twistking

My feeling was that the bright/dim switch simply does not work. I cannot see it changing brightness of indicators at all. I have not tested with today's patch though...

I believe you're overthinking. I would imagine a new barrage feature that could have two main mode of operations. Semi-Scripted. Like the old one, but AAA fires in random directions and intervals with some additional parameters perhaps... Dynamic. AAA unit get position of actual aircraft in vicinity by "cheating". When aircraft in vicinity, but unit cannot spot it by itself, it just shoots in general direction of aircraft. If AC is picked up by own sensors barrage mode pauses and unit engages in default mode. ME can configure certain parameters, like 2d position error (how close need AC to be in order to trigger barrage) 3d position error (same, but including altitude. could be used optionally to ignore high flyers) aiming error (how precise the aiming is. high error would just fire in all directions randomly, very low error would shoot in general direction of AC) timeout start (how long after AC is close the barrage begins. would need to accept random min-max values) timeout end (how long the barrage keeps going on when no AC within vicinity. would need to accept random min-max values)

True, but that's an insufficient solution to the problem imho. The purely scripted nature of the command is another problem. There should also be some new AI logic (with options in ME) to allow AAA barrages to occur dynamically under certain conditions...

I also like the idea of a separate Hangar "experience" mode, where you can walk around your modules in VR and maybe also have a look at AI assets. So kind of a VR encyclopedia/museum. Obviously not a big priority, but would be neat. The default hangar view in the backgrounds needs to go though!

+1 I think there should be at least one AI bomber (high quality asset) per side for each era. Currently lacking is early/late cold war and redfor in general. Modern bluefor is good i think, and WWII is ok. Vulcan would be fantastic!

+1 (and i don't even use VR)

Glad to hear that. Yeah, it's a bit of a head-scratcher. To be fair to ED, if you select one of the profile presets, Preload is always set to a "reasonable" value. I think the fact that those high values are even possible is a relic from the old engine (which streamed less data) in combination with potentially extremely slow HDD drives. Unfortunately i often see people cranking it up, because "bigger is better" i guess. ED would need to communicate better what these settings do or simply remove the option to set bad values (i doubt that with the current engine there would be any system configuration that would benefit from high preload).

Not a good solution to a real problem. There are many occasions where things are hard to see when editing. Routes for Grey coalition can be difficult depending on map background. Everything blue can be problematic over water. A better solution to the problem would be an option to temporarily toggle an overlay filter for the background. For example make it much darker and/or give it a colour tint that contrasts better with the frequently used "colours" (red, blue, grey).

I would advise to set Preload as low as you can get away with (if you set it too low, you might get occasional freezes from data streaming). I would try 1/3 or 1/2 of the max value. Load times should be faster and ideally ram usage should be a bit lower. If you have a fast SSD, data streaming should be fast enough and there is no reason to buffer so much stuff preemptively.

But you could say that about any other tip people give you. "The other maps run fine, therefore this setting cannot be the reason Marianas runs bad." Bit of a flawed logic. Different maps in DCS show different memory behavior. Turning down Preload seems like a good thing to try. And generally you should not have it that high anyway... Is there a specific reason you run it at max?

Normally i'm all for Full Fidelity, but for Drones i could also see a super low fidelity implementation work well. Similar for AWACS or general C2. So something between Flaming Cliffs and Combined Arms, where a player could jump between different units and stations...

Set Preload Radius to a reasonable value.

@NineLine Did you merge those threads? If you thought my "bug report" was not objective enough, you could just have moved it to the wishlist section. My post was mainly about the quality of the texture/material work of official liveries, not necessarily about having more liveries and not at all about user liveries.

Der sollte neben den Flugmodellen vielleicht auch mal sein Ego nachjustieren...

Well... yes, for a controlled training or testing scenario that is true, but for an immersive mission that takes longer to complete and in which the encounter might develop dynamically, the fuel states will be dictated by the progression of the mission. An AI handicap option could just shift every encounter a little bit in the player's favor.

Die offiziellen Handbücher liegen alle im DCS Ordner. Geh einfach auf DCS und gib *.pdf ins Suchfenster ein.

For aircraft that have playable versions, i would suggest letting two AI fight against each other (guns only) and the player tries to simply follow the friendly aircraft through the engagement. Maybe give the player aircraft 10% less fuel to account for less than optimal player control inputs. If player can't follow the friendly, he can proceed to post a track in the bug forum and you, or whoever is responsible can take a look at it. Additional note: I think you should also consider a gameplay/difficulty feature, where the Mission Editor can give (reasonable) "handicaps" to AI aircraft (something like 5, 10, 15% less max thrust and 5, 10, 15% more empty weight). This could maybe improve quality of bug reports, because it may take some frustration away from beginner players. I'm by no means a beginner, but still often struggle against AI that is evenly matched. I'm absolutely willing to accept that this is user error, but i would also be more relaxed about alleged (assumed, rumored...) performance discrepancies if i could just give AI that little handicap to make it a little bit easier for me. Would also be a good training option overall and could even make sense narratively and immersively when the mission uses aircraft as stand-ins for older variants (less thrust) or newer ones (more weight), or wants to simulate aircraft that are just badly maintained... The old trick of adding bombs to fighters to weigh them down works, but is not ideal for many obvious reasons...

@Yo-Yo said that realistic energy states are not limited by the SFM and therefore the GFM will not change AI aircraft in that regard. So... let's bump this thread then: *bump* ps: I think @Skuva might be right with the assumption that the FM doesn't take relation between airspeed and max thrust into account.

Wouldn't it be better to cut that list down to a few units per coalition, type and era and focus on making those fewer units a "good" experience with unique characteristics? Quality over quantity etc. ...

Ah, verstehe. Danke. Ich spiele Coop nur mit Klein(st)gruppen und daher auch organisatorisch einfachereren Missionen, aber ich werde das mal im Hinterkopf behalten. Für den steuerbaren Low-Poly-Stinger-Schützen als JTAC bin ich zu sehr Schöngeist, aber mit nem Humvee könte ich mich vielleicht anfreunden. Komisch, dass ED nicht ein oder zwei Aufklärungsfahrzeuge ins Spiel bringt (sowas wie den Spähwagen Fennek oder halt ein US-Equivalent... Recon-Bradley oder so).

Wie würde das denn da funktionieren? Einen spielbaren oder auch nur halbwegs ansehnlichen JTAC zu Fuß gibts es ja in DCS nicht und die UAVs lassen sich ja nicht befehligen soweit ich weiß. Gibt es irgendwelche Aufklärungsfahrzeuge, die markieren können? Ich stelle mir das für den JTAC etwas langweilig vor, weil der ja unglaublich viel warten muss. Vor dem Angriff und auch danach... Dass es im Moment selber ganz immersiv und spielerisch interessant ist kann ich mir hingegen gut vorstellen...

This is not a bug, but still a "problem" that dampens the perceived quality of the module. The quality of the official USAF liveries is not great, both aesthetically (i accept, that this is partly on the USAF, not ED) and technically (i'm not an texture artist, so can't put my fingers on it, but subjectively the material don't look quite right). I think my concerns get somewhat legitimated by ED's own PR team, who NEVER use any of the official liveries in their trailers and social media posts. From what i can tell, they mostly use user-made USAF liveries. Even @Wags's youtube videos often use community skins for -i think- obvious reasons. From what i can tell, this is not the case with any other ED module. I hope the official livery selection can be revisited and improved where necessary.

If the SFM doesn't prevent realistic performance, but it's just an issue of tuning and tweaking like @Yo-Yo says, maybe it's best to just make dedicated bug posts for each problematic plane? In the past i never considered doing a bug report about questionable AI aircraft performance, because i was (wrongly) assuming, that we would have to wait for the GFM to see any improvements...

I assume it would be good enough for use with laser guided bombs (?). Definitely sounds interesting!

All of them! Not needed. They are all "broken", or WIP, or whatever.