Replay Track Broken

[T.Power]

It's completely kaputski, the Spit is wobbling and the enemy is behind me instead of in front, not seeing anything this bad on other modules.

[SirWoofer]

Replays have been broken since I can remember.  When you play the replay, the AI is live in the replay which means it may or may not make the same flight path decisions as when you flew the original mission. It's gotten better over the years, but it is still broken.

[LeCuvier]

I remember a time when tracks were working. Can't tell how many years ago, must be a long time.

[Doughguy]

atm they seem to work fine since a few updates.

there might be an oddshot here and there now.

retry with a new track  @T.Power

[BarTzi]

1 hour ago, Doughguy said:

atm they seem to work fine since a few updates.

there might be an oddshot here and there now.

retry with a new track  @T.Power

They won't work correctly, ever. They are not made to replay the exact sequence of events in a mission.

Edited Saturday at 10:47 PM by BarTzi

[LeCuvier]

11 hours ago, Doughguy said:

atm they seem to work fine since a few updates.

there might be an oddshot here and there now.

retry with a new track  @T.Power

Cannot confirm. Tried again yesterday with a dogfight I won. After a few turn "I" started firing into the blue sky, and very soon the bandit was behind me and killed me.

[Doughguy]

So far my tracks are working fine. All i can say.

[BarTzi]

17 hours ago, Doughguy said:

So far my tracks are working fine. All i can say.

Tracks are, by definition, not an accurate recreation of the mission. Why? It's because when you play a track you run the mission again with your controller inputs. It means everything that is statistical or random (AI behaviours, flare effectiveness, the effectiveness of evasive manoeuvres, the point in time in which AI shoots at you) is calculated again. Your controller input was recorded in the original mission, which means it does no longer apply to the replay, as it's a completely new mission running again. For example: let's say that at some point in time in the mission you get shot at, and try to avoid getting hit. In the track, nothing guarantees that you will be shot at, since the AI treats it as a completely new mission (yes- your inputs will still be the same as the original mission) . The AI might shoot at you a second earlier, a second later or never shoot you at all, which makes whatever attempt you make to avoid futile. 

There was never a point in which an air to air engagement track (vs AI) for example, worked fine. Some people claim that the server's track is more accurate, but I beg to differ. 

It might be called a replay in the main menu, but it was made to reproduce bugs in a controlled environment (short tracks, recorded in SP, to be sent to the devs). 

 

Edited Monday at 12:43 PM by BarTzi

[Doughguy]

On 9/1/2025 at 12:16 PM, BarTzi said:

Tracks are, by definition, not an accurate recreation of the mission. Why? It's because when you play a track you run the mission again with your controller inputs. It means everything that is statistical or random (AI behaviours, flare effectiveness, the effectiveness of evasive manoeuvres, the point in time in which AI shoots at you) is calculated again. Your controller input was recorded in the original mission, which means it does no longer apply to the replay, as it's a completely new mission running again. For example: let's say that at some point in time in the mission you get shot at, and try to avoid getting hit. In the track, nothing guarantees that you will be shot at, since the AI treats it as a completely new mission (yes- your inputs will still be the same as the original mission) . The AI might shoot at you a second earlier, a second later or never shoot you at all, which makes whatever attempt you make to avoid futile. 

There was never a point in which an air to air engagement track (vs AI) for example, worked fine. Some people claim that the server's track is more accurate, but I beg to differ. 

It might be called a replay in the main menu, but it was made to reproduce bugs in a controlled environment (short tracks, recorded in SP, to be sent to the devs). 

 

Well thanks for telling me everything i know already.

What part of "the tracks work for me" do people not get?

https://www.youtube.com/@oinkpoink

All of my videos here were recorded off from track replays.... And the only thing in those videos that was off is the Corsair not leaking fuel / vapour.
Hits still took place where they happend, explosions where they took place, planes crashed where they crashed, rolls yaws etc... all fine.

 

[Gunfreak]

Download dedicated server and run missions from tjere. The tracks still breaks, but they work 80%, 80% of the time. You'll need to set off another 200+ gigs to run the dedicated server.

[Czar]

The replay system is being overhauled by ED (see newsletters).

The system seems to have been made with SFM in mind. Today DCS is much more complex than it was when tracks were reliable.

12 hours ago, Doughguy said:

Well thanks for telling me everything i know already.

What part of "the tracks work for me" do people not get?

Tracks can still easily break. I'm currently working on a Warthog video that although having a simple mission, the track breaks continuity midway the mission on a 'area track' to 'point track' while being played 2 times now.

Modules as the Viper and Hornet are much easier on tracks. The Tomcat frequently breaks tracks very easily (not talking about the jester menu bug on tracks).

I've done full mission replays being successful from beginning to the end for more than 1h long, others break in 30 minutes time.

As ED pointed out, the replay function is not 100% reliable as they are overhauling it. It should serve mainly as a debug feature.

It is not a new thing. Tracks used to break back in 2014 too.

Edited 21 hours ago by Czar
Corrected statement to assumption tone on the 2nd line. Because idk.

[Art-J]

It seems track reliability is also dependent on one's hardware (mostly peripherals). Thus, the same track can work OK for some guys and be useless for others even when recorded and played in the same DCS version.

[Doughguy]

21 hours ago, Gunfreak said:

Download dedicated server and run missions from tjere. The tracks still breaks, but they work 80%, 80% of the time. You'll need to set off another 200+ gigs to run the dedicated server.

My tracks are off Project Overlord.

[buceador]

12 hours ago, Czar said:

Modules as the Viper and Hornet are much easier on tracks.

This is an important point, all my YouTube videos use the DCS track as a base and I noticed a long time ago that certain modules behave better than others in a track recording. as a broad brush, A2A combat is less certain than A2G, the more units in play the more margin for error, speeding up the track seems to create more errors, better hardware i.e. CPU / GPU / memory all had a positive effect on my track replays but as everyone has said, if you end up in front of a grand jury judge do not rely on your DCS track as evidence to save you! 

[OLD CROW]

But some of the moderators/producers of this forum, even today and after everything that has been seen and said about the bugs of DCS “track files,” insist on using it as an excuse to dismiss certain bug reports—because for ED these are the elephants in the room (some problems have been around for so long in the game that the people responsible have grown so attached to them that they’re now incapable of killing the beast/bug).

Needless to say, the method of having to come to the forum, make a report that’s open to discussion, seems absurd to me—because in 100% of cases, the first response always comes from a non-official “someone.” Then, after some time, a moderator shows up in that thread, usually 2 or 3 months later, and the most sensible thing they can think of is to ask you to create a short “track file” (as short as their reasoning) so they can start analyzing issues that have been reported here for many years.

All this tells us is that they don’t feel like spending resources to fix certain bugs/problems/elephants. So the moderators/producers dedicate themselves to diluting problems: someone posts a report in the forum; outsiders jump in to say the OP is wrong, doesn’t know what they’re talking about, or hasn’t provided enough technical data to justify their complaint. Three months later, the producer in question asks for “proof” based on a corrupted file that’s completely useless. Some OPs waste their time generating that proof and attaching it to the thread. Another three months later—or maybe not—the producer gives an explanation in which, 99% of the time, they say they were unable to reproduce the OP’s error. And so the report sinks to the bottom of the programmers’ priority queue—in other words, it was never a high priority, but they never outright say no, they just completely ignore it, because for them it’s a problem they don’t want to face.

[BIGNEWY]

I use track replays all day every day reproducing issues and reporting them, as we have mentioned many times the replay system was initially a debug system and DCS has developed a lot over the last 16 years +. Our devs use the track replay system, our video producers do also, would they like to see improvement? for sure, we all do. 

We plan to redo the track replay system but it wont happen until we have free dev time, all teams are busy with current core projects. I think some of you forget we are not a massive studio compared to other companies, we do not have infinite resources. 

thank you 

[T.Power]

With all due respect BN, calling that a solution when you're basically telling us to go pound sand is a bit of a stretch.

[BIGNEWY]

5 minutes ago, T.Power said:

With all due respect BN, calling that a solution when you're basically telling us to go pound sand is a bit of a stretch.

Its the only answer I have for you, the track replay system needs to be redone, its something for the future but I do not know when. 

 

I will add however that if you want to add a track replay showing the Spitfire issue we will show it to the team. 

 

thank you 

[buceador]

4 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

We plan to redo the track replay system

Big job given the age of the base code but something to look forward to 

[BIGNEWY]

14 minutes ago, buceador said:

Big job given the age of the base code but something to look forward to 

Yes it will be another huge task.