Dynamic Campaign Discussion Thread

[112th_Rossi]

Obviously, for a first iteration, one might decide to just accept a bit of crappiness on the part of the AI (if you excuse the expression), but I worry that it's easy to end up locked in an existing codebase - you make a "functional" (but not "good") DC, and then when you start planning the "good" AI for the DC you find yourself having to make really major changes in what you already have.

 

This AI portion is the one I worry about. Figuring out how to make the miz files is a bare minimum but is fortunately fairly straightforward. AI programming however isn't quite that straightforward

 

Yes, trying to make the whole thing beleivable would be quite hard, but having thought about it a bit more, we only really need to be concerned with what the objective should be for the start of the next mission, taking into account the results of the last. Even if we create the DCS equivilent of WOPR (;) ) the achilles heal would be the AI of the units as they are being played. And to be fair, I think we could just class that as unit competence.

 

So I think we only need to be concerned about generating appropriate responses to a given result and not really worry about how the AI acts. We can easily calculate if the mission was a success or not based on the logs DCS gives us, and from those logs we know how many assets are left on each side and then deduce, perhaps, if a attack or withdrawal is needed or maybe even a resupply of some kind.

 

It's doable. Im sure. The AI aspect for the DC isn't really too much of a concern and can be tweaked.

[112th_Rossi]

AI for the DC you find yourself having to make really major changes in what you already have

 

I only write extensible code ;)

[EtherealN]

So I think we only need to be concerned about generating appropriate responses to a given result and not really worry about how the AI acts.

 

But that is exactly the AI I'm talking about. I did not mean the units in-game, I'm talking about the AI that will do the decisionmaking in preparing the next mission - that is, the routines that is "concerned about generating appropriate response to a given result".

 

In-game unit AI is a completely separate thing and not what I was talking about.

 

We can easily calculate if the mission was a success or not based on the logs DCS gives us, and from those logs we know how many assets are left on each side and then deduce, perhaps, if a attack or withdrawal is needed or maybe even a resupply of some kind.

 

But that's my point - this would be a very "poor" (poor as in not rich, not poor as in "bad") DC. To make things believable and realistic, you need to have a lot more than that. You want to have proper use of combined arms, you want to give it the ability to perform proper maneuvers, etcetera.

 

To make a simple example: there's several times in Empire: Shogun 2 where I have looked at what the AI just did and sort of smacked myself in the face - why the -bleep- did the idiot do that? He could have made a two-turn attack on a flank and completely blindsided me AND thus completely negate the superior armies I have in the original spot. Essentially, if the goal of a DC is "immersion" then at least I would want it to be such that I don't have to sit there and wonder what kind of absolute moron is wearing the general's stars.

 

Another, RL, example: if you were to work mainly on force balance in decision making, the 2003 Iraq war wouldn't have happened. The US forces deliberately attacked while being relatively weak, while feigning a 91-style buildup, in order to catch Iraqi forces unawares and thus use maneuver for the victory. This is very difficult to make happen IRL, and that's with whole staffs of people carefully planning it. Trying to program an AI to take such things into account would be rediculously hard, and I worry that we'd basically end up with what amounts to an artillery duel (figuratively speaking), where each side retreats a bit whenever they lose a few cannons to much.

 

A DC like that would, for me, be totally inadequate and I wouldn't use it.

[112th_Rossi]

For the AI I was also talking about the DC AI, which we don't need to be concerned about all that much as its fairly straight forward.

 

But I'm afraid you are jumping the gun and getting way ahead of yourself. It would be great to have all those features but we haven't even determined if its feasable.

 

Shogun is a bad example, the campaign maybe dynamic, but only in terms of what has to be acheived next. The AI 'on the ground' have to perform the actions and thats where it falls over.

 

Determining whats required is fairly easy, expecting the AI in game to perform that function is down to the engine itself.

 

You're expecting way too much, at the moment at least.

[Rubini]

For the AI I was also talking about the DC AI, which we don't need to be concerned about all that much as its fairly straight forward.

 

But I'm afraid you are jumping the gun and getting way ahead of yourself. It would be great to have all those features but we haven't even determined if its feasable.

 

Shogun is a bad example, the campaign maybe dynamic, but only in terms of what has to be acheived next. The AI 'on the ground' have to perform the actions and thats where it falls over.

 

Determining whats required is fairly easy, expecting the AI in game to perform that function is down to the engine itself.

 

You're expecting way too much, at the moment at least.

 

I understood what EtheraeIN want to say of course and also agree that a very good DC is the goal...but we must start with small things first. I will not do anything just because it seems very hard to do. I can learn a lot on the process and perhaps the result could be good, or at least good enough to we want to play it.

 

In the same line I can say that the DC campaign in TAW (I don't know if you played it or not - 12 years old sim) is very very good and will be not possible to we (modders) make something like that. Just because it was made by the devs in a tottaly integrated way.

 

So, I will be happy IF we manage to make something to start on the DC way, we don't need to have so big expectations.:thumbup:

[Speed]

Well, one thing that is needed is for the AI to be able to make decisions while the mission is running. That is not possible to do until ED allows us, or someone figures out, how to assign the AI waypoints through Lua. Until then, AI is stupidly stuck to the waypoints given to it at mission start.

 

Even though I have searched for it before, I know a lot more about how the game works now and I will probably install Beta 2 or 3 and see if I can dig through the code again and see if there is in fact an "assign waypoint" Lua function hidden somewhere. It really seems like there should be, as the Battle Commander mode allows you to, but I was never able to find it. It may just be hard-coded as part of the executable, and inaccessible from Lua.

[J. Heller]

I have owned A-10 for not very long now and am pretty much done with it, completed the two campaigns that actually work and find myself with nothing left to do. All in all DCS is very boring, yet I still play Falcon after all these years. Why? Because nothing ever happens the exact same way twice in the DC and it remains fun to play over and over again. This is the only relevant argument for a DC in DCS. Making it happen is up to people with far more knowledge of programming than myself but the fact remains that it needs to happen one way or another. At least it needs to happen for me to continue to support future DCS titles. 60 bucks for what I got this time is really kind of a let down. Make the DC, period. Make it so that all future DCS titles can be incorporated into it, perhaps even make the DC itself a payware download so those that dont want it, "because of all the bugs it is sure to have on release", dont have to have it. Is it a large an perhaps expensive undertaking? Yes. Will it take away from the deveopment of other projects? Probably. Will it make the entire DCS series better as a whole and make future DCS releases far better products with far greater replayability and immersion? Definitely. Did Microprose achieve a DC with ancient technology that rivals any efforts made today? Absolutely. Will I buy anymore DCS sims without a DC? NO, not ever!

 

I digress from this discussion, I'm off to do some flying in FSX. At least the weather is dynamic in that...:music_whistling:

[GGTharos]

Okay, bye bye :)

[GGTharos]

THere's a built in dynamic mission generator. Try starting with that :D

 

I understood what EtheraeIN want to say of course and also agree that a very good DC is the goal...but we must start with small things first. I will not do anything just because it seems very hard to do. I can learn a lot on the process and perhaps the result could be good, or at least good enough to we want to play it.

 

In the same line I can say that the DC campaign in TAW (I don't know if you played it or not - 12 years old sim) is very very good and will be not possible to we (modders) make something like that. Just because it was made by the devs in a tottaly integrated way.

 

So, I will be happy IF we manage to make something to start on the DC way, we don't need to have so big expectations.:thumbup:

[159th_Viper]

......and am pretty much done with it.....

 

Or visa versa I would have thought. Even I do not know all there is to know about the A-10C.......How on earth did you get it right?

 

 

At least the weather is dynamic in that...:music_whistling:

 

:megalol:

 

As it is with DCS:A-10C 'ol Chap.......as it is with DCS:A-10C.

[sobek]

Did Microprose achieve a DC with ancient technology that rivals any efforts made today?

 

And where is your precioussssss Microprose now? ;)

[winz]

But that's my point - this would be a very "poor" (poor as in not rich, not poor as in "bad") DC. To make things believable and realistic, you need to have a lot more than that. You want to have proper use of combined arms, you want to give it the ability to perform proper maneuvers, etcetera.

Just for the record, the campaigns that came with DCS A-10C weren't much realistic either ;)

The Ka-50 deployment campaign was much better.

[EtherealN]

For the AI I was also talking about the DC AI, which we don't need to be concerned about all that much as its fairly straight forward.

 

My point is that anything that is "fairly straight forward" simply will be boring and frustrating in it's ineptitude. That is a personal opinion, of course, but to me it looks like this will just end up like the IL-2 and Striker Fighters "DC"'s, and I just cannot be excited about that. I'll take a properly set up mission that takes real strategy into account over that any day.

 

But I'm afraid you are jumping the gun and getting way ahead of yourself. It would be great to have all those features but we haven't even determined if its feasable.

 

Which is why it should first be established whether it is feasible. If it isn't, then this would be pointless. Again, my opinion, others might of course be interested, but I won't be. I'm interested in missions that could have served a "mission rehearsal" role (as used in some military game-like applications), and I strongly doubt anyone will ever get that level of quality through a DC.

 

Essentially, the "immersion" argument for me is void with most DC's, the Falcon one included. To me, immersion is to fly something that could just as well have been "the real deal", and I've yet to see a DC that can offer that. The Falcon DC, as an example, does an okey job at setting the atmosphere (sort of like good old Knights of the Sky on the Amiga did), but atmosphere isn't enough. It's like graphics - nice to have, but actual realism in the scenario is WAY more important to me.

 

Shogun is a bad example, the campaign maybe dynamic, but only in terms of what has to be acheived next. The AI 'on the ground' have to perform the actions and thats where it falls over.

 

If by "on the ground" you mean in the battle map, that was - again - not what I was talking about. I'm talking about AI on the campaign map that essentially has to cheat (getting cheaper units etcetera) to make it a challenge - because it's totally inept at strategy. In a pure gameplay perspective for that specific game this is sort of okey - the cheats the AI uses ensures that I can get myself a challenging game experience. But with a simulator like this I want realism, and achieving that with a DC is not impossible - but it is extremely difficult. The Starcraft example is also interesting here - it spent close to a decade in development at the largest developer on the planet, yet the AI still ended up a rigid affair that - on the higher difficulties - quite simply has to cheat. It's the equivalent of making a DCS mission challenging not through having an intelligently composed OPFOR but rather through just tripling the amount of SAM assets.

 

As a DCS example we could take the mission In The Weeds. In this example we would need to have a DC that could identify that there is ample opportunity for terrain masking and schedule things accordingly for your flight - at the same time as the OPFOR AI also identifies this situation and ensures that anything that moves through that valley gets some SHORAD and/or fighter cover.

 

...now ensure that it can spot every single such instance on the entire map. You either hardcode it somehow for every nook and cranny of the map, or you invent a new AI that today simply does not exist.

 

And of course, there's a TONNE of other such things you'd have to take into account. Basically, I can have a persistent world and tonnes of radio comms all day, but if I fly a mission where everything is placed stupidly by a rudimentary DC, all immersion goes out the window. I cannot be immersed into a fighting scenario where I would be forced to wonder if the generals were recruited from a kindergarten. You don't want to have pilots look at something on the battlefield below them and thing "oh my god that is so stupid".

 

You're expecting way too much, at the moment at least.

 

I'm "expecting" what would, in my opinion, make a DC worth using. If you're okey with less (perhaps through having different requirements for "immersion" than my own preference mentioned above) then you can of course go ahead - it's your time, of course, not mine. My point however is that people are overestimating the need for a DC to create immersion in a product like this. And then there are of course others that are so religious about DC's it makes me think about the good old Mac vs PC wars. :P

[J. Heller]

Or visa versa I would have thought. Even I do not know all there is to know about the A-10C.......How on earth did you get it right?

 

Even you? What makes you so special? Even the real A-10 pilots dont kow "everything" about the aircraft. They enough to fly, fight and handle emergency situations in the aircraft, as do I. I have two campaigns in my logbook, which is set to "not invulnerable" so I would consider learning things about the aircraft itself pretty much over. Falcon teaches you alot, much of that knowledge can be carried over to any US warplane.:thumbup:

 

 

:megalol:

 

As it is with DCS:A-10C 'ol Chap.......as it is with DCS:A-10C.

 

Is it really? Cause I never noticed any changes in weather during a mission.

[J. Heller]

And where is your precioussssss Microprose now? ;)

 

The same place DCS would be if it weren't for military contracts.:megalol:

[EtherealN]

Did Microprose achieve a DC with ancient technology that rivals any efforts made today? Absolutely.

 

Microprose died because they bit off more than they can chew, and even the guy who wrote the DC said that in hindsight he'd probably do things differently.

 

Essentially, there's a REASON why very few attempt to "rival" it. Microprose, Razorworks etcetera... Where are they?

 

Yes, a DC would be nice. No, a DC isn't worth the expense. To make a DC that fits any sort of budget you'll have to settle for a crap DC, like the Falcon one. Yes, I am not impressed by it - it has some nice features but it's sort of meh as far as trying to do anything realistic goes.

 

That said, for it's time the DC was a pretty nice achievement, and I am very impressed with the guy who made it. But it's just not good enough for anything that would be interesting. But I guess that's the reason why I fly DCS instead of Falcon. Remember that there's an opposite to every argument - you might think that a good DC would bring in extra sales through attracting the Falcon crowd, and sure it might. But it just isn't that easy. First of all - will those extra sales cover the added development cost? I doubt it, but maybe. Will it attract more added sales than other things that the same energy could have been spent on? I very much doubt that. Whenever you consider the potential of Feature X to add revenue, you have to also consider the revenue potential of other things you could do. And one of the reasons no-one bothers to make a Falcon-style DC for todays products is that there's other things to do that result in more revenue.

 

You don't have to like it, but that's quite simply a case of "the market has spoken" in the same way as how games like HAWX sell better than games like DCS and Falcon. We don't have to like it, but it's a fact.

 

At least the weather is dynamic in that...:music_whistling:

 

I assume you sort of failed to notice the dynamic weather engine in DCS? :music_whistling:

[EtherealN]

The same place DCS would be if it weren't for military contracts.:megalol:

 

Exactly. The only reason there's a DCS at all is the synergies that can be exploited between several markets. If Eagle Dynamics only targeted the commercial market and did a DC for that - guess what? ED would probably go the way of the Microprose... err, I mean dodo.

 

The market is a rough place, but it is an excellent method for establishing what people want. And as you might notice, Microprose is dead, Eagle Dynamics (founded 91) is alive. Think about that really hard. How come Eagle Dynamics got to survive but Microprose, the giant, died?

 

Because of the decisions ED made - one of those decisions was to abandon attempts at a DC and instead work iteratively towards it through several products (like the random generator in DCS:A-10C).

 

Cause and effect... ;)

[EtherealN]

Is it really? Cause I never noticed any changes in weather during a mission.

 

There's two engines in there - you can set your mission to dynamic or static. Choose your preference.

 

The FSX dynamic weather engine is crap though. I always fly FSX with RL weather imported, way better.

[Scooternutz]

Do triggers effect the outcome of a mission if programmed to do so? I am a horrible DCS mission maker. I have so many other things on my plate that I have not devoted the time to learn. It seems daunting.

[EtherealN]

Actually, triggers are the thing that governs mission outcome. You use triggers to assign scores based on whatever you like, and this score can then be used to assign a "success" or "fail".

[J. Heller]

There's two engines in there - you can set your mission to dynamic or static. Choose your preference.

 

The FSX dynamic weather engine is crap though. I always fly FSX with RL weather imported, way better.

 

Active Sky Evo here... And I have deja-vu, this same argument has happened before about why Microprose went under. I'm sure there are many factors involved, Microprose was a fairly large studio for the time and I dont think the problems with Falcon had anything major to do with it. If you were to take one word to describe the cause it would have to be "Hasbro". They were responsible for the dismantling of Microprose, nothing more. The argument of why it happened is irrelevant in this discussion, what is relevant is that the Falcon creators made something that created more immersion in a combat flight sim than any other developer ever dreamed. Regardless of the status of the company that made it many years ago something remains to be said of the fact that it is still around and still used by many thousands, certainly more than the DCS series currently. Why is that? Graphics? Hardly. Sound? Umm, no. Systems modelling? Not really. In fact DCS wins in all of these areas, yet still falls behind a 20 year old sim(well, not quite, you know what I mean) in number of users. The only explanation has to be the feeling created from actually being IN the simluated war that the Falcon DC put you into. I know its the reason I still use it and the flight models arent so bad either.

 

You still miss my point regarding the development costs/ payoff from creating a DC. You state that the time creating the DC would be better spent making more DCS:"give me your 60 bucks please" and I dont believe that to be true. Develop a nice DC where all future(perhaps even current and past if possible) DCS titles can be incorporated into the DC and suddenly you have thousands of Falcon users (and newcomers alike) putting down that old dinosaur and picking up DCS. They buy the DCS planes to fly in the DCS campaign, maybe one of them, maybe all of them. Hell, if the DC was really something to behold you could even charge for that too. I think the dev costs would be far outweighed by the added income this would generate. If you build it they WILL pay! Of course there are risks, dropping out of Harvard to make some odd-ball program called Windows was risky too. So please, lets cease the statements about one company being around and another being gone, what really matters is does ED have the balls to give it a shot?

[GGTharos]

Citation needed.

 

Regardless of the status of the company that made it many years ago something remains to be said of the fact that it is still around and still used by many thousands, certainly more than the DCS series currently. Why is that? Graphics? Hardly. Sound? Umm, no. Systems modelling? Not really. In fact DCS wins in all of these areas, yet still falls behind a 20 year old sim(well, not quite, you know what I mean) in number of users.

 

Because backing up your stuff with actual numbers might make you believable.

 

You state that the time creating the DC would be better spent making more DCS:"give me your 60 bucks please" and I dont believe that to be true.

 

Does believing something make you right?

 

I think the dev costs would be far outweighed by the added income this would generate.

 

... after the company goes bust?

 

If you build it they WILL pay! Of course there are risks,

 

Yeah, why don't you take some and fund this DC thing? :D

 

So please, lets cease the statements about one company being around and another being gone, what really matters is does ED have the balls to give it a shot?

 

Please, cease the statements about how ED should be making a DC when you don't have to balls to take the risk and create your own.

[EtherealN]

And you are missing my point. Yes, this is dejavu, we've allready been through all of this.

 

What you don't seem to understand is that what gives you immersion isn't the same thing as what gives everyone immersion. People have different tastes. Falcon style DC doesn't att do immersion for me. It does the exact opposite because it is totally worthless at making things realistic.

 

As for "many thousands", who cares? You are making the assumption that EVERYONE who plays Falcon refuses to play DCS due to it not having a DC. This is blatantly false. There is no such dichotomy going on. Your argument could just as easily be made to say that ED should make HAWX 3 - because the amount of people who play that type of thing is several orders of magnitude larger than those who play Falcon. Or maybe they should have instead focused on WW2? Because the ww2 type games sell very well, and then they'd get all of those, right?

 

No. It doesn't work that way.

 

The simple fact is that we have DCS because there are synergies to exploited. The alternative is to seek a completely different market - would you be happy with a HAWX 3 if it has a DC? No? Why not, it would have a DC!

 

You need to realize that there's a grander scheme going on, and the business model that allows DCS to exist has certain requirements. (Essentially it's a feedback loop - make consumer product to show what you can do, get military contract, use military contract to make another consumer product to show what you can do nów, get another military contract, etcetera etcetera). You need to understand that without this business model, DCS would not exist at all. You would have your 1999 game and there wouldn't be a DCS to bitch about at all.

 

Dynamic Campaigns are not the dogs bollocks. YOU like them, yes, but they simply are not good enough financially to carry themselves financially. How do we know this? For the same reason you yourself stated: no-one is bothering. The people who hold the hard numbers, and are thus better placed than either of us to make the judgement, have made their judgement: it's not worth it. And this goes beyond just ED - it goes for the whole simulation industry.

 

As for having the balls... Come on dude. You aren't that stupid. This isn't a question about having balls, it's a question about following the business model that allowed you to make realistic simulators in the first place - and to be responsible about your investors money.

 

Do YOU have the balls to make it happen? Put your money where your mouth is. Invest it in a company that'll make a DC. Hell, incorporate together with a couple guys and contact TFC/ED for a license to make it as a payware. If your statements are correct it could only be a success, no? Got the balls? (There's a company called Y Combinator that can give you seed funding, they only charge a 6% equity for their investment as well. Get going.)

[159th_Viper]

Even you? What makes you so special

 

Nothing at all my merry fellow nothing at all.

 

I was just fortunate enough to be given the opportunity to be part of the Tester's team which gave me a wee bit of a head-start in getting to grips with the A-10C. Arrogance plays no part in my story ;)

 

 

Is it really? Cause I never noticed any changes in weather during a mission.

 

Yeah - play closer attention. Might be more that you've missed - you never know.

[GGTharos]

Or the generated weather was just mild and similar across the land, which can happen. In that case the only way to notice it is slight changed in wind direction and air pressure reported by ATCs.