wolle

I'll buy it on the day it is released, no doubt about that...

I have been looking for an hour now: what is the scripting command that returns the type of a unit. E.g. if unit MyUnit is a Huey it should return something like "UH-1H". There seems to be a command called Unit.getTypeName but this returns an object type called TypeName rather than a string, and the object type TypeName is described anywhere I can find. Thanks

Hi Grimes, Thanks for your response. Here is my track. In this track, the cobra will dive right into the ground after my take-off. Most of the times, however, it will just endlessly orbit around the location it was at the time I took off. Follow.trk

I attached a very simple mission (just a Cobra "following" a UH-1H). If you start the mission, you will notice that the cobra stops following the UH-1H as soon as the UH-1H starts moving. BUG, please fix! test.miz

thanks, will do

Hi, Does anyone have a lua code snippet for automatic mission restart? Should work something like this: if there haven't been any active clients in the mission for x minutes, restart mission. Thanks in advance!

Yes, that should work, no need to activate any modules on the host, as long as you don't play as a client from the host computer

Hi, Thanks for the feedback. Yes, you can only switch choppers in MP. But you can always host an MP mission just for yourself. Then you can switch choppers even in "quasi-SP". I'll try that with the tank symbol tonight, and see if I can make that work. I wonder if one needs to own CA for that (which I don't) Yes, spotters are presently immortal. I'll experiment with changing that, e.g. making them only invisible (otherwise there is to large a chance that they will get eliminated before you arrive to strafe the convoy).

Hi Eagle Eye, Thanks for the feedback. There is no menu item to load or unload troops in the field. The code should automatically recognize when you land close to friendly troops (within 500 m). However, I have never tested taking control of an AI helicopter (didn't even know that was possible, how do you do that?), so the code may not work when you do that as this situation was not intended when I coded the mission (however there shouldn't be a problem when you switch to another client Huey). For example, the menu items do not get initialized for the AI choppers, only for client ones. In the current version I explicitely exclude AI choppers from having menu items, but I could easily change that. Once you tell me how to take control of an AI helicopter, I can change that and test it.

I posted "The Helicopter War" mission here: http://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/421082/ I would be glad if people posted comments, bug reports etc. in this thread. The mission is a further development of my earlier CSAR and airmobility missions. In the current version (Aug 11) the mission has the following features: -it is a dynamic mission, i.e. mission plays differently each time it is played because the mission events occur at randomly chosen locations and/or dynamically evolve during the mission based on other events occurring in the mission. For example the location of the pilots to be rescued in CSAR tasks is determined by the actual A2A combat ejection events during the mission. -it can be played either in SP or MP. -you can play either the blue or red side -Using F10 you can access a to-do-list, then use FM homing to fly to the desired location where you will complete the task. Possible tasks are CSAR of pilots down, reinforcing and/or picking up combat troops, and strafing enemy supply convoys. -In parallel to human-controlled Hueys, AI Hueys (blue side) and Mi-8s (red side) also complete tasks from the to-do-list. Coordinate your actions with other human and AI flights. -Your actions will influence the mission: if you rescue a pilot, he will respawn in the mission. If you resupply troops, they have a better chance of eliminating enemy troops. As a side loses too many troops, it will eventually run out of troops. Troops can be replenished with truck convoys, therefore strafing and eliminating these convoys will starve the other side of troops. -There are enemy AAA scattered throughout the theater, making your life a little more difficult. Have fun.

Hi Blooze, Thanks for your answer. Which checkboxes are you referring to? The ones in the mission editor? They are all unchecked (see attachment), but still if I use one of my computers as the server and the other as a client, the client one will have the graphics setting of the server computer, no matter what the settings are on the client. To put my point in perspective, this is a link to another forum post with the same issue as mine http://www.ru.wiki.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=102859

I searched the forum and found some threads on this topic, but couldn't find real answers. The server graphics settings (texture, scenes, water etc.) are forced on all the clients. That seems rather bad, since if the server uses high settings clients with lower end computers cant use it (because of bad FPS), whereas if the server uses low settings people who have a higher end system wasted their money. I do not understand why not every client can choose his/her preferred settings in MP. Or is their a way of letting clients choose their settings?

I am referring to the change log item " Added several new constants (AI) and functions (trigger, Controller) in Simulator Scripting Engine (SSE)." I am away on a trip, and haven't installed 1.2.5 yet. Has anyone played with those new scripting tools, yet? What are the new functions?

Hi Fang, Sounds exiting what you guys made out of this mission. One question: the Hueys must be easy prey for modern jets like the SU-27. Do you implement a "gentlemen's agreement" that Hueys are off limits, or is there a good strategy for Hueys to hide from the jets (like NOE flying)? I will look into possible reasons why the troops didn't want to board some choppers, but only after 1.2.5 is out (since 1.2.5 might require some changes, or provide additional features). Anyway, I'll be out this week on a business trip.

stable MP version, July 18 After quite a number of days of testing and bug hunting, we have been able to come up with a version (attached) that was stable for us for a couple of hours of continuous play testing (no problems have occurred during that time). The main stability problem is related to "client time-out" errors, which kick players at apparently random times. Although we have not been able to pin-point the ultimate root cause of this problem, we have found a work-around similar to that originally suggested to us in this forum. As you enter the multiplayer screen in DCS world, there is an option button that allows you to "throttle down" the multiplayer data communication. We found that if you set this throttle to a high setting, such as "ADSL1024", the mission becomes quite stable, at least for clients with reasonable pings. With "ADSL1024" we could accommodate clients with pings up to 300ms. Therefore, if you have a good internet connection, this mission should work for you. We are looking for testers with relatively slow network connections, to test if setting the network throttle to ADSL1024 works even for them. Also disallowing "allow_object_export" (thereby disabling programs like TACVIEW and TARS) helped significantly, although we are not yet certain about the relative importance of the two fixes, and whether one can do without disallowing "allow_object_export". Sven will have this mission up on his server. We have not yet sufficiently tested the mission's long time behavior, i.e. after the mission has been running for hours. Of course, as more and more players have gotten kicked unexpectedly (which hopefully will not occur any more), this will probably have some negative effects on game play. We would like to thank the many people that have provided feedback, and we are definitely much closer to an ultimately stable mission. Please feel free to host and/or test play the attached version and provide us with feedback in this forum. AirCavFullMPJuly18.miz

@ Sven Who says that I am not at the beach when I am checking the DCS forum. In fact, right now, I am at the beach, typing with my right hand and holding my Sangria in the left :thumbup: I will read your links about unreachable variables, etc. Can you check if the large memory use that you report also occurs for other MP maps? How about if you play AirCav in SP (where it never hangs up), does it also use do much memory. Any idea what could use that much memory? Does the memory usage jump each time a new player joins, or an old player de-joins, and joins again? I am not at my computer that has DCS installed, but does xcom refer to the following setting: After you enter the multiplayer screen, in "tools" you can choose the connection setting to speeds such as 128,256,512, etc, and there is also a choice "LAN". What be great to test if setting it to "LAN" would help. Since I am not at my computer I can't check whether I have allow_object_export set to true or not. But I am pretty sure I have it on true, since I use "TACVIEW" which requires allow_object_export to be set to true. Have to go now, my Sangria is empty, need to order a Mai Tai now.:smilewink:

Thanks fangav. Could it have been that 200 and 220 just happened to be inside a ravine or behind an obstacle or something? Or did you notice anything else that is special about 200/220? Have you experienced any disconnects? If so, any idea what situation typically leads to them? Desperately looking for any clues...

Thanks xcom. Would you be so kind and elaborate on your suggestions. What do these do, and why do you think they would help? Your help is greatly appreciated.

Yes

client update timeout Hi Grimes (and others), We have been working on a dynamic MP mission for the Huey (http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=108056&page=10) that uses mist extensively. It works fine in SP, but in MP it is plagued by apparently randomly occurring "connection interrupted" events, i.e. it kicks out one or several clients, while other clients can keep playing (DCS does not crash or anything). We have been struggling with this for a week now. Given your extensive experience with DCS and mist, can you give us any hints what might be happening. The log states "client update timeout" (or something similar, I am away from my computer now).

Hi Fangav, Thanks for the feedback. Can you test next time if the ADF kicks in when you get closer to the desired map object. This would tell us if the ADF is really missing (which it shouldn't be, but then again we have had all sorts of surprises when playing the mission in MP), or whether it is just masked by terrain. I have found previously that the problems get worse the higher the ADF frequency becomes, that's why we try sticking to lower ADF frequencies.

GOT IT (we think) Sven and I did MP bug hunting all afternoon. The good news, we think we figured it out (and it looks like it wasn't a bug after all). Here is what we learned: 1) The code as posted here in this thread earlier generates 16 groups of randomly positioned enemy AAA near the beginning of the mission. The code crashes. If one reduces the number of AAA groups, say to 4, the code runs fine. Our theory: there is a maximum number of total groups that can be on a map. (does anyone know if this is really the case, and what that maximum number of groups is?). The safest option therefore would be to simply completely remove the AAA groups, then you will have some more room for groups that get generated in real-time during the mission (each pilot down adds two groups, the pilot and the enemy Charlie group that will attack you as you rescue the pilot), each convoy will generate another group (the spotter group) once it got detected, and so on. All these additional units will get destroyed after their job in the mission is done. So the number of groups changes during the mission, and may lead to a crash if it exceeds a certain number. I attached a mission with I believe either 4 or 8 AAA groups that does not crash, but as I pointed out earlier it could crash later on if the number of groups grows during the mission. The safest thing may just be to completely remove all the AAA groups, this is done by simply deleting the trigger that loads the "createEnemyAAA2.lua" code. Otherwise, open the "intialization and common routines" lua file with note++, and change the global variables that specify the total number of AAA, convoys, etc. You may also try to remove some groups from the ME itself. 2) At some point we had problems when SLMOD is running on the server. This led to an immediate crash upon entering the mission, but reducing the number of AAA groups also made this problem disappear, so we are not sure if there is a problem or not. But disabling SLMOD is another thing you might want to try if you have crashes. AirCavFullMission.miz

Should we make it 3.30 (in 20 min)? Once I am hosting, I will call the server "Wolle's AirCav mission testing, no password. Hope to meet you virtually in 20mins. If not, let me know what other time works for you. Wolle

Hi Sven, Thanks for your tests. Yes, all my dynamically created units have "player can drive" = true. I also noticed mention of SLMod in your logs, whereas there is no mention of that in my logs (attached, for Full Mission, no crash, I am hosting and the only player on my personal home computer. I host via "Multiplayer New Server etc"). Could it be that SLMod is imcompatible with my lua code, which is based on mist? Would you be willing to fly the mission with me while I am hosting it sometime tonight or tomorrow (I am on US central time). Any time works for me, just need to know ahead because I have m,any other chores to do this weekend. My feeling is more and more that the fact that missions never crash on my computer is related to a difference in setup. I do not have teamspeak3 setup on my computer. Would I have to set this up first, or can we use another TS3 server? Let me know FullMission.zip

Hi Sven, What do you think are your conclusions, what tests should I run next? Thanks for your help, Wolle