would you have any interest in a Naval module DCS Fleet ops

[norbot]

37 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

I think ED need build "exclusive" teams to improve all branches (Air / Land / Sea) all centred on improve and add features to your sides with dedicated personal, outside of "core", modules, engine and map teams.

 

There‘s only one big problem. Who is going to pay all those „exclusive“ teams?

 

[upyr1]

1 hour ago, Silver_Dragon said:

I think ED need build "exclusive" teams to improve all branches (Air / Land / Sea) all centred on improve and add features to your sides with dedicated personal, outside of "core", modules, engine and map teams.

 

This might result in the land and sea assets getting the attention they need.

1 hour ago, norbot said:

There‘s only one big problem. Who is going to pay all those „exclusive“ teams?

 

We the consumers of course. 

1 hour ago, 72Stu said:

Vulkan first, above all else please ED!

After Vulkan is added would you be interested in Fleet Ops?

[Silver_Dragon]

1 hour ago, 72Stu said:

Vulkan first, above all else please ED!

 

Vulkan has on progress by "Core" team from some years ago.

Quote

 

Vulkan API and Multi-threading

With the integration of these libraries, DCS will benefit from improved performance throughout, including in virtual reality. This has been a substantial task to develop and integrate into our codebase, but we are nearing the end of this journey, and expect it to be available in the 3rd quarter of this year. 

 

 

[upyr1]

Just now, Silver_Dragon said:

 

Vulkan has on progress by "Core" team from some years ago.

 

It looks like they have been working on both the dynamic campaign and vulkan. 

[Callsign112]

On 7/30/2021 at 4:39 PM, upyr1 said:

Would you be interested in DCS :Fleet ops. The idea is simple- it would include an interface to command ships, especially one with VR. Also Eagle would make changes to the damage models, add navel assets and change update the AI in DCS core as needed to make it work 

 

 

I originally voted yes, but not because I see your suggestion as being a separate entity within DCS World. I voted yes because I think what you are suggesting makes sense and could very easily fit in with Combined Arms. Basically do for ships what CA does for tanks, but make a serious effort to add/fix other important issues like DM's and AI behavior. This could be added to CA while also slowly adding a ship, or two here and there, or an improved radar system. Nothing too far fetched here, as this is basically the way things seem to be working now anyway.   

 

I also get all the emotional responses and detailed explanations as to why it couldn't be done, but mind you those detailed responses also provide the best reason why your suggestion would never be done as described in the detailed explanations. As far as I know, nothing in DCS World was ever done as explained in any of the detailed responses. In any given year as far as I can tell, ED has added planes/jets, updated/fixed/added to its maps and tech packs, and implemented updates to its core/graphics engine.

 

I think a lot of people are just getting tired of waiting for what they see as game breaking issues lasting for months, and sometimes even years. If we take a step back to see the bigger picture of what is being done, we would have to be in denial not to recognize that simulating the military systems of both past and present worlds is no small task. The only explanation I can come up with to explain issues like the YAK are that ED is waiting to advance its core systems before spending time fixing something that would have to be re-fixed after the games core gets updated. But then things like the reflections in the SU-25T show up after 2.7, and it throws my reasoning out the window because I have to ask myself why the reflections were toned down and not fixed?

 

One could easily make an argument that the SU-25T is so key to the growth of DCS World, that any issues as disruptive as the cockpit reflections would be address immediately. The SU-25T not only serves to introduce new players to jet flight as the current primary offering of DCS World, but should also be seen as a direct lead-in to the Combined Arms module, and the SU-25T's American counter part, the A-10C. I am stressing this point because what is being discussed here is not just about adding to the naval side of DCS World, but more about its growth and how all the pieces fit together. My hope is that ED will be able to get itself into a position soon where it can start to address/eliminate some of the long standing issues that have caused so much dissension among its customer base. But over and above that, I think ED could do a lot better job at promoting the importance of DCS World and ALL of its pieces. At the moment, one is left with the impression the vast majority of the DCS community considers the individual jet/plane models as the only important part, and that everything else should be free because they cause division in MP servers. In reality, the entire DCS Eco-system would likely come crashing to a grinding halt if those sentiments were to actually materialize. 

 

So yeah, lets hope we see more improvements in naval ops! 

[Silver_Dragon]

18 minutes ago, upyr1 said:

It looks like they have been working on both the dynamic campaign and vulkan. 

 

dynamic campaign has a dedicated team with a RTS enginier.

[upyr1]

20 minutes ago, Callsign112 said:

I originally voted yes, but not because I see your suggestion as being a separate entity within DCS World. I voted yes because I think what you are suggesting makes sense and could very easily fit in with Combined Arms. Basically do for ships what CA does for tanks, but make a serious effort to add/fix other important issues like DM's and AI behavior. This could be added to CA while also slowly adding a ship, or two here and there, or an improved radar system. Nothing too far fetched here, as this is basically the way things seem to be working now anyway.   

This is what I expect Eagle would do, if they started Fleet OPs. CA has problems, but I can see where they are going with it. I think it would take some work but it could be salvageable.

35 minutes ago, Callsign112 said:

I think a lot of people are just getting tired of waiting for what they see as game breaking issues lasting for months, and sometimes even years. If we take a step back to see the bigger picture of what is being done, we would have to be in denial not to recognize that simulating the military systems of both past and present worlds is no small task. The only explanation I can come up with to explain issues like the YAK are that ED is waiting to advance its core systems before spending time fixing something that would have to be re-fixed after the games core gets updated. But then things like the reflections in the SU-25T show up after 2.7, and it throws my reasoning out the window because I have to ask myself why the reflections were toned down and not fixed?

I think that is a true statement. 

9 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

 

dynamic campaign has a dedicated team with a RTS enginier.

True, which is why I think they you are right they need to split the assets team into land, sea and air

[Mr_sukebe]

Sounds like we’re gaining consensus in this discussion that it would be cool to have.

So, the next question is what do we mean by naval operations.

 

Do we mean just simple high level 3rd person view of a ship and control of say weapons, radar, ability to launch AI helicopters or jets?

[Northstar98]

On 8/2/2021 at 9:28 AM, Mr_sukebe said:

Sounds like we’re gaining consensus in this discussion that it would be cool to have.

So, the next question is what do we mean by naval operations.

 

Do we mean just simple high level 3rd person view of a ship and control of say weapons, radar, ability to launch AI helicopters or jets?

Personally, it would almost be a waste of time to do more CA functionality with ships, when the whole naval aspect is borderline at best.

So ideally it would be a major platform upgrade, upgrading all of the big ticket aspects, and those big ticket aspects? Well I could write a trilogy about them, from the AI, the damage modelling, the sensors modelling, EW and countermeasures, even the physics, graphics and just getting variants straight, there's plenty there.

Essentially it's basically Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, in DCS.

The main issue for me is, is that we barely have the above for air combat as is, which is fairly alarming on something that is mostly focused on air combat (we only really have the damage modelling for WWII stuff, and even then there's things like graphical representation, detached parts retaining their damage model, soft-body physics (I think that's what I'm talking about), let alone ground or naval.

Edited December 6, 2021 by Northstar98
formatting

[Hummingbird]

I'd certainly be interested, but mostly in WW2 naval modules, and only as long as it's kept as realistic as possible in terms of the vessel's armour, armament & sailing performance. 

[cfrag]

18 hours ago, upyr1 said:

19 hours ago, norbot said:

There‘s only one big problem. Who is going to pay all those „exclusive“ teams?

 

We the consumers of course. 

 

I believe the problem runs a little deeper (ironic turn of phrase in this context ) -- ED needs to pre-finance naval development, and then hope that module sales recapture their investments, a big gamble indeed when you are gambling with the likelihood of your developers.

 

Which brings me to a related question that has been nagging me since the ASW subject came up some moons ago: does DCS model sea floor/water depth in their current maps? Or is it just shallow water / deep water? That alone could have tremendous impact on development cost and in-game memory requirements for all existing maps (perhaps without NTTR) - just to keep the status quo all maps with open water would need to be updated significantly for everyone, regardless if they ever purchased a naval module. Looking at the scope of things that are already on their plate, I doubt that at this point in time ED would find it a viable business opportunity.  

 

Would I want it? Sure. I love everything DCS (well, CA a bit less). Do I want it more than other things already slated for development? No.

 

[Silver_Dragon]

4 minutes ago, cfrag said:

 

I believe the problem runs a little deeper (ironic turn of phrase in this context ) -- ED needs to pre-finance naval development, and then hope that module sales recapture their investments, a big gamble indeed when you are gambling with the likelihood of your developers.

 

Which brings me to a related question that has been nagging me since the ASW subject came up some moons ago: does DCS model sea floor/water depth in their current maps? Or is it just shallow water / deep water? That alone could have tremendous impact on development cost and in-game memory requirements for all existing maps (perhaps without NTTR) - just to keep the status quo all maps with open water would need to be updated significantly for everyone, regardless if they ever purchased a naval module. Looking at the scope of things that are already on their plate, I doubt that at this point in time ED would find it a viable business opportunity.  

 

Would I want it? Sure. I love everything DCS (well, CA a bit less). Do I want it more than other things already slated for development? No.

 

 

Supercarrier has the first Naval Module, surelly that get ED info about develop cost, other point has the technology builded on them, with help other develops. The actual ED and 3rd party maps has sea froor, but actually none has check if has realistic or not.

 

TDK (Terrain Develop Kit) can use bathimetric data to generate realistic depths from 5-6 years ago.

[Tank50us]

20 hours ago, Silver_Dragon said:

I think ED need build "exclusive" teams to improve all branches (Air / Land / Sea) all centred on improve and add features to your sides with dedicated personal, outside of "core", modules, engine and map teams.

 

 

I mean, they already are doing this to a degree, just with specific modules. However, the warbirds, from what I understand, are a team of people just doing the warbirds, and nothing else. This same logic could be applied to ships, and land units... at least in theory.

[Silver_Dragon]

9 minutes ago, Tank50us said:

 

I mean, they already are doing this to a degree, just with specific modules. However, the warbirds, from what I understand, are a team of people just doing the warbirds, and nothing else. This same logic could be applied to ships, and land units... at least in theory.

WW2 team with the "core" team has on Moscow meanwhile the modern team has on the Studio outside Moscow (the old Belsimtek studio with a new name), Map, Mocap and "world" team has on Minsk, and ED has talk other teams has on other sites. That is build aditional teams to build expecific branch technology and funtionality to land, air and sea environment on other sites.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Silver_Dragon

[cfrag]

2 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

 

Supercarrier has the first Naval Module, surelly that get ED info about develop cost, other point has the technology builded on them, with help other develops. The actual ED and 3rd party maps has sea froor, but actually none has check if has realistic or not.

 

TDK (Terrain Develop Kit) can use bathimetric data to generate realistic depths from 5-6 years ago.

 

My apologies for being unclear. Currently the maps already support height, and I do not doubt that negative height for sea floor is also unproblematic. The question is: is that data available (probably yes), how precise, how expensive, and would adding that data impact map/memory footprint (maybe we get lucky and it won't impact memory at all).

 

That being said, SC to me is wholly unimpressive when it comes to naval (as opposed to flight simming) achievements, as it does not (AFAIK) model buoyancy, displacement, sea currents, drag or even simple hydrodynamic effects (two large ships cruising too close to another and then create a Bernoulli effect that draws them closer together until they collide). All this needs to be modelled for any meaningful naval unit simulation. When we get to ASW, we also need to include water temperature, salinity etc (i.e. 'underwater weather'). Not at all impossible, but it would require significant development expense - my guess, of course. Unless we want to go with 'wet CA', a CA-level quality abomination floating on water...      

[Silver_Dragon]

21 minutes ago, cfrag said:

 

My apologies for being unclear. Currently the maps already support height, and I do not doubt that negative height for sea floor is also unproblematic. The question is: is that data available (probably yes), how precise, how expensive, and would adding that data impact map/memory footprint (maybe we get lucky and it won't impact memory at all).

 

on the TDK video, ED was show some data exporting methods with "open" data. (4:22)

 

21 minutes ago, cfrag said:

That being said, SC to me is wholly unimpressive when it comes to naval (as opposed to flight simming) achievements, as it does not (AFAIK) model buoyancy, displacement, sea currents, drag or even simple hydrodynamic effects (two large ships cruising too close to another and then create a Bernoulli effect that draws them closer together until they collide). All this needs to be modelled for any meaningful naval unit simulation. When we get to ASW, we also need to include water temperature, salinity etc (i.e. 'underwater weather'). Not at all impossible, but it would require significant development expense - my guess, of course. Unless we want to go with 'wet CA', a CA-level quality abomination floating on water...      

 

That has part of the "sea engine", no about a naval unit inself. Has the same situation to model correct Track suspension and phisics on a tank, need first build on the "land engine". All need implement as APIs to integrate on modules.

 

By that, we have talk about exclusive "team" centred on add expecific funtionality on the core and engine, centred on own branches.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Silver_Dragon

[cfrag]

Just now, Silver_Dragon said:

 

on the TDK video, ED was show some data exporting methods prom 

 

 

That has part of the "sea engine", no about a naval unit inself.

 

That's an important distinction. It does open an important question, though: an aircraft carrier that can go from 25 knots to standstill in less than 5 seconds (as it can now): is that a sea engine problem or a unit problem? Because it is a big problem from a simulation point of view.

 

I agree that there are a *lot* of issues with naval units already (damage modeling being only one of many), so there are lots of things to do. I think that ships behave different from land and air vehicles because they each work in different mediums. To simulate them all in meaningful ways we would indeed need a 'sea engine' for naval units like we have an 'air engine' for aircraft. Unfortunately, we have no quality 'land engine' to speak of, which explains why CA is so bad, as witnessed by the 270 km/h downhill racing Leopard II. As a matter of fact, CA perfectly demonstrates what happens if you create a unit and do not have the physics engine to correctly back it up. I don't want that for naval units.

 

I don't really think we can have a meaningful sea unit simulation without a quality sea engine. And we desperately also need a good 'land engine' to better model land units (and when aircraft roll on land, but I digress). That is why I'd prefer ED focus on what we have before expanding to sea. 

 

[Silver_Dragon]

1 hour ago, cfrag said:

 

That's an important distinction. It does open an important question, though: an aircraft carrier that can go from 25 knots to standstill in less than 5 seconds (as it can now): is that a sea engine problem or a unit problem? Because it is a big problem from a simulation point of view.

 

I agree that there are a *lot* of issues with naval units already (damage modeling being only one of many), so there are lots of things to do. I think that ships behave different from land and air vehicles because they each work in different mediums. To simulate them all in meaningful ways we would indeed need a 'sea engine' for naval units like we have an 'air engine' for aircraft. Unfortunately, we have no quality 'land engine' to speak of, which explains why CA is so bad, as witnessed by the 270 km/h downhill racing Leopard II. As a matter of fact, CA perfectly demonstrates what happens if you create a unit and do not have the physics engine to correctly back it up. I don't want that for naval units.

 

I don't really think we can have a meaningful sea unit simulation without a quality sea engine. And we desperately also need a good 'land engine' to better model land units (and when aircraft roll on land, but I digress). That is why I'd prefer ED focus on what we have before expanding to sea. 

 

 

All naval work as the "actual" naval engine has build, actually has none implement as a realistic acelerations / desaceleration / turns etc based of water environment. The units only take the engine funtionality. The same situation with the "land" engine and the Leopard making F-1 downhill. On fact, that has been a large wishlist require to ED to improve all "world" enviroments, but that has none a priority yet.

 

CA inself was based on a "JTAC desktop trainer" to the UK army on late 2000, that none require a realistic vehicle movement or armour or weapons.

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Silver_Dragon

[cfrag]

48 minutes ago, Silver_Dragon said:

 

All naval work as the "actual" naval engine has build, actually has none implement as a realistic acelerations / desaceleration / turns etc based of water environment. The units only take the engine funtionality. The same situation with the "land" engine and the Leopard making F-1 downhill. On fact, that has been a large wishlist require to ED to improve all "world" enviroments, but that has none a priority yet.

 

CA inself was based on a "JTAC destock trainer" to the UK army on early 2000, that none require a realistic vehicle movement or armour or weapons.

 

Agreed. That is why I think that development of real (in a simulation sense) naval units would be so expensive. Simply having units that merely vaguely resemble something from the real world doesn't make the game better. An aircraft carrier that can stop on a dime or an "F-1 Leo" (nice one, love that expression ) is not really helping, and should be a warning not to underestimate the complexity (and cost) of development.

[Northstar98]

Regarding underwater in DCS, most paid for maps have semi-accurate depth maps that seems to follow the including charts, it's not stellar but it doesn't need to be, just as long as it's reasonably accurate.

 

There is also an 'underwater' so to speak, it's quite basic, certainly not to the level of say, SH4 (which also goes for refraction and trasnparency effects in general.

 

Though with regard to the physics, there basically aren't any for ships (same for ground vehicles too really), there's collisions, and ships accelerate and decelerate (sometimes it's more realistic, sometimes it isn't).

 

There is some scripted roll with turning (though I'm fairly sure that sometimes it's in the wrong direction), though with small craft it can get ridiculous at high speeds.

 

In terms of pitching and rolling, it's completely random with a magnitude dependent on wind speed - there's no actual buoyancy model like you'll find in say, a submarine simulator, where ships actually interact with the waves. The same can be said for sinking, there's no simulation of flooding and loss of buoyancy/stability, ships just have a scripted sinking that's identical every time, that happens when the health drops to 0.

 

There's also other, more basic stuff, like getting where forces are applied correct, ships when turning should have the force that yaws them act on the ship's stern, as this is where the rudders are applying the force to turn the vessel.

[Callsign112]

All really good points, but again the expectations for entry/expansion into any area (i.e. air/ground/naval) is way out of proportion, and it would simply place limits that basically dictate nothing would ever get done.

 

Take the recent cloud update for example. The amount of work that went into that is no doubt huge, but unless the work is started, it will never be done. What did we have before the cloud update? I mean it worked, but thank god for the update.

 

The P-51D was one of the first flight models. If you compare what we have today to what was originally released, you could argue that they are two different models of the same plane. Using just the ME and the Super Carrier module, I can already build very interesting naval battles, so like the clouds update, the detail of the ships and how they function will only get better one update at a time.

 

The F-18 has seen literally hundreds of updates/additions/tweaks since its release.

 

Here is one of the items added to Combined Arms in the last update it received:

-Added: inertia after critical damage - Moving vehicles will gradually roll to a stop after critical damage received

 

So like in the ship moving example, they will start and stop on a dime until someone gets around to fixing it. That doesn't mean in order to fix it, someone will also have to recreate the entire DCS World naval physics engine and all of its connecting parts though. It usually starts by adding a feature or two. Then after several months of updates, the model starts to slowly transform into the tank/ship/plane that users can really appreciate. Just like my P-51D.

 

Sea depth is not that much different from the clouds update in terms of the change it represents to the World being simulated, but if sea depth has to be more accurately modeled, then there is only one way to do that, and that would be to just do it.

 

But these type of discussion always seem to head in the same direction, and I can't help wonder if it isn't because they leave some with the impression that a request to update/fix another part of DCS is like a request to stop working on the aircraft side of DCS, and nothing should be further from the truth. The air SIM part of DCS is very important to both ED and this entire community. But if I consider what makes flying war birds so amazing in DCS, of course I would naturally have to start with the planes themselves. But the amazing thing about flying the DCS war birds doesn't stop there, it continues outwards from the flight stick to include the entire map I happen to be flying in, the assets that were placed on the ground and in the water, and the visual effects generated when my munitions hit the target, or not! 

 

 

[Callsign112]

22 hours ago, upyr1 said:

This is what I expect Eagle would do, if they started Fleet OPs. CA has problems, but I can see where they are going with it. I think it would take some work but it could be salvageable.

I think that is a true statement. 

True, which is why I think they you are right they need to split the assets team into land, sea and air

I made an argument to have it added to CA, but they could certainly make a separate product for naval ops and I would probably support it either way. But making another product would also likely add to the claimed issue of creating division in the community. IMO, ED has to somehow address the ill conceived notion that DCS World products are dividing the community. One way to do that might be to add enough value to any given module that it moves into the "must buy" category.  Aside from that, I think as a community, we have to somehow find a way to all get on the same page and realize that buying a plane model, or two, or three does not a simulator make.

[Callsign112]

5 hours ago, cfrag said:

 

That's an important distinction. It does open an important question, though: an aircraft carrier that can go from 25 knots to standstill in less than 5 seconds (as it can now): is that a sea engine problem or a unit problem? Because it is a big problem from a simulation point of view.

 

I agree that there are a *lot* of issues with naval units already (damage modeling being only one of many), so there are lots of things to do. I think that ships behave different from land and air vehicles because they each work in different mediums. To simulate them all in meaningful ways we would indeed need a 'sea engine' for naval units like we have an 'air engine' for aircraft. Unfortunately, we have no quality 'land engine' to speak of, which explains why CA is so bad, as witnessed by the 270 km/h downhill racing Leopard II. As a matter of fact, CA perfectly demonstrates what happens if you create a unit and do not have the physics engine to correctly back it up. I don't want that for naval units.

 

I don't really think we can have a meaningful sea unit simulation without a quality sea engine. And we desperately also need a good 'land engine' to better model land units (and when aircraft roll on land, but I digress). That is why I'd prefer ED focus on what we have before expanding to sea. 

 

Without trying to harp on a single point, I think this post is well written and probably poses the best argument we could make to have the other parts of DCS World updated.

 

I completely agree in that the ground/naval aspects of DCS, and especially the Combined Arms module require more frequent updates. But it is worth pointing out, as it should be obvious to the community that like every other plane module ever released, refinement of any given module is achieved over a period of time and after multiple updates. We currently have ground and naval units. And after several more updates, we are likely to have ground and naval units that are more capable and enjoyable to use.

[upyr1]

4 hours ago, Callsign112 said:

I made an argument to have it added to CA, but they could certainly make a separate product for naval ops and I would probably support it either way. But making another product would also likely add to the claimed issue of creating division in the community. IMO, ED has to somehow address the ill conceived notion that DCS World products are dividing the community. One way to do that might be to add enough value to any given module that it moves into the "must buy" category.  Aside from that, I think as a community, we have to somehow find a way to all get on the same page and realize that buying a plane model, or two, or three does not a simulator make.

As long as you don't need Fleet Ops to play on multiplayer game with someone using Fleet OP, then that won't be a problem. The only time I have seen people complain about something dividing the community has been the WW II asset pack.  As for making it part of Combined Arms, there are two reasons I can see that might not be a good idea. First, is that the split might result in better optimization for the respective environments, and second it might result in more assets.  It is clear people don't want asset packs but you might be able to use fleet ops to pay for Naval asset improvements 

[upyr1]

9 hours ago, cfrag said:

 

That's an important distinction. It does open an important question, though: an aircraft carrier that can go from 25 knots to standstill in less than 5 seconds (as it can now): is that a sea engine problem or a unit problem? Because it is a big problem from a simulation point of view.

 

I agree that there are a *lot* of issues with naval units already (damage modeling being only one of many), so there are lots of things to do. I think that ships behave different from land and air vehicles because they each work in different mediums. To simulate them all in meaningful ways we would indeed need a 'sea engine' for naval units like we have an 'air engine' for aircraft. Unfortunately, we have no quality 'land engine' to speak of, which explains why CA is so bad, as witnessed by the 270 km/h downhill racing Leopard II. As a matter of fact, CA perfectly demonstrates what happens if you create a unit and do not have the physics engine to correctly back it up. I don't want that for naval units.

 

I don't really think we can have a meaningful sea unit simulation without a quality sea engine. And we desperately also need a good 'land engine' to better model land units (and when aircraft roll on land, but I digress). That is why I'd prefer ED focus on what we have before expanding to sea. 

 

You have brought up a valid issue with DCS, the current engine doesn't do land or sea units very well. In my view, this is actually a good argument for DCS :Fleet OPS, if they take their time. The last thing I would want to see is something like Combined Arms, which is the worst module in DCS. However we do need the Land and Sea elements overhauled, if done properly Fleet Ops and Combined Arms II would do just that. I would hope that if Eagle were to seriously consider doing Fleet ops, they have the team working on it sit down and overhaul everything about the ships from stem to stern and build the engines you are talking about