DMarkwick

Indeed I do, as it's explicitly described so in the manual :) So the manual is in errata on this matter? Oh well, thanks for the pointer, I will try it out with the MISSION START trigger type :) thanks.

Because I re-ran the same mission about 20 times, just endlessly restarting it. I didn't see any evidence of a 50% probability of existence, just a 100% one.

I got the probability all ass about face :D However, sort of back OT, I cannot get the trigger functionality mentioned in the GUI manual where I make a vehicle's existence 50% variable via a trigger. I've set up the parameters exactly as I see them in the manual, but I get 100% vehicle existence over several mission runs. Can anyone confirm they've got this functionality to work?

That would be sweetness beyond our worth :D

Umm... if only one column has a 20% chance that none turn up, I doubt this figure for all 5 :)

My math might be wrong, but I calculate that the odds of 5 columns each with an 80% chance of existence all NOT existing together is 0.032% :) I can't help the feeling though that the odds will be much higher :D

It could be done but you run the risk of inappropriate placement, having land units placed in a lake or offshore or something :) better to have the editor have it as a user choice IMO. Plus the sim engine itself is the thing that actually randomises these events (otherwise you'd need to run the randomizer on the mission file every time you wanted a new scenario) so it would need to be set in the editor, but implemented in the sim engine.

Well if that's true then fair enough. But I would have thought that manual manipulation to allow for a more accurate tracking solution would have been implemented. However I can accept that that's part of tests & adjustments as part of preventive maintenance :) My understanding is that effective bracketing frames an area of video that the system will look for on the next frame, you're right in that too small a bracket would still give an effective track, however I believe a small bracket tracking a dark pattern on a dark larger target would incur small errors, but too large a bracket allows for larger incremental errors over time. I don't see that activity when I artificially increase the bracketing box even with a lot of lateral tracking with confusing surrounding imagery. I'm assuming that the tracking system is an analogue solution not a digital solution, which is why I think proper bracketing is required.

I just tested this out: before destruction a target has collision. After destruction, the target does NOT have collision (lost a few nosecones testing that :)) I tested by both colliding my helo into vehicles, and by observing traffic on roads passing right through. My best guess (which is all it is :)) is that targeting in the dark is partially dependent on ToD. Or at least a value that represents light levels. To examine more fully a previous poster's assertion that the real-life counterpart's tracking method is based on image analysis & contrast, I completely dropped the contrast & brightness on the display & still achieved a lock. This either means that the targeting in the sim is based on something other than image, or that the settings on the visual display do not affect the system's image, or both. I would say that's a definite, so I guess the question is what LoD geometry is the raycast tested on? My current thinking is still the collision LoD :) and if so, then it would be a simple fix to just add a basic cube to wreck model geometry. It would be nice for the sim to actually have an image analysis solution to the tracking if that's what the KA-50 really does, but I'm not going to get all panty-bunched by the notion that the behavior is simulated using another method :) I do think however that the tracking of dead objects should be allowed for, as otherwise it's a minor help mechanism for determining the unit strength etc. Another factor, although a minor one, is that, so far in my experience (which isn't a lot I'll grant) setting an inappropriate target bracketing size doesn't have an adverse effect. I would imagine that in a purely image-based analysis tracking method it would be much more important to get this part right.

This is a good request IMO, the main thing I don't like about the editor (which is otherwise excellent), is that battle vagaries aside, you get exactly what you authored. Now, that's probably what most authors want, however personally speaking I'd like to replay my own missions over & over, and never know quite what I'm going to be up against, or where. Or even when. So, to add my name to the above request, I'd like an editor inclusion for units & waypoints that include: Probability of existence (percentage per unit, with the leader deciding on whether there's even a group). Randomisation of placement (simple radius value on leader). Time bracketing (to allow for random waiting periods etc). I know from my experience with VBS2/ArmA that these features add a tremendous amount of uncertainty into the battlefield, which, unless you're playing someone else's mission for the first time, you don't experience right now in DCS. Not knowing the exact makeup of the enemy represents a lot of gameplay IMO :)

Pull back. Neutral trim is not enough to stop the aircraft rolling, you actually need some amount of pull back.

Hi there Viper :) BS was always going to happen to me sooner or later... I was just waiting on an appropriate release format & DRM setup :) You might be (partially ;)) right with your assessment there, I think the devs have not nothered to give the wrecks any collision LoD and I think the engine possibly uses that geometry for its targeting. So I guess a mod that replaces the wreck model but has the inclusion of a very simple collision LoD might very well fix it. A simple cube would be fine, roughly the size (or a little smaller) than the geometry bounding box say. I think you're right in that the collision geometry is taken into account for AI pathfinding by the looks of it (buildings are avoided, trees are not) but I think given the huge amount of collision objects already existing, and the likelyhood of AI being overly confounded by wrecks laying about the place, I'd rather have the ability to target destroyed vehicles. It's a battlefield FUBAR I know, but it's realistic I think. At least until longer lasting wreck smoke can be modded in ;)

This is sort of what I was trying to get at in the OP, what is the criteria. I guess I should ask: what is the criteria in DCS vs what is the criteria IRL? IRL, is the tracking purely image analysis?

I don't see how that could be the case, seeing as they're all valid targets when "alive" there cannot be a CPU limit for them to remain a valid target when "dead" :) It might be something as simple as a geometry issue, I often see vehicles traveling through "dead" vehicles which indicates to me that there's no collision geometry for the AI to process. Maybe it's this collision LoD that the sim is targeting. In that's the case the simple fix would be to apply a simple collision LoD even if it's a basic cube or something.

Bleah. Wrong forum :) can a kindly moderator please move it? :)

Last night I noted that I couldn't obtain a target acquired on a tank, only to discover that it was dead, having previously been dispatched by me a while back. The fires were out & it was no longer smoking :) Which led me to think - what exactly is the criteria for the system to acquire a track? I would have thought that it would track anything I decided to track, whether it was "alive" or "dead".

I know what you mean, it does seem counterintuitive at first. I think it's a matter of thinking in surfaces instead of wheels. With wheels, you obviously turn it to move in that direction. When you imagine it as a surface however, you imagine the rudder poking out of the side you're depressing, and the oncoming airflow moving across it and forcing the back of the aircraft away from it. (The other way to imagine it if you wish to stick with wheels is to imagine that the wheel is in fact at the back of the aircraft ;))

Indeed :) IMO the current LoD implementation is good enough, certainly for a flight sim. But there's plenty of reasons to wish for collision detection and Line Of Sight logic. Also there's clutter that trees represent to radar devices etc. I know that the ingame AI make no effort at all with respect to trees, they neither avoid nor use trees for confusion, so perhaps the point is moot right now as far as AI goes, but I think there is a possibility to implement a simple LoD tree model that adds a collision LoD when a tree comes within 100m or so of the player. It's really the player that needs the collision detection at this stage, and a geometry LoD would only need to pop into existence very close to the player. As it's geometry that's not rendered it should be very cheap CPU-wise.

Level Of Detail is the thing. Basically you can have as detailed a tree as you wish, as long as you have appropriate LoD models to represent it at various distances. In an ideal (game)world, you would have Linda type trees up close, and DCS type trees at distance, with some blend of the two between. Armed Assault has similar trees to the above, and the furthest LoD model is indeed 3 crossed polygons just like DCS. (I know 'cos I've modded some :)) In a sufficiently advanced game engine you could dynamically alter the LoD distances, so you could get more efficient LoD performance depending on what you're doing, walking or flying. What you need is a real reason to do this, and integrating a high end simulator like Black Shark with a flexible gameworld like Armed Assault would be a good example of that :) The next 5 years will be exciting ones for the virtual battlefield market ;)

Hey thanks for the link :) at last some solid info :) Still need information on particle scripting though, I guess any scripting actually ;)

I'm not having much luck finding resources, is there a CDDS plugin or something I can download? And where do I read up on PFX files etc?

Touch down on tarmac. Preferably a runway :) You can land on buildings though in a pinch.

I've had mine on order for about 3 weeks now :)

If you have TIR then another approach could have been to artificially hold your head further back when centering it.

Yeah, I got Notepad++ :) But Notepad has been good to me also :)