cfrag Posted January 25 Author Posted January 25 27 minutes ago, DD_Friar said: Could the statics and clone zones I deleted from the first running be causing some issues after all? Not with loading world textures, no. Your computer may be running into memory issues, though. IIRC the new fog and enabling wind will greatly kick up memory requirements, especially in Syria. Textures not loading, or loading very slowly is very often related to tight memory conditions.
DD_Friar Posted January 26 Posted January 26 @cfrag Fog mode is off and there is no wind or ice halo. My issue is definitely related to persistence. If I "sanitize" (take the comments out from the 2 lines in the mission script lua) my machine and remove the saved data files the mission loads with no problems at all. Enabling persistence and running the mission I can get to my plane but the ground textures never load and DCS end up "Not responding" When the data .txt file from a saved persistence is being loaded, what actually is happening please? How are the results incorporated into the new loaded mission? Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
cfrag Posted January 26 Author Posted January 26 (edited) 39 minutes ago, DD_Friar said: When the data .txt file from a saved persistence is being loaded, what actually is happening please? Based on the persistence data (and modules that load after persistence), DCS allocates all units/groups that were alive when the last successful save was made. DML tries to match some units (in unitPersistence) with groups placed with ME. Other modules (especially cloners and spawners) record all their surviving spawns to persistence to allow re-spawning their units later. Upon mission start, persistence can (if at the point of save the mission had spawned many groups) create a lot of groups/units. If persistence saved some units that require mods and that were subsequently removed from the mission, the results are undefined, as persistence passes allocation and handling of these groups/units to DCS. What DCS does with such spawn requests is anyone's guess, especially if removal of the mods was only partial. IMHO, when you edit a mission, I recommend that you remove the entire (data) folder before you start the mission anew so that persistence can start with a clean slate. Edited January 26 by cfrag 1
DD_Friar Posted January 27 Posted January 27 (edited) @cfrag BUG REPORT MODULE: Pulse Flags when saving mission via persistence. Salute Sir, I have just added the pulse flags module to my mission. When I tried to save the mission I received the following error. I think a pulse delay may well have been running when I tried to save the mission if that helps. Edited January 27 by DD_Friar Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
cfrag Posted January 27 Author Posted January 27 9 minutes ago, DD_Friar said: When I tried to save the mission I received the following error. Ooops. Try this please: pulseFlags.lua 1
Recluse Posted January 28 Posted January 28 (edited) Small (?) QOL request. Hi, do you think it would be possible to add a command to the REAPER UI to enable/disable the doSmoke option that is currently in the Reaper zone attributes? Smoke is useful when prosecuting targets, but when using purely Laser Spot Trackers/Laser Guided weapons, sometimes the smoke gets distracting. Be nice to request it/disable it via the UI vs having it always on or off from the zone settings. Alternatively, adding a smokeON? smokeOFF? flag in the zone would allow control via Radio menus and not clutter up the UI. Edited January 28 by Recluse
cfrag Posted January 28 Author Posted January 28 49 minutes ago, Recluse said: add a command to the REAPER UI to enable/disable the doSmoke option It's certainly possible, but I think it'll mess with the GUI. I'll see what I can do for a simple solution.
DD_Friar Posted January 28 Posted January 28 @cfrag Can I just check please, if I am running a mission with persistence, is it ok for me to edit the mission file from one session to the next to change the time of day and or weather? Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
Recluse Posted January 28 Posted January 28 22 minutes ago, cfrag said: It's certainly possible, but I think it'll mess with the GUI. I'll see what I can do for a simple solution. Thanks, as mentioned, making smokeOn/Off a flag would probably accomplish it and make it even more versatile. No idea if this is easier or harder than messing with the GUI
cfrag Posted January 28 Author Posted January 28 38 minutes ago, DD_Friar said: is it ok for me to edit the mission file from one session to the next to change the time of day and or weather? I don't think that that will create any issues with the miz.
DD_Friar Posted January 28 Posted January 28 (edited) @cfrag Ref PlayerScore and the scoretable I would like to enhance the points value for killing SAMs from 10 (being a ground unit) to say 40. Now I know I could just set ground units to 40 in the config file but then trucks would earn 40 instead of 10. I use templates to generate my units on a map. In the mission editor I went into my templates and changed the name of each of the SAM units to "SAM-" eg SAM-Ground-4-1 I have just tried using a wildcard in the playerScoreTable but this does not seem to have worked. A player took out some SAMs but only score 10 points per unit. a) Could wildcards be possible in the table? b) Is it even possible to use the score table for templated cloned units? c) if I had to add the units individually to the table how do I get the unique name from it being cloned? Edited January 28 by DD_Friar Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
cfrag Posted January 28 Author Posted January 28 2 minutes ago, DD_Friar said: a) Could wildcards be possible in the table? I'm sure that I can find a way. In the mean time, you could try and use the group name as a stopgap 3 minutes ago, DD_Friar said: b) Is it even possible to use the score table for templated cloned units? Hmmm. Obviously, should we add wildcarded names that should be trivial. Let me see what I can come up with. 1
DD_Friar Posted January 28 Posted January 28 @cfrag I am a bit limited with group names, for example I have "Tank Company" template that I created with say 12 units 10 xT-55's and 2 SA9's I would not want the whole group scoring the 40 points. Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
cfrag Posted January 28 Author Posted January 28 4 minutes ago, DD_Friar said: I would not want the whole group scoring the 40 points. Your players might
DD_Friar Posted January 28 Posted January 28 39 minutes ago, cfrag said: Your players might Not on my watch! give them an inch and they will take 1.60934 KM Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
cfrag Posted January 29 Author Posted January 29 (edited) Version 2.4.2 -- 20250129 -- functional update Quite unexpectedly (and a day early) -- and definitely not a result of planning -- this update to DML turns out to be much more significant than I anticipated. It all started, innocently enough, with a request to add a small boost to PlayerScore's functionality: allow players in Combined Arms roles to score. This resulted in a major re-write of the entire kill-tracking mechanism, now includes a full 're-threading of the needle' ability to attribute last-hit when the unit is lost later (required because of a breaking, unannounced change in DCS from a couple of months ago) and other, minor additions (including to PlayerScoreUI). So now, PlayerScore not only supports CA players (even though I still think that the CA module is one of ED's low points in terms of quality and fidelity), but it now again correctly attributes 'indirect' kills, i.e. hits that result in the 'cooking-off' of vehicles. Then there was a comment I received that sparked an idea for additional abilities in GuardianAngel that has been marinating in the back of my mind ever since I watched 'Shirtless in the Navy' AKA 'Top Gun II' with my godson: the ability to place 'SAM safe' zones - zones where aircraft are safe from SAMs as long as they are inside the zone, and observe floor and ceiling. So you now can have a tunnel through the danger zone in your missions, just like Geriatrick. If that wasn't enough, I got hit up on a gloomy Sunday morning (well, I was gloomy and a bit hung over, the weather, admittedly, was fine) with a request from 61st Griff's @bitboy to help ease the suffering of mission creators when they want to embellish a mission with helicopters on plane guard duty. Anyone who has ever done this knows just how hostile Mission Editor's already lamentably inadequate UX becomes in this case, especially if the naval unit is a) not the first in the group or b) doesn't travel due North (0°). Some Alka-Seltzers and a re-read of an (elementary) 2D vector algebra chapter later, DML now puts a stop to your suffering: drop a trigger zone near any naval unit, tell it which helicopter is on duty, and presto! plane guard. It makes you wonder why this is so hard in vanilla DCS, as the difficulty is purely some busy-work math that could be entirely hidden from mission creators with a 'plane guard' waypoint action and a link to the target unit. And as always, there are some modules that received code hardening and some outright bug fixes (I kind of goofed last time I updated the pulser module). To top it off, I also updated some old demo mission, plus added a couple of new one, all documented fully, pushing the shock block over the 900 pages mark. Last time, I took out 200 pages and tried to simplify DML by dropping Lua support. This time, you won't be so lucky. All changes: Documentation Main - Playerscore (update) - Guardian Angel (update) - PlaneGuard (new) - Many small changes and updates QuickRef - PlaneGuard (new) Demos - follow me! (update) - Guardian Angel Reloaded (update) - Guardians and Sanctuaries (new) - missile evasion (update) - yes you CAn (new) - bottled messages (update) - Plane Guard (new) Modules - cfxMX 3.0.1 - new getClosestUnitToPoint() - delayFlags 2.1.0 - deprecated old attributes - guardianAngel 4.0.0 - New sanctuary zones - heloTroops 4.2.1 - fixed typo in attribute - planeGuard 1.0.0 - Initial version - playerScore 5.1.0 - CA immediate scoring - threading the needle (cooking off) - playerScoreUI 3.1.0 - support for config zones - support for 'attachTo:' - pulseFlag 2.0.2 - fixed a bug in persistence code - spawnZones 3.0.1 - increased verbosity - unitZone 2.0.1 - code hardening Enjoy, -ch Edited January 29 by cfrag 2 3
DD_Friar Posted January 29 Posted January 29 Salute @cfrag Once again many thanks for all your hard work on continuing to make this utility amazing. Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
DD_Friar Posted January 29 Posted January 29 @cfrag Just been reading about the new features of Guardian Angel and the Sanctuary zone. In the DangerDogz we have some missions, especially WWII where, for example Mossies going across the Channel must stay below a certain height to avoid detection. Could a variant of Sanctuary be done that has an extra output field is added that could bang a flag if a plane breaches the ceiling? (To then trigger an enemy response to simulate being picked up on RADAR) Would be a nice to have as coding this in standard DCS can be very tricky. regards Friar Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
cfrag Posted January 29 Author Posted January 29 (edited) 35 minutes ago, DD_Friar said: Could a variant of Sanctuary be done that has an extra output field is added that could bang a flag if a plane breaches the ceiling? Well, I guess it would be easier to simply have 'tunnel' zones that send signals if aircraft break floor or ceiling. The next request will be for zones that detect when planes are below or above some arbitrary speed, the next would want a signal when a unit deviates from a certain heading, as less than 50% fuel etc. Yes, all that can be done. The checks are computationally expensive, though. Each and every aircraft in the mission must be checked regularly against all zones, so performance can quickly tank for such a feature -- which is why I'm so hesitant to implement it. Maybe limit this to player aircraft, and we could cut down on the impact. But before we talk about solutions, let's talk about requirements: What do you want to achieve in your mission? Force players to remain below a ceiling in certain areas? Edited January 29 by cfrag
DD_Friar Posted January 29 Posted January 29 6 minutes ago, cfrag said: Force players to remain below a ceiling in certain areas? Yes, that would be the requirement. However, I think I may have asked about this before and you did say as you just have, the computing overheads may not be worth it. Visit the Dangerdogz at www.dangerdogz.com. We are a group based on having fun (no command structure, no expectations of attendance, no formal skills required, that is not to say we can not get serious for special events, of which we have many). We play DCS and IL2 GBS. We have two groups one based in North America / Canada and one UK / Europe. Come check us out.
Recluse Posted January 29 Posted January 29 (edited) Thanks, as always. Hard to keep up!! I have been meaning to ask for another QOL update to BANK, maybe making MORE things available for accumulated credits. Right now, it seems like REAPER is the only thing for Players to buy. Again, basing this on many many hours in FOOTHOLD. Buy CAP flights, AWACS, flights, SEAD support etc. Not sure if this is possible without creating a whole bunch of new modules like REAPER to support it, but I was thinking it could be accomplished with an update to a CLONE ZONE attribute, so you could put a Clone Zone with the desired support item, but have an attribute for a cost associated with it via BANK before the CLONE flag was activated. Not a big deal, just looking for stuff to spend the big bucks on!!!! Edited January 29 by Recluse
cfrag Posted January 29 Author Posted January 29 (edited) 1 hour ago, Recluse said: Buy CAP flights, AWACS, flights, SEAD support etc. Not sure if this is possible without creating a whole bunch of new modules Expansion already uses DML modules for that, and they are in DML - just not officially documented, and announced. They are still undergoing testing. If you feel lucky, and are a glutton for punishment, try and experiment with the milHelo, milWings, launchPlatform, camp (and some other I don't remember) modules. They provide the services for flights, missile attacks etc, but currently do not have their own bank nor menu integration. Once I get around to doing that, they'll become official DML modules. Edited January 29 by cfrag
mech79 Posted January 29 Posted January 29 Can I get help? What does this error mean? I am using a pulse and random flag for clone spawners. What have I done wrong? nullnull
cfrag Posted January 29 Author Posted January 29 29 minutes ago, mech79 said: What does this error mean? I am using a pulse and random flag for clone spawners. What have I done wrong? That is very difficult to diagnose from here, as you are using DOSCRIPTFILE instead of DOSCRIPT (DCS makes debugging script files really difficult). From what I see you seem to not have included a pulser nor random module, but that should not generate the error. An error in cfxZones is a rather rare occurance (zones and common are the most battle-tested modules), but still possible. If possible, please remove all mods from the miz, and either PM the miz for analysis to me, or post it here. I'm quite confident that we can resolve this mystery quickly.
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