We need a bit more "life" in DCS

[ex81]

DCS desperately needs lots of civilian characters. It's extremely boring when streets and squares look like scenes from Omega Man or I'm Legend. The characters don't have to be animated either. The main thing is that it looks like “life”. Please make something like this possible.

[draconus]

Common cons are ED unwillingness to portray killing people and performance. The former can be mitigated by making them invulnerable but it'll look stupid though. Maybe disappearing could work better? Performance can be achieved by good LODs of models and short visible range of drawing. All maps would have to add paths for their movement and placement just like for the cars and trains.

[ex81]

26 minutes ago, draconus said:

Common cons are ED unwillingness to portray killing people and performance. The former can be mitigated by making them invulnerable but it'll look stupid though. Maybe disappearing could work better? Performance can be achieved by good LODs of models and short visible range of drawing. All maps would have to add paths for their movement and placement just like for the cars and trains.

Anyhow, it seems a must for me. Without "Life", it looks unreal. And simply disappearing would be ok. On the other hand we see soldiers lying in the gras, so what`s the differenz ?

[draconus]

4 minutes ago, ex81 said:

On the other hand we see soldiers lying in the gras, so what`s the differenz ?

That it's a soldier, not civilian.

[ex81]

not a convincing argument. If you don`t place civilins near a target, they will not "lying in the gras".

[upyr1]

15 hours ago, ex81 said:

DCS desperately needs lots of civilian characters. It's extremely boring when streets and squares look like scenes from Omega Man or I'm Legend. The characters don't have to be animated either. The main thing is that it looks like “life”. Please make something like this possible.

We do have civilian vehicles, which I think is the best we can do without some improvements to the ground environment. I can see some scenarios which would be imporved civilians. For example, in a COIN mission, you might have a mission to evacuate 

[Dangerzone]

I’d like to feel more life like there’sa world out there, and not just an individual mission I’m doing. Another old sim apparently did this well, making it feel like their was a bigger battle. I’m really hoping that ED have found a way to capture that same immersion with their DCE. That the DCE won’t just be like the quick generator but ongoing… but will be more like a full battle that we play a small part in a larger picture, with our success or failure having an impact on the bigger picture. 

As for civilian movement, well-with issues still with parthing off ground units in some roads, and performance issues, and trains, I don’t think there’d be much success adding civilian stuff on top until they get that bedded down and fully stable first. 

Edited June 18 by Dangerzone

[dmatsch]

I would like to see at least some statics at each airport to make it feel less empty and more like an active airport/airbase.  Ideally we would have built-in RAT for a populated airspace.

Rudel_Chw created a bunch of static templates a few years ago, but most aren't working anymore and corrupt missions.  It would be nice if ED had something like that for each map and timeframe.

[Exorcet]

Adding background activity by area would be really nice. We do have civilian traffic already, but it's a bit weird when it decides to keep driving through a chain of Mk84 explosions. Having it be disabled within a radius of combat activity would make it look a bit more authentic. X-Plane also randomly spawns police vehicles with flashing lights that move faster than normal traffic. These are pretty visible from aircraft and could be a nice touch in DCS.

Powergrids having an effect on lighting, or the ability to enforce black outs would be another nice feature. Hit a powerplant, nearby city goes dark. Maybe a few lights come back on with backup power.

Civilian air units need an expansion and it would be nice to have some kind of optional automated civil traffic.

[diego999]

2 hours ago, Exorcet said:

Adding background activity by area would be really nice. We do have civilian traffic already, but it's a bit weird when it decides to keep driving through a chain of Mk84 explosions. Having it be disabled within a radius of combat activity would make it look a bit more authentic. X-Plane also randomly spawns police vehicles with flashing lights that move faster than normal traffic. These are pretty visible from aircraft and could be a nice touch in DCS.

Powergrids having an effect on lighting, or the ability to enforce black outs would be another nice feature. Hit a powerplant, nearby city goes dark. Maybe a few lights come back on with backup power.

Civilian air units need an expansion and it would be nice to have some kind of optional automated civil traffic.

 

Your ideas sound really nice.

 

[Tom P]

I always enjoy the random car going mach Jesus throughout the towns. But I agree having some decent modeled non combatant civilians would be nice, especially for us who are low and slow. Compared to the dude trying to plink from 30k. Would change the dynamic for mission builders having a target area mixed with civilians and baddies. Instead of players just nuking an area.

But also including a simple path finding algorithm so you wouldn't need to set their routes. Which would help mission performance. Or just have map makers already populate them in the urban areas. 

I Wouldn't mind some civilian general aviation stuff as that's inhouse and not a mod. I run a random air traffic script to simulate air traffic outside of combat zones to help bring some "life" to the missions. 

[Exorcet]

On the subject of air traffic though, we might also want some tweaks to coalitions and the identification of units. If I recall the last time I tried to add neutral aircraft to a mission, AWACS insisted that they were hostile. It seems like the logic used is "if it's not on my team it's the enemy" which creates all sorts of problems. Not sure if this has changed as after that I kept neutral units to a minimum.

[Northstar98]

2 minutes ago, Exorcet said:

On the subject of air traffic though, we might also want some tweaks to coalitions and the identification of units. If I recall the last time I tried to add neutral aircraft to a mission, AWACS insisted that they were hostile. It seems like the logic used is "if it's not on my team it's the enemy" which creates all sorts of problems. Not sure if this has changed as after that I kept neutral units to a minimum.

Definitely - ideally we'd be able to add sides at will like Command Modern Operations - a civilian "side" though is definitely a requirement for this. As well as tweaks to how units are identified (AI does it magically, as does ED's NCTR implementation, at least in the Hornet - a neutral MiG-21 will remain an unknown, a hostile MiG-21 will be determined as hostile).

Jester also does this in the F-4, not only does he often assume non-response always = hostile, in some cases he'll even call out friendlies (even friendlies that are providing positive response) as hostiles. 

[ex81]

Aftre all those arguments, let`s hope ED is listening !

[Doughguy]

Massive hit on Performance it would be.