Solo DCS Tips by RUNE

[RUNEofORM]

If you fly DCS solo like I do. Then here are some tips and tricks you can do to make your experience better. 

First thing I wanted to share was how to set up enemy AI Warbirds. Its often hard to fight AI warbirds do to AI units using a much more simplified flight model and having a full 360 vision out to miles. As you fight your own planes limitations. AI planes get to bank climb without issue. Know exactly where you are at all times and will always end up on your tail. As a solo player you have no buddy to tell you that you have someone on your tail. This fixes that. It has a number of steps but once you do it a few times its easy. 

  1. Lets first add Mist to the mission. This is a rather standard step for mission making. Not sure if this step is required for what fallows but its just what I do each mission anyway. 

  2. Now let's place a red plane and call it Red 1. Will remove all its default advanced waypoint actions. Its better to add them yourself one at a time. 

  3. Will need to add some triggerable actions. Weapons Hold and Weapons Free. 

  4. Next step is to add some trigger zones. One will name Red 1 Vision and make it 6000 feet. This will give Red 1 about a mile "vision" once we add the triggers. Make sure to place this zone right on the pilot's head and link it to the plane (Red 1). This will make the zone move with the linked unit. 

  5.Now make a zone and call it Red 1 Check 6. This zone should be around 1500 feet but you can adjust to what best fits your needs. This zone will be placed out front of the Unit it will be linked to (Red 1). I find it better to add a waypoint so you will have a line to use as a guide. 

  6. Now we get to the triggers and scripting. Red 1 vison Hold will make it so as long as you're not inside that vision zone. Red 1 will revert to waypoint flying. 

  7. Red 1 Vison Free on the other hand. It Is set up so as long as you're inside that mile distance. Red 1 will stay hostile. AI will follow you and do all the things a hostel unit would try and do. But now if you manage to get outside of that zone for long enough. Red 1 will switch back to weapons Hold and go back to flying waypoints. Tell you get inside that zone again.  

  8. So Check 6 fixes a issue I always had. With no other player around you have no one to warn you that some one is on your tail. When you are inside that much smaller Check 6 zone. You get a message warning you are inside the weapons arc and distance of Red 1. 

  9. Now let's address AI plane's ability to out fly you at all times. The fix is to add weight to Red 1. You could add max fuel and bombs on most planes. But it can be silly to be fighting a plane that has a bunch of 500lbs bombs. This script will tack on 1000kg with no outer change of the plane.  

You can change that number to whatever you want. I find that 1000 extra kg will be enough to push planes past the Max takeoff weight. But not so high that plane can't fly. 

As you can see Iv moved out into Red 1 check 6 zone. In this case I was ok as Id already critically damaged Red 1. You can repeat these steps for all AI planes and you will find that dog fights will be much more reasonable. 

Edited April 1, 2024 by RUNEofORM

[Stratos]

I like the idea, specially the weight one, but how can I be sure is loading properly?

 

[RUNEofORM]

Two ways. One if for any reason you have a mistake in the Sandbag script. You will get a error popup. This will freeze up game for a bit but will not crash. Other way is to up the 1000 to say 9000 and watch the fun. Planes falling out of the sky.

[plott1964]

Do you have an example mission to share with us?

[Stratos]

Works pretty well for jets as well. Thanks for sharing!

[RUNEofORM]

Ya I can make a example mission and post it. Ill use the free planes. Also I have worked out a advanced version of it to work with jets. By adding forward Weapons/radar zone. sizing it up to a given radar range. Prevents that crazy MiG 21 some how knowing that you 70 miles away is not only a contact but a enemy and starts racing at you at full speed. But say your inside a reasonable distance in its front area sure it will go Weapons Hot and maybe fire. 

I am a die hard Solo DCS user. No true love for multiplayer servers so that is why I am constantly working on making DCS do what I want to get out of it. Lot of this can be used in multi or Coop play. Feel free to use anything I post any way you like. I am just showing things I have come up with using the tools at hand.

 

[Stratos]

I like your tips, and I subscribed this post. Looking forward to see that advanced version for jets!

[RUNEofORM]

Ill do it tonight after work. Ill post the mission to make looking at the script setup easier. 

 

[RUNEofORM]

Ok so here we go. For Jets I changed a few things around. Now Vision and Check 6 zones I make bigger. As modern Jets have far better pilot visibility and planes are moving much faster. The Radar box zone I extend out to a reasonable distance for that planes intercept radar. Not the theoretical limits but what would be a normal distance for a good detection. In this example The AI MiG will go weapons free if you are within 15 miles or so. You may be tempted to make this shape into a cone. Do not. It will not work. DCS will auto flip it so the large side will be at the AI plane and the point will be out away. I am posting this little demo of it working for guys to try it out. The Player plane is a F-5 but you can swap out that for any plane you would like. The MiG 21 is set as a delay spawn. Once in mission you will find a F10 menu option to bring it in. Iv saddled it with a 1500kg sandbag script. So It can fight (turn and climb) but more closer to your Player plane ability rather than a Cheating AI simpler flight model. As long as you are not in its vison or radar zones it will switch back to Weapons hold and lose track of you. When it switches over to weapons free you will get a "I see you" message. Then you know its on the hunt for you. 

 

RUNEofORMdemo.miz

[RUNEofORM]

Iv started to post this stuff over at the Mission Editor Tutorial forum as its more appropriate over modding. I do use mods a lot. But the core of my tips are based in what vanilla DCS has.

 

[Stratos]

Got it! Thanks, it works really well, please check your PM.

[plott1964]

Thanks Rune! I'll try it our tonight!

[Stratos]

@RUNEofORM

Is possible to reduce weight somehow? make planes/choppers lighter.

[Beldin]

On 5/16/2024 at 7:41 AM, Stratos said:

Is possible to reduce weight somehow? make planes/choppers lighter.

This is very interesting. I might be able to use it to force the ai STOVL planes into the desired landing mode on carriers because this is determined by aircraft weight. This issue I'm having is when planes return to the carrier after their mission some plane try a vertical landing while others try a short rolling landing  depending on their weight do to fuel used and weapons dropped. As you can imagine this leads to a bit of a mess on the flight deck.

But if I could raise (or lower) the weight of all planes approaching the carrier this could force all the planes into the same landing mode.

Edited May 22, 2024 by Beldin

[FupDuck]

20 minutes ago, Beldin said:

This is very interesting. I might be able to use it to force the ai STOVL planes into the desired landing mode on carriers because this is determined by aircraft weight. This issue I'm having is when planes return to the carrier after their mission some plane try a vertical landing while others try a short rolling landing  depending on their weight do to fuel used and weapons dropped. As you can imagine this leads to a bit of a mess on the flight deck.

But if I could raise (or lower) the weight of all planes approaching the carrier this could force all the planes into the same landing mode.

 

Have you tried just changing the weight to a negative number in the script on the OP? So make it sandbag = -1000

[Beldin]

I didn’t even know you could change the weight of an aircraft during a mission. So this is something I plan on exploring.  And the triggers and scripting stuff in general. I’ve setup some basic triggers in missions, but I’ve not tried running scripts yet. Still trying to wrap my head around all the mod stuff. 

But if I have any success I will share what I find. 

Edited May 22, 2024 by Beldin

[Stratos]

8 hours ago, FupDuck said:

Have you tried just changing the weight to a negative number in the script on the OP? So make it sandbag = -1000

Does not work. We need another alternative.

[FupDuck]

Perhaps someone can make an antigravitational quantum singularity mod. Other than that and the negative thousand thing, I'm fresh out of ideas.

[RUNEofORM]

This is very useful for the AI MiG21 vs that new F-4 you got. Given how much a brick F-4 can be and how UFO the AI MiG 21 is. Throw on 2000+ extra pounds on that MiG 21 and you can at lest stay on his tail.