Tasking Engine

[lefty1117]

Alright this is going to sound a bit wild, and is based in part on my rosey glasses rearview of similar groundbreaking feature in Falcon 4, and I have no concept of the time and effort that would be required, but hey this is a wishlist forum right? This is my wish:

 

*A Dynamic Tasking Engine that can be used in SP or MP to create entire mission packages in real time, and adjust further Tasking based on mission results*

 

- The tasking engine would work within the overall constraints of the campaign ruleset, based on strength of forces, resupply, available equipment per the era, to be defined by the player or host.

- The tasking engine simulates the entire Campaign, from all air tasking roles down to ground-level actions. So in this case, Combined Arms style gameplay would be enabled with ground tasking such as "move to this point, eliminate this unit, capture this town" etc.

- Campaigns are based around a set of core Objectives, from which the packages are created. Missions are individual elements of a Package.

- The tasking engine assigns missions to slot groupings, which themselves have a defined role (or multirole). So in the case of a MP server, 4 x A10C slots with the task CAS would only be assigned CAS missions from a larger package to help achieve an Objective.

- Packages consist of multiple missions, typically performed in stages and with interdependencies; for example a package may consist of RECON, SEAD, CAP, STRIKE missions.

- As the campaign moves in real time, package and mission slots are manned by AI pilots, when a player isn't available.

- A player may join a mission in progress if they jump into that slot; they simply take over from the AI pilot.

- Conditions for overall Victory can be determined by the campaign creator/administrator.

- The tasking engine should factor in available resources when determining what missions to create, which slots to fill, etc. Slots at a destroyed airfield should not be spawnable, for example, until/unless the airfield is repaired (which can be a function of time or other automated method, or could be a player-led activity, but not trying to be too greedy!).

 

Some of these things exist in part as highly impressive scripts and customizations that server admins/devs have done over the years. But ideally ED would be providing a much more full featured framework to operate from. I don't know if something like this is already on a roadmap somewhere, but when I look at DCS overall I feel like the main thing holding it back from being the ultimate combat sim is a dynamic campaign capability, where mission results matter and impact subsequent mission generation. And of course in 2018 a robust multiplayer component of that is really needed. Thanks for reading.

[Sandman1330]

You are referring to a dynamic campaign engine. It is high on the request list (there are several threads requesting it), and has been mentioned by Wags as being in the works (timeline unknown).

 

I also have fond memories of the Falcon 4 campaign engine, DCS could do it so much better with all the different modules working in coop.