Low effort, high impact quality of life (QoL) improvements

[Ell]

This is a thread for highlighting overlooked easy-to-fix issues that would greatly improve the game experience. Please only describe those that fit most of the following criteria:

- Broad applicability (e.g. core functionality, affects a large number of aircraft or is frequently used in it's scope)
- Presumably fixable by a single developer in at most a few days (ideally less)
- Is particularly annoying or constitutes a significant improvement

Limit yourself to describing a few of the most important issues, the purpose of this thread is to help the developers filter out the extremely simple and important ones.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Ell

[Rudel_chw]

1) I’d like DCS to remember the size and position of the kneeboard between flying sessions.

2) On the Mission Editor, It would be great if Static Templates could include also Triggers and Trigger Zones.

 

 

 

Edited May 13, 2023 by Rudel_chw

[Ell]

Make cursor appear where I'm looking after showing it, so I don't have to hunt for it

The cursor is a critical part of the DCS UI and could be improved.

Whenever I want to press something in the cockpit in VR, I first have to wave my mouse around to find the cursor. In stressful situations I sometimes can't find it quickly enough, assume it's hidden and hide it while trying to show it. Then I wave my mouse around some more, press "hide/show cursor" again and keep waving.

Just being able to look at what I want to interact with and press "hide/show cursor" once or twice to place the cursor right over it would be very convenient.

[Art-J]

1) Would be nice if quick mission generator remembered the last map selection and AI density selection used in previous DCS gaming session. 

That used to be the case in 1.2.xx era but changed to current annoying implementation somewhere along 1.5.xx for undisclosed reasons;

2) I also wouldn't mind getting back to P-51 spawning on the ground WITHOUT light rheostats cranked to 100%. It doesn't make any sense and wasn't like that before one of the updates a couple of years ago.

[HILOK]

make mouse buttons for select and pan consistent between mission editor and f10-map 

[Ell]

Don't open the communications menu automatically when I start to taxi

Every time start to taxi out of the hangar, the game opens the communications menu and I have to close it, even though neither I or the AI has showed any intent of communication. Most servers don't use the communication menu ATC functionality anymore and it's annoying having to close it every sortie.

Edited May 13, 2023 by Ell

[Minhal]

4 hours ago, Ell said:

Don't open the communications menu automatically when I start to taxi

Every time start to taxi out of the hangar, the game opens the communications menu and I have to close it, even though neither I or the AI has showed any intent of communication. Most servers don't use the communication menu ATC functionality anymore and it's annoying having to close it every sortie.

 

Would extend this to "not open automatically at all" as this happens on a lot of other occasions. Just super annoying and not helpful at all.

How often i got caught in the silly comms menu when i just wanted to check F10 map for a free runway on landing. The very moment DCS assumed i would like to request landing and auto opened the dialog. Really hate "feature" no. 1.

Also please always open comms menu on root level, not "somewhere" where the game assumes what id like to do next like "request taxi".

[draconus]

Please, dcs.exe, remember your starting arguments when restarting after module download/remove.

[bies]

Normal MP aircraft selection, similar to any other sim. Where you just see the map with airfields and aircraft types available on them, select the airfield and aircraft.

Instead of long-ass list to scroll 1-2 minutes, with just abstract airfields names, every aircrafts thrown in a heap, no filters, anything. If someone doesn't know locations of all small, less important airfields on all maps - it's his problem.

This looks live very low hanging fruit.

Edited May 16, 2023 by bies

[Rudel_chw]

56 minutes ago, bies said:

This looks live very low hanging fruit.

 

Maybe, but replacing a text interface with a graphical one does not look like low-effort to me.

[upyr1]

I have asked for this one a few times, in DCS core give us two new profiles

default air plane

default helicopter

The entire point would be to set the commonly used controls in a single location so that when you install a new module (either commercial or community) you'll have the basic commands set and then can focus on tweaking them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mod manager- If ED doesn't want to spend a lot of resources on this, then how about doing an open-source one so the community can develop it?

 

[SharpeXB]

Nothing in this game is “low effort”

Even seemingly simple thing take many years to accomplish. So this is a silly topic. 
I’d rather ED focus on actual improvements than minutiae. 
Plus all this stuff 

https://forum.dcs.world/forum/253-bugs-and-problems/

Edited May 15, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Minhal]

1 hour ago, upyr1 said:

I have asked for this one a few times, in DCS core give us two new profiles

default air plane

default helicopter

The entire point would be to set the commonly used controls in a single location so that when you install a new module (either commercial or community) you'll have the basic commands set and then can focus on tweaking them.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mod manager- If ED doesn't want to spend a lot of resources on this, then how about doing an open-source one so the community can develop it?

 

A good point, having profiles that define controls shared in every or very most aircraft and just "drag them over" to all the modules automatically. From thrust and wheel brakes to altimeter knob or flaps and gear handles . Would save a lot of configuring work. Afraid though this is not a low effort task but the achilles heel of DCS and would need tremendous work: a general lack of centralization and standardization. Each developer does his own thing. How controls are named, if they are toggle through, on-off toggle, one extra bind for each state, if mouse left click switches up or down/left or right... some modules have environment effects like canopy freezing or fogging, other not (should be a core API to hook in)... it is quite a mess tbh and without standardization, these two default settings profiles would not really work out.

[Rudel_chw]

38 minutes ago, Minhal said:

Would save a lot of configuring work.

 

Not really a lot, as you configure all the controls of an aircraft or helo just once.

Thereafter you may fine tune and rebind some controls, but on those cases a general profile wouldn't help.

[Extranajero]

On 5/13/2023 at 4:47 PM, Ell said:

Don't open the communications menu automatically when I start to taxi

Every time start to taxi out of the hangar, the game opens the communications menu and I have to close it, even though neither I or the AI has showed any intent of communication. Most servers don't use the communication menu ATC functionality anymore and it's annoying having to close it every sortie.

 

+1000
That menu drives me barmy. The usual thing I do when taxi-ing in MP is to hit F2 for the external view so I can zoom out and get a look at the layout of the airbase ( assuming it's not one of those servers that disables external views to make everybodys lives as miserable as possible ) and check for other traffic. But every time I forget the F2 press gets intercepted and someone ( virtual me ? ) yells something about takeoff being aborted, while the real me yells at the screen to shut up.
In fact the whole of the comms menu could lose about 90% of it's current functionality and the only difference would be that you can find the commands that do work and are useful a hell of a lot quicker.

[DishDoggie]

I would like to have the option of Making my Mouse Cursor Slewable to my joystick and the left mouse button key bindable to the Slew Push button feature.

[Gunfreak]

A on/off button for the mouse. 

I use the mouse to click the cockpit. But during most of the flight I don't need it. However since I fly with a simshaker pad. The vibration constantly moves the mouse a tiny bit. Meaning the automatic "mouse goes dormant " thing doesn't really work and I'm stuck with the mouse cursor on my face. Unless I "thorw" the mouse away from my chair mounted mouse pad to my desk. And then have to try and find the mouse again in VR when I need it again. 

[DishDoggie]

1 minute ago, Gunfreak said:

A on/off button for the mouse. 

I use the mouse to click the cockpit. But during most of the flight I don't need it. However since I fly with a simshaker pad. The vibration constantly moves the mouse a tiny bit. Meaning the automatic "mouse goes dormant " thing doesn't really work and I'm stuck with the mouse cursor on my face. Unless I "thorw" the mouse away from my chair mounted mouse pad to my desk. And then have to try and find the mouse again in VR when I need it again. 

Lol sorry I never thought of the simshaker pad effect and picturing it in my head made me laugh. Yea I was thinking of more in use in VR to be able to Slew move the key bound stick to wake the crosshairs up and look at what you want and click the slew stick to left mouse the clickable item then it puts the mouse to sleep till the slew stick is moved again. I have 2 slews one on my joystick and one on my throttle. It is probable way to much programing to do but it would be nice to not remove my hands for the mouse.

[upyr1]

1 hour ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Not really a lot, as you configure all the controls of an aircraft or helo just once.

Thereafter you may fine tune and rebind some controls, but on those cases a general profile wouldn't help.

It would still reduce the steps.

[Minhal]

6 hours ago, bies said:

Normal MP aircraft selection, similar to any other sim. Where you just see the map with airfields and aircraft types available on them, select the airfield and aircraft.

Instead of long-ass list to scroll 1-2 minutes, with just abstract airfteld names, every aircrafts thrown in a heap, no filters, anything. If someone doesn't know locations of all small, less important airfields on all maps - it's his problem.

This looks live very low hanging fruit.

6 hours ago, Rudel_chw said:

 

Maybe, but replacing a text interface with a graphical one does not look like low-effort to me.

Made a wishlist item about that lately. I too think doing a map slection screen is not really a low effort task but would involve quite some work. I instead asked for dropdown fields to filter for module type as well as to filter for only-onwned modules to be displayed. Think this would help a lot already - and should be quite low effort to implement.

 

2 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

A on/off button for the mouse. 

I use the mouse to click the cockpit. But during most of the flight I don't need it. However since I fly with a simshaker pad. The vibration constantly moves the mouse a tiny bit. Meaning the automatic "mouse goes dormant " thing doesn't really work and I'm stuck with the mouse cursor on my face. Unless I "thorw" the mouse away from my chair mounted mouse pad to my desk. And then have to try and find the mouse again in VR when I need it again. 

Did you try this one already? I put it on the mouse thumb button (and always got flashlight on/off on the second thumb button). Hides the mouse cursor and should do what you are looking for i think. It's in each modules controls, not the UI or general ones.

Edited May 15, 2023 by Minhal

[Gunfreak]

6 minutes ago, Minhal said:

Made a wishlist item about that lately. I too think doing a map slection screen is not really a low effort task but would involve quite some work. I instead asked for dropdown fields to filter for module type as well as to filter for only-onwned modules to be displayed. Think this would help a lot already - and should be quite low effort to implement.

 

Did you try this one already? I put it on the mouse thumb button (and always got flashlight on/off on the second thumb button). Hides the mouse cursor and should do what you are looking for i think.

I'll try that, I've asked before if that was possible, but never got a clear answer

[Mars Exulte]

3 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

Nothing in this game is “low effort”

Even seemingly simple thing take many years to accomplish. So this is a silly topic. 

 That is blatantly untrue. People often make off the cuff suggestions/requests for stuff that is neither quick nor easy, but there's no point in mythologising it either. There are a lot of things that ARE in fact easy to do, things like simple text edits to fix the guns on the F-86 or the MiG-15's FM, for example. I know because before they started encrypting everything that's exactly what the community did. They could literally have fixed some of our longest standing issues 10+ years ago in an afternoon of tweaking if they wanted to. They did not, most likely due to corporate culture/bureaucracy. 

[SharpeXB]

15 minutes ago, Mars Exulte said:

There are a lot of things that ARE in fact easy to do,

And yet those things don’t get done. So I guess they’re not easy (for DCS). There are “simple” things here that have been missing or broken for years. 

Edited May 15, 2023 by SharpeXB

[Mars Exulte]

2 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

And yet those things don’t get done. So I guess they’re not easy.

What part of ''text edit'' was misunderstood? It is literally extremely easy, and you could tweak the MiG's handling yourself by modifying the numbers. If I can do it, they can do it.

2 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

There are “simple” things here that have been missing or broken for years. 

  Because of a lack of will, not ability. Don't mythologise this stuff into some monumental task. MANY things ARE complex, but not ALL. Period, full stop. I'm a fanboi, too, but I draw the line at candy coated bull<profanity> excuses. They pass it off as ''we have a perfect fix planned and don't like half measures'' which is bs and how <profanity> like the MiG's bs gets neglected for ten years. Low priority? Sure. Better fix planned for unspecified future? Great! That has f all to do with why a ''good enough'' tweak wasn't implemented years ago when it has been easy to do all along. For Christ's sake, WWII planes still have JET SOUNDS and it's also been near ten years. That's not likely a simple fix, but it's not TEN YEARS complex either.

[SharpeXB]

2 minutes ago, Mars Exulte said:

What part of ''text edit'' was misunderstood? It is literally extremely easy, and you could tweak the MiG's handling yourself by modifying the numbers. If I can do it, they can do it.

  Because of a lack of will, not ability. Don't mythologise this stuff into some monumental task. MANY things ARE complex, but not ALL. Period, full stop. I'm a fanboi, too, but I draw the line at candy coated bull<profanity> excuses. They pass it off as ''we have a perfect fix planned and don't like half measures'' which is bs and how <profanity> like the MiG's bs gets neglected for ten years. Low priority? Sure. Better fix planned for unspecified future? Great! That has f all to do with why a ''good enough'' tweak wasn't implemented years ago when it has been easy to do all along. For Christ's sake, WWII planes still have JET SOUNDS and it's also been near ten years. That's not likely a simple fix, but it's not TEN YEARS complex either.

And yet here’s another thread asking for “low effort” improvements