cleanly fall over after a direct hit from an artillery shell. It sorta said, "yeah, we all know this would be messy but spending time animating gore would seem pretty unserious in this context." "Set flag 17 and NEA funding to True if any unit begins a performance art show about its childhood." All these changes look great, and I'm especially looking forward to the new fog of war.

Ohhh cooool... I can't wait. What do the green bars above the units represent? Tradition says health but context makes me think ammunition. I can actually still do without a radar, but this post makes me think that since vehicle driving in CA is already sorta in the same spirit as the "game mode" in the other modules, adding the same or similar little target symbols to the HUD would be a really nice touch, and give you the information you need to be effective without the extra effort modelling different kinds of sensors when so many things are already in the pipeline. At least I get the impression that's what game mode has from the pictures - I have not played it for I am hardcore you see, and also too lazy to have to switch all the options back afterward.

Totally this. I also want more single player campaigns, since I enjoy SP for being kind of meditative & relaxing, and completely independent of anyone else's schedule, plus I miss new Ace Combat games. But right now DCS is going through a lot of big transitions (and we don't even know what the next jet is or what all can be done exactly with Combined Arms once it's finished) so beyond just things getting broken or incompatible, campaign authors wouldn't even be sure what full set of tools they'd be able to use.