Ground units (what do you think?)

[Avimimus]

Should we hope or fear that ED will keep going "slower and lower"?

 

These polls will be going up in groups of three once every two weeks.

To comment/design future polls see: http://forum.digitalcombatsimulator.com/showthread.php?t=198

 

[Eagle Driver]

My opinion is that ED should stick to modelling aircraft, all the aircraft, and nothing but the aircraft. If we want ground-unit combat, we can get Steel Beasts which is already a great sim, even though I've never played it. If we really want a combined experience like this, perhaps it would be interesting to synchronize with the makers of SB for DCS and some future SB to work together online. I'm not holding my breath on that one, it would be an insane amount of work to get two different engines to work together like that I'd imagine.

[zone 5]

For almost everyone here, the preference is aircraft, fast movers especially and obviously ground movers. The fear is "does ground units that are playable come at the cost of delays in fielding MIg 29s, Hornets, Apaches, Hinds and A10s?" IMHO, most here fear this and so will answer accordingly.

[Haegar]

Ground units? In this low-res surrounding? Booooooooring ....

[RedTiger]

I voted "if they can be done realistically", and I think thats really, really important. IMHO, I think it will be very difficult.

 

Look at Steel Beasts. Isn't there only one single aerial threat modeled in that sim? If I recall, there's the Hind, but thats it. I think the reason is because the developers didn't want aircraft to hinder the simulation as a training tool. They must have been fully aware of how vulnerable tanks were to air attack. They must have also figured that air superiority to protect the tanks was out of the scope of a tank sim to be used by the army. What good is a tank sim as a training tool if your students' tank keeps getting fried by a plane or helicopter every time? They won't live long enough to learn how to employ the tank!

 

Tanks in FC are like cannon fodder. Unless they are protected by S to A stuff, they're very vulnerable. You can easily take them out with a Vikhr from long range. In order for DCS to have tanks, there either has to be player or very good AI planes along with player or good AI operated Shilkas/Tunguska type vehicles providing air superiority to protect the tanks. The other option is having no planes or helos at all.

[Eagle Driver]

You forgot another option, which is to have human-operated AAA and SAMs. DCS: Patriot Battery anyone?

[159th_Viper]

You forgot another option, which is to have human-operated AAA and SAMs. DCS: Patriot Battery anyone?

 

Now here I'd have to strongly agree, although my personal preference would be the Tor.

[Boberro]

IMO ground units with this poooooooooooooooooooooooor graphics of ground, buildings, trees, whole textures ect will be competely crap. Better do perfect planes, next choice would be ground units but not before super - modelled planes\helis with REAL avionics.

[Malleus]

ED should stick with aircrafts. IMO.

[britgliderpilot]

IMO ground units with this poooooooooooooooooooooooor graphics of ground, buildings, trees, whole textures ect will be competely crap. Better do perfect planes, next choice would be ground units but not before super - modelled planes\helis with REAL avionics.

 

I'd go along with that :)

 

 

I'd defend the graphics a bit - when you've got this large an area to cover you can't render it all in perfect detail. ArmA's pretty good at ground level, but if you get up above it in an aircraft, you see how much they've had to limit the view distance to get any semblance of decent framerates.

 

I suppose you could get around that - you could set up the install to choose some very highly detailed textures and 3D models for the ground modules with a very short draw distance, but less detailed textures and 3D models for the air modules with a much longer draw distance.

 

Now that, in theory, could work. Would need a lot of effort by skinners and modellers . . . but as long as the terrain map's highly detailed enough to be common, it'd be the same engine.

 

I still think they should do aircraft first. And against an aircraft with guided missiles you'd be screwed. But anyway ;)

[Wdigman]

I agree with Britgliderpilot.

 

With a module based sim you should be able to have a SOCOM like module where you can be infantry or a tank commander and have graphics as good as competing sims. When playing online an infantryman could be looking at the same building as I but the resolution would be different. The model could also be different whereas in BS I see a house in a field, the infantry man sees the same house but the model in his module allows him to go inside and take cover or have a shoot out with other players.

 

Same goes if that infantryman calls me in for airsupport. I fly over trees and drop some munitions on a convoy we both see trucks and trees but they could be in differing levels of detail.

 

Since this is the same engine and all the place holders for equipment are the same they would just use different models and textures.

 

I bet this is the interntion of DCS, from a marketing standpoint it makes sence since there is not a modern combat sim using all branches of the military as DCS could essentually do. At least I dont know of one. The first person shooter market is huge and tapping into that could make our flight sims much much better.

 

Well enough of my businees side...

[Avimimus]

The current numbers are 20 nay, 19 yeah.

[Weta43]

IMO ground units with this poooooooooooooooooooooooor graphics of ground, buildings, trees, whole textures ect will be competely crap.

 

I don't feel you've really thought through the 'modular & upgrade-able' idea for DCS ?

 

If you were to leave the graphics engine, LODs & Textures as is, then yes the graphics are at the low end of what you would chose to run in a ground combat sim (though as BGP said, there are ways that you could get around most of that).

 

But - if in one of the upcoming module releases they incorporate a new game engine, there's no reason why they couldn't make it capable of providing adequate environments to both air & ground units (again see BGP's post).

 

Would it be a good idea to add a ground war element ?

Depends how they do it .. I guess if they got the mix of aircraft right, and then chose the right ground units -

Maybe add a Tungusta first ?

Has the capacity to attack ground units using either guns or missiles (Demo vids show Tungusta attacking stationary objects on the ground), and can provide SHORAD for itself & other ground units, thereby making sure they achieve the group objective...

 

The idea of an actual combat SIM (as opposed to a light game) that integrates human land and air forces must surely have an appeal - especially if suitable network code can be built to allow a large number of units to co-exist.

 

This idea had Pages written about it on forum.lockon.ru, and it seems to me that the obvious thing to do would be for ED to enter a partnership with another company where they agreed enough common elements & development rules to allow the sim to move forward, then one side developed the ground war, and the other the air, and between them they develop the software to integrate the two (Make a dedicated server the only place where Human controlled air & land war interconnect)

The modular system behind DCS seems to fit ideally with this - as described not everyone has all the components available, but owning one component lets you keep technologically up to date & interact on the web with everyone else.

The ground war could be another component that meshes into the larger DCS environment.

If all you have bought is a Tunguska module, that's all you can actually play in - play offline against AI, but go online & you can play in your Tungusta against other Human controlled ground vehicles and human controlled aircraft.

Buy a plane module & you can now fly on & offline.

Because the mission files would have to be interpretable by both underlying engines both communities would be developing missions & campaigns (and if players can just take any slot occupied by a unit they have the module for )

 

anyway - Blah, Blah, Blah...

 

Could be a good idea if done right, and a profit sharing partnership could allow both sides to move forward reasonably quickly...

[HungaroJET]

Interesting poll question...

 

...but YES...gimme the BATTLESIM :lol:

 

Accurate model of M1(xy) and/or T-80/90 would B phenomenal :thumbup:

 

[Avimimus]

The partnership strategy would be a good approach and could make it possible (especially if both groups understood the limits/characteristics inherent in the other type of sim).

 

Personally though, I would be happy with enabling controllable ground units (which are already used in debugging) and adding simple, first person, iron-sights.

 

I remember that people made drivable tanks in Fighters Anthology. They flew one metre above the ground, could be yawed slowly, and had a non-controllable turret (essentially if you pulled the trigger the weapon would fire itself in the vague direction of the enemy).

 

The thing is, believe it or not, it was actually fun!

[plane00]

MY thinking has some change

 

If same level of realism with DCS, and better than GTR( racing sim),

 

I agree with adding road-based vehicles with mechanism of gasoline or diesel engine..................

 

In fact, I want car simulation these days..........

 

 

(I'm not good at English..)

[Kuky]

stick with aircraft.. at least for good forseable future... who knows what future might bring... some people have good ideas in this thread about how you might have same engine for where objects are etc, but very different graphics engine depending on player perspective (weather he's in air, ground, tank etc)

Edited October 16, 2008 by Kuky

[mibsk]

My belief is that DCS has it's name with a reason: Digital Combat Series ... says nothing about 'air' only ... With new game engine (or new after new), computer power doubled every here and then, network bandwidth doubled here and then ... we might see something very complex (complex in detail too, actualy detail and accuracy is the measurement for approving by ED/adding thirdth party modules in DCS ... so it'll give some boost to evolution of DCS) in next couple of years ... 5 ? 10 ? who cares ... ;-))) ... but I'm sure we will ...

 

... and army deals might become more common with complexity ... where they can simulate whole theatre of war ...

 

(Saw some UAV in the DCS videos ... predator ? ... getting the feel ... ;-) )

[NotiA10]

i think and especially referring to us groundpounders, human controlled ground vehicles or groups of them in combination with the highly detailed flight models ed is produceing, will just add this special touch, type of unpredicability and intelligence needed to make it sim of sims

 

my 2 cents

 

cheers

[Fahrenheit007]

I think ground units in DCS will be an absolutely no go.

 

If you want something like Ground Units plz play ArmA 2 (has a nice graphic by the way), but please let Digital Combat Series a Helo/Plane Sim

 

 

Fahrenheit

[NotiA10]

I think ground units in DCS will be an absolutely no go.

 

If you want something like Ground Units plz play ArmA 2 (has a nice graphic by the way), but please let Digital Combat Series a Helo/Plane Sim

 

 

Fahrenheit

 

 

are you referring to me ?

[BattleMetalChris]

MY thinking has some change

 

If same level of realism with DCS, and better than GTR( racing sim),

 

I agree with adding road-based vehicles with mechanism of gasoline or diesel engine..................

 

In fact, I want car simulation these days..........

 

 

(I'm not good at English..)

 

If you want a car-sim that drives ultra-realistically, try Live For Speed: http://www.lfs.net

[Fahrenheit007]

are you referring to me ?

 

I'm referring to DCS in general

[element1108]

warbirds has playable ground units and still 98% choose to fly the planes. Otvwould be cool buy might spread the genre too thin. I really like the idea though just not sure it's something I personally would like dcs.

[Weta43]

It's the obvious end state, just a question of how far off that end state is...

(years, or a decade or two...)