DCS Enhancements

[Frostiken]

1) Major redo on infantry - less clunky (they're basically vehicles), more of them (no Javelin crews?), better (meaning 'any') AI handling, unique movement and tactics (bounding, moving via cover, lying prone, etc.).

 

2) Ground crews assigned to a parking space that marshal you in and out and signal you to start engines (could be done via the radio menu for ground crew by saying 'request engine start #1 / #2'). Bonus points if a fuel truck or ammo trailer shows up when called for too :)

 

3) Localized weather effects - raining here or there, foggy in others, and so forth.

 

4) MOAR FAILURES! MOOOOAAAAAAARRRRRRR!

 

5) Voice acting overhaul - more 'fluid' talking (record several lines for saying the same thing to make it a little less robotic), chatter to other flights, randomly assigned pitch and tone modulation to distinguish between various voices.

 

6) Civilian casualty counter / tracker built in for logbook and mission purposes. Dropping CBUs on villages to blow up a tank should be highly discouraged.

[miguelaco]

+1

 

Let me add, if you please:

 

7) ATC improvement: more messages, METAR reports, better logic for taxi spacing and slot assignment.

[sobek]

randomly assigned pitch and tone modulation to distinguish between various voices.

 

Lots of good ideas, however, the above is not as easy as you think. Pitch-Shifting a voice is not a simple matter of changing the pitch, you have to change the formants too, or you will get the typical Chipmunk-Voice. At that point, you need to do Cepstral processing or LPC related source filter stuff, which i doubt is worth the hassle (both in computational complexity as well as implementation work).

[Frostiken]

I have no idea what any of that means. I only was reminded of Tribes 2 that let you adjust speed and pitch of your chose voice for your player if only for purposes of not having everyone sound the same.

[REL]

+1

[OutOnTheOP]

Agree on all. Though I would add, in the voice acting, there should also be a variety of message variants based on URGENCY.

 

IE, script the messages so that if e.g. there are enemy vehicles within 1000 meters of the JTAC, or the JTAC's target is within 1000 meters of other friendlies, he sounds more urgent and/or nervous (and, of course, calls danger close!)

 

Right now the JTAC will calmly report the tank parked on his foxhole as if he were reading the weather report. Same goes for pilots engaged defensive. Yes, I understand sometimes folk respond to combat stresses very calmly; but some people get all kinds of ratcheted up.

[Inseckt]

3) Localized weather effects - raining here or there, foggy in others, and so forth.

 

This is already quite possible with dynamic weather and has been demonstrated by someone here one this forum which worked out the kinks with the script. Except the fog that is... I have a dynamic weather template (created only by random generation luck) with mostly overcast weather in Georgia, when I flew to Lochini, i had clear skies on far approach, overcast at short approach, when I touched down, it was raining and when I taxied to parking area, it was heavy rain/snow precipitation. :)

 

But I agree that it needs more, for instance fog integrated in the DM calculations, as well as turbulence, and other more exotic phenomenon like microbursts, icing conditions an so forth...

Edited February 1, 2012 by Inseckt

[msimon]

It has to be better cockpit textures for me.

 

But looking at the P51 shots it looks like i got my wish already.

[RodrigoMF_BR]

Windsocks at FARPs

[213]

before any of that, at least make the trees collidable

[bluepilot76]

+1

What Frostiken said

+ fix airborne AI

[Frogisis]

+1

I was thinking about this a while ago when people were talking about finding targets and this seems as appropriate a thread to post it as any:

The ability for JTAC to describe targets in relation to features on the landscape. Like, if you couldn't find the target you could radio in and JTAC would say something back like "[300] meters [west] of the [bridge]" or "[On the road] heading [east], [200] meters [north] of the [power lines]." I don't know exactly which objects have an independent existence in the sim world and could be spotted, or how well the engine that places them can talk to the engine that generates radio messages, but it seems like implementing it would be relatively simple, if incredibly tedious.

Maybe a bunch of imaginary lines could be drawn in every direction out every object within a certain radius, and between objects of the same kind within that radius, and then their distances vs. relative "weights" assessed to pick a reference point. I suppose there could even be conditions like "if trees dominant through x% of 360 degrees, then 'in the woods,' - if buildings, then 'in the town'" or "if trees dominant in x% of 180 degree arc, then 'at the treeline'" etc. It probably wouldn't be practical to implement conditions that would result in things like "southmost" or other multiply comparative descriptions, but if someone reaaaally had a lot of time on their hands or wanted to punish an intern, some zones like that could be built into the map, like the central points in the instant mission generator.

That'd all probably be a ton of busywork, but I think it'd be helpful in spotting targets and make things feel a little more "alive."

Edited February 18, 2012 by Frogisis

[Tracer2k]

+1 with the explosions

[jp203000]

A combination of DCS,BMS4.32,7G would be the best Flight game ever built.