Request for mission persistency inplementation ahead of dynamic campaign release

[zerO_crash]

There have been made many promises with regards to a dynamic campaign/mission generating environment over the years, and for whichever reasons, those this feature gets delayed often. Understanding and accepting that, I wish to make a request for possibly releasing mission persistency ahead of the former (I imagine it would be easier to implement).

 

Essentially, have extra parameters inside the .miz folder which would include the information on; a) initial existing units, b) current existing units (not destroyed) and c) destroyed units for maintaining damage models. The above-mentioned parameters would somehow have to be updated (overwritten) as the mission is run, such that the progress would be maintained. For example, set a 5 minute interval, with additionally a final save upon the main host (MP/SP) leaving the mission. 
 

I realize this is much to ask for, but it would open up for more complex mission scenarios, while ultimately waiting for the dynamic campaign/mission generator.

 

Thx!

[cfrag]

On 8/8/2024 at 5:57 AM, zerO_crash said:

The above-mentioned parameters would somehow have to be updated (overwritten) as the mission is run, such that the progress would be maintained. For example, set a 5 minute interval, with additionally a final save upon the main host (MP/SP) leaving the mission. 

While I wholeheartedly agree that some form of built-in persistency would indeed be great, overwriting the original miz seems a terrible idea to me. I think a better way would simply be a data file that DCS can read and that points back to the original miz that the saved data extends.

That being said, merely saving those few parameters (although still progress) seems a drop in the ocean of persistence-related issues that need to be solved. There is some easy additional stuff that would also be welcome if it was made available in ME as well, for example munitions expended, damage received etc. Those could conceivably be added quickly. Another can of worms, unfortunately, are saving the state of AI, and - much worse - the state of scripts that are running. I assert (without any data to back this up), that more than half of all popular missions have at least one, if not more scripts running. All these missions require that their scripts also be state-saved and read back and set to their last state. It is possible, but I have not seen enough know-how on ED's side wrt their Lua environment to make me believe that they currently have the prowess to accomplish something like that. Without a state-saving mechanism (maybe if ED provided an API this could be solved) for scripted missions, persistence seems mostly pointless, as it prevents most useful scripts to function. 

That is, unless ED mean something very different with "persistence" than what you and I hope that they mean: a way to 'freeze' a mission in one moment, and continue the mission from that moment at a later point in time. From what I have read about DCS's purported campaign mode in the past decade, it appears to be rather non-persistent: it saves the strategic situation of a running miz, not the situation of individual player units so they can continue), and this is then used to generate a new miz based on the saved strategic situation. I hope that ED finds the time to clarify what they mean by 'persistence' and 'dynamic campaign', so to manage expectation.

No matter what, I'm looking forward to any development in this regard, it has been a long time.

[AacAac]

Personal I would be happy to just be able to pause and save the state of a SP mission. This would be great for me as due to my personal situation (kids etc...) it is hard to get time to play out some of the more interesting and longer missions, I like to take my time with planning etc... and with this I would like to be able to play them in a number of play sessions. I hope this is what's coming soon.

I agree though it should be a separate file for the save in a saves folder linked back to the mission file.

[draconus]

16 hours ago, AacAac said:

Personal I would be happy to just be able to pause and save the state of a SP mission. This would be great for me as due to my personal situation (kids etc...) it is hard to get time to play out some of the more interesting and longer missions, I like to take my time with planning etc... and with this I would like to be able to play them in a number of play sessions. I hope this is what's coming soon.

I agree though it should be a separate file for the save in a saves folder linked back to the mission file.

This is not what OP is talking about but the save game feature is planned.

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/346229-12012024-vulkan-progress-dcs-core-dcs-modules/

Quote

Here are some of the interesting functionality improvements coming to DCS:

Save Game. Our new game persistence system will allow you to save mid-mission and return to that save point at a later time.

Edited August 14, 2024 by draconus

[Mike_Romeo]

On 8/8/2024 at 5:57 AM, zerO_crash said:

There have been made many promises with regards to a dynamic campaign/mission generating environment over the years, and for whichever reasons, those this feature gets delayed often. Understanding and accepting that, I wish to make a request for possibly releasing mission persistency ahead of the former (I imagine it would be easier to implement).

 

Essentially, have extra parameters inside the .miz folder which would include the information on; a) initial existing units, b) current existing units (not destroyed) and c) destroyed units for maintaining damage models. The above-mentioned parameters would somehow have to be updated (overwritten) as the mission is run, such that the progress would be maintained. For example, set a 5 minute interval, with additionally a final save upon the main host (MP/SP) leaving the mission. 
 

I realize this is much to ask for, but it would open up for more complex mission scenarios, while ultimately waiting for the dynamic campaign/mission generator.

 

Thx!

You can use the DSMC mod meanwhile: https://dsmcfordcs.wordpress.com/

"This mod will enable the capability to save all the scenery/mission current situation and create a new mission (.miz) file with all the updated data, like the alive or dead state about units, buildings or static objects, their updated position, and the warehouse items (fuel, weapons, etc)… and much much more."