requested Power Grid Failures

[SGT Toffee]

Hello drivers!

A thought had just occurred to me that would not only improve the realism of DCS/beta and Multithreading with a trigger baked into the software, but also making or playing attack missions more enjoyable— making destructible Power Grids!

As I was making a campaign to continue the original Hornet 1989s story, I had set up a timed attack with TLAMs hitting known power houses in the Russian SSR coastline prior to commencing a moderate ground offensive into the towns in Sochi and Novorossyisk. All they did is trigger a series of counter offensives at realistic times to scramble, and activate LR SAM sites.

If you hit these power stations one by one in a very short period of time, they would deactivate 80% of their forces because there’s no power to go to the telephone lines, and communicate to warn the naval garrisons.

However, they do not off the lights to residential sectors or entire cities. I know in 1991 during the Gulf War, TLAMs were launched from the USS Missouri to take out Saddam’s power grids and radar stations before H-Hour.

To ED Developers, is there a way to shut off lights or paralyze towns once the power is destroyed? Or could there be some LUA coding that would enable such effects?

Cheers!

SGT Toffee

Edited April 9, 2023 by SGT Toffee

[FlankerKiller]

+1 to this. Seeing parts of a city go dark after taking out a relay station, or power plant would be sweet. Like you said it would definitely increase immersion. 

[BIGNEWY]

10 hours ago, SGT Toffee said:

Hello drivers!

A thought had just occurred to me that would not only improve the realism of DCS/beta and Multithreading with a trigger baked into the software, but also making or playing attack missions more enjoyable— making destructible Power Grids!

As I was making a campaign to continue the original Hornet 1989s story, I had set up a timed attack with TLAMs hitting known power houses in the Russian SSR coastline prior to commencing a moderate ground offensive into the towns in Sochi and Novorossyisk. All they did is trigger a series of counter offensives at realistic times to scramble, and activate LR SAM sites.

If you hit these power stations one by one in a very short period of time, they would deactivate 80% of their forces because there’s no power to go to the telephone lines, and communicate to warn the naval garrisons.

However, they do not off the lights to residential sectors or entire cities. I know in 1991 during the Gulf War, TLAMs were launched from the USS Missouri to take out Saddam’s power grids and radar stations before H-Hour.

To ED Developers, is there a way to shut off lights or paralyze towns once the power is destroyed? Or could there be some LUA coding that would enable such effects?

Cheers!

SGT Toffee

 

Hello 

we think destructible power grids are a great idea, I can not promise anything at this stage but a request has been made to the team. 

thanks

 

[draconus]

Just keep in mind most critical military systems have diesel backup power generators.

[SGT Toffee]

On 4/10/2023 at 1:56 AM, BIGNEWY said:

Hello 

we think destructible power grids are a great idea, I can not promise anything at this stage but a request has been made to the team. 

thanks

 

Much appreciated! Thank you.

 

On 4/10/2023 at 4:37 AM, draconus said:

Just keep in mind most critical military systems have diesel backup power generators.

That is very true. I’m just wondering if these diesel generators in the SSRs were entirely effective, or they abandoned them to save cost since 1989 was pretty much the financial breaking point for the Eastern Bloc. So I opted to have random scramble times to be somewhat realistic.

[Kang]

Relatedly the wish for setting regular 'blackout' conditions within a trigger zone has come up several times before

[SGT Toffee]

Oh I’m certain it has before, no doubt about that.

But this one should be baked into the software instead of adding a whole trigger added into the mission so it saves computers CPU cycles.

[Hog_driver]

That would be a great addition to the dynamic campaign (TM).

[Dragon1-1]

It would certainly be great for DC, strikes on the power grid were pretty much a constant fixture of modern warfare, up to and including Ukraine (the difference being, for most part, that the US ones succeeded). The USAF had even deployed a special type of weapon, the CBU-94, which used graphite to short-circuit transformers and substations with little collateral damage. This was used both in Gulf War and in Serbia, the latter were better at fixing the damage, but it was quite effective either way. If we ever get functional power grids, we could also use the CBU-94 for making them non-functional. Anything that can carry the CBU-87 should also be able to carry this, as it uses the same dispenser.

[Northstar98]

4 minutes ago, Dragon1-1 said:

It would certainly be great for DC, strikes on the power grid were pretty much a constant fixture of modern warfare, up to and including Ukraine (the difference being, for most part, that the US ones succeeded). The USAF had even deployed a special type of weapon, the CBU-94, which used graphite to short-circuit transformers and substations with little collateral damage. This was used both in Gulf War and in Serbia, the latter were better at fixing the damage, but it was quite effective either way. If we ever get functional power grids, we could also use the CBU-94 for making them non-functional. Anything that can carry the CBU-87 should also be able to carry this, as it uses the same dispenser.

Yeah, a variant of the R/UGM-109D (which normally contains BLU-97/B combined effects submunitions) also had a graphite payload for targeting electrical infrastructure.

But as to the OP definitely +1 and the same sort of thing should go to POL resources and other industry too, for very similar reasons, especially in the context of a persistent, dynamic campaign.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Northstar98

[cfrag]

Although I have no idea how this could be achieved easily, I think it would be great first step if we could set all ground textures inside a trigger zone simply to day texture (= unlit textures) with an action. That way, we can simulate power failure in a custom, mission specific area with very little change to our current mission system (two new zone-based actions). Of course, we don't need 100% accuracy in tile match-up to the trigger zone - any map tile that partly is within the zone is added. This can be prepared at mission start, for greater flexibility and better performance. 

OK, I better stop before I get carried away too far, but I love this idea

 

[Dangerzone]

11 hours ago, cfrag said:

Although I have no idea how this could be achieved easily, I think it would be great first step if we could set all ground textures inside a trigger zone simply to day texture (= unlit textures) with an action. That way, we can simulate power failure in a custom, mission specific area with very little change to our current mission system (two new zone-based actions). Of course, we don't need 100% accuracy in tile match-up to the trigger zone - any map tile that partly is within the zone is added. This can be prepared at mission start, for greater flexibility and better performance. 

OK, I better stop before I get carried away too far, but I love this idea

 

This would be a fantastic idea. I'm not sure - but I figure the ground textures are pre-loaded so this may be more difficult to do than not. Although with the changes made to the dynamic lighting on Persia - maybe there's a chance that it could be simpler than first thought - but I suspect that the lighting is a combination of ground textures plus dynamic lighting so it's probably more involved than I realise. 

Either way - I'm very glad the team is considering this. The Apache is built for night ops - and IIRC the F15 has a similar HUD to the AV-8B night attack HUD too.  

[cfrag]

3 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

I figure the ground textures are pre-loaded so this may be more difficult to do than not.

Agreed. Then again, since a mission can go from night to day we also know that these textures can be dynamically loaded. The question is if they can reside in memory and be accessed at the same time, or are merely substituted.

 

3 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

I suspect that the lighting is a combination of ground textures plus dynamic lighting

Currently, there is very little active/dynamic lighting, most things that look like light (e.g. headlights from cars, street lamps, buildings) are all textures/splats that make the ground look lit, but do not emit light: these 'lights' aren't emissive, they don't light up surroundings and don't cast shadows. The classic experiment is to sit at night in your cold plane on an airfield (e.g. Senaki) directly under a flood light, and switch to outside view. Note that although the ground is brightly lit from above (flood light), your plane casts no shadow, and it's pitch dark in your cockpit (although the light is directly above). So no light, just texture - a clever, and very performance friendly way to create the illusion of light without having to spend the CPU/GPU performance. Besides aircrafts, there are very few objects (AFAIK only one or two ground vehicles) that currently can produce 'real' (i.e. emissive, performance killing) lights. It would be great if we had some scenery objects that we could place to generate light; these may be forthcoming in a release some day. Up to today, very little light in scenery is dynamic/active, and most is passive (textured). Which is to say: an impressive accomplishment, seeing how good it looks without it being the real thing.

3 hours ago, Dangerzone said:

The Apache is built for night ops - and IIRC the F15 has a similar HUD to the AV-8B night attack HUD too

I'm really looking forward to the new lighting as well. Ground lighting is very, very important for helo driving, and DCS has some headroom in this respect. 

Edited April 13, 2023 by cfrag

[Dangerzone]

26 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Agreed. Then again, since a mission can go from night to day we also know that these textures can be dynamically loaded. The question is if they can reside in memory and be accessed at the same time, or are merely substituted.

That's a very good point. 

27 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Currently, there is very little active/dynamic lighting, most things that look like light (e.g. headlights from cars, street lamps, buildings) are all textures/splats that make the ground look lit, but do not emit light: these 'lights' aren't emissive, they don't light up surroundings and don't cast shadows. The classic experiment is to sit at night in your cold plane on an airfield (e.g. Senaki) directly under a flood light, and switch to outside view.

Senaki - yes, but I think if you do that in Dubai you may see differently. (Excuse the pun  ). I don't recall checking externally, but internally there is differently a difference with parts of the cockpit lighting up as you taxi between lights, etc.  The last I was aware ED are actively looking at implementing dynamic lighting into different areas of the map, so the timing of this request could be optimal. 

Poor ED - so many passionate customers, and some great ideas and not enough hours in a day. 

[cfrag]

26 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

in Dubai you may see differently.

Holy *#%!!, you are right! I just tried this in Dubai, and it appears that the interior of a plane is illuminated by the average ambient light (it darkens and brightens as the plane moves according to exterior lights). No shadows on the ground, but this is still a giant leap ahead with regards to the experience! And silly me never noticed. Thanks!

This is going to be exciting!

 

[Dangerzone]

37 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Holy *#%!!, you are right! I just tried this in Dubai, and it appears that the interior of a plane is illuminated by the average ambient light (it darkens and brightens as the plane moves according to exterior lights). No shadows on the ground, but this is still a giant leap ahead with regards to the experience! And silly me never noticed. Thanks!

This is going to be exciting!

 

Aah - I wouldn't have noticed the ground shadows because I have them turned off due to VR performance at the moment, so that's handy intel for me to know. Thanks. 

But yeah - beautiful to fly a huey around the airport.

[SGT Toffee]

On 4/10/2023 at 1:56 AM, BIGNEWY said:

Hello 

we think destructible power grids are a great idea, I can not promise anything at this stage but a request has been made to the team. 

thanks

 

Just a curiosity, how is the request coming for destructible power grids? I just recieved another update pushed for DCS 2.8.

Really looking forward to hear about it!

Thank you!

Edited May 12, 2023 by SGT Toffee

[BIGNEWY]

5 hours ago, SGT Toffee said:

Just a curiosity, how is the request coming for destructible power grids? I just recieved another update pushed for DCS 2.8.

Really looking forward to hear about it!

Thank you!

 

Hi, 

I would not expect any news for some time, while a request has been made we have other much higher priorities in the queue. 

thank you

[F-2]

This is a really good idea, I imagine it would be tricky to implement but I just want to voice my support.

Certain maps do have their power plants on them, Nevada has the Hoover damn, though that isn’t and should be destructible (would be an awful disaster). Perhaps looking up substations and making them destroyable and having localized lighting on the map be effected? I’m just spitballing.

 

[SGT Toffee]

That within itself would be especially difficult to render with high volumes of water flowing in an unscripted fashion. But yes it would be a disaster nonetheless.

You are right about the substations! 

[F-2]

I meant to write shouldn’t be!

[SGT Toffee]

Right! This guy seems to have a good solution so far. 

On 4/12/2023 at 9:12 AM, cfrag said:

Although I have no idea how this could be achieved easily, I think it would be great first step if we could set all ground textures inside a trigger zone simply to day texture (= unlit textures) with an action. That way, we can simulate power failure in a custom, mission specific area with very little change to our current mission system (two new zone-based actions). Of course, we don't need 100% accuracy in tile match-up to the trigger zone - any map tile that partly is within the zone is added. This can be prepared at mission start, for greater flexibility and better performance. 

OK, I better stop before I get carried away too far, but I love this idea

 

 

[Eagle7907]

Just was thinking about this since I'm making a mission on the lines of taking out a power grid at night.  An easy way ED could implement this is by having an option for trigger zones, which can already be designed by shape to the user's liking, to designate or plan what light sources go out after a certain trigger condition has been met (like a certain building gets bombed).  I think designing a whole electrical grid logic or structure would be pretty monumental task, but something simple like just creating a zone to go dark would be a bit less time consuming.

[SGT Toffee]

I saw the other day where you can change Ship Lighting in the triggers list in ME. This could be great for setting zones with that same command over wide terrain