Laxxor Posted February 15 Posted February 15 DCS is actively trying to bring in more players / pilots. As mission writers and story tellers, the Mission Creation community is constantly looking to make more exciting and engaging content to be flown.. This "wishlist item" could be taken as an opportunity to review the API for known and reported defects and enhance it in a phased approach. This could include more event handling which will allow creators to embellish their ideas further and draw more attention to the DCS product: F7 troop management events (not limited by zone) embraking disembarking Cargo events (dynamic and classical "F6sling-load) including unhook (pure unhook, not limited to zone) Effectively any task to be paired with start/end events Review of existing events to identify those never raised and either remove or correct why they are not being raised Feel free to comment to suggest other API fixes, with links to the relevent forum post describing it and i will update this list
cfrag Posted February 16 Posted February 16 (edited) Hmmm. When people talk about Mission Creation API, they commonly talk about DCS's Mission Scripting Environment, which you can inspect here. It's awfully inadequate for the job, is distinctly riddled with amateurish design decision/blunders, badly documented and maintained, and famously buggy (I reported two show-stopping bugs in the past two weeks: one in net.lua2json(), the other in trigger.action.removeMark()). They each have a 50/50 chance to get fixed in the next 10 years if we go by ED's track record. You seem to be talking about some minor aspect of the MSE, namely some events of the (comically underdeveloped) eventHandler and some missionCommand callbacks. While I agree that DCS urgently needs an overhaul of those parts as well, I feel that they make the minority of issues. The entire MSE API is sliding and becoming unmanageable, the new Warehouse API is a masterclass on how not to design a system. In MSE, player handling is a catastrophe, the eventHandler is abysmally dysfunctional (you can't even feed your own events to it) and lacks fundamental events (cargo events, just like you mentioned, amongst them), group creation and AI tasking is a coding tragedy, and the entire 'trigger' singleton shows that it was thrown together ad-hoc (trigger.misc branch for getUserFlag, and trigger.action branch for setUserFlag) by whoever was working at it at the time. Looking at the missionCommands singleton is enough to make any experienced developer's eyes water. IMHO, the entire DCS MSE API needs a serious work-over, and it would help if ED got some talent involved who know what they are doing: real developers with real experience in code design and architecture. Looking at what was recently delivered with their Warehouse API, I'm not convinced that they currently have the right people working on it, nor that improving the MSE API was a focus of their work. Let's hope that this improves soon because I agree that content creators (mission designers) are part of DCS's lifeblood, they give players things to do once they have purchased their modules, they can make people want to stay in DCS. Edited February 16 by cfrag 2
Laxxor Posted February 16 Author Posted February 16 Making things visible in a constructive manor can only be the 1st step though in change process / management, which is why i created this post. Yea there are probably quite a few issues, some with be lost in the depths of old posts, some drowned out by other current issues, and others will be suffered in silence and complained about in the shadows (least helpful). DIscussion and visibility might help people see, and a single point of reference for all the issues makes is easily referenceable. I hope this post c an help promote those aspects...
cfrag Posted February 16 Posted February 16 (edited) 19 minutes ago, Laxxor said: Making things visible in a constructive manor can only be the 1st step though in change process / management, which is why i created this post. Agreed. And how far have your talks with management progressed in this regard? I'm not bad-mouthing your intentions nor approach, I'm questioning your familiarity with the matter at hand and your contacts inside ED management. Do you think that the items that I've talked about are new or have not been a matter of subject that were discussed in the past? I believe that they have. Many times. 19 minutes ago, Laxxor said: Yea there are probably quite a few issues, some with be lost in the depths of old posts, some drowned out by other current issues, and others will be suffered in silence and complained about in the shadows (least helpful). Indeed. So how does your approach (yet another post in a forum resplendent with requests and starting points for changes) sits aside from the 100+ that are started each month? 19 minutes ago, Laxxor said: DIscussion and visibility might help people see, and a single point of reference for all the issues makes is easily referenceable. If you believe that your post is that single point of reference I wish you all the luck that you need. You have my vote. Now you only have to convince all the others, and make sure that your thread never disappears below the fold. So, for reference, I would submit the following as points to pass on to management (just off the top of my head): overhaul the event manager, provide more events (start/stop for actions), the ability to post events to others, introduce event categories, event filtering, add an event class tree overhaul Warehouse API to be able to manage generic items instead of the arbitrary split between liquids, aircraft and weapons, add vehicles, add generic items such as water, medication etc do not attach warehouses to airfields introduce warehouse classes add the ability to create missionCommand menu items for units (not just groups) add unit management so we can change a unit's life/health, fuel, ammo add a player management layer add the ability to change the weather add the ability to change the day/time make fog local Good luck, and all the best, -ch Edited February 16 by cfrag
Laxxor Posted February 16 Author Posted February 16 7 hours ago, cfrag said: Agreed. And how far have your talks with management progressed in this regard? I'm not bad-mouthing your intentions nor approach, I'm questioning your familiarity with the matter at hand and your contacts inside ED management. Do you think that the items that I've talked about are new or have not been a matter of subject that were discussed in the past? I believe that they have. Many times. Indeed. So how does your approach (yet another post in a forum resplendent with requests and starting points for changes) sits aside from the 100+ that are started each month? If you believe that your post is that single point of reference I wish you all the luck that you need. You have my vote. Now you only have to convince all the others, and make sure that your thread never disappears below the fold. So, for reference, I would submit the following as points to pass on to management (just off the top of my head): overhaul the event manager, provide more events (start/stop for actions), the ability to post events to others, introduce event categories, event filtering, add an event class tree overhaul Warehouse API to be able to manage generic items instead of the arbitrary split between liquids, aircraft and weapons, add vehicles, add generic items such as water, medication etc do not attach warehouses to airfields introduce warehouse classes add the ability to create missionCommand menu items for units (not just groups) add unit management so we can change a unit's life/health, fuel, ammo add a player management layer add the ability to change the weather add the ability to change the day/time make fog local Good luck, and all the best, -ch There are 2 sides to the post... fix and enhance 21 hours ago, Laxxor said: API for known and reported defects and enhance it in a phased approach I don't understand your "local fog" though, that would make a severe imbalance from a simulation perspective. To be honest I also don't understand why you come out guns blazing at my naivety and borderline futility of intent. It's also borderline (no.... actual) condescending to question my "contacts inside ED management" of which obviously i have none, otherwise i would be talking directly to them in DMs, rather than attract the laughing and finger pointing I'm currently receiving from yourself (who would appear to be a moderately seasoned poster with 4.2K forum posts) who seems to have just "chosen violence" today. Im relatively new to DCS.. maybe i am stealing someone's thunder? You seem to be versed in software development so i would hope you can, as an "Agent of Change" (and if that reference is lost on you try reading "Peopleware" by Timothy Lister and Tom DeMarco), appreciate you dont get change without a catalyst and sometimes you have to just keep trying... I guess the other option is to not try anymore, sit back, exist with the things not working and complain about them on other platforms and do "thumb down" emotes on all the discord announcements, or go to another product... but you know, I chose this way. You do you, dude.
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