Ground vehicles... WHY?

[DerRedMax]

1) Why no head lights or brake lights on vehicles? (Its a simulation) at night people drive with their lights on. Not every vehicle has night vision and tanks do have headlights. (easy fix)

2) Why aren't there more realistic tank explosions? for example Russian tank turrets popping there tops or catastrophic explosions when their ammo cooks off. Or vehicles that don't explode or burn but are disabled. Not everything has to explode. Tanks loosing their tracks and are immobile but can still fire their weapons. These should be also be easy. 

3) Realistic ship sinking times. It can take hours for a ship to sink depending how fast water is flowing into the hull.

(The Russian cruiser Moskva was struck by Ukrainian missiles on the evening of April 13, 2022, and sank in the early morning of April 14, 2022, approximately six to ten hours later. The cruiser, hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles, experienced a fire and ammunition explosions, leading to its capsizing and eventual sinking while being towed.)

4) Why when a column of vehicles falls under attack the ENTIRE group instantly make 90 degree turns and then park themselves out in the open so they are easy prey.

(Something more realistic would be... if I'm driving at the front of a column, and the back of the column is attacked, I might not be aware. So I would just keep driving as nothing had happened. If I became aware I would speed up, making evasive maneuvers, seek cover behind builds or under trees. Why wouldn't people be jumping out of the vehicle, running for cover and opening up with small arms fire at incoming aircraft?)

Sorry, but in DCS World, the AI sucks.

These are some things that are completely stupid and should have already been resolved.

[draconus]

1. Lights would be a nice option - best to be controlled by ME or a driving player, because some vehicles don't use lights to keep them hidden in the dark or use special faint low level lights when moving. Some vehicles do use lights at night in DCS. Check LAV Tigr and M92 assets. Braking lights is a detail I didn't check.

2. DM of ground assets is very simple and there are some far future plans to improve it. Some small steps are being made though with newer assets.

3. I think it's done for the game purpose of triggering the kill faster. Since the DM is simple it'd have to be randomized.

4. Reaction to threat is controllable in ME and the vehicles go back on track after a while. Can't remember if you can set the time they get back on track. The ground vehicles crew is not simulated at all. After losing enough % of HP the unit starts smoking, drives slower, then stop and eventually stop firing too (can't remember which of the last two happens first) before the final kill and exploding.

On 8/30/2025 at 1:15 AM, DerRedMax said:

Sorry, but in DCS World, the AI sucks.

You're expecting too much from a flight simulator. Some of it would require a lot of work and additional computing power during gameplay. It's a good wish though to have more realistic AI, ground vehicles behavior and damage models

[Kang]

5 hours ago, draconus said:

You're expecting too much from a flight simulator. Some of it would require a lot of work and additional computing power during gameplay. It's a good wish though to have more realistic AI, ground vehicles behavior and damage models

I don't entirely agree on that. Would having them find a realistic reaction to every threat at all times with utilizing their specific column make-up, current immediate objectives and surrounding terrain be too much to expect here? Certainly, absolutely.

Would it be computationally expensive to have a few more patterns available that could either be selected for a unit in ME or maybe even selected on a limited set of circumstances like 'road travel', 'road travel in urban area', 'off road travel' and 'engaged or stationary'? The first case of affairs, absolutely doable, not a big problem. The second option, probably a bit of work, but definitely feasible as well.

[dmatsch]

On 9/1/2025 at 3:58 AM, draconus said:

You're expecting too much from a flight simulator. Some of it would require a lot of work and additional computing power during gameplay. It's a good wish though to have more realistic AI, ground vehicles behavior and damage models

DCS.  Digital Combat Simulator.  It's been the title of the game for more than a decade.  Unfortunately, book titles are deceiving...

[upyr1]

On 9/2/2025 at 10:43 AM, dmatsch said:

DCS.  Digital Combat Simulator.  It's been the title of the game for more than a decade.  Unfortunately, book titles are deceiving...

I thought it was Desert Cockpit simulator

[Tom P]

Because they rather add some function to a hornet or viper MFD that most won't know is there. The ground combat will always be on the back burner even though air units are the ones supporting the ground. 

[Kappa-06MHR]

On 8/30/2025 at 1:15 AM, DerRedMax said:

1) Why no head lights or brake lights on vehicles? (Its a simulation) at night people drive with their lights on. Not every vehicle has night vision and tanks do have headlights. (easy fix)

Regarding headlights, the problem is more complicated than that:
In a war zone, an armored column traveling at night will primarily use NVG or infrared devices to avoid turning on their headlights, which would make them visible from miles away, especially when faced with aerial reconnaissance vehicles (drones, helicopters, planes, etc.). It is therefore normal for columns to travel with their lights off on DCS.

Outside a war zone, however, they would turn on their headlights normally.
Also, it might be more interesting if ED added an adjustable "Lights on at night" option: true/false (default: false).

Regarding brake lights, I believe some vehicles have them (but probably not all models). However, I find that this is clearly not a priority for ED; I would still prefer if they added many new units.

 

On 8/30/2025 at 1:15 AM, DerRedMax said:

2) Why aren't there more realistic tank explosions? for example Russian tank turrets popping there tops or catastrophic explosions when their ammo cooks off. Or vehicles that don't explode or burn but are disabled. Not everything has to explode. Tanks loosing their tracks and are immobile but can still fire their weapons. These should be also be easy. 

At ED, you have a model with 2 animations: "intact" and "destroyed". The explosion allows you to make this transition between the 2 animations (this hides the texture change)

 

On 8/30/2025 at 1:15 AM, DerRedMax said:

3) Realistic ship sinking times. It can take hours for a ship to sink depending how fast water is flowing into the hull.

(The Russian cruiser Moskva was struck by Ukrainian missiles on the evening of April 13, 2022, and sank in the early morning of April 14, 2022, approximately six to ten hours later. The cruiser, hit by two Neptune anti-ship missiles, experienced a fire and ammunition explosions, leading to its capsizing and eventual sinking while being towed.)

A ship can sink in 10 hours. A ship can sink in 2 hours. A ship can sink in 18 minutes, like the Lusitania. By convention, in most video games, when a ship is destroyed, it sinks in 1 minute. It's true that it might be interesting to extend this duration of the sinking for rescue operations, for example.
Perhaps add a slider option to define the sinking time? Or something relative to the damage ?

 

On 8/30/2025 at 1:15 AM, DerRedMax said:

4) Why when a column of vehicles falls under attack the ENTIRE group instantly make 90 degree turns and then park themselves out in the open so they are easy prey.

We can already adjust that. There's an option to adjust the dispersion time during an attack.
Personally, I often set the dispersion time to 3 seconds, so it looks like everyone is swerving (panic), then pulling themselves together and continuing on the road without stopping.