Dynamic Spawn Guide

[BIGNEWY]

Dynamic Spawn Guide
 

Dynamic slots work alongside the traditional slot system to add additional functionality to missions, and reduce mission creator workload. 

Dynamic Slots utilize the warehouse system for control of available airframes, and allow aircraft to spawn at airbases, FARPs and ships without a traditional Client aircraft being placed there. 

Restrictions on aircraft type, and number can be customized using the warehouse system, or can be set to unlimited. 

The traditional slot system remains in place, and all its functionality preserved. Both systems can be used in a mission simultaneously, or individually.

Enabling Dynamic Slots is done on a per airfield/FARP/Ship basis. To do this select the spawn location you wish to edit, and click on “Full info”  button to enter the warehouse properties.

Here you will see new options “Dynamic Spawn” and “Allow Hot Start”

Dynamic Spawn: This enables/disables the functionality

Allow Hot Start: This option allows the mission creator to give players the option in game to select a hot or cold start aircraft. If disabled, then all dynamically spawned aircraft at this location will be forced cold start. Mission creators no longer need to add dedicated Hot/cold slots.

Also in this screen, Aircraft quantities can be set. Default is unlimited, but all can be customised to suit requirements. Individual aircraft types can be set to unlimited if required, or set to 0 if they are to be restricted from spawning. 

 

Templates for Dynamic Spawn

If you wish to customize waypoints, Aircraft properties and weapon restrictions to aircraft spawned using dynamic spawn this can be done by creating templates.

To create a template, first place a client aircraft of the same type that you wish to give the waypoints to on the airfield, and set the waypoints as required. 

Then select the “Dyn. Spawn Template” option on the aircraft information panel

Now return to the warehouse screen for that airbase, and apply the template with related group name to the aircraft type

 

Aircraft used as templates can be hidden from the players using the slot password option, to prevent them being visible in the traditional slot selection screen in game. This is recommended to avoid player confusion.
 

Using Dynamic Spawn in game

When loading into a server using Dynamic Spawn, players will be presented with an overview of the new interface. This can be hidden on future server joins using the “Do not show again” option.

Select your coalition, and once the coalition is selected, the “Join” button will become active and the coalition can be joined.

On the spawn dialogue, there are now 2 tabs - “Spawn Slots” and “Dynamic Slots”

Spawn slots is the traditional spawn system, and any slots using it will be shown here. 

Also this tab is used to join multi-crew aircraft. The first pilot can spawn the aircraft using either dynamic or traditional spawn, and then other clients can join using the “Spawn Slots” tab.

When “Dynamic Slots” is selected, you will be presented with a list of spawn locations available. 

They will also be shown on the map with icons at the spawn location 

When a location is selected, a dialogue will be shown to allow the player to select the aircraft type required.
Here the loadout can be selected, along with fuel quantity, countermeasures, Hot/Cold Start (if enabled) and livery.

 

 

[OzDeaDMeaT]

Most awesome thing to hit DCS since the warehousing stuff added last year. Love your work ED and supporting Community members!!

[Squeaky_B]

I've been massively looking forward to dynamic spawns ever since they were announced.

It's going to save a whole lot of time when making sandbox missions

Thank you!

[BIGNEWY]

good to hear and enjoy 

[Esac_mirmidon]

Will this feature expands in the future to SuperCarrier slots?

[BIGNEWY]

10 minutes ago, Esac_mirmidon said:

Will this feature expands in the future to SuperCarrier slots?

No, the supercarrier decides where you spawn on deck. 

[SlipHavoc]

Does the dynamic spawn system work in single player?  I tried making a mission in the editor, set up one airfield as Red and another as Blue, set both to use dynamic spawns as shown in the OP, but I only see the dynamic spawn interface when starting the mission as a multiplayer server, not in single player mode.  If it doesn't currently work in single player, it seems like that would be a great feature to add, as there are several large missions (such a Foothold or Pretense) that can be played in single player mode and would benefit from having the dynamic slots.

[BarTzi]

2 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

good to hear and enjoy 

Awesome, this is a great addition to the game. I can't stress this enough. 

Some pointers:

1. Assigning one template per aircraft type is not very useful as long as DTC is not implemented. There should be an option for the player to select a template when spawning (imagine choosing between a CAP or STRIKE sortie). As we mostly care about waypoints and radio freqs - maybe creating a dynamic template that shares only the waypoints with dynamic slots would be good (aircraft type does not matter in that case)
2. Additionally, showing us the waypoints of the selected aircraft before we spawn, would be a great addition.  
3. How about an air start dynamic slot? 
 

Edited July 11, 2024 by BarTzi

[legitscoper]

Finally, thank you developers team, this is such a nice feature to mission developers who have hundreads of client slots on a 1 airfield

[Proxy404]

This is a great addition.

One question about triggers and group names: Can we still use the ME trigger predicates for these dynamic slots? For example the trigger condition "GROUP PARTIALLY IN ZONE", can we select dynamically spawned groups somehow or will we just need to create our own lua predicates?

[Granica]

When selecting a dynamic slot, nothing happens when I press start

[tezak]

So I got several airbases in Caucassus with Dynamic Spawn setup, infinite warehouse and 100 stock on everything just in case. Run the server on same machine, and it detects the spawns, but when I click OK it stays there forever

[jubuttib]

For me it says that all the slots are occupied, despite me being the first to try and spawn in.

[tezak]

I get the following error on the LOG file, already confirmed it´s the same with 2 other users on different servers.

 

Quote

2024-07-11 20:01:49.253 WARNING WORLD (Main): ModelTimeQuantizer: SAME MODEL TIME
2024-07-11 20:01:50.141 ERROR   LUA-MISSIONGENERATOR (Main): load error createClientAircraft:[string "return {..."]:46: '}' expected (to close '{' at line 34) near ']'.
2024-07-11 20:01:56.527 WARNING LOG (14920): 2 duplicate message(s) skipped.
2024-07-11 20:01:56.527 WARNING WORLD (Main): ModelTimeQuantizer: SAME MODEL TIME
2024-07-11 20:01:57.111 ERROR   LUA-MISSIONGENERATOR (Main): load error createClientAircraft:[string "return {..."]:46: '}' expected (to close '{' at line 34) near ']'.
2024-07-11 20:02:00.188 WARNING WORLD (Main): ModelTimeQuantizer: SAME MODEL TIME
2024-07-11 20:02:00.740 ERROR   LUA-MISSIONGENERATOR (Main): load error createClientAircraft:[string "return {..."]:46: '}' expected (to close '{' at line 34) near ']'.
 

 

 

That log it´s everytime I click OK to spawn the aircraft

[jubuttib]

24 minutes ago, jubuttib said:

For me it says that all the slots are occupied, despite me being the first to try and spawn in.

OK, seems like this was caused by too many "old style spawn" aircraft being too close to the spawn I tried to use. FWIW I was trying to use a FARP and there were a LOT of ground start helicopters around, so for safety it didn't allow me to spawn there. Moving the FARP further away allowed me to spawn there.

[jubuttib]

Couple of questions about the dynamic spawn templating and how dynamic and traditional spawns interact:

1. I'm adjusting a dynamic "conquer the map" kind of mission, where there are dozens of airfields and FARPs in use, to use these slots and mostly anything should be able to spawn just about anywhere: If I wanted to have _all_ aircraft (planes and helicopters both) in the mission, no matter _what_ airfield they spawn in have the same waypoints, do I need to put one of every single aircraft on every single airfield/farp, add the same waypoints to every one of them, set them as dynamic spawn templates, and then in the dynamic spawn options assign every single template manually onto every single plane on every single airfield/farp?

Or is there a simpler way to assign the same waypoints to everything?

2. Do traditional spawns affect dynamic spawns, in the sense that if an airfield has every single parking spot set up with a traditional spawn (even if no-one has actually spawned), can I spawn there dynamically at all?

3. Can I get confirmation on if traditional ground spawns overlapping a FARP or a parking spot influence the ability to use that FARP or parking spot with a dynamic spawn?

[Temetre]

vor 3 Stunden schrieb SlipHavoc:

Does the dynamic spawn system work in single player?  I tried making a mission in the editor, set up one airfield as Red and another as Blue, set both to use dynamic spawns as shown in the OP, but I only see the dynamic spawn interface when starting the mission as a multiplayer server, not in single player mode.  If it doesn't currently work in single player, it seems like that would be a great feature to add, as there are several large missions (such a Foothold or Pretense) that can be played in single player mode and would benefit from having the dynamic slots.

Yeah Id love to have that feature for Singleplayer too!

[tezak]

37 minutes ago, tezak said:

I get the following error on the LOG file, already confirmed it´s the same with 2 other users on different servers.

 

 

 

That log it´s everytime I click OK to spawn the aircraft

JUST FOUND THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM!

Seems having special characters like {  [   and such on the callsign creates problems with the dynamic spawn

[Maverick87Shaka]

@BIGNEWY we're trying to switch to dynamic spawn system our PvE servers featuring a persistence conquest, but actually we can't prevent people to join red coalition and pick up a red plane from the airfield not yet captured.
So we should be able to have an option somewhere in the mission editor, to disable the Dynamic Spawn for a specific coalition, and leave it available just for the other.

That is a must have feature for PvE server that want to use this feature in a "conquest environment"

A possible workaround is to script all the warehouse to set 0 plane and resources if the airfield is of the "forbidden" coalition side, but since you can't change on the fly from unlimited to restricted and vice/versa it's a bit time consuming activity.

A simple option on mission editor will be much appreciated

Edited July 11, 2024 by Maverick87Shaka

[Helicrazy14]

Also how will this work for F-16 and F-18 with datalink settings for groups. I have some mission files that have a large amount of available aircraft but I still want the -16 and -18 to have datalink properly setup for their groups. Ideally with group datalink but individual aircraft for script purposes, which I normally have to setup manually anyway which is fine, just what does this do for their datalink settings.

[SlipHavoc]

...And I guess now we can see why it takes a long time to develop a feature like this, even though some people maybe think it should be easy.  "Just make it so you can select whatever plane you want to start in!"  ha ha.  Then you have to have waypoints and aircraft settings specific to each different type of airplane, weapon loadouts, datalink groups, the possibility that the airfield could change sides, the ability to block players from spawning, interacting with areas of the ground that are blocked by other planes (that aren't necessarily part of the dynamic spawn system), dealing with multicrew, and then coordinating all of this across multiplayer servers with dozens of players.

Props to ED for taking this on!  So many things in software look relatively simple from the front end, but the devil is in the details...

[Branli]

Love this new feature! Thanks allot. A question comes to mind though, is it also possible to dynamically spawn AI units via this method by script?

[BIGNEWY]

Please note:

using this single farp can create issues currently, swap it out for the other single farp as a work around 

the issue is reported

thank you 

[ags]

How in server API to correlate "changed_slot" with what was machine entered?

New IDs no longer match what was in the mission.

[SabreDancer]

It seems the invisible FARP slot is having issues with placed helipads like M92 Sandbag 11 as well, stating there isn't enough space.

Edited July 11, 2024 by SabreDancer