Show ‘client’ aircraft as static if not taken

[deltatango]

If you build a mission with multiple flyable client aircraft it would great to see them as static aircraft if not taken by a player. At least for aircraft that are set to ground or ramp start. Maybe as an option. Would make the airfield look more populated. 

[Hunter Joker]

Try there:

 

 

[Tank50us]

On the surface that sounds great, but remember that each of those aircraft then have to be rendered. So while it looks great when you have a decent enough computer for it, if you're running a potato powered PC.... ya might have to plant some more potatoes....

[cfrag]

Well, it *is* eye candy, agreed. That being said, I also would welcome if an airfield-spawned airframe had an option tickbox for 'static stand-in' in ME. And that being said, I understand that they may pose some ambiguous problems: they'd attract fire from AI and opposing side's player. They block spawn slots for dynamically spawned flights (especially on carriers). 

Oh, and SWAPPR is are really nice tool with indeed a hefty toll on your box's performance if you go overboard with client planes

  

[upyr1]

I'd rather have the option to populate them with AI if a player isn't available. 

[cfrag]

6 hours ago, upyr1 said:

I'd rather have the option to populate them with AI if a player isn't available. 

That would of course be a great alternative - but we need to figure out how to handle the situation if a player joins a couple of minutes late. Will the AI plane disappear and the player one joins in the player spawning slot (airfield/carrier) or will they replace the AI plane in mid-flight (if that is even possible)? In the latter case, what about expended munitions and/or fuel or other consumables (note: I think it would be a great new feature if AI could take over a player's plane and vice versa)? Alternatively - will the slot simply be closed after a couple of minutes when the AI plane spawns? It's an interesting challenge, and I think it needs be resolved first. 

 

[upyr1]

5 hours ago, cfrag said:

That would of course be a great alternative - but we need to figure out how to handle the situation if a player joins a couple of minutes late. Will the AI plane disappear and the player one joins in the player spawning slot (airfield/carrier) or will they replace the AI plane in mid-flight (if that is even possible)? In the latter case, what about expended munitions and/or fuel or other consumables (note: I think it would be a great new feature if AI could take over a player's plane and vice versa)? Alternatively - will the slot simply be closed after a couple of minutes when the AI plane spawns? It's an interesting challenge, and I think it needs be resolved first. 

 

One idea is to set it up so that if a plane is moving down the runway or at least airborne it is unavailable to human pilots. I think that would be the easiest fix. 

[Exorcet]

23 hours ago, upyr1 said:

I'd rather have the option to populate them with AI if a player isn't available. 

 

11 hours ago, upyr1 said:

One idea is to set it up so that if a plane is moving down the runway or at least airborne it is unavailable to human pilots. I think that would be the easiest fix. 

This wouldn't work very well for the typical open server, and you'd have to plan routes and missions for every single plane. This is not something simple to implement and most people probably wouldn't want it as a default.

[upyr1]

1 hour ago, Exorcet said:

This wouldn't work very well for the typical open server, and you'd have to plan routes and missions for every single plane. This is not something simple to implement and most people probably wouldn't want it as a default.

That's why options would be nice.   I figure when you are building a mission and assign a flight to the client or player there could be a check box like human only. If it is checked, then that flight is human only and won't appear without a human and if it isn't then once a conditon then a random AI pilot gets assigned. That conditon could be time or location or something.

Edited October 28, 2021 by upyr1

[Exorcet]

1 hour ago, upyr1 said:

That's why options would be nice.   I figure when you are building a mission and assign a flight to the client or player there could be a check box like human only. If it is checked, then that flight is human only and won't appear without a human and if it isn't then once a conditon then a random AI pilot gets assigned. That conditon could be time or location or something.

 

What will the AI do? You need more than a checkbox or it will just take off, then turn around and land. Human only should probably be the default too, not something you have to check.

[upyr1]

2 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

What will the AI do? You need more than a checkbox or it will just take off, then turn around and land. Human only should probably be the default too, not something you have to check.

Maybe change the check mark to AI can fly and allow the mission designer to set a timer or something. Anyhow the entire point would be to set up a mission without being concerned about empty slots since they will either be filled by a human or AI. The way it stands right now if you set up a mission on a public server and have a blue strike pacgkage against red defenders in MIG-29s and Su-27s if no one takes the red side then they won't be there. So set things up so AI can take control then if you don't have a player in every slot you still have a mission and if you do then you have a better mission

[Exorcet]

21 minutes ago, upyr1 said:

Maybe change the check mark to AI can fly and allow the mission designer to set a timer or something. Anyhow the entire point would be to set up a mission without being concerned about empty slots since they will either be filled by a human or AI. The way it stands right now if you set up a mission on a public server and have a blue strike pacgkage against red defenders in MIG-29s and Su-27s if no one takes the red side then they won't be there. So set things up so AI can take control then if you don't have a player in every slot you still have a mission and if you do then you have a better mission

I understand the idea, but what I'm saying is that it creates tons and tons of problems for most servers.

Every single plane will need their mission route built by the mission maker. This isn't necessary for human controlled planes, or at the very least human controlled planes don't need every single task written out for them. A timer doesn't accomplish anything really because the AI won't know what do by time alone.

Then there is also the issue of when players arrive. A squadron or organized group would all arrive at the beginning of a mission, but most public open servers will have people coming and going. It would just create frustration to have slots filled by AI all the time.

Your idea of having AI take over for an empty red side could be handled by just having dedicated CAP AI separated from player slots. This avoids the second issue I mentioned and it can be controlled with triggered as far as I know.

There is a place for your idea, but it really needs the details worked out. It's also not really a substitute for what's being asked for in this thread as just having statics in the place of empty clients is much much easier to do conceptually.

[Nealius]

On 10/26/2021 at 9:55 PM, Tank50us said:

On the surface that sounds great, but remember that each of those aircraft then have to be rendered. So while it looks great when you have a decent enough computer for it, if you're running a potato powered PC.... ya might have to plant some more potatoes....

Even if you have a decent computer there's often not enough potatoes. Many of the 3D models are lacking LODs--or the existing LODs are ineffecient--causing massive framerate dips when looking in their general direction from beyond visual range. 

Edited October 28, 2021 by Nealius

[deltatango]

OP here. Just to clarify.  My idea was really for missions where the player aircraft are set to ‘client’ but mainly designed for SP.  So, say you have a mission with 4 different types of helicopters, you can choose one and the others will show as parked, unless you do decide to play it MP and someone else takes the other ones.

It just makes more sense to have an airport with a few aircraft sitting around and when you choose one, you can still see the others. 

[upyr1]

On 10/27/2021 at 10:17 PM, Exorcet said:

I understand the idea, but what I'm saying is that it creates tons and tons of problems for most servers.

Every single plane will need their mission route built by the mission maker. This isn't necessary for human controlled planes, or at the very least human controlled planes don't need every single task written out for them. A timer doesn't accomplish anything really because the AI won't know what do by time alone.

That's a mission designer problem. I would expect someone using the option is going to program way points for the mission and not leave it as a free for all. 

 

On 10/27/2021 at 10:17 PM, Exorcet said:

Then there is also the issue of when players arrive. A squadron or organized group would all arrive at the beginning of a mission, but most public open servers will have people coming and going. It would just create frustration to have slots filled by AI all the time.

Either a timer or set a test for conditons. Either an aircraft on the ground or a timer counting down the seconds to take off time would work.

 

On 10/27/2021 at 10:17 PM, Exorcet said:

Your idea of having AI take over for an empty red side could be handled by just having dedicated CAP AI separated from player slots. This avoids the second issue I mentioned and it can be controlled with triggered as far as I know.

There is a place for your idea, but it really needs the details worked out. It's also not really a substitute for what's being asked for in this thread as just having statics in the place of empty clients is much much easier to do conceptually.

Even if we can do this with trigger I would still rather to do it through the main mission editor. I know it's not realated to having an empty plane sit on the flight line but  I would like the option of having them do something.  

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

On 10/29/2021 at 4:40 AM, deltatango said:

OP here. Just to clarify.  My idea was really for missions where the player aircraft are set to ‘client’ but mainly designed for SP.  So, say you have a mission with 4 different types of helicopters, you can choose one and the others will show as parked, unless you do decide to play it MP and someone else takes the other ones.

It just makes more sense to have an airport with a few aircraft sitting around and when you choose one, you can still see the others. 

Apr 2022 - Just what I was looking for but it seems this is still not possible?

[Northstar98]

+1, and the best place for this is the visible before start checkbox (which is used for late activation - you can kind of think of a client aircraft as being late activated, just its triggered by someone slotting in rather than a trigger event).

Edited April 15, 2022 by Northstar98

[Callsign112]

On 10/28/2021 at 4:40 PM, deltatango said:

OP here. Just to clarify.  My idea was really for missions where the player aircraft are set to ‘client’ but mainly designed for SP.  So, say you have a mission with 4 different types of helicopters, you can choose one and the others will show as parked, unless you do decide to play it MP and someone else takes the other ones.

It just makes more sense to have an airport with a few aircraft sitting around and when you choose one, you can still see the others. 

You are probably already aware of this, but I just checked in-game to verify when you have Combined Arms installed, playing as Game Master, you can jump back and forth between all Ai aircraft in the mission regardless of way point assignments. I used 4 different aircraft type to test it, and was able to jump back and forth between them as many times as I liked. After leaving one to enter another, the plane I just left keeps flying around.

I know you were asking to have Client aircraft that don't get used to still be sitting parked in case you want to change planes. I really like your suggestion and would use it a lot in SP, but this is the only partial workaround I found. The problem with this is that I can't set an Ai aircraft to stay parked in the ME. The only option is to take off, fly over a point, or land. If they would add the ability to have Ai aircraft parked hot, you could then just jump in and go. Setting the Ai to land might work, but I think once  they land, you can no longer enter them from the Game Master slot. I will have to go back and verify this because I forgot to check just now, but iirc I have already tried this and it didn't work.

[reece146]

See the link to SWAPR above - it does what you want.

[Callsign112]

Thanks!

[upyr1]

On 10/27/2021 at 10:17 PM, Exorcet said:

I understand the idea, but what I'm saying is that it creates tons and tons of problems for most servers.

Every single plane will need their mission route built by the mission maker. This isn't necessary for human controlled planes, or at the very least human controlled planes don't need every single task written out for them. A timer doesn't accomplish anything really because the AI won't know what do by time alone.

Then there is also the issue of when players arrive. A squadron or organized group would all arrive at the beginning of a mission, but most public open servers will have people coming and going. It would just create frustration to have slots filled by AI all the time.

Your idea of having AI take over for an empty red side could be handled by just having dedicated CAP AI separated from player slots. This avoids the second issue I mentioned and it can be controlled with triggered as far as I know.

There is a place for your idea, but it really needs the details worked out. It's also not really a substitute for what's being asked for in this thread as just having statics in the place of empty clients is much much easier to do conceptually.

That's up for the mission designer to figure out, I'm just asking for the option 

[cfrag]

I'd prefer if ED put this in as an option.

In the meantime...

 

 

[Mike_Romeo]

4 minutes ago, cfrag said:

I'd prefer if ED put this in as an option.

In the meantime...

 

 

I tried that with the Growling Sidewinder server mission. Huge FPS hit due to all the high quality models.

[cfrag]

3 minutes ago, Mike_Romeo said:

Huge FPS hit due to all the high quality models.

That's why Hardcard, when presenting his SWAPR (which inspired StopGap), he originally quipped "Do you ... suffer from high FPS?" 

Of course loading all those textures will crush your GPU and take the frame rate down with it. Then again,in DCS we like to suffer, so...  

Edited August 22 by cfrag