Multiple coalitions

[NeilWillis]

What? You mean it's never just good guys and bad guys? Don't what ever you do tell anyone about this.

 

Unless they're wearing black hats and white hats the balance of the Western world will be in jeopardy!

[chromium]

+1

[Winterz]

+1

[shagrat]

+1 ...this has been on the wishlist for such a long time and for good reasons.

 

Possibilities from ROE, limiting collateral damage considerations, neutral civilian traffic tha tis NOT engaged, to name a few.

[Flagrum]

And let us change the affiliation of units during a mission (trigger actions, script funcitons). Imagine the possibilities if units can change sides! :)

 

... including the player units, ofc. Mission designers could implement "twists" in the mission / the story ... like, depending on player decisions and actions, the player might end up defecting and switching sides ... *dreams*

[philstyle]

+1 From me to the OP also

[Shadow KT]

Having the countries in the game actually have their representative aircraft or vice versa

[Yurgon]

Imagine the possibilities if units can change sides! :)

 

Oh I've got one!

 

"No, that wasn't a team kill. I switched sides and am now fighting for the righteous causes of the Red faction!" :D

[Northstar98]

Flagrum said:

And let us change the affiliation of units during a mission (trigger actions, script funcitons). Imagine the possibilities if units can change sides!

 

... including the player units, ofc. Mission designers could implement "twists" in the mission / the story ... like, depending on player decisions and actions, the player might end up defecting and switching sides ... *dreams*

Yes exactly that - say start of the mission you have 2 countries not fighting each other but not allied to each other and an intermediate non-aligned country in it's own coalition (GREENFOR), now a true precipice is formed, an event happens mid-mission that causes the first 2 coalitions into war, GREENFOR is still neutral but in the sky patrolling their own area, let's say one of the 2 coalitions intrudes into their airspace and provokes a hostile response, plunging GREENFOR into the conflict.

Or have a joint mission set up (say BLUFOR + GREENFOR vs REDFOR then an event happens that turns GREENFOR against BLUFOR.

Another scenario is you have a coalition that is entirely insurgent and hostile to all, a civilian coalition as well as BLUFOR, REDFOR and an independent, now BLUFOR and REDFOR aren't aggressive toward each other but aren't allied, guarded if you will. Now BLUFOR have to fight the insurgents without causing collateral damage and without antagonising REDFOR or independent - you have a very dynamic and immersive scenario built up.

You could also have nations entering or pulling out of a conflict mid mission (though that's possible at the moment anyway with spawning and removal of units as normal.

Obviously all the above being controlled via triggers.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Northstar98
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[shagrat]

Yes exactly that - say start of the mission you have 2 countries not fighting each other but not allied to each other and an intermediate non-aligned country in it's own coalition (GREENFOR), now a true precipice is formed, an event happens mid-mission that causes the first 2 coalitions into war, GREENFOR is still neutral but in the sky patrolling their own area, let's say one of the 2 coalitions intrudes into their airspace and provokes a hostile response, plunging GREENFOR into the conflict.

 

Or have a joint mission set up (say BLUFOR + GREENFOR vs REDFOR then an event happens that turns GREENFOR against BLUFOR.

 

Another scenario is you have a coalition that is entirely insurgent and hostile to all, a civilian coalition as well as BLUFOR, REDFOR and an independent, now BLUFOR and REDFOR aren't aggressive toward each other but aren't allied, guarded if you will. Now BLUFOR have to fight the insurgents without causing collateral damage and without antagonising REDFOR or independent - you have a very dynamic and immersive scenario built up.

 

You could also have nations entering or pulling out of a conflict mid mission (though that's possible at the moment anyway with spawning and removal of units as normal.

 

Obviously all the above being controlled via triggers.

I would be totally fine with a simple "neutral" faction, it is already defined in the actual Mission, by default. It just needs to be accessible through the trigger system.

If they can add coalition "neutral" = 2 to all the existing functions it could be enough already for so many scenarios...

[Northstar98]

shagrat said:

I would be totally fine with a simple "neutral" faction, it is already defined in the actual Mission, by default. It just needs to be accessible through the trigger system.

If they can add coalition "neutral" = 2 to all the existing functions it could be enough already for so many scenarios...

Indeed so, you are absolutely correct. For me having the neutral would be great, I too would be more than satisfied with it. Just one question though, how would you deselect a country entirely? As at the moment neutral is the pool of countries that you don't wish to be present in your mission, I guess a delete function or similar analog would have to be present.

For the relatively more distant future, and maybe this is taking things a little too far is to add, edit and delete coalitions from the mission editor as you're editing - but I'm more than certain it will require massive changes to the ME (which as far as 3D editors go, is most likely going to happen in some shape or another - no details as of yet however).

Edited October 28, 2021 by Northstar98
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[shagrat]

Indeed so, you are absolutely correct. For me having the neutral would be great, I too would be more than satisfied with it. Just one question though, how would you deselect a country entirely? As at the moment neutral is the pool of countries that you don't wish to be present in your mission, I guess a delete function or similar analog would have to be present.

 

For the relatively more distant future, and maybe this is taking things a little too far is to add, edit and delete coalitions from the mission editor as you're editing - but I'm more than certain it will require massive changes to the ME (which as far as 3D editors go, is most likely going to happen in some shape or another - no details as of yet however).

Don't use it! Groups etc. are related to a country on creation. Only list countries that have objects in the briefing...

[Northstar98]

shagrat said:

Don't use it! Groups etc. are related to a country on creation. Only list countries that have objects in the briefing...

EDIT: Oh hang on I've misunderstood, want I meant is say you select some countries and then as you are editing you decide that actually you don't need that country present, obviously if you discover this straight away before any meaningful mission building it's fine, you just start over, but if you are already through a substantial part of mission editing then this might be a problem.

Edited October 28, 2021 by Northstar98
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[bemme]

+1 for me !!!

[Angel101]

+1

[HC_Official]

+1 for me

[statrekmike]

Having a third (neutral) coalition would really help with mission design. We need something that can add a level of uncertainty to missions and really justify strong ROE. Having the potential for neutral aircraft (maybe civilian, maybe not) would be quite nice.

[Ozone1]

Well, now that we finally have the ability to have a third faction (neutrals) Is there anyway to get them to go hot on both Red and Blue teams? Because as far as I can tell, they won't attack anything, even if engaged first... Which is all well and dandy if you want them for the UN, not so much however, if you want them for ISIS.

 

I was wondering if there might be a script out there that does as much?

[FubarBundy]

Having a third (neutral) coalition would really help with mission design. We need something that can add a level of uncertainty to missions and really justify strong ROE. Having the potential for neutral aircraft (maybe civilian, maybe not) would be quite nice.

Now that we have the Syria map and after learning about the recent conflicts there, it would be great to have some sort of ability to create multiple factions and be able to choose which factions they are allied to or fighting against. the 2 factions we have now are nowhere near enough to replicate the craziness of the Syrian civil war.

Edited August 30, 2020 by FubarBundy

[Swift.]

Now that we have the Syria map and after learning about the recent conflicts there, it would be great to have some sort of ability to create multiple factions and be able to choose which factions they are allied to or fighting against. the 2 factions we have now are nowhere near enough to replicate the craziness of the Syrian civil war.

 

Whilst not as complex as you describe, we do have 3 factions now: red blue neutral

[Ozone1]

Yeah, tell me about it! I'm tearing my hair out trying to figure out a way to do it... Technically, you'd need at least 4 factions for the Syrian civil war, but I reckon I could get away with 3 at a stretch.

 

All ED had to do was make an option that makes neutrals combatants or not. I don't know why they didn't think of it...? I've wanted a 3rd faction since the days of LockOn ffs!

 

And from what I hear, the Neutral AI is hardcoded and no amount of scripting or moding is going to help... Which sucks! I was really hoping they'd be a way around it so we wouldn't have to wait another decade for ED to finally address the issue.

 

Suppose I better induce a coma now then...

[Eddie]

A third (neutral) coalition isn’t what we should be looking for, we should be having the ability to create coalitions on the fly (coalition 0, 1, 2, 3 etc...), add countries to them, and then set the alliances as we see fit. Not only that but it should be possible to change alliances with triggers etc during a mission.

[FoxOne007]

A third (neutral) coalition isn’t what we should be looking for, we should be having the ability to create coalitions on the fly (coalition 0, 1, 2, 3 etc...), add countries to them, and then set the alliances as we see fit. Not only that but it should be possible to change alliances with triggers etc during a mission.

 

Big +1!

[Northstar98]

So quite a long time has passed and I felt like revisiting this topic.

As per my OP, and what some have commented, we really need a way to add/edit and remove coalitions at will, throughout the mission editing process.

One thing I've missed however, is a real example of how to best implement it, though I think I've found one: Command: Modern Operations.

In this example there's a side editor, which allows you to add, edit and remove "sides" (practically the same as our coalitions) completely at will. You can give them unique names and set their posture with respect to other sides (friendly, hostile, neutral and unfriendly).

There are also settings that allow you to set global doctrine, weapon release authorisations and skill levels for newly spawned units (while retaining the ability to edit these on an individual unit basis) - in DCS this could be used for default 'set option' advanced waypoint settings (such as ROE, reaction to threat, RADAR, jammer and countermeasure settings, radio usage settings etc, which could further be made task specific (EDIT: this now is the case, certain tasks have default settings, the only thing we're missing is a way to setup what said default settings should be)).

If the mood took you, you could set up a separate side for every country on the map, or every country of the world for that matter, or hell even individual service branches.

Also, mid-mission you can change a sides' posture in relation to other sides. In DCS it might be useful to be able to dynamically alter these postures via triggers. As an example, if you aren't respectful of the borders of a side that is set to unfriendly and you trespass, that could change the posture to hostile and lead to a shooting confrontation.

In this system though, "countries" don't get assigned to a particular coalition as they do in DCS. Instead, the "countries" are only there as an optional filter - every unit is available to every side, even equipment from the same country on multiple opposing sides. All there is, is a control to determine what side a unit belongs to, either by 'switching side' (in which case all edits are done from the perspective of the selected side, and all newly inserted units belong to that side), or alternatively via a drop down menu that lists each side, allowing you to select which one that way.

See the spoiler below, for screenshots of C:MOs GUI:

Spoiler

Side Editor:

• Add - allows you to add a side, and prompts you for a name, I haven't run into a limit on how many sides there can be so far.
• Remove - removes the selected side.
• Rename - allows you to rename the selected side.
• Briefing - allows you to create a side-specific briefing for units belonging to the selected side, as a bonus this particular briefing editor has much more tools available, you can insert tables, images, links etc, as well as change the font and font sizes, it even supports HTML. It would be great if DCS supported this too, but the other thing is to have unit/group specific briefings. Then again, having the automatic briefings as found in that other, F-16 orientated sim would be fantastic too.
• Postures - allows you to edit how the selected side considers other sides, there are 4 options available and these can be changed as a mission progresses (in DCS it would be useful to have triggers that could change this, particularly for changing between hostile & unfriendly).
  • friendly
  • hostile
  • neutral
  • unfriendly - this one is kinda like hostile, but without the shooting at each other - i.e unfriendly sides will intercept and shadow each other, but won't be hostile until either the mission editor sets it to be so, or unless one side actually engages the other.
• Doctrine and ROE controls 4 main things, in DCS this could control default advanced waypoint actions (ROE, reactions to threats, radio usage, jettison restricting etc), these apply for newly created units (though it's possible to override this setting on a per unit basis):
  • General settings control basically what you'd expect from advanced waypoint actions
  • EMCON for both radar, sonar and OECM (could also extend to radio communications)
  • Weapon release authorisation. This has settings for each specific weapon that is present on a certain side in collapsable menus. There are controls for how many to fire per salvo and how many shooters per salvo against specific contacts and at what ranges and whether they should fire in self-defence.
  • Withdrawal and redepolyment settings. These controls whether units should RTB or fall back when damage, fuel or weapons (further broken down into primary offensive and defensive) reaches a certain state. For redeployment it's the same settings but at what state units redeploy, though this probably has limited utility for DCS without a persistent, dynamic campaign.
• Awareness level is essentially a skill level exclusively for sensors (particularly visual) and acts like a sensor range modifier and reaction time for detection modifier, with the highest level detecting and identifying targets at the maximum range the sensor(s) they have available will allow and in the shortest time.
• Proficiency is exactly like our skill level.

 

Unit Insertion:

• Type - selects between aircraft, surface ships, submarines and facilities (ground units would be a better name; it includes infantry, vehicles and structures)
• Side - allows you to select which side the inserted unit should belong to, there's also a button to quickly take you to the side editor (which is otherwise found as an item of a menu in a toolbar).
• Name just gives you the actual name of the unit, as here they're given additional information (like service branch, NATO reporting name, year, special additions etc).
• Filters:
  • Class allows you to search for a unit by name.
  • Country - when selected, only displays units specifically belonging to the selected country, there is also an option for none to list everything. There are also separate "countries" for rebels, terrorists, insurgents, pirates, civilians, commercial, generic and unknown (though rebels, terrorists and insurgents could be grouped together as one, as could civilian and commercial), generic is used for ubiquitous items (such as runways, hangars, fuel tanks etc), finally, unknown is used for identified equipment but where operators of said equipment aren't known (this can probably be left absent), the only one missing here that would be useful for DCS is "environmental", which could be used to place things like trees, rocks, icebergs (if we ever get a polar map) etc.
  • SubType allows you to select a particular category of unit, so for aircraft you might have fighter, attack, bomber, multirole, reconnaissance, tanker, AEW&C, transport etc; for naval units you basically have a load of these; for facilities (ground units), you'll have things like personnel, tanks, IFVs, APCs, trucks, air defence etc.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Northstar98
minor formatting

[Shmegegge 1-1 Aero]

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