Mission State Save

[GameOver]

That’s great news that we now have a save and load option in DCS—well done! However, like many other users, I’m really looking forward to a fully functional Save and Load system.

Ideally, this would work like a traditional save feature: I fly a mission where I need to destroy multiple targets. I destroy one, but I need to stop playing, so I save the game, turn off my PC, and later, when I return to DCS, I simply go to a Load Game option, select my saved mission, and continue exactly from where I left off.

This should work for any mission or campaign in DCS, not just specific scenarios. There should also be a dedicated Load Game tab or icon on the main screen for easy access.

Additionally, we should be able to create multiple saves, such as:

• One save for my F/A-18C mission in Arctic Thunder
• Another for my F/A-18C in Flaming Sunrise
• A third for my AH-64D Outpost mission
• A fourth for my F-16C in Last Out, etc.

That way, we can easily return to any saved mission whenever we want.

I know others have likely shared similar thoughts, but I hope this feedback helps ED in developing a great Save and Load feature for DCS!

[BIGNEWY]

New video from Suntsag 
 

 

[wilbur81]

On 3/19/2025 at 4:25 PM, SharpeXB said:

Yes although it’s very cool to see progress on this I don’t think it’s what most people expected. This just seems like a limited mission editor feature. What people really want is the ability to save and resume games like DLC campaign missions and such. 

Agreed. I'm only really interested in saving, say, my Raven One Campaign mission mid-ingress and coming back to it tomorrow after some normal life interruption.

[SharpeXB]

I don’t imagine most players use the Mission Editor either. It’s all too complicated and we just want to play the game. Not create content. Playing a mission that you created yourself seems really dull. Plus these instructions are too complicated. We just want a Save and Load button. That’s it. So a limited and obscure feature for the Mission Editor just isn’t useful to me at all. The lack of being able to save is like a roadblock for me consuming content in DCS. It’s put a cap on me buying any new modules or campaigns simply because I can’t play my way through them. I’m backlogged on campaigns I’ve been running for years. It’s great to see progress on this but discouraging that it’s taken 8 or 9 years just to get to this point. This should be the highest priority thing for ED to work on IMO. The game is useless without it. 

[buceador]

18 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

I don’t imagine most players use the Mission Editor either. It’s all too complicated and we just want to play the game

This seems a little presumptuous?

 

20 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

Plus these instructions are too complicated.

Just click the button SAVE GAME?

[cfrag]

18 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

We just want a Save and Load button. That’s it.

Perhaps this may broaden your view: you want to be able to save and load missions, yes. Missions that someone else created. That can save. How are missions created? With Mission Editor. So you very much do want support for saving in ME and API - you just don't know that you do. You want it a lot.

18 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

So a limited and obscure feature for the Mission Editor just isn’t useful to me at all.

It is. Very much so. Otherwise there would be no missions at all - except what you create for yourself in limited ME. You simply do not seem to see the big picture. I strongly recommend that you try and broaden your view. While Navel-gazing may be en vogue, you seem to leaning towards solipsism. Occasionally, I'd try a new approach. If you even exist, that is.

Edited March 21 by cfrag

[SharpeXB]

5 minutes ago, buceador said:

This seems a little presumptuous?

 

Just click the button SAVE GAME?

Look how this works in any other game. It’s just a button. No instructions needed. 

[Esac_mirmidon]

So ABSOLUTE TIME takes in count events for saved versions , but TIME MORE doesnt. Thats what i´ve understand about it.

IF you want to take events in count for saved missions, use Absolute time. If you want to repeat that events, use Time more.

[SharpeXB]

On 3/19/2025 at 11:02 AM, BIGNEWY said:

We have seen community opinions about Mission State Save feature being somehow connected to Dynamic Campaign. It is not. Dynamic Campaign is perfectly capable of saving itself since the moment of its inception

Yes I think we realize that by definition a Dynamic Campaign is able to save itself. What we want is the ability as a player to save and resume our own progress. And to be able to do this mid-mission. 

Edited March 21 by SharpeXB

[ac5]

I just don't get it...

F-18. I have switched weapons to on, flir on, dimmer of console and others to max, set flaps etc.

Then I saved with the new ESC>Save .

But when I reload the mission I saved as above described, the weapons are off,

flir off, dimmer of console and others are off, etc. ?? 

[cb1968]

After a cold start of the F4, I saved the game after I had started taxiing. Reloading the save file reset the mission to the beginning of the cold start. Is this expected?

Edited March 21 by cb1968

[SharpeXB]

The ME is just a realm of complexity I have no time for and no interest in. This game already consists of modules with 600+ page manuals and aircraft that consume hundreds of hours of gameplay time. That’s where the entertainment is for me. The ME is a tool for content creators and not players. 
This all points towards DCS being somehow targeted at unemployed or retired computer programmers. Not people with full time jobs. Just imagine the possibilities of selling a game to people who actually work for a living

[ouky1991]

43 minutes ago, SharpeXB said:

The ME is just a realm of complexity I have no time for and no interest in. This game already consists of modules with 600+ page manuals and aircraft that consume hundreds of hours of gameplay time. That’s where the entertainment is for me. The ME is a tool for content creators and not players. 
This all points towards DCS being somehow targeted at unemployed or retired computer programmers. Not people with full time jobs. Just imagine the possibilities of selling a game to people who actually work for a living

I wonder how many people see it this way. I on the other hand think mission editor is practically the best thing about DCS, I can't imagine having to count on other people for content. ME gives you infinite amount of possibilities and it's not that complicated to learn.

This new feature seems like a good start, but I agree with others that at this point it has very limited use. Hopefully we'll get more options soon, like including the whole aircraft state and advanced waypoint support, then it would be a complete game changer. Either way, work on core is very much appreciated!

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, ouky1991 said:

I wonder how many people see it this way. I on the other hand think mission editor is practically the best thing about DCS

Sure it’s an important feature for the game. But with my limited time for gaming it’s just not something that worth it for me. There are more missions available for this sim than I’ll ever be able to play through as it is. I don’t need to make my own. 

[Montrose]

On 3/18/2025 at 7:07 AM, BIGNEWY said:

Mission State Save Guide


Mission State Save is a new feature that will be particularly enjoyed by those of you with basic mission-editing skills that want to play scenarios you have created and play over several sessions whilst preserving and carrying forward mission progress, without complex scripting. Mission Save works by generating a new mission file at any point during the flight. The generated save mission carries over different parameters of missions such as date/time, all units state and location and other mission state relevant parameters. We’ve also added some support for this feature on a dedicated server level.

We are releasing this feature in an early Work-in-Progress state to gather actual community usage feedback, which will help us refine and prioritise future improvements. We will also be looking at requests from script creators.

Let’s take a look at some details about this feature.

Operation basics

As was mentioned before mission state save result is just a new .miz file which is just new mission file that you can open in the mission editor for adjustments or just play right away. This concept was used by some of our amazing community content creators, and it is our variation of this approach. Mission State Save is available in multiplayer and single player. It does not work with protected paid single player campaigns, for these, a separate solution is needed. There is a new special format of mission file .sav made specifically for dedicated server just to accommodate some automation, we will see its details below.

What is being saved?

Making full identical save is quite hard task if done in environment of sophisticated detailed simulation so to make something usable faster we have opted for approach of saving certain parameters that matter for mission theatre. Here is the list of saved parameters with its nuances:

• Time and date
   
• Dead units/groups and statics removed in save
   
• Position, speed and waypoints state of groups/units saved (they will start at the same position where they were at the moment of save, save  cannot include waypoint advanced parameters for now)
   
• Units/groups and statics that were activated or created with the script during mission also will be present in state save
   
• Spawn points and internal fuel state of player/client units/groups saved and move to air if you save mission while enroute. In saved mission your spawn will be at the position where you left it in the air or on another airfield. Save process will place aircraft at the minimum altitude of 150 meters if they were flying lower at the moment of save.
   
• Player/Client and AI controlled aircraft weapons state is saved (Nuance here is that for now multiple point racks like triple mavericks etc. will be considered used and spent and will be removed from plane loadout in save even if at least one weapon on them is used). Partially used fuel tanks are not accounted for in save as we don’t have partially filled fuel tanks options for aircraft loadout currently.
   
• Aircraft malfunctions are applied at the start of saved mission if there were any at the moment of save. (For this aircraft need to have on demand failures modelled and best example will be A-10C)
   
•  Warehouses state is saved
   
•  All scripts and triggers are saved as they were in the start of original mission. Saving process does not touch them (there can be many scenarios variations for processing these in the save but as of now there is no clear best process logic for it for us yet. For API scripts authors can take it into account and for triggers you can remove not needed triggers manually in mission editor if you think you won’t need them in next session). We will be looking at feedback to potentially adjust this in future.

 

How to use save mission state?

In single player you can find “Save Mission” button in ESC menu:

It will open dialogue window where you can name and choose where to save generated save .miz

Additionally same button is available in the mission debriefing screen (save time will be moment when you have quit the mission):

For Multiplayer Mission State Save will be available only on server side. If you host mission not from dedicated server then as host you will have same “Save Mission” button in ESC menu.

For Dedicated Server there is new button in its web GUI interface “save mission as..” which you can use at any time during mission to save current state.

We have added new mission format for dedicated server: .sav. It serves only one purpose - automation for running mission autosave. .sav is essentially same as .miz, you can even rename it to be .miz and treat it as such. But dedicated server treats .sav differently and difference being “.sav” mission can be autosaved into same file when you stop server or restart mission if dedicated server option “Autosave .sav files on mission stop” is activated. That way you just need to launch same mission in list to continue from the saved state.

The server has a mission list and if you are rotating through missions in list, you may have missions that you want to save automatically and some missions that should not be saved, new “.sav” format helps to differentiate between those. Later we want to add ability to save mission state while mission is running into same file and do not create new one on save for .sav files.
 

 

I am running the open beta server with 3 instances and I don't get the save state as option at all

[waterman]

Mission Save State -

     

    1. Create a new mission add some user placed trains and wagons with waypoints.

    2. run the mission for a few seconds.

    ----- The DCS Trains with locked wheels are happily sliding along on the tracks.

    ----- The Train wheels issue must get fixed soon they look just like toytown wooden safety toys for kids )

   ----- Maybe theres hope it will be fixed soon as the New Marianas WW2 and the Germany maps need new DCS trains.

    3. Hit escape - save the mission with a new name.

    4. quit.

    5. load the saved mission.

    6. None of the Trains are on the saved map.

    7. run the saved mission and no trains.

    " So its Working exactly as i thought it would "

    Also the new triggers - Absolute Time More   and   Absolute Time Less

    EG - a mission with a start time at 8.30 am and a Time more trigger of 25 seconds.

    This becomes (8*60*60) + (30*60) + 25 = Absolute Time More of 28,800+1,800+25 = 30,625 seconds

    WOW its almost like a new kind of DCS Encrypted Time System !

    Dont Panic heres a handy mission maker online    Hours.Minutes.Seconds converter -

    http://www.csgnetwork.com/directcvthrminsec2sec.html

    Have lots of fun with that !

  

  

    

Edited March 21 by waterman

[ops]

Hello,

it's a nice start, unfortunately this is of extremely limited use.

The feature doesn't even save the internal flag values. The tutorial video suggesting to base everything on absolute mission time, that's not very useful.

Some way to hook into the save/load feature would be nice, so we can add missing stuff and initialize missions properly

[KoleTang]

The location saved relative to AI planes and ships is not accurate and seems to be miles from correct.  Flying in close formation with AI ends up about a mile away.  Carrier landing is not close.

Without saving aircraft current config this is of little use.  Not useful for creating new missions.  Did anyone actually try this before release?

[buceador]

I think everyone agrees that the basic idea of MISSION STATE SAVE is essential.

Unfortunately in this early incarnation it seems almost unusable.

An example: Viper flies to WP 1 - advanced waypoint action is search then engage group (BANDIT-1) then do something else - in this case land.

Track A - Viper flies to WP1 and changes course to engage bandit - at this point I hit SAVE MISSION.

Now load the saved mission - Track B (we should be at the point where the Viper is about to engage BANDIT-1) but what actually happens is that the Viper has "forgotten" the WP 1 instruction. ignores the BANDIT-1 and proceeds to land.

Now as missions go this is very, very basic but the SAVE MISSION breaks it.

Nice idea but released in a virtually redundant form IMO.

Track B.miz Track A.miz

[cfrag]

TL;DR:
In its current incarnation, DCS's 'save state' is IMHO unusable and will mostly serve to annoy players who believed that they can save and continue a mission like in most other games, only to find out that they were severely mistaken. While there might be the odd instance where a re-loaded mission behaves almost as expected, the vast majority don't. IMHO, ED would be better served if they did not advertise this feature, it will cause people to become frustrated with DCS.

WHAT TO EXPECT?
When ED announced that DCS now supports mission state save, they left open what this "state save" actually means. Without guidance nor explanations, people will assume that "DCS Mission State Save" means what they individually hope that it means: a save feature that allows them to save a mission in progress (say two hours into a three-hour mission). A few days later they then try to resume where they left off. The results are ugly.

IMHO, DCS state save is in its infancy, unsuitable even for trivial use. If DCS were a word processor, it's "save" ability would be akin to being able to save most upper case letters, and some numbers, but nothing else. Formatting, punctuation, blanks, images, most numbers and all lower-case letters can't yet be saved. You decide if that means 'usable save' in a word processor.

In a nutshell: Technically, DCS missions can save some state. Usually, it's not what you need. IMHO, in it's current form, "DCS Mission State Save" is a first experimental step that has no tangible use for players. It barely works, and in a too limited way. Even trivial use cases can fail spectacularly.

HERE'S WHAT I TRIED; 
In a super-simplistic mission with player-controlled hornets (one ground, one air), one blue ground unit and 4 red ground units. I started the mission, performed some simple settings and saved it after a few seconds. I then started the saved mission, comparing what I saw last in the original mission with what I saw first in the restored mission. I also opened the saved mission in ME (and a text editor) to verify what the changes consisted of in-file, how these changes are reflected in Mission Editor.

So what are DCS's current save abilities?
AI GROUND FORCES (placed with Mission Editor)
Units that were destroyed are removed from the mission, there is (sadly) no debris left in the places where a unit was killed. A bit disappointing, but OK.
Paths are modified so that if a units was halfway between WP 2 and 3, that point now becomes the new initial points, and waypoints are moved up. Yes, the original path is modified, probably screwing with any WP actions. But that becomes irrelevant, because:
Waypoint actions are scrubbed. So if you placed units with ROE HOLD, they are now all ROE WEAPONS FREE. Kiss goodbye any training mission that you saved in progress, it's now become hot.
Expended munitions are not saved, so all units return with full health and full stock. 
Paths can receive a mysterious 'span' tag depicts a completed path 

Player Planes (used an FA-18 for tests)
NO COCKPIT STATE is SAVED. Worse, a hot plane (engines running on an airfield) is turned to a cold one. Radio, Radar, Light, or any other settings are gone, as are weapons programming. If your IND was aligned, it no longer is, etc. This means that using state saving to create training missions that require exact cockpit setup (like setting up your glide bombs) is straight out. 
Analyzing the .miz shows that on saving the player aircraft, DCS saved the player aircraft as "start from ramp", which was not where the plane was, and means that it will be cold, all settings forgotten. 

NO PLANE NOR AVIONICS STATE SAVED
I then entered the cockpit of a flying Hornet, entered a gentle bank turn, enables AP, BALT, and started a circle, switched the left MFD to HUD and then turned off the left MFD. After 1 minute, I saved, while heading 050 at 6200 AGL. 
After loading the saved mission, I entered the cockpit with the hornet wings level, AP off, BALT off, left MFD turned on in default configuration.

SCRIPTS 
A script's state (the value of all variables) isn't saved. Scripts start with the mission and do not know what has changed. They assume that the mission has just started since timer.getTime() will falsely return 0 at the mission's beginning. No scripting API for save state exists.

Flags 
All flags are reset to 0, no flag state is saved 

mission time 
Mission "time of day" is advanced to the point where the mission was saved. 

WARNING: timer.getTime() is reset to 0, so if you have any trigger that uses "Time before" of "Time later" you now must use the new "Absolute time" and perform some silly time conversion realtive to 00:00:00 local time, and can no longer rely on time relative to mission start. That means that if you move the mission's start time by just a second forward or back, you must re-calculate from hand all your triggers. This incredibly bad design is hopefully just a stop gap until ED can come up with a better method. 

Mission.miz
There is now a lot of spurious information added to the miz: 15k lines of failure information, and vehicle group's 'unwound' paths are put into "span" records. 

So, IMHO Mission Save State is unusable in it's current form for for anything but the most trivial missions. ED should be aware that people expect a lot more, and many will be frustrated. This first step IMHO does not reflect the abilities of ED's talent, and should not have been on public display, it opens them up for ridicule.

I'm hoping that upcoming releases dramatically improve upon this state.

 

state test 0.miz

Edited March 22 by cfrag

[sirrah]

Thanks @cfrag

This one I was especially curious about:

24 minutes ago, cfrag said:

Flags 
All flags are reset to 0, no flag state is saved 

 

Save feature seems very crude at this moment

[cfrag]

Just now, sirrah said:

Save feature seems very crude at this moment

Agreed. Resetting all flags, and falsely setting elapsed time to zero should kill 99% of all unscripted, and 100% of all scripted missions. 

I find it bewildering that something this immature was released. 

[AndyJWest]

Given its current limitations, I think it was a serious mistake to add the 'save' option to the menu by default. People who don't obsessively read the forums etc are going to use it, find that it doesn't work remotely they expect, and assume it is bugged. This forum, along with Steam and Reddit, is going to be swamped with 'bug reports' and complaints. The 'save' option should have been added as an option, to be turned on at the players own risk, and clearly marked 'work in progress'.

It is also a very bad idea to offer the existing mission title as the default file name for the new save. People are going to accidentally overwrite existing missions.

 

Edited March 22 by AndyJWest

[waterman]

To be fair -

1.  ED should provide some of their short demo missions they tested saved and were happy when restarted.

2. What quality control testing was done ?

3. Maybe we need to lower expectations and just except that they are not capable anymore.

4. Now you shovel this alpha tested mess out.

5. The absolute time more or less triggers used with this are like a DCS Time Encryption system who is going to calculate and enter thousands of seconds.

6. Do your self a favour release an update with the new save option removed.

    The forum is over flowing with update problems - So i dont think you need any more new save problems to deal with at the moment !

     The new save game requests for help will fill the forum up faster than the T_e_m_u $1000 Voucher attacks !

     I do not think any of the forum Mods or Helpers will be able to answer any of the questions about the new save game feature either ?

 

Edited March 22 by waterman

[ac5]

I see.. Also for me this "save" feature is of no use whatsoever in its curren state.

All the operations I performed BEFORE ESC>save:

E.G. in the A-10: setting all the several cockpit lights to max, switching weapons

on, TGP on, MAV on etc are NOT being saved. 

Reloading the save, no matter from the ME or in the load mission, resets the mission to the

state it was originally created in the ME... (cockpit light off, TGP off etc etc...)

We already had this with the ME, which saves time of the day, loadout, friends and foes etc... 

I really don't understand what is the thinking behind this.... Disappointing.