reported Hit and kill events with various static objects are not being recorded by DCS

[Viper 13]

DCS 2.9.2.49940 Open Beta MT

Hi 

There is a currently a bug in DCS where events with various static objects are not being recorded, this used to work correctly but is now broken.
This affects both SP and MP missions
I created a simple mission to demonstrate the problem.

The mission has the following static objects as targets

Ammunition depot
Command Center
Container 20ft
FARP Ammo Storage
FARP Fuel Depot
FARP Tent
Outpost
Tank 1
Watch tower armed
Water tower A

The static targets are attacked and killed by ai F-16C carrying GBU-24 LGB
(The bug affects player planes too, but I used the ai for a smaller track file.)
The event log only shows hits and kills against the Outpost and Watch tower armed
All of the hits and kills against remaining static targets wasn't recorded in the debriefing log

Static object event bug.trk

Edited December 29, 2023 by Viper 13

[Viper 13]

I'm not sure if its just a coincidence, but static objects which are also in the ground unit category have their events recorded correctly.
While static units that are not  eg: Farm A, Repair workshop and Tech combine don't have their events recorded correctly.

To test this i setup the following static object targets:

Farm A, Repair workshop and Tech combine

And the following static objects that also in the ground unit fortification category:

Barracks armed
Beacon TACAN Portable TSS 3030
Building armed
Bunker 1
Bunker 2
Outpost
Road outpost
Watch tower armed

All the targets were killed by an ai B1-B.
The event log failed to shows kills against the Farm A, Repair workshop and Tech combine
 

Static unit event bug 2.trk

Edited January 6, 2024 by Viper 13

[Flappie]

I've recently tested all static animals and ground vehicles, and only came with the... cow being affected. I was planning to test all buildings next but here comes your post. Thank you!

I think there's already an internal report about this issue but your indication about categories might interest devs. I'll test on my side and report.

Edited January 2, 2024 by Flappie

[Flappie]

I added your tracks to the report. FYI, static aircraft don't trigger the dead/kill event either.

[Fisherman82]

Just noticed this with the static Garage in a mission I did.

[Dangerzone]

On 1/3/2024 at 4:49 AM, Flappie said:

I added your tracks to the report. FYI, static aircraft don't trigger the dead/kill event either.

Hey Flappie - you wouldn't happen to know if this is being addressed in the next update would you please? 

[Flappie]

Hey. I happen to know. It will be addressed with the next update, which is why the thread is tagged "fixed internally".

At last, static planes, static helicopters and all sorts of buildings such as FARP tents will have hit and dead events. Some unit types still won't trigger such events: cows, deck crew and transportable cargos, which is understandable.

[Dangerzone]

13 minutes ago, Flappie said:

Hey. I happen to know. It will be addressed with the next update, which is why the thread is tagged "fixed internally".

At last, static planes, static helicopters and all sorts of buildings such as FARP tents will have hit and dead events. Some unit types still won't trigger such events: cows, deck crew and transportable cargos, which is understandable.

Thanks for the quick response. Just to confirm, cows (which was working prior to December 2022) will  nownever be fixed / returned to their original functionality? That there has been a decision to permanently change the way cows work, and it's going to be impossible to know whether or not they have been killed/hit moving forward?

Edited July 5, 2024 by Dangerzone
Edited for clarification

[Flappie]

Oh, you mean it was possible to know whether a cow was dead or not, back then?

I don't see cows as a tactical resource on the battlefield, which is why I didn't ask for them to be "fixed". To me, they're like rabbits and snakes from Arma III.

[Dangerzone]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

Oh, you mean it was possible to know whether a cow was dead or not, back then?

I don't see cows as a tactical resource on the battlefield, which is why I didn't ask for them to be "fixed". To me, they're like rabbits and snakes from Arma III.

Hi Flappy. Yes - it was possible back then to know if a cow was hit, or killed.  I never played ARMA, so I'm not sure what you're referring to there sorry.

I built a whole fun don't-take-it-too-seriously gag mission based on having to engage enemy troops while sparing cattle which broke back when cows were first released, that we used from time to time for fun, (that was received more popular than I expected) until it got broke with a DCS update in 2022. I've been having some people in my squadron ask when it's going to be returning. I've been waiting since then until then for DCS to fix it so I can continue with it. I get that they're not tactical, but I thought since the event_dead event used to work, that it was a bug when it stopped working (and then I thought I had confirmation when event_dead was broken on other statics too). 

I even came up while waiting with a secondary 'silly' idea for a silly night with my squadron with cows again, that I even made a make-shift trailer for that as I know some people loved the quirkiness of some of these more casual/quirky nights and weird ideas. (Things I do when I don't have enough sleep and get weird humour )

I figured since EVENT_DEAD used to work with cows, that it was originally intended and only temporarily broken - not deliberately removed (as I know it can take quite some time for bugs to be fixed ). But, If, as you're saying - it's a deliberate decision by ED to remove event_dead from cows and it will not be returning, I'll discard the mission and my scripting so I'm not waiting in vain for it to be fixed, and tell the guys that the farm mission won't be able to come back again, so to stop asking. 

Thanks for all your help with this.

Edited July 5, 2024 by Dangerzone
Grammar/clarification

[Viper 13]

Was this fix actually merged with todays patch?
"Static objects. Added handling hit and kill events for static objects"
As I'm still seeing the same problem
The only kill event recorded in the debriefing log was for the Barracks armed

Event bug latest patch.trk

[Flappie]

Fixed in today's update.

Please note cows, cargos and deck crew do not trigger hit and dead events.

Edited July 11, 2024 by Flappie

[Viper 13]

Well from my quick test, only 1 out of 10 statics have been fixed
Please add the following to the list
Ammunition Depot
Farm A
Container 20ft
FARP Ammo Storage
FARP Fuel Depot
FARP Tent
Repair workshop
Tank 1
Tech combine
So respectfully Please remove fixed from my bug report
From my point of view a fix would mean Ammunition Depot would have the same kill event as a Barracks armed

Edited July 11, 2024 by Viper 13

[Flappie]

Hm, that was not expected. I've just checked Release and I agree with you.

Back to "Reported" then.

[Dangerzone]

Maybe there's a chance then that they may still bring back this feature with cows too... (I'm kinda hoping that what they did to break it is for all the units, and when they fix it, it may just flow through to cows too... Forever hopeful )

[Viper 13]

Many thanks for that Fappie!
I'm hoping it was just an oversight and the fix wasn't included in the release version.
All the units that are in my test mission used to have their kill events recorded correctly, so we're not asking for a new feature.
However I'm confused why are there  going to be exceptions? Surely any static unit placeable in the editor should have its kill event recorded in the debrief log... no?
The ammo depot and Frap units are used in many missions so fingers crossed this long standing bug will be fixed in the next hot fix or patch.

[Arch-vile]

It appears this update has also broken the existing Scenery Kill events. I relied on these in a dynamic campaign script I maintain. It's event 28 and here's some of the code I used to inspect these events normally.

 env.info("Kill Event Handled. Type: " .. Object.getCategory(event.target))
  if (Object.getCategory(event.target) == Object.Category.SCENERY or Object.getCategory(event.target) == Object.Category.STATIC) then
    local scenery = event.target
    local sceneryTypeName = scenery:getTypeName()
    local sceneryName = scenery:getName()
    if (sceneryName == nil) then
      sceneryName = ""
    end
    if (sceneryTypeName == nil) then
      sceneryTypeName = ""
      env.info("Received a scenery kill event with no type at mission time: " .. timer.getTime())
      return
    end

    env.info("Scenery Kill Event Handled: " .. sceneryTypeName .. " : " .. sceneryName)

These have worked for a long time and as of the latest update no longer fire. I am now getting Lost events (30 in the enum) but with no scenery type information so I can't do much to determine what type of thing was hit.

FWIW I believe I do rely on the splash-damage hit-scan code to cause these events to fire, but they did work previously. And I do still get events, they just changed from Kill to Lost and now don't carry a type.

TL;DR it definitely seems like something changed.

Edited July 12, 2024 by Arch-vile