My initial concerns/problems with DCS a-10

[tyrspawn]

I recently bought A-10. Heres my current concerns:

 

1. No multiplayer support for the campaign

2. Poor quality multiplayer missions

3. Small selection of multiplayer missions - only six in total, and only 2 which support more than 2 players, absurd.

4. Frequent CTDs

5. Sudden framerate drops

 

Good things:

1. Flawless simulation

2. Cool features.

Edited March 7, 2011 by tyrspawn

[mwd2]

I recently bought A-10. Heres my current concerns:

 

1. No multiplayer support for the campaign

2. Poor quality multiplayer missions

3. Small selection of multiplayer missions - only six in total, and only 2 which support more than 2 players, absurd.

 

You have a powerful Mission Editor to build up your own missions - simple missions need only 10 min. - complex mission a little longer :smilewink:

[Parias]

That takes a lot of the thrill out of it though - if you build your own missions, you know everything that's going to happen in them. A lot more exciting to play other content (especially if it's well-made), particularly in a co-operative context. It'd be pretty cool in particular to try a few of the singleplayer missions in co-op play and I'm honestly a bit surprised they don't naitively support this.

[MadTommy]

I recently bought A-10. Heres my current concerns:

 

1. No multiplayer support for the campaign

2. Poor quality multiplayer missions

3. Small selection of multiplayer missions - only six in total, and only 2 which support more than 2 players, absurd.

4. Frequent CTDs, at least in MP

5. Sudden framerate drops

 

Good things:

1. Flawless simulation

2. Cool features.

 

Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, ED has historically not been focused on Mulitplayer. There have been many discussions on this subject, but apparently multiplyer pilots are only a small proportion of the community of flight simmers. I think this view is slowly changing, as i believe this is really the future of gaming & sims. Tech & internet speeds allow this now for the vast majority of us.

 

This has meant a far greater focus has seemingly been on single player content, (yawn), and i assume SP is easier to code and produce. Hopefully this will change soon, as it is the one thing that really frustrates me with sim and lets it down some. Great sim lacking some MP support & content.

Edited March 7, 2011 by MadTommy

[AlanHR]

That takes a lot of the thrill out of it though - if you build your own missions, you know everything that's going to happen in them.

Well, the more custom missions people make the bigger mission pool will be and more different missions to chose from. :)

[CarneyUK]

There are already many missions out there. I have been downloading new missions and now have about 15 or 16 in my mission folder, some extremely big missions aswell, so will take a while to complete. It's worth having a look in the forums :thumbup:

[hog_driver111th]

That takes a lot of the thrill out of it though - if you build your own missions, you know everything that's going to happen in them. A lot more exciting to play other content (especially if it's well-made), particularly in a co-operative context. It'd be pretty cool in particular to try a few of the singleplayer missions in co-op play and I'm honestly a bit surprised they don't naitively support this.

 

So, fix them up yourself. I've taken just about every SP mission and made it MP usable. There's also a section on the main homepage called "User Files" which has quite a few very good MP missions.

 

If you want to change any mission into MP, just add aircraft and make the client. Simple as that. I'm actually working on the campaign missions to turn them into MP for my squad. The only limitation here is that ED is focusing on the aircraft. There's nothing to say you can't edit premade missions. Hell, I don't know what the campaign missions have in them, I just add a few extra jets for my buddies and go fly. All of the targets are hidden, so I have no clue where things are until I see them from in the pit.

[Frogfoot1606687865]

Last night I was playing with 'Nodes' and 'Templates' in the mission editor, What a fantastic feature. You can create a massive set piece battle with just a few mouse clicks, positioning AA batteries, Armoured divisions etc as whole entities. Really worth a look.

Tom

[sobek]

1. No multiplayer support for the campaign

 

You can go ahead and make all campaign missions multiplayer capable by changing the wingman skill level from AI to player. Unfortunately, there is no coop campaign system, so you can only load up single campaign missions one after the other.

 

Edit: There might be problems with some triggers, when doing the above (AFAIK), so it's a bit of a dirty fix.

[Bucic]

You can go ahead and make all campaign missions multiplayer capable by changing the wingman skill level from AI to player. Unfortunately, there is no coop campaign system, so you can only load up single campaign missions one after the other.

 

Edit: There might be problems with some triggers, when doing the above (AFAIK), so it's a bit of a dirty fix.

There's a topic dedicated to this subject DCS Campaign in Multiplayer Possible?

 

The bottom line is converting campaign missions into MP campaign missions for multiple human flight members is not easy (requires flight 'cloning') because of simple limitation in the ME that doesn't allow more than one human per flight. I don't understand that to be honest (the reason behind such a limit) :huh:

[Conure]

That takes a lot of the thrill out of it though - if you build your own missions, you know everything that's going to happen in them. A lot more exciting to play other content (especially if it's well-made), particularly in a co-operative context. It'd be pretty cool in particular to try a few of the singleplayer missions in co-op play and I'm honestly a bit surprised they don't naitively support this.

 

Hi Parias,

 

I think we have a very small and niche community which is of huge advantage to us! Fly other peoples missions. Half the beauty of this hobby is being able to meet hundreds of other fans of aviation and sims - there are LOADS of multiplayer missions for Black Shark, and over time there will be many more for A10 :-)

[RichardG]

Can the quick missions be made into multiplayer missions? I'm lazy, thats probably what I'll do.

[tyrspawn]

Unfortunately, in my humble opinion, ED has historically not been focused on Mulitplayer. There have been many discussions on this subject, but apparently multiplyer pilots are only a small proportion of the community of flight simmers. I think this view is slowly changing, as i believe this is really the future of gaming & sims. Tech & internet speeds allow this now for the vast majority of us.

 

This has meant a far greater focus has seemingly been on single player content, (yawn), and i assume SP is easier to code and produce. Hopefully this will change soon, as it is the one thing that really frustrates me with sim and lets it down some. Great sim lacking some MP support & content.

 

Well the only reason I got this game is for MP - I come from a Falcon 4 Allied Force background, and in comparison that 10 year old game is clearly superior. Pretty sad that they couldn't be bothered to make more than 1 playable slot in the campaign. How hard can it be?

 

My post will hopefully help some people who were considering buying the game save their money - because I feel like I wasted $60. Maybe they will patch in some better multiplayer support, but a maybe isn't worth $60. My plan was to play multiplayer with my Falcon 4 buddies, and even if there was MP content at this time, which there isn't - constant CTDs would still be an issue.

 

We tried to do a co-op yesterday and all of us were CTDing (on the latest patch I might add), so we basically ragequit and played Allied Force instead.

Edited March 7, 2011 by tyrspawn

[GGTharos]

Have you posted crashlogs, missions, etc?

[Total]

This community has always relied on community-made missions for multiplayer.

 

That being said, we have flown the mission "On Station" made by Grimes several nights this week. We don't have a dedicated server for our group, so one of us is hosting it each time. That being said, we have flown upwards of five hours with 4-5 of us flying and still not completed even half of the mission.

 

The ability to make in depth, long running missions without it being a linear mission is definitely in the capabilities of the editor.

 

IMHO, the best missions to come out for AF4 weren't out of the box. They were community made.

 

I'd much rather the community focus on missions and mods and the dev's focus on compatibility & stability issues (ie your CTD's).

 

Mission Resource: http://forums.eagle.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=140

 

Tech Support Section of the forum: http://forums.eagle.ru/forumdisplay.php?f=114

 

Give the dev's the info requested for the CTD issues. There's a cubic ton of different hardware, software, and driver configurations in the world and it's impossible to cover them all.

 

See ya on the tarmac :)

Edited March 7, 2011 by Total

[Sinky]

Is it not possible to set up a few points on the map where a vehicle can spawn and it picks one at random? This would eliminate the fact that you always know the air defence locations in your own missions.

 

I suppose it would be possible by placing 3 strela's down in different spots, making each have a 50% chance of spawning or something. Then checking which one spawns and promptly disabling the other two.

[nemises]

yes, random spawns / probability are fairly straight forward to do

[MadTommy]

yes, random spawns / probability are fairly straight forward to do

 

:megalol:

 

You must have a different definition of 'fairly straight forward'; most certainly possible, calling it fairly straight forward is err well stretching it a little too far.

[McVittees]

Post patch myself and the group I'm playing with have started having multiple CTDs every MP session. Haven't looked in to crash logs, will get on it.

[Grimes]

Mission Start> Random x% > Activate Group 1

Mission Start> Random x% > Activate Group 2

Mission Start> Random x% > Activate Group 3

 

Doesn't get easier than that. Sure it isn't 'controlled' but it still works.

 

Unfortunately, there is no coop campaign system, so you can only load up single campaign missions one after the other.

 

Well for the most part I don't think that is much of a problem. The Shore is mostly a linear campaign. The Devils cross alternate versions just change the weather. And Push/Georgian Hammer alternate versions basically just put you in a different flight with a different objective within the same mission. So a campaign system as it is defined within the SP portion of the game isn't really needed for MP. Perhaps messages informing that x% of mission goals were accomplished would help.

[Weta43]

or

 

Mission Start> Random 50% > Flag 1

Mission Start> Random 50% > Flag 2

 

if flag 1 = true and flag 2 = true, flag 101

if flag 1 = true and flag 2 = false, flag 102

if flag 1 = false and flag 2 = true, flag 103

if flag 1 = false and flag 2 = false, flag 104

 

101, 102, 103, 104 become mustually exclusive, equally probable scenarios. Each can then have further randomisation etc..

 

You could theoretically put 4 entirely different missions in 1 .miz file if you wanted.. (or 8 - (3 initial flags get 8 scenarios)) ...

Edited March 8, 2011 by Weta43

[hassata]

Please stop. I'm getting flashbacks to the college Intro to Logic Theory class I had to drop.

[El_Roto]

Please stop. I'm getting flashbacks to the college Intro to Logic Theory class I had to drop.

 

We're gonna put you in a Sensory Deprivation Tank and bring every little detail of that course back in focus! :smartass:

[EtherealN]

Well the only reason I got this game is for MP - I come from a Falcon 4 Allied Force background, and in comparison that 10 year old game is clearly superior. Pretty sad that they couldn't be bothered to make more than 1 playable slot in the campaign. How hard can it be?

 

I don't really mean to be snappy here, but I do get frustrated when people (most often non-programmers) say things like that...

 

Which developer is alive, and which developer is dead?

Which product is being actively developed, which product relies on reverse engineering and hacks (albeit sometimes pretty good hacks) because the full-scale commercial developments have been abandoned due to failure at reaching and maintaining profitability?

 

Pretty much anything can be done if you throw enough money and time at it, but you need to also be able to recoup those expenses. As you might have noticed, Microprose no longer exists. I cannot of course claim that the DC was the reason they failed financially, but it certainly didn't save them. (And there ends the arguments about "if only ED made a DC they'd sell sooooo much more". Experience says something else, as the Microprose investors found out.)

 

The recipy that has allowed this type of simulation to survive is synergies between military and consumer markets, and the military quite simply isn't the least interested in a dynamic campaign engine. They are interested in very specific training scenarios. Thus a DC like Falcon's offers no synergies at all (while the mission editor features currently in the simulator do offer such synergies).

 

As for "superior". Well, that's an issue of personal preference. If the sole metric is "does it have a DC" then sure. If there's other metrics in the equation it is my opinion that the result changes dramatically.

 

But for the aforementioned reasons, I personally suspect that where we are at today, the option isn't one of making a sim with a DC engine or making a sim without a DC engine. The options are between making a sim without a DC engine or not making a sim at all. (Or focusing entirely on military markets.)

 

Sad but true.

Edited March 8, 2011 by EtherealN

[El_Roto]

Well put, EtherealN. 'bot says I can't rep you now, so let this be a pat on the back.