Jump to content

Dynamic Campaign Engine


MBot

Recommended Posts

Hey MBot!

 

How's progress going??

 

I was seeing some videos about DCS and sumbled upon this on in the link below:

 

 

At 2:20, the author talks about a friend that is creating a dynamic campaign for the MiG 21... Is he talking about you??

 

He says something about waiting for some stable release (I'm portuguese and was only able to understand a small part of what the author said).

 

Is the release of the Dynamic Campaign Engine imminent?

 

"dynamic campaign for the MiG-21"

That sounds like he was talking about this one: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=136618

The dynamic campaign engine isn't just for the MiG-21 from what I understood ;)

Intel i7-12700K @ 8x5GHz+4x3.8GHz + 32 GB DDR5 RAM + Nvidia Geforce RTX 2080 (8 GB VRAM) + M.2 SSD + Windows 10 64Bit

 

DCS Panavia Tornado (IDS) really needs to be a thing!

 

Tornado3 small.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This project is still on my mind daily, but is currently idling. I am waiting for new DCS content to come out in order to create my next campaign. The building process of this campaign will then go hand in hand with maturing, testing and polishing the Dynamic Campaign Engine.

 

A good setting with authenticy and depth is very dear to me. I feel that the Guardians of the Caucasus campaign has been the maximum I could get out of the old Black Sea map, a map that after more than a decade I have become very tired of. Already when starting DCE it was clear to me personally that this would be in preparation for new theaters in DCS.

 

But of course there is no technical limitation for DCE to work with the Black Sea map.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This project is still on my mind daily, but is currently idling. I am waiting for new DCS content to come out in order to create my next campaign. The building process of this campaign will then go hand in hand with maturing, testing and polishing the Dynamic Campaign Engine.

 

A good setting with authenticy and depth is very dear to me. I feel that the Guardians of the Caucasus campaign has been the maximum I could get out of the old Black Sea map, a map that after more than a decade I have become very tired of. Already when starting DCE it was clear to me personally that this would be in preparation for new theaters in DCS.

 

But of course there is no technical limitation for DCE to work with the Black Sea map.

 

OK!

 

So I presume he was talking about you in the video!!

 

Can't wait to try the engine you are creating... Will it support other maps too??

[sIGPIC][/sIGPIC]

 

"Your eyes only see what your mind is ready to comprehend"

 

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Asus Z170 Pro Gaming - Intel I7-6700K - 16GB DDR4 @ 2400MHz HyperX Savage - Strix GTX 960 DC II 2GB OC Edition - Seagate 1TB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Very interesting MBot, I have also thought myself about how such a dynamic campaign could be implemented and just like you I thought about an external application doing the ground work (well, it is the only practical way) but I am very pleased you started doing it - since I would have to learn programming first :D

 

The main problem for me is the lack of any real game engagement in DCS, ie some sense of progression and a real motivator to master the systems of the jets. Flying scripted campaigns is good fun but they are for a certain skill set, if you are not good enough you fail and have to redo until you get there. A dynamic campaign allows you to fail and still continue to progress, building up your skill level.

 

A few ideas for the future:

1) Strike Fighters 2 had a "intelligence" value on each asset, so the campaign engine could not plan counters for assets that were unknown to the opposite asset. A good example would probably have been the F-117 Nighthawks in Desert Storm, I doubt the Iraqis had any idea about the capabilities of said aircraft. This also prevented perfect planning. I think this would be a good idea for some mobile SAM assets. Naturally, recon flights and exposure upped the intelligence value on said assets as the campaign went on.

 

2) Regarding the ground war, a IL2 or SF2 type node network that defined ground units moves along would probably be best to start with. Once you implement ground war and helicopters I would love it if you could make a "helicopter hunter" mission type for slower aircraft types like trainers or the like.

 

3) Can the campaign maker define aircraft turn-around time, this could give an advantage to aircraft that are in real-life simpler to service and refuel, like the Viggen, or to more rugged aircraft like the MiG-21 who can fly with minimal maintenance if needed.

 

Finally, and I felt this should be a separate point, as I fully realize this is not in the scope of what you are doing right now:

 

After you feel the DCE is perfected a logical step could be to create a graphical front end where you are allowed to interact with the mission before committing to it. This could open up for expanding the campaign scope by doing away with a lot of limitations the game has, you could have individual briefings in MP for PVP and so on.

In my ideal world, a dynamic campaign would have airframe, pilot and weapon inventory (a bit of the Jagged Alliance / XCOM engagement factor thrown in) to make it less sterile. If you read up on actual conflicts on for example ACIG.org you quickly realize that the machines are only half of the story, the human factor is huge and completely omitted currently in most sims.

 

 

Anyways, great work!

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I really hope a new campaign engine will be release for DCS because new planes and new maps can't be enough to play DCS for many years. My team friends are coming back to Falcon 4 BMS because flying M-2000C in DCS is cool (we are french ! ) but is not enough... we need a good war environment. I came back to DCS with the Mbot Campaign engine (Guardians of the Caucasus) wich is not perfect but is a really big progress in DCS game.

Of course Blue flag campaign is a really good multiplayer campaign engine but when you can't play online you need a solo dynamic engine to play DCS !!!

[/url]All known Dynamic Campaign Engine Campaigns

Last DCE news : Crisis in PG - Blue version

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

So with this Dynamic Campaign Engine that you are working on, does this mean that sooner or later we will have an interface somewhat like Falcon where one frags his flights and possibly the other aircraft in his squadron for that particular airframe ??

 

If so this will be the thing that makes DCS whole, keep up the good work buddy and I can't wait for the dynamics of this to hit because when it does it'll hit big and I can kiss Falcon goodbye and never look back.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So with this Dynamic Campaign Engine that you are working on, does this mean that sooner or later we will have an interface somewhat like Falcon where one frags his flights and possibly the other aircraft in his squadron for that particular airframe ??

 

If so this will be the thing that makes DCS whole, keep up the good work buddy and I can't wait for the dynamics of this to hit because when it does it'll hit big and I can kiss Falcon goodbye and never look back.

Nope. There is no way any 3rd party could implement Falcon campaign engine in DCS. It will require massive overhaul of the game itself. As one of examples DCS calculates each an every object in the game vs Falcon calculates it only for planes. All other objects are grouped and decoupled only when you getting close to them on 80nm. This simplifies the calculations but ground object in falcon always placed awkwardly because of that.

Inplementing such approach in DCS will require frequent creation and deletion of objects "on the fly". Not sure if DCS can live with it w/o problems and performance impact.

All in all I would say Falcon would be unreachable dynamic campaign simulation for couple of more years.

P.S. The only problem is they refuse to introduce VR support for God sakes! Those guys are stubborn and old fasioned :) VR in DCS is a gem! I don't care about dynamic campaign of BMS while flying in DCS VR over LA (even alone).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The only problem is they refuse to introduce VR support for God sakes! Those guys are stubborn and old fasioned :) VR in DCS is a gem! I don't care about dynamic campaign of BMS while flying in DCS VR over LA (even alone).

 

 

I totally agree. Flew BMS for a full decade. Nothing but. I have a few friends who remain active in the community who either know a BMS Dev or were beta testers. From what they've told me, OR is on their list but has a VERY low priority. Well I guess it's THEIR sandbox. They can play in it as they see fit.

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

holy cow you remember eurofighter 2k. I LOVED that game. The engine was way ahead of the time. The tiffy was a blast to fly. and I loved those real tight missions where some F22s would save me after I just LGB'd some crucial bridge and the Russians were all over me. fond memores of using MFDS to calculate how high I needed to go to barely make it home.

Heres the thing. Guardians of the Caucuses was made by the guy working on this engine. It doest incorporate ground combat BUT it is a dynamic campaign. Now you cant really change TOO much but people claim they know how to switch out the A/C you and your men or at least you fly in the campaign. I was promised an email telling me how never got it. but ifigure if they can do that, you could probably but an F5 in there, or F15 or whatever, and just switch who the enemy is. Or you could put the F5 in and call it a mig28 and use your imagination and pretend the Soviets reverse engineered F5s for use to confuse NATO but didnt get enough so theyre usng whats on hand.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

holy cow you remember eurofighter 2k. I LOVED that game. The engine was way ahead of the time. The tiffy was a blast to fly. and I loved those real tight missions where some F22s would save me after I just LGB'd some crucial bridge and the Russians were all over me. fond memores of using MFDS to calculate how high I needed to go to barely make it home.

Heres the thing. Guardians of the Caucuses was made by the guy working on this engine. It doest incorporate ground combat BUT it is a dynamic campaign. Now you cant really change TOO much but people claim they know how to switch out the A/C you and your men or at least you fly in the campaign. I was promised an email telling me how never got it. but ifigure if they can do that, you could probably but an F5 in there, or F15 or whatever, and just switch who the enemy is. Or you could put the F5 in and call it a mig28 and use your imagination and pretend the Soviets reverse engineered F5s for use to confuse NATO but didnt get enough so theyre usng whats on hand.

Heh i just reinstalled it using the reloaded mod to play the campaign. :)

 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heh i just reinstalled it using the reloaded mod to play the campaign. :)

Reloaded, eh? I think I know one of the guys who did that. :D

 

Glad to hear EF2000 still gets some love. I just wish the multiplayer engine was more stable, but that was the state of the art in the day.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reloaded, eh? I think I know one of the guys who did that. :D

 

Glad to hear EF2000 still gets some love. I just wish the multiplayer engine was more stable, but that was the state of the art in the day.

Haha helloooo! I was just thinking the other day thank god home fries brought it to modern day but flying reloaded still makes me yearn for a proper remake (with added stuff like maybe adf/taw integration and better ground units), which I'm sure we will never get :(

 

Sent from my HTC6525LVW using Tapatalk

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This project is still on my mind daily, but is currently idling. I am waiting for new DCS content to come out in order to create my next campaign.

 

Hello, I can't wait for a dynamic campaign generator, even if the missions are sequentially generated. I'm so desperate to enjoy such a feature, and feeling that the «new content to come out» condition has tendency to make us wait for years (both for the content and DCE), I seriously consider to make my own interim generator from now.

 

However, even though I don't consider that task impossible, and that I don't plan to make something as complex as what DCE seems to be, it will cost me a lot of precious time.

 

So I'd like to make sure that DCE or anything else will not surprisingly come out in the middle of my work that I would have to throw up. I can't obviously ask you for a release date or impose you a minimum delay but, do you think DCE still has at least 1 year before release ?

I'll buy :

МиГ-23МЛД & МЛА МиГ-27К МиГ-25 Mirage III F-4E any IJ plane 1950' Korea Dynamic campaign module

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So I am back from some very nice weeks of vacation. I have been reading the forum every now and then but tried to keep everyday life at home. Work on a full campaign utilizing DCE is in progress for some time now and hopefully a release should happen in the next one or two months.

 

I would just like to ask everyone to keep their expectations in check. While I personally think this will be a revolutionary piece for DCS, it will in no way be comparable to the function, scale and fidelity of the Falcon 4 DC. F4 will remain the great model to strive for in my opinion, though I do not think anything like it will be possible without it being designed and build into the heart of the game itself.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

I had long thoughts om whether to do weapon inventory tracking/limiting in DCE but decided against it. Gameplay wise, weapon inventories only make sense if the player has control over its allocation. The gameplay mechanic would then be the player using lower quality weapons to conserve better weapons for important targets. But since loadout allocation for all aircraft is handled by DCE and not the player, it makes little difference on the player whether these weapons are limited or not. This also makes it unnecessary to write very complex code for smart automatic weapon allocation (when to assign weapon X or when to conserve it), which would be necessary if inventories were limited.

 

May be, it would interesting to forbide some weapons. May be you want an IR enviroment only....or things like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...