Battlefield Productions - Third Party Content Provider, A vision for the future

[3WA]

On 1/5/2021 at 7:38 AM, Silver_Dragon said:

Has some "branches" into DCS Ground a little empty:

- HQs, Command Posts and vehicles.

- Signal equipment.
- Artillery (towed) and ammunitions
- Logistic assets vehicles, transports, transloaders, crates. Medical assets and personal.

- Enginering (earthwork, minelaying, briding and ferry).
- Base equipment (depots, ligistic, POL, Medical) 

- infantry

- fortifications and others field defenses.

- Airbone and aeromovile equipments tools (no planes or helos).

- Electronic Combat assets.

- WMD (Nuclear, Biological, Chemical) assets.

Of course vehicles, trains, UAVs and others assets.

 

Yes, this is a very good start.  Then, maybe you guys can start making some of it into DCS Level modules.  We all know this will take time.  We've been waiting YEARS for someone to retake up the Combined Arms effort.  It's really bare Earth down there.  Would be so nice to have new targets and assets to defend against.

 

Eh, sorry for double post.

On 1/5/2021 at 10:59 AM, Terzi said:

In that sense, I believe that a good quality army simulation is the key to expand this community and its target market.

Yep!  You could sell a LOT more copies!

 

Quote

I love the idea concerning properly simulated ground vehicles even though they would be mostly helpless against helos and fixed wings.

Heh, they made their trees solid now.  That and buildings.  All I need on Caucuses.

 

--------------------------------------------

 

To those who think everything can't be separate modules, it's been that way since 2008.  And it's worked fine.  This is not ARMA, and THANK GOD it isn't!

 

You can't just expect people to make things for nothing.  People got to eat and pay their bills.  If this was ARMA, it would have been dumped years ago.  Instead, it's ongoing.  Why?  Because we PAY to keep it going.  I myself don't have much money, and only two modules, which I really enjoy.  I don't even have a real HOTAS.  I use a an old RC controller which works pretty well.  But this sim keeps being developed because other people ARE buying multiple modules and I'm sure they will buy modules from this new Party as well.  I'll probably end up buying the new A-10C II, the F-16, and the F-18 eventually.  But what I really would like to see is new assets on the Ground, Vehicle modules, and FPS.  And of course, that will take more detailed maps, which we will also have to pay for.

 

It's been awesome watching something being built which a lot of us have waited our whole lives for.

Edited January 8, 2021 by 3WA

[Devil 505]

4 hours ago, SparxOne said:

@robert.clark251 I can totally understand your passion and excitement for what you are putting forward and wishing to see happen ingame but i feel you are really looking too far at it.

 

Let me explain. I feel i can connect to your feelings from what you are describing with the whole infantry thing combined with the armor and air part. This sounds excellent on paper/ in theory, i would also love to see in my life a game that can correctly combine the 3 aspects together on a scale and especially simulating it as good as DCS makes it for the aircrafts for now ! I've been a long time gamer and played all sorts of games, ranging from FPS ones, RTS, Simulators, you name it. While I always had that special part in my heart for the air simulations, i've always also enjoyed good FPS' trying to include the 3/4 branches into one game and that is (Air, Sea, Land, Boots), yet always focusing on one or 2 of these, it was fun and enjoyable to have them mixed all together somehow. 

 

The unfortunate reality is that i believe the technical side of creating such a dream would be very hard to put in place at least for now with current tech, i could very much be wrong as i'm no professional in game developpment but from the little knowledge i have of it, many technical sides need to be taken into account before being able to combine Air, Sea, Land and infantry together, especially on a scale and detail/simulation DCS does it for now. This is probably why none have done it to this day, at least to the point of recreating something authentic and as close to reality as possible.

Computers/Servers probably wouldn't be able to handle such a highly detailed environment combining Air, Sea, Land and Boots on maps the size DCS brings to us. From all those games i've played to this day, there will always be a side of it sacrificed to allow one to be more indepth or having more focus to it. The best examples coming to mind are Arma, War Thunder, Battlefield series. These games have almost the full set combined yet one or more of those branches has been sacrificed because of necessity to allow the focused ones to be viable in terms of performance and playability i believe. Arma has always had their focus turned on the boots on the ground, yet having armor and air in the game, these 2 were sacrificed especially the air one feeling really bad (At least for the airplanes, not so much the helicopters). Plus not mentionning the size of the maps really not adapted for proper air warfare.

War thunder on the other hand had their focus on the air part at least at their beginning, while not raising the bar to any level i would consider a simulator, they ended up bringing Armor and Sea warfare to it, but never infantry. Probably once again because of technical impracticality.

Battlefield are probably the only ones who brought the 3 branches together in a somehow equal playing field, that said the infantry, armor and air. Of coarse the 3 are very much arcade but the 3 are balanced well enough to fight all together, that would be my point.

 

The points to remeber here are :

-Arma did a very decent job for the infantry part, i've read you and understand your point of view on it but Arma still to this day has managed something no others did, and i'm looking at many different points when saying that, don't want to name them all because too long. The Armor (Vehicles) is fun and pretty decent for its level of arcadyness i would say. The air is simply bad if you take the planes, but like said somewhere above the helicopters can be very fun and semi realistic if you fly with advanced physics for them.

-War Thunder has Air, Land and sea but really has no feel of simulation to it appart from the "fake" gamemode they consider to be simulator (In the following lines, i'll be talking about War Thunder as if you were playing with the "simulator" gamemode). The tank gameplay while still closer to an arcade feel can be debated to still be fun and engaging somehow, while the air part just feels like your plane suddenly has weight and something related to lift and engine power. Yet infantry is none existant, probably because it would be too hard to manage any server running 40 player controlled tanks, 20 player controlled planes and let's say 80 player controlled infantrymen all at the same time

-Lastly, Battlefield. While totally arcade in each category, i just wanted to highlight the fact that they've acheived the combination of all 3 aspects because of simplicity and balance of each units. Each map is relatively small with limits you cannot surpass without dying, the amount of vehicles is a fixed number same as the slots for infantry, all this allowing for that mix to work out seemlessly.

 

Either way, my idea here is simply that i don't believe even in the next 5-8 years DCS has the possibility to bring infantry to a standard you would call a simulation or at least what you seem to be wanting in terms of details "I want a true scale, realistic infantry/SOCOM sim where weapons are high fidelity and represent their real world counterparts, along with all associated gear and uniforms for their prospective time periods.".

DCS servers/and most PCs already struggle to handle 40-50 players at once so imagine the amount of players it would need to handle if you want to simultaneously mix the planes, helicopters, tanks and the infantry to an amount that would allow any decent combined operations...

 

Just to be clear, I wouldn't mind seeing controllable infanty in DCS, even to a basic standard, but the amount of work that would be needed to make it even remotely immersive as the planes is once again i believe far from achievable. One thing that strikes me first is simply the terrain itself, as an infantry you spend 99% of your time on the ground slower than anyone else in a vehicle, yet relying on the terrain for a lot of the work you'll be doing "Attacking something, ambushing, defending, hiding, etc", the terrain in DCS is missing a massive amount of detail to make that even remotely viable to carry any proper work with infantry. The mesh of the terrain is very basic, trees and bushes are very basic again, natural obstacles like rocks or anything that would either allow you to take cover, hide or block you from passing once again are totally absent in DCS, imagine bringing the maps in DCS with their insane sizes to a level of detail adapted for infantry (Arma style) ? All this works well from the air because those details are mostly unnoticed while flying at 450knt at 5000feet, and simply because it would take an unnecessary amount of ressource from the computers for very little pleasure. 

 

I'm sure you understand all of this and hopefully you did think of it too, but i just doubt Battlefiled Prod could create such a universe within the airplane universe we already have, especially without a great deal of involvement from ED themselves (And I'm pretty certain ED has no interest in dedicating the amount of ressources needed to allow this).

 

We are all allowed to dream and see big, but at the same time i like to stay realistic.

Let's allow them to work on the ground part of DCS as a whole for a start, allowing them to raise the bar to a higher level from what we have right now, anything they'd do would already be a massive upgrade considering how far back the ground warfare is in DCS.

 

Cheers @robert.clark251, i like your view and ideas to this but to me it's a bit of a pipe dream unfortunately.

 

Sparx,

 

I totally appreciate the feedback on my post brother.  I would have agreed with you on technology a year or so ago, but if you take into account the leaps and bounds we have come in such a short period of time, I think ED and third party Devs could shock us with their capabilities.  I will provide a few short examples, the first being the new cloud tech coming to DCS.  Good lord was I not expecting the breathtaking videos/pics they released and continue to release.  I also noticed Vulkan is scheduled to make its debut this year, which for me is massive, as I only play in VR.  I am hoping the performance will increase as good as they promise.  It looks like performance is a major focus this year.  It also looks like they are starting to focus on more multiplayer craft, bringing more people to one server.  In fact, every module scheduled for release this year is a two seater from ED.  If no one has seen it, check the latest new article released today (or yesterday) by ED.  First photo of the Apache in there.  Great detail on 2021 road map.  

 

The big technology jump I want to recognize is the server constraints you refer to.  If you look at Microsoft FS 2020, they have managed to pull off whole world technology streamed via a server to your computer.  Now I am not suggesting ED is in a position yet to accomplish something of this magnitude, but when it comes to server performance and capabilities, the tech is already there.  Look at Dual Universe "I am also a space nerd."  The French have astoundingly pulled off thousands of players running on one shard/server at once so it feel like one massive universe.  This is first person combat and space flight all on one server.  I firmly believe the technology already exists to make my suggestions a reality, it is a matter of integrating it into the existing DCS engine.  This is where I would defer to the devs to comment.  

 

I agree 100% with what you said on the other games.  I have played them all, but the arcade style and watered down level of detail when it comes to gear, weapons, and units kills it for me.  Not to mention most of these FPS games is kids just running around throwing grenades, jumping, and respawning to do it all over again.  I enjoyed playing them for a while but it becomes a bore and repeat of the same gameplay.  Not to mentions there is no real feeling of accomplishment at all.  I have played DCS since the first sim was released and have NEVER lost interest.  It is constant learning, training, and remembering how to operate the aircraft and incorporate the right tactics for the right mission.  This is what I want on the ground as well.

 

I hope for the both of us this comes sooner than later.  I really appreciate the feedback and keep it rolling.  Hopefully we give the devs things to consider and challenges to be accepted.  See you in the skies my friend.  

[Avimimus]

One thing I would be interested in is a ground unit (and maybe even some AI aircraft) set in the year 2000 if the Cold War had continued... so Objekt 195, 2S35, German 'Giraffe tank' SAM batteries, ADATs... It'd be really interesting and enough specs are known for a lot of these to exist as AI ground units.

[erniedaoage]

I personally would love some different asset packs, but in a combination with campaigns and missions for singleplayer and maybe multiplayer. Like someone suggested do some persian gulf or syria assets with all the right skins and get a campaign developer on board that you could sell your asset pack with maybe one campaign and some future campaigns of the same developer which would require the asset pack. Since i play mostly singleplayer and don't have much time to dive into the editor and set my own scenarios up, i completely rely on the user made content and dlc campaigns.

 

For everybody dreaming of a FPS side with everything like arma just better, maybe in 10-15 years time. You simply cannot build a map as huge as all the maps we have, with the same detail as an fps game. It's simply not possible just a little comparison, Battlefield looks so damn awesome if you compare it to arma, but battlefield is tiny compared to arma. arma is quite tiny compared to DCS, but the whole terrain looks so much better than dcs. There is a limit what you can achieve within our limited resources and with everything right now already in DCS i say it's not possible in the coming years. Right now playing a soldier in caucasus would be plain boring and feel worse than operation flashpoint played today. Flat liveless landscape, nothing to hide, nothing to enter and most of the stuff probably looks quite awful if you get to close to it. All those added calculations for everything not flying but still relying to the same physics will not be possible from my point of view. If you play arma for example and add an ai mod so the ai behaves much better and is more of a challenge, your game starts to lag if you add to many units. Add to many units in a firefight and it will lag and stutter because there are so many calculations going on.

[Devil 505]

29 minutes ago, erniedaoage said:

I personally would love some different asset packs, but in a combination with campaigns and missions for singleplayer and maybe multiplayer. Like someone suggested do some persian gulf or syria assets with all the right skins and get a campaign developer on board that you could sell your asset pack with maybe one campaign and some future campaigns of the same developer which would require the asset pack. Since i play mostly singleplayer and don't have much time to dive into the editor and set my own scenarios up, i completely rely on the user made content and dlc campaigns.

 

For everybody dreaming of a FPS side with everything like arma just better, maybe in 10-15 years time. You simply cannot build a map as huge as all the maps we have, with the same detail as an fps game. It's simply not possible just a little comparison, Battlefield looks so damn awesome if you compare it to arma, but battlefield is tiny compared to arma. arma is quite tiny compared to DCS, but the whole terrain looks so much better than dcs. There is a limit what you can achieve within our limited resources and with everything right now already in DCS i say it's not possible in the coming years. Right now playing a soldier in caucasus would be plain boring and feel worse than operation flashpoint played today. Flat liveless landscape, nothing to hide, nothing to enter and most of the stuff probably looks quite awful if you get to close to it. All those added calculations for everything not flying but still relying to the same physics will not be possible from my point of view. If you play arma for example and add an ai mod so the ai behaves much better and is more of a challenge, your game starts to lag if you add to many units. Add to many units in a firefight and it will lag and stutter because there are so many calculations going on.

Ernie,

 

While I do not necessarily disagree with DCS world's current state being poor for FPS combat or operations, I do believe the technology and capabilities of a third party dev or ED are available now to accomplish this sooner than later.  Just because we have not scene it done on a level of scale DCS has, does not mean it can not be done.  This is why I suggested ground units that were more geared towards frontline combat and not urban guerilla warfare right off the bat.  JTAC and infantry would be a good start.  Then when the buildings and towns are slowly starting to get a face lift, start working your special operations units into the scene who will be clearing houses and doing more guerilla work.  

 

Again, I would like to point out the single shard/server technology already in use by several other games.  They are able to accomplish thousands of players on a single server in one small area at a time, such as a city.  This technology is not widely in use yet but it is growing.  I still have faith if ED or a third party dev wanted to accomplish this with DCS, it can be done and not 10 to 15 years out, but probably more like 2 to 4.  We can only hope.  Like I said in my last post, I hope ED or a third party dev takes the challenge.  We have already scene great strides with DCS world that people said would not happen for 10 years such as the new weather coming this year, Jester AI was a crazy addition, and now multi engine/multi player positions in a single aircraft.  I would put money on it the next WW2 multiengine we see will be a B-25 or maybe A/B-26.  It also opens the door for the P-38.  Looking forward to the bright future of my favorite hobby.    

Edited January 9, 2021 by robert.clark251

[sergkar]

I think modelling any single one already existing ground vehicle in full would be a very good start. They are already in the game and can be used by everyone. Who buys the module could it enjoy in full sim. If you have, say, two from opposing factions one will see wether a ground community gets attracted.

 

I could see that for old DCS versions there exist drive courses for tanks and the like. All these user campaigns are abandoned for a long time. I'd like to see those fixed before opening yet another field.

 

If I remember correctly ED also wants to implement the damage model to ground vehicles.

[Xam06]

I would like to share my opinion on paid assets packs (although some of it has already been mentioned).

 

First of all I like the idea of adding more assets to the game, I think it is highly needed to give different planes from different times proper and realistic missions.

 

Also I know that we cannot expect all of that for free, but in the past years (apart from WWII and Super Carrier) we got the core DCS World for free with the Froogfoot and everything else you need to play. Anyone who wanted to get into another plane or map could buy those but it wasn't necssary. Apart from splitting up the community in missions and servers I am also afraid what they will make us pay for in the future.

We already have the WWII Assets Pack, which to be honest does't even give you very much new units for your money (just two planes!), and the Supercarrier, which gives us new features which are worth paying for eventhough I strongly think the new textures for the ships, especially for the Kusnezow should be free.

I totally get the point of selling new features (like animated deck and ground crew) but I do not like the idea of selling us the main game (with I certainly count ground assets into).

 

I am afraid of DCS becoming a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator (Especially FSX) or X-Plane where you end up paying for everything extra. Today we pay for new carrier textures and new ground assets. Are we then going to pay for new clouds tomorrow?

 

Yes we cannot expect everything for free but we already paid for our planes expecting the base game to stay free, didn't we? In my opinion Eagle Dynamics should let the base game stay free in order to create an enviroment for the planes, maps and campaigns that they than sell and which they make their money with.

 

I, personally, think that WWII in DCS is a lot of fun however I have only played it in the free events, as it is behind a great paywall. Given a free WWII map (maybe even a WWII version of caucasus or whatever) and some free assets or a worthy assets pack (just compare the number of different ai planes in dcs from world war II and modern times), I would for sure have bought one or more WWII aircrafts. But having to buy 40 USD map and a 30 USD assets pack is just way to much, considering that in those 70 dollars is nothing I can even fly yet.

 

I do not know if the assets RAZBAM is bringing for the south atlantic conflict are going to be paid or free, but I think selling the sea harrier/harrier and the south atlantic map and giving everyone the assets for free in order to give RAZBAMs own plane and map products an enviroment to play with, is the way to go.

 

To sum up: Let us pay for planes, maps and campaigns (and Combined Arms) but let the rest of the game be free and a good foundation to use the paid Planes and Maps.

 

For the high fidelity combined arms disscussion, I am personally not interested in that. Still I would like to see it in dcs and as it would be a completly new feature, I would also understand that it would be a paid dlc.

[Rudel_chw]

6 minutes ago, Xam06 said:

I I would for sure have bought one or more WWII aircrafts. But having to buy 40 USD map and a 30 USD assets pack is just way to much, considering that in those 70 dollars is nothing I can even fly yet.

you can do as I did: purchase during a sale. Currently the normandy map is 22 US$ And the assets are 15 US$.

[Vampyre]

  I agree that there is a lot missing from the current implementation of ground forces in DCS. The missing vehicles and personnel are really the low hanging fruit though. Command and control for ground units isn't really a thing in the DCS environment. Also missing is any kind of implementation of suppression from units under attack. The AI is all seeing, all knowing and fearless in its current state. It needs a lot of improvement. One of the main problems DCS has is that once a mission has been played three or four times, everyone knows exactly where all the units are placed and it is not really challenging anymore. Having built MP missions, I have found that most DCS pilots who attack ground targets have a tendency to only do Armed Reconnaissance, or strike missions in the current state of the game. Almost no one does CAS. A FIST-V, JTAC or FAC. Having the proper equipment modeled would go a long way to improving the CAS mission within DCS. The Fog of War needs to be better implemented and reconnaissance needs to be added as a critical mission for Sea, Air and Land forces.  

 

  What would be nice is to have actual orders of battle from the differing armed forces through the eras. Properly sized units and their equipment complement that can be selected and added to missions would be very handy. A selection menu should be available for picking the force size you want. Want a platoon of M1A2SEP's? How about the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment? Maybe you want the 11th MEU, maybe the entirety of VII Corps. Currently, it is necessary to research the assets a certain country has within its formations and add each Section/Platoon separately (with the limitations of what is available in DCS) to have any semblance of a realistic force structure. It would also be handy to attach different sized units to others to form different task forces and teams. The ability to add platoons or sections to existing units would be handy as well. These things require a lot of research and would be very helpful when putting together missions in DCS.

 

  Proper battle formations need to be a thing too. The AI should not just have a squad or platoon of soldiers standing in a line in the middle of a battlefield. DCS is not a Napoleonic war simulator. They should automatically take find cover when stopped and move in differing formations in regard to the mission at hand. Vehicles in combat should react differently and have different formations to vehicles delivering supplies to the frontline along a road... there is so much that can be improved as far as CA, the ME and the AI are concerned. More new vehicles and personnel would be very welcome in DCS. I hope a way can be found to make this happen.

 

 

[flankerjun]

that would be fun if we can play an FPS and the same time there are planes controlled by a person，not AI.

 

to be honest,DCS have very excellent plane but it's lack of fun,we just throw bombs and fire missles,there is no script like call of duty and battlefield.after all ED is not a giant company like Micrsoft or EA. 95% of my time is on line,not single player, if we can play COD's type game in DCS, it would be perfect

[3WA]

15 minutes ago, flankerjun said:

to be honest,DCS have very excellent plane but it's lack of fun

 

THIS.  The planes are great, but all that trouble learning them, and then there's really nothing to do.  All the ground targets may as well be cardboard cutouts that can fire at you with the skill of ACE sniper.  We need a WORLD.

 

As for better maps, yeah we get the size problem.  But the whole map doesn't need to be improved.  A few Crysis size areas would be fine, where we could have fps and  heli / attack plane battles.  Arma size areas would be nice, but I'd settle for Cysis sized maps.  The rest of the map could just be fly over for the jets.

 

More hills / canyons etc. would be very welcome.  The maps are sooo FLAT.  There's no cover.

[Worg]

Sorry for the huge writing (I am using a translator).
Sorry to Bignewy and Nineline, but I'm going to be rude.

A third who take care of the ground units, I say yes 300%. Improved infantry, vehicles, JTAC, labor there is.

But read that some want COD or Battlefield in DCS then no, no and no.

I like dcs and ED for their combat simulations the difficulty and the desire to learn a module difficult to learn and master.

COD and Battlefield are stupid and completely stupid. I don't want that in this simulator.
If it's to see beasts running and jumping around without thinking, no. I am a former soldier, and in terms of infantry games there is nothing bad.

I sincerely hope that others will agree with me. Improvement of ground troops ED way yes, otherwise out of the question. Because over time this particular simulator will not become better than the others.

[NineLine]

No worries, didnt seem too rude, and I believe the OP is here for opinions, so for or against, have at it. No one wants a better CA environment than me, and yes, I want it to fit what we have now.

[Pikey]

Just some thoughts.
I love listening to anyone who wants to add to DCS.
I have great concerns over DLC management, multiplayer and divides. I would like to see everyone able to log into a server with said DLC and not be excluded. I dont mind the method,  e.g. Supercarrier method, is fine, but creating missions and having to exclude people without, damages the community.
I'm mostly interested in assets that exist to fill the numerous gaps in DCS right now - Insurgent vehicles, static objects of better quality buildings, civilian ships and aircraft, COld war assets, missing aircraft, and so on. Many gaps.
And a repeat of the important one again... I have a group, in that group, its a 40/60 divide on who owns/does not own the WW2 assets pack. I don't get to use it because of that. It really really sucks to have something, and have no one to use it with. I cannot tell you how important this matter is, it requires being addressed as a primary goal from the outset.

Potential solution - offer extremely low level detail lods or specific services and capability that allow everyone to use the content but only those that have purchased to get decent usage.

Thanks.

[bies]

Cold War pack would be nice, there is many potential conflicts in XX century and many full fidelity modules but not enough other assets.

[Battlefield Productions]

Thanks once again for the continued feedback and ideas etc.

Today we had discussions with representatives from ED.

From here we will submit some work and a project design document, this in turn will go up the pipeline and hopefully lead to Battlefield Productions being acknowledged as an official content supplier.

Once we have completed that process I will return with the final decision.



@Pikey - I like this idea a lot, the best suggestion I have seen so far, I like it so much I will speak to the guys and see if we can agree internally that this is a good direction to go, I think that probably ticks the box perfectly.

 

Quote

Potential solution - offer extremely low level detail lods or specific services and capability that allow everyone to use the content but only those that have purchased to get decent usage.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Battlefield Productions

[draconus]

In my case two maps were sold because of campaigns so the content creators are our best friends. If your assets are valuable enough they will get a demand no matter how much "splitted" community will be. Assets like Supercarrier with ground crew are even easier. They bring us immersion, new interaction, possibilities, take us deeper into simulation - you can't say no to that. Good luck!

[Battlefield Productions]

4 hours ago, Desert Fox said:

That's super nice to hear, i think there will be a lot of good things down this road. Also love the idea Pikey mentioned since this method wouldn't fracture the community into owners and non-owners.

Airport objects (tugs, tractors, ground power) for example might be high detail and mobile/animated for owners and low detail and static for non-owners.

If technically possible, the objects and vehicles (thinking about combat assets mostly) could even be available in the editor for owners only and kind of "read only" for non-owners if they have been placed in a mission done by an owner. Owners that way could be active users and non-owners just passive ones. Sounds like a fair way for everyone.

 

Really looking forward to news, keep up updated

As a player I am liking the sound of these suggestions very much indeed.

All I can do is repeat what we said at the start, as a Group we want to make our work as inclusive to as many people as possible at a fair price, and we want our work to be good enough that everyone will WANT to buy it as well, combined with the suggestions put forward in the last couple of posts we have the real potential to reach out to everyone as a DCS family, rather than just segments of the community, those that have, and those that do not, a true win for all IMO.

All further suggestions and any fleshing out will of course be welcomed, if anyone else has amazing ideas

Re: Detailed Ground Forces (aka More realistic and detailed Combined Arms Content)

As stated in the beginning, we see a future for a more detailed and compelling CA module, and something that will bolster the whole community that use CA, we believe it is possible to grow the interest in CA as a result.

Thanks

M

[lmp]

My single player focused two cents:

 

For assets packs to work and not feel like money wasted for a lot of people, they need to come with content.

 

For example, two aircraft which are sorely missing content are the F-86F and especially the MiG-15bis. An early Cold War asset pack, including ground units but also period aircraft to intercept or escort, would already be worthwhile to many owners of those modules.

 

Add in a bunch of good missions for both aircraft (and the MiG-19, P-51...), maybe a mini campaign included in the price of the pack, and work with campaign authors to create proper, high quality payware content that utilizes your assets - and it becomes a must have. Suddenly my MiG-15bis with 3 very basic single player missions total and no included campaigns can have a number of good missions per map (think Hornet's Persian Gulf missions) and there's a cool new campaign by Baltic Dragon in the store? Sign me up!

 

Don't just add assets hoping they will be used. Make it a product that is fun out of the box and then even more fun with the addition of payware campaigns.

Edited January 12, 2021 by lmp

[Furiz]

I'd go for this - Airfield Assets Pack - Including Animated and Moving Ground Handlers etc, it is something DCS really needs, airfields are just boring atm, no immersion at all.

 

The rest I'm not interested in, so if it can go as separate modules it would be perfect!

[Riojano]

On 1/8/2021 at 11:12 PM, SparxOne said:

@robert.clark251 I can totally understand your passion and excitement for what you are putting forward and wishing to see happen ingame but i feel you are really looking too far at it.

 

Let me explain. I feel i can connect to your feelings from what you are describing with the whole infantry thing combined with the armor and air part. This sounds excellent on paper/ in theory, i would also love to see in my life a game that can correctly combine the 3 aspects together on a scale and especially simulating it as good as DCS makes it for the aircrafts for now ! I've been a long time gamer and played all sorts of games, ranging from FPS ones, RTS, Simulators, you name it. While I always had that special part in my heart for the air simulations, i've always also enjoyed good FPS' trying to include the 3/4 branches into one game and that is (Air, Sea, Land, Boots), yet always focusing on one or 2 of these, it was fun and enjoyable to have them mixed all together somehow. 

 

The unfortunate reality is that i believe the technical side of creating such a dream would be very hard to put in place at least for now with current tech, i could very much be wrong as i'm no professional in game developpment but from the little knowledge i have of it, many technical sides need to be taken into account before being able to combine Air, Sea, Land and infantry together, especially on a scale and detail/simulation DCS does it for now. This is probably why none have done it to this day, at least to the point of recreating something authentic and as close to reality as possible.

Computers/Servers probably wouldn't be able to handle such a highly detailed environment combining Air, Sea, Land and Boots on maps the size DCS brings to us. From all those games i've played to this day, there will always be a side of it sacrificed to allow one to be more indepth or having more focus to it. The best examples coming to mind are Arma, War Thunder, Battlefield series. These games have almost the full set combined yet one or more of those branches has been sacrificed because of necessity to allow the focused ones to be viable in terms of performance and playability i believe. Arma has always had their focus turned on the boots on the ground, yet having armor and air in the game, these 2 were sacrificed especially the air one feeling really bad (At least for the airplanes, not so much the helicopters). Plus not mentionning the size of the maps really not adapted for proper air warfare.

War thunder on the other hand had their focus on the air part at least at their beginning, while not raising the bar to any level i would consider a simulator, they ended up bringing Armor and Sea warfare to it, but never infantry. Probably once again because of technical impracticality.

Battlefield are probably the only ones who brought the 3 branches together in a somehow equal playing field, that said the infantry, armor and air. Of coarse the 3 are very much arcade but the 3 are balanced well enough to fight all together, that would be my point.

 

The points to remeber here are :

-Arma did a very decent job for the infantry part, i've read you and understand your point of view on it but Arma still to this day has managed something no others did, and i'm looking at many different points when saying that, don't want to name them all because too long. The Armor (Vehicles) is fun and pretty decent for its level of arcadyness i would say. The air is simply bad if you take the planes, but like said somewhere above the helicopters can be very fun and semi realistic if you fly with advanced physics for them.

-War Thunder has Air, Land and sea but really has no feel of simulation to it appart from the "fake" gamemode they consider to be simulator (In the following lines, i'll be talking about War Thunder as if you were playing with the "simulator" gamemode). The tank gameplay while still closer to an arcade feel can be debated to still be fun and engaging somehow, while the air part just feels like your plane suddenly has weight and something related to lift and engine power. Yet infantry is none existant, probably because it would be too hard to manage any server running 40 player controlled tanks, 20 player controlled planes and let's say 80 player controlled infantrymen all at the same time

-Lastly, Battlefield. While totally arcade in each category, i just wanted to highlight the fact that they've acheived the combination of all 3 aspects because of simplicity and balance of each units. Each map is relatively small with limits you cannot surpass without dying, the amount of vehicles is a fixed number same as the slots for infantry, all this allowing for that mix to work out seemlessly.

 

Either way, my idea here is simply that i don't believe even in the next 5-8 years DCS has the possibility to bring infantry to a standard you would call a simulation or at least what you seem to be wanting in terms of details "I want a true scale, realistic infantry/SOCOM sim where weapons are high fidelity and represent their real world counterparts, along with all associated gear and uniforms for their prospective time periods.".

DCS servers/and most PCs already struggle to handle 40-50 players at once so imagine the amount of players it would need to handle if you want to simultaneously mix the planes, helicopters, tanks and the infantry to an amount that would allow any decent combined operations...

 

Just to be clear, I wouldn't mind seeing controllable infanty in DCS, even to a basic standard, but the amount of work that would be needed to make it even remotely immersive as the planes is once again i believe far from achievable. One thing that strikes me first is simply the terrain itself, as an infantry you spend 99% of your time on the ground slower than anyone else in a vehicle, yet relying on the terrain for a lot of the work you'll be doing "Attacking something, ambushing, defending, hiding, etc", the terrain in DCS is missing a massive amount of detail to make that even remotely viable to carry any proper work with infantry. The mesh of the terrain is very basic, trees and bushes are very basic again, natural obstacles like rocks or anything that would either allow you to take cover, hide or block you from passing once again are totally absent in DCS, imagine bringing the maps in DCS with their insane sizes to a level of detail adapted for infantry (Arma style) ? All this works well from the air because those details are mostly unnoticed while flying at 450knt at 5000feet, and simply because it would take an unnecessary amount of ressource from the computers for very little pleasure. 

 

I'm sure you understand all of this and hopefully you did think of it too, but i just doubt Battlefiled Prod could create such a universe within the airplane universe we already have, especially without a great deal of involvement from ED themselves (And I'm pretty certain ED has no interest in dedicating the amount of ressources needed to allow this).

 

We are all allowed to dream and see big, but at the same time i like to stay realistic.

Let's allow them to work on the ground part of DCS as a whole for a start, allowing them to raise the bar to a higher level from what we have right now, anything they'd do would already be a massive upgrade considering how far back the ground warfare is in DCS.

 

Cheers @robert.clark251, i like your view and ideas to this but to me it's a bit of a pipe dream unfortunately.

 

 

You have forgotten that there is a game that combines the 4 branches, with a larger map and a greater number of players. WWIIOL (Battleground Europe), yes, is old graphics cos is a very old engine but the thing its can be done, and the player numbers solution is a server farm runing a unique MP server (and instances for greater map or performance) for PVP with a option of personal/dedicated servers for training/aerobatics (can be done in rearfront too).

[WRAITH]

Sounds cool - ED would benefit if 3rd party devs and as a combined effort or some kind of big picture plan incorporating 3rd party devs to expand on "Combined Arms" to be all it could be adding immersion and realism and tactical/strategic simulation of Air- Land- Sea as the overall sim grows as an all encompassing air combat flight sim with a complete world map in its future............... how many times has it been stated ED-DCS is a sand box.  War is in a sim/game if you like divided across Air Land and Sea.

 

Think in terms of organizing air defense from ground forces in heavy threat areas and type of strategic approach Umm DCS  - Dynamic Campaign incorporated with infantry co-operation tactics in saved missions and ongoing war scenarios.....Ooh it becomes the dream for me in single player preference like a game of CHESS ........ Did I say CHESS not draughts! LoL

 

oh bring it ED-DCS and Battlefield Productions!

 

[dimitriov]

To be honest, being a big Combined arms player and very frequently getting in PVP against my squad (131st, 40 hardcore simmers), you should never underestimate a simple tank.  There is a huge difference between shooting at stupid blind AI and playing against someone, and the first operations we conducted brought the same result : Helicopters and A-10C got wrecked while my vehicle group (usually 10*2 VBL recon vehicles, 6*3 Leclerc, 4*3 AMX-10RCR, Logistic, 2*2 AAA and 3*Mistral PAMELA launchers) remained mainly intact while blasting 4 times larger AI ground assaults (groups up to 25 M1A2 with ATGM). Simply because of use of cover, tricking the ennemy, getting him into traps, shocking him by fast and deadly maneuvers while never letting him the time to react and organize efficiently. Ambushing is the key. 

 

The legend of the "tank target of planes" is a legend. Iraq and flat wide deserts are not representative. In French Army, officers get taught the average life span of pilots, tankists etc in case of "real war". Helo is about 15 min, fighter about 40 (mud between both), tankist 6 hours, simple soldier 2-3 days. 

 

It's only in DCS that you have the feeling that you're the tankist nightmare. IRL, they have shitload of tactics at groudn level to hide, trap you and kill you. ^^

 

Nicolas

Edited January 12, 2021 by dimitriov

[Battlefield Productions]

On 1/5/2021 at 2:09 PM, Silver_Dragon said:

in fact, that module can gen "live" to the last leg into DCS, the ground level, and not bad if a 3rd party explore them. Not bad if others move to improve the "sea" level.

We have not ruled out Naval Assets to be clear 

[Madone]

I'm very glad to see a developer interested in ground vehicles, I'm a huge CA user as I go for JTAC 75% of the time in DCS. From what I understand, you want to populate the sim with more units and that's awesome for our scenarios, now this obviously has to be priced accordingly and you know that, otherwise people will stick to vanilla content.

 

As for doing a proper detailed tank sim, I wouldn't buy it, I think it would not be correlated enough with what the pilots need, let me explain; 

 

I think there's an unhealthy amount of DCS pilots (especially in A10) doing Air to Ground missions without ever talking to a proper JTAC integrating them into a ground maneuver and instead they go for a killboxes, destroying every single unit they get to see. I've even seen unannounced pilots teamkilling an infantry platoon I was controlling without feeling any contrition.

 

When the server allows (usually hardcore squadrons) I hop into a vehicle and control 3 to 4 platoons, simulating what @dimitriovexplained above and make a dynamic/realistic battlefield for the guys flying and they freaking love it! The problem being the opfor which would require someone like me or a smart AI doing the same thing for me to find it fun but I've yet to experience that.

 

CA players are a rare breed right now because the module is almost completely sidelined and not attractive by any means (lacking features), I'm in few different communities and you get a handful of ATC/JTAC but hundreds of pilots.

IMO, the most interesting thing to do on the ground is CAS (I'm obviously biased) and not just tank driving, you have to be AT LEAST a platoon leader or company commander with the option of being in a vehicle. Then there are GCI/ATC/JTAC which are highly complex positions to run properly, however they'd be ways to help players get into it with hints or even proper training missions, it's as hard as flying aircrafts but CA doesn't tell you that.

 

 

TLDR: I want more flexible ground units and a proper JTAC module