Exorcet

Those things are related but that isn't exactly what I was talking about. Even once we have a DC I'd still like to make missions. What I want is some help in making them less scripted or on rails because I want more reasons to be on guard when flying in or out, or performing whatever the objective is. Though even the DC itself should be a great addition because it should at least elevate go here bomb that, go there shoot those to being less repetitive (ie not flying the same exact mission over and over). I don't like it when I can memorize the solution to a problem, at least a problem that I've willingly put myself against, because that makes it boring after not too long. Also the DC doesn't have to be limited to the most straightforward missions, though we'll have to wait and see what comes out of it. If coupled with AI improvements including things like better communication between players and AI then I can see a lot more mission types coming into play. I also want more assets in DCS and I agree with a lot of what you say here, we just have different levels of priorities. I've had mission with civilian aircraft in them already. Yes the Yak is overepresented in those missions compared to reality, but as far being able to create that kind of mission, it is doable even if it's not ideal. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely want 777's and A320's in DCS. I'd even pay for flyable versions, but in my experience while more assets are needed they aren't the primary shortfall of DCS. Even in this case AI and other improvements would also be warranted just as much as new assets. I've requested in the past for features like being able to communicate with AI pilots visually or to have fogging of AI aircraft windows specifically for airliner intercepts. Those things could greatly enhance missions that don't revolve around combat even if the plane selection for them is limited. Funny enough I've also considered modeling to create assets for DCS. It turns out that graphic design and 3D modeling is a lot rougher for me than numbers based CAD so it's been a slow learning and it has also been competing with other projects for my time. Still maybe in the future I could try to provide some new building objects to ED as I'd certainly like more of them and I'd expect they'd be easier to do than vehicles. I fully support the effort to increase the number of assets in DCS though I think part of the reason why this thread went the way it did was that people have different priorities and goals for their user experience.

The F-15 is still a high priority on my wanted list. Whether there are other 4th gen aircraft or not doesn't diminish the desire for a specific airframe. With DCS being full fidelity, specific aircraft and the fine differences between them are the point.

Just my perspective on this, I don't think this poll is representative of the desire for additional assets in DCS. I certainly didn't see it that way initially. I also don't consider use of DCS as is to run counter to the idea of wanting more assets. I use DCS without mods but I would like more assets. I just don't like having to tack on extra steps for mod content. It's certainly possible that people are unaware of mods, but I wouldn't say that's a lack of imagination. I use the Hormuz map often and Iranian units are of interest to me in the missions that I tend to create. We're missing a great deal of Iranian ships but that hasn't stopped me from approximating them with other units, especially since CJTF countries were added. When it comes to what DCS needs, more assets is absolutely on the list but I don't feel like they are the primary limiting factor for missions. In the cases where a specific asset is missing there is usually, not always, but usually a close stand in. More pressing to me are things like AI and the effort involved in dynamic scenario creation. Those things would have the greatest impact on mission variety and the DCS experience in my opinion.

Flags aren't that complicated. There is actually a topic for discussing them if you want some help: But in summary they are variables in your mission that you can use pass or store information, like turning on a flag when a particular unit does something.

ED has specifically stated that the "from ground" options were not added to AI due to pathing issues. Though I agree that the utility to add this feature to the AI would be great. Besides pathing I assume another issue is that DCS doesn't check for overlap on parking since parking spaces are predefined. If AI could go anywhere there would need to be checks to avoid planes spawning on each other.

I think the only way this can happen is if players reslot if in multiplayer, or they jump to a new plane in single player.

Agree with caution at guessing, but with a slider users could at least find values that they like.

I can't comment on the update as I'm still a couple of versions back, but my experience with PIO is that after a few attempts you should start to get a feel for how to counteract it. When it first comes on you're probably reacting too slow and you just exacerbate things. With time you'll be able to sense PIO coming on faster and react to it more quickly. It also helps to have a reference for where you should be. For this use the FPM to monitor your vertical speed and EGT in the Hornet to monitor throttle setting. If you know roughly where you should be it makes getting back into a stable position easier. The best solution to PIO is to prevent in from happening in the first place by making a smooth approach and avoiding sudden corrections. Does it seem to come on early or after you've hooked up? Also don't be discouraged by a lack of visible progress. I find that in a surprising number of cases, a skill seems to click and proficiency jumps by a large amount in a short amount of time. Just don't give up entirely.

The unlimited fuel trigger just might be a mandatory one for any moderate or more length mission. Not just for wingmen, but AI in general. I've noticed strike fighters refusing to drop bombs because of fuel when their range would extend significantly by dropping the bombs and becoming lighter. The AI as now simply cannot fly efficiently. That said if you're looking to conserve fuel without setting it to unlimited always do the following: -Formation set to group close, the tighter the formation the less fuel AI will use during turns. -Fly high, optimum altitude varies with plane, but higher is generally more efficient. Over 30,000 feet for jet fighters. -Plan your route. Not only waypoint, also plan for orbits. Your AI wingmen will respect orbits you create in the mission planner and I've noticed that they can't use mil power for planner orbit that require AB when order to hold position through the radio. It doesn't make sense, but it happens. -Keep your wingmen out of combat. The AI seems to do OK in cruise. In combat they use ludicrous amounts of fuel. -If performing AAR, refuel yourself first. If you refuel first then the AI have more fuel to spend flying instead of flying formation with you at the tanker.

I've seen some of the mods mentioned and I think they're great, but people will fill different niches. I'm in the vanilla mission niche by choice. I'd expect most new players won't be looking for mods anyway even if the base game has limitations since they may not immediately run into them. If you've chosen to work with mods you've gone down a different path them me and you can produce content for people that don't like what I offer. In the end, we have a greater variety of content that covers more end users. At least that's how I see it.

That's interesting. The primary issue I've faced is taxi time as the AI only ever taxis at 16 knots. It doesn't matter if 100 bombers are coming to wipe their airbase off the map, they take their time. I sat down and played with wind settings until I found one that was a good compromise and have used it since. I guess I was lucky that I didn't put the wind high enough for this to happen. The parking situation can be frustrating for sure. Iran has a decent amount of airbases, but the usable number can shrink fast when you consider parking and AI taxi routes. I've also felt the limitations with transports as they're an important aircraft type if you want to have lively campaign. I've resorted to air starts and despawns in some cases as a workaround, also starting/despawning aircraft from the missing airports on the map, but I prefer to have ground based start up and taxi if possible. And ending a flight with a landing waypoint is just plain faster than setting up despawn triggers or adding a lua script to the destroy the unit at the end, even if only slightly faster.

Just from my own experience on the other end, meaning as an end user, I tend to avoid modifying my games unless I feel a real need to. I appreciate when things are kept simple and I may avoid content that require mods even if the extra steps are simple. I'll also add that I intend for some missions to be modified by the end user if desired, which is probably simplified by leaving mods off the table.

There have been lots of campaign features present in other sims over the years that could be nice to add to DCS. Jane's USNF had maintenance too. You had a limited number of hours after each mission to spend on repairs, and if you didn't repair wear and tear carried over to the next mission. You also had limited airframes. The F-22 Lightning series had limited weapons and you had to choose your ordinance carefully per mission. Then of course Falcon simulated the entire logistics chain. DCS does have a pretty cool warehouse system, but it doesn't really tie into gameplay very much or at least I haven't found ways to make it very meaningful outside of removing specific weapons from a mission. I guess it's more of an online feature.

I never use mods as I aim to make vanilla DCS missions for maximum compatibility and ease of use. I also like to have as much control over the content that I create as possible, so even when it comes to stuff like Lua scripts I'll prefer to write my own rather than use someone else's, just so I understand as much as possible what is going on under the hood. This basically.

I just tried to follow the F-16 manual climb for a similar load to yours, had to guess at the DI since I don't have it for JDAM and the smart rack. But it took 20 minutes to reach 30000 ft while the manual says it should be around 8.

Made a quick example mission with triggers. Worked best using the STOP CONDITION > Is User Flag False to get the attack to stop. AI_Commands.miz

Might be related: Although optimum climb isn't Mach 0.82 from what I remember. It should be 0.9.

I've done something similar creating radio management triggers for wingmen. Instead of controlling attack tasks I had flags setup to make wingmen change radio channels. You can change a flag setting as many times as you want throughout a mission. You just need to make sure the corresponding trigger is setup to read or use the flag more than once. So ONCE triggers out out. Switched condition or Continuous action should both work as they check conditions more than one time. Having the mission uploaded here would allow us to see exactly what you're trying to do and provide more specific advice.

This would be a nice option to have and ties in with another request which is vehicle maintenance levels. Aircraft could be set to be in worse or better condition for a number of reasons from simulating a worn down military, or fluctuating logistic support during a long campaign. This absolutely needs a disable option, as was already suggested, though as the variability could make bug reporting, testing, and practicing a lot harder.

Coming out of another topic on DCS COIN missions I decided to play with the editor a bit to get a better idea of how to set up the missions as I mostly focus on air to air. I randomly decided to test embarking and found some issues. First, disembarking troops have a tendency to run forever after leaving the vehicle. It looks like they might be running for the bullseye but I didn't investigate deeply. This can be fixed by giving them a waypoint after the embark waypoint but I feel like this shouldn't be necessary. Secondly disembarking does not work if the disembark task is not the last waypoint of the transport, unless a hold task is also given. Without the hold the transport sits at the waypoint forever and doesn't deploy troops. Tracks attached. test_embark_forever_run shows the running problem test_embark_no_embark shows the transport refusing to deploy troops test_embark_success shows a successful embark and deploy using workarounds (add 1 second hold for transport, add waypoint for embarking troops) test_embark_forever_run.trk test_embark_no_embark.trk test_embark_success.trk

You'll probably want to practice working with triggers and flags if you haven't already. The ground AI isn't very dynamic on its own. You can make them move around and engage in various tasks to a degree with commands like Hold, or go to waypoint, or passing them tasks to shoot at points or engage certain targets. While this can work to an extent, it's also a bit tedious to do. My suggestion for mission building is to set up one semi complex mission with features like this and then when ever you want to make a new mission, start from the prebuilt mission with many triggers etc. That way you can save some work. You may spend a lot of time on the original mission, but hopefully not so much on subsequent ones. Pick your map wisely since we don't have an easy way to copy between maps. Something useful for more than COIN is learning how to set groups to spawn randomly as it makes missions more fun to replay because they become dynamic. Do this by setting multiple groups on the map with "Late Activation" checked. Then on the trigger page you can set triggers to assign a random value to a flag and then make each value of the that flag spawn a different group in the mission. Also a tip on the suppression idea that you mentioned. Don't use deactivate, unless you want the group to vanish forever. You can instead turn the AI off. This leaves the units in the mission and allows them to be turned back on.

This is long, long overdue. It's needed everywhere for every aircraft. ED doesn't want to populate every map with every airport on it. OK, fine, but at least let users fill in the gaps. I appreciate the work done on maps, but Hormuz for example would benefit greatly from Chabahar, Bushehr, Al Udeid, Doha, and Prince Sultan. Not only would the variety of starting locations be nice, it also allows for wider areas of aircraft coverage without resorting to in air starts and allows the maps to support more aircraft. DCS airbases sometimes have limitations that make handling large volumes of aircraft difficult, so a large number of bases may be needed even if the bases on the map have a lot of parking. If we do get placeable airfields they should probably come in a few different sizes. All of them should have taxiways connecting to both ends of runways, otherwise a number of AI taxi issues might spring. Parking should also be available near both ends of the runways, again to facilitate known issues with DCS taxi behavior.

Bandar Abbas is a weird place. Not only with the large aircraft parking issue, but there are only 3 spaces on the south end of the airport. If the wind blows the wrong way the AI will spend forever taxiing for takeoff. Because of this I've been forced to use the same weather for nearly every mission. DCS airport operations need an overhaul.

I'm not sure about this. The vehicles may have safety systems to prevent catastrophic failure, like blast doors for tank ammo storage. And generally a random bullet won't cause a fuel tank to explode anyway. Bombs are a different story.

By making practice more accessible since you no longer have to choose between a dedicated practice session or flying a mission with refueling. Says who? So now practice isn't important because it's not the part you deem randomly important? If you're going to refuel for the sake of flying a mission instead of just randomly hooking up to a tanker, all of the things I mention matter and should be covered in training. If you want to make AAR into some kind of contextless minigame, you can ignore them, but not everyone wants that. You're wrong, but then you've been wrong every time you're tried to bring this up. Not at all. So let them have it.