Dynamic Campaign Discussion Thread

[GGTharos]

It is certainly quite possible, but unfortunately it is also a huge and difficult effort.

 

@vincent.. creating competent AI? seriously.. i am pretty much sure this is impossible..

[Speed]

@vincent.. creating competent AI? seriously.. i am pretty much sure this is impossible.. unless we see AI robots who can work independently in a factory and answer phones to people i think AI is a pipe dream..

 

bigger companies with huuuge finances have tried to do "smarter" AI and its basically same thing for what now.. 20+ years.. everybody promises better AI.. but seriously.. scientists don't even have a definition of what "intelligence" is.. let alone create an artificial one..

 

 

Going off-topic a bit, but evolutionary systems do a pretty good job of optimizing a system, at least around a certain equilibrium point. So our brains are probably pretty well optimized, at least for the types of neurons and neural structures that we use. So it stands to reason (discounting the religious argument that the laws of physics are violated inside the human brain) that once we have computers with the equivalent processing power of the human brain, then AI is possible, and it becomes "just" a software problem.

 

The fact of the matter is, at least one of the reasons we have not solved the AI problem yet and made true machine intelligence is simply because it is only very recently that we began to create supercomputers that rival the human brain in equivalent computing power. Last I checked, the Chinese government had created a super computer with about the power of a human brain; if I remember correctly, it requires like a few dozen MEGAWATTs to operate at full power.

 

Anyway, part of the problem lies in trying to accurately calculate the computing power of the human brain. A recent study I read suggested that we might have underestimated it by a factor of 10 or 100. But, given the growth of computing power, there's no reason to believe we won't be able to reach that threshold.

 

By the end of this decade, we should have several supercomputers that exceed the processing power of the human brain, unless the study I mentioned above in true, in which case, you will probably need to wait an extra decade or two to achieve that higher threshold.

 

So the point is, assuming that the human brain is just an electro-chemical computer, then OF COURSE true machine intelligence hasn't been invented yet. It's impossible, we simply don't have the hardware to make it possible.

 

But what happens when every university has a computer that does more calculations per second than a human brain does, and people really start trying to tackle the software problem? We'll certainly reach that point, at least. And if trends have anything to say about it, a decade after that, you'll be able to go to the store and buy a computer that does more calculations per second than your brain does. There will be a lot of people running AI research, on systems that are truly capable of being sapient, with just the right software. Whether it is through evolutionary algorithms, deliberate design (or more likely) some combination thereof, it will happen eventually, as long as the assumptions about the human brain being an electro-chemical computer, and the continued growth of computing power are correct. And both of those assumptions are things that most scientists agree on.

[Kaktus29]

@speed.. interesting stuff.. but i think computational power will not bring intelligence.. look at dogs, or lets say ants.. we can all agree ants are much much less intelligent that humans, their brains more or less non-existent, yet their organization, architecture of society, effectiveness of utilization of manpower, all of that is very very complex... today's supercomputers we can all agree IS much more powerful than ants, yet if you put this supercomputer to "simulate" ants i bet you'll see bunch of computer ants ram each other at the "bridge" and start pilling up on each other because some algorithm didn't work out or some other bug made it bad..

 

computational power is not the thing.. its consciousness .. and this is whole new area that science has very little insight into.. i believe personally consciousness is sort of a reflection of nature.. if nature(organism) comes to a high degree of complexion a point comes where it becomes aware of itself while still existing in the system that brought about his existence-ergo being becomes conscious.. so, if a computer trully is made with huuge not just computational capability but cris-cross neuron connection ability that would correspond to nature's demands of what complex is than consciousness can indeed be brought into the computer as it is brought into human babies, or animals to a degree..

 

so, only doubt i have is we can do this artificially..since all humans are well product of nature in its core, while what we do with out intellect and build computers is by-product, what i'm trying to say is, the latter will always be less complex than the original thing cuz we unaware of this but we are connected to other things around us (nature, air, atoms, electrons, etc).. in a way computer is not.. take smell for instance.. you can smell a woman and this gives you billion information you are not even aware of .. to a computer if we use best sensors it will be mostly rudimentary information of what chemical elements are in the smell-yet to the computer this is dry info--nothing it means to it,,..so what it can say.. you see the problem? ..

 

engineering AI to me right now looks like a pipe-dream..

 

remember, creating AI has been ongoing process since the 1960s.. and as technology rapidly expands we see basically no improvement.. yes, algorithms do improve and in narrow operations such as (recognize a man with a gun, shoot a man with the gun) yes/maybe/no situations algorithms will work brilliantly in the future.. but to be so complex to actually posses AI that could rival human? i don't see it.. and i'm not saying this cuz i think humans are superior in intelligence.. when i look at dolphins and how humane they are i see they are more human than humans with bigger understanding of "do not spit where you eat" than humans are(war, famine, destruction etc..)

 

so, creating AI?.. yeah.. i'll pass. .. give me better UI so i can direct dumb AI units in CA or DCS overall and i'll create my own dynamic campaign any day..

 

plus it will be cheaper to do for ED than trying to create AI that makes sense..

[Flagrum]

@speed.. interesting stuff.. but i think computational power will not bring intelligence.. look at dogs, or lets say ants.. we can all agree ants are much much less intelligent that humans, their brains more or less non-existent, yet their organization, architecture of society, effectiveness of utilization of manpower, all of that is very very complex... today's supercomputers we can all agree IS much more powerful than ants, yet if you put this supercomputer to "simulate" ants i bet you'll see bunch of computer ants ram each other at the "bridge" and start pilling up on each other because some algorithm didn't work out or some other bug made it bad..

 

computational power is not the thing.. its consciousness .. and this is whole new area that science has very little insight into.. i believe personally consciousness is sort of a reflection of nature.. if nature(organism) comes to a high degree of complexion a point comes where it becomes aware of itself while still existing in the system that brought about his existence-ergo being becomes conscious.. so, if a computer trully is made with huuge not just computational capability but cris-cross neuron connection ability that would correspond to nature's demands of what complex is than consciousness can indeed be brought into the computer as it is brought into human babies, or animals to a degree..

 

so, only doubt i have is we can do this artificially..since all humans are well product of nature in its core, while what we do with out intellect and build computers is by-product, what i'm trying to say is, the latter will always be less complex than the original thing cuz we unaware of this but we are connected to other things around us (nature, air, atoms, electrons, etc).. in a way computer is not.. take smell for instance.. you can smell a woman and this gives you billion information you are not even aware of .. to a computer if we use best sensors it will be mostly rudimentary information of what chemical elements are in the smell-yet to the computer this is dry info--nothing it means to it,,..so what it can say.. you see the problem? ..

 

engineering AI to me right now looks like a pipe-dream..

 

remember, creating AI has been ongoing process since the 1960s.. and as technology rapidly expands we see basically no improvement.. yes, algorithms do improve and in narrow operations such as (recognize a man with a gun, shoot a man with the gun) yes/maybe/no situations algorithms will work brilliantly in the future.. but to be so complex to actually posses AI that could rival human? i don't see it.. and i'm not saying this cuz i think humans are superior in intelligence.. when i look at dolphins and how humane they are i see they are more human than humans with bigger understanding of "do not spit where you eat" than humans are(war, famine, destruction etc..)

 

so, creating AI?.. yeah.. i'll pass. .. give me better UI so i can direct dumb AI units in CA or DCS overall and i'll create my own dynamic campaign any day..

 

plus it will be cheaper to do for ED than trying to create AI that makes sense..

Now this turns into a philosophical debate. :o)

(Nothing wrong with that, but perhaps a bit too difficult for an online forum?)

 

Concerning ants: http://www.not-equal.eu/myrmedrome/main_en.html :o)

 

An ant colony is complex, no doubt. But ... or and? ... this complexity must come from somewhere - and that can only be the ants brains.

 

Intelligence, self-awareness, etc. is, imho, really "just" a software problem. The problem lies in the enormous amount of data that such a software has to be fed with. Your example with the ants and how difficult it might be to simulate them fully in their environment: the biggest problem here would possibly be the simulation of the environment. How would ants be aware of a blocked path? Well, first, there would have to be a path. Then something that blocks it. That something needs properties (shape, weight, density/"solidity", etc.). Couldn't the ants push it out of the way? How would they know or learn to do that ... if the object does not have "behaviour" (weight + friction + gravity + surface structure + 1000 other parameters --> object behaves in a specific way)

 

And that is just a friggin grasshalm on an ant road. Imagine now how much input from "the outside" an "(artificially) intelligent being" would need to develop any behavious (especially higher forms of behavior like social interaction) remotely comparable to what we see around us in RL. But still - I really believe that it all comes down to software and data that is processed by software. :o)

[Speed]

...

I'm sending my response as a PM. We need to discuss dynamic campaigns here, and I don't want to get in trouble :). If you want to, open a topic about this in the off topic discussion forum. However, it's dangerously close to a religious discussion. It basically boils down to without there being a God, MI is certainly possible and there's no reason to believe we won't achieve it barring that human civilization doesn't collapse first. With a God, then all bets are off, on, well, pretty much everything, but machine intelligence, especially.

[VincentLaw]

While the philosophical discussion of human vs. machine, the future of computer technology, and intelligence in general is one I am quite interested in, Speed was correct that this is wandering off topic a bit when you dig too far (although I am certain that discussion could find a home in the chit-chat section). You are mistaken that the argument is external with religion though. It is an intrareligious argument because you could also interpret the spirit as being attached to the body without driving the mechanisms of thought. (I checked the forum rules and it doesn't prohibit statements relating to religion)

 

I will try to keep this to as it relates to the dynamic campaign though. I will also preface this by saying that a convincing AI is necessary for a convincing dynamic campaign because proper strategic maneuvers and deployment at the campaign level require just as much intelligence as tactical maneuvers on the battlefield

 

The fact is that it is not necessary to approximate human intelligence when it comes to making a convincing game AI. A combat simulation AI just needs to know what to do and when to do it as it relates to combat. It never needs to distinguish English Baroque from Second Empire, know the precise amounts of force to apply with each muscle in the body to balance a variably loaded body on two legs, identify a friend by only the sound of their footsteps, or even ever have a subjective opinion on anything.

 

All possible behaviors can be preprogrammed to respond to certain conditions that occur within limited scope of the battle or campaign simulation, almost all of which is represented in raw data. There is no chance for the computer to misinterpret anything. It is like an incredibly complex game of chess.

Edited February 14, 2014 by VincentLaw

[Speed]

 

All possible behaviors can be preprogrammed to respond to certain conditions that occur within limited scope of the battle or campaign simulation, almost all of which is represented in raw data. There is no chance for the computer to misinterpret anything. It is like an incredibly complex game of chess.

 

Maybe... but you run the risk of over-complicating and the AI and running into all sorts of problems related to things like situations you didn't think of or anticipate, or the wrong behavior or the behavior always being the same, or the behavior logic getting stuck, etc.

 

A much more elegant solution is to try to find the simplest logic that will achieve your goals. For example, while testing the ability to order ground unit AI through Lua scripts, I made a "Unit diffusion test". Basically, I give the ground AI offroad waypoints in random directions and for random durations, and I watch them "diffuse" across the map at high rates of time compression.

 

Now, what if you add a slight bias to the diffusion direction? Now you have units that randomly diffuse across the map, but there is an overall preference to one direction. Just through random, dumb luck, these units will find their way around obstacles, the mission will never play the same twice, and all sorts of unexpected stuff will happen.

 

Players of the mission, if they are unaware of how the logic actually works, will even confuse some of the random actions for intelligent actions like counter-attacks or retreats. Humans are always trying to imbue random, mindless things and phenomenon with reason and intent, and you as a programmer can use this against them to make them think your logic is even better than it really is :D

 

Anyway, the point is, simpler is better, as long as the simpler solution is not hugely less capable. I think it's not about trying to program in every single situation the AI could face and how the AI should react; it's about trying to find a set of simple logical rules that each can deal with a lot of varied situations.

Edited February 14, 2014 by Speed

[VincentLaw]

Yes. Given enough computing power, you could invisibly simulate all of those paths and their consequences and assign a score to each result. Then you could take one of the paths with the highest scores as the actual action (while making sure they don't cluster too much), and perhaps add in an element of randomization or mutation.

 

The key is, as you implied, not so much to actually create intelligence, but to fool the player into thinking the AI is intelligent. After all, if the illusion is convincing enough, what is the difference? Creating an AI that is too perfect, like the terminator Huey door gunners, can also break the immersion.

Edited February 15, 2014 by VincentLaw

[RagnarDa]

Sorry for continuing the off-topic, but I just want to say: I haven't looked up these supercomputers you speak of but I seriously doubt they have the computing power of a human brain, or at all resemble a brain. When I read neurocognition it was really an eye-opener how fundamentally different chisel-based computers and biological brains are and how a simulation of the latter is, given the development rate of technology of today is far far FAR into the future, like centuries not decades. Consider this for example: there are billions of neurons in our brain, and they are potentially all connected to each other and each do a processing function and carry data, so there are billions x billions processing functions AND data points. Everything is processed simultaneously in real-time and constantly changing to better optimize itself, unlike chisel-based computers which have a limited number of central processing units and a separate storage unit storing 0s and 1s. There could definitively be simulations of a limited functionality of the brain in the same vein DCS is a simulation of airplanes flight through the air, but not the whole package.

 

On-topic: simplest possible AI-logic is the way to go IMHO.

[camsr]

AI could easily be multi-threaded and finally bring some firepower to this game. The only thing AI needs to do is follow rules to make decisions, it's WAR ffs. Think about this, sometimes humans are slow so decisions are made slowly, but the computer is working hard to isolate the correct decision. In some ways they are equal. Computers lack sensory input, which is what most of the human brain interprets, but computers take their time to read large sets of data that are the result of simulated sensory input. What computers are no good at is reflex-like decision making, but something like this is important in this game, so the computer cheats. It knows where everything is, and what everything is doing in relation to the simulation entities current tasks. So the AI logic only needs to isolate behavior based on rules to simulate a "real human pilot" or whatever.

[jctrnacty]

I dont get it, if they were able to simulate AI for the whole war in Falcon 4 ( i know bubble again) with the 300 Mhz computer what is the problem with todays 4-8 core 4 ghz cpu power?

[Speed]

I dont get it, if they were able to simulate AI for the whole war in Falcon 4 ( i know bubble again) with the 300 Mhz computer what is the problem with todays 4-8 core 4 ghz cpu power?

 

Did you ever play Falcon 4? Did you ever look at how incredibly simple the ground unit simulation was? DCS's ground unit simulation is good enough to make a game out of it (CA). Falcon 4's ground unit simulation is ridiculously basic. Ground units have very simple weapons and engagement logic; they can cross any terrain at all- water, mountains, etc. Their AI is super-basic. They only can exist in one formation (a long straight line), though that formation will break up a bit when they are moving. They aggregate into a single object when you get further than like 20 NM away from them.

 

DCS does a massively better job simulating ground units than any flavor of Falcon 4. They could do such an awful job on ground units in Falcon 4 because you were flying an F-16 at like 25k feet most of the time, and ground units and ground battles were just flashes of light, tiny specs, and little blips on your radar. Ground units did not behave in a rational, real-life manner like they do in DCS.

 

In other words, the makers of Falcon 4 did only what they needed to do to make a good enough ground war simulation from the perspective of a Viper driver. Falcon 4's ground simulation would NEVER even be CLOSE to good enough for anything like Combined Arms, and it would be severely lacking from the perspective of a Warthog or Apache driver.

 

It comes down to the fact that DCS is a smaller scale, vastly more detailed, general simulation engine, while Falcon 4 was extremely specialized for a high speed multi-role fighter.

Edited February 15, 2014 by Speed

[sorcer3r]

Did you ever play Falcon 4? Did you ever look at how incredibly simple the ground unit simulation was? DCS's ground unit simulation is good enough to make a game out of it (CA). Falcon 4's ground unit simulation is ridiculously basic. Ground units have very simple weapons and engagement logic; they can cross any terrain at all- water, mountains, etc. Their AI is super-basic. They only can exist in one formation (a long straight line), though that formation will break up a bit when they are moving.

They aggregate into a single object when you get further than like 20 NM away from them.

 

Today ground forces in this sim have about 2-3 formations. Sometimes the units are so far apart that you can only hit one of them with a cbu. ;)

If the campaign/theater design is good they wont drive over water etc.

Also the (de)aggregation has changed now a bit. The TGP can now deagg ground objects then you have more than one point on the FCR. :thumbup:

 

Of course in dcs the ground units are better modeled and also your argument is correct that the other sim is designed for a multi role jet but after years dcs has still not even a save game feature. :noexpression:

[Kaktus29]

i remember "dynamic campaign" of EF2000.. i really thought it was the bomb..but then saw that its sucked.. no matter what i did NATO always won.. i actually started helping the Russian side with my Eurofighter by bombing my own forces, whole airfield with planes-F-117, F-15, etc i destroyed, mission after mission, destroyed oil fields etc.. and nothing changed .. NATO still won..

 

so, this "dynamic campaigns" of the past have been proven to be hogwash more or less..

 

To me a truly dynamic campaign is the one where both sides have limited resources from the start of the war-obviously in strategic rear, which then each side deploys as they see fit..

 

problem is enormous, but since we can't have a save option or some way to work around this its impossible to talk about any kind of continuous campaign.. first lets resolve this issue..to finish a mission after 2 hours of engagement, then somehow transfer this to another mission with the things we did counted on and implication lasting for the duration of the war.. and then we can talk about AI how to make the experience count by changing tactics according to situation on the ground (for instance if AI sees lots of planes were demolished it doesn't move its armor anymore since its more dangerous for enemy air force to kill it as it does not posses any air cover anymore.. or do it only by night with smaller number of armor ..

 

but this is another topic.. topic of AI development..

 

for Dynamic campaign i think best thing is development of "save" option .. we can simplify the process somewhat to make it happen, i am perfectly happy to not have 100% reality when it comes to save option for the sake of simplicity and workload..

 

my solution is divide the map in "zones" of lets say 20*20 km.. if in any such zone after the 2 hour mark armor exists it is considered your zone and also place where your tanks can be deployed in the next mission or will start from this position.. same goes for planes in airbases, if your origin is in such and such base it stays there unless you "order" it to move to another base which would mean you have to spend that 30-50 minutes to fly there and land and shut off engine while requesting this and logging this mission before hand so its permanent "home" for your plane.

 

After end of mission such "zones" can be checked by computer and restart next mission with more or less new updated map..

 

when it comes to logistics and fuel, ammo, supply etc.. and how to do this from one mission to next.. i think again, simplify the system.. create certain "buildings" of high value which if hit have impact on your reinforcement and refueling of your forces.. but the trick part would be to find this buildings you need to fly recon missions and gather information.. if you fly at this and this zone after mission ends in the start of the mission you have information what targets beside land forces exist in the area (maybe supply depot, maybe ammo depot, maybe C&C center) etc.. in this way MP campaign can easily drag along and be played for weeks, well maybe not weeks but at least days while in game this would mean a full intensive war that lasts 2-5 days..

[Weta43]

Maybe all the problems have already been sorted out..

Is the Universe a Simulation?

NYTimes FEB. 14, 2014

 

By EDWARD FRENKEL

IN Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita,” the protagonist, a writer, burns a manuscript in a moment of despair, only to find out later from the Devil that “manuscripts don’t burn.” While you might appreciate this romantic sentiment, there is of course no reason to think that it is true. Nikolai Gogol apparently burned the second volume of “Dead Souls,” and it has been lost forever. Likewise, if Bulgakov had burned his manuscript, we would have never known “Master and Margarita.” No other author would have written the same novel.

But there is one area of human endeavor that comes close to exemplifying the maxim “manuscripts don’t burn.” That area is mathematics. If Pythagoras had not lived, or if his work had been destroyed, someone else eventually would have discovered the same Pythagorean theorem. Moreover, this theorem means the same thing to everyone today as it meant 2,500 years ago, and will mean the same thing to everyone a thousand years from now — no matter what advances occur in technology or what new evidence emerges. Mathematical knowledge is unlike any other knowledge. Its truths are objective, necessary and timeless.

What kinds of things are mathematical entities and theorems, that they are knowable in this way? Do they exist somewhere, a set of immaterial objects in the enchanted gardens of the Platonic world, waiting to be discovered? Or are they mere creations of the human mind?

This question has divided thinkers for centuries. It seems spooky to suggest that mathematical entities actually exist in and of themselves. But if math is only a product of the human imagination, how do we all end up agreeing on exactly the same math? Some might argue that mathematical entities are like chess pieces, elaborate fictions in a game invented by humans. But unlike chess, mathematics is indispensable to scientific theories describing our universe. And yet there are many mathematical concepts — from esoteric numerical systems to infinite-dimensional spaces — that we don’t currently find in the world around us. In what sense do they exist?

Many mathematicians, when pressed, admit to being Platonists. The great logician Kurt Gödel argued that mathematical concepts and ideas “form an objective reality of their own, which we cannot create or change, but only perceive and describe.” But if this is true, how do humans manage to access this hidden reality?

We don’t know. But one fanciful possibility is that we live in a computer simulation based on the laws of mathematics — not in what we commonly take to be the real world. According to this theory, some highly advanced computer programmer of the future has devised this simulation, and we are unknowingly part of it. Thus when we discover a mathematical truth, we are simply discovering aspects of the code that the programmer used.

This may strike you as very unlikely. But the Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom has argued that we are more likely to be in such a simulation than not. If such simulations are possible in theory, he reasons, then eventually humans will create them — presumably many of them. If this is so, in time there will be many more simulated worlds than nonsimulated ones. Statistically speaking, therefore, we are more likely to be living in a simulated world than the real one.

Very clever. But is there any way to empirically test this hypothesis?

Indeed, there may be. In a recent paper, “Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation,” the physicists Silas R. Beane, Zohreh Davoudi and Martin J. Savage outline a possible method for detecting that our world is actually a computer simulation. Physicists have been creating their own computer simulations of the forces of nature for years — on a tiny scale, the size of an atomic nucleus. They use a three-dimensional grid to model a little chunk of the universe; then they run the program to see what happens. This way, they have been able to simulate the motion and collisions of elementary particles.

But these computer simulations, Professor Beane and his colleagues observe, generate slight but distinctive anomalies — certain kinds of asymmetries. Might we be able to detect these same distinctive anomalies in the actual universe, they wondered? In their paper, they suggest that a closer look at cosmic rays, those high-energy particles coming to Earth’s atmosphere from outside the solar system, may reveal similar asymmetries. If so, this would indicate that we might — just might — ourselves be in someone else’s computer simulation.

Are we prepared to take the “red pill,” as Neo did in “The Matrix,” to see the truth behind the illusion — to see “how deep the rabbit hole goes”? Perhaps not yet. The jury is still out on the simulation hypothesis. But even if it proves too far-fetched, the possibility of the Platonic nature of mathematical ideas remains — and may hold the key to understanding our own reality.

 

Edward Frenkel, a professor of mathematics at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of “Love and Math: The Heart of Hidden Reality.”

[Kaktus29]

@weta.. lol.. yeah, considering how humans turned out i would say this is a simulation or should i say Alpha version full of bugs..

 

poor us.. our programmer did a sloppy job.. damn those publishing companies forcing products faster than they are ready..

 

 

but on a serious note, of course, as time passes and our computer power becomes stronger, wider, more in-depth of course we can set the parameters for the "big bang" and watch the thing on our screen happen and see what kind of "life" springs out.. but since our parameters will be LESS than our universe which we do not know 100% and will never know 100% than our simulation will be a bad bad copy of the real thing.. now we all know what copy of a copy does right?.. keep copying a copy etc.. ad infinitum and you end up with white paper without the words..

[PLP]

One way to go would be to write a shell program, which would use DCS for battle simulations, creating miz files and then analysing player performance (the way Tacview can do.)

 

A simple start would be an air war between carrier groups: The program would give you a war room or AWACS view of the situation, then whenever a confrontation occurs (e.g. two aircraft less then 50nm apart), it would create a miz file representing the exact situation, launch DCS, let you play the battle and then look at the outcome (with possibly a time limit after which your actions in DCS are effectless.)

 

This really would just be applying the "total war" system to DCS.

 

Well even this relatively simple example would probably imply months of programming... I guess I'll rather let ED surprise us with whatever they have in mind.

 

EDIT: by shell program I mean a front-end, not a program run in a terminal. Rather poor choice of words

[empeck]

One way to go would be to write a shell program, which would use DCS for battle simulations, creating miz files and then analysing player performance (the way Tacview can do.)

 

A simple start would be an air war between carrier groups: The program would give you a war room or AWACS view of the situation, then whenever a confrontation occurs (e.g. two aircraft less then 50nm apart), it would create a miz file representing the exact situation, launch DCS, let you play the battle and then look at the outcome (with possibly a time limit after which your actions in DCS are effectless.)

 

This really would just be applying the "total war" system to DCS.

 

Well even this relatively simple example would probably imply months of programming... I guess I'll rather let ED surprise us with whatever they have in mind.

 

EDIT: by shell program I mean a front-end, not a program run in a terminal. Rather poor choice of words

 

This is exactly what guys at OBD Software did for MS CFS3 with Wings: Over Flanders Fields:

 

http://www.overflandersfields.com/Features-Campaign.html

[PLP]

This is exactly what guys at OBD Software did for MS CFS3 with Wings: Over Flanders Fields:

 

http://www.overflandersfields.com/Features-Campaign.html

 

Looks nice. I was also thinking the concept would work better with DCS:WW2 (which will probably also be a lot about the air war.)

[Jimbolya]

You know - something that might be simple to help improve the missions is random chance of appearance?

[Keith_GadgetUK]

I want to add support to this. I used to play Falcon and it gave the sim's missions purpose as it brought home the importance of protecting certain facilities. As if those facilities were attacked, they would not be available within the next few missions until repaired by the engineers. If this were added to DCS, attacking enemy runways would actually be worthwhile planning.

[NineLine]

You know - something that might be simple to help improve the missions is random chance of appearance?

 

That is already possible.

[Exorcet]

You know - something that might be simple to help improve the missions is random chance of appearance?

 

This is one of DCS's strength's. A single mission can be so diverse that you never get the same mission twice. It takes time to do in the ME, but it doesn't even requiring scripting.

 

I want to add support to this. I used to play Falcon and it gave the sim's missions purpose as it brought home the importance of protecting certain facilities. As if those facilities were attacked, they would not be available within the next few missions until repaired by the engineers. If this were added to DCS, attacking enemy runways would actually be worthwhile planning.

 

DC would be nice in DCS, but the bigger issue for me is the random mission select the campaign system currently uses. I think that being able to change that to something more controllable and then adding branches to a campaign would basically give us a DC like feel with DCS's current system.

 

Example, right now if you do strike a runway, you could be sent back to do it again somehow because of the random mission select at each campaign stage. If we had a more deliberate mission selection, the mission could be removed from the campaign after the first attempt. If we had branching campaigns, you would remove missions from the campaign depending on the success of the runway strike mission. Basically after a certain point you'd need two of each mission, one with runway dead and the other not, but you'd get a similar effect to a DC.

 

Even if you attack the runway after the branching point, you can still switch over since you still have two versions of each mission.

[McBlemmen]

I would love dynamic campaigns, it would add so much depth to the single player experience... hell , i would pay the price of a full dcs module just to get it... DCS : Dynamic campaign add on or something

[Rangi]

I would love dynamic campaigns, it would add so much depth to the single player experience... hell , i would pay the price of a full dcs module just to get it... DCS : Dynamic campaign add on or something

 

+100