Campaign questions

[Poacher886]

Hi,

Im no stranger to flight sims, infact it was F19 Stealth fighter on the Amiga all those years back that got me hooked, closely followed by EF2000 (Eurofighter) for my first "propper" PC, however; EF2000 was my last "Modern" flight sim, where getting hooked on stratergy games and both the IL2 / Silent hunter series wooed me away...till now!

 

After seeing the undeniably beautiful screen shots posted on the IL2 forum, it has sparked a flicker of excitment about modern aircraft again, and its great to see the once god of computer gaming "The sim" is still alive and kicking, and being done with DX11 to boot!!

 

Anyway, i've skimmed the details about the sim, but it has left me with some questions concerning what to me is the most important part of it...the campaign.

 

See; I have little interest in creating a mission, (which takes the suprise out of it anyway), flying it, landing, then rinse and repeat...... I like to feel, im in a dynamic conflict, and making a difference, i like to feel my actions (along with others) are having an effect on the enemy, I like to know, that if i destroy a signicant SAM sight, that it won't re-appear the next day.

 

I like to be given my mission, and be allowed to kit my aircraft out for the given mission as i see fit...and decide on how i will tackle this mission and from which direction.

 

I like to feel like a 'real' pilot, based at which ever airbase carring out his daily duty's / missions as ordered, smirking at the destroyed carcus of a tank i destroyed a week ago as i fly over its remains!! you get the picture.

 

So, finally to my questions....Is the campaign dynamic?, over what time period does the conflict last?, are there a set amount of missions, or does it continue till your dead or old?, are the missions randomly generated or will they always be the same?

 

Whats this i read about controlling ground forces..is this a straergy game aswell!!, do the Enemy AI have an agender, apart form providing targets for you?, can your airbases be over-run by the enemy forcing an airbase change?

 

Can the conflict be one and lost? Does it playout differently each time?, does destroying enemy fighters/run-ways/tanks ect actually effect the conflict at all?

 

Can you kit your own aircraft out before missions?,Does a sucessful enemy, start limiting your forces both in air and land.

 

I could go on, but i guess, this is enough to tell me if i'll be buying or not ....i do hope it has alot of what im interested in because im quite excited about a return to technology.

 

Thanks for yor answers

[Yellonet]

Welcome!

 

Ah yes... to dynamically campaign or not to dynamically campaign, that is the question

 

Hi,

Im no stranger to flight sims, infact it was F19 Stealth fighter on the Amiga all those years back that got me hooked, closely followed by EF2000 (Eurofighter) for my first "propper" PC, however; EF2000 was my last "Modern" flight sim, where getting hooked on stratergy games and both the IL2 / Silent hunter series wooed me away...till now!

 

After seeing the undeniably beautiful screen shots posted on the IL2 forum, it has sparked a flicker of excitment about modern aircraft again, and its great to see the once god of computer gaming "The sim" is still alive and kicking, and being done with DX11 to boot!!

 

Anyway, i've skimmed the details about the sim, but it has left me with some questions concerning what to me is the most important part of it...the campaign.

 

See; I have little interest in creating a mission, (which takes the suprise out of it anyway), flying it, landing, then rinse and repeat...... I like to feel, im in a dynamic conflict, and making a difference, i like to feel my actions (along with others) are having an effect on the enemy, I like to know, that if i destroy a signicant SAM sight, that it won't re-appear the next day.

 

You don't have to create missions if you don't want to, there's a bunch coming with the game and there's plenty of other people making missions that you can fly.

 

I like to be given my mission' date=' and be allowed to kit my aircraft out for the given mission as i see fit...and decide on how i will tackle this mission and from which direction.[/quote']

 

If this is possible or not is up to the mission maker.

 

I like to feel like a 'real' pilot' date=' based at which ever airbase carring out his daily duty's / missions as ordered, smirking at the destroyed carcus of a tank i destroyed a week ago as i fly over its remains!! you get the picture.[/quote']

 

Not sure if this is possible...

 

"So' date=' finally to my questions....Is the campaign dynamic?, over what time period does the conflict last?, are there a set amount of missions, or does it continue till your dead or old?, are the missions randomly generated or will they always be the same?[/quote']

 

No dynamic campaign yet. However, missions doesn't have to be the same every time, this depends on how many random elements and triggers that are used by the mission creator.

For DCS: BS there's a campaign which can take different routes depending on mission outcome, so it won't play exactly the same all the time.

I think this is how the A-10C campaigns will work too.

 

Whats this i read about controlling ground forces..is this a straergy game aswell!!' date='[/quote']

 

Sounds like someone's wishful thinking. But after reading some I guess it will be possible... hmm... what?!?

 

do the Enemy AI have an agender' date=' apart form providing targets for you?, can your airbases be over-run by the enemy forcing an airbase change?[/quote']

 

Dynamically no, but such a thing could be designed by the mission maker.

 

Can the conflict be one and lost? Does it playout differently each time?, does destroying enemy fighters/run-ways/tanks ect actually effect the conflict at all?

 

Can you kit your own aircraft out before missions?,Does a sucessful enemy, start limiting your forces both in air and land.

 

I could go on, but i guess, this is enough to tell me if i'll be buying or not ....i do hope it has alot of what im interested in because im quite excited about a return to technology.

 

Thanks for yor answers

 

It won't be dynamic, but it can be made to work like this, I think.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Yellonet

[Sticky]

Edit: Removed since yellonet changed his original one sentence reply to a more complete reply.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Sticky

[AlphaOneSix]

Is the campaign dynamic?

No.

Can you kit your own aircraft out before missions?

Yes.

[Poacher886]

Thanks, what about the rest?

[Sticky]

Edit: Removed since yellonet changed his original one sentence reply to a more complete reply.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Sticky

[EtherealN]

DCS: A-10C Warthog does have a mission generator. It's not a "dynamic campaign", but it is a (powerful) facility for those that have done all the missions and campaigns included and don't want to make their own.

 

Airbases being threatened and taken by the enemy (or by you) was included as early as FC2. This does also create some very interesting possibilities for online play that has been capitalized on by some servers.

 

The thing with campaigns is that there are hooks and methods for campaign and mission creators to do anything from a completely linear campaign to something that practically looks like a dynamic campaign. (Hint there: many of the "dynamic campaigns" of the past were not actually dynamic at all, just cleverly engineered.)

[Poacher886]

Thanks, guy's im still interested!

 

Even if the the campaign missions are linear but based on 'triggers' in the game and personell performance would probably survice...i just dont like to feel im playing a sim that runs on rails.

 

If you recieved the same missions twice for instance, would that Mig always appear at the same mountain pass etc, or does your actions change the 'In-mission' occurences?

 

Thanks

[Yellonet]

Thanks, guy's im still interested!

 

Even if the the campaign missions are linear but based on 'triggers' in the game and personell performance would probably survice...i just dont like to feel im playing a sim that runs on rails.

 

If you recieved the same missions twice for instance, would that Mig always appear at the same mountain pass etc, or does your actions change the 'In-mission' occurences?

 

Thanks

It's all up to the mission maker. It could be a mission that plays exactly the same every time, or it could be that that MiG turning into two MiG's coming from a completely different direction the next time you play the mission.

 

Or maybe not... just tried to randomly spawn an aircraft... but I'm not sure it's possible.

Edited September 16, 2010 by Yellonet

[sliderslot]

Wish they'd do a dynamic campaign... its crying out for one!!

 

Single Missions seem almost pointless once you've done them. Thank god for the mission editor i suppose.

 

All that said - looking forward to it.

[Poacher886]

Im still a little confused....

 

I wont be making any missions, for the reasons i mentioned....there's no suprise. So i guess that means im left with the ones in the box..hopefully hundreds joined together so it feels like im on a campaign!

 

You see, when i play sims, i stick by a strict rule: DEAD is DEAD, i never hit the replay button, if i did, it would de-value the whole point of the sim for me.

 

As i start going through various missions (either sucessfully or not) but alive, I start to get attached to my sucess and campaign, which generates a bit of caution and fear of getting knocked out. This provides a small taste of realism for me and adds value to both me and the missions.

 

The point being if i've flown 5 sucessful missions then get dead, i will start a fresh campaign, but if i have to fly through the same missions again, with near perfectly same enemy's then i would tire of the sim quickly..

 

Thus why i say for me its all about the campaign and how it works..

[AlphaOneSix]

Each individual mission can have a certain "randomness" to it, but that is entirely dependent on the skill of the person or people who created the campaign.

[Sticky]

Im still a little confused....

 

I wont be making any missions, for the reasons i mentioned....there's no suprise. So i guess that means im left with the ones in the box..hopefully hundreds joined together so it feels like im on a campaign!

 

You see, when i play sims, i stick by a strict rule: DEAD is DEAD, i never hit the replay button, if i did, it would de-value the whole point of the sim for me.

 

As i start going through various missions (either sucessfully or not) but alive, I start to get attached to my sucess and campaign, which generates a bit of caution and fear of getting knocked out. This provides a small taste of realism for me and adds value to both me and the missions.

 

The point being if i've flown 5 sucessful missions then get dead, i will start a fresh campaign, but if i have to fly through the same missions again, with near perfectly same enemy's then i would tire of the sim quickly..

 

Thus why i say for me its all about the campaign and how it works..

 

I think what you are asking for can only be done with a really good dynamic campaign. I also hate repeating missions. I hate having to kill a million targets to get the "finished" status so that I can play the next mission. But im sorry to say we wont see a dynamic campagn yet. I think you should give DCS:WH a try anyway, from what I have read it has many improvements over DCS:BS. Hopefully next DCS will have a dynamic campaign.

[Poacher886]

Although a dynamic campaign is ideal, its not absoloutely essensial...as someone said earlier, lots of so-called dynamic campaigns are actually a clever use of fixed missions.

 

Example: I start a campaign with a mission and succeed, then on to the next and so on....when i get to the fith mission, to lets say destroy a fuel depot, i survive the mission, but fail to destroy the depot.

 

Now the orders might be "It has to be destroyed so we are going for a re-run", that fine; and realistic. But if i fly towards the depot, and know "this is the bit where the Mig comes out to receive me, then, its not fine and my immersion will be blown to point of leaving the game!

 

Also, if i start a new campaign and know that in the fith mission i have to go and blow the depot which is defended by a Mig, then my immersion is blown and i will leave the game.

 

However, If the sim has a box load of missions which play in no fixed order, or with many random triggers, (in line with the campaign of course), then each campaign start will appear completely different and fool me into the desirable dynamic "Real" feel of being a pilot in a conflict.

 

If you add to that, some random generation of enemy aircraft / ground forces, so that even playing the same mission twice will play out differently, then you have a convincing sim with added longivety...

 

It was the lack of this that made the IL2 series a good sim and not a great sim.

 

While i accept their will be a hardcore of simmer's who don't care about anything other than the flying experience, i would bet i speak for the majority who perfer at least a little gaming in their sim.

[power5]

So you want a single campaign that starts many different ways? Sounds like you simply want many different campaigns. You will have to wait for user generated campaigns like we have in BS after you run through the included ones. Or, you can get on MP. The mission is the same every time (destroy enemy airbase eg.) but it is drastically different each time thanks to real opposition instead of only AI. The ground forces are always the same however so that is not that great.

[Poacher886]

A Linear campaign with random generated missions would survice!.

 

I read somewhere from the dev's that in order to ensure the quality of missions they did not make it dynamic...i could'nt disagree more.

 

Flying a few quiet missions to the target and back with minimal even non-existant enemy, would be quite satisfying knowing that the next all hell can break loose.

 

NOT knowing what is around the corner, will keep you alert and immersed in the conflict, where as scripted repeatable missions will spell out "IM AM A GAME" and slap it around your face!!

 

The quality of the mission is ruined in my opinion by knowing it is all laid on rails for me.

 

I want to feel like an A10 pilot conducting my tour in a conflict, not a sim gamer having a go at completing some missions.

[comie1]

sorry if this has been answered but is it possible to make a campaign using the editor tools provided? not just single missions,

And is it possible that a dynamic campaign could be added at a later date?

or is that just wishful thinking?

[Oscar]

...is it possible to make a campaign using the editor tools provided? not just single missions,

 

Yep....

 

Poacher, I've read thru all you've stated and understand what you (and over half this community) want - and I couldn't agree with you more, but, I don't know of a single "simulation" out there that currently provides you what you've discribed here - outside of an "organized" online environment; and that includes the much touted F4, which as a pre-defined database of possible actors and presents the illusion of a 'dynamic' campaign. Of course, until we get our greasy hands on DCS:WH, we really don't know what we will be able to do concerning mission building - but we can speculate.

[Poacher886]

To those that are saying a "Dynamic" campaign is either not possible or behond current capabilites...

 

ALL SIMS back in the "hay-day" of flight sims during the 90's had dynamic campaigns!!!

 

Seriously, when i first bought IL2 about 10yrs ago, i was horified to find it had a static campaign!!

 

The last modern flight sim i played was EF2000, about 14yrs ago....it had a dynamic campign going on permently. The war was raging all the time and you could view the AWACS map to see the development of this in "REAL TIME"....your missions were given to you based on curent positons..including having to take of and land at an airbase closer to home in retreat if the enemy were doing well and over-run your forward airbases.

 

Your destruction of key enemy forces / fuel depots / aircraft etc would directly (but in proportion) effect the advance / retreat of the enemy, it was a living breathing war....you could even decide when to take of to your target by watching the AWACS map and waiting for a quieter period!!

 

Honestly..while no-one can stop the march of Graphics, the gaming industry took a huge leap backwards after the 90's, when it became a business and not a passion of the dev's. Deadlines had to be met, money had to be made, and inovation took a serious back seat to the rest....it marked the slow decline of PC gaming.

 

Flight Sims used to be king,,,the FPS games of their day...15yrs later, im wishing the campaigns were as good as the were a decade and a half ago, considering the power difference of modern computers, like the Americans would say....go figure.

[evilnate]

@Poacher

 

If the latest flight sim you played with a dynamic campaign is Euro Fighter 2k, you might want to consider checking out Falcon Allied Force. It has a fabulous dynamic campaign and very detailed avionics and weapons systems.

 

There is even a decent online community that has a 24/7 persistent dedicated server (multiviper.com).

 

I'm quite sure ED knows there is a HUGE demand for a military flight sim that has a dynamic campaign, the problem is that it will take lots of patience for it to be developed and implemented.

 

In the meantime, continue to play the games that have them and $upport the developers that plan to include it.

 

:)

[Druid_]

I agree with Poacher, a dynamic campaign system for a10c would be the icing on the cake.

 

As a regular mission builder, I will say that the limitations of the DCS BS ME meant that it was impossible to construct something close to a dynamic campaign. Sure you could put a RANDOM command in there but if you restarted the mission there was no way of storing the previous value so you could quite easily get the same again.

 

I think with enough mission builders out there, yóu will however be kept busy. It just means that once you've played a mission to the end it will be time to move onto the next. Also I would say that canned missions are more liable to be realistic (if the Mssn builder knows what he's doing) than a dynamic model. It would however be nice to pick up where you left off each time you play, the dynamic modelling system just needs to be accurate otherwise you would get too many hollywood moments (i.e. "There's no way they would do that for real").

 

Maybe ED could just build the facility into the ME to store information on units such as:-

position, alive,dead or damaged, weapons state, ammo count and action (i.e. proceeding along waypoints, AI evading etc).

At least we continue a little more realistically in the next mission in the campaign.

[AndyHill]

I'm one of the strongest advocates for dynamic campaigns, to me the element of novelty in each mission and the uncertainty of what is going to happen are very important factors in simulating the fast-paced decision making processes of a military aviator's job. Personally I even prefer separate single missions to linear campaigns, since the only real difference is the fact that you need groundhog day your way through the missions to get to the next one in a campaign. Single missions can have a similiar level of story to them so it's not that much of an issue for me.

 

With that said, I was very positively surprised by just how well the back and forth flowing BS campaign pulled me in. The simple fact that you can win or lose a mission - and thus progress forwards or backwards - makes a world of difference. There's an element of randomness in the missions as well, which helps somewhat. Reading about the campaign engine before BS release didn't have me excited, but in reality the campaign is surprisingly entertaining. It's not as good as a good dynamic campaign, but if Warthog has a comparably well crafted campaign there's a good chance you'll be well entertained. Now if the campaign only worked in multiplayer mode...

 

I've seen many dynamic campaign projects for different games rise and fall, some with better success than others. I've flown a lot of them and analysed them, with many different simulators, I've even tried to assist in some project by offering my (practically infinite) wisdom (I can't code worth ####). I've also followed a number of simulator projects over the couple of decades of simming "hobby" and especially thanks to my dynamic campaign fetish it has been somewhat frustrating at times.

 

I believe that probably the best way to create a dynamic campaign would be to start an open source project with a liberal license so that any aspiring simulator project could adopt the technology, make sure their internals are compatible and perhaps contribute code for the project. I've noticed that many if not most companies like Eagle Dynamics are mostly interested in creating the planes, flight models and weapon / equipment modeling. For Eagle that's certainly understandable, because of their business with real world air forces, they probably aren't very interested in intricate campaign systems.

 

There are a number of individuals around the world who have already created more or less functional dynamic campaigns. Usually they even share their work for free, but since the code isn't available (I haven't checked, but I don't know if any DC project has released the code?) the pace and continuation of the projects is entirely up to them - and how could you even ask for much from people who are doing the work for free in their spare time?

 

Basically I think a dynamic campaign engine might be a challenge to commercialize. It takes quite a bit of work to create one and the audience is fairly small. There are different ways of approaching the problem and I've seen some pretty impressive stuff emerging from fairly simple campaign engines, but getting to a level where you get truly immersive missions in a sensible strategic context automatically will take time and effort. ED seem to be improving the mission editor with every release and I guess that might one day lead to a Dynamic Campaign System in DCS. ED is also big enough to make a DC themselves, but I doubt they would mind if they got a lot of the effort for free from an open source community. For smaller teams a freely available campaign could be a gift from the gods.

 

Another interesting task for such co-operation would be standizing or creating suitable middleware to make sure that all exotic hardware (the world is full of interesting gizmos that usually only work with Flight Simulator but would be fun to have in for example DCS as well) works in every sim that supports it. The project could start with some funding and steering from ED and other interested sim developers or it could be just one guy who starts typing code and uploads it to Google Code or Github or something similar. It's probably best for everyone that I'm not the code guy, but I'll certainly do what I can to help in the design and other stuff.

 

Hm. Could be quite interesting actually, what do you guys think?

[Poacher886]

I agree with Poacher, a dynamic campaign system for a10c would be the icing on the cake.

 

As a regular mission builder, I will say that the limitations of the DCS BS ME meant that it was impossible to construct something close to a dynamic campaign. Sure you could put a RANDOM command in there but if you restarted the mission there was no way of storing the previous value so you could quite easily get the same again.

 

I think with enough mission builders out there, yóu will however be kept busy. It just means that once you've played a mission to the end it will be time to move onto the next. Also I would say that canned missions are more liable to be realistic (if the Mssn builder knows what he's doing) than a dynamic model. It would however be nice to pick up where you left off each time you play, the dynamic modelling system just needs to be accurate otherwise you would get too many hollywood moments (i.e. "There's no way they would do that for real").

 

Maybe ED could just build the facility into the ME to store information on units such as:-

position, alive,dead or damaged, weapons state, ammo count and action (i.e. proceeding along waypoints, AI evading etc).

At least we continue a little more realistically in the next mission in the campaign.

 

 

I agree with you. Though, while it is obvious we all want an accurate flight model of the A10 and systems, we want a sim here and not an arcade game! i don't feel the accruracy of the missions is quite so important, far more important in my opinion is to have an ebb and flow that we are part off.

 

While no-one expects (or wants) a single A10 pilot to win a war all by himself, single missions which have no continuity / consequence to the campaign hold no value. I find it very hard to get excited about knocking a convoy of tanks out, on-route to my key target knowing that it make no difference to my next mission, the conflict, or me!!

 

Unfortunately without some sort of dynamic campaign, its just you versus the computer with the reward of "Mission successful" at the end :noexpression:.

 

I would rather have flown three times to knock an instalation out, but failed every time due to superiour enemy protection, and inadequate flying skills on my part ,and see the consequence of my failier as the campaign evolves...a real feeling disapointment and envolvment, knowing a failier means you just hit the start button again, hold no weight with it.

 

Something almost as convincing a dynamic campaign could be conducted, if the mission editier allowed for randomness of enemy. Lets say you pick a convoy of enemy tanks to travel from point A to point B, your key target is these tanks. You will not no which route they will travel as it is random, based on terrain etc. added to this, SAM sites are laid down at random locations, enemy aircraft and forces are laid down at random, the only gurantee, is that there will be a convoy of tanks traveling from point A to point B.

 

If you could sting 50+ missions of this type together then you could simulate, some sort of campaign feeling, Though obviously each mission would have no effect or result on any other), the randomness of the enemy would give it replayablity, and would mean that you would not know the enemys positions regardless of weither you created the mission or not.

 

It does'nt hold a candle to a real dynamic campaign, but might be convincing enough.

ANother poster mentioned the excellent dynamic campaign of "Falcon allied force", this proves what i already know....dynamic campaign can easily be put together.

[S3NTRY11]

If you could sting 50+ missions of this type together then you could simulate, some sort of campaign feeling, Though obviously each mission would have no effect or result on any other), the randomness of the enemy would give it replayablity, and would mean that you would not know the enemys positions regardless of weither you created the mission or not.

I think this is very close to where ED are at now.

dynamic campaign can easily be put together.

 

hmmm not sure "easily" is the right word here. Falcon 4 was in development for around 4 years with a big dev team, and when it was released there were holes. Not that it wasn't well done, but it was only made stable after years of community work and subsequent re-release as Allied Force by Lead Pursuit.

Edited September 18, 2010 by S3NTRY11
wording.

[nomdeplume]

Funny, I want to quote and reply to the same paragraphs S3ENTRY11 did! :D

 

a) you can put that kind of randomness into missions with the existing editor. It's a bit of work, made a bit easier by Blindspot's mod, but it can be done if you have the patience. And trying to do it yourself with the existing tools proves to be very illuminating in terms of trying to work out how on earth you'd make the computer do it automatically, while maintaining some sense of realism/believability.

 

b) DCS: Warthog will make a big leap in that direction with their mission generator. So making a mission that has the same core goal each time, but for which the details are always different, should be much, much easier. Indeed, I believe ED have had a good think about what I mentioned in the previous paragraph, and have made the first step towards that goal.

 

c) I think Falcon 4 actually serves as an example of how difficult it is to make a good dynamic campaign engine, rather than that one can 'easily' be put together. Don't forget that even after all the work Lead Pursuit put into fixing the dynamic campaign (which itself evolved over several years), it was still buggy. Not that it wasn't/isn't awesome, but there were many times that things would grind to a halt because some bit of terrain was impassable to ground units, etc.