Playable neutral faction

[snocc_]

I think making the neutral faction playable would add some much needed depth to the possible scenarios to be made within DCS, especially in multiplayer servers where players could coordinate together to try and enforce a no fly zone or simply defend their airspace and territory from the conflict the 2 other factions are fighting

[Gunfreak]

46 minutes ago, snocc_ said:

I think making the neutral faction playable would add some much needed depth to the possible scenarios to be made within DCS, especially in multiplayer servers where players could coordinate together to try and enforce a no fly zone or simply defend their airspace and territory from the conflict the 2 other factions are fighting

Totally agree. And would work for civilians too when collateral damage is a thing. 

[cfrag]

This could be interesting. I think a question to be answered is: how shou,d red and blue react to neutral? In other words: since AI currently won’t attack neutral, how can you create a mission with player being neutral that has any level of conflict? If red and blue can/will attack neutral, how can you stop them from doing so if they are truly neutral? We need a Pirate / warlord antagonistic faction separate from neutral methinks. 

[SharpeXB]

Both sides would just try to kill you then

[snocc_]

hace 42 minutos, cfrag dijo:

This could be interesting. I think a question to be answered is: how shou,d red and blue react to neutral? In other words: since AI currently won’t attack neutral, how can you create a mission with player being neutral that has any level of conflict? If red and blue can/will attack neutral, how can you stop them from doing so if they are truly neutral? We need a Pirate / warlord antagonistic faction separate from neutral methinks. 

that'd depend on how the mission is setup, maybe you need to make way over neutral territory to be able to strike red assets, have red units retreat into heavily defended neutral territory forcing you to take them out quickly, you could make it so if a side takes over the neutral territory they have easier access to enemy infrastructure or just a generally advantageous position etc, like with the normal blue vs red scenarios its up to the mission maker to make it interesting and not every scenario will need it

maybe the AI could also get an option to attack certain neutral targets like fighters or interceptors that get too close for comfort in the mission editor

For multiplayer PVP it'd be easier to make work since its mostly players doing the combat and you'd have more ways of interacting as a neutral aircraft without immediately going to weapons as deterrance

hace 30 minutos, SharpeXB dijo:

Both sides would just try to kill you then

good, this is what i want 

Edited March 14, 2023 by snocc_

[Northstar98]

Personally, the ideal solution would be the ability to add, edit and remove sides at will. Which would be especially useful in scenarios like Syria where you have 4 main belligerents.

Right now I don't think the neutral faction really has a lot of utility as it's purely non-combative, containing all the countries not assigned to red or blue.

50 minutes ago, cfrag said:

This could be interesting. I think a question to be answered is: how shou,d red and blue react to neutral?

Easy. Do it in the same way the above example does it - have a setting that allows you to set a side's posture with respect to each of the other sides. Then it's entirely up to the mission editor what they do with it.

• You could set them to behave like they do now
• You could have scenarios where all sides are hostile to each other (kinda like the Syrian civil war).
• You could have scenarios where a neutral side are unfriendly or hostile to side A and are neutral/friendly, but not necessarily part of or allied with side B (for instance kinda like Sweden and Finland through the Cold War and into the 21st century).

Edited March 14, 2023 by Northstar98

[snocc_]

hace 3 minutos, Northstar98 dijo:

Personally, the ideal solution would be the ability to add, edit and remove sides at will. Which would be especially useful in scenarios like Syria where you have 4 main belligerents.

yeah this would honestly work better than my proposal

[cfrag]

8 hours ago, Northstar98 said:

have a setting that allows you to set a side's posture with respect to each of the other sides

I think that would be an excellent addition to ME: a simplified matrix that defines agressive status with regards to other factions - and therefore even allows unidirectional behaviors:

(read left to right, "1" means hostile intend towards that column)

So.

• Red behaves aggressive towards blue,
• Blue aggressive towards red, 
• Grey aggressive towards blue

It's not perfect, and definitely not as granular or flexible as the other examples you kindly provided in the other thread. But if we had such a table for ME that influenced AI, this could be a big leap in functionality and a good start. Independent of whether we may play a Grey

[Mike_Romeo]

On 3/14/2023 at 5:51 PM, snocc_ said:

I think making the neutral faction playable would add some much needed depth to the possible scenarios to be made within DCS, especially in multiplayer servers where players could coordinate together to try and enforce a no fly zone or simply defend their airspace and territory from the conflict the 2 other factions are fighting

You can already do it and I will show you how:

Step 1, set countries to their coalitions. The ones that you want to be neutral stay in the middle



Step 2: Place a aircraft and set the box next to countries from combat to all by click on it. This will allow you to select neutral countries

Step 3: Now set aircrafts to client and you can start the mission. Neutral aircrafts will appear as enemy if they are not in your coalition.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Mike_Romeo

[Mike_Romeo]

Nevermind, you can only select either blue or red when playing the mission on a server. Singleplayer however works.

Edited March 18, 2023 by Mike_Romeo

[snocc_]

i tried this before making the thread, sadly its not really what im looking for, im more focused on the multiplayer side of things and that's where i think an option like this could shine the most