Allow user to decide whether ramp starts are hot or cold (proposal to merge waypoint takeoff types)

[SharpeXB]

10 minutes ago, Tippis said:

Unfortunately, players do not have the tools required to do that

Mission designers do.

10 minutes ago, Tippis said:

creating maps is not something mission-makers can do.

Not the terrain “theater” DLC map. I’m talking about the mission “map” with the units and spawn locations etc. Obviously… 

Edited November 10, 2021 by SharpeXB

[Tippis]

6 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Mission designers do.

Nope. Because they don't have the required tools.

6 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Where do you think the multiplayer missions come from? 

But you didn't say “mission”, now did you? The explanation for all of this was right there in the post, but much like with the OP, it seems like you skipped it.

You still don't have an argument, by the way, and your workaround doesn't actually work.
You still haven't explained why you feel so strongly that DCS must remain a lesser game.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

Just now, Tippis said:

Nope. Because they don't have the required tools.

How are multiplayer missions created if mission designers don’t have the tools? (Hint there’s a Mission Editor you can create missions with)

[Tippis]

You're fond of repetition, I'll give you that so… I guess I'll give you exactly that:

1 minute ago, SharpeXB said:

How are multiplayer missions

…but you didn't say “mission”, now did you? The explanation for all of this was right there in the post, but much like with the OP, it seems like you skipped it.

You still don't have an argument, by the way, and your workaround doesn't actually work.
You still haven't explained why you feel so strongly that DCS must remain a lesser game.

[SharpeXB]

3 minutes ago, Tippis said:

You still haven't explained why you feel so strongly that DCS must remain a lesser game.

Who says it’s a lesser game? The missions which are featured online are designed to appeal to what players want. If somebody wanted to design a mission with a mix of hot and cold start slots they could do it. The fact that we apparently don’t see that is perhaps that gameplay style wouldn’t be appealing. 

[Tippis]

9 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Who says it’s a lesser game?

You are, as it happens.
You're the one trying to make sure it does not improve (for no adequately explained reason). That makes it a lesser game, pretty much by definition.

If you take X+1, but don't add the +1, you end up with just X, which is less than X+1.

Oh, and you still haven't explained why this should be DCS' fate.

9 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

The missions which are featured online are designed to appeal to what players want.

They are designed within the constraints of what functionality the game has on offer. One of those constraints is the mutual exclusivity of the spawn point options — hell sometimes it's not even mutually exclusive, but just exclusive, period. Irrespective of what players want, the mission designer can't provide it because the functionality isn't there. For MP missions in particular, the complexity and number of aircraft involved also makes your workaround wholly impracticable.

9 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

If somebody wanted to design a mission with a mix of hot and cold start slots they could do it.

…and if you had read the OP, you'd know that they do. But the problem is that there are some very silly limitations to how this can be done that keep it from being done right. Hence the OP's suggestion to remove that limitation and provide that option.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

This whole topic is moot too because all the regularly populated servers use cold starts exclusively. I’ve never seen a hot start option in MP. Since that’s what the OP wants then there’s no problem. If you want to cold start near the AO try one of the dynamic war servers like DDCS. You’re free to spawn right on the front line and maybe get blasted outa the sky by an enemy SAM right on takeoff. It’s your choice. 
This is a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist. There’s enough variety in MP if you go find it. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by SharpeXB

[cfrag]

5 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Because it’s already possible to create a mission like the OP would want without adding extra settings.

As a mission designer myself, I find that to be true only in a very literal sense, but untrue in spirit: such a feature would save mission designers tons of work. It's a major hassle to provide hot and cold slots in a mission for anything but the most basic missions. If you provide hot and cold, you are using up twice as many parking lots. That's a minor gripe, but you are also using two distinct groups instead of one. The latter is a major inconvenience for designers if you use any kind of scripting (heck, even if you stay off Lua altogether and just use simple trigger stuff) because now instead of testing if one group meets a condition, you have to test for one or the other (and find a way to prevent both). It doubles potential bugs (invert this condition: "(not a or not b)" and you'll find out why we hate multiple group testing so much) and testing effort. If I had an option to let the user decide if they want to hot or cold-start, that would be VERY helpful. If I do provide hot and cold, I have the timing constraints already resolved (usually start the action when the first unit in the group leaves the park zone), so such an option cuts down my work massively on all other mission triggers and code. I would welcome if it's an option that can be overridden by the server as suggested to enforce a start state when this makes design easier.

Based on my mission design work, I wager that a hot/cold option for a player slot would take loads off other mission designer's busywork. It would for me anyway.

[Tippis]

6 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

This whole topic is moot too because all the regularly populated servers use cold starts exclusively.

That doesn't really make the topic moot, now does it?
Quite the opposite: it demonstrates the need for this exact thing, and why your proposed workaround doesn't work.

This is simple the classic argument from incredulity fallacy on your part, which, not very shockingly, is not an actual argument. It's just you not being able to come up with an actual argument why the game should not be improved and using your own lack of effort as the basis for that.

To put it clearly: there are no arguments against this. None. You certainly haven't provided any. But there are multiple arguments for it. Ironically, you have accidentally provided some of those in your attempts to do the opposite.

6 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

I’ve never seen a hot start option in MP.

Well, you're not really qualified to take part of this discussion, then, since you're admitting that you're arguing from a position of ignorance and lack of experience.

6 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

This is a solution looking for a problem that doesn’t exist.

The mere existence of this thread proves this wrong. This is just you generalising from your irrelevant preference and lack of experience again.

No, the problem does indeed exist — but it happens behind the curtain, where you have never seen it because you simply haven't looked. The solution only exist as an obvious capability in the code, but it is artificially and arbitrarily limited by how aircraft spawning is set up with hard-coded and hard-mapped assignments that cannot be mixed and matched to suit your needs. There's nothing the mission-designer can do about it because you can only do what DCS allows you to do, so they go for the easiest option. This solution would allow for a much larger variety of setups, a very easy way for designers to cater to a larger audience with pretty much zero extra work, which is a vast improvement over having to do two or three times as much (if it is even possible to begin with, which again isn't necessarily the case).

2 hours ago, cfrag said:

Based on my mission design work, I wager that a hot/cold option for a player slot would take loads off other mission designer's busywork. It would for me anyway.

Indeed. The reduction in error-potential, needless duplication, and general complexity alone would be huge. It would make life a whole lot easier for the clients as well since they wouldn't have to scroll through a hugely bloated unit list just to try to figure out which slots are which (and where),

[cfrag]

7 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

I’ve never seen a hot start option in MP.

You may be confusing cause and effect: It is possible that since providing hot and cold is such a hassle for mission designers, few go the extra mile. They only provide one, or run out of slots and are forced to use only one.

IIRC the Clearfield Escalation MP missions (their various map incarnations) for example standardize on hot only (hot only for all slots) out-of-the-box. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by cfrag

[SharpeXB]

4 hours ago, cfrag said:

That's a minor gripe, but you are also using two distinct groups instead of one. The latter is a major inconvenience for designers if you use any kind of scripting

Doesn’t letting the player set their start condition mess up the script timing in the same way as selecting a slot? Whether they choose the mode or a slot isn’t that creating two groups either way?

2 hours ago, Tippis said:

That doesn't really make the topic moot, now does it?
Quite the opposite: it demonstrates the need for this exact thing, and why your proposed workaround doesn't work.

Many servers use cold starts to enforce a certain gameplay style. To discourage players from reckless combat by having a longer startup. Such a mission design wouldn’t want players overriding that.

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, cfrag said:

You may be confusing cause and effect: It is possible that since providing hot and cold is such a hassle for mission designers, few go the extra mile. They only provide one, or run out of slots and are forced to use only one.

Still, after playing DCS for 10 years I’ve never seen a hot start online. The types of servers I’m playing on seem to be the type that would intend it. 

[XCNuse]

14 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Still, after playing DCS for 10 years I’ve never seen a hot start online. The types of servers I’m playing on seem to be the type that would intend it. 

If you play the same server, then of course your anecdotal evidence will be just that.

Meanwhile, I agree with cfrag.

Anything that can save time for the mission developer in the first place, is an important one. Having "ground" start aircraft was a nice choice so we aren't filling up an airfield with cold AND hot aircraft.

 

But as it stands, there are still a lot of things the mission developer has to decide on FOR the players, not the other way around.

There is a server I play every once in a while, and ALL aircraft are  hotstarts, and I wish they weren't.

 

So the choice goes both ways.

[Northstar98]

Doesn't the other, F-16 orientated sim, do exactly this?

You go from the mission planner (which DCS should definitely adopt IMO, at least in some way shape or form) and then when you click 'takeoff' it takes you to a splash screen with a countdown and 4 options: ramp, taxiway, and runway (with ramp being a cold start from the ramp, taxiway being kinda like start from ramp hot and runway being exactly like how it is in DCS) as well as an option to cancel (which just returns you to mission planner).

You can also do it another way; from the mission planner you can accelerate time until after the aircraft has started, during aircraft taxiing or after it's taken off or whatever and hop in then, taking control from the AI (in the other sim, AI will fly aircraft unoccupied by the player and you can take control/hand back control basically at will). Now not sure how this works from a multiplayer perspective (if at all), but there you go.

Obviously you should be able to enforce whatever start, but you can already do that, what you can't do is select which one you'd like without having duplicate aircraft starting from each position (which could cause conflicts).

Edited November 10, 2021 by Northstar98

[Vakarian]

@SharpeXBDude, understand that the DCS doesn't revolve around you and that there are other people that would very much like this option

Just a quick and dirty example. I use a mission in which I have every aircraft I own and they are all on Kobuleti airfield. As I would like to sometime practice cold-starts, I have each aircraft in cold-start mode. Also, sometime I just want to do something quick I do have every aircraft again placed with hot-start slots. Now, as I sometime use this mission to test something with the guys in my squadron, I need to multiply the aircraft in each group. However, if the OPs request would be introduced to the DCS, that would halve the slots I need.

So in a nutshell, having a choice is not a bad thing in this case.

This could be same as any other mission-enforcable options (F2 views, what's seen on F10 map,....), mission designer could decide does he want to enforce cold-start. If not, then user would decide for himself on joining the slot does he want the aircraft hot or cold.

"Minimum" effort from mission designer, but great QoL improvement for everyone else.

[cfrag]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Doesn’t letting the player set their start condition mess up the script timing in the same way as selecting a slot? Whether they choose the mode or a slot isn’t that creating two groups either way?

No - it requires a slightly different design for the start trigger, and you synchronize not on mission start, but the group's ready to roll. And that is exactly the issue: if you provide hot and cold, you need to code for both groups and (if you are really unlucky) prevent that you have two players (one hot one cold) that both occupy unit One of each group: "Cold One" and "Hot One". If your code checks that both unit one and two are in a zone for example. If you need to code for that, your code has just jumped from one test condition to four -- all possible plane combinations for hot and cold. That kind of designer headache can be easily prevented if startup state is a choice and no such overlap can ever happen. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by cfrag

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Doesn’t letting the player set their start condition mess up the script timing in the same way as selecting a slot?

No. Because script timings do not depend on the starting method. In fact, it's exceedingly difficult to figure out the starting waypoint type by way of scripting.

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Whether they choose the mode or a slot isn’t that creating two groups either way?

No. It only changes the state of the aircraft as the player occupies it.
It doesn't create two groups for the same reason as why turning your hot-started engines off does not suddenly create a new group.

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Many servers use cold starts to enforce a certain gameplay style.

…and again, if you could ever be bothered to read the OP, you would know that this would not change that in the slightest.

Read the OP.
Read the OP.
Read the flipping OP. And don't try to claim that you did if you're still harping on about this.

Every time you return with this complaint, you prove that you have not read the OP. The “problem” you're inventing here has already been accommodated and solved and does not exist with this proposal. Stop using it because it was a failed argument from the get-go and it only weakens your credibility and proves that you are only here to troll a topic you don't like.

Again: Read. The. OP.
And realise that the repetition of this nonsense is nothing but wilful ignorance on your part.

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Still, after playing DCS for 10 years I’ve never seen a hot start online.

Yes you have. You just choose to ignore it. Alternatively, you haven't and therefore have far too little experience with the game and its online component to be able to offer anything of value to the discussion. Either way, your anecdotal evidence is worthless and irrelevant to the topic at hand. And as mentioned earlier, even if it had some value, it would only be to support the OP's idea since you're only proven from that there is a problem in what missions can be created in your sample group.

 

1 hour ago, Northstar98 said:

Doesn't the other, F-16 orientated sim, do exactly this?

Yes. In fact, F-16-oriented sims (and many like it because it's such a blindingly obvious thing to do) have been doing this for the better part of three decades. But apparently, DCS must not be allowed to stay abreast with such old competition. Because [no actual reason]

54 minutes ago, cfrag said:

And that is exactly the issue: if you provide hot and cold, you need to code for both groups and (if you are really unlucky) prevent that you have two players (one hot one cold) that both occupy unit One of each group: one cold, one hot. If your code checks that both unit one and two are in a zone for example. If you need to code for that, your code has just jumped from one test condition to four -- all possible plane combinations for hot and cold.

There's also the complication of how some on-board systems are heavily reliant on the game-mechanical “sameness” of the group, so splitting one group into two will immediately break those systems or require very tedious prep-work for everyone involved. For the ones who pick a cold start rather than a hot one tedious prep-work was kind of the point to begin with so no real loss there… probably. For the other way around, it's not quite as convincing a case.

The “group” in DCS is not just a way to add more aircraft, but also serve a very real set of game-mechanical functions that will not exist if you split the group into two. If we were to be really insane, and add AI planes to the mix, the whole thing becomes outright impossible because they are entirely tied to the group mechanic and groups cannot mix, co-mingle, or share AI control in any way.

[cfrag]

2 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Many servers use cold starts to enforce a certain gameplay style. To discourage players from reckless combat by having a longer startup. Such a mission design wouldn’t want players overriding that.

It would perhaps be helpful to recall that there are different play styles, and all of them are equally valid. You seem to assume that the fact that the servers that you frequent (because - logically - they serve up the game style that you like; that's why you frequent them) also define the 'correct' way to fly or what 'reckless combat' means in the context of DCS. You may be surprised to learn that one person's 'reckless flying' is another one's favorite pastime.

From the standpoint of getting as many people to enjoy DCS as possible it would make sense to not enforce a particular game style, and let the mission designers and server admins decide what they want to offer. People will join whatever they deem fun, and the more people join, the better and brighter the future for us all DCS gamers. That's why I like the OP's proposal: it adds to DCS without taking anything away.

[SharpeXB]

3 hours ago, cfrag said:

And that is exactly the issue: if you provide hot and cold, you need to code for both groups and (if you are really unlucky) prevent that you have two players (one hot one cold) that both occupy unit One of each group: "Cold One" and "Hot One". 

So letting players decide their start mode individually would still mess up the scripting, more so than having entire groups start with the same state as decided in the mission. I don't see how letting players decide this individually helps in this regard. 

4 hours ago, Vakarian said:

Dude, understand that the DCS doesn't revolve around you and that there are other people that would very much like this option

I understand people want different options. Some people in MP also want every player operating under the same restrictions though and usually this is something intended in the mission design.

4 hours ago, XCNuse said:

If you play the same server, then of course your anecdotal evidence will be just that.

This on many different servers over 10 years. I've never seen a hot start option. I tend toward the more realistic mission oriented type servers though.

Cold starts discourage "air-quake" behavior and so I'm sure that's what the intent of the mission design. I don't think players on this type of server would want this to be player-decided.

The fast action servers like Growling Sidewinder already have an even mix of hot and cold start slots, this solves the problem without ED having to add more features and settings

Edited November 10, 2021 by SharpeXB

[Tippis]

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

So letting players decide their start mode individually would still mess up the scripting

No. It wouldn't affect the scripting in the slightest whereas splitting them up would.

How on earth did you manage to read what he wrote (you did read it, right?) and come to the exact opposite and completely wrong conclusion.

Let's repeat that again: the starting mode does not affect scripting. It cannot, because the scripts don't care about how you start your plane. They do care about what groups those planes are in, which is why it's a huge, brittle, bug-prone and effort-intensive faff to try to split the group into two. That's on top of the stuff that simple doesn't work if two planes are not in the same group.

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

I understand people want different options

So why do you oppose it at every turn? Especially in cases like this when there are zero downsides and only benefits.

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

This on many different servers over 10 years. I've never seen a hot start option.

Irrelevant even if it were true. At best, it further highlights the need for this option. Is that what you're trying to say here? That you approve of the option, except in the most obstructive way possible?

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Cold starts discourage "air-quake" behavior and so I'm sure that's what the intent of the mission design. I don't think players on this type of server would want this to be player-decided.

They wouldn't care in the slightest. I don't just “think” this like you (very questionably) claim you do; I know this because… you know… I read the OP. You should try doing the same. Doing so will completely cure you of this delusion you're suffering from since you keep coming back to the same disproven nonsense.

It would not affect the intent of the mission design.
Again: it would not affect the intent of the mission design.
And again: it would not affect the intent of the mission design.

You would know this and stop repeating the same drivel if you read the OP and what he's actually asking for.

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

Some people in MP also want every player operating under the same restrictions

…and they still would because…

It would not affect the intent of the mission design.
It would not affect the intent of the mission design.
It would not affect the intent of the mission design.
It would not affect the intent of the mission design.

Let's see if you are capable of spotting a pattern. But just to make sure, let's try clarifying something:

It would not affect the intent of the mission design.

Do you understand what this means as far as this option affecting the restrictions under which players operate? Do you understand what this means as far as the intent of the mission design? If you do, and still feel that there is a problem, please clearly explain how that would happen, seeing as how nothing would change for them. Explain how everything being just as it were would somehow change things. I'm all ears — it would be a fascinating read.

1 hour ago, SharpeXB said:

The fast action servers like Growling Sidewinder already have an even mix of hot and cold start slots, this solves the problem

You should also try reading what everyone else has written so you can come to grips with the blindingly obvious fact that it simply can't solve the problem. DCS does not allow for it. That's not how DCS works. People who have actually worked with this problem have explained this to you in full. Repeating this same ignorant and demonstrably false spiel of will not suddenly make it any more true.

Read what people write.

READ. For crying out loud. Just read. Otherwise you are just a troll repeating copy-pasted spam.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

5 minutes ago, Tippis said:

Let's repeat that again: the starting mode does not affect scripting. It cannot, because the scripts don't care about how you start your plane

I don’t imagine that it does. So why would it matter if a group consisted of both hot and cold aircraft slots? Any more so than individual players starting up differently. As long as they take off together or whatever. You guys aren’t explaining yourselves very well…

9 minutes ago, Tippis said:

So why do you oppose it at every turn?

I’m not opposed to options, I’m saying those options already exist in the game. So why give ED more work to do?

11 minutes ago, Tippis said:

It would not affect the intent of the mission design.

Yes it would because it allows players to rapidly spawn back into the game, or not. In the case of Growling Sidewinder that’s what’s desired in the gameplay style on that server. On other servers it isn’t. That’s why it shouldn’t be a player option. 

[XCNuse]

6 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I’m not opposed to options, I’m saying those options already exist in the game. So why give ED more work to do?

Because the options we currently have potentially doubles the amount of work the mission designer is required to do.

Because there is no quick and dirty way to properly make a cold and hot start, without going back in, renaming literally everything, or otherwise ending up with "Unit 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-9"

And if you argue "you can just copy and paste", I am going to disagree immediately, and state you cannot, because it will move any waypoints, which defeats the point again of trying to save the time of the mission designer.

[Tippis]

20 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I don’t imagine that it does.

So you were just trolling then when you said that it would.

That's nice.

20 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

So why would it matter if a group consisted of both hot and cold aircraft slots?

It wouldn't matter for scripting purposes. That's why I said that the starting mode does not affect scripting. It's a complicated logic, so are you with me so far?

The problem is, you currently can't create a group that consists of both hot and cold starts. It's one or the other, for the entire group. Again, very complicated. Are you still with me?

So: since it would not cause any issues and would solve a current problem, the OP is suggesting an option that disentangles the starting position from the starting state of the aircraft. If the mission allowed for it, players could simply choose their preferred starting state — everything else would be exactly the same for everyone.

This would:

1. Not affect scripting. How the plane spawns is not something you ever base your scripts on, because there's no real way of doing it, and no benefit to doing so even if it were possible.
2. Not affect mission intent, per the description in the OP. If you're still unsure why, I would suggest you read the OP.
3. Not change anything about how servers are run, and what kind of playstyle they cater to.
4. Not affect the workload for mission design, unlike having to duplicate every group, adjust all of their navigation data, deal with complex timing issues, deal with lack of spawn points, and adding N² extra trigger checks.
5. Still let group-based game mechanics and functions operate like they always do without any need for extra work-around on the client's or the mission-designer's end (if such work-arounds were even possible to begin with, which they aren't always).

Thus, no problems would exist
It would just be a very simple solution to a very silly problem that a lot of sims don't even have, and which shouldn't even have existed to begin with.

20 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

You guys aren’t explaining yourselves very well…

Sure we are. You're just not familiar enough with how DCS works — specifically, how spawn points work, how waypoints work, how unit groups work, how servers work, and how scripting works — and you can't be bothered to research the matter or even just listen to what you're being told. All this would work out much better for you if you stopped posting from a position of complete ignorance and trying to actually read a little.

You'd quickly notice that the concerns you've invented don't actually exist. You'd notice that the concerns presented by the OP do exist. You'd notice that your “solution” would actually create vastly bigger problems than the ones you're imagining (but which as explained fully many times over, would not actually be the case) for the OP's simple solution.

Edited November 10, 2021 by Tippis

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Tippis said:

The problem is, you currently can't create a group that consists of both hot and cold starts. It's one or the other, for the entire group. Again, very complicated. Are you still with me?

Finally an explanation after several pages…

ok so just fix this in the ME to be able to set this individually, problem solved. 
 

Any way you do this people are going to want it sever-side like everything else in MP 

[Vakarian]

Why do people who have no clue on how certain stuff works, blindly and I'll even say stupidly keep dying on a hill? It only makes everyone else believe you are a troll and nothing else.

When you persistently say "It's fine as it is", and then you see multiple people explaining their issues with ME and elaborate how will this idea fix the problem but you still keep on and on how "It's fine"...

 

Btw, I just love you you contradict yourself in a same post. One more point to consider you a troll

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

...

This on many different servers over 10 years. I've never seen a hot start option. I tend toward the more realistic mission oriented type servers though.

Cold starts discourage "air-quake" behavior and so I'm sure that's what the intent of the mission design. I don't think players on this type of server would want this to be player-decided.

The fast action servers like Growling Sidewinder already have an even mix of hot and cold start slots, this solves the problem without ED having to add more features and settings

 

So how did you never seen a hot start option?