Shooting fish in a barrel

[AggiAggi]

For me at the moment, the biggest problem with DCS is the lack of any intelligence of ground units. Although main battle tanks seem to be very good (probably too good) at picking up targets that are on the flanks or even on the rear, they do not seem to posess any sense of self preservation. When a group of tanks is attacked, all units of the group sit there waiting until it is their turn to be destroyed.

 

I would expect ground units to do at least the following:

- pop smoke

- run away in sheer panic

- move out of LOS by hiding in woods or behind buildings

- calling in artillery on hovering helicopters

- calling air support

 

Furthermore, it would be nice if mission designers would have more parameters and triggers available for ground units, e.g. alternative paths to be followed when under attack (like in steel beasts).

 

Since the major use of the KA50 and also the A10 is the CAS role, a more dynamic and "intelligent" battlefield is required to create the immersion that will promote DCS from an excellent simulation product to a legend for the years to come. This is not another call for a dynamic campaign but a plea for more context awareness of computer controllled vehicles.

[Frakin Toasters]

Yeah man that would be wicked if the campaigns were more dynamic like that. Like, one mission you take out most of their units without much trouble, and the next mission they call for backup and a couple of hinds show up or something to really mix it up.

 

The troops are really daft, they just stand there in one pose until they get blown to bits. It also seems like most tanks are unmanned, or the dudes inside are so bored waiting for you to show up and destroy them they all decided to roll up the windows and hot-box it with a nice doob.

[MBot]

Well said, I feel similar. I think some of the things you talk about are already being worked on (smoke and vehicle dispersion). Let's hope that the rest will be included as well at some point.

[EtherealN]

I'm no expert mission creator, but I am reasonably sure that the mission editor is limited to mapping a single route for a given unit.

 

It would be absolutely awesome if a patch or upcoming module featured an extention of that though to allow multiple routes to be selectable depending on variables - it would do wonders for creating more fluid and realistic missions and (I suspect but can of course not know for sure) should be easier to achieve than massively extending the AI routines.

 

Definitely an area that is open for improvement.

[rapid]

It will be addressed.

[159th_Viper]

Personally........Flying the Bird is Good Enough - The essence of Flight: That's where it's at!

 

Everything else, and as a consequence, retarded AI.......I can live with that, knowing that sometime in the future it will get addressed: Hell -It can only but Improve!

 

For the Moment - It's All Good!

[uhoh7]

For me at the moment, the biggest problem with DCS is the lack of any intelligence of ground units. Although main battle tanks seem to be very good (probably too good) at picking up targets that are on the flanks or even on the rear, they do not seem to posess any sense of self preservation. When a group of tanks is attacked, all units of the group sit there waiting until it is their turn to be destroyed.

 

I would expect ground units to do at least the following:

- pop smoke

- run away in sheer panic

- move out of LOS by hiding in woods or behind buildings

- calling in artillery on hovering helicopters

- calling air support

 

Furthermore, it would be nice if mission designers would have more parameters and triggers available for ground units, e.g. alternative paths to be followed when under attack (like in steel beasts).

 

Since the major use of the KA50 and also the A10 is the CAS role, a more dynamic and "intelligent" battlefield is required to create the immersion that will promote DCS from an excellent simulation product to a legend for the years to come. This is not another call for a dynamic campaign but a plea for more context awareness of computer controllled vehicles.

 

No doubt the AI needs work, but of course some of what you sugggest can already be done by the mission designer, e.g. The death of a particular unit can trigger artillery targeted whereever, as well as air support.

 

Even with what we have now, a good mission designer can give the feeling of a living enemy.

[nemises]

if you search a bit, I believe it has been posted that ground unit AI is beeing adressed, either in the patch or DCS:Hog , or in the new engine!...

[littlejohn1959]

hummmmm , fish in a barrel ,,

i must agree .

thats typical ai though .

when the fast movers get here ,multiplayer, might be a different barrel of fish . :smilewink:

:pilotfly:

:joystick:

soon ,, hopefully .

cheers from heres .

[BTTW-DratsaB]

I would expect ground units to do at least the following:

- pop smoke

- move out of LOS by hiding in woods or behind buildings

 

These two things would make attacking vehicles much, much harder and more interesting, it would be awesome. I hope we dont have to wait too long for such additions :smilewink:

[Grimes]

Sadly the AI is magnified due to the focus of the combat. You arn't generally fighting A2A against human opponents, thus you are fighting the AI almost exclusively.

[Frederf]

DCS:BS is a flight and weapons simulator, not a combat simulator. You must be looking for some other product.

[AlphaInfinity]

DCS:BS is a flight and weapons simulator, not a combat simulator. You must be looking for some other product.

 

DCS stands for ............................................... ^(look up) :)

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Edited March 23, 2009 by AlphaInfinity

[uhoh7]

hummmmm , fish in a barrel ,,

i must agree .

thats typical ai though .

when the fast movers get here ,multiplayer, might be a different barrel of fish . :smilewink:

:pilotfly:

:joystick:

soon ,, hopefully .

cheers from heres .

 

Again, I agree the AI needs improvement. However:

 

A single unit sitting there is pretty dumb, no doubt. What makes the ground units come alive are several factors:

 

1) movement. first the default speed is only 20km, turn it up. If a unit needs to be sitting there, then trigger some troops to run away when it gets hit.

 

2) unit composition. How you mix your columns is everything. BMP2s, BMD1s will both fire AGTMs at helis and they will hit you if you don't move. There are two strelas: each quite different in how they react. List goes on and on.

 

3) terrain. you pick your terrain right and those fish won't be so easy to get.

 

4) triggers. You don't have triggers, you don't have a mission. I know my AI might get stuck on a road cause it's narrow, I trigger a clone just past the choke point to spawn if they don't make it. When a column closes on a position it can trigger a fire mission on one or both sides.

 

You do it right you have a very lively battlefield and a very high workload in the blackshark.

Edited March 23, 2009 by uhoh7

[skypirate]

Hm..... fish in a barrel....

Sometimes I don't know who's the fish me or the ground units.... Especially those nasty SAM's spotting you 10km away while I'm hiding at 10 meters behind the ridge

[littlejohn1959]

DCS:BS is a flight and weapons simulator, not a combat simulator. You must be looking for some other product.

 

party on dude . :thumbup:

cheers .

[AggiAggi]

Uhoh7,

 

you are right that a good mission design is vital for a dynamic and challenging missions. If enough rules and actions would be available in the mission editor the AI of computer controlled vehicles could actually be very weak.

Please correct me if I am wrong, but none of the reactions I described above, except the "calling air support", can be realised at the moment with the mission editor. Although you could also activate an artillery group, you would not know where the attacker is located and you could only allocate artillery fire to likely attack positions. Can hovering helis actually be hit by artillery? ... havent tried that yet.

[hannibal]

black shark mass exodus...shooting fish in a barrel part II

 

i dont want to knock black shark...

 

but i am giving my two cents..

 

i have spent a year building a pit...collective cyclic and torque pedals..

finshing up my setup with the digital download US version out for about 2 months already

 

the first day i flew, i was amazing.. to actually use the collective, cyclic, and torque pedals..after a year of just building them..

 

THUMBS UP for the flight model...

top notch, i feel like im flying...

it help me to understand trim in a helo...(never understood it in ARMA, which it also had TRIM...have to revisit ARMA again one of these days..)

 

it was great the first two weeks with black shark.. though building a touch buddy profile took me away from the game..

 

BUT, from then on...it went down hill

 

BROWSE, i see 6-8 servers, 50% locked pw protected (i understand the noobish TKs)

i am from EST, jump on around 9ish...get my game going for approx 30 mins, and then...all UK people start to leave cuz its 3 am in there time..

 

SO NOW I AM LONELY...

 

NEXT.. my gosh... THE DAMED phantom monitor VISTA issue.

2 weeks later someone comes out with a fix, and i am back in action...

46 LCD for camera 20" LCD portrait mode for ABRIS.

get 20-30 fps, but it is AWESOME!!! (w/ multi-monitor plus cyclic, collective, torque & networked PC w/ touchbuddy..

 

THIS LASTED 2 weeks again..

 

WHY? 6-8 servers 50% locked. people sporadically comeing in and out..

THE SAME mission over and over on that server that everyone goes to...(OVERWATCH)

you go in there, and its SHOOTING FISH IN A BARREL...

some complained about having to reduce the number of apaches in a mission cause it was too hard (WTF...i thought Ka-50 was supposed to be bad ass)

 

 

final...

 

i hope patch and retail DVD store version will bring in more player base, and new features (DEDICATED SERVER + DYNAMIC CAMPAIGNE)..

 

i retired my collective and cyclic for a fixed wing setup...THANK GOD i found a small group to play LOCKON.. (KA50.com)

 

 

THE EXODUS..

 

when A-10 comes out..i feel everyone will jump on this...

GIVE SOMETHING THAT HAS RADAR..give us a chance to have some type of player against player combat in which we are not total blindfolded...

 

CAUSE ITS ALL ABOUT THE MULTIPLAYER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

im sorry to say BLACK SHARK was getting boring... its like you fly...approach some area with targets, someone points out the targets, and then everyone puts the shkval where the fish shooting begins on the Ai....

[spyda]

i think x-box have a new flight sim game out, might suit your taste better?

Edited March 23, 2009 by spyda

[Distiler]

There is no "mass exodus" by anyway, how dramatic. But it's real that we need to reach some kind of "critical mass" of players for this to take off. I hope retail sales would do the thing. Also, support in Hypperlobby would be very nice, or a better gaming lobby that the one we now have. Also it's up to us and the "buzz" we do in the net.

Edited March 23, 2009 by Distiler

[hannibal]

i think x-box have a new flight sim game out, might suit your taste better?

 

tried it...way too arcadey.

 

i am going to humbly wait 1 1/2 to 2 years for DCS AH-64 Apache...

 

i heard great things about LongBow 2, i wish i was on that band wagon back then..

[spyda]

tried it...way too arcadey.

 

i am going to humbly wait 1 1/2 to 2 years for DCS AH-64 Apache...

 

i heard great things about LongBow 2, i wish i was on that band wagon back then..

 

fair enough,

 

i still think its a great game. long bow 2 was ok but we all like to think the old classics were more than they really are.

 

maybe once it comes out on the shelves the online play will be bigger for people who require it.

[deadsmell]

see ya, spend the next year/ year and a half putting two pieces of pipe and some fittings together again then. lol.

 

or create your own team deathmatch mission, and let the community judge how good it is.

 

Honestly by reading your complaints i get the feeling you have spent a few hours with it, and just figured you got it all figured out. I dont think you could handle A2A close combat in the shark.

 

Furthermore I cant imagine what you were thinking when you subjected our fine community this ignorance.

[hannibal]

Furthermore I cant imagine what you were thinking when you subjected our fine community this ignorance.

 

its ok..i would also be jealous if someone had a cyclic, collective, and torque pedals w/ a networked touch buddy PC...

[AlphaOneSix]

i am going to humbly wait 1 1/2 to 2 years for DCS AH-64 Apache...

 

It won't have a radar, since it will be the AH-64A.