Two important questions - at least for me

[balaton]

Hi All,

 

 

I'm through 6 moths of learning, ups and downs with this incredible DCS 2.1.1. sim. Admittedly, I do not use it to fight battles but rather flying helis.

There are two important things that I could not find out:

1. Can I set a specific heading (ME or MAP function?) when the aircraft is on the ramp, cold and dark? In strong wind conditions it would be necessary to turn the helicopter nose into the wind before startup.

2. I still can not set the internal cargo load, the slider is inop in 2.1. Is it a bug or I miss something? (Someone told me to use TRIGGERS to load cargo, but it is far beyond my DCS knowledge.) Anyway, is this slider working in 1.5? Is it planned by the devs to fix it?

 

 

Appreciate your help,

 

 

 

 

Tamas

[BaD CrC]

1. Set your chopper "cold on ground", or "on ground" anywhere you want and you can set it up in the direction and location you want. Don't use "cold on parking", "on parking" or "on runway" in which case you can't decide on the heading and have limited freedom on location (you can only select the parking number on the airport).

2. Internal cargo doesn't work yet. You won't go very far in mission editing if you don't understand triggers and it is really simple.

[balaton]

Many thanks indeed BaD! I will try it. Triggers might be easy but reading through the DCS manual...several times... well, I can not comprehend. Most probably it is my shortcoming. (At the same time I'm quite good to learn complex systems/aircraft/software, etc in RW aviation.

A good, step by step tutorial would help a lot.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

Tamas

[feefifofum]

Think about what you want, then browse the list of conditions and triggers in-sim...most of it is pretty intuitive and for me, at least, it's easier to go to the manual with a specific question rather than try to absorb it all at once.

 

You need to understand a few core concepts and then it's pretty self explanatory:

A trigger zone is an area on the map (select on the left toolbar to place one)

 

A flag is a way of keeping track of something. It can either be boolean (TRUE=1, FALSE =0) or a numerical value. Any value higher than 0 is considered true.

 

The logic is basic if-then stuff; want a message to play when someone gets someplace?

 

Use the icons on the left side of the screen to create and place a trigger zone on the map. Your condition is UNIT INSIDE ZONE and the triggered action is MESSAGE TO ALL.

 

Want it to also spawn a group?

Check "late activation" on the desired spawn, add GROUP ACTIVATE to the triggered actions, and selected the desired spawn from the drop-down menu.

 

Want something to happen when a group dies?

GROUP DEAD

 

Want something to happen when someone lands?

UNIT'S SPEED LOWER THAN

 

Rather than try to wrap your head around the whole manual at once, I'd suggest coming up with a simple idea or two and then trying to make it happen.

 

 

Want to make something happen only after the group dies?

GROUP DEAD

FLAG ON 1

 

Then a second trigger:

FLAG IS TRUE (1)

UNIT INSIDE ZONE

 

Want to command AI to do something at a certain time? Select the group and you'll find a "triggered actions" tab where you can add different commands to activate with an AI TASK PUSH trigger.

 

 

You tend to have to break complex thoughts down into very very simple core concepts, but you can string them together to communicate some pretty intricate situations with a little practice. :)

Edited October 25, 2017 by feefifofum

[balaton]

Many thanks for the lead feefifofum. I'll try to follow it. I realized that the root of my problem is that I do not really know what is behind the terms like "FLAG", "SPAWN", "ZONE", etc, even "TRIGGER" itself.

Your explanation could help to understand.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

tamas

[feefifofum]

Spawn is a gaming industry term for creating an entity in the game world; I.E. causing groups of aircraft to appear.

 

You see above what a flag is; it's just a number with another number associated with it. A way of keeping track of things. You could increase a flag's value by one every time an aircraft entered or left a particular area, as another example.

 

A trigger is essentially a small, self- contained programming statement, created by the user with DCS's built-in system. Everything is in a pretty simple drop-down menu. "Triggers" is one of the menu items on the left toolbar.

 

Zone, in this case, refers to a trigger zone. A named space of a particular radius defined by the user. One of the buttons on the left side of the screen is "create trigger zone."

 

 

It all boils down to "click the stuff on the left toolbar" pretty much and play with it, it'll start to make sense. :)

[FlightControl]

Many thanks for the lead feefifofum. I'll try to follow it. I realized that the root of my problem is that I do not really know what is behind the terms like "FLAG", "SPAWN", "ZONE", etc, even "TRIGGER" itself.

Your explanation could help to understand.

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

tamas

 

 

Tamas, can you code? I mean, you have experience with programming?

[balaton]

Definately NO! I'm only a stupid user both in sim and RW aviation! :-)

Tamas

[NeilWillis]

I think a really useful set of tutorials explaining how triggers work, with examples would make a great set of videos.

 

I think mission design is the key to great immersion in DCS World.

 

Any volunteers?

[balaton]

Agreed 100%! Examples please dear volunteers! Anyway, thanks for your help, excellent community!

 

 

Tamas

[Eight Ball]

I think a really useful set of tutorials explaining how triggers work, with examples would make a great set of videos.

 

I think mission design is the key to great immersion in DCS World.

 

Any volunteers?

You can already find many tutorials on Youtube

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dcs+mission+editor+tutorial