Dynamic Campaign Discussion Thread

[Druid_]

Read with interest. Have to say though why is it that people assume the reason a company went bankrupt/stopped trading etc was due to the inclusion of a DC in their software?

 

I would say there were a hundred other reasons & quite likely the inclusion of a DC is way down the list. But then I too am making an assumption here, in reality only the MDs and Directors of aforementioned companies know for sure.

[J. Heller]

Read with interest. Have to say though why is it that people assume the reason a company went bankrupt/stopped trading etc was due to the inclusion of a DC in their software?

 

I would say there were a hundred other reasons & quite likely the inclusion of a DC is way down the list. But then I too am making an assumption here, in reality only the MDs and Directors of aforementioned companies know for sure.

 

But you are absolutely right. Just because they made a DC their company failed? What nonsense. The more this EtherealN person says the less I think he knows about software companies and how the business world works. To say any company failed because one component of the product was "broken" is just rubbish, it takes many factors to close the doors and none of us really knows why Microprose went under. Other than Hasbro (Dont they make little plastic G.I. joes?) didnt have the proper knowledge of what it took to make and support a sim of such complexity so they just cut it loose. If Microprose popped up again with Falcon 5 and it still had the same, slightly updated DC I would give them my money so fast the jet wash would make an A-10 stall into the dirt. To not acknowledge the great impact F4 has had on the sim community is just foolish, even if you love DCS.

Edited June 29, 2011 by J. Heller

[sobek]

To say any company failed because one component of the product was "broken" is just rubbish

 

Which is not what he said. You completely missed the point. Again.

 

His argument is that a DC is a lot of work, work that does not directly translate in an equal amount of more income if it is invested, hence a DC is in total a loss for a company, in F4s case, a huge loss, because it was a huge undertaking. Such a loss has to be compensated for by other parts of the sim being little work and a lot of return, or the product as a whole will be at loss.

 

It would be foolish to deny at the very least the enormous negative financial impact that such a feature brings with itself. It may not have tipped the scales, but it sure as hell weighed in a lot.

Edited June 29, 2011 by sobek

[Grimes]

ED's way

 

Step 1: DCS: BS (40 USD)

Completely rewrite the mission editor

Add triggers for scripting logic.

Numerous changes to AI

 

Step 2: FC2 (30 USD)

Removed 100 flag limit

Made compatible with DCS:BS

 

Step 3: DCS: WH (60 USD)

Implement fast mission generator

Added several new trigger conditions and actions

Improvements for AI fighters and land units

Added event based triggers

Added number counter for scripting logic

 

Step 4 DCS WH+BS Compatibility Patch

Owners of Black Shark get all of the new stuff added from WH.

 

Step 5: Nevada DLC (? USD)

New Terrain

?

 

Step 6: DCS: CF-18 (60 USD estimated ---- Thrustmaster CF-18 HOTAS 300 USD)

More improvements to the mission editor

More improvements to the fast mission generator

 

So to summarize:

Iterate

Profit

Iterate

Profit

and so on.

 

The other way.

 

Build Dynamic Campaign from the ground up without releasing anything else.

????

Feed off hope

Profit?

[GGTharos]

The reality is that the dev who programmed the DC said it was a major factor. Does he know the full scope of things? Who knows.

 

Read with interest. Have to say though why is it that people assume the reason a company went bankrupt/stopped trading etc was due to the inclusion of a DC in their software?

 

I would say there were a hundred other reasons & quite likely the inclusion of a DC is way down the list. But then I too am making an assumption here, in reality only the MDs and Directors of aforementioned companies know for sure.

[EtherealN]

Exactly.

 

The point that there seems to be difficulties in getting across is that to make a DC you need the entire cost, which is at a minimum many hundreds of thousands of dollars, up-front. This applies also if you do it "on the side". You then have several years of development time during which this working capital creates no return. This feature then, when finished, must translate into extra sales that cover the development cost, capital costs, inflation, and overheads.

 

This is not a big market. The reason we have DCS at all is that ED are able to leverage multiple markets in the same codebase - military contracts and consumer products collaborate in funding development. A DC on the other hand can only act on one of these markets. What ED's strategy appears to be (again, while I might have a wee bit of insider knowledge it's not exactly like I'm sitting in on their planning meetings or read the minutes of them - I'm on "need-to-know") is to work iteratively as illustrated by Grimes above, and if you look closely at it you'll notice a trend; more and more of the pieces that would be required for a DC are falling into place.

 

4 years ago there was absolutely nothing even resembling groundwork for DC in the consumer line from ED. Now we have a powerful mission scripting toolkit, both in the sense of capability and precision but also in the sense of extendability, and we have an actual generator! Progress is being made, but it's being made iteratively and in a financially safe and sound way - each advance is leveraged to pay for itself and offers a relatively goot rate of return on working capital.

 

I'm certain they'll get there, eventually. Maybe in DCS:Next, maybe in DCS:After THat One. The point is they're not charging headlong into major features with no consideration for the financial realities.

 

And yes, giving people the features they want can and often do lead to bankruptcy - if your attempt is not tempered by good planning, project management, an appreciation of where the market is etcetera you'll end up fronting so much cash for the development that the game simply cannot pay for itself due to how small the market is.

 

It's a bit like when people complain about the terrain engine and the issues that exist in that, and why isn't ED using Outerra or doing something new that looks as cool and awesome as the terrain in HAWX etcetera? Well, they could, and people would be thrilled at it's awesomeness, but it would be a major project that most likely wouldn't pay for itself. Another would be the question of fully utilising multi-core and/or many-core systems - yes, they could do a crash project to fully multithread the engine, but it wouldn't pay for itself. Instead, they work iteratively through the engine components and thread out as and when it's possible (like it was done with the new sound engine).

 

If ED were to do all the things that customers (and many customers at that) want, they'd do the following:

 

1 - DC from scratch.

2 - New graphics engine from scratch.

3 - New terrain engine from scratch.

4 - Multithreaded simulation engine implementation

 

...and thus tie down so much of the resources that they can't actually release anything in the next 4-6 years, and then pray to the gods that what gets released sells well enough to cover all of that at the same time. So, obviously they can't do that, it's just not possible. How about selecting one of them and work on that in the background? Well, which one? All of them have people religiously claiming that that specific thing would translate into sooo much extra sales...

 

That said, maybe they are actually working on those things in the background - to a certain extent I'd even wager a couple months salary that all of those aspects see some attention in the desired direction every month. But at all times ED has to literally "keep their eyes on the money", because surviving in this market is really really hard. (Remember, they don't have the backing of a major publisher; they do all of this with their own money. No-one's coming to the rescue if they make a bad bet on a major project. It's not like DICE who had all expenses covered by Gremlin, then by Microsoft, then by EA.)

 

So: a DC is probably coming. But it has to live as a project according to the same realities and considerations as all other parts of the product. Anyone thinking that a DC is some sort of magic bullet towards getting sales is, however, just plain wrong. (Or, rather, I don't doubt that it would add sales, and probably considerably, but not enough to cover it's expenses.)

[Krippz]

Very good post; couldn't agree with you more. People need to exercise patience with the responsible way that ED is going about improving the engine.

 

Exactly.

 

The point that there seems to be difficulties in getting across is that to make a DC you need the entire cost, which is at a minimum many hundreds of thousands of dollars, up-front. This applies also if you do it "on the side". You then have several years of development time during which this working capital creates no return. This feature then, when finished, must translate into extra sales that cover the development cost, capital costs, inflation, and overheads.

 

This is not a big market. The reason we have DCS at all is that ED are able to leverage multiple markets in the same codebase - military contracts and consumer products collaborate in funding development. A DC on the other hand can only act on one of these markets. What ED's strategy appears to be (again, while I might have a wee bit of insider knowledge it's not exactly like I'm sitting in on their planning meetings or read the minutes of them - I'm on "need-to-know") is to work iteratively as illustrated by Grimes above, and if you look closely at it you'll notice a trend; more and more of the pieces that would be required for a DC are falling into place.

 

4 years ago there was absolutely nothing even resembling groundwork for DC in the consumer line from ED. Now we have a powerful mission scripting toolkit, both in the sense of capability and precision but also in the sense of extendability, and we have an actual generator! Progress is being made, but it's being made iteratively and in a financially safe and sound way - each advance is leveraged to pay for itself and offers a relatively goot rate of return on working capital.

 

I'm certain they'll get there, eventually. Maybe in DCS:Next, maybe in DCS:After THat One. The point is they're not charging headlong into major features with no consideration for the financial realities.

 

And yes, giving people the features they want can and often do lead to bankruptcy - if your attempt is not tempered by good planning, project management, an appreciation of where the market is etcetera you'll end up fronting so much cash for the development that the game simply cannot pay for itself due to how small the market is.

 

It's a bit like when people complain about the terrain engine and the issues that exist in that, and why isn't ED using Outerra or doing something new that looks as cool and awesome as the terrain in HAWX etcetera? Well, they could, and people would be thrilled at it's awesomeness, but it would be a major project that most likely wouldn't pay for itself. Another would be the question of fully utilising multi-core and/or many-core systems - yes, they could do a crash project to fully multithread the engine, but it wouldn't pay for itself. Instead, they work iteratively through the engine components and thread out as and when it's possible (like it was done with the new sound engine).

 

If ED were to do all the things that customers (and many customers at that) want, they'd do the following:

 

1 - DC from scratch.

2 - New graphics engine from scratch.

3 - New terrain engine from scratch.

4 - Multithreaded simulation engine implementation

 

...and thus tie down so much of the resources that they can't actually release anything in the next 4-6 years, and then pray to the gods that what gets released sells well enough to cover all of that at the same time. So, obviously they can't do that, it's just not possible. How about selecting one of them and work on that in the background? Well, which one? All of them have people religiously claiming that that specific thing would translate into sooo much extra sales...

 

That said, maybe they are actually working on those things in the background - to a certain extent I'd even wager a couple months salary that all of those aspects see some attention in the desired direction every month. But at all times ED has to literally "keep their eyes on the money", because surviving in this market is really really hard. (Remember, they don't have the backing of a major publisher; they do all of this with their own money. No-one's coming to the rescue if they make a bad bet on a major project. It's not like DICE who had all expenses covered by Gremlin, then by Microsoft, then by EA.)

 

So: a DC is probably coming. But it has to live as a project according to the same realities and considerations as all other parts of the product. Anyone thinking that a DC is some sort of magic bullet towards getting sales is, however, just plain wrong. (Or, rather, I don't doubt that it would add sales, and probably considerably, but not enough to cover it's expenses.)

[HerrKaputt]

I think Grimes put it very well. Big undertakings basically work like this:

 

0. Someone gives some money up-front, because Devs don't live out of thin air

1. Spend lots of man-year resources coding a big project like a fully-fledged aircraft simulator with a great DC, terrain engine, etc

2. Release said project and hope for the best

3. If sales are really good, you made a profit, otherwise, you have so much debt that it won't happen again (either you go bankrupt or your parent company tells you that now you are going to code the next stuff pack for The Sims)

 

This is NOT a wise strategy and two or three big failures like this are enough to throw any but the largest game companies into oblivion, as Razorworks and Microprose unfortunately witnessed. It's not the DC itself that threw them away, it's the approach of wanting to do these big projects upfront instead of in an iterative manner like ED is doing.

[amalahama]

And think that when DC is done, we will fly in it with 3 or 4 different aircrafts :)

 

Regards!

[EtherealN]

What HerrKaputt said. Here's an illustrative revenue and expense graph with invented numbers that might make it easier to see the point:

 

2000:

Costs: $1 000 000

Revenue: $0

 

2001:

Costs: $1 000 000

Revenue: $0

 

2002:

Costs: $1 000 000

Revenue: $0

 

2003:

Costs: $1 000 000

Revenue: $4 000 000

 

Whoohooo! The game sold well, we at least broke even and can get on with the next project... Well, not really broke even, we forgot that the 4 million dollars of revenue are worth less than most of the previously spent millions due to inflation...

 

What ED is doing is they ensure a more constant revenue stream. This has the advantage of making the company more secure (I think the english term is that they have reduced leverage - in my country we would often talk about "solidity" instead), but the disadvantage that you can't really do revolutionary stuff between each release.

 

Another business model would be like what DICE did, where each year the publisher pays your expenses (and possible a small + on top of it, sort of like how military projects tend to be "cost plus" based). In that case they're not at great risk, because someone else (the publisher) has accepted the risk of the whole thing. But you bet they expect to be paid for taking that risk the same way banks take a higher interest on credit cards (being debt without security) than they do on real-estate financing. So in that case the developer is secure, they won't make a loss themselves, but if what they make becomes awesome and sells like cream and butter the publisher runs away with the money.

 

ED did the whole publisher deal thing previously (if I've understood it right, that is, no guarantees), through working with UbiSoft on Lock On. And let's just say ED are not happy with how that went. The genious of what ED has done is that they've sort of combined the two - they have partial funding through cost+ arrangements on military products and self-funded consumer products. The military contracts will never make them ultra-wealthy, but it supplies a secure revenue stream and synergies they can exploit towards the consumer side of things. As someone who has some insight in how to run a business (I work in a family-owned consultancy firm active in the wood product industry) I cannot adequately express how genious this setup is. It's a combination of the best of both worlds, while still owning all the IP themselves!

 

The issue from a project management standpoint though is that they really-really need to stick to the model. They cannot start diverging into really huge projects in the former model (that is, the consumer side), because they'll then be subject to huge risk. The whole business model relies on exploiting synergies between the two markets, and the fact that they found this model is precisely the reason DCS exists at all. If they had stayed oldschool I feel pretty confident that ED either would not exist anymore, or they'd have been a UbiSoft pawn cranking out DLC for HAWX...

Edited June 29, 2011 by EtherealN

[159th_Viper]

And think that when DC is done, we will fly in it with 3 or 4 different aircrafts :)

 

Coupled with talented mission designers such as Grimes, Speed, Moa, MadTommy and all the rest I missed that finally get to grips with the ME's quirks and start putting out missions that place you *right there*. Make no mistake - it's going to happen: It's just a matter of time.........I'll be the first to admit a near-zero understanding of the intricacies of the ME, but listening to the likes of Speed and Co I cannot help but feel all warm and fuzzy contemplating the future potential of this our favourite Hobby.

 

That said, I honestly still do not see what a DC can do that the ME, once it's where ED and the rest want it to be, cannot do. It's just a matter of getting to know your existing tools and utilizing them to their maximum potential and improving on them as circumstances permit as opposed to sitting back and reminiscing on what 'could have been'.

[EtherealN]

That said, I honestly still do not see what a DC can do that the ME, once it's where ED and the rest want it to be, cannot do.

 

Speaking for myself, the thing it cannot do well is the sort of "RPG" aspect of a career as a fighter pilot. When I played IL-2 on it's crap standard DC, I still had fun because the main "goal" of my play was to sort of fight my way through the war and be an awesome ace in the process. They had some nice touches in there where my "character" spent months in hospital a couple times due to injuries, and at one point was forced to eject over enemy lines. I fought as a madman with a shot up engine and russian birds all around me (I flew german) to try to get myself back over the front before leaving the aircraft because I had made a sort of contract with myself - if the character dies or gets captured, he's gone. As it happened I was forced to bail over enemy lines but the system decided my pilot escaped capture and I was able to continue.

 

Such a "career mode" can be made without a DC, but it is a HUGE undertaking. And it added a lot of value to my experience. That said, I would have bought it anyway even if it didn't have that DC, which is the point on the financial side of things here. (Though as it happens I didn't actually buy it - I was flying review code since at the time I was working as a freelance games reviewer for a magazine and a couple internet sites.)

 

My real objection at the start, however, was the statement that a DC is required towards "simulating air combat". That's just false, for reasons I stated earlier in this thread.

[159th_Viper]

Speaking for myself, the thing it cannot do well is the sort of "RPG" aspect of a career as a fighter pilot.

 

I hear you.

 

Personally it would require a temporary suspension of disbelief if we were to have that type of a career mode as a Warthog pilot, especially considering the nature of the operational sorties currently flown by the Hogs in their respective theatres. I am not sure I'm willing to do that, truth be told. Then again, there are others that will - It's purely subjective. Do you want a non-fictional 'As Real as it Gets' scenario or do you want the fictional 'Full-Scale War of Attrition'? There will always be either/or die-hards. For the reasonable, the current ME, somewhere in-between, provides a pretty nifty balance I would have thought.

 

 

My real objection at the start, however, was the statement that a DC is required towards "simulating air combat". That's just false, for reasons I stated earlier in this thread.

 

Oh hell yeah I cannot agree more.

[HerrKaputt]

Speaking for myself, the thing it cannot do well is the sort of "RPG" aspect of a career as a fighter pilot. When I played IL-2 on it's crap standard DC, I still had fun because the main "goal" of my play was to sort of fight my way through the war and be an awesome ace in the process. They had some nice touches in there where my "character" spent months in hospital a couple times due to injuries, and at one point was forced to eject over enemy lines. I fought as a madman with a shot up engine and russian birds all around me (I flew german) to try to get myself back over the front before leaving the aircraft because I had made a sort of contract with myself - if the character dies or gets captured, he's gone. As it happened I was forced to bail over enemy lines but the system decided my pilot escaped capture and I was able to continue.

 

Such a "career mode" can be made without a DC, but it is a HUGE undertaking. And it added a lot of value to my experience. That said, I would have bought it anyway even if it didn't have that DC, which is the point on the financial side of things here. (Though as it happens I didn't actually buy it - I was flying review code since at the time I was working as a freelance games reviewer for a magazine and a couple internet sites.)

 

My real objection at the start, however, was the statement that a DC is required towards "simulating air combat". That's just false, for reasons I stated earlier in this thread.

 

I think it's more than that. I put loads of hours into EECH because I loved how what I did really mattered. If I had a recon mission on an enemy FARP, and on my way back spotted a flight of 4 Ka-50's on their way to one of my own FARPs, I had two options: either engage to try and save my own FARP (not the one I was going to land on, mind you), or nevermind, run away, and realize that my FARP was probably going to be toast as there is no other air support nearby. This type of immersion makes your actions much more important, whereas the ME of DCS, if I understand it correctly, would simply realize that you did make the recon of that enemy FARP. Even if in the current mission your own FARP is obliterated, in the next mission it will be happily there.

 

Of course, in real warfare pilots of recon helicopters don't engage at their discretion (they also don't fly RAH-66 helicopters). But I'm sure some sort of air control communication could be implemented, where you have the option of reporting enemy movement and asking them what your course of action should be. If they tell you to engage, you do it, if not, at least they are now aware of it.

 

As you can see from my very simplistic description, this is not such a small undertaking...

 

But my main point is: this is not just something that gives you an RPG or career feeling. It really makes all your actions matter. When you do something (example: destroy an enemy FARP), the DC engine makes the enemy react to it (example: dispatch a recon mission to assess the damage, and then a supply mission to restore functionality). Simultaneously, the DC engine creates new missions for your side (example: a recon mission to assess the damage, and a capture mission to capture the FARP). With this dynamic situation, anything you do affects the flow of battle.

Edited June 29, 2011 by HerrKaputt

[Jona33]

I have to agree with you, I remember when we had many more sims available to us. Remember Spectrum Holobytes Mig-29? X-wing? TIE Fighter? F-117? Tornado IDS?Alot more racing sims then too, I guess as we get older the console kids will just continue to destroy the simulation market until there is nothing left but Microsofts FS... Not looking forward to that at all.

 

Not every kid spends all day on consoles, I'm barely a teenager and I'm playing these sims.

 

Edit: Just making a point that teenagers aren't all addicted to COD or Halo. Most of them I'll admit but there's always a few (like me).

Edited June 29, 2011 by Jona33

[J. Heller]

Not every kid spends all day on consoles, I'm barely a teenager and I'm playing these sims.

 

Edit: Just making a point that teenagers aren't all addicted to COD or Halo. Most of them I'll admit but there's always a few (like me).

 

 

I hear ya, I was playing all those sims I listed when I was 9-15 years old. I know there are still a few smart ones out there. That being said I have also been addicted to COD since release, though that has really tapered off since MW1. Cant wait for BF3...:thumbup:

[Murf7413]

His argument is that a DC is a lot of work, work that does not directly translate in an equal amount of more income if it is invested, hence a DC is in total a loss for a company, in F4s case, a huge loss, because it was a huge undertaking. Such a loss has to be compensated for by other parts of the sim being little work and a lot of return, or the product as a whole will be at loss.

 

It would be foolish to deny at the very least the enormous negative financial impact that such a feature brings with itself. It may not have tipped the scales, but it sure as hell weighed in a lot.

 

I agree with this completely!!!

[J. Heller]

I think it's more than that. I put loads of hours into EECH because I loved how what I did really mattered. If I had a recon mission on an enemy FARP, and on my way back spotted a flight of 4 Ka-50's on their way to one of my own FARPs, I had two options: either engage to try and save my own FARP (not the one I was going to land on, mind you), or nevermind, run away, and realize that my FARP was probably going to be toast as there is no other air support nearby. This type of immersion makes your actions much more important, whereas the ME of DCS, if I understand it correctly, would simply realize that you did make the recon of that enemy FARP. Even if in the current mission your own FARP is obliterated, in the next mission it will be happily there.

 

Of course, in real warfare pilots of recon helicopters don't engage at their discretion (they also don't fly RAH-66 helicopters). But I'm sure some sort of air control communication could be implemented, where you have the option of reporting enemy movement and asking them what your course of action should be. If they tell you to engage, you do it, if not, at least they are now aware of it.

 

As you can see from my very simplistic description, this is not such a small undertaking...

 

But my main point is: this is not just something that gives you an RPG or career feeling. It really makes all your actions matter. When you do something (example: destroy an enemy FARP), the DC engine makes the enemy react to it (example: dispatch a recon mission to assess the damage, and then a supply mission to restore functionality). Simultaneously, the DC engine creates new missions for your side (example: a recon mission to assess the damage, and a capture mission to capture the FARP). With this dynamic situation, anything you do affects the flow of battle.

 

Ok, lets put all the arguments about financial issues to rest. We already know ED is not going to do something that will hurt the company in some irrevocable way. Lets just assume that a DC is coming sooner or later. Under this assumption the post above illustrates pretty well why there should be a DC. When you make things happen inside the DC they stick through the campaign, they have an impact on the campaign and they have an impact on the player. This creates immersion, not necessarily realism. Realism comes from accurate systems modeling, flight models, damage models, weapon systems and anything of this nature. We have just about all the realism we can handle in DCS, and I thank ED for that, now we just need some immersion. A DC will properly get us fully immersed in the DCS world and most importantly increase the replayability and fun we can have with it.

 

I would like to know how my rep went from +2 down to -97 in a matter of hours yesterday, someone not like something i said? Someone who has some control of these forums perhaps? Thanks alot if so.

Edited June 29, 2011 by J. Heller

[GGTharos]

Heck no, there's plenty more realism to come. :P

[159th_Viper]

I would like to know how my rep went from +2 down to -97 in a matter of hours yesterday, someone not like something i said? Someone who has some control of these forums perhaps? Thanks alot if so.

 

Familiarise yourself with the Board F.A.Q. and you'll answer your own question ;)

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/faq.php?faq=vb3_user_profile#faq_vb3_reputation

 

As for the query itself, it does not belong in the public domain. If you have any further issues regarding your reputation count, PM a Moderator, alternatively one of the Community Managers and the matter can be dealt with from there.

 

Keep it off the Forums.

Ta

[EtherealN]

But my main point is: this is not just something that gives you an RPG or career feeling. It really makes all your actions matter. When you do something (example: destroy an enemy FARP), the DC engine makes the enemy react to it (example: dispatch a recon mission to assess the damage, and then a supply mission to restore functionality). Simultaneously, the DC engine creates new missions for your side (example: a recon mission to assess the damage, and a capture mission to capture the FARP). With this dynamic situation, anything you do affects the flow of battle.

 

I get your point. My main objection to this whole thing that has been going on was when an individual stated that it was a requirement (well, the whole "dropping the player in as a cog in the wheels of a larger war") for simulation. Which is absurd. The goalpost was later moved, however, which I find interesting. :)

 

J.Heller, just to add a tidbit to Viper's infobit: you can see exactly who gave you what rep through the "User CP" link at the top. If you have complaints, direct it to a moderator or, if your complaint is about a moderator, to a manager: Groove or EvilBivol-1. (Groove would be your first resort, EB has other things to do as well and might have a harder time adressing your complaint.)

[Murf7413]

I FULLY agree... it certainly isn't a "requirement" to make it a good sim... can't argue that point at all. ;-)

[EagleEye]

Some people just need more motivation to play a game(simulation) in the spare-time, including me. I want to that my action matters in any regard. Look, you have a story line in most games and that is the motivation for playing it. Or you get money for some work and can invest it in i.e. a better plane or building factories or that stuff and make more money. All what you do matters in the whole picture.

Sure DCS series (or all real simulation games) isn`t about a story line or having a career in Army. You concentrate on the right stuff and that is great. But how awesome would it be, if we have correct aircraft simulation AND persistent battlefield or another motivation to play through?

I dont know if it is possible to analyze battle damage on a huge map and to carry it over to the next mission?

I understand that DCS is an ongoing development and we may have all what we want in some years. Just want to raise my hand again to let you know how important is some more immersion to us.:)

[HerrKaputt]

I dont know if it is possible to analyze battle damage on a huge map and to carry it over to the next mission?

 

This would already be quite nice as a first step. It would confer the campaign some "memory" of what happened in the past.

 

However, even this "simple" addition isn't that simple at all. Suppose you have one mission where you have to take out an AA site, and the next mission is to bomb the runway which was being protected by said AA site. What happens if on the first mission you decide to bomb the runway? What happens to the second mission?

 

Stuff like this are what makes a proper DC a non-trivial task.

[EtherealN]

I dont know if it is possible to analyze battle damage on a huge map and to carry it over to the next mission?

 

It is theoretically possible. All the requirements in the infrastructure, so to speak, are pretty much there as far as I can tell. What's missing for that specific thing is something that actually reads your input (essentially you could do an analysis either of debrief.lua or run something that hooks to export.lua) and decides how to carry things over. The pita is to do an implementation that manages to change missions on-the-fly without breaking them... That'll not be easy if you want missions that are more complex than "Go to X place, Bomb Target Y into small bits, Land at Z airfield"...

 

My personal preference for an intermediary when it comes to making things persistent would be to have Campaign Flags - essentially the same as the flags used in a mission, but that are stored on the pilot profile and are able to be influenced by events in the missions. So I could have a Flag that gets set if the player completely annihilates a specific armor formation - this flag is then checked in every mission later on that includes that formation and if it is set, the mission doesn't load those units. Possibly the campaign might also be made to be able to select missions based on flags (or prevent missions based on flags).

 

With such a system, and some pretty tireless mission designers (which shouldn't be a problem - if I remember right Matt made something like 200 missions for the DCS:BS GOW campaign :P ), I'm certain we could even make something that people will think is actually a DC, but really isn't. (Sort of like what happened with Longbow - people thought it was a DC, but it really wasn't.)

Edited July 1, 2011 by EtherealN