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


Scaley

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On 8/26/2022 at 3:53 PM, brodie4598 said:

Side question - is it also no longer to place your own CMs? It doesnt seem to work anymore

The auto populate function can use up all the available slots (IIRC ~49 max) so you'll sometimes have to manually delete control measures to manually input custom ones.

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By way of solving the problem, the way I would like to see this work is on an aircraft, or even mission level would be very simple: 

Have a check box (empty by default) that says "Auto Populate threat rings and Control Measures?" 

If checked, it occurs.  If unchecked, it does not. 

 

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On 8/25/2022 at 6:04 PM, Floyd1212 said:

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.

Just to follow up on this, it looks like the problem is only on dedicated servers. 

The missions where I am seeing pages of pre-populated threats and CMs work fine when running locally on my machine, either in SP or MP.  However, when I run it on my dedicated server, units that are "cloned" into place across the map using MIST.teleportToPoint() do not respect the "Hidden on MFD" setting, and fills up the database.

 


Edited by Floyd1212
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15 hours ago, Floyd1212 said:

Just to follow up on this, it looks like the problem is only on dedicated servers. 

The missions where I am seeing pages of pre-populated threats and CMs work fine when running locally on my machine, either in SP or MP.  However, when I run it on my dedicated server, units that are "cloned" into place across the map using MIST.teleportToPoint() do not respect the "Hidden on MFD" setting, and fills up the database.

 

 

Yeah, that server/ME bug has affected DCS for years. Anything done server-side by a script may not have all it's properties replicated locally to every client. More specifically, the properties will often only show up to clients who are connected at the time the operation is performed (think scenery removal, spawn units, etc)

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  • 2 weeks later...

Adding onto this bug report, CMs deleted by one crew member are not being deleted for the other.

Additionally it looks like if the number of units exceeds the max number of control measures, it will backfill as you delete them. Meaning you might end up having to delete hundreds of CMs each!

ED, please get rid of this feature

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  • 2 weeks later...

And this feature is still in the latest patch. Every online mission still has to start with deleting over a hundred points from the aircraft, and worse, since deleting a point doesn't sync in MP on a DS, both pilots have to delete them all. We might be starting to sound like a broken record but no one I have flown with online (which probably numbers over 100 different people) like or wants this feature. Maybe it's useful in single player, but it really really really needs to either be an option that can be set client side. 

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Yeah come ED, what's the latest on internal discussion on this 'feature'? It needs to be an option at the very least. It's not even very useful in SP since every enemy ground unit is depicted as an AE 'Enemy Armor' CM - making the TSD cluttered with identical and 'wrong' CM's. I kinda see what you were trying to do, but please.....this is not the way at the moment.

A universal, but obviously module tailored, DTC solution is the answer as we all know...what's the latest on that? Any progress since 2019? I'd happily pay for it at this point.  

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+1

I have yet to see ED acknowledge that they even understand the problem they have created with this "feature" in any of the threads discussing the issue.  At one point BIGNEWY said the solution is for the mission designer to set the units to "Hidden on MFD", but this is broken, and does not work properly in all situations.

Please ED, give us one of two solutions until you have a fully-featured DTC implemented. 1) Make it an option that can be enabled/disabled in the special settings, or 2) give us a command to use after startup to wipe all threats/targets from the database at once.

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On 9/23/2022 at 1:30 PM, Floyd1212 said:

+1

I have yet to see ED acknowledge that they even understand the problem they have created with this "feature" in any of the threads discussing the issue.  At one point BIGNEWY said the solution is for the mission designer to set the units to "Hidden on MFD", but this is broken, and does not work properly in all situations.

Please ED, give us one of two solutions until you have a fully-featured DTC implemented. 1) Make it an option that can be enabled/disabled in the special settings, or 2) give us a command to use after startup to wipe all threats/targets from the database at once.

Yes, indeed a simple key command that cleared the database (and ideally synced between both crew in multiplayer) would be good enough to get round the issue. 

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I don't mind auto populating friendly troops. What I do mind is that it just eats up the entire database of points. I don't need 10 clustered CMs to tell me where a friendly airbase is. A single CM would be fine. I suggest a solution that groups unit groups together into one CM symbol if they are within say 5 nm. The symbol to be used should be indicative of the most relevant unit in that group. If there is any medium to long range air defenses in that group (hawk, nasams or patriot) then "AD" should be used, because then you know you can go there for cover. Otherwise a nice priority list would be naval, air defense (excluding manpads), AAA, armor, artillery, mechanized (apc & ifv) and infantry depending on the type and in that order.

For example there are 4 groups on a blue airbase, all within a circle of 5nm. A group of infantry standing near the apron for looks, maybe a manpad or something, a group of trucks and humvees and support vehicles, a patriot site with a vulcan, a group of tanks. Then just plonk down a single AD on the patriot and ignore anything else within a 5nm radius of it.

The algorithm to generate those points, very very roughly, could look something like this:

  1. Loop through priority list [naval, air defense, AAA, armor, artillery, mech, infantry]
  2.     loop through coalitions (in order: friendly, hostile, neutral)
  3.         if (current priority == air defense or current priority == naval) and (coalition == hostile), then
  4.             loop through all air defense types, sorted descending by engagement range
  5.                 loop through all groups in coalition
  6.                     if (not hidden on mfd) and (group contains current air defense type) and (distance(unitLeaderPosition, nearestTGalreadyPlaced) > cutoff for enemy air defenses) and (number of TGs < limit), then
  7.                         generate appropriate TG and place it on the unit leader
  8.         else // not enemy air defense
  9.             loop through all groups in coalition
  10.                 if (not hidden on MFD) and (unit contains unit type of current priority list item) and (distance(unitLeaderPosition, nearestCMalreadyPlaced) > cutoff for enemy units) and (number of CMs < limit), then
  11.                     generate appropriate CM and place it on the unit leader

The distance cutoff may be tied to the unit type though, for example naval formations tend to be larger in scale, but then again, they should also be in a single group, only to generate a single CM anyway.

This approach has a few benefits. First of all, of course, it doesn't clutter the database with lots of groups clumped together, as it often happens. You don't really care that there are 20 groups sitting at a farp. What you care about is not to shoot them and knowing they are friendly. Obviously there are instances when you do care about such things, for example if there is also artillery sitting on that farp, you might wanna call for fire and knowing it is there is helpful, but then again you should probably be briefed about it in the first place. But more often than not, you do not and you just need a general overview of who is where.

Secondly it mostly provides the points in an order that you care about. so if you do run out of space for CMs, you don't get random hostile infantry on airports 500 miles away, but instead you get air defenses and tanks first. It also generates TGs mostly in the order that you care about, although I was just quickly hacking together a solution to fix the immediate problem. There are better ones that uses a different priority for enemy air defenses, for example a metric that takes into account the distance from the spawn point, the distance from the planned route (mind you, not just the waypoints) and the engagement ranges for those sams. Because, again, you don't care about that SA10 200miles away as much as that AAA sitting on your route between WP3 and WP4, even if it has a way larger engagement zone. Of course you don't just want to take into account the waypoints, as dynamic sessions often don't have any or just generic points of interests that have nothing to do with the missions that are generated. A different, more viable solution may generate a more complex metric for every group deciding how "relevant" it is to you. Then CMs and TGs are generated in the order of relevancy decided by that metric function. Again, the lone infantry 500 miles away is probably not going to matter a whole lot, but that SA15 15 miles from your route and the AAA sitting right on WP6 might be a lot closer in relevancy for you. Whatever the case though, please do not generate unneccessary CMs. If you do have the database space, sure, feel free to generate 6 CMs on a farp. Just make sure that at the end of the process there are a few slots free.

Additionally I propose that there should be a maximum, say 30 or 40 CMs placed, such that you have some space to work with for manual points. Furthermore a cutoff distance should probably be used, say 100nmi, beyond which no CMs are generated, because it's unlikely that you have to fly that far, and if you do, your CPG has plenty of time to punch in the numbers on the way.

Of course the most optimal solution would be that no control measures would be generated at all and there was some sort of interface that allows you to plan your missions, in particular on multiplayer, where you can edit waypoints, place control measures, lines, areas and target points yourself on the map, change preset radio frequencies and most importantly save the whole thing to be loaded again after you inadvertently forgot to place that SA13 target point and ran straight into it instead of having to do it all over again.


Edited by FalcoGer
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1 hour ago, FalcoGer said:

I don't mind auto populating friendly troops. What I do mind is that it just eats up the entire database of points. I don't need 10 clustered CMs to tell me where a friendly airbase is. A single CM would be fine. I suggest a solution that groups unit groups together into one CM symbol if they are within say 5 nm. The symbol to be used should be indicative of the most relevant unit in that group. If there is any medium to long range air defenses in that group (hawk, nasams or patriot) then "AD" should be used, because then you know you can go there for cover. Otherwise a nice priority list would be naval, air defense (excluding manpads), AAA, armor, artillery, mechanized (apc & ifv) and infantry depending on the type and in that order.

For example there are 4 groups on a blue airbase, all within a circle of 5nm. A group of infantry standing near the apron for looks, maybe a manpad or something, a group of trucks and humvees and support vehicles, a patriot site with a vulcan, a group of tanks. Then just plonk down a single AD on the patriot and ignore anything else within a 5nm radius of it.

The algorithm to generate those points, very very roughly, could look something like this:

  1. Loop through priority list [naval, air defense, AAA, armor, artillery, mech, infantry]
  2.     loop through coalitions (in order: friendly, hostile, neutral)
  3.         if (current priority == air defense or current priority == naval) and (coalition == hostile), then
  4.             loop through all air defense types, sorted descending by engagement range
  5.                 loop through all groups in coalition
  6.                     if (not hidden on mfd) and (group contains current air defense type) and (distance(unitLeaderPosition, nearestTGalreadyPlaced) > cutoff for enemy air defenses) and (number of TGs < limit), then
  7.                         generate appropriate TG and place it on the unit leader
  8.         else // not enemy air defense
  9.             loop through all groups in coalition
  10.                 if (not hidden on MFD) and (unit contains unit type of current priority list item) and (distance(unitLeaderPosition, nearestCMalreadyPlaced) > cutoff for enemy units) and (number of CMs < limit), then
  11.                     generate appropriate CM and place it on the unit leader

The distance cutoff may be tied to the unit type though, for example naval formations tend to be larger in scale, but then again, they should also be in a single group, only to generate a single CM anyway.

This approach has a few benefits. First of all, of course, it doesn't clutter the database with lots of groups clumped together, as it often happens. You don't really care that there are 20 groups sitting at a farp. What you care about is not to shoot them and knowing they are friendly. Obviously there are instances when you do care about such things, for example if there is also artillery sitting on that farp, you might wanna call for fire and knowing it is there is helpful, but then again you should probably be briefed about it in the first place. But more often than not, you do not and you just need a general overview of who is where.

Secondly it mostly provides the points in an order that you care about. so if you do run out of space for CMs, you don't get random hostile infantry on airports 500 miles away, but instead you get air defenses and tanks first. It also generates TGs mostly in the order that you care about, although I was just quickly hacking together a solution to fix the immediate problem. There are better ones that uses a different priority for enemy air defenses, for example a metric that takes into account the distance from the spawn point, the distance from the planned route (mind you, not just the waypoints) and the engagement ranges for those sams. Because, again, you don't care about that SA10 200miles away as much as that AAA sitting on your route between WP3 and WP4, even if it has a way larger engagement zone. Of course you don't just want to take into account the waypoints, as dynamic sessions often don't have any or just generic points of interests that have nothing to do with the missions that are generated. A different, more viable solution may generate a more complex metric for every group deciding how "relevant" it is to you. Then CMs and TGs are generated in the order of relevancy decided by that metric function. Again, the lone infantry 500 miles away is probably not going to matter a whole lot, but that SA15 15 miles from your route and the AAA sitting right on WP6 might be a lot closer in relevancy for you. Whatever the case though, please do not generate unneccessary CMs. If you do have the database space, sure, feel free to generate 6 CMs on a farp. Just make sure that at the end of the process there are a few slots free.

Additionally I propose that there should be a maximum, say 30 or 40 CMs placed, such that you have some space to work with for manual points. Furthermore a cutoff distance should probably be used, say 100nmi, beyond which no CMs are generated, because it's unlikely that you have to fly that far, and if you do, your CPG has plenty of time to punch in the numbers on the way.

Of course the most optimal solution would be that no control measures would be generated at all and there was some sort of interface that allows you to plan your missions, in particular on multiplayer, where you can edit waypoints, place control measures, lines, areas and target points yourself on the map, change preset radio frequencies and most importantly save the whole thing to be loaded again after you inadvertently forgot to place that SA13 target point and ran straight into it instead of having to do it all over again.

 

Instead of forcing more stuff on people, why don't we just have an option in the special settings:

Preload All Unit Locations
Preload Consolidated Unit Locations
Do Not Preload Unit Locations

Problem solved

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21 minutes ago, Swift. said:

Instead of forcing more stuff on people, why don't we just have an option in the special settings:

Preload All Unit Locations
Preload Consolidated Unit Locations
Do Not Preload Unit Locations

Problem solved

That wording is a bit off, but I agree. More options are always better. At the same time you can't clutter the UI. Again, the best solution would be to just allow people to place that stuff where they want it, if they want it, before they take their slot, or better yet is just available on any friendly airbase in the escape menu, and save it in a local file, able to load it later once more, possibly with some sane preplaced points that may be moved or deleted or with a simple button that just clears everything. After changing your points in that mission planner, you just reload your DTC and you get all the nice things that we can't have right now.

Also the problem with your approach of special options is that you might want different settings for different missions. And the problem with that is that the mission designer then needs to take care of setting that, which is almost always a bad choice. They might not care, the mission designer getting very specific settings that make no sense in some or most contexts, just cluttering things and making things confusing.

The solution I proposed was just to fix the immediate problem of getting literally hundreds of CM points that give you no benefit at all and cause all manners of problems. The specific problems I have with preloaded locations are

  1. I can't make my own because the database is full
  2. It takes the fun away in finding where the enemy is

Of course some such locations should be placed, if it is briefed or just makes sense if you know it. If your task is to engage a specific enemy armor group holding at a point, then of course you want that CM on your map.

I think another solution that should be relatively easy and quick to implement is to just invert the checkbox in the mission editor. "Show location on MFD" instead of "Hide location". Then you specifically can design your missions around units that you want the pilots to know about as a special state instead of a default state. That way any dynamically generated units just don't get that flag set and are hidden by default. Also if the mission designer just didn't care, then you don't get clutter either way.

 

So it all comes down to "DTC please", I guess. It's such an important feature to add for so many aircraft and for so many reasons. Being able to edit waypoints, CMs and TGs, lines, areas, radio presets, chaff and flare presets, pre planned weapon targets and so forth in a nice GUI while on the ground and in game is one feature that's sorely missing and that really should be a thing for all aircraft that have any sort of internal storage for data of any kind.


Edited by FalcoGer
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33 minutes ago, FalcoGer said:

That wording is a bit off, but I agree. More options are always better. At the same time you can't clutter the UI. Again, the best solution would be to just allow people to place that stuff where they want it, if they want it, before they take their slot, or better yet is just available on any friendly airbase in the escape menu, and save it in a local file, able to load it later once more, possibly with some sane preplaced points that may be moved or deleted or with a simple button that just clears everything. After changing your points in that mission planner, you just reload your DTC and you get all the nice things that we can't have right now.

Also the problem with your approach of special options is that you might want different settings for different missions. And the problem with that is that the mission designer then needs to take care of setting that, which is almost always a bad choice. They might not care, the mission designer getting very specific settings that make no sense in some or most contexts, just cluttering things and making things confusing.

The solution I proposed was just to fix the immediate problem of getting literally hundreds of CM points that give you no benefit at all and cause all manners of problems. The specific problems I have with preloaded locations are

  1. I can't make my own because the database is full
  2. It takes the fun away in finding where the enemy is

Of course some such locations should be placed, if it is briefed or just makes sense if you know it. If your task is to engage a specific enemy armor group holding at a point, then of course you want that CM on your map.

I think another solution that should be relatively easy and quick to implement is to just invert the checkbox in the mission editor. "Show location on MFD" instead of "Hide location". Then you specifically can design your missions around units that you want the pilots to know about as a special state instead of a default state. That way any dynamically generated units just don't get that flag set and are hidden by default. Also if the mission designer just didn't care, then you don't get clutter either way.

 

So it all comes down to "DTC please", I guess. It's such an important feature to add for so many aircraft and for so many reasons. Being able to edit waypoints, CMs and TGs, lines, areas, radio presets, chaff and flare presets, pre planned weapon targets and so forth in a nice GUI while on the ground and in game is one feature that's sorely missing and that really should be a thing for all aircraft that have any sort of internal storage for data of any kind.

 

The main problem I have with this kind of logic is it banks heavily on us being able to 'deal with it' whilst we wait for a mission planner. Being realistic, I'm not expecting a mission planner for another 2-3 years at least. I don't want to have to be deleting points for the next 2-3 years. So yes there are lots of cool ways that could be cool in very specific situations, but the bottom line is this:

Either get rid of it, or let us choose to get rid of it.

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1 hour ago, FalcoGer said:

I think another solution that should be relatively easy and quick to implement is to just invert the checkbox in the mission editor. "Show location on MFD" instead of "Hide location". Then you specifically can design your missions around units that you want the pilots to know about as a special state instead of a default state. That way any dynamically generated units just don't get that flag set and are hidden by default. Also if the mission designer just didn't care, then you don't get clutter either way.

I would be onboard with this approach as a short-term solution.  Change the default behavior to Hidden, and let the mission designer specify the relatively few units that should be shown on the MFD.

If your mission is go destroy this SAM site, you would likely know the (last known) location of that SAM site, but not all the fun surprises that await along the way.  And the large dynamic missions that rely on scripting that are currently broken wouldn't clutter up the database like they currently do.

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  • 1 month later...

Is there an improvement here with the 2.8 patch?

I am running Foothold Syria 1.0.3 on my 2.8 server now, and I am not seeing any pre-populated enemy Threats in the COORD page. 

I do see 3 Control Measures pre-populated, which appear to correlate to the 3 blue FOBs on the map, Alpha, Lima, and Mike, so I'm betting as blue takes over the map, the CM page will still get filled up with friendlies.

Can anyone else confirm?

image.png

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  • 4 weeks later...
22 hours ago, Mysty said:

I beg to differ.  50 targets is plenty for some of us who fly the Apache.  Perhaps, there should be an option to opt in or out. 

Absolutely. The problem with the way it's been implemented by ED is that you get ALL the stuff in the mission, which if it's a large multiplayer online mission will fill every target point in your point database. Clearly you aren't going to use all those targets/threat/whatever. We just need the option to select, on the player side, whether we get all these points in our database or not. Even a setting in the special tab in settings to turn it off would be great.

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  • 4 weeks later...

At the moment, when you spawn in cockpit, you find that the aircraft imported automatically up to 50 non-hidden anti-air threats in the COORD page, taking them from the ones present in Mission Editor.

Now, it could seem a feature, but it's clearly a bug, because on very large mission (like the ones running on more famous public servers) you have a lot of mess with those auto-imported threat points, while all you would like is an aircraft in a clean state.

Auto-import of threats from Mission Editor should be therefore disabled or, at least, changed to an opt-in/opt-out system, letting mission designers and/or players to choose whether they want to use it.


Edited by Saruman
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  • 2 weeks later...
On 12/19/2022 at 2:14 AM, Saruman said:

At the moment, when you spawn in cockpit, you find that the aircraft imported automatically up to 50 non-hidden anti-air threats in the COORD page, taking them from the ones present in Mission Editor.

Now, it could seem a feature, but it's clearly a bug, because on very large mission (like the ones running on more famous public servers) you have a lot of mess with those auto-imported threat points, while all you would like is an aircraft in a clean state.

Auto-import of threats from Mission Editor should be therefore disabled or, at least, changed to an opt-in/opt-out system, letting mission designers and/or players to choose whether they want to use it.

 

Absolutely. It has been being complained about by everyone since it was release, but as far as I know no one from ED has even acknowledged they are aware that the whole playerbase think it's a terrible implementation.  

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  • Raptor9 changed the title to Option for automatically importing Mission Editor Target/Threat & Control Measure points
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24 minutes ago, Scaley said:

It has been being complained about by everyone since it was release, but as far as I know no one from ED has even acknowledged they are aware that the whole playerbase think it's a terrible implementation.  

For anyone that has been around a reasonable amount of time on the DCS forums, they should be well aware that ED staff read these forums. Requiring an acknowledgement to every thread that requests a different function, behavior, or new feature would be redundant and unnecessary; and labeling whether or not each wishlist item is planned, not planned, being considered, being talked about, or just acknowledged is just as wasteful since plans may change or evolve over time.

Further, a small number of people out of the entire DCS playerbase posting their disapproval on the forums regarding a feature in the game is a far cry from "everyone complaining" and "the whole playerbase". @Scaley, you and I have talked on numerous occasions in the AH-64 thread alone, so you certainly know that these forums are read by ED Team members. You even commented several times in the Control Measures auto-population thread to which I myself acknowledged such complaints. Inaccurate and sensationalized hyperbole like this do nothing but sow discontent among the community.

Threads merged since they are essentially asking for the same thing, to prevent universal auto-population of target/threat and control measure points in the mission. And for a previous acknowledgement back in August regarding this topic:

Afterburners are for wussies...hang around the battlefield and dodge tracers like a man.
DCS Rotor-Head

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On 12/30/2022 at 4:33 PM, Raptor9 said:

For anyone that has been around a reasonable amount of time on the DCS forums, they should be well aware that ED staff read these forums. Requiring an acknowledgement to every thread that requests a different function, behavior, or new feature would be redundant and unnecessary; and labeling whether or not each wishlist item is planned, not planned, being considered, being talked about, or just acknowledged is just as wasteful since plans may change or evolve over time.

Further, a small number of people out of the entire DCS playerbase posting their disapproval on the forums regarding a feature in the game is a far cry from "everyone complaining" and "the whole playerbase". @Scaley, you and I have talked on numerous occasions in the AH-64 thread alone, so you certainly know that these forums are read by ED Team members. You even commented several times in the Control Measures auto-population thread to which I myself acknowledged such complaints. Inaccurate and sensationalized hyperbole like this do nothing but sow discontent among the community.

Threads merged since they are essentially asking for the same thing, to prevent universal auto-population of target/threat and control measure points in the mission. And for a previous acknowledgement back in August regarding this topic:

 

@Raptor9thanks for acknowledging that this is known. I've added and removed sentences to try to further the discussion but ended up removing them all for obvious reasons. Many thanks again. 


Edited by Scaley
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  • 4 weeks later...

The problem

Loading any mission, even small ones will rapidly clutter up the control measure database. This leads to the crew being unable to add their own CMs as well as be general clutter and unhelpfulness during the mission. The fact that every group creates it's own control measure is the most pressing issue. The fact that the mission editor option is to "Hide from MFD" is not selected by default, or rather that it's not "Show on MFD" and deselected by default. Causes a lot of extra clicking to hide extra units from the map when in reality the mission editor probably only wants to show a few of them by default and, at least the missions I fly for, simply don't bother to click that hide checkmark.

It also doesn't help that FARPs and Airbases are taking up a good chunk of the CMs, even though it is very unlikely that you'll ever go to them, especially enemy held ones or those that are very far away and not anywhere near your waypoints.

Furthermore, every enemy control measure appears to be Enemy armor, friendly armor or friendly air defense. The apache has a great many different control measures to place down depending on the type of vehicle used.

Overall the generation of the control measures is too aggressive, incoherent, cluttered and has no real logic to it. For instance when I placed a couple of trucks down, the contoll measures were generated in order from furthest away to closest, when in reality the one furthest away is probably the least concern. They were also classified as armor, when in fact it was just ural utility trucks without any weapons.

The solution

  1. Make the option Show on MFD opt in, instead of opt out. By default units are hidden unless they are explicitly marked. This prevents excessive clutter from units that do not need to or make no sense to make available on the MFD, such as units which are mobile and on the move at the time of loading into the aircraft.
  2. Generate control measures in the order of relevancy to the mission. For example prioritize units along the planed route of flight. If no route is present, generate them based on distance from the starting position.
  3. Generate the control measure type of the most defining unit in the group. For example:
    - If there is infantry and a BTR, it's mechanized infantry
    - If it's a tank and a BMP, it's armor
    - If it's artillery and air defense, it's artillery
    - If it's infantry, bmp and air defense, it's air defense
    - if it's infantry and a brdm, then it's a scout
    - If it's an aircraft in the air, do not generate a airborne control measure because that aircraft is probably going to move.
    - If it's an aircraft on the ground that isn't just sitting there is is going to take off, don't generate that control measure either

    Some more thought needs to go into that of course to come up with a reasonable list of units and combinations of units and what you'd classify them as. It might be reasonable to shift that to the mission editor though to only group units that make sense to be grouped and have a different group for a different purpose in the mission. Still a group of BMPs is different from only infantry, and that's different from infantry with a BMP.
  4. If there already is a control measure of the same type in a given range (say 2000m), then do not generate a new control measure. So 50 groups of one infantry men do not generate 50 control measures in one spot but rather just one of them.
  5. Limit the number of automatically generated control measures to 40 or so to allow the users to add their own if they need to.
  6. Generate the control measures once, when the PLT joins the aircraft.When this is eventually implemented, generate them again when they load the data cartridge after a ground rearm/refuel, at which point the cartridge would have been updated. Then when the (human) CPG joins, synchronize the points with him, and not let him generate his own points, potentially different from the PLTs points, as it happens now.
  7. Do not generate control measures for enemy farps or bases, or bases very far away that are not near your waypoints. If enemy units are near those, then add those as CMs, if they are of high enough priority (near your waypoints or starting position and of sufficient capability to out prioritize other units)

Obviously out of those solutions some need to be tweaked and more thought put into them. But I think it should be relatively easy to implement a few of them, such as the maximum limit to allow some space for user CMs.


Edited by FalcoGer
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