What's needed to perform CSAR

[RacoonE69]

It would mean having pilots who can be deployed on the ground (not soldiers). They would have the mobility to schedule their movements based on the arrival of friends, or to hide if enemies arrive. And also, if there's an ejection over water, the pilot would survive and land on a raft.
In both cases, it would be possible to board a rescue helicopter and disembark at a friendly base.
Mission accomplished.
So that others can live.

 

Oh DCS genie, grant my wishes  

[Kang]

Seeing how animated models of pilots have existed in DCS for over a decade one would think that adding it as a placeable unit should not be exactly a Herculean task, but then I have lost count of how often I have suggested doing so. Even ED couldn't come up with a convoluted excuse of why that would be impossible, so they have chosen to ignore it. My hopes are dim at this point.

[BIGNEWY]

8 hours ago, RacoonE69 said:

It would mean having pilots who can be deployed on the ground (not soldiers). They would have the mobility to schedule their movements based on the arrival of friends, or to hide if enemies arrive. And also, if there's an ejection over water, the pilot would survive and land on a raft.
In both cases, it would be possible to board a rescue helicopter and disembark at a friendly base.
Mission accomplished.
So that others can live.

 

Oh DCS genie, grant my wishes  

CSAR is something we have on our wish list to do, we would like more taskings for helo pilots, its something for the future. 

2 minutes ago, Kang said:

Seeing how animated models of pilots have existed in DCS for over a decade one would think that adding it as a placeable unit should not be exactly a Herculean task, but then I have lost count of how often I have suggested doing so. Even ED couldn't come up with a convoluted excuse of why that would be impossible, so they have chosen to ignore it. My hopes are dim at this point.

Its not we are ignoring it, we just have much higher priority issues and tasks ahead of it. 

[Kang]

2 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Its not we are ignoring it, we just have much higher priority issues and tasks ahead of it. 

That's fair. It's probably also pretty deep down into the large pile of things suffering that fate.

[BIGNEWY]

Just now, Kang said:

That's fair. It's probably also pretty deep down into the large pile of things suffering that fate.

It is the nature of the beast, we have lots of things on the go and want to do more, but we only have so many devs and so much time in the day. We continue to develop and bring new things to DCS, it has come a long way in what is well over 16 years now. 

thank you 

[upyr1]

4 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

CSAR is something we have on our wish list to do, we would like more taskings for helo pilots, its something for the future. 

It will be awsome to see. At least as far as the US is concerned, we might not have the right version (Corsair II) but we have the A-10 and every other Sandy in the works. 

Edited Thursday at 02:55 PM by upyr1

[Silver_Dragon]

4 hours ago, Kang said:

Seeing how animated models of pilots have existed in DCS for over a decade one would think that adding it as a placeable unit should not be exactly a Herculean task, but then I have lost count of how often I have suggested doing so. Even ED couldn't come up with a convoluted excuse of why that would be impossible, so they have chosen to ignore it. My hopes are dim at this point.

That pilot model coming from the Lomac / FC times, on fact, ED need use the future "infantry animatios" to bet more plausible use to a pilot to move and "survive" on the DCS W environment. The problem, what funtionality require a pilot to make a CSAR mission.

[Nodak]

More to it if you want to do it proper, like enemy units that respond in kind and shift to anti-recovery of pilot mode, where they begin to envelope and surround the pilot building up air defenses.  That makes time essential and it becomes a race to recover any pilot.

[cfrag]

13 hours ago, RacoonE69 said:

It would mean having pilots who can be deployed on the ground (not soldiers). They would have the mobility to schedule their movements based on the arrival of friends, or to hide if enemies arrive.

Hmmm. It could be advantageous to think this further through... The CSAR pilot side of this indeed is interesting, and a CSAR mission to evacuate someone can be a great mission.

Being the evacuee, though - not so much. You essentially sit around, and wait - say 40 minutes for the rescue helo(s) to arrive (tbh, 40 minutes is unrealistically short). You then get on board, and sit around for another 40 minutes while the helo is RTBing. You may want to pick up a hobby like watching paint dry to train for those missions. Also, the FPS aspect of DCS is quite underdeveloped, and I think it will stay that way for a long time. So you are likely to sit around in really bad scenery for 40 minutes to be picked up and shipped home. Oh, and if present-day enemy DCS AI spots you (a Soldier AK), they are likely to snipe you from 1 mile away. Good times.

[Silver_Dragon]

The only way for the AI to hunt down a downed player could come from the dynamic campaign, but as mentioned, this is something we've never seen in DCS World so far, and we'd be talking about ED putting forces in the rear to patrol areas.

If they have to "capture" a downed pilot, they'll have to get within firing range at least, to deploy some sort of infantry squad (something we don't have either). It seems to me like we're touching on issues that go beyond the scope of what DCS World is all about.

It's like a CSAR mission should be recreated.
* How do the rescue forces detect the pilot? (They should have a radio with a beacon installed.)
* Does the pilot's radio have a frequency or frequencies that the enemy can't detect? (We're not just talking about encrypted radios, but also whether the enemy has EW equipment that can track them.)
* How can the pilot defend himself from forces hunting him down? (Maybe we're talking about something like an FPS.)
* How can the pilot hide from enemy forces in the meantime?
* How do you pick up a pilot in a "hot" zone? (ropes, hooks, ladders.)
There are many points to discuss.

[draconus]

20 hours ago, cfrag said:

Oh, and if present-day enemy DCS AI spots you (a Soldier AK), they are likely to snipe you from 1 mile away. Good times.

Oh, and if you survive, you are the CSAR pilot who needs CSAR, good time

 

I'm proponent of small first steps. If things are well received devs can improve on it if time allows.

First steps are minimalistic:

1. add raft for pilots that had one equipped IRL (or add ME option)

2. add some way of location (radio beacon, signal flare, light, sea dye marker) and contact (radio with option to call for CSAR)

3. make ejected pilot as object visible for others (MP too) and AI, vulnerable to fire and explosions

4. add AI task CSAR to fly, land and pickup you or other AI pilot

5. add faster movement option for downed pilots

Now get to da choppa!

[upyr1]

9 hours ago, draconus said:

Oh, and if you survive, you are the CSAR pilot who needs CSAR, good time

 

I'm proponent of small first steps. If things are well received devs can improve on it if time allows.

First steps are minimalistic:

1. add raft for pilots that had one equipped IRL (or add ME option)

2. add some way of location (radio beacon, signal flare, light, sea dye marker) and contact (radio with option to call for CSAR)

3. make ejected pilot as object visible for others (MP too) and AI, vulnerable to fire and explosions

4. add AI task CSAR to fly, land and pickup you or other AI pilot

5. add faster movement option for downed pilots

Now get to da choppa!

I'd also have downed pilots climb aboard helicopters and for missioin builders a CSAR escort for attack planes 

[RacoonE69]

En 11/7/2025 a las 7:49, draconus dijo:

 

1. add raft for pilots that had one equipped IRL (or add ME option)

2. add some way of location (radio beacon, signal flare, light, sea dye marker) and contact (radio with option to call for CSAR)

3. make ejected pilot as object visible for others (MP too) and AI, vulnerable to fire and explosions

4. add AI task CSAR to fly, land and pickup you or other AI pilot

5. add faster movement option for downed pilots

Now get to da choppa!

 

En 11/7/2025 a las 16:54, upyr1 dijo:

I'd also have downed pilots climb aboard helicopters and for missioin builders a CSAR escort for attack planes 

I agree with something simpler, at least to start with.
The first thing is to have animated pilot figures, independent of the ones mounted on aircraft, so we can stage missions with the pilot already down. Smoke, flares, and other effects can be programmed when designing a mission.

Then, the aforementioned could be implemented, which would be ideal.

En 10/7/2025 a las 6:16, BIGNEWY dijo:

CSAR is something we have on our wish list to do, we would like more taskings for helo pilots, its something for the future. 

Its not we are ignoring it, we just have much higher priority issues and tasks ahead of it. 

I believe you. It's not a requirement; we're conscious consumers. But since this is the wishing well...