Exorcet

Something to point out regarding this. The one missile at a time behavior may be exactly what you want in SEAD. It's not obvious in DCS because there is no SEAD (Suppression). In DCS it's mostly DEAD because SAM's don't turn off and will guide missiles ahead of all else until they are destroyed. The solution we need is to add more options to SEAD task to control how weapons are released. If SAM's get improved down the line and shut down when threatened with missiles you will want to use one at a time to keep them off for longer so your strike planes can get through. The AI also needs to be able to use different tactics against different launchers. Even when trying to suppress, one missile is not very good against SAM's with ARM intercept capability. In that case the AI needs to have an option overwhelm a SAM, or at least fire more than one missile to increase the chance that the SAM turns off radar.

Thanks for the added info, I was unsure about any safeguard in place for automatic CIWS to protect against friendly fire, I'll have to note that there isn't such a thing. However as far as I know the ship crew should have the ability to disable CIWS manually if necessary. If that's the case, could that functionality be used to prevent, or reduce the chance of, friendly fire? Or is the system designed in such a way that that would be impractical? In that case it wouldn't be part of the CIWS systems modeling as much as ship crew modeling, but externally the result should be similar. Either way, the bigger issue for me is that CIWS turns around too far and gives incoming missiles opportunities to get through while it's facing the wrong direction. Indeed, carrier fleets and their supporting ships in real life can be many miles apart, though as highlighted by the examples above, ships can also be in close proximity at times. Also, to provide some backstory, the reason that I stumbled upon this issue was that I was doing tests on ship formations in DCS for the purpose of defending against anti ship missiles. The best defense is putting Ticonderogas or similar in the way of attacking planes before they can get close to the carrier, but the further you place them from the carrier, the easier it is to leave gaps for planes to get through, especially when you don't know exactly from what direction they will come. DCS maps may also have limited water area, which can force ships to be close. I found that placing one or two ships near the carrier for last ditch defense helps. The close escort ships can also be offset away from the carrier, but the ability of the SM-2's to intercept incoming missiles is greatly increased by having them in the path of said missiles instead of the sides.

Bumping this since no response in over a year, it's still an issue: And it's impacting more than carriers: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/335872-c-ram-bad-target-prioritization/

This is possible, but only with Lua scripting. There are some tools to help you do the job, DML is apparently one: You can search for it or ask @cfrag for in formation, I'm not really familiar. Otherwise, you'd need to copy the group you want to respawn and set up multiple triggers for the amount of times you want it spawned. Edit, well as soon as I posted I noticed the DML thread, so might as well add it

I've been out of online MP for a long time at this point, so feel free to tell me that things have changed, but as much as the label of air quake has been ever present, finding mission oriented online was never impossible. DCS online in the majority of lobbies does stray from reality in that lone wolves are common and dogfights take precedence over winning the war, but at the same time I can remember quite few times finding people to actually cooperate with, both as a flight or as striker and escort. There is a demand for that kind of thing. Maybe it's not the majority of players, but they do exist. Or did. I think it's important to keep this in mind and allow for servers to enable this type of play, even if not everyone will care.

That comment would be in reference to the initial map though. This may or may not have carrier suitable water, but we don't know exactly where the map will eventually expand. From the information so far, since Gulf War is one of the conflicts this map is supposed to model, that implies water:

Increased building detail would be very nice to have. Hormuz is missing some really important and visually interesting structures and locations. It would be nice to have these placed on the Iraq map, or to have statics to represent them that we could place down.

Use dummy targets. Conceptually: Player in zone around SAM > Spawn dummy aircraft (disable EPLRS so it doesn't appear on datalinks, radio silence so it doesn't talk, radar off so it's not on RWR) SAM will maybe shoot at the dummy. If it's slow moving and doesn't mover (Reaction to threat = No reaction) the missile will mostly go straight and look ballistic. This is at least something I've done with AAA. It should work with missiles, but probably not as nicely. You might also consider making the player, or non dummy AI invisible when close to the SAM so that the SAM doesn't shoot at them. Nearby planes will probably get SAM launch warnings on the RWR though, can't really do anything about that. You could try shutting off the radar as soon as the missile fires, but I think the missiles explode in that case, needs to be tested.

The initial area may lack water. I doubt the final map will only cover land. Kuwait has a coast, and if the map is focused on the Gulf War, it has to be there. The bigger question, in my opinion, is how much water will we get. Will we actually be able to place carriers where they operated (ie not 5 miles offshore) or will we have to place them where the map allows because we have no other choice, like the Black Sea.

I can't recall ever seeing a launcher I liked. Will have to see what this one is like, but being able to just bypass it and going into the game directly sounds like a great option. I really miss the original DCS that just started up with no account sign in or anything.

This is why I fly the Persian Gulf map more than any other, so not every mission is the same old 5 minute flight to the front lines on a tiny map. If we could add airbases to maps, I'd be flying even further. I really want the waters south of Saudi Arabia included as well, but with them being so far from the Gulf, I can understand if it's not feasible.

Conversely the F-35 has stealth, speed, SA, and self defense over the A-10, which is going to make it much more survivable in combat. The F-35 is replacing the A-10 because it's outdated. It's of little use in a modern conflict. Too vulnerable to SAM's and fighters, too expensive for COIN.

I think the idea is more centered on a free to play multiseater, which could be a nice addition to DCS. Though we have the free trial, so you can already coordinate with someone to multiseat for free. The new verification needed is annoying though.

Like AI simplification issue, not really Spitfire related. There is an option in the ME to tell the AI to drop all bombs on a target, could try using that whenever placing a Spitfire.

I don't see any need for a discount, but not many would turn it down.

While those were short, there is nothing stopping anyone from adding some fictional embellishment. I'm looking forward to both historical missions and hypothetical proxy wars between the US and a healthier USSR in the middle east.

Little known feature in DCS that might help you is plane jumping. You can control any AI plane on your side that is flyable. If for example your plane is out of ammo or shot down, you can jump into your wingman's plane and keep flying. Something to be cautious about is that if the mission maker does not plan for this, missions may not work properly when you jump. However if it is accounted for, it can greatly expand your options for completing a mission. How it works:

Recently the S-300's self defense capability was reduced. You really want SA-15's around it for HARM defense, but even that isn't as perfect as it used to be.

I think capability is what matters because DCS is not a strictly historical simulation. If you want to simulate real world 1980's/90's Germany/Poland, restrict ER's. If you want to simulate alternate history Germany/Poland where the USSR exported ER's, allow them. The plane itself should only be limited by its physical configuration. The historicity is up to the mission creator in DCS, as it should be. As a sim we can explore hypothetical or completely made up situations and I think that is a good thing.

Could we have the ability to link the start or end of one task to another? Example: AI plane has two waypoints. WP1 has a Search Then Engage Task. WP2 has an orbit task. Both tasks are set for 10 minutes. If The STE at WP1 is triggered before the plane gets to WP2, then it's possible that it spends 10 minutes engaging targets and then 10 minutes orbiting when the intention is that it only spends 10 minutes total following the waypoints. The problem can be avoided by putting the STE and orbit on the same WP, but this is not always desirable. If instead the end condition for the orbit could be linked to the end of the STE, then the AI would skip the orbit if it already spent 10 minutes engaging targets.

J-10 would be great, even as AI only. Really missing for a lot of modernish scenarios involving China.

Something for ED to consider, while newer assets seem to be focused on specific models or units (which is not a bad thing), perhaps we can repurpose the older AI units into more flexible stand-ins for different variants. Take the MiG-23 mentioned already. If it had a checkbox for version, we could quickly swap out the radar and armaments without needing a new 3D model. Possibly we might also get away without flight model changes, but that could be iffy. Maybe some simple multipliers for things like thrust might be needed. The basic idea is give us the ability to tweak the lower fidelity AI units to cover more aircraft. In the long run it would be best to have specific AI for each aircraft version, but it seems like this will take a long time if we go by the updates to B-1/B-52/S-3/etc.

The MiG is fine. The mission determines the balance as much as the planes themselves. Red should be on the defense. Blue on the offensive. MiG's should operate under a EWR/SAM net supported by SA-10/11. The Fulcrum can't fight the teen series head on unless AMRAAM's are restricted, but it's a potent ambush fighter. T/ET missiles are always something to watch out for. The MiG can also be paired with the JF-17 and F-14 depending on the situation. Team tactics win wars, not solo flying. In the real world MiG-21's have been useful in assisting more advanced fighters. MiG-29's can do the same. It's also worth considering that DCS can simulate situations where the Blue side isn't US/NATO. Iran vs Iraq (29's came after, but a hypothetical expansion of the war, or early MiG delivery can be simulated) for instance eliminates F-15/16/18 and can have the MiG-29 pitted against Mirage F1, where it is superior. The Tomcat and AIM-54 will still exist, but having to pick and choose fights while watching for various opponents is interesting.

MIST has a respawn function I'm pretty sure. I'm not familiar with it though. Someone who is will probably show up eventually, but in case not you can use the addGroup function in a mission editor script: https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_func_addGroup The only potentially hard/annoying part is the group table. You can get one by opening a dummy mission with the group you want in it and then copying and pasting the table into your addGroup script, probably with variables inserted for things like position, etc. If the addGroup has the same name as a group already in the mission, the newly spawned group just overwrites the old one. I would provide a script for you but I haven't gotten around to writing one for respawns and I've got my hands full with other scripts. I do plan on writing one, but it might be months before I actually get to it.

Not only does hardware have a huge impact on AAR, real pilots say it's harder in DCS, even if you have the best setup.