The "universal spawn point"

[Tom_]

Why?

Sandbox

This idea comes from a inconvenience I have had for quite a while now. I like to make a "sandbox" mission for every map. Just for me and my buddies. So what I would do is put 6 of every playable aircraft in the mission. You might already see the problem. There are almost no (if there are some) airfields that can accommodate for that many aircraft. If we make a quick calculation we know that there are roughly 40 playable aircraft (I don't have access to the game at the moment so I cant count in game). If we take that 40 number and multiply it by 6 we get a whopping 240 aircraft that need to be placed. No airfield in DCS can take that many airplanes.

 

Multiplayer

DCS is a simulator. So DCS is not about balance. Some servers however, want a fun PVP experience. This means that some sort of balance needs to exist. These days its done with scripts. But that could break and prolonged support is not something you can expect. There is also the problem of liveries. Lets say a server doesn't mind Turkish F-16s flying about next to the US F-16s. If this wants to be implemented right now the server owner needs to add sperate Turkish F-16 spawns. This means that players that want to fly US F-16s cannot use those spawns.

 

My solution

Briefly explained

A new "universal spawn point" (USP from now on). This spawn can be edited in quite some detail. It would gain its own settings.

There would also be 2 separate USPs. One for fixed wing and one for helicopters. You can also select aircraft types that can spawn on that point or a simple "ALL" button.

Country selection

Within this USP you can set what countries can use that spawn. You will also have broad options like "ALL COALLITION MEMBERS". This option allows all countries that belong to that side to use that spawn point. If you only want a few specific countries to use that spawn point you can select them individually. So now everyone can fly in their F16 with their nation's roundel on the side whilst still using the same airfield!

Banned weapons

Not every server wants all weapons to be used.

(This screenshot was taken from a normal aircraft spawn and it would not be green)
A new tab would be added where the mission maker could ban weapons. But not just flat-out ban them! They also could set a maximum amount. This would prevent stuff like a F-18 with 12 AIM-120s. But still allow them to carry them. If you want to go all the way you could even make it so you can set specific pylons.

For players trying to rearm it could look something like this:

This would indicate that the weapon is not allowed on the airframe. This is dynamic because if only 2 AIM-120s are allowed you can select them in the beginning, but when you have selected the maximum amount (or what you want to select would go over that amount) it would go red.

In preparation of a possible logistics implementation:

This picture could indicate the weapon is out of ammo. As you can see they are different enough so players wont confused them. If this image would better suit the role if displaying that its not allowed that's also good. Its just an early idea after all.

!Keep in mind I am in no way a graphics designer!

Quick bit about hit boxes

I have experienced spawning inside another plane. I don't know if its been patched or not. But if its not, this is my idea.

If the red box detects an aircraft that spawn will go to "inactive" and players will not be able to spawn there. If the yellow box detects an aircraft the player will be given a warning before spawning. The yellow box is there to inform the player if leaving the parking spot might be difficult. These boxes would be the size of the larges aircraft that can spawn there plus a bit. The yellow one would mainly extend more to the front.

Helicopters would have a slightly different hotbox. Their hotbox would go up higher.

And the normal spawns?

These would not effect normal spawns. This is mainly meant for multiplayer servers and sandbox missions. I don't think my idea is perfect. I do however think its a good place to start. I would like to make a helicopter base with only 10 spawns instead of (amount of helicopters * amount of players).

 

TL;DR

one spawn point that can spawn selected countries and aircraft types to make mission design easier. Can also limit weapons choice so PVP servers can balance without using scripts.

Edited January 2, 2021 by Tom_
Fixed some mistakes

[Northstar98]

So, something like mission editing in flight?

[Tom_]

1 hour ago, Northstar98 said:

So, something like mission editing in flight?

No it would be just in the mission editor. I will try to make a image to illustrate how it could look in the ME.

[Tom_]

I made a quick example of how it would look inside the ME.

This could be the "banned weapons" tab. The image on the map is just a placeholder. I will try to make more examples for the countries and aircraft tabs. This idea is still really young and would need a lot more thinking before it would be ready to be implemented. There are still some problems that would need to be fixed like radio channels. Ill try and come up with solutions for those as time goes on.

 

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

[Mars Exulte]

Yes, the current ME spawn system is at best antiquated and at worst a major ass pain. Just need a ''player spawn'' unit and we can tick boxes for whatever planes we want to allow to spawn there. That sorts out multiplayer.

 

For SP (or AI supported players), at the top, prior to the list of aircraft, just provide a simple <-> to set the number of wingmen who spawn (logically at the nearest available spawns so they all appear together).

 

Boom. Mission designing headaches solved.

Edited January 3, 2021 by zhukov032186

[Wrecking Crew]

Thank you for posting this idea Tom_

I have been voicing this idea for a while to my friends.  I call it a Universal Client Slot.

 

Airfield parking slots are already restricted to aircraft.  The very large aircraft can only go in certain slots.  Only very small fighters can fit in the reinforced covered slots on the Syria map.  There are helicopter-only slots.  There is already built-in logic for parking slot and aircraft compatibility.

 

So if there is a Blue airfield with Universal Client Slots then a client should be able to choose one of those slots and choose a Blue-coalition aircraft from their library (same goes for Red airfields and aircraft).  The aircraft would spawn as a (cold) Ramp Start.  The client would then need to bring up the Load Weapons window to select the loadout and livery options.  Weapons availability would be dependant upon that airfield's resources.

 

 

[Tom_]

On 1/4/2021 at 12:46 AM, Wrecking Crew said:

Thank you for posting this idea Tom_

I have been voicing this idea for a while to my friends.  I call it a Universal Client Slot.

 

Airfield parking slots are already restricted to aircraft.  The very large aircraft can only go in certain slots.  Only very small fighters can fit in the reinforced covered slots on the Syria map.  There are helicopter-only slots.  There is already built-in logic for parking slot and aircraft compatibility.

 

So if there is a Blue airfield with Universal Client Slots then a client should be able to choose one of those slots and choose a Blue-coalition aircraft from their library (same goes for Red airfields and aircraft).  The aircraft would spawn as a (cold) Ramp Start.  The client would then need to bring up the Load Weapons window to select the loadout and livery options.  Weapons availability would be dependant upon that airfield's resources.

 

 

I am glad you like my idea! I will keep improving it. I hope to have a semi fleshed out idea within a month or 2. A lot of work will still need to be done however before i am really confident in the idea though.

[MacGynan]

This is a fantastic idea. I have a similar issue. Trying to get all the aircraft in a MP mission is extremely hard. I have to end up removing some of the playable aircraft from the mission and still have to use multiple airfields to achieve only the most used aircraft. This issue will only get worse as more aircraft are added to DCS. 

 

Also the limited and banned weapons is a great idea. The amount of times I have gone through an airfield and deleted the supply of some weapons is insane. Thankfully you can copy to other airfields but no luck for ship. This sort of system would take some work on ED's part but would drastically improve the experience for mission makers and anyone who plays in MP and even in SP although not nearly as much as MP.

 

I have basically had a similar system in my head for years now but I’m glad that someone has taken the time to make a well thought out post about it.

[ghashpl]

I talked about it few months ago - it would greatly improved mission making and starting points on airfields. Right now we kinda need to manually add, place, and configure every single plane/group and in terms of bigger missions I'm running out of space to place them (for example I do not place FC3/trainers because on Khasab there's no place for them all)

I would add a little suggestion that apart from allowing/banning weapons for a plane/heli, the mission maker should allow/ban modules - for example I don't want to see Mig-15 on mission xyz.

[Maverick87Shaka]

On 1/2/2021 at 10:31 PM, Tom_ said:

I made a quick example of how it would look inside the ME.

This could be the "banned weapons" tab. The image on the map is just a placeholder. I will try to make more examples for the countries and aircraft tabs. This idea is still really young and would need a lot more thinking before it would be ready to be implemented. There are still some problems that would need to be fixed like radio channels. Ill try and come up with solutions for those as time goes on.

 

Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

The idea of an "USP" is really interesting, to me it will make easier for both new and experienced players navigate thought multiplayer slot list.
What I would like to add to your idea, it's something like a checkbox where you can select also what module are allowed. In this way mission editor ( and slot list ) can be "managed" to appear sorted by task/mission.
You can i.e. create CAP slot, tick F-18,F-16,F-14. Then a CAS slot for A-10 etc. ( and of course a shortcut to tick all available module, so you don't have to do it manually if you want all of them )

Since the growing number of module available the current slot system is becoming an issue, confusing and hard to maintain for mission and server designer. It will not be easy, I believe it's a major core change on the slot system, so I would like this slot refactory will be the opportunity to also make it "dynamically" editable during Mission Execution thought API/Scripts, like was done with the warehouse system right now.

Fly Safe!

Edited August 18, 2023 by Maverick87Shaka