What should be fixed asap to make DCS a whole ?

[funkyfranky]

* AI behavior (aircraft, ground units, ATC)

* Performance (VR and working antialiasing)

* Weather (better clouds)

[chromium]

- Cockpit internal/external night lighting fixed for all aircraft, specifically the Huey and BS

- A proper Dynamic weather system and environmental lighting, taxi under a light pole at night and the aircraft still remains dark.

 

+1

 

Then:

- Integrate a "save scenery state" to allow sequential missions editing (one could edit the next mission starting from the previous one without having to use mods)

- much more access to the SSE: group AI behaviour, warehouses, objective priotiy & tasking: that will eventually let someone to create a dynamic campaign engine without using mods.

[Gierasimov]

Interesting

 

type what you think is urgent to be fixed.

 

 

- general Gamebreakers

- MP issues

 

- broken Missions

- broken Campaigns

- broken Comms

- Performance Issues

etc...

 

 

Whatever you think DCS need to have fixed to make it a better Sim for you.

 

 

 

 

Bit

 

I think ED should keep the current good momentum going. My view is that DCS is in a good shape, and, if you look at it from the time perspective going back to Flanker 2.0 and through LOMAC's add-in - Flaming Cliffs - this sim has made an incredible progressive journey. Well done ED then! Keep up the good work and best of luck with deliverables.

[StandingCow]

Improved weather/clouds

Improved ATC

Improved AI

[Knock-Knock]

- Improve performance.

- Decrease memory consumption. For example, split cockpit texture from the rest, so we can run low textures, without loosing quality in the cockpit where it matters.

- Polish the cockpits for deferred shading, such as: Interior lighting, canopy and HUD glare/reflections, material definitions.

- Walk trough every single units/modules LOD, and optimize these (goes under performance actually). Quite many planes have several hundred thousand polygons at distances where you dont even come close to see that amount of detail.

[Rushx]

New MP netcode - up to 100 player smooth gameplay!

Create DCS World SD client budget PC s maximum 8 GB ram use - more player play this game, not only moneyed players!

In game voice communication - enough red and blue side only or 4 group!

Su 27/33, J 11A MP Datalink 4 group!

VULKAN API!

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry bad english!

Edited October 5, 2018 by Rushx

[Eight Ball]

+1 for performance

[bell_rj]

Performance can be managed in the interim (by reducing settings) so I'd ensure that gets some love but not exclusively to the detriment of:

 

 

Spotting, spotting and then spotting on 1440p+ displays

Combat and flight AI

Damage model

Missile modelling (although that seems to be well in hand thankfully)

Dedicated server and MP netcode improvements

ATC

Dynamic weather

[Andryl]

1. AI
   First, its capacity in performing orders and work in team
   Second, reduce its god-like combat awareness
   Third, reduce its advantage due to the SFM
   
2. ATC
   
3. Dynamic weather and clouds
   
   

[Reflected]

1) Performance, especially in VR. Other games run better with slightly higher settings

2) DM - I know it's coming

3) AI

[joca133]

1) Performance, 2) AI, 3) ATC, 4) Weather, 5) More AI vehicles and buildings.

[Outlaw24]

Performance, HUD Fonts, AMPCD export, ATC

[draconus]

1. AI - they crash a lot for no reason, wingman choose targets badly, burn fuel too much, fly weird circles and jumps...

2. ATC - doesn't respond to take off requests, doesn't control traffic, too simplified yet not working sometimes...

3. Performance - too much Vram use, low settings make cockpits unreadable.

4. Night lighting esp. at the airbases.

Edited October 5, 2018 by draconus

[VZ_342]

type what you think is urgent to be fixed.

 

 

- general Gamebreakers

- MP issues

 

- broken Missions

- broken Campaigns

- broken Comms

- Performance Issues

etc...

 

 

Whatever you think DCS need to have fixed to make it a better Sim for you.

 

 

 

 

Bit

 

Obviously, "general gamebreakers" first, since nothing else qualifies as "a whole (game)". Anything that causes a CTD should be the high priority (if it can be duplicated by ED/3rd party).

 

Using that same thought process, a programming glitch that's just a glitch should be low priority, but a problem that (for example) prevents one from finishing a campaign or mission should be higher priority.

 

Performance issues should be whatever does the greatest good for the most players..."most players" don't have a super-high end $5,000 gaming computer, and with that in mind could benefit from a goal of moderate mid-game performance tweaking.

 

just my 0.02

[Shimonu]

Obviously, "general gamebreakers" first, since nothing else qualifies as "a whole (game)". Anything that causes a CTD should be the high priority (if it can be duplicated by ED/3rd party).

 

Using that same thought process, a programming glitch that's just a glitch should be low priority, but a problem that (for example) prevents one from finishing a campaign or mission should be higher priority.

 

Performance issues should be whatever does the greatest good for the most players..."most players" don't have a super-high end $5,000 gaming computer, and with that in mind could benefit from a goal of moderate mid-game performance tweaking.

 

just my 0.02

 

 

I really agree. The crashes and erroneous behaviour is the most annoying to me. If you've spent 15-20 minutes to gather buddies and you've gotten into the air and the game crashes then it's a huge disappointment. The same with the mission editor. I've had it corrupt one of my missions. That's work just wasted.

 

 

About performance, well DCS is a very niched game and the point is to have high fidelity simulations. Of course the game should be improved if possible but it should be understood that it's not always possible.

[Capn kamikaze]

AI.

[discwalker]

crashes, freezes, memory usage

[doctor3030]

1. Dynamic campaign

2..xx Everything else

[animaal]

To repeat post above, a dynamic campaign.

 

 

I appreciate that's tough to implement, so something I'd love to see in the interim would be a "dynamic mission".

 

 

This would be a single dynamically(randomly?)-created mission with a specific target. The user would use the mission editor to create the flight packages, set up waypoints, ToTs, etc. The enemies would largely be invisible at this stage.

 

 

After that, the user gets to fly the mission from cold-startup.

[Frederf]

It's a good question. The best experience is sensitive to little things and everything builds to a whole.

 

 

But for major sticking points I think:

Performance consistency - I'm always amazed at how well my mid-range PC runs DCS 90% of the time but the other 10% it's frozen on loading some huge map texture or cell or otherwise the game freezes for several seconds. This is a dreaded aspect of DCS, at any time it can just lock up and chug in stark contrast to how it performs most times.

 

 

AI - The AI on ground, in air, against you, helping you, they all need a lot more attention because they are so much of the core experience. It's silly for a 300nm RWR contact to fully inform an AI as to identity. Radar and visual spotting is out of control. A change of formation involving small shifts shouldn't send wingmen into a slit-S that takes 10 min to close from.

 

 

Yeah weather and graphics and ATC and everything else is important but isn't really core gameplay.

[Xxx]

As. Digital Combat Simulator, for a single player.

 

1. AI. My wingman/flight obaying instructions, not creaming themselves into terrain obstacles and using air to ground/air to air weapons reasonably! Enemy AI in possession of flight models that reflect the aircraft they are in, rather than superhuman manouverability and detection ability. Selection of AI as "average" to mean "average". Many years ago, the Black Shark wingmen were surprisingly good. Since then things have gone down hill? I am lucky if my wingman in in the Viggen or Mirage carry out an attack order. They either crash, fly in circles or RTB.

 

If I mention weather, ATC, night lighting...then that's a lot of development for the base platform. Inevitably, detailed cloud layers, weather, dynamic lighting will affect frame rates and performance. Without some sort of engine re write? Personally, for a combat simulator, weapons systems and AI performance is more important.

 

If I want to fly about pretty landscapes I will fire up P3d. When I want to create complex combat missions and fly them in anger, it must be DCS!

 

Regards.

[Fri13]

Whatever you think DCS need to have fixed to make it a better Sim for you.

 

I would take the gameplay content first. Changes/additions like:

• Infantry teams, squads and platoons instead single soldier. So we can have thousands of infantry on the map. Shouldn't be difficult really as we can totally avoid individual AI and make a groups be like in RTS games where individuals goes to specific locations and form a basic formations for attack, movement etc.
   
  
• A crews to the vehicles, so we could see crews to run out of the vehicles before destruction.
   
  
• A better physics for main ground vehicles, like detracked, cannon damages, hull penetration etc.
   
  
• A AI moral for the vehicle crews, so they can be frightened out of the vehicles, they get stunned, simulation of some of them getting injured or killed so vehicle operational capability slows down etc. Just like in the RTS games.
   
  
• A huge improvement to ground units by adding a AI functionality to their operation. It would be total overhaul of everything in DCS. A simplified RTS kind ground units commanding in 3D camera view, a combination for military commands to gameplay so instead drawing routes, you tell them where to go at what time, on what direction enemy will come, what are the engagement ranges and zones, and then what are the primary, secondary and tertiary positions. Rules of engagements, rules of withdraw etc. That to get RTS gamers to invest to DCS ground war, where we could start to have hundreds/thousands of the vehicles going around the map.
   
  
• A new logic simulator for the intelligence and communications. If one group unit gets attacked, not all units in group might know it right away, until it is informed. A one group engaged somewhere doesn't mean everyone knows it right away, but there is a delays that radio communication working (unless jammed, killed, destroyed etc) and you might have "fog of war" around your troops too that you don't know exactly what is happening somewhere unless you go there to observe it. So changing the todays RTS gameplay style to such that player doesn't know everything own troops knows, but player only knows what he can see on own area and know what his own controlled troops knows (so multiplayer RTS game requires communication, updates etc).
  
• This AI automation as well includes that if you command some units to advance, they don't blindly obey you but they do try to maneuver to better position, get the simultaneous shots on enemy, pull back to cover and try to preserve their lives and operational conditions. More like in the Close Combat game series where you might lose control of the units, as you are not directly commanding them but indirectly, and you hope their training, moral etc gets them through the task you tell them to do.
   
  
• A one ultimate AI redesign for everything. where DCS is implemented with multi-level and multiple individual AI's that each of them are responsible to own tasks in the military command structure. Instead one AI doing everything, there are AI for logistics, one AI for the intelligence, one AI for engineering, one AI for strategy (main AI) and then own AI's for tactics for specific platoons/companies. Add a hexagonal map overlay to DCS maps and let the AI play the dynamic campaign against each others. First to plan a strategy what are important routes, cities/towns/areas and then gather intelligence by recon from them. Decide what companies sent where for defence/attack and then start to prepare supply routes etc to get there etc. The multi-level AI is such that each AI is very much simplified and designed to do only their task, so example the supply officer doesn't decide where troops go, but only can limit what troops gets the fuel, ammunition etc based priorities, distances, routes etc. So you can see supply colonna moving on roads or railways to locations enemy has secured for themselves. You can find recon units going to patrols around the secured areas, go deeper to unknown areas and even prepare some areas where enemy is to get intelligence for the attack. Then simple tactics AI with "rock-paper-scissors" logic kind where you don't send a CAS aircraft against a SAM, but you send a attack aircraft or even SEAD. You don't send fighter against a ship but Anti-Ship capable aircraft. If there is a MBT platoon near the protected bridge, you need to send three MBT platoons against it with the artillery support and attack aircrafts etc. Even the old Age of Empires II game did this basic thing, recon check what you have capability to build and then counter them with corresponding units and send them there. If there was no intelligence, generic units were sent to find it out.
  

 

That as the main changes/improvement to DCS. RTS game part to it so we can have thousands of RTS game fans building the missions, making the war where virtual pilots could fly and fight. Someone could really be a supply helicopter pilot, do the evacuations etc. No need for complex mission editor and mission designers as there could be real time players doing strategies for daily jobs or even just weekly tasks.

 

If I would touch something for the visuals, it would be:

 

• The weather system. Just add the good clouds, so we can see the complex cloud formations, fly around them and enjoy to search enemy between cloud pillars and buffs etc. Get there more different kind cloud formations so we can have rain from just large clouds instead full sky being one cloud coverage.
   
  
• And most importantly, randomly generated (to map, not to each individual player) ground clutter. So rocks, small trees, bushes, creeks, crop fields etc that are there to hide infantry, hide ground vehicles, make spotting more difficult as you can't separate a concealed MBT next to forest line.
  

 

It would make the ground troops task more important to get them signal you where the targets are as you can't spot them from 2km altitude with naked eye so easily, or even not by using thermal cameras etc. You can't just launch a IR guided missile to something that doesn't reflect enough IR signal.

 

If the game is pretty, and there is challenge for gameplay wise (WW2 era fighters or just any cold war aircraft with lower tier radar or lack of radar, to ground attack aircrafts pilots to find visually the target that is stationary, vs one that is moving or easy to spot).

[Flagrum]

Maybe it's my (lacking) english language capabilities, but the thread title asks for "fixes" as in bug fixes, not for new features?

 

And bug fixes are certainly necessary - to make features work as they were intended. Not adding new (also not bug-free) features...

[gorzasty]

1. VR optymization

2. AI as the whole

3. Vietnam map ;)

 

Wysłane z mojego SM-G935F przy użyciu Tapatalka

[Schmidtfire]

In my opinion. Nr1 priority. Updates should not break modules, weapons or systems that works.

 

It is a vicious circle that are not good for players or developers who need to spend a lot of dev time to support modules that breaks.

 

Even worse is when it happens to older modules, as they are in general not prioritized...