A few miscellaneous ideas

[Northstar98]

Hi Guys,

 

I recently had a few ideas that I wish to share - now by no means do I consider these as critical or high priority items, but maybe something to consider in the future post 2.5 release.

 

The first one is not only a further expansion of sling-loading but also winching operations by means of rescue hoists. At the moment we have sling-loading, it's not perfect and things can sometimes go wrong, but it is a functional element in DCS and it works, the problem really comes down to the cargoes we carry, apart from being more or less just dead-weight they are virtually functionless - it would be great if say ammunition boxes could be configured so that they could be used to replenish FOBs/FARPs - giving them a functional logistical purpose. The other thing, and this is more complicated, is sling-loading of things such as vehicles/equipment and artillery pieces. I guess however we need more air-transportable vehicles and field artillery that isn't self-propelled

 

Here's my idea for how something like this could work: Unit has an advanced waypoint action 'becomes transportable' whereby the vehicle's engine powers off, hatches close/covers close, any weapons or whatever are stowed if applicable, turret resets to it's 'centred position' etc - the vehicle/whatever is now in an inert, air-transportable state; A helicopter hovers/lands near and the vehicle/whatever is hooked via the normal means, it is then transported to it's new location, the vehicle transitions out of it's transportable state and resumes it's routing (this will require some modification to how waypoints are handled, although I presume it would work the same as embarking). If it's player controlled, the vehicle becomes 'inert' and the player isn't able to do anything whilst the vehicle is in it's sling-loaded state (I guess a key command could be useful here for players to enter/exit the transportable state so long as certain conditions are met).

 

The next thing is winching operations using rescue hoists/winches at the moment the Mil Mi-8MTV2 is the only playable helicopter with a winch present (on the left of the helicopter, over the door close to the cockpit) but at the moment it is functionless. Again this would probably require infantry/manned units to have a transportable state that allows them to be transported via a winch. This would allow for not only CSAR/SAR missions but also insertion of units from a hovering position. Whilst we're on the subject it would be great (not sure how it would be achieved though) if we could actually physically see the units we're embarking inside the aircraft - now at the moment for playable helicopters this only applies to the Huey and Mil-Mi-8MTV2 (although for the latter we can only see inside the rear cabin if we're using a door gun or slingloading).

 

My last idea is for more precise configuration fuel for aircraft. At the moment we have a global fuel value as a percentage, what could be beneficial is to have a window (like the current window we have for configuring ordnance and stores) for fuel - kind of like this (the ACE editor for the CS C-130 for FSX/P3D)

 

If we could get this to recognise external tanks that would be great. I know this may not be absolutely necessary for all aircraft, but for aircraft like the P/TF-51 and the F-5E that have unbalanced fuel loads and more finicky CG management it could be very valuable.

 

Cheers,

 

Ollie

[Worrazen]

I would also like to see more cargo-transport capabilities, civilian supplies, munition, fuel supply, leight vehicle, paradrop.