End of the world ?

[jef32]

Hi

I have no words to say how I find the Germany cold war map awesome. This map is highly detailled and not only on the airfieds, heliports airports or military base but everywhere.  But there's something essential missing from this profusion of detail: The life ! 
We can see campings with tents, caravans and legendary volkswagen Westphalia everywhere, we can see street of big towns empty of pedestrian life and it's as if a global pandemic has decimated humanity and it was the end of the world.
ED, would you think that it would be the time to add various civilian characters as statics or walking in the ME to give life in your simulator, especially for this map ? And civilians aeronautical characters like civilian liners pilots or flight attendands and moving boarding brides would be welcome too. Dont' forget that you're selling helicopters too and that all your customers do not love to fly around mach one and high altitude at all times. I love flying in F-16 or F-18 but I love flying at low speed and altitude too and on the Germany map, in this case, life on the ground is cruelly missing.
ED, remember what have done the succes of ORBX airports or airfields sceneries since years in Flight simulator. It's all these characters, humans or animals walking and giving life to these sceneries.

Edited May 8 by jef32

[tripod3]

Yes, with less detail it was ok without people. Because there were many other missing elements. But with such high detail without people it looks pandemic or unfinished.

This is a common problem for geeks, who all game devs are

Edited May 8 by tripod3

[draconus]

16 hours ago, tripod3 said:

This is a common problem for geeks, who all game devs are

It's not really a problem. There are multiple reasons why we have no civilians in DCS apart from the airshow crowd static. ED doesn't want DCS to be associated with videos of dying people, that's assuming they react to weapons or can be run over by a vehicle. If not - there would be stupid crowds of invulnerable people walking into fire and explosions breaking all immersion. And the obvious one - performance. There are some statics and AI infantry to choose from - place however many you want on the map - including the cows and enjoy the life.

I'd like myself to have some civilians esp. for transport, rescue and COIN missions or just to make a challenge in avoiding casualties around targets.

[Robo76]

Think of it as a war and people prefer to hide at home. The lack of people bothers me in the Snowrunner simulator, for example, but it doesn't bother me a bit in DCS because I'm flying combat missions, not scenic flights over the countryside.

[Dragon1-1]

On 5/9/2025 at 9:25 AM, draconus said:

If not - there would be stupid crowds of invulnerable people walking into fire and explosions breaking all immersion.

In fact, that's exactly how the current civilian traffic setting works. It both helps the performance somewhat and sidesteps the issue of civilian casualties. Which is why you turn it off in ME the moment the fighting starts.

That said, it would be appropriate when you are flying scenic flights over the countryside. Intangible, invulnerable people wouldn't be a problem if you're not trying to bomb them... exactly like the current civilian traffic. I think ED should investigate adding some on foot traffic milling about, in addition to vehicles. Mission makers would just need to be aware of the limitations of that feature (just like they currently are, seeing as most force traffic off when there's fighting).

[jef32]

Draconus said:

"ED doesn't want DCS to be associated with videos of dying people, that's assuming they react to weapons or can be run over by a vehicle."

This argument is not available anymore since we have civilian official static air planes on the airport that could be targeted too. In the same manner we could have people. The war is the evil whatever it kills, civilian or soldier. If you think that ED is prudish to not take the risk to give players the capacity to kill civilian people, why do they have made official modules that are only civilian and unarmed like the Christen Eagle or the Yak-52, easy to shoot down in flammes by players ?

And in the absolute, they can make these civilians totally invicible. Like I said at the beginning of this post, it would be to give life in DCS not death. And it's a call to ED but for the free modders too to make civilian people for the community.

[Ramius007]

On 5/9/2025 at 9:25 AM, draconus said:

It's not really a problem. There are multiple reasons why we have no civilians in DCS apart from the airshow crowd static. ED doesn't want DCS to be associated with videos of dying people, that's assuming they react to weapons or can be run over by a vehicle. If not - there would be stupid crowds of invulnerable people walking into fire and explosions breaking all immersion. And the obvious one - performance. There are some statics and AI infantry to choose from - place however many you want on the map - including the cows and enjoy the life.

I'd like myself to have some civilians esp. for transport, rescue and COIN missions or just to make a challenge in avoiding casualties around targets.

So why we can have infantry units, but we cant have civilians, if ED doesn't want to be associated with videos of dying people?

[cfrag]

42 minutes ago, Ramius007 said:

So why we can have infantry units, but we cant have civilians, if ED doesn't want to be associated with videos of dying people?

One does not necessarily follow the other. Creating models costs money: you need a skeleton, animate it, synch the animation to world movement, usually also implement some (performance costly) inverse kinematics, and then skin it with usually more than one skin. Since investing into the DCS core sells very few additional models, ED does it very, very sparingly. So it's not that ED want to avoid some 'controversial' content created by an ego-obsessed a&&hole looking for clicks, I believe they merely are frugal to a fault.

I'd LOVE to see some civ skins for some of the (mil) "Personnel" static objects. Just give them some jeans, a civ jacket (similar to the air show crowd object), and I'd be happy. Just think how much better a civ medevac mission can be made if we didn't have to place that friggin G4 soldier and could instead replace it with a 'civ dude'.

Edited May 10 by cfrag

[Ramius007]

48 minutes ago, cfrag said:

One does not necessarily follow the other. Creating models costs money: you need a skeleton, animate it, synch the animation to world movement, usually also implement some (performance costly) inverse kinematics, and then skin it with usually more than one skin. Since investing into the DCS core sells very few additional models, ED does it very, very sparingly. So it's not that ED want to avoid some 'controversial' content created by an ego-obsessed a&&hole looking for clicks, I believe they merely are frugal to a fault.

I'd LOVE to see some civ skins for some of the (mil) "Personnel" static objects. Just give them some jeans, a civ jacket (similar to the air show crowd object), and I'd be happy. Just think how much better a civ medevac mission can be made if we didn't have to place that friggin G4 soldier and could instead replace it with a 'civ dude'.

I agree that performance cost is high, DCS already have traffic option, yet, even in performance friendly Caucasus map I dont use it in "heavy" missions, and it's never used on MP servers, it's just better to have more diverse combat enviroment than civilians, but IMO civilians, even with huge performance cost should be avaible as option, just becouse we already have non combat planes in DCS and more are coming, it may be just in ED interest to include civilians, just for non combat DCS part, this may bring people from other sims to DCS, "working" civilians on good looking maps would be just super cool and some people would try DCS, just to see this

[cfrag]

1 minute ago, Ramius007 said:

I agree that performance cost is high

My apologies for being obscure. Although there may be some performance hit, I do not think that this is what is keeping ED from including them. IMHO it is the financial investment into creating these. Which I think is really sad, as I agree it could make missions so much more lifelike.

[Ramius007]

15 minutes ago, cfrag said:

My apologies for being obscure. Although there may be some performance hit, I do not think that this is what is keeping ED from including them. IMHO it is the financial investment into creating these. Which I think is really sad, as I agree it could make missions so much more lifelike.

ED is very hasitant, until recently even with adding mods made by community, it's more about DCS being SP DLC oriented content, and new assets mess with this scheme, with every new asset or core mechanic change they undermine hundreads of missions they have to fix afterwards. Another reason may be not passing minimum age requirements with adding realistic effects of dying civilians, I disagree money is biggest issue, if anything, it may be lack of workforce to do it, but not really money directly, if it was simply "hire more people and do it" it would be done already IMO. Also I m preety sure we get civilian population at some point, it's just not worth it at current stage, our PC's are not strong enaugh to be worth it.

Edited May 10 by Ramius007

[cfrag]

18 minutes ago, Ramius007 said:

Another reason may be not passing minimum age requirements with adding realistic effects of dying civilians

Hmmm. Compliance wise, there is no difference between a civilian-dying and a soldier-dying animation. Humans dying may impose some age restrictions for games in some countries, and DCS is already including humans dying, so that bridge is crossed. No regulator would impose a different age restriction for a game that features killing animations for objects that wear jeans versus those that wear green or 'insurgent' uniforms.  

18 minutes ago, Ramius007 said:

I disagree money is biggest issue

It usually is the only issue in for-profit games, and DCS is a for-profit business.

18 minutes ago, Ramius007 said:

Also I m preety sure we get civilian population at some point,

I surely hope so. We already have some civ objects (cars and structures), just no civ humans. The resulting emptiness in built-up areas to me indeed is distracting. Then again, to add enough people to make a city look convincing can be a terrifyingly complex task. I'm looking at Cyberpunk 77, and even that stellar game's streets seem a bit 'empty' to me. It'll be a challenge, yes, and I hope that soon ED deign to include a few civ human objects to test the waters and allow mission creators to use them in creative ways to improve ambience and immersion. 

Edited May 10 by cfrag

[jef32]

I see some posts talking about performance. When I've begun this topic, I talk about civilians characters in the ME, not native on the maps. Everyone is free after that to use them or not in the missions he's creating and to choose his own balance between FPS and amount of details.

Edited May 10 by jef32

[Mustang]

5 hours ago, Ramius007 said:

So why we can have infantry units, but we cant have civilians, if ED doesn't want to be associated with videos of dying people?

It seems mad to me that a game that is mostly about combat and war does not want to offend anyone with non living NPCs getting in the way dying and stuff, I mean come on they are not real! nobody is getting hurt! Crazy times we live.

[Czar66]

I suggest you folks to look at games such as Cities Skylines to see how humanoid npcs on urban areas roaming around wrecks CPU times, and DCS is already pretty heavy in CPU load.

For those who pointed out cars going around like nothing happened near explosions. Real war footage will show you very close outcome. Cars usually don't pick up pace while people are freaking out in it and >usually< keep direction going. Cars are not an emotive entity. While humanoid npcs, if made with the current tech, would look and act uncanny.

One day, with proper tech, humanoid civilians would be a welcome mechanic, especially with aircraft like the Apache to avoid collateral damage, as long as it doesn't wreck havoc in how the sim performs. That also asks for a MUUUCH better soldier/military infantry systems implemented.

Edited May 10 by Czar66
grammar and stuff

[Sunbather]

A lot of weird reasoning here. Arma 3 performs worse than DCS and is constantly used for fake war footage (and just as constantly the public falls for it), yet it has civilians in it.

There is also an argument to be made that it is actually more offensive to not show civilians at all.

With new terrains like Afghanistan and a lot of modules to do COIN with (the helicopters, the A-10), having something like civilians, even if only abstracted, is a must to simulate combat digitally. I am also sure that campaign makers would find very good use for it (and already have, see e.g. the Agile Spear campaign with the rallying crowd). Combat Mission does it, Command: Modern Operations does it, Arma 3 does it --- why doesn't DCS do it?

[jef32]

Czar66 said: "I suggest you folks to look at games such as Cities Skylines to see how humanoid npcs on urban areas roaming around wrecks CPU times, and DCS is already pretty heavy in CPU load."
 

As I've said, characters in the ME. Everyone would have the choice to use them or not.

[Ironhand]

18 hours ago, jef32 said:

Czar66 said: "I suggest you folks to look at games such as Cities Skylines to see how humanoid npcs on urban areas roaming around wrecks CPU times, and DCS is already pretty heavy in CPU load."
 

As I've said, characters in the ME. Everyone would have the choice to use them or not.

While I like the idea itself, I can already see what’ll happen. Folks will load up missions with “people” in the interest of “realism”. Game fps will slow to a crawl. Folks will then complain and demand a fix. What, exactly, is the upside for ED?

[EricJ]

Another game has a way of including civilian, military, etc, NPCs into the game, as well as a setting to prevent it from being activated by players unless they're in the zone where it activates. I mean the game is old, and it doesn't affect FPS too much, it still puts a load, hence them activating unless you get a certain distance from the zone. So no, as people have said, DCS is a bit on the CPU as it is, and could you imagine all those cities (or just one) spawning a lot of civvies or troops? Not worth the effort. And as mentioned above, it's just not worth the CPU hit to render all those people. Great for immersion, yes, but not worth the pain it'll cause.

[jef32]

Ironhand

I don't see any difference for FPS between loading a mission with civilians and a mission with soldiers. And most of civilians can only be statics, only for the visual but soldiers in a mission could have a role to play. And the triggers to stop moving characters when they're out the player sight can be used too, to not overloading the RAM ou V-Ram.

[cfrag]

2 hours ago, jef32 said:

I don't see any difference for FPS between loading a mission with civilians and a mission with soldiers.

Agreed. The issue comes with numbers. Let's say we are using low-quality human models, with only 5k tris/3k verts per model, and pre-arranged poses (i.e. they do not move at all, are static). So, how many of these objects to populate a village? Let's say 50. So we add 250k polys (tris) to the scene. No sweat, even with shading, texturing, perhaps even some transparency you are fine.

How many of these ultra-low quality models to populate a very small city? Say 500. How many small cities in your visual range? Maybe 10. 

We should still be OK-ish (2.5M tris added to each frame - not all drawn, but all transformed each frame)

Now, how many of of these models would you need to put some semblance of life (none 'end of world' desert) into a city like Beirut, Adana or Tel Aviv on the Syria map? Adana is some 2000 square kilometres, and we put, say 10 people per sqKm (in reality its about 160 people/sqKm). So you need 20'000 models just for a mostly empty Adana, with the other population centers still requiring population as well (20k people at 5k tris = 100M tris).

That will put a dampener on your GPU. Worse in VR. Without any tangible benefit (10 ppl per sqKm still looks reaaaaaally empty)

So, it'll hopefully be small fry for the GPUs of the future. Right now, they'll drown.

[jef32]

You kwow that at the beginning of the post, I spoke about camping everywhere on Germany map. Sure, I admit that if you want to populate the Berlin's street, you risk to overload the gpu. But look everywhere on Germany map, you will see many campings based on the same model with a little lake, some tents and caravans, some vehicles and two hot balloons. All the life, except characters and I wanted characters to populate these places if I fly near them. On Gemany map, you have plenty of OTAN radar stations or russian military stations too and we have in the ME, all the military humans we need for use with. I just wish the same for all these civil little places, in the same manner. Of course, you will not put characters near a corner of the map, if you decide to fly on the opposite corner.

[draconus]

11 hours ago, cfrag said:

So you need 20'000 models just for a mostly empty Adana, with the other population centers still requiring population as well (20k people at 5k tris = 100M tris).

Yeah, just ignore LODs and draw distance to prove your point. Let me remind rocks and bushes that disappear from 200m in DCS.