Exorcet

The F-16 is pretty easy to refuel, you just need to be in the right place and everything else is automatic. The boom operator in DCS can be slow. Check external views if you feel like you're not doing anything wrong, you may see the boom very slowly getting into position. In my experience if you connect cleanly the first time, things go well. Reconnecting can be slow. I find the HUD helpful because the speed tape can warn you if you're accelerating very slightly, before hooking up you can also use this to gauge what fuel flow you need to keep up with the tanker, which is also useful.

It's a common opinion but I certainly wouldn't treat it as a given. FBW doesn't fly the plane for you, at the end of the day getting the most from the plane takes skill, effort, and knowledge.

The trucks have a black ring around them in the ME. They only resupply units within that ring. The trucks do not have to be the same group as the units they rearm.

Haven't seen that video yet, some nice HUD footage. The FC3 Eagle's HUD has always been so hard to read compare to the real thing. Really surprising that BMS of all things is going to get a full fidelity Eagle ahead of DCS.

You're right, AI is not needed to create convincing CPU pilots, but there are potential benefits in involving machine learning in the process. What I don't know is when the crossover point will come. We're not there yet. But as AI becomes better and more accessible, it's going to become a better and better option. I don't expect ED or any other developer to announce ML as a part of their products any time soon, but I would expect them to start looking into how they could incorporate AI into their product development at this point, even at a very shallow level. Computers have come a long way, but solving those equations remains costly. AI is there to bring the cost down, and indications are that it is well worth using this method if speed is the concern over total accuracy. That's the gist of the video I posted before and it's the reason why AI is making its way into my own work. Also just to be clear here ED isn't going to be making their own CFD code, AI assisted or not. That's going to be an external product that they buy from someone else. There are solutions here. The AI can train when the player isn't flying and then use what it learned in the next session. Or the training could indeed be done off of the player machine entirely with the ML being facilitated by sending player data to ED to use and the results sent back to the player. I'm not sure if we should be looking to solve problems without AI. I know that AI shouldn't be looked at as a wonder tool that can do anything, but at the same time I think it's much to early to categorize it in the niche solution bin. Go back far enough and similar discussions were had about computers. They are now practically everywhere because of the one thing they do very well, math. They can do simple calculations at inhuman speeds and their current performance is almost uncountably better than the first models. I feel like we're at the stage where we don't know what AI will be capable of, so I think it's good to experiment with it. Removing humans from the loop is not the goal, and really doesn't make sense no matter how advanced technology gets because the end goal of technology is to serve human wants. As far as DCS goes, automation is always going to be useful. ED can only hire so many workers and human workers can only work so many hours a day. Even if AI only breaks even with humans on a cost per hour basis and only breaks even on output quality basis, it can at least work continually 24 hours a day. At that point it becomes worth having. It's likely going to be valuable long before then though just by increasing the output of a human worker. Again, I'm not saying this is something ED can snap their fingers and set up right now. They're going to have to research and invest in the technology and then work to get results, but all indications to me are that in the long run it should pay off.

Yes these are surface based missiles and they do work.

This basically Although from what little testing I've done, the smoke only seems to come on when a unit has red health, which is basically a mission kill (at least for things like SAM radar). So not much has really changed with this addition.

Subscriptions only achieve charging more while providing less.

The physics behind how they work isn't what I'm talking about, more the high level methodology. Both AI and the human brain try to look for patterns. They will take in information and then interpolate or extrapolate from there. This is the idea behind using AI as a light form of physics solver: Much like a human does, AI will notice trends from "studying" what a fluid will do in certain situations and then be able to make predictions that are generally more accurate with more data. It's not a brain, but the process and end result are similar in a way. Getting back to DCS, AI as a mini CFD solver could be useful in supplementing CFD simulations for reduced cost or as a stand in for CFD all together when total accuracy is less important (AI flight model, flow around buildings, or terrain, animations for trees or other objects in wind, etc). AI has no agency or consciousness, but that's not important. Just like current AI (as in games and such) has no agency or consciousness but can act like it does if programmed correctly (NPC's in a RPG, etc). That's all we need. Give the machine data in a format that it can understand and it can start to "see" patterns and then learn to output data that fits those patterns. If you want to consider AI more of a really advanced algorithm rather than intelligence that's fine, but it doesn't change things. Just knowing how to make for loops by itself is something I'd say is pretty helpful. I'd much rather have a single button to press to make one, or make 80% of one than having to code one myself all the time, just for example. Yes it will. Developers aren't going to use ChatGPT, just like AI development going on in my own work will not. It's analogous to the rise of computers where different machines and software will be developed on a per need basis. I won't make estimates on pricing, but the AI work I'm closest to doesn't even seem to be the most expensive part of the equation. In the long term it will likely end up being a cost saver. As far as not replacing humans, that's totally fine. AI is a tool like any other, and tools don't do much without a user. The AI's job isn't creativity, it's the elimination of repetitive and mundane tasks. I'd take a smarter autocorrect. Predicting the future is difficult, but I'm fairly confident AI is going to fill these roles almost everywhere in the near future. It depends. If you only give it human procedures to learn, that is what it will learn. That's basically what AI language models are doing. They're learning how people talk and then blindly imitating that. The AI doesn't say "good morning" because it wants you to have a nice day, it says it because those words are a common greeting in the inputs it receives. I disagree here. Machine learning can learn, which is already a huge change. Current AI relies on the developer to update. True AI can update itself and "mutate" into different forms. This is interesting for games because both individual players and the player community as a whole typical evolve in terms of ability as time goes on. It would be nice to have an AI that can progress with players and the overall player pool. ChatGPT isn't some wondertool. It's specifically designed to model language. The algorithms your mention are closer to what a game developer might use. Indeed, voices are a huge area of potential for AI. Heatblur apparently lost or misplaced the original files for Jester (basically it's not easy for them to update or add lines I think), but an AI could easily replicate Jester's voice from the final sound files in game and then use the replicate voice to create new lines entirely. Then the AI could even be used to dynamically respond to situations realistically with the new speech. Something similar can be done with graphics, as AI could study condensation effects or bomb explosions and come up with realistic approximations of how those would look without input from artists outside of the initial learning. AI in the dynamic campaign or just built into the general AI would also be very interesting. It's one of the ways that ground forces can learn to do more than sit out in the open without the need for programmers to come up with very clever and potentially complicated scripts for determining unit reactions.

I disagree, coding is well within the reach for AI. It's going to take time to develop AI that is good at it, but it's not a far fetched idea. The brain and AI aren't much different. The only problem with current AI is that it's a very young technology. It's like saying cars will never go 200 mph because the the Motorwagon couldn't break 20. I work with engineers and software developers who are the ones pushing AI for product development, not investors. We already have automated processes for design in fields like aerodynamics. AI can easily (conceptually, creating the AI takes work obviously) work its way into these applications to improve them even further. There are many methods. Tracks are a good one, I don't see why you're saying there are too few. We can create more easily. Also as AI works its way into other fields, there will probably be publicly available resources like papers on how to train AI to fly, or strategize in general. That's essentially what AI would do.

AI is something that absolutely 100% of game developers need to look into starting now, but there is still a road ahead of us before we arrive at AI generated games. I'm not sure that 1-2 years is enough to expect anything major. Maybe in 10 years, but I'm just making guesses anyway. The possibilities are certainly enticing, as AI could make development much faster and less bug prone. I'd also like to see it replace the traditional AI of DCS. All of this is going to take work to accomplish though.

While I understand the desire, I don't think it's a good idea. I already dislike the unrealistic problems created by limited head movement that are imposed on hat switch users.

I like the idea of being on the same API for the sake of consistency. Even if there are bugs, at least it should mean both missiles are bugged in the same way, and then there is the benefit of being updated going forward as well as the more realistic avionics implementation.

Hello, I've been looking forward to the Kola map for quite some time as I anticipate that it will be one of the most used maps in my collection. As a long term DCS player I also have some feedback on the state and implementation of maps in DCS and I wanted to post these in the hope that it will help future map developers provide the best product possible. This was written months ago, but this forum was closed at the time: Kola is one of the upcoming modules that I'm most excited about and I plan to spend a lot of time with it in the mission editor. As a long time DCS user I have a lot of opinions about maps and the ME and I'd like to share some with Orbx for consideration with goal of maximizing the value and usability of the map. From the announcement, we know that the map will be highly detailed and feature important military targets. This is great to hear as it is exactly how DCS maps should be designed. However there is a bit of a disconnect with regards to the mission editor. It is usually difficult to find specific buildings and locations without knowing their approximate positions ahead of time. Please take this into considering when designing the GUI side of the map. It would be very helpful to have important/unique locations labeled from a zoomed out perspective. This way the most interest features of the map aren't hidden away, but readily visible for mission planners. I've outlined a similar idea in the following thread: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/307296-combat-oriented-display-options-for-mission-editor/#comment-5032281 An alternative to map icons could be what was done on the NTTR map where the different areas of the training range are outlined and named. Another issue I've run into with DCS maps is the limitations that AI have in operating from certain airports. The most significant problem is with airports that don't have full runway length taxiways that reach both ends of the runway. With this type of runway, the AI will tend to enter the runway from somewhere in the middle and then slowly taxi to the end of the runway to takeoff. They will do this one at a time, and it can take many minutes to launch a full flight of 4 aircraft. Ideally this will be fixed when DCS gets improvements to ATC, but in the meantime it can be mitigated with parking spots added to the ends of runways. These spaces would get around the taxi issue and allow for rapid takeoffs of full groups of planes. They would also make very nice spots for fighters set to interceptors that need to scramble quickly. See this thread for some more discussion: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/286131-allow-entire-flight-to-line-up-on-runway-for-takeoff/#comment-4815757 A second issue with airports is parking space size. Some spots that seem large enough to hold big fighters like the Su-27 won't accept these planes on other maps. For the sake of gameplay I think it might be worth it to slightly oversize parking spaces if this is going to be an issue. It might also be helpful to including the maximum airplane size in the parking space name (ie 9S for parking space 9 small fighter maximum, 10L for parking space 10 large fighter maximum, and 11T for parking space 11 transport sized plane maximum). Examples of the parking issue here: https://forum.dcs.world/topic/295191-still-having-that-parking-problem/ https://forum.dcs.world/topic/308140-b52-has-no-parking-options-on-the-syria-map/ Finally, while Kola looks to be fairly large in size as is, it can't be understated the value that size brings to maps in DCS. Having airbases spread out across the map can really increase the replay value and can also make campaigns feel a lot more dynamic as you change locations through a conflict. Even if an airbase falls outside of the high detail area of the map I think it's worth including. Along with this, the ME GUI should be as unrestrictive as possible. Letting us zoom out far, even if it goes beyond the map image in the ME is totally fine because it makes utilizing the edges of the map easier. As much of the edges of Kola will be water, I imagine this will be very useful. I'm sure others have ideas as well since I'm far from the only dedicated DCS player here. I don't know how early the map is in development, but I hope it's not too late to take feedback like this into account. I'm greatly looking forward to the end product.

You can change which countries are part of which coalition in the ME. The button for this is on the left, above the green fly button. So: Set Country A and Country B to Blue Set plane from Country B to follow plane from Country A Set Country A to Red Blue Country B plane will now be set to follow Red Country A plane

AI communication needs a total rework really. I tried to go into detail in wish thread of mine: The idea to specifically select targets would be such a thing to add.

Like Gigafiga mentioned, if you change a unit from one side to the other, the follow task remains.

More advanced weapon modeling in general would make big difference in the sim. More varied behavior means weapons have different capabilities and need to be used/defended against differently. And of course it's also more realistic.

More and perhaps randomized burn times sound nice.

Yep, a livery manager is what we need. Choose what gets downloaded and remember our settings.

I play SP, own all the packs, and this is still a problem. If you want to share missions at you need to take into account if it uses packs or not, and the more packs there are, the worse this gets. I've already had to clone missions because of the existence of packs: https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3308427/ https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/files/3315425/ Now in this particular case, it's not that much trouble because DCS only has a limited number of packs (currently) and the SC pack was changed to be more user friendly, but the I think the problem is made clear. If we had many packs and they locked users out of missions, I as a mission maker would face a lot of wasted time planning my missions around packs instead of content.

Yes this is necessary, one very obvious use case is recreating Cold War intercepts. And we know this already works in DCS, but requires some trickery to intentionally build into a mission. In general we need to reduce restrictions on tasks and AI options.

I understand, I also own the WWII pack, the price is a non issue. The problem for me is dividing players or having to make millions of versions of a mission to be compatible with many packs, if DCS goes down that route.

I like the idea of tying in relevant units to modules. So for instance the F-86 would have come with B-29 and Tu-4 AI and possibly a higher selling price if deemed necessary. Barring that though, your ideas are huge improvement over now. It's bothering having to worry about potentially greatly reducing the accessibility of my missions just because I want to add a single unit from an asset pack into it. DCS has a decent unit list, but some time periods are pretty scarcely populated, like Korea as I mentioned above. That early Cold War era is one of the big problems because it can be beneficial to pull a unit or two from the WWII pack, but then you might end up barring a bunch of people from your mission. In a WWII scenario you'd expect more players to have the pack since it's marketed for WWII. Also, if we keep adding packs, things get more and more divided and more and more complex. It's an unnecessary headache.

There isn't really any point to this. DCS already covers a wide of range combat eras, having packs isn't necessarily going to make things faster or better. Then there is also the problem with dividing players. The free core is one of the attractive points of DCS, we shouldn't throw it away.