HOT/COLD Player aircraft start-up: new option for all missions: "individual"/"all cold"/"all hot" request

[cfrag]

Players and multiplayer server hosts who play missions provided by contributors often face a dilemma: the chosen start-up (hot/cold)option for player aircraft. No matter what the mission designer chooses (hot/cold), there will always be lots people who would prefer the other option. This is especially true for popular missions that run on many servers and require a lot of maintenance work any time there is an update to a mission.

I would like to request the following mission-global setting that affects how the mission is read when it starts up:

start-up becomes a multiple-value pop-up (much like road traffic) where we can choose between the following values:

• individually - use what is provided in the original mission 
• cold - all eligible player aircraft start cold
• hot - all eligible player aircraft start hot

Something along the lines of this:

With 'eligible planes' being those player aircraft  that start 'from ground' or 'from parking/ramp

Rationale: since 'mission' is read at the start of a mission, this option can be quickly applied while reading it into main memory. Since the structures for player slots are immutable after reading them, this can't be done with Lua scripting while the mission is running (I've tried), so a player slot's cold/hot status when starting up must be determined when the mission loads. 

Providing such an option greatly reduces the amount of work for anyone who wants to change a mission's hot/cold player starts without having to spend significant time to edit/change each individual aircraft in the mission

[Mistermann]

Oh heck YES.  The number of times I've updated someone's mission to cold starts is numerous.  I was especially tedious for missions like Pretense back when it was a thing.

[TEMPEST.114]

TBH I don't think this should be in the Mission Editor. 

I think it should be on the Multiplayer Screen where you pick your jet - there should be a tick box in that row, to start hot, otherwise it would be cold. 

[cfrag]

Just now, TEMPEST.114 said:

I think it should be on the Multiplayer Screen where you pick your jet

TBH, silly me did not think that far. Yes, that would be even better, thank you! But I'm thinking small...

[Exorcet]

22 minutes ago, TEMPEST.114 said:

TBH I don't think this should be in the Mission Editor. 

I think it should be on the Multiplayer Screen where you pick your jet - there should be a tick box in that row, to start hot, otherwise it would be cold. 

Seconding this, if ED does add smarter slotting options (like choose a plane, etc) this should be part of that menu/revamp.

[Grindmetal]

a simple thing that hasn't existed for years
urgently need an option like this

[Tippis]

I'd argue for both. Sometimes you want timing or challenges that require it to go one way or another, and letting the player choose removes some of that. Or just, the mission has a kajillion aircraft and you just want to have a switch to flip them all over to the preferred start. Other times, it should definitely be more of a player choice, and again you might want the default to be one start type if the player has no preference — but you still want it to be easy to switch universally — and they still have the option to override that.

So +2 for a combo.

[cfrag]

Just a short notice to you all the the kind people over at the DCS Web Editor have heard my pleadings and implemented an incredibly cool feature that does exactly this: change all player (client) aircraft intro HOT or COLD - at a click:

I've used this feature in my Expansion mission (see here), and used it to change some 170 client aircraft from HOT to COLD in a little less than a second.

So, yay for us mission designers - and HUZZAH for the people at DCS Web Editor (and a heartfelt THANK YOU!)

-ch

[sirrah]

On 6/22/2024 at 6:34 PM, cfrag said:

Just a short notice to you all the the kind people over at the DCS Web Editor have heard my pleadings and implemented an incredibly cool feature that does exactly this: change all player (client) aircraft intro HOT or COLD - at a click:

I've used this feature in my Expansion mission (see here), and used it to change some 170 client aircraft from HOT to COLD in a little less than a second.

So, yay for us mission designers - and HUZZAH for the people at DCS Web Editor (and a heartfelt THANK YOU!)

-ch

Admittedly, I haven't had time yet to look into/test the DCS Web Editor yet, but what you describe they implemented, does not really match with what you ask in your OP. Isn't this option only useful for the mission designers to quickly swap between hot and cold start? (don't get me wrong; looks like what DCS Web Editor did is super handy and I really value all the effort they put into this, but I much rather see these kind of tools/mods/addons as part of DCS core).

 

Personally, I think what you suggest in your OP is a great idea!

In contrary to what @Exorcet says (no disrespect mate ), I think this additional option does belong in the ME environment. It should be up to the mission designer to decide what's needed or allowed (cold start, hot start, or "individual"), as the various choices can have major influence on mission triggers and/or balance.

For missions where it doesn't matter how the player starts, all options would be just fine. But, for instance, I have created and shared missions, where I purposely set the player to cold start. If a player starts that mission and can then select to start in a hot aircraft, that will break my mission. So, I'd say, it's up to the mission designer to allow this or not.

[cfrag]

1 minute ago, sirrah said:

what you describe they implemented, does not really match with what you ask in your OP.

No, it's a work-around for something that DCS is severely missing. I have created a sandbox mission ("Expansion") that currently holds some 170 player slots, all hot. Changing them to cold is a mind-numbing exercise, and Web Editor protects you from that excruciatingly soul-crushing exercise. 

If we, as mission designers could allow players to determine for themselves which startup they would prefer - now that would be infinitely better  

[sirrah]

13 minutes ago, cfrag said:

If we, as mission designers could allow players to determine for themselves which startup they would prefer - now that would be infinitely better  

Exactly, we're on the same page then

[Exorcet]

2 hours ago, sirrah said:

In contrary to what @Exorcet says (no disrespect mate ), I think this additional option does belong in the ME environment. It should be up to the mission designer to decide what's needed or allowed (cold start, hot start, or "individual"), as the various choices can have major influence on mission triggers and/or balance.

The design of the mission and the intent of the creator should absolutely be taken into consideration. I didn't want control to be taken from the mission creator, but instead was advocating for rolling part of this request into another popular request, which is the revamping of aircraft selection in MP. If the mission maker so chooses, the slot should be configurable by the player selecting that slot. Of course if the mission is designed to require a cold start, then that should be possible as well.