Flagrum Posted August 13, 2018 Posted August 13, 2018 Currently the Comms Tab in the ME allows to set frequencies for radios which support pre-configured channels. Module developers try to populate these channel pre-sets with more or less reasonable default frequencies. For a mission designer it is now a tedious task to adjust all these pre-sets - for each flight individually. If a frequency of an important asset changes - like a tanker - many presets need to be adjusted as well. To make this easier and more straight forward, I propose this change/addition to the mission editor: Feature A) Allow the settings of the Comms Tab to be saved and loaded. Similar to the weather settings or the load out settings. This allows the mission maker to specify a set of pre-sets once and just re-import it many times for other flights. It even allows for modders to access these files and build more sophisticated tools around it to manage the frequencies / the comms plan. This should be a fairly simple change and would already benefit the mission making process a lot. But I also want to extend this proposal: Feature B) The Communications Manager All flights, ground units, ships, NAV aids, airfields, etc. have some sort of radio with one or more associated frequencies. Let the mission maker choose the asset - not the frequency! - he wants the player to be able to talk to. Provide some sort of drop-down list where one can choose the unit name and store this symbolic name as pre-set. A sensible grouping of the assets in the drop-down list might be very handy. Like, for example the DCS type of the unit: - Aircraft - Helicopters - Ships - Ground Units - NAV Aids - Airfields - Manual frequency entry That way, if I want to store a pre-set for a tanker, I find it under "Aircraft". The JTACs are under "Ground Units" and Kobuleti can be found under "Airfields". My channel pre-set then doesn't look anymore like #1 128.5 #2 265.0 #3 123.5 #4 ... but rather #1 "Recon_Helo_1" #2 "AWACS_Mother" #3 "Tanker_TXO" etc. These unit names are resolved into their respective actual frequency when the mission is loaded. The loading process should take into account that some assets can provide several frequencies and the appropriate one for the given radio should be used. Or, alternatively, let the mission designer choose the actual freuency type (VHF/UHF, etc.) as well for the pre-set. Maybe "several frequencies" should also include those which are set dynamically by means of Waypoint Actions or so? Not yet sure of how to handle this, though. Once the pre-set list is populated, it should be allowed to save it to the disk (see Feature A!). The pre-set list then could be imported for other flights. Importing should work independently of the type of aircraft or radio so that even if one aircraft allows a different number of pre-set channels. If it suppors less channels than the saved pre-set list, then only those are assigned. If it supports more, then the remaining revert to defaults or remain unassigned. If the mission designer now needs to change the frequency of, for example Tanker_TXO, then all aircraft that loaded the same pre-set list or otherwise reference "channel Tanker_TXO" will have the correct frequency set up for then when the mission starts. All this will probably not fit into the current Comms Tab. Therefore it might be sensible to make a new sub-screen, similar to the load out screen.
Recommended Posts