three (or more) combat factions, with adjustable relations

[HalfAnUnkindness]

There are many scenarios with three or more factions that currently we can't really do. Syria, for example, had the Assad government, the rebels, the Kurds, the Turks, the Americans, and the Russians, and while some of these worked together to varying degrees, reducing them to two coalitions removes a lot of nuance from the situation.

I'd love to see three (or more) combat factions, and the ability to set each one as allied / neutral / hostile to each other faction. I.e., Green is Neutral with Blue, and Hostile with Red. Ideally, also the ability to change those alliance settings with a trigger mid-mission.

Imagine being able to make missions where the American air defense doesn't attack you on sight, but does create a no-go-zone. Where you fly an Israeli strike against an Iranian ship heading for the Suez canal, and Egyptian air defenses are shooting at both you and the Iranian escorts. The possibilities are endless.

[Ducku]

This really is an important idea. Personally i would advocate for completely dynamic factions. At the very least you would want to be able to set the name, inter-faction relations and preferably color. Maybe things like flag images can be added too.

Not only would this be great for "real" missions. It would also enable multiplayer gamemodes like free-for-all dogfights, or just add much more dynamics to faction vs faction gamemodes.

There is the issue of backward-compatibility however. We of course want to be able to continue to run missions made in the past. My suggestion would be to create a conversion tool (that runs automatically upon loading an older mission) which restructures the mission file as required. I don't think this should be too complicated to work around.

I do wonder how the current faction system ties into the upcoming dynamic campaign though.

[RVT2403]

It would need a matrix-like system, where you could add virtually unlimited additional factions. Each with its own unique ID.

Syria is a good example of how limited DCS is right now: Turkey being part of NATO and bombing Daesh, but also fighting the Kurds, while the US, which are based at the same airbase, protect the Kurds. Kurds being enemy to Syria and Turkey but also fighting Daesh, like Syria and Turkey do. Add Greece to this which are not good with Turkey... Also the variety of Islamic groups that have a spiderweb like relation to each other.
It is a complex conflict and it would be great if DCS could model this.

[MiG21bisFishbedL]

This would be really nice to simulate UN Peacekeeping operations.

[Lace]

Command: Modern Operations (and CMANO before it) allows a side to set their posture in relation to each other side, either friendly (blue), neutral (green), unfriendly (orange) or hostile (red), with yellow being an unknown/unidentified contact.  This can be changed by triggers, so a side which is unfriendly might intercept another side, but change its posture to hostile if fire upon.  It allows a lot more subtlety in scenario design and can create tense 'who blinks first' situations where each side is reluctant to make a move which escalates the conflict.  It even allows a 'biologics' side, so whales and schools of fish can be included to complicate SONAR searches.

In DCS some of this can be worked around by ROE settings, or engaging only a specific group on a trigger, but having it inherently incorporated into the ME would be a nice improvement.

[Northstar98]

Yep, takes me back to this nearly decade old request:

I’d love to be able to add, edit and remove sides/coalitions at will, set their posture with respect to each other and have their postures be able to be triggered so they could be changed mid-mission.

C:MO is a perfect example, see here for an explanation of that.

[upyr1]

I have asked for this as well 

[Tank50us]

1 hour ago, upyr1 said:

I have asked for this as well 

Many have. Largely because real conflicts aren't exactly as cut and dry when it comes to how coalitions operate.

Case in point, WW2. While Japan, Italy, and Germany were all part of the axis powers, they didn't always share what they were doing with one another, especially Germany and Italy. While situations where the two came to blows are rare, it was still a possibility.

The way I see it, the 'relationship' between group A and B should be one of five states:

1. Allied: Will not shoot at you period.
2. Friendly: Will work with, but limited (think USA during the first two years of WW2)
3. Neutral: Won't do anything, but will still defend itself if necessary.
4. Strained: Relations aren't good, may shoot at you.
5. Hostile: Will shoot on sight.

The only other state would be 'not involved', meaning that their units won't even be available to place on the map (Ex: Japanese units in France 1944).

But an example of how this would look:

You have a mission set on the upcoming Germany map. You have the NATO members all set to "allied" as well as the Warsaw Pact nations, and their coalition color set to Blue and Red respectively. But you also have some smaller insurgent groups. who are openly hostile to one another, but set to 'friendly' towards the Warsaw Pact. And then for S&G, you have Switzerland in the lower west corner of the map set to Neutral for everyone. China and Japan would likely be set to "Not Involved", and their kit wouldn't be available to the reds or blues.