dmatsch

while I agree with 90% of your post, except this line. ALL of these advancements are still buggy and broken. MT - Why do I have to mess with processor affinity? Why are SOME graphics settings in the NVIDIA app and some are in DCS? Why can I not select my parking spot on a carrier? Is ACLS working? I have yet to get it to function repeatedly. Weather -- cloud graphics buggy, fog - buggy). I can still drive through deck crew. Deck operations choke with anything resembling "normal" carrier operations.

DCS. Digital Combat Simulator. It's been the title of the game for more than a decade. Unfortunately, book titles are deceiving...

Over the past 10 years, DCS has turned from a game-changing fantastic sim to an abomination of unfixed bugs, broken promises, completely empty and abandonware (NTTR) maps, incomplete modules, 2-3-4 year "early access releases" (F/A-18, I'm looking at you!), and (literally) a 30 year old code base from Flanker 2.0 and Lock-On. Huh? It's still raining inside hangars??!! the "C" in DCS has been pathetic for about a decade due to AI and weapons issues that ED refuses to fix. I, for one am not spending one more dime on a module or map until ED fixes the BASE software. When I spend HOURS scripting, tweaking and "work-arounding" just trying to get even a simple mission to function properly BEFORE ACTUALLY FLYING, or spend an hour or so flying only to experience a bug at IP and ruins the whole mission. Forget a moderately complex, multi-unit mission. I can't tell you how many FULL days I've wasted trying to get a three-package (SEAD, CAP, CAS) strike flight DCS mission or simple scenario to function even halfway decently, only to give up in frustration and go fly M$FS. DCS 3.0*, when??? Dynamic campaign and updated mission editor when? Updated AI when? Legacy core bug fixes, when? Populated airspaces when? And finally, updates that don't break everything previously mentioned in the last sentence. Time to step up to the plate, ED and give your customers what they are paying for. Judging from the decreasing activity and posts on this whole forum, the posters in this thread are not the only ones frustrated and ready to give up.

those of us who choose programming for a career call this the CTRL-S twitch. Similar to a pilots' 6-second twitch only with less life-threatening results.

I see your two dollars and raise you A NICKEL!

seconded. you have to adjust the view every single time for every weapon. It should default to weapon --> target view.

the thing is, that all this functionality existed already in the 3rd party DCS Briefing Room. And it sort of worked! Well, at least some times. OK, almost never. The issue was DCS AI being all borky, so none of the non-player controlled aircraft did what they were supposed to. ED should have contracted that developer.

That would be our dear old silky-voiced WAGS himself!

I would like to see at least some statics at each airport to make it feel less empty and more like an active airport/airbase. Ideally we would have built-in RAT for a populated airspace. Rudel_Chw created a bunch of static templates a few years ago, but most aren't working anymore and corrupt missions. It would be nice if ED had something like that for each map and timeframe.

ED should have talked to you before releasing this thing.

the main problem is the lack of working pre-made static templates. One for each time period. It would be nice if the users didn't have to create all that content manually. It would be really nice if it just had a ton of vanilla game (no mods) pre-made templates for armor groups, infantry, CAG groups, sams, airports (with RAT!!), etc. That way DCS would be more modular out of the box. Or even several pre-made maps from each era. But they have to come from vanilla DCS so that they continue to work. Downloaded static templates work for a while (thank you Rudel_Chw!), but eventually crap out with DCS updates. And when they crap out, they corrupt the entire mission so that it's not loadable, editable, or playable. Start from scratch again. In this day and age, I should be able to create a full mission with just a dozen or so clicks. Click - map. Click - era. Click - add template(s) for entire map. Click - mission choice (any type of mission). Click - player aircraft and loadout. Click - start mission. Maybe a few more for weather and such. You get the idea. The technology already exists for DCS, but third party stuff is barely maintained. I've never completed a campaign in Liberation since inception without it crashing on me. I shouldn't literally have to take half a day trying to make even a simple multi-plane mission perform the way it should. Even then, I've created the mission. I know where everything is and when it's going to happen.

we didn't need a QAG. Quick and dirty missions can be done faster and better in the ME. We needed a FULL mission generator like the 3rd party ones that have existed for more than 5 years now. And a dynamic campaign generator like the ones that have existed for more than 5 years now. But all of this is a moot point if they can't fix the AI.

But we got cows several years ago!

I have a plan to make 3.2 million dollars in the next three months. I'll start actively working on it when I receive that last 3.2 million that I planned to make.

Fix the AI. This is the biggest complaint. And the one persisting year after year*. *Please buy our new latest early-access module that will be early-access for years until enough people complain, even then it won't be "complete".

it's extremely simplistic. Like test missions only. And only against THIER pre-defined assets, not statics, or custom templates. Between the horrendous load times vs. it's capability, you can create a miz in 1/10th the time. I would have expected something like DCC or the other mission generator (name escapes me -- both stopped working).

title says it all. we have a ground pounder mission, but no infrastructure. I tried to create an anti-ship mission with only two cargo boats, and it created the two cargo boats and a frigate! This thing is so simplistic that with the load times, it's easier to just create a quick and dirty ME mission. Doubly-so using templates. This way at least you can load the scripts that make DCS halfway playable in a COMBAT role.

^^this. I'm not really sure what's going on at ED, but a good deal of core-level bugs make any kind of mission design either impossible or such a chore that it's unfeasible. 60%-80% of mods, scripts and static templates are broken, which makes this software mostly unplayable as a Combat flight simulator.

how about being able to populate any airport with statics and RATs without spending hours on each airport on each map? DCS, to this day, remains a big, empty sim unless you spend hours in the ME.

please fix this, ED. This is a stupid game-breaker bug that affects ALL carrier-based missions with any incoming traffic. End users shouldn't have to find all these hacks for ancient bugs just to design/play a mission.

this bug is waaaay older than 2024. ED is "working on it".

and it's a very, very old issue.

lifetime software engineer here. Had to learn many many (many) new technologies and languages in little time. 1. A core knowledge of how your chosen language operates is essential. Looping, object creation, syntax. This case, LUA. Docs and tutorials are everywhere. write a basic "hello world" outside of DCS. 2. take existing DCS scripts that work and modify them. As long as you make backups of the original, you're fine. Use Notepad ++ 3. I started with the MOOSE RAT module. There's plenty of LUA in there for you to experiment and learn, and it's fairly straightforward with plenty of working examples. 4. this forum. keep asking questions, only a jerk would berate you for being a newbie and tell you to RTFM. DML is a code-free module that's pretty powerful. It's modules are also a great place to play around and modify. TLDR: There's no "easy way" to learn a new coding language. It's literally the same road as the one to Carnegie Hall.

it's been a decade, not years. I know many people who aren't buying any new modules until the core is fixed and updated to 2025 standards.

you can't.