Option for automatically importing Mission Editor Target/Threat & Control Measure points

[Scaley]

The latest patch has introduced a function that imports any non-hidden anti-aircraft threats into the Apache targets and threats database. The threats populate points T01 to T50 and appear to be added in the order they are placed in the ME, so the first 50 placed by the mission designer are the ones that will be imported.

While 50 threats sounds like a lot for a simple single player mission there are plenty of MP servers with far more than 50 threats added. In order for them to show up on other aircraft TSD/SA displays many of these threats will not be hidden. Unlike other aircraft, which can display many threat rings the Apache can only display 50, and any threats loaded automatically remove space from the targets/threats database which is also used extensively to store targets by the CPG during engagements. 

Further complicating matters the threats are added in the same order they were placed in the ME, so the 50 chosen may be of no relevance to the aircraft in question. Most designers of complex MP missions and campaign settings start by placing strategic assets such as long range SAMs. The objects placed much later, or randomly spawned, are likely to be the short range systems of more relevance to an Apache crew.

Overall, while the idea of the threats being automatically imported from the ME is good in principle, there are a lot of multiplayer missions and servers where an Apache crew are likely to load in and find that their entire target database is full of SAM threats, most or all of which are outside their operational area. The first thing they would then have to do would be to delete some/all of these points by hand, or (assuming bugs are fixed) just use points 26 to 50 and waste half their database.

Pending having a DTC (which I assume is several years away) would it be possible to have a checkbox added to the aircraft options in the ME alongside the flares/radar/control priority settings that disabled the auto-import of threats for that aircraft? Several other fixes are possible, including client side code, extra options for each threat, and ideally an actual mission planning/DTC system (either GUI or exposed lua). However, all seem relatively complex to implement and a simple checkbox to block to the ME>aircraft import seems like the easiest "quick fix"

[Floyd1212]

Agreed.

This feature is pretty useless, even bordering on annoying, for large missions with 100 targets on the map. 

[Scaley]

1 hour ago, Floyd1212 said:

Agreed.

This feature is pretty useless, even bordering on annoying, for large missions with 100 targets on the map. 

Very much agreed. Current solution seems to be write an external macro/script to scrub the database when you load in, which is very annoying!

[Scaley]

Interestingly every single Apache crew on the Rotorheads server has just been complaining about this, to the extent that one crew just gave up and went back to flying the Hind. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Scaley

[Floyd1212]

Yeah, at this point this needs to be a bug that gets fixed, not just a "wish list" item

[AvroLanc]

So it seems TSD Control Measures now auto populate all friendlies and enemy units. Wasn’t in the change log. 

This is a mixed bag, while it saves time in writing down and entering MGRS etc to enter yourself, the TSD can now be extremely cluttered, with lots of superfluous unit icons. Most of which will need deleting.  

Can this become an option or something? Or better yet, can we enter only desired CMs through the Mission Editor? This brute force method doesn’t suit all occasions. Thanks. 

[AvroLanc]

Hmmm… moved to wish list… I would have thought this was initially more of a discussion item than wish list.
Especially considering how dead this Apache forum seems to be at the moment. 

[Scaley]

I think it's fairly clear that the ED devs are unlikely to take feedback on this. There were a number of highly reasoned and well articulated arguments made in the forums as to why it was a really bad idea for threat rings to be auto-populated. Now, instead of listening to the feedback for threat rings to be something you can add only as required, they have essentially implemented the same system for control measures. Even better they have added a threat ring to every generic target the CPG stores...

Right now you basically are going to have to BOTH switch off threat rings AND delete everything in the database at the start of each mission. Personally I have a macro written in Voice Attack that scrubs the database completely. It's annoying, but it only take a minute to run and it save a lot of annoyance.

[Floyd1212]

3 hours ago, Scaley said:

I have a macro written in Voice Attack that scrubs the database completely

Does it sync properly to the CPG seat as well, or do they need to run the same script to scrub their version as well?

[Floyd1212]

ED, please listen to your fans and what they are asking for, and what they are not asking for.

I don't think anyone is asking for every enemy unit in the mission to pre-populate and fill up the database of threats in some uncontrollable and random manor.  Who is asking for that?

Fine, if you feel this is somehow useful and what some people are asking for, give us the ability to opt out with a checkbox somewhere.  Or maybe only pre-populate the first 25 slots and leave the last 25 open.  Or give is a simple keybind to wipe the database. 

Or at least tell us in what order they are populated so it can be semi-useful to us.  Is it based on threat severity? Nope.  Is it based on distance to my aircraft when I spawn in? Nope.

[AvroLanc]

I’ll add here that the actual ‘type’ of CM are not even correct in most cases. The AE Enemy Armor CM seems to be the default for every enemy ground unit…infantry…..APC….trucks…. All get the same icon. 

And why does a generic T point get a 3km threat ring? 

Please ED, let this be user configureable, or just revert to old the behaviour. I don’t think anyone asked for this in its current form. 

[Swift.]

Yeah this certainly seems suboptimal...

I know the 'answer' is just going to be 'wait for DTC', but hopefully everyone recognises that some stuff needs to be controllable before the turn of the century...

[llOPPOTATOll]

I very dislike auto population of CMs and TGs, it often fills the 50 allotted points very quickly with a bunch of stuff I don’t want

[Raptor9]

Personally, I'm a little disheartened at the mood of this thread.  Although I do understand where the stance regarding auto-population of these points comes from, the generalizations being made in this thread that ED doesn't take feedback regarding gameplay issues is hyperbole. I understand it is born of frustration, but I don't understand this "us versus them" attitude. I say this as someone that has been a player of DCS for well over a decade, and community interaction to make the product better is something that I think is very important. But when it delves into resigned and sullen threads like this, it's just disappointing.

Addressing the topic of this thread, this is being taken seriously and discussed internally. Despite that any solution rarely makes everyone completely happy, we are looking into potential courses of action to address this.

Regarding some of the more specific comments in this thread, Target Points (TG) do in fact have threat rings displayed on them, of which the default radius is 3 km, so this is accurate to the real aircraft. The reason being that if you get within 3 km of a heavy armor or mechanized unit on the battlefield, they will no longer need to rely on their attached air defenses to protect them since every tank or IFV will be able to engage your helicopter with their organic weapon systems.

Having said that, there is a bug (last time I tested it at least), in that enabling THREATS (R5) also enables the threat rings around Target points and Terrain points. In reality the rings should only be displayed around Terrain points if TRN PT (R3) is enabled and only displayed around Target points if TARGETS (R6) is enabled. So there is a way to display threat rings around air defense Threat points independently of Target points or Terrain points, but it isn't working correctly at the moment. I don't have a timeline on when this will be corrected (priorities vs time/resources and all), but that is how it should work when all is said and done; so you should be able to avoid a cluster of several tightly-packed 3 km rings when you start lasing and storing targets "out there" with the TADS. Resolved in subsequent updates.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Raptor9
Updated final paragraph

[NeedzWD40]

38 minutes ago, Raptor9 said:

Addressing the topic of this thread, this is being taken seriously and discussed internally. Despite that any solution rarely makes everyone completely happy, we are looking into potential courses of action to address this.

Some fuel to the fire:

- Mission editor options allowing a field to auto populate based on distance or at all; Auto populate up to X number of fields; Kneeboard options for users (if mission allows it) to auto populate; extend these to waypoints as well.

Figure this is all a placeholder until DTC becomes functional regardless, but adds some flexibility until then.

[Raptor9]

Thank you for those suggestions @NeedzWD40. 

[Mav87th]

On unit in Mission Editor:

 

Hide on Map

Hide on Mission Planner

Hide on MFD.......if this is ticked do not bring the unit to autopopulate

[Raptor9]

6 minutes ago, Mav87th said:

Hide on MFD.......if this is ticked do not bring the unit to autopopulate

Actually, this functionality already exists if the mission maker wishes to prevent the unit from auto-populating.

However, this will also prevent air defense units from auto-populating in other aircraft such as the F-16's HSD page or the F/A-18's SA page. This understandably can create a dilemma for online multiplayer servers that support multiple aircraft types.

[NeedzWD40]

On a related note, will the AH-64 get the same Target Points field as with the Ka-50, F-14 and other modules?

[Raptor9]

5 minutes ago, NeedzWD40 said:

On a related note, will the AH-64 get the same Target Points field as with the Ka-50, F-14 and other modules?

I'm afraid I don't have any information to share in that regard.

[Floyd1212]

Thank you for the comments @Raptor9.

I think everyone that has been vocal about this particular subject would welcome a 2-way discussion from ED on the topic, but I think what is contributing to the "us versus them" attitude you mention, and the low morale of this thread in general, is the lack of feedback from ED, on the feedback we provide to them.

We often get basic responses like "reported" and "work-in-progress" and "this has been forwarded to the DEVs" after we have invested time in describing the issues at hand.  Or the thread gets moved to the "Wish List" sub-forum...

What would go a long way would be for someone to reiterate the problem to demonstrate they understand the issue at hand, maybe even ask if this problem is more of a nuisance, or if it is severely hampering play-ability, and under what circumstances.  Or maybe even ask the community in a poll something like "Until we can work out a more complete DTC mechanism, would you guys prefer to have everything auto-populate in the database, or nothing at all?"

It is good to hear that the team is taking this issue seriously, but sometimes this does not come across to the fans.

[Raptor9]

Just now, Floyd1212 said:

What would go a long way would be for someone to reiterate the problem to demonstrate they understand the issue at hand, maybe even ask if this problem is more of a nuisance, or if it is severely hampering play-ability, and under what circumstances.  Or maybe even ask the community in a poll something like "Until we can work out a more complete DTC mechanism, would you guys prefer to have everything auto-populate in the database, or nothing at all?"

From where I sit (which isn't on the dev team, mind you), the risk of conducting an official poll or being too forthcoming with features or solutions that are well off from any sort of finalization, is that often these are then held against ED down the road. Kind of the whole "anything you say will be held against you" type situation. As a result, I myself am very careful with what I say at the risk that it will be misconstrued as an official position, a promise, or any other sort of guarantee to the community at large.

So, again speaking for myself, it's not you @Floyd1212 or any other posters in this thread that I shy away from having dialogue with regarding the module. It's the occasional unbeknownst-to-us forum-goer (that may not even own the AH-64 module or even be an active DCS player) that may take anything that is said on these forums, and then link or screenshot these comments down the line and claim it as a broken promise or official announcement that never came to fruition. I would love to have more dialogue, because on DCS patch day I get just as amped up to see all the fixes and features. But before I click the Submit Reply button, it's always that gnawing question of "What if they screenshot this and show it 6 months down the road" that I have to ask myself. It's unfortunate, but it is the nature of the times we live in.

[Floyd1212]

19 minutes ago, Raptor9 said:

Actually, this functionality already exists if the mission maker wishes to prevent the unit from auto-populating.

Unfortunately, this "Hidden on MFD" option does not work properly when the unit is cloned into existence using scripting, like MIST or MOOSE, etc.

Here is a mission with all of the template units situated off in some corner of the map with "Hidden on MFD" checked for each group.

When the mission runs, the script copies those units into a hundred places across the map.

And you end up with 9 pages of TGTs/THREATs, and now since the last patch, 10 pages of CMs

[NeedzWD40]

13 minutes ago, Floyd1212 said:

Unfortunately, this "Hidden on MFD" option does not work properly when the unit is cloned into existence using scripting, like MIST or MOOSE, etc.

MIST and MOOSE don't have the ability to set the hidden variables on group creation? I can use addGroup and so as long as I set "hiddenOnPlanner" and "hiddenOnMFD" on group creation, it will treat them as such.

[Floyd1212]

The units in this particular mission are placed using teleportToPoint() using MIST, with the action = 'clone' setting.  I'll look to see if there is something that can be done differently to retain or set the Hidden on MFP property during this process, but it doesn't seem to be working by default.