not planned Easy mode AAR

[Hog_driver]

I think that a quickly doable and viable option would be to make it possible to adjust fuel transfer speed: normal, double, triple, etc. In this way, you would still have to make contact with the boom/basket, but wouldn't have to fly in formation with the tanker for several minutes which is... well... difficult for many people. Then, as you progress, you could gradually, in settings, slow down fuel flow to its normal rate. 

[maxTRX]

Quick question for OP:  Is it the grandpas that are requesting this or... you

 

A while back I flew with couple of them and I can guarantee they could mix it up with anyone here.  Granted, both had RW experience in jets. One was that old he couldn't even remember how many thousands of hours he logged. Oh well... so his memory faults out once in a while, hehe.

 

Alright, I had to chime in since I'm not a spring chicken anymore either 

[Tippis]

30 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

When exactly did people stop living by their individual capabilities and started to annoy everyone with morale demands of "everyone has to be enabled to do everything"?

Oh, somewhere around 500,000 BCE or so, give or take a million.

 

30 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

Is "All people have to be able to take part in prolonged virtual combat flights involving aerial refuels" in the declaration of human rights already?

No, but it is straight out of the book of “sensible game design decisions that benefit everyone and hurt no-one”.

 

Fundamentally, no-one has been able to come up with a good reason… no, strike that, any reason why this functionality should not exist in this one particular area, especially in a game that presents itself as a study sim with the express intent to help and cater to players of all skill levels. It does it in a number of other areas, but apparently, according to some and for no coherent reason that they've ever been able to articulate, this area is just off-limits and must at all cost be kept at a less evolved state that does not adhere to that stated goal. The only “argument” (and I am very generous in the use of that word here) is that a complete lack of realism that affects everyone whether they want it or not is far more in keeping with the spirit of DCS. Somehow.

 

39 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

Cherry picking and twisting again

Are you sure you weren't attempting to quote SharpeXP here?

[Fri13]

15 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

When exactly did people stop living by their individual capabilities and started to annoy everyone with morale demands of "everyone has to be enabled to do everything"?

Is "All people have to be able to take part in prolonged virtual combat flights involving aerial refuels" in the declaration of human rights already?

 

So are you questioning that why does people take into account other people differences, and help them to be able do normal things?

 

Or are you moving the goalposts with:

"Morale demands"

"everyone has to be enabled to do everything"

"Declaration of human rights"

"All people have to be able"

"prolonged virtual combat flights involving aerial refuels"

 

 

15 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

Cherry picking and twisting again

 

 

"The reason why real pilots ever fly as much as 2 different planes throughout their carrier tells a thing or two about learning curves, flying every plane makes you jack of all trades but master of none."

 

If you are unfamiliar with the fallacy, it goes this way:

 

 

 

So he made a simple fallacy: "No real pilots fly ever fly more than 2 planes through their career...."

 

And what was your reply?

Quote

 

Cherry picking and twisting again 

 

 

Yes.... Strong argument there about the topic:

 

[Fri13]

41 minutes ago, Gripes323 said:

A while back I flew with couple of them and I can guarantee they could mix it up with anyone here.  Granted, both had RW experience in jets. One was that old he couldn't even remember how many thousands of hours he logged. Oh well... so his memory faults out once in a while, hehe.

 

But isn't it great that at old age people could continue with their abilities to do something they enjoy? To find a new hobbies and experiences?

Example some countries has a law that you can't anymore fly in military when you are 45 years old, so they just need to forget that experience while still serve in the air force. But some has found a loophole how they have managed to stay in service and have permission to fly, but that is possible because they have friends in high places and their experience is valuable so they can extend it to age of 55. After that they can be walled again from flying, and there might be a another loophole by promotion or special duty assigments etc. 

 

But eventually age will have its price, and no matter of your physical condition etc you might be just forced to forget ever flying military aircraft. 

So how great it is that at this time we can have VR and DCS World to give some of that experience back?

 

For many it is a hard part in their life when they need to give up a driving as it is a way to be free to go somewhere else at their own time and will. Some people enjoy that they don't need to worry about it as they can always just call a taxi etc. 

 

We live in a great times (compared to history as 20-30 years back). 

[Fri13]

4 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

It's a waste of developer time that is better put in important feature coding and bugfixing. If you so much want this and have so many members, why not mod it yourself as a community project?

 

So, what are more important feature coding and bug fixing for the ED employees?

Why should he make a mod of it as a community project?

[Tippis]

16 minutes ago, Desert Fox said:

It's a waste of developer time that is better put in important feature coding and bugfixing.

Making the game adhere to its stated goal is not an important feature? What other stated goals would you add to that list? Should we give up the “deep, authentic and realistic simulation” to allocate more devs to feature coding and bug fixing? How about abandoning “complex weapon systems as the A-10 and F/A-18C Hornet”? Or maybe, for the sake of more feature coding and bug fixing we should no longer waste dev hours on multiple time periods and just do one — let's say the Korean War, and dump all the other non-important chaff?

 

Quote

If you so much want this and have so many members, why not mod it yourself as a community project?

First, what are these “many members” you're referencing?

 

Secondly, because this isn't just a mod — it's something that requires accessing AI hooks, flight model hooks, 3D rendering hooks, adding new scripting functionality, mission editor features, server logic, or any combination of the above and numerous other components depending on what solutions and granularity you'd want to offer on the difficulty curve — all hard-coded functions locked away in the core binaries of the game. Hell, based on some (granted more extreme) readings of some copyright laws, it could even be considered illegal to modify the game in such a way and distribute those modifications.

 

Bug again, we come back to that single question: why on earth should this one particular area of the game be vastly less fully-featured than all the other ones, where there are a bunch of tools available to make similar simplifications? What makes AAR so unique that it deserves being abandoned in that way?

Edited March 22, 2021 by Tippis

[Fri13]

Just now, Tippis said:

What makes AAR so unique that it deserves being abandoned in that way?

 

Because the idea that someone could be performing it easier should be hated?

Because it allows some people to feel elite by categorizing people who can't do it to some lower category and it shouldn't be changed?

Because if X would be developed, then Y can't happen as X took the time and effort?

 

[maxTRX]

2 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

 

So, what are more important feature coding and bug fixing for the ED employees?

Why should he make a mod of it as a community project?

 

I know nothing about coding so I can't say how much work would this 'feature' involve. 

I wonder how hard would it be to implement a temporary 'injection' of AI behavior to perform refueling. If someone just wants to experience it 'visually' without any effort. Say they could fly a jet to observation position, from there, after pressing a key, the AI code would kick in and after disconnecting it would kick off and the 'pilot' is back in control.

 I recently watched AI Hornets doing this and it didn't look too bad.

[SharpeXB]

5 minutes ago, Gripes323 said:

If someone just wants to experience it 'visually' without any effort.

That’s what YouTube is for. What would be the difference between watching this in the game vs a video?

[Fri13]

1 minute ago, Gripes323 said:

 

I know nothing about coding so I can't say how much work would this 'feature' involve. 

I wonder how hard would it be to implement a temporary 'injection' of AI behavior to perform refueling. If someone just wants to experience it 'visually' without any effort. Say they could fly a jet to observation position, from there, after pressing a key, the AI code would kick in and after disconnecting it would kick off and the 'pilot' is back in control.

 I recently watched AI Hornets doing this and it didn't look too bad.

 

That is not a bad idea for "automatic air refueling" function, as it could be simple thing to do considering we already have the AI to do it, and we lose a control for various effects temporarily etc. It likely could be the easiest and simplest thing to get the proper result.

 

But it wouldn't assist anyone to do it. It would be just watching a AI to do it but in a own cockpit. 

Why I like the idea that such feature can be used first as a "heavy hand assisting" that people get to the process. And then they can adjust it to make it more challenging and difficult to do, until they find the level that they are happy to perform it. So some people might find that they like to disable it all together, while some might like a slight assisting feature, and some might like that they can use the full assistance (even your suggested full automatic refueling procedure) as they can't do it otherwise (for what ever reason). 

 

We have many aircraft that are air refueling capable, so it is not just for one aircraft but many. And really deserves the effort to help people in it so we can make wider variation of missions. 

[maxTRX]

Just now, SharpeXB said:

That’s what YouTube is for. What would be the difference between watching this in the game vs a video?

 

The 'pilot' would sit in the jet ... looking around, hehe.

[SharpeXB]

7 minutes ago, Gripes323 said:

 

I know nothing about coding so I can't say how much work would this 'feature' involve. 

It’s been mentioned by ED before, regarding all these optional type of features, that all of these being filtered in MP is actually a big deal. There are enough server settings already without adding even more. 

2 minutes ago, Gripes323 said:

 

The 'pilot' would sit in the jet ... looking around, hehe.

Somebody could just send a track of their AAR and you can replay it, the game will run your head tracking then. 

[Fri13]

12 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

That’s what YouTube is for. What would be the difference between watching this in the game vs a video?

 

Case 1:

1) a player take-off from airbase

2) flies to a tanker as required to refuel to full so mission can be completed at long distance <AI will complete the refueling process>

3) player completes the bombing with newly learned weapon procedure 

4) player returns then later as is required to refuel to get back to base <AI will complete the refueling process>

5) player comes to airbase and flies the pattern and all, finally stopping inside a hangar

 

Case 2:

1) Player opens web browser

2) Player types www.youtube.com

3) Player search a video of air refueling

4) Player watch the video of refueling

5) Player close the web browser

 

Personally I see nothing similar in those two cases....

 

Edit:

 

Quote

Somebody could just send a track of their AAR and you can replay it, the game will run your head tracking then. 

 

Case 3:

1) Player asks someone to upload a track file

2) Player downloads a track file that someone attached

3) Player saves the file to drive

4) Player opens DCS and opens the track in replay

5) Player sits watching all the head movements, control inputs from start to the point that first air refueling is to happen

6) Player wants to take control to continue mission

7) Player can't perform anymore air refueling as replay has been stopped

(This all considering that track file stays in synchronization and doesn't cause any trouble)

 

Yep.... Still can not see how it is similar for the wished feature where the player play all the parts from the begin to the end and only receives assistance to complete the air refueling connection, refueling and then disconnection. 

 

 

Edited March 22, 2021 by Fri13

[maxTRX]

8 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

It’s been mentioned by ED before, regarding all these optional type of features, that all of these being filtered in MP is actually a big deal. There are enough server settings already without adding even more. 

Somebody could just send a track of their AAR and you can replay it, the game will run your head tracking then. 

 

Fri13 settled the 'cases' .

[Tippis]

26 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

That’s what YouTube is for. What would be the difference between watching this in the game vs a video?

Again, you've managed to undercut your previous argument. Previously, you said that there is no way for the game to help. Now you're suggesting that there is. So which one is it? Can it or can it not? If you're suggesting that a youtube video would help, you must also accept the fact that an in-game tool to show how it's done would work even better. If you're not, then why on earth did you even bring it up to begin with?

 

And the difference would be that you are still flying the plane. That's kind of obvious, isn't it? It would be interactive (which even a replay is not). You can (and depending on the actual implementation, maybe even have to) do a lot of the prep work and setup — it would just be… you know… easier; with more help. Kind of like how teaching someone something new is always handled unless the teacher has no idea what they're doing.

 

29 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

There are enough server settings already without adding even more. 

LMAO. There's a shocking lack of server settings as it is. In fact, if you think there are a lot of them, I must immediately question whether or not you even know what they are or where you find them because odds are good that you are confusing them for something completely different.

 

More settings is never a bad thing, especially not for something catering to such a potentially wide audience as this. No, the problem, if any, is that most mission settings are broken and don't work as they should in MP as far as giving or denying players control over their gameplay options — a bug that would require fixing and this would be a good incentive to finally make that happen.

[Sewo]

I cannot believe that someone is against this idea. Why? Easy AAR would be option. If you like it then you turn it on. If not then dissable it. There is literally no single reason to not add this.
Just look at pros and cons.

Pros: Someone could enjoy it
Cons: Literally nothing, because if you don't like it then you turn it off

Edited March 22, 2021 by Sewo

[Fri13]

6 minutes ago, Sewo said:

I cannot believe that someone is against this idea. Why?

 

Because everything. 

Even the argument is brought up that adding a such assisting feature would slow down other "more important" features and "bug fixes", like everyone who is working at ED is assigned to those unknown "more important" features and fixing bugs... 

 

I would understand the opposition (as I would be doing so) if the idea would be to remove the current feature and make it automatic or something that takes away already existing things.

 

 

[SharpeXB]

9 minutes ago, Sewo said:

 There is literally no single reason to not add this.

It’s extra work for ED to do. 
It’s not needed

There are more important things to work on. 

[Sewo]

That slow down argument is silly. This is `Wish List` section, not `Let's be better Product Managers than ED`.

[Fri13]

1 minute ago, SharpeXB said:

It’s extra work for ED to do.

 

Isn't every wished feature a extra work to do?

 

Quote

It’s not needed

 

Then why is there a wish about it, with good support?

 

Quote

There are more important things to work on. 

 

Like what are more important things to do in your opinion that adding this feature would either delay or not make happen?

Edited March 22, 2021 by Fri13

[Sewo]

 

Quote

It’s extra work for ED to do. 

 

That's whole idea in `Wish List` section on forum. Like, wow, that's the point!
 

Quote

It’s not needed

For you. But there are people that would love to see this. So this is simple not true
 

Quote

There are more important things to work on. 

That's not yours work to decide that. Or you are PM in ED, but I don't thing so

[sthompson]

23 hours ago, Ebein said:

My squadron has several 70+ pilots (2 @ 80yo), and while I expect most of my squadron pilots to be able to AAR in their 'primary' airframe, I don't have the expectation that my older pilots are able to.  For many of them it is their first SIM and first video game period.  It would be nice if we had an option to allow an easy mode AAR so we could design more of our campaign missions with AAR.  

 

I would suggest either an autopilot AAR, or preferably ( and probably easier to implement ) a radius based AAR, if you are within X meters of the tanker you get refueled, only allowing AAR within a certain cone behind the tanker would be good also.

 

Ebein Tides

VFA-106 Gladiators

Mr Tides: Good for you for being inclusive and recognizing that older folks sometimes have challenges. As someone getting pretty old myself it's really heartening to see this kind of attitude. I hope I'm still flying in retirement, which will be pretty soon. Would love to know more about your squadron. Don't let the naysayers get you down. They seem to forget that this is a wish list and their comments only make sense here if they are wishing that DCS not be accessible to less capable pilots.

 

[Tippis]

40 minutes ago, Sewo said:

That's whole idea in `Wish List` section on forum. Like, wow, that's the point!
 

For you. But there are people that would love to see this. So this is simple not true
 

That's not yours work to decide that. Or you are PM in ED, but I don't thing so

No, but you see, if it does not strictly adhere to The One True Way Of Playing The Game™®©, it is basically a crime against humanity to spend resources on it, especially if it would benefit lots and lots of people other than The Arbiter Of The One True Way™®©. And if it doesn't benefit him, it is also always “unrealistic” and “arcade” no matter how much more complex and and expanded it would make the game for all those other people.

Edited March 22, 2021 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

45 minutes ago, Sewo said:

That's whole idea in `Wish List` section on forum. Like, wow, that's the point!

I wish DCS had a Dynamic Campaign and spent time working on that rather than an Easy AAR feature.