What do these letters and numbers mean?

[PoorOldSpike]

When I place units in the editor, they have these entries (circled) automatically assigned to them.

Are the entries important? Should we leave them alone or - gulp- just delete them as unwanted clutter?

 

[randomTOTEN]

try a google search of the acronyms

[PoorOldSpike]

Thanks, yeah I know what the abbrevs stand for (Tactical Air Nav System/ Enhanced Position Location Report System/ Close Air Suppt) but what do they actually DO in the game?

[Frederf]

A lot of these can be seen by adjusting the values and seeing what the response is.

 

Activates a TACAN beacon on the unit, inside the () are the details of how to activate the beacon: bearing mode, channel, ID letters, unit in the group. EPLRS is enhanced position location reporting system, a method of saying "this is where I am" on datalink. CAS is an ongoing task to provide close air support.

 

The -a shows that this is a feature which spans multiple waypoints. The first waypoint that has it won't have the -a and the following which continue it will.

 

They do things so deleting them will have effects. If you're flying an F-5 and won't ever see datalink then you won't care if a group uses EPLRS or not. If you don't plan on using TACAN with that unit then it won't matter. Otherwise it will. Tasking matters because it tells AI what to do.

[randomTOTEN]

but what do they actually DO in the game?

What does wikipedia say they do?;)

[PoorOldSpike]

A lot of these can be seen by adjusting the values and seeing what the response is.

 

Activates a TACAN beacon on the unit, inside the () are the details of how to activate the beacon: bearing mode, channel, ID letters, unit in the group. EPLRS is enhanced position location reporting system, a method of saying "this is where I am" on datalink. CAS is an ongoing task to provide close air support.

 

The -a shows that this is a feature which spans multiple waypoints. The first waypoint that has it won't have the -a and the following which continue it will.

 

They do things so deleting them will have effects. If you're flying an F-5 and won't ever see datalink then you won't care if a group uses EPLRS or not. If you don't plan on using TACAN with that unit then it won't matter. Otherwise it will. Tasking matters because it tells AI what to do.

 

Thanks, I tried deleting them as an experiment but it apparently never made a blind bit of difference, the mission proceeded as normal without a hitch.

So I'm assuming they're only really meant for hardcore simmers/ wargamers/ mission creators to fine-tune things and not for mere mortals like me, so as a compromise I won't delete them or mess with them, I might as well just leave them alone..:)

[Zweistein000]

 

Thanks, I tried deleting them as an experiment but it apparently never made a blind bit of difference, the mission proceeded as normal without a hitch.

So I'm assuming they're only really meant for hardcore simmers/ wargamers/ mission creators to fine-tune things and not for mere mortals like me, so as a compromise I won't delete them or mess with them, I might as well just leave them alone..:)

 

Not really. Hardcore simmers and/or mission deigners can use lua scripts to dynamically influence these and augument the AI behaviour to be more realistic.

 

But theese are pretty basic and any mission designer should learn how to use them. The reason you might not have seen a difference is because you arent usin tacan or datalink fot EPLRS or you either gave the AI a different taks that supperseeded CAS or it simply didn't have any fround targets to kill (or weapons to kill with).

[PoorOldSpike]

 

Not really. Hardcore simmers and/or mission deigners can use lua scripts to dynamically influence these and augument the AI behaviour to be more realistic.

 

But theese are pretty basic and any mission designer should learn how to use them. The reason you might not have seen a difference is because you arent usin tacan or datalink fot EPLRS or you either gave the AI a different taks that supperseeded CAS or it simply didn't have any fround targets to kill (or weapons to kill with).

 

Yes I'll have to make an effort to learn scripting and stuff because the major downside of DCS for me at the moment is the fact that my created missions play the same boring predictable way every time with no surprises.

If I knew how to assign random starting locations to units and random appearance chances, every mission would be refreshingly different every time i play it.

Some guys tried to help me with it a few weeks ago but the problem is I hate computers with a passion and trying to learn gives me a headache.

By contrast, some other wargames/ sims are dead easy to randomise, but lack DCS's sensational graphics..:)

[dorianR666]

Thanks, yeah I know what the abbrevs stand for (Tactical Air Nav System/ Enhanced Position Location Report System/ Close Air Suppt) but what do they actually DO in the game?

 

there is a PDF manual installed with the game, it describes it all in detail.

open \Doc\DCS User Manual EN 2020.pdf

 

for example the EPLRS command is explained on page 269

[Ramsay]

So I'm assuming they're only really meant for hardcore simmers/ wargamers/ mission creators to fine-tune things and not for mere mortals like me, so as a compromise I won't delete them or mess with them, I might as well just leave them alone..:)

 

The Mission Editor adds "advance waypoint actions" to give units their appropriate AI behaviour i.e.

 

• "CAS -a" tells an ai A-10C to fly a CAS mission.

• "CAP -a" tells an ai F/A-18C to fly a CAP mission

• "Activate TACAN (BRG,1X,"TKR",unit"") -a" tells the ship group to activate a tacan beacon and the channel and callsign to use (as unit "" is blank, this group's tacan won't work until edited with a unit name).

• "EPLRS (on) -a" tells a unit to turn on it's data link i.e. SADL so it shows on the A-10C TAD and HUD as a friendly green "X", AWACS to transmit Link-16 contact info to a F/A-18C, etc., etc.

• "AWACS -a" tell a unit it's an AWACS

• "Follow "Mi8 Transport Group"" tells a one group to follow another i.e. Mi-24's escorting an Mi-8 transport group.

• etc, etc.

 

While the default lines can be ignored most of the time, they can give valuable clues when the AI doesn't behave as expected or a tacan/dl isn't working.

 

[Zweistein000]

 

Yes I'll have to make an effort to learn scripting and stuff because the major downside of DCS for me at the moment is the fact that my created missions play the same boring predictable way every time with no surprises.

If I knew how to assign random starting locations to units and random appearance chances, every mission would be refreshingly different every time i play it.

Some guys tried to help me with it a few weeks ago but the problem is I hate computers with a passion and trying to learn gives me a headache.

By contrast, some other wargames/ sims are dead easy to randomise, but lack DCS's sensational graphics..:)

 

Random starting/spawning locations do require some Lua skills. However semi-random events are easy to do with ingame GUI triggers:

Let's say you want an intercept to activate 40 min into the mission.

Place 3 groups down.

Tick late activated on all of them.

Go to triggers and create one. Set the condition to time is more and set 2400 as the nimver. This is 2400 second aka 40 min.

Set action as Set Flag 1 to random value between 1 and 3.

Create a new trigger. Set condition to flag 1 equals 1.

Set action as Group Activate and select o e of the three groups.

Clone this trigger 2x and change the conditon to Flag 1 equal 2 or Flag 1 equals 3.

Change the action to activate group 2 or group 3.

 

There you go. You now have a rudimentary semi-random spawn that happens 40 minafter mission start.