twistking

ED, make some early gen manpads please!

bump for post WWII search lights

I am aware that there is the possibility to script AAA barrage fire with pre-selected zones to simulate AAA just blindly saturating the sky. This however only works for "Baghdad" type scenarios. It's also tedious to set up in the ME. We would need a simple "Auto Barrage" option (Force On, Off, Auto/Panic (default)), where the unit automatically targets a volume of sky in front of enemy aircrafts. Since it's targeting a volume, it would not actually need to detect the target itself. This would allow AAA to at least fire in the genral direction of enemy aircraft during nighttime. Auto Barrage "Force On" would make the unit always use this mode, maybe to simulate untrained crew, or a certain doctrine, "Off" would disable this AI routine and "Auto/Panic" would make the unit use barrage, if enemies are very near, but detection levels are too low to engage the aircraft directly.

I really want a mig-29. I don't really care which version as long as it's not one of the FBW-Migs. And please allow us to carry whatever western stuff the ukrainians managed to integrate/hack together (Harm, JDAM, Zuni?)...

I think that would be a great feature. Even without the social (mission planning?) aspect, it would just up the immersion a notch and especially in VR it would be great to do a walk-around before climbing into the cockpit...

This is a little offspring from this discussion: This is my suggestion to spice up the very basic hitpoint system to make it more realistic and immersive without rewriting it completely - If a unit gets hit with overkill (it gets significantly more damage than it has hitpoint left), it will always explode and burn as we are used to. - If a unit gets killed without overkill, there is a chance (dice roll) that it won't explode and burn, but just smoke. Still counting as a kill, but without the explosion, fire and without the unit turning into a wreck. - If a unit gets a siginificant hit (above certain damage output level) and thereby has it's own hitpoint reduced to below a certain threshold (30% oder 50% ?) there is an additional diceroll for a functional kill, meaning the unit gets killed, but no explosion occurs and no smoke occurs. Maybe this would be good interim solution to spice up the very barebone hitpoint system?!

That mod looks very nice indeed, but i'm very hesitant about mods, since i make my mission for MP and try to be as "clean" as possible. I think if ED would only build a fraction of what this mod offers, it would already be enough for most occasions...

roger. will try to be more patient.

What are some AI aircraft that are easy to dogfight, but not completely outclassed by the Viper? I used to practice against the old Migs (15, 19), but if you don't let them drag you into a slow turnfight, they are not really dangerous (anymore). The logical step up would be the Mig-21, which i think fits my description of easy to dogfight, but i feel that the AI flightmodel gives the 21 absurd capabilities in certain situation. Not a big problem, but i do wonder if there are aircraft that give a similar challenge, but feel a bit less like a UFO. Bonus points if that aircraft is not of Flanker (the game) vintage and has more than 10 polygons

Hello, i'm still struggling to refuel in the Viper, but slowly getting there (i think hope). I do however sometimes encounter an issue that i did not experience with other aircraft: Sometimes the boom operator just refuses to do his/her thing: I'm aligned perfectly (judging from the light indicators on the tanker), but just nothing happens. I also do not get a radio call to abort or something. My two theories on what might have happened are that either i have touched the boom while creeping into proper formation which broke the AI procedure, or that i was approaching from too low to trigger/initialize the boom operator going active (when approaching with correct altitude, there is that moment where the boom goes active and "lifts" above your canopy). I know it's not a lot of information, but i'm sure someone has also encountered that and might give some tips on how to avoid that situation. Bonus question: Often i find myself looking at the HUD, especially the velocity indicator. I assume that it would be better to focus only on the tanker. Can i just disable the HUD, or do you think that having the HUD on is helpful during certain phases?

ok. must have missed that.

Thanks for the detailed answers. Much appreciated!

Very much agree. With this pace of development it will take 50 years at least to update all AI models. Some of the AI added in the last years (SU-34) still lack even the simplest damage model. ED has to either put more rescource on those core things, or they have to rethink their extremely high standards: I think the AI models from the DCS 1.0 area still hold up pretty well today in normal gameplay. The obvious problem are the models from the old Flanker area. In all the missions i fly there are at least a couple of units whose amount of polygons i could count on my hands...

From my experience they never worked. The jet would always designate the current TGP POA for weapon release, even if TGP was in OA and the actual target (TGT) was offset.

i'm not on open beta, so haven't tested for myself, but i am also sceptical about that change. i do have another idea to make damage states a bit more interesting and the battlefield a bit more visually diverse without redoing the damage model: If a unit gets hit with overkill, meaning it gets significantly more damage than it has hitpoint left, it will always explode and burn as we are used to. If a unit gets killed without overkill, there is a chance (dice roll) that it won't explode and burn, but just smoke. still counting as a kill, but without the explosion, fire and turning into a wreck. If a unit gets a siginificant hit (above certain damage output level) and thereby has it's own hitpoint reduced to below a certain threshold (30% oder 50% ?) there is an additional diceroll for a functional kill, meanign the unit gets killed, but no explosion occurs and no smoke occurs. Maybe this would be good soulution to spice up the very barebone hitpoint system?!

We would need an AI option to set use of ext lights: Possible options: "Auto", "force off", "full", "tactical"... This will get way more important once ED finally gets the visibility distance of ext lighting fixed, but i feel that this may be very soon with the PG map already having improved ext. lights for the autogen ships.

It would be nice to have a portable floodlight like the "Nissen Light-Ball" or similar to be able to light up some FOBs or makesift airfields. The recent changes to terrain lighting (Persian Gulf) should hopefully allow nice and soft area lighting from placeable units.

I don't know if SSLR works, but the quickest way to test it would be to spawn one of the "super carriers" and put weather to a rain preset. if the carrier deck is wet, it should reflect itself and other objects in screen space. SSLR can also be seen on water surfaces i believe, but it may be harder to spot there since even without SSLR the (high quality) water has some simple real time reflections going on by itself. MSAA and AF should not have an effect on the clouds. Cloud detail option (obviously!) pixel density and resolution in general should have. I did not test that myself though: It's just an educated guess from my understanding of the technology.

SSAO should work in VR. At least i'm pretty sure that it used to. Check the footwell during daytime: With AO off it should be relatively bright, even when in shadow. With AO on it should be noticeably darker. I do also know that SSAA does not work (you've got pixel density for that in VR. obviously).

Hello, i constantly have the problem that i would like to hide all Opfor from the F10 map (ME mission options), but still be able to allow players to view remaining Opfor units on the map and skip through them with F2, F5 etc AFTER the mission is over and everyone is back to base. Is there a way to do this with triggers somehow? Also is there a way to hide only specific units on the F10 map? There is the "hide on map" feature, but this only hides the unit in the ME if i'm not mistaken. What other interesting ways are there to allow debrief / damage assessment in engine and "in session". Not interested in thrid-party programs... Maybe have everyone switch to "spectator"?! Thanks.

Could you elaborate on that?

We desperately need more objects for SAM-Sites, both fortifications (command bunkers, prefabricated concrete berms and walls, improvised dirt berms, prefabricated raised positions for radar, or improvised raised positions). Additionaly more static utilities to give the bigger SAMs a larger visual foodprint and generally a more realistic appearance... Ideally we would also have placeable ground decals with tiremarks and "roughed up" ground to make those sites of activity look more realistic when placed on otherwise pristine grassland/fields...

Bump. We also need control over "blackout" not only for airfields, but also cites/towns in the Normandy map. The only way to have any light on the map is to set the date to peacetime. More control is absolutely needed!

There surely is some poetic beauty in the night being the darkest before sunrise, but it would still be nice if that "bug" could get adressed eventually. This bug (or engine limitation) exists for ages now: About an hour before sunrise and about an hour after sunset, the moon does not contribute neither to terrain lighting, nor to object lighting. It does however contribute to cloud lighting. The effect is that both the landscape and vehicles are pitch black during that time, even if a full moon is up. It looks bad, it is obviously unrealistic and it limits moonlit night flying without NODs to only a specific timeslot. The new clouds make the issue even more obvious, since the clouds are correctly lit and therefore only emphasize the strange and terrifying blackness of the incorrectly shaded world laying beneath... ED, please fix! Ps: For those interested: The root cause seems to be, that there can only be one shadow casting environment lights in the scene. So when the first sunlight hits the gameworld at its highest point, the moon immediately shuts off as a light source, even though it might still take over an hour until the sunlight actually hits gameplay relevant areas of the world. The proper solution would be to actually toggle light sources not per scene, but per camera position, so a high flying aircraft would get shadow casting sunlight but no moonlight, while a lower flying aircraft would get shadow casting moonlight, but no sunlight. Another simpler possible solution would be to substitute the shadow casting moonlight with simple ambient light the moment the moon "shuts off". This way you would still loose shadows from moonlight, but at least the scene would retain a certain light level. Yet another solution would be to calculate the switch time at a more reasonable altitude, meaning super high flying aircraft/missiles would see the sun at the horizon, but would not catch shadow casting light from the sun (but they could still be lit with ambient light as substitute for sunlight). The benefit would be that the akward transition period would be shorter for terrain and lower flying aircraft with the downside that both high flyers and low flyers would now be affected.

There were already some wishlist threads about having VoIP on the proper radio buttons seperated from the radio menu by short press vs hold. This is an obviously good idea, but maybe ED could take it one step further and add duration modifiers to all keybinds, where you can assign a key to a function and then specify if any duration would trigger (default) or if the key only registers on short press, on long press, or only when holding. This could be used for VoIP, but for so many other functions. For example you could use it to prevent accidenticaly trigger a critical function by assigning it to "long" press. Useful for "Gear down" and similar bindings. Or save real estate to assign a two-way function to only one button seperated with short/long: NV Goggles On: N (long), NV Goggles Off: N (short). You could assign VoiP to a certain key/button without modifier and assign the radio menu to the same key with"short press", so it would only trigger when the button was released within a certain short timeframe. I'm aware that this can easily create problems with certain modern aircrafts hotas commands, that have long/short press hardcoded, but since the default behaviour would still be the current behaviour, this is less of a problem. Also a warning could be shown, if users want to add long/short modifiers to modern aircraft Hotas commands.