Dynamic Campaign Discussion Thread

[Lieuwe]

Well there is not just a viable business case for third party developers but also for ED themselves. Sure a DC costs money to develop but it also adds value to not just future Modules but also to modules already on the market. Like I said before I wouldn´t mind paying for a module that contains JUST the DC and it would get me to buy more future modules. At the moment I don´t think I will buy any future modules mainly because I don´t see the point of investing time to learn how to operate a aircraft if I am only going to be able to operate it in a campaign engine that looks and feels of 2001 vintage.

[E61-v1T1]

If I had just wanted to fly the F-16C around I can load up FSX with the Aerosoft F-16 addon and fly it to my hearts content.

 

I think you misunderstood.

 

We are writing in a forum DCS (Digital Combat Simulator), F4 is a Combat Simulator too, that means, I refer to an F-16 into a medium where a possible battle scenario. FSX even with many mods, it would not be able to render this, Or at least never as DCS or F4.

 

Would all these variations of Falcon, OpenFalcon, FreeFalcon, Allied Force, BenchMarkSims, exist if people JUST want to fly the F-16? Ofcourse not, it's for the campaign engine.

 

Tell me that again when DCS present a F-16C. You'll see. :smilewink:

 

 

Greetings

[Lieuwe]

Mwoah, at the moment I get as much fun out flying navigation trips in the F-16 in FSX as I get from blowing stuff up in DCS with the A-10C. The current campaign system just doesn't float my boat at all so I don't really see the point in blowing stuff up. Besides, most fighter pilots make 99,99% of the flying hours in peace time, I know a lot of fighter pilots that had entire carreers and that never dropped a bomb in anger. What I am doing in FSX is actually way more realistic ;)

[E61-v1T1]

Right, spoken like someone with very little time in the Falcon 4 campaign engine.

 

Everyone, with the degree of fanaticism.

 

That makes no sense. F4 campaign engine, is something known by all for many years, I personally think it would be a great satisfaction to be taken into DCS, but I think you can live without it. Bringing back the meaning of this comment could also mean people have not taken the time to experiment and develop their imagination in the campaign editor DCS too.

 

:thumbup:

[Bucic]

Besides, most fighter pilots make 99,99% of the flying hours in peace time, I know a lot of fighter pilots that had entire carreers and that never dropped a bomb in anger. What I am doing in FSX is actually way more realistic ;)

Now that's what I call 'braking a taboo' :D

[Lieuwe]

Now that's what I call 'braking a taboo' :D

 

Well note the emoticon ofcourse, the system modeling is not that great compared to the real thing I gather from a few people who can know. But flying it is fun and IFR navigation is IFR navigation regardless if the radar tracking modes for Air to Air targets are correct. Besides, with the TAC Pack thing from the VRS Super Hornet people hopefully getting added to more aircraft like the F-16 it would add another element to it that will be good to see.

[Henchman14]

I wouldn't mind paying for a module that consisted just out of a Dynamic Campaign. I am find the lack of one is seriously hampering my motivation to get into this series seriously though I did buy two copies of DCS A-10C, one for a buddy of mine. For me even the mediocre DC in IL-2 has more interest at the moment.

I do seriously miss the one in Falcon IV. It was interesting coming across "strangers" on other missions. Once watched a group of B-52s on a bombing run going into their target as I was midway to my target. That was neat.

[Bucic]

Why is it so importend to be able to view everything that is happening anywhere in the world when in most FC missions there are only a handfull of planes.

Because military clients demand it.

 

I do seriously miss the one in Falcon IV. It was interesting coming across "strangers" on other missions. Once watched a group of B-52s on a bombing run going into their target as I was midway to my target. That was neat.

Needless to say that reading Falcon 4.0 mission After Action Reports (AAR) was interesting while reading LO/DCS AARs is like listening to a child who "met dragons on his way from school" :P That's only on a side note as no one has to convince ED that DC is desirable.

Edited January 17, 2011 by Bucic

[speed-of-heat]

In Falcon 4, you could set the bubble as big as you like, and create "stand alone" missions via the Tactical Engagment Editor, and observe every object within the scenario, this is essentially what we see in DCS today in Blackshark. This feature was slightly crippled with AF; when you could no longer control the bubble size via the UI. If you ran it with the Bubble on MAX and a campaign you would quickly run into a slide show.. but actually how many objects are ACTUALLY run in a DCS scenario, and how does that compare to the number of objects in the bubble over the FLOT in F4... my guess is it would be similiar.

 

The fact that military clients demand to be able to see anything does not preclude a bubble of variable size and defined mission parameters. However, if military clients are unwilling to fund a "dynamic campaign engine"... Then I can see that being an issue for ED and likely something that actually given the actual size of the flightsim market vs the size that likes military sims vs the size of the market that WANTS/NEEDS a "Dynamic Campaign Engine" as being a quite small differential market return on investment.

 

So something that will evolve over time, rather than something I would expect anytime soon, F4 had one of the best engines of it's kind and it was horriblly flawed yet wonderfully immersive. From a personal point of view if in the sim that 90% of my "items are in a lookup table" that just happend to be out side of my sensor range, you know what I'm kind of cool with that as a sim-gaming compromise, why because if I can't "sense" it why on earth would i want go look at it, as a sim-gamer who is looking for "realism".

 

An alternative is to enable each of the objects to be pageable and maintain "two bubbles" one for the "player" and one for the view "point of interest" 99% of the time only one would be used and certainly only one would need to be rendered ...

 

I do *Really* miss the feeling of being in a WAR but I do love the realism of the rendering of the avionics etc... to answer an ealier poster, I do like the Viper but if DCS were to offer me a really great Viper Sim, it would still have that slightly "sterile" feel to it, because of the lack of the "war" that I can effect, and that frankly can effect me. I would love to see what DCS would do to a Viper, and I would Love to see them do a dynamic campaign engine, of the two I would rather they did the dynamic campaign engine... i suspect the "Viper" is more likely.

[bogusheadbox]

HOW - - WHAT - - WHY - - !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

How did i totally miss a thread regarding dynamic campaign!!! (must be old age).

 

 

That's only on a side note as no one has to convince ED that DC is desirable.

 

Yeah i do...... :pilotfly:

Ummm +1 for a dynamic campaign

Edited January 17, 2011 by bogusheadbox

[winchesterdelta1]

I agree with most of that ripcord. But i think there doesn't have to be made another theater. Offcourse it would be fantastic if there is more time and resources to make more theaters. But i think a fictional conflict in Georgia would also do the trick. I'm just hoping one day i can start up this game and be as excited as i was back in the day's. THe whole feeling of a full scale war going on around you made me and others want to learn all the aircraft systems, avionic and tactics just so we could help with the big virtual conflict. WHen a new aircraft module gets out now i still find it incredible.. Show all the glowingAmraam vids to friends and people interested, telling them what go's around on the forums.. But than when it comes out the tought in my mind is... Hmmmm now i have to learn all these awsome instruments and tactics but at the end when everything is learned i'm back to same old TeamvsTeam or coop missions online. Doing all the missions again only with a different aircraft.

 

It just doesn't feel that i'm using the aircraft in its natural enviroment to the fullest of it's capability's.

 

Edit:

 

Needless to say that reading Falcon 4.0 mission After Action Reports (AAR) was interesting while reading LO/DCS AARs is like listening to a child who "met dragons on his way from school" :P That's only on a side note as no one has to convince ED that DC is desirable.

 

LoL nice comparison.... But i totally agree with the comment you reacted on. THe immersion you feel that your not alone fighting that war.. and that you can come across other nice aircraft doing the stuff they are supposed to do. And its alway's nice to see some other special jets as a aircraft lover. And because its still a game i can just decide to abort my own mission and go escort those Tornado's or F15E's. Or what i also enjoyed when flying TAW DC, that i had to plan my way around other incomming strike flights to complete my own interdiction mission, avoid airfields and other high value bases defenses so they would not dispatch scrambles.

 

In my vocabulary thats what you call a Digital Combat Simulator. (And no. This is not a remark on the developers or something, just my view when i first heard of the name DCS)

Edited January 17, 2011 by winchesterdelta1

[Conure]

I've never played Falcon but the more I heard about DC the better it sounds...Sounds almost like theres a bit more strategy behind the missions rather than a linear plot? That's very cool..

[speed-of-heat]

Concure, at its best that was a good description of Falcon, iy really did have two games in one the sim and the strategy game you could even issue orders to other tasked units (air or ground) to support your strategy if you chose to fight the war rather than let the computer do it

[winchesterdelta1]

I've never played Falcon but the more I heard about DC the better it sounds...Sounds almost like theres a bit more strategy behind the missions rather than a linear plot? That's very cool..

 

There is way more to a Dynamic Campaign than only learn your avionics some tactics and single missions. It would enrich the product in so many way's in MP and single player. Even if it isn't bug free and perfect... and has the so called suicide missions it can generate. But i think those suicide mission arguments are bullshit, cause you could alway's plan around and take a more save route, and i never encountered a mission that was impossible to complete. THe only guy's that where acting suicidal where the AI sometimes. But in wich game today the AI doesn't act suicidal.

 

But i heard from somebody it is useless to hope for a Dynamic Campaign in the current and future products of DCS. They allready had somekind of Dynamic Campaign project going for FC but they canceled it cause it exposed some diffecult bugs in FC that needed to be fixed first. And the director was not up to that task. But if those bugs where fixed it would be pretty easy (Edit: I mean "doable/feasible) to make a dynamic campaign or something similar. Atleast thats what i heard.

 

But Never say Never. And maybe the power of the community can do something about it.

Edited January 22, 2011 by winchesterdelta1

[GGTharos]

Sounds like bull. Anyone who says 'DC is easy' doesn't know what they're talking about.

 

But i heard from somebody it is useless to hope for a Dynamic Campaign in the current and future products of DCS. They allready had somekind of Dynamic Campaign project going for FC but they canceled it cause it exposed some diffecult bugs in FC that needed to be fixed first. And the director was not up to that task. But if those bugs where fixed it would be pretty easy to make a dynamic campaign or something similar. Atleast thats what i heard.

[winchesterdelta1]

Sorry wrong word choice... It should not be "easy". I ment that in a relative way. Programming is never easy. I ment to say doable/feasible.

[Moa]

A dynamic campaign is not difficult. It is a lot of work. I know as I've done the analysis for my plan to complete a FC2/DCS mission generator this year that can base missions on the results of previous missions (where the results are analyzed as part of the 'dynamicscore' pilot scoring/statistics software suite as running on the 104th server).

[speed-of-heat]

A dynamic campaign is not difficult. It is a lot of work.

 

I look forward to seeing it :) I think that forms the first important/vital "step"... the challenge is to do it at scale, e.g. what happens when you add hundreds/thousands of "active" objects into "the world" to gain that "simuliation" that a "war" is going on around you...

[Sulman]

I've never played Falcon but the more I heard about DC the better it sounds...Sounds almost like theres a bit more strategy behind the missions rather than a linear plot? That's very cool..

 

It's very immersive. There's no experience quite like Falcon 4. However, the devil is in the details, and on occasion the shortcomings can be infuriating. When you play it, you will immediately notice something: The generated missions are ridiculous. I'm playing through a campaign at the mo and I still laugh, because this system (The Air Tasking Order, or ATO as it is known) from start to finish does some rather funny things.

 

For instance, day 1 of war: SEAD mission on the outskirts of Pyongyang! :(, heavily escorted, package of 4 SEAD aircraft and 2 packages of 4 fighter escorts. Cloud base of 6000ft, hunting flak artillery. Suggested loadout of CBU munitions. Generated mission plan takes you straight through the threat zones, at 20k feet, right into air defense network. You can make changes to horizontal and vertical profile, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that the mission is a bust. It's suicide. You may make it because you have human smarts, but your wingmen will all be picked off by MiGs and SAM's.

 

The cloudbase means PGM's are out, because you do not want to be playing with them at 5000ft, a sweetspot for SAMs. You can blind-radar bomb (actually surprisingly accurate) from 20000ft and live with the SA-2's and 5's, but it's very hard to discriminate buildings even using the enhanced doppler-beam sharpening. You'll probably bomb an orphanage and nunnery building, next to a gun emplacement.

 

So you ingress low level, near downtown Pyongyang and in range of every medium calibre weapon and rifle, pop up and hope you can visually acquire a target. You may hit one gun, then it is time to get the hell out of there, because by this time your wingies are dead, and MiGs have been scrambled. You make it back and have lost 6-7 aircraft and killed one flak gun.

 

It's fun the first couple of times, then you just think..."really? :music_whistling:". There is definitely an argument that a well-designed single mission can do a very good job of putting you in there. A good briefing, well written, with a bit of story, goes a long way.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love F4. But I love DCS too. Apples and Oranges.

 

There's an excellent armour sim called Steel Beasts Pro PE. In the designer notes, there's a comment along the lines of AI seeming to be either very convincing, or utterly stupid, dependent on how well the mission designer has thought out their movement and behaviour using triggers and understanding the AI logic. Generally, the more you ask it to think, the worse it is. This is definitely the case with F4AF. You can take over the ATO I mentioned, but then you're not simming, you're micro-managing (though you can play it this way, if you want).

Edited January 27, 2011 by Sulman

[Moa]

I look forward to seeing it :) I think that forms the first important/vital "step"... the challenge is to do it at scale, e.g. what happens when you add hundreds/thousands of "active" objects into "the world" to gain that "simuliation" that a "war" is going on around you...

 

Well, with multi-threading you get to use all the cores that those shiny new CPUs have.

 

@Sulman: it is realistic that you would kill a single AAA on a mission. Doing pass, after pass, after pass, is the unrealistic play for strike (except maybe for low-threat CAS missions, eg. the "Highway of Death" in 1991). The shame is not that you hit your target then had to scram, it is that the AI were unable to hit theirs to produce a realistic strike result.

Edited January 28, 2011 by Moa

[bogusheadbox]

It's very immersive. There's no experience quite like Falcon 4. However, the devil is in the details, and on occasion the shortcomings can be infuriating. When you play it, you will immediately notice something: The generated missions are ridiculous. I'm playing through a campaign at the mo and I still laugh, because this system (The Air Tasking Order, or ATO as it is known) from start to finish does some rather funny things.

 

For instance, day 1 of war: SEAD mission on the outskirts of Pyongyang! :(, heavily escorted, package of 4 SEAD aircraft and 2 packages of 4 fighter escorts. Cloud base of 6000ft, hunting flak artillery. Suggested loadout of CBU munitions. Generated mission plan takes you straight through the threat zones, at 20k feet, right into air defense network. You can make changes to horizontal and vertical profile, but that isn't the problem. The problem is that the mission is a bust. It's suicide. You may make it because you have human smarts, but your wingmen will all be picked off by MiGs and SAM's.

 

The cloudbase means PGM's are out, because you do not want to be playing with them at 5000ft, a sweetspot for SAMs. You can blind-radar bomb (actually surprisingly accurate) from 20000ft and live with the SA-2's and 5's, but it's very hard to discriminate buildings even using the enhanced doppler-beam sharpening. You'll probably bomb an orphanage and nunnery building, next to a gun emplacement.

 

So you ingress low level, near downtown Pyongyang and in range of every medium calibre weapon and rifle, pop up and hope you can visually acquire a target. You may hit one gun, then it is time to get the hell out of there, because by this time your wingies are dead, and MiGs have been scrambled. You make it back and have lost 6-7 aircraft and killed one flak gun.

 

It's fun the first couple of times, then you just think..."really? :music_whistling:". There is definitely an argument that a well-designed single mission can do a very good job of putting you in there. A good briefing, well written, with a bit of story, goes a long way.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love F4. But I love DCS too. Apples and Oranges.

 

There's an excellent armour sim called Steel Beasts Pro PE. In the designer notes, there's a comment along the lines of AI seeming to be either very convincing, or utterly stupid, dependent on how well the mission designer has thought out their movement and behaviour using triggers and understanding the AI logic. Generally, the more you ask it to think, the worse it is. This is definitely the case with F4AF. You can take over the ATO I mentioned, but then you're not simming, you're micro-managing (though you can play it this way, if you want).

 

Yes it can give you a crud mission, but the beauty of the DC of F4 is that you can choose the following...

 

1. Choose NOT to fly that flight and pick another

2. Handle the ATO yourself (micromanagement which RTS inclined people love)

3. If you do want to fly that flight, but don't like what the computer has given you - simply reroute your flight without doing the whole ATO.

 

That is why the DC in F4 is so good, you have options to CHOOSE WHAT YOU WANT.

 

(i did that in bold as choosing what you want gives you the most rewarding experience in game play)

 

As for steel beasts, it is nothing short of fantastic. However, AI is AI and it can't think for itself. So no wonder it appears more stupid if you want it to "think" for itself. It just needs a lot of rules and conditions (just like triggers) that will govern how it does things. The more you put in the more realistic it will become. (though tanks that don't float which try to cross a river with a handy bridge nearby does ping me off some)

 

Just to re-iterate, falcon 4 (original) has that wonderful dynamic campaigne and that was coded sooooooo long ago. Computers, AI and competant programming have come a long way since then and i would love to see what todays technology and programming ability can provide.

Edited January 28, 2011 by bogusheadbox

[Bucic]

1. Choose NOT to fly that flight and pick another

2. Handle the ATO yourself (micromanagement which RTS inclined people love)

3. If you do want to fly that flight, but don't like what the computer has given you - simply reroute your flight without doing the whole ATO.

1,2,3 - simple as that :thumbup:

[Sulman]

1,2,3 - simple as that :thumbup:

 

No disagreement: That is precisely what I've already written. However, my point still stands that the system that generates those flights is flawed, and therein lies the difficulty; the ATO system isn't sophisticated enough to create flights that correspond with the multitude of variables that present themselves on the the battleground: Threat environment, suitability of the mission, weather, and delivery method. It's a very simple model.

 

There needs to be some understanding that these things are so incredibly complex that is is actually very difficult to abstract them into a model that provides a convincing interpretation of the situation; we're not only talking about pure CPU power here, design of the model itself is a huge body of work.

 

An F4 vet will know this and will work around it, but then you're not left with a dynamic campaign as such, merely a set of a parameters that a human player understands and knows how to game, for best results.

 

DC remains the the holy grail, but I really think it's a much greater task than people understand. Singular missions offer a clear framework within which it is a lot easier to design.

 

F4 and BOBII are two outstanding examples, and yet these products are highly mature, and have had thousands of man hours ploughed into them. Also, they were designed to be dynamic from the word go.

[winchesterdelta1]

Singular missions offer a clear framework within which it is a lot easier to design.

 

Thats just the thing we don't want... A singular mission with a clear framework. We want to be able to manipulate our game. Not some Pre-planned flight where you can't even change your waypoints. Thats like playing a FPS. We don't like air war because we can fly a singular mission and we don't like air war only because of the awsome avionics you can click. When you know the aircraft avionics, than the game becomes interesting. Unless you play DCS.. Cause than you allready fully know the game. We like a DC because you can do everything or choose not to do it. And if you want you can even play singular missions.

 

And you also say: that is is actually very difficult to abstract them into a model that provides a convincing interpretation of the situation;

 

A singular mission doesn't provide a convincing interpretation of the situation.

Edited January 29, 2011 by winchesterdelta1

[sobek]

A singular mission doesn't provide a convincing interpretation of the situation.

 

Quite the contrary. I have yet to see one mission created by a DC that isn't completely the opposite of what real missions look like. Why do all of you reality denyers think that the military has no interest in dynamic campaigns? Because they are providing unrealistic missions.

 

Unfortunately, ATM realistic missions have to be handbuilt by a thinking individual.