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A Poor Man's Dynamic Campaign Engine


ericinexile

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I really don't understand why it must be multiplayer to have a dynamic campaign. I would like a single player dynamic campaign.

 

If it were done like F4s campaign then there is no difference between single player and multiplayer when doing missions in a DC.

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Thats one way of looking at it. Most of my role playing aparatus exists out of sim and it's all entertaining to me; FWIW I rarely use the in-sim provision of log-books when they're there.

The reality is that all of us who fly combat flight sims play in our own personal versions of Never-Never-Land, and even *training* can be seen as a sub-set of the theatre at play.

 

Cheers!

 

I like FOs approach to this for starters the trainning is done first all of which is logged. Log books serve two functions 1 is it shows the pilots level of experience and 2 it can be accessed in MP if they follow a similar logbook to F4. In order to qualify for MP campaign you have to pass the trainning missions this is so that everyone is at the same level. It doesn't matter if the rookie learns in single player or in a 2 seater in MP to qualify. Logbooks on LO were a waste of time F4AFs logbooks are a more realistic solution for players who use jet combat sims online. DC is not the ideal trg enviroment unless your side already has nearly beaten the other side.

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I think developers must concentrate on what they feel will be the core customer. Perhaps ED have done this by concentrating on single-player. To an even greater extent than LOMAC, Multiplayer is an afterthought in DCS. You can already see the difference by observing the 50-100 FC players on Hyperlobby and the dozen (on a good day) on DCS MP (granted, smaller audience, but you'd expect more participation by now).

 

Smokin' Hole

 

They need to make a popular aircraft like an F/A-18 or F-16 and then you'll notice a big change.

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Its interesting: In this thread, some people cheered the initiative made by a really talented guy, for his automatic mission generator for Lock-on. They praise the sighting of a living battlefield - a thing Falcon pilots had for years :D

 

So I believe a DC system, internal or external to the simulation, would add a lot of enjoyment for us simmers. ED could be kind and, in the case they wouldn't want to develop a DC on its own for the foreseeable future, at least publish hooks and extensions to enable third-party developers to do their magic. I think this would mean a lot to the simmer community.

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I know it is nowhere near Falcon, but perhaps you will like these missions:

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=36213

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=35840

 

You missed it. (Fly Falcon and you know what I mean.)

Sure...maybe I will like these missions.

 

1. But what I don't like is to do such a lot of work for every single Mission, when I(!) create missions.

 

2. These Radio Calls are "static"..... .wav or .ogg files are used.

 

 

What I mean is ("realtime")dynamic AI Radio Chatter. No triggered soundfiles.

The difference is that it is "independant" from any trigger or the mission itself. The AI calls what actually is going on or if they need help or AWACS calls and so on.

 

And also, you can't use triggered soundfiles in a dynamic Campaign. This works only in self builded missions.

 

Again sorry for my english, hope it is clear what I mean!?

 

P.s.: When we have a dynamic campaign, it is not possible to use custom soundfiles. We really need AI radio chatter for atmosphere when we have a dynamic campaign.


Edited by Duke49th
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^^^^

 

All radio chatter is triggered sound files. In F4 the "radio chatter" as in I'm Punching Out! or the somber We lost one! are files triggered by an event somewhere on the map. It's simple any you are right, it really works. It helps feed that illusion that you are part of something far bigger.

 

Smokin' Hole

Smokin' Hole

 

My DCS wish list: Su25, Su30, Mi24, AH1, F/A-18C, Afghanistan ...and frankly, the flight sim world should stop at 1995.

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Here's a thought: ... if an F-16 shoots an AMRAAM over the Korean DMZ and no one is around to hear it, does it make a noise? ;)

 

Ah Grasshopper of the red striped variety, assuredly the event never happened ...

 

There was no witness, no F16, no AMRAAM and definietly no noise ;)

 

Cheers!

"A true 'sandbox flight sim' requires hi-fidelity flyable non-combat utility/support aircraft."

Wishlist Terrains - Bigger maps

Wishlist Modules - A variety of utility aircraft to better reflect the support role. E.g. Flying the Hornet ... big yawn ... flying a Caribou on a beer run to Singapore? Count me in. Extracting a Recon Patrol from a hastily prepared landing strip at a random 6 figure grid reference? Now yer talking!

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^^^^

 

All radio chatter is triggered sound files. In F4 the "radio chatter" as in I'm Punching Out! or the somber We lost one! are files triggered by an event somewhere on the map.

 

Smokin' Hole

 

Yup, you can't beat an integrated battlefield, which is exactly what a Dynamic Campaign engine is.

Too many cowboys. Not enough indians.

GO APE SH*T

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I got an idea for another approach for dynamic campaign. Everyone is thinking a campaign as a series of missions. But what if we got a working in-game saving-system? We could make one huge mission which would be easier to make more dynamic with triggers etc. This single mission would contain several 'sub-missions' which would replace missions in conventional campaign. Online play would have more MMO-feeling when single game could last days/weeks, people coming and going.

 

The largest problem with this imho could be the generation and viewing mission (de-)briefings, and selecting new missions. This would obviously need modifications to the game itself. Another problem would be performance, if a whole mapful of units is required whole time, doing whatever they do. That would probably mean atleast hundreds if not thousands of units at a time.

 

This was just an idea, nothing that I except to be realistic nor implemented.

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All one needs for DC is currently realizable in both LO/DCS.

 

1.Mission creation program. MOM API is available through COM, and there's currently a number of tools using it (e.g. here)

2.Data exprot software. Something like extension of export.lua script that emerges all data at given time point, e.g. at +1:00 from mission start (and that means end of the mission.). An example of this is Tacview.

3.Data parsing tool. One that will parse data from p.2 and game log to determine results and transfer it by any means to p.1. Fully realizable too.

 

So - all you need is a programmer who'll take the task. Unfortunately, one is not shipped with DCS...

You want the best? Here i am...

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All one needs for DC is currently realizable in both LO/DCS.

 

1.Mission creation program. MOM API is available through COM, and there's currently a number of tools using it (e.g. here)

2.Data exprot software. Something like extension of export.lua script that emerges all data at given time point, e.g. at +1:00 from mission start (and that means end of the mission.). An example of this is Tacview.

3.Data parsing tool. One that will parse data from p.2 and game log to determine results and transfer it by any means to p.1. Fully realizable too.

 

So - all you need is a programmer who'll take the task. Unfortunately, one is not shipped with DCS...

 

That's a great start and we will be lucky if it gets even that far. But for this to work well, we still need a MP mission editor that allows players to see the known positions of Blue and Red and perhaps to modify waypoints to suit the needs of the flight.

Smokin' Hole

 

My DCS wish list: Su25, Su30, Mi24, AH1, F/A-18C, Afghanistan ...and frankly, the flight sim world should stop at 1995.

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I've been playing around with exporting LB2 missions to BS for a while, not all the triggers are available and there's a few caveats but it's main purpose is to quickly populate a mission with unit names and waypoints rather than generate anything intelligent. Actually that needs correcting, it's main purpose is as a test for C# classes that generates LUA mission files, it was just convenient to convert some LB2 mission stuff to a C# class and do some a>b conversion (as the two sims use different co-ordinate systems obviously) . It's not such a stretch to spit out mission files for a quick mission generator or even build a snapshot campaign system.

 

Underwhelming and boring screen-shot follows...

 

lb2bs.png

 

Yes it really is that dull atm.

 

I'll get around to fixing it up for release sometime soon but I'm having far too much fun playing rather than programming.


Edited by Flexman_UK

This our hobby - not our job - if we are not having a laugh, we're doing it wrong. - Rats

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That's an interesting approach there flexman!

 

btw.

You aren't the Flexman who gave us the famous ground support system for EECH are you? :music_whistling:

 

For interesting approach read ham-fisted? :) Certainly is. Adding groups and naming them can be a lengthy process, especially having to duplicate 8 player flights complete with waypoints. This will take the tedium out of that.

 

EECH GSS was me, and the Longbow 2 editor. The Black Shark editor has a subset of the events available to LB2, it could use a few more, I wonder if more are available to the engine but are not possible to add via the editor.(???)

 

Things like setting unit damage <n>, destroy unit <n>, re-spawn flag, set coalition to <n..>, don't shoot me flag; those would allow for even more dramatic mission possibilities. Those are available the LB2 event lists.

 

But as it is, Black Shark offers a lot of possibilities.

This our hobby - not our job - if we are not having a laugh, we're doing it wrong. - Rats

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All one needs for DC is currently realizable in both LO/DCS.

 

1.Mission creation program. MOM API is available through COM, and there's currently a number of tools using it (e.g. here)

 

Is there a way to assign a map object as a target using MOM? Neither I nor ED could find the way to do it. Also, as far as I know, MOM API was removed from DCS, no?

 

2.Data exprot software. Something like extension of export.lua script that emerges all data at given time point, e.g. at +1:00 from mission start (and that means end of the mission.). An example of this is Tacview.

 

Last time I checked, lua exported data did not report which unit was destroyed (unless it was a player aircraft), but rather only its type - and all ground objects were simply named "building," making them indistinguishable.

 

3.Data parsing tool. One that will parse data from p.2 and game log to determine results and transfer it by any means to p.1. Fully realizable too.

 

Even LO's own Debriefing window was incapable to properly record damage/destruction of airbases - if it worked at all, the runway was simply identified as "building."

 

So - all you need is a programmer who'll take the task. Unfortunately, one is not shipped with DCS...

 

Two such programmers already tried, and succeeded to the maximum extent that it was possible - "Storm" and "Skywars" projects. The development did not stop as a result of their boredom, or lack of will.


Edited by SwingKid
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What about using debrief.log?

 

Reply to EvilBivol-1 suggestion:

 

Sorry to be so long to reply, I was doing some testing about EvilBivol idea of using debrief.log file to improve Tacview xml debriefing file.

 

Indeed debrief.log contains interesting data like: time, “dead” / “hit” events and the objects GameIDs.

 

After some testing, it looks like it’s possible to detect what static objects have been destroyed and where they’ve been (thanks to ammo impact information and Tacview intelligence data).

 

So, yes, I may consider improving Tacview to make it able to detect such things and export data about static objects in its debriefing.xml file.

However there are some issues about that way to detect that kind of things:

  • GameIDs are not the same as mission GUIDs
  • “Default” static objects like bridges does not seems to be declared in the mission file
  • So the dynamic campaign editor will have to do some assumptions and estimations which can inevitably lead to mistakes about what static objects have been destroyed. (e.g. a static bunker destroyed next to a bridge)
  • Also, according to the following thread http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=37376 its seems that debriefing.log is not created at all in MP

As usual, the best way to support dynamic campaign (besides having a true one in DCS) would be to ask DCS developers to expose even more information thought export.lua…

 

I hope these tests will be useful to the community.


Edited by Vyrtuoz
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Hahaha SwingKid, you legend! I haven't been around these forums long but came across your name in a few VERY old Lomac posts with regards to a Dynamic Campaign engine [2004ish]. You have my regards.

 

I never played Lomac (F4 instead), so I am out of my depth here..

 

But I get the impression that a traditionally imagined (read; Falcon 4.0) Dynamic Campaign will be impossible in the DCS AND Lomac engines. A bit like (pardon the phrase) 'trying to polish a turd'. Or possibly trying to make something into something it is not.

 

Is the DCS engine not just a revamped Lomac engine?

 

I really don't mean to ruffle any feathers here, just can't help seeing a lot of similarities between this thread and a few posted 4 years ago regarding Lomac.

Too many cowboys. Not enough indians.

GO APE SH*T

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As I understand it, the problem for previous efforts lay largely in the limited post-mission data provided in the debrief and there was no other way to export mission data.

 

Today, much more data is exportable through LUA. The only thing LUA does not provide is data for static objects. However, some of this data is provided in the debriefing log. If we can combine the data of the two systems, we can probably track static object events as well, although with some problems and limitations still. Specifically, the idea is to obtain the event type and time in the debriefing (e.g. "building, destroyed, xx.xx.xx mission time) and obtain the event location by matching the event time to the LUA data exported, including what munitions had expired and where at that particular time. If we can get either the object ID or the event location by combining the data from both systems, we have the essential information required to carry over the end mission state into the next mission, including the composition and destruction of active and (to a greater of lesser extent) static objects.

 

IMHO, the tools for 3rd party dynamic mission/campaign generation are there, just not yet in a completely elegant form. I would be suprised if ED decided to change course and close off accessibility after moving toward it over the past few years.


Edited by EvilBivol-1

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