Linking DCS with ArmA

[OutOnTheOP]

Wolfie, I don't think you understood my point... the point is that many players out there would (allegedly) complain if everything was purely realistic, because players playing as a rifleman would be completely impotent against aircraft. My reply is that even if a singular rifleman is (as they should be) impotent against an aircraft, if you assign the infantry player a squad or platoon of bots, they then have access to appropriate weapons to deal with aircraft and tanks on even footing, without having to break realism by making ridiculous supersoldiers who magically carry 500 pounds of inventory in their Holster of Holding +1. And while bots may not be the perfect solution, human-managed bots controlled by a squad leader are still better than pure AI control. In short, it allows for both game balance and realism.

Edited February 17, 2012 by OutOnTheOP

[Speed]

For some shots, you'll have to come down.

No, I won't. This is the A-10C not the A-10A.

 

You can't stay up there forever!

In-flight refueling- look it up.

 

Especially when were using human shields, and housing our troops in the hospitals! :thumbup:

Human bodies don't make very effective shields against high explosives, sorry. Hospital walls are also not very blast resistant. You'd be better off in a very deep bunker where you'd be safe from everyone except the guys flying DCS: F-15E.

Edited February 17, 2012 by Speed

[swift]

Well, honestly...it would be great :D

 

Their game would be appealing to a broader audience !

For example you own DCS:XX.

This allows you to play DCS:XX alone or online with others DCS:XX owners. Now if you want to enjoy the "ultimate battlefield experience" (=linking your game to ArmA) you'd need to...buy ArmA ! And vice versa :)

 

I understand your reasoning and of course I would love that both companies work closely together each one contributing what they know best for our entertainment. I've been dreaming about realistic virtual battlefields for years, but I still can't see where it would be the benefit to both companies that deserves such an epic endeavor. For some reason the film 'Lost in translation' comes to my mind - make it suntory time ;)

 

I think that a big chunk of DCS fans would purchase the respective ARMA/DCS updates but I'm not sure that this would happen in reverse. I do not think that most ARMA users would find it so attractive than DCS users. I mean, most of DCS users would/actually find comfortable firing an assault rifle in ARMA world, but I doubt that most of ARMA users would find amusing the complexity of a flight DCS module. At best, a niche of both niches would be interested. For the record, I've been enjoying BIS work since OPF days.

 

As a counterexample, DCS: P-51D module is a genius move, with a moderate effort they can potentially attract many customers outside the regular DCS users's profile.

[sobek]

That just means we will be able to AGM-65 them from outside of their visibility radius. I have no problem with that.

 

Yeah sure you don't. But what about that S-300 operator? You just tied his hands AND feet to his back.

 

Edit: Scratch that, doesn't need to be a S-300. Tunguska is a more fitting example.

[ogata321]

This would be pretty awesome ... But to run it we'd have to steal NASA's computers

[winz]

I'm missing an 'Meh, I don't care' option.

[Demongornot]

its funny to read you, always you say that everything are impossible...

Why we need to see at 1000Km in Arma if we link it with DCS ? Why its impossible ?

If you pilot an aircraft you use DCS side with DCS graphic engine, if you use ground vehicle or soldier you use Arma graphic engine, just need to create the same map for both...

Arma with the same optimization than Take on Helicopter where we can see more far than Arma, combat between soldier, vehicle or JTAC job don't need more than 15Km of view and the total map size DON'T MATTER about performance, that just will take more HDD space but that's all; mainly if we only control ground vehicle and soldier, we can't move extremely faster and finally the render of the map will not be a problem.

 

Ground and Naval forces except anti aircraft will be controlled by Arma (3) and flying vehicle, guided and air to ground/sea/air weapon controlled by DCS and maybe use another computer as server for control AI independently and get really better AI than extremely stupid and bad AI in DCS and good not but not so bad AI in Arma...

 

We just will see in DCS ground force like everytime in DCS but controlled like a player but by player on Arma + AI and same for Arma we will see aircraft and helicopter like everytime in Arma but controlled by DCS player and AI

 

Its no more complicated than that, using just ARMA as ground rending for Infantry and ground Vehicle only and DCS for flying machine cause DCS are so ugly for embody ground force, and finally AI only controlled by a common server only dedicated to AI for give a nice AI really nice and realistic.

AI server simulate AI and control synchronization between AI, weapon, player position and action/interaction in DCS and Arma, you control a tank well you must use Arma side and people in aircraft will see you like any actual ground unit in DCS and you control an aircraft, its the same thing, you use DCS and people in Arma see your aircraft/helicopter flying and the position are directly controlled by the AI/Synchronization server...

 

Arma its an idea but ED team must considerate the fact to create theirs own FPS simulator compatible with DCS series by a server intermediary and finally a single AI in a separate server will be more easy than synchronicity between two different AI and due to extremely stupid AI in DCS that can only be better...

That will be the best thing who can happen to DCS with combined arms...Cause DCS = Digital Combat Simulator, maybe we will have tanks and other ground/sea vehicle soon, but if we using it with DCS graphic/physic and AI engine for ground ops, its totally useless and that will be the worst simulation ever...

 

If ED do a contract with Bohemia Interactive that will be nice and faster than create theirs own ground force simulator but with more compatibility problems finally but its not impossible, that just depending of how its done if its done one day...

[Pyroflash]

In my experience, BiS products have more bugs than the Amazon rain forest.

[winz]

Arma with the same optimization than Take on Helicopter where we can see more far than Arma, combat between soldier, vehicle or JTAC job don't need more than 15Km of view and the total map size DON'T MATTER about performance, that just will take more HDD space but that's all; mainly if we only control ground vehicle and soldier, we can't move extremely faster and finally the render of the map will not be a problem.

1)Total map area matters for performance, why do think Zargabad is a separate map? Load Utes check FPS, load Chernarus, check FPS, load Zagrabad, check FPS.. You don't know anything about what makes a game engine thick, or about the process involved in sorting what should be drawn and what not, so stop making wild assumption about things you know nothing about. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean the engine doesn't have to handle it.

 

 

2)You don't have to see father then 15km when you're a JTAC , but you kinda would like to see father when you are a tunguska gunner. Not to mention something like Sa-8.

Edited February 17, 2012 by winz

[Weta43]

2)You don't have to see father then 15km when you're a JTAC , but you kinda would like to see father when you are a tunguska gunner. Not to mention something like Sa-8.

 

To simulate a search radar aquiring a target - you don't need to 'see' the target in game, just have it's existence passed over. Tunguska's search radar is only good for 18Km - I don't know how far a tunguska gunner can track a target with his 8x optical device, but probably not much more than 15km.

 

I don't know that you need 2 games though.

 

The obvious answer would be to have the FPS action take place in islands of available detail within the larger DCS type map (effectively embed FPS maps inside DCS map), with LODs governing rendering & the higher detail LOD only available to the FPS player, and the FPS player seeing high detail LOD as far as his (her?) graphic card can handle ( - case in point - If you turn the graphics right down in ARMA, you're not that far away from DCS's current level of detail anyway, so that part is easily configurable).

 

DCS already has a 'haze' you can use to obscure detail beyond a certain distance built in - set it to 5Km for infantry & the current level for aircraft.

 

Islands of detail govened by different LOD for different roles would allow FPS players to roam outside those 'Islands' & use the entire map (if they were prepared to put up with lower graphics), transit from 'island' to 'island' by road or air - where 90 players at a time could experience the natural beauty of Georgia or Area 51's countyside from an Mi-26 (JK :-)

[Wolfie]

 

Human bodies don't make very effective shields against high explosives, sorry. Hospital walls are also not very blast resistant.

 

Thats the point!

[Wolfie]

I'm missing an 'Meh, I don't care' option.

 

It was in the P-51D poll.

[Demongornot]

1)Total map area matters for performance, why do think Zargabad is a separate map? Load Utes check FPS, load Chernarus, check FPS, load Zagrabad, check FPS.. You don't know anything about what makes a game engine thick, or about the process involved in sorting what should be drawn and what not, so stop making wild assumption about things you know nothing about. Just because you don't see it doesn't mean the engine doesn't have to handle it.

 

 

2)You don't have to see father then 15km when you're a JTAC , but you kinda would like to see father when you are a tunguska gunner. Not to mention something like Sa-8.

 

First its more the max ground geometry/complexity, texture, detail and 3D object in the map who are matter, some game have a map more bigger than DCS cause its use continue terrain generation and finally the size are unlimited and the graphic rending are close to Arma, i just want mean the same map area in Arma are not impossible but yes of course that will impact performances...

But the 3D object ONLY are limited to 10Km, the map itself (only ground geometry + ground texture) are show more than that, water cover unlimited distance, and we don't need a NASA's computer for show it...

And in a game like Arma and a lot of other FPS the horizon are badly not optimized for show scenery far away, but its not impossible, the problem today its not the performance, its a common accord between game maker and computer creator, show nice graphic rending with the lower performance requirement are not impossible, but AMD/ATI, Nvidia and Intel don't want that...

A game like Arma can be optimized and read for aircraft simulation, show far away scenery are not the biggest problem, its far, the geometry don't need to be extremely detailed and the texture don't need to be detailed...And a smart people can create a giant sphere with evolution/dynamic ground texture for horizon, the result will be a nice detail level, nice performance and the SAME result than show really far away...

Like RC aircraft simulator where we just evolve inside a giant sphere with a single texture.

Imagine the same thing but with a dynamic texture who will evolve for always show what we will see if it was a 3D scenery.

That will require a minimum computer power but not so many than only a 3D scenery beyond the side of this sphere and that will take big HDD place for this giant texture who will need to cover all the 3D map.

Over 3/4 Km we can't see any difference between 3D object and 3D texture, and finally a 3D texture will be better than a 3D object due to low polygon effect and that will save a lot of power ;)

A smart programmer who listen my will take long time to write that but the result will be finally better than only 3D object.

Show only a 2D vertical image of several tree who will mask a forest will be more realistic for eyes and same the performance that all 3D tree will take, from above its the same, look how in FSX "for example" the ground texture who show tree are more realistic than 3D tree see from long range !

A lot of tweaks like that can permit to obtain BETTER graphic rending than Arma and the colossal power saved can easily work with my sphere idea and permit to show more than DCS scenery.

But like always and before check if that can work people will just told me : its impossible...Like 3 year ago i have do a description of what i want for aircraft flying model (exactly what we have today with DCS, and maybe less) and everyone not stop to told me that its impossible :megalol:

I hope one day people will understand that i do it for me AND for them...

 

And air unit can be show more far away, its not only air unit who will kill performance, with relief we don't will see really far away anyways and we can show aircraft at 30Km and more and keep scenery 3D object to 10Km max.

Anyways an aircraft like a 747 its hard to see at cruise altitude (10Km -> FL 300 -> 30 000 feet) from ground it look like a small white point...

We can anyway show in DCS or in Arma the little white pixel but more than 10 Km its hard to see, 15 Km its the maximum distance without zoom, and over 30 Km its only for weapon who will using RADAR...

[Wolfie]

In my experience, BiS products have more bugs than the Amazon rain forest.

 

Thats because its GROSSLY complicated. I've never seen more realistic and aggresive AI. And you can put in whole DIVISIONS of them!

 

The Village scenario is awesome to watch if you put two opposing battalions of mixed armor and infantry against each other.

 

The only thing I've never liked about ARMA is their supposed flight engine. Its crap.

[Wolfie]

This would be pretty awesome ... But to run it we'd have to steal NASA's computers

 

We would definitely need higher end computers. Arma 2 with ACE mod is harder to run than Crysis 1. But my mid end laptop still manages to get about 15 fps.

[Weta43]

At least the managed to find out how to detect colisions with trees .........

 

If you had a bottom end graphics card, and needed to turn the graphics down to play,

and you wanted to play online ( meaning you can't see all the trees that others with better cards can see),

and trees had a collision model,

which option would you rather force on everyone:

1/ Force everyone online to the lowest graphic level. Everyone has the same object to dodge, poor carded players can play, but graphics are 'poor' for all.

2/ Force graphics to some other level (high) for all. Again everyone gets the same (higher) number of trees to avoid, but some people can't play online because they have a slideshow.

3/ Put the collision models there for all trees at maximum graphic level, but not render some on low graphics. Everyone can play with decent FPS, but players with graphics turned down get to play Russian roulette with invisible tree collision models when close to the ground (for example while flying a helicopter, or maybe doing pop up ground attack work..)

4/ let everyone pick their own graphic level, only have collision models for visible trees, and have people on low graphic setting fly where people on high graphic settings can't..

 

5/ Make trees a 'graphic' element only - don't put collision models on trees till everyone's video card can render all the available trees comfortably. That way it's 'fair' to everyone online regardless of the money that's availalbe for their video card, but people complain about 'ghost' trees.

[Pyroflash]

I prefer option number 6, collide with trees that you can't see because they didn't load in time.

[Frostiken]

The only thing I've never liked about ARMA is their supposed flight engine. Its crap.

 

Yeah I've never cared for the fact that it's a really good infantry simulator, an 'okayish' vehicle simulator, and aircraft that might as well be from Ace Combat. I would love to see a battlefield simulator that looks as good as ArmA2 with the infantry aspect of Project Reality ArmA, aircraft of DCS, and vehicles of... uh... well you see what I mean. Need an M1A3 simulator :)

Edited February 20, 2012 by Frostiken

[Scoggs]

Yeah I've never cared for the fact that it's a really good infantry simulator, an 'okayish' vehicle simulator, and aircraft that might as well be from Ace Combat. I would love to see a battlefield simulator that looks as good as ArmA2 with the infantry aspect of Project Reality ArmA, aircraft of DCS, and vehicles of... uh... well you see what I mean. Need an M1A3 simulator :)

 

Add in 1000 player multiplayer and that's my idea of a perfect game.

[213]

Thats because its GROSSLY complicated. I've never seen more realistic and aggresive AI. And you can put in whole DIVISIONS of them!

 

The Village scenario is awesome to watch if you put two opposing battalions of mixed armor and infantry against each other.

 

The only thing I've never liked about ARMA is their supposed flight engine. Its crap.

 

so grossly complicated that the ai can't even properly enter a building. not really.

 

i've modded for the game. the performance comes from the most abject laziness on the part of the artists. you should really see the unnecessary details they put into the models. it's comical.

[DMarkwick]

Consider that as far as ArmA goes, all it needs is positional, orientation, and inertial information from DCS to display an in-ArmA representation of the DCS craft. That sounds quite simple to do (relatively) and aside from that, the only other item as far as ArmA goes that it needs is fired ordnance information. That also sounds easy to do.

 

The difficult part would be the in-DCS gameview. It would need to somehow sync all the ArmA aspects into DCS representations, including the terrain. Anyone who has a DCS product will know that is definately the difficult part.

 

My own suggestion would be a system where the DCS machine has to run not only DCS, but ArmA as well, and it replaces its outside view with one rendered with the ArmA engine. So it acts as a DCS simulator as far as the aircraft goes, including flight dynamics, but the outside view is rendered in the ArmA engine and displayed instead of the DCS outside view (which can be discarded for the session). The physical interactions like collision would need to be initiated in the ArmA engine and passed into the DCS engine. This would place a huge load on the DCS machine though, but it's the only way I can see it working properly. Otherwise we'd be talking about a DCS approximation of an ArmA map, which IMO would introduce far more problems than it would solve.

 

The issue of how the DCS engine's various sensing equipment (radars & other sensors) picks up on ArmA entities is a little outside of my knowledge, as I don't know how DCS handles this aspect. Whether for example the entities have properties that the DCS engine requires, or whether the DCS engine can act on any entity that has geometry. Simply don't know about that aspect.

[Frostiken]

While technically possible, the latency and overhead on such a system would be immense.

[Randolf]

not only is this impractical, and impossible at this point, it's possibly not desirable. none of you know how this system really functions. you're just making assumptions. the likelihood of this having entertainment/commercial value is unknown.

 

a better idea would be to improve the game itself and incorporate viable features of other games so you don't have to "link" it to other games.

Seems to be the one making assumptions is you, by assuming that none of us knows anything about how these systems work.

 

Anyway, I would love to see this happening. It would be awesome to give support to real players and not just computer controlled ones. I think we might get this type of a battlefield simulator one day, but probably not anytime soon.

[Eight Ball]

Consider that as far as ArmA goes, all it needs is positional, orientation, and inertial information from DCS to display an in-ArmA representation of the DCS craft. That sounds quite simple to do (relatively) and aside from that, the only other item as far as ArmA goes that it needs is fired ordnance information. That also sounds easy to do.

 

The difficult part would be the in-DCS gameview. It would need to somehow sync all the ArmA aspects into DCS representations, including the terrain. Anyone who has a DCS product will know that is definately the difficult part.

 

My own suggestion would be a system where the DCS machine has to run not only DCS, but ArmA as well, and it replaces its outside view with one rendered with the ArmA engine. So it acts as a DCS simulator as far as the aircraft goes, including flight dynamics, but the outside view is rendered in the ArmA engine and displayed instead of the DCS outside view (which can be discarded for the session). The physical interactions like collision would need to be initiated in the ArmA engine and passed into the DCS engine. This would place a huge load on the DCS machine though, but it's the only way I can see it working properly. Otherwise we'd be talking about a DCS approximation of an ArmA map, which IMO would introduce far more problems than it would solve.

 

The issue of how the DCS engine's various sensing equipment (radars & other sensors) picks up on ArmA entities is a little outside of my knowledge, as I don't know how DCS handles this aspect. Whether for example the entities have properties that the DCS engine requires, or whether the DCS engine can act on any entity that has geometry. Simply don't know about that aspect.

 

Hello DMarkwick :)

 

Could you explain what makes DCS so different from Steal Beast that it would require the "workaround" you've suggested ?

Isn't it the whole purpose of LVC Game to "translate" the received information into something the other software can read ?

 

Using the RV engine to render the outside view of DCS would be a serious drawback. It isn't really made to handle the specific needs of a flight sim (view distance,...)

 

I have little to no knowledge of these things but from what I understand the workload isn't exactly split in half between the 2 softwares.

From the little sketch I've posted in the first post it looks like LVC game relies more on one engine and the other software is "simply" plugged into this.

 

I think it's safe to assume ArmA could "easily" replace VBS in this sketch but why DCS couldn't replace Steal Beast as easily ?

Why would this create DCS approximation of an ArmA map while it doesn't occur with VBS+Steal beast ?

 

Don't want to bother you but if you have some time I'd be glad to learn a lil bit more ;)

[winz]

Why would this create DCS approximation of an ArmA map while it doesn't occur with VBS+Steal beast ?

Because the Arma 2 maps have much higher fidelity then DCS (for obvious reasons). So some objects present in Arma 2 will not be present in DCS. And how do you know it doesn't occur in VBS+SB, is there a video demonstration.?

 

There are tons of problems that would have to be addresed. Just to name a that quickly come in my mind.

- all entitnies from DCS would have to be present in Arma 2 and vice versa.

- weapons damage - the mk82 in arma 2 has different blast radius then the DCS one, so which one do you use?

- Which AI do you use? The infantry AI in Arma 2 is better then in DCS, but on the other hand the proper SAMs are non-existant in Arma world, so these have to handled by DCS

- Different lock rates - the locking process in Arma 2 is very basic, right-click/TAB to lock and Fire. There is no radar support, so naturally there is huge difference between an DCS AI Tunguska and an Arma 2 player Tunguska.

- Missile tracking - which one do you use?

Or Worse - bullets ballistics - which one?

- You need to have support in both games for forcing the entities to do, what the other game does. So when a player in Arma 2 fires a missile you can force a unit in DCS to fire it's missile. You then need to pair both missiles and force one missile to mimic the other. When a tank in Arma 2 target a DCS plane you need to force the DCS tank to lock the same DCS plane, and I need to get a LWS warning.

 

VBS+Steal beasts is obviously aimed at the military market, which is totaly different from the 'civ' market. They can overlook/workaround some problems if the core functionality is there and mostly they can afford to fund such project. Supporting something like this would require lot of time from both BI and ED, would delay both Arma 3 and our 'Next Gen Fighter' with minimal chance of return.