What is a Dynamic Campaign?

[Nate--IRL--]

Nate, my argument was that you need persistence for a dynamic campaign. The bridge was an example to bring the point home. Now you're arguing that yes, you need persistence but not necessarily for bridges.

 

Wouldn't it be much simpler to just say "yes, I agree"? :D

 

Ah but you see I don't agree with your point, however I do agree with your desire. You don't NEED persistence in the game world between missions for a Dynamic campaign (IL2 for example) but I do agree it is a very very desirable feature for a campaign system to have.

 

That said - I think ED is somewhat on the same wavelength with this issue - it is just going to take time.

 

Nate

[effte]

You could of course argue that attrition is a form of persistence in itself. Where do you draw the line between attrition and persistence? Are aircraft losses attrition, while ground unit losses are persistence. Stationary ground units - attrition or persistence? Firebases? FARPs? Mobile bridges on the roads? Installed across rivers? Stationary bridges? Mountain ranges? :D

 

However, I still think we essentially agree and I do hope you are right regarding ED's take on it.

 

Cheers,

/Fred

[SUBS17]

In a dynamic campaign there is a supply line and the unit numbers is fixed so loss of equipment and units are not replaced until reinforcements arrive. Also a units morale is a factor as well as experience which means the loss of units inside a battalion lowers morale and kills increases experience. At the start of the campaign all the chess pieces are placed and the 1st move for each unit is made. All these pieces should react according to how well they do on the map and in some cases if a unit is well placed IRL it should be able to kill a bigger unit used the right way.eg a single machine gun defeating a company because it was setup dug and the company approached it in the open and was low experience. Another good example is the mod for Arma1/2 Warfare which is like a DC and has a good supply system.:thumbup:

[SUBS17]

If you destroy a bridge in one mission, leading to engineers being sent out while you are flying the next mission... that is the very definition of persistence. Bridge is still destroyed, game world acts accordingly - persistence.

 

Of course persistence is not required per se for things not having a significant impact on gameplay.

 

Every time I use an example in internet forums, I end up regretting it... :doh:

 

I've done DC missions helping out friends who are experts at F4AFs DC and have watched them assign engineers units to repair bridges and airfields etc. Its good if such features are modelled the right way in a DC and we also did missions against engineers units including me acting as FAC marking their units with smoke so we could take them out. The DC in F4AF is the best I've used and its quite impressive seeing this stuff done in mp. By denying the engineers units access to the bridge in one mission lead to all the AIs units going to one choke point which we nailed with cluster bombs. You're right in that a DC must have persistence and thats one thing DCS World can have although it requires a continuous flowing mission to work that way.

[EtherealN]

Regarding persistence, I believe effte is quite right in that we are having a case of incompatible terminology going on. For pretty much all games I've seen and used (and I worked as a game reviewer for a while, so I've seen quite a few :P ), this term is used to describe not that there is "cause and effect" - so for example:

 

Bridge blown in mission 1, Bridge gone in mission 2.

and

200 missiles fired in mission 1, missile stocks for mission 2 are reduced by 200.

 

These are not "persistence", they are "cause and effect". Definitely desirable.

 

What Persistence specifically is is things like the F4 campaign, the EECH/EEAH campaigns - where the battle is ongoing in real-time since there is no "cutoff" or "blank slate" between missions or events; or things like many browser games and MMO's like EVE Online where the world is "persistent" - that is, things are happening even if you're not there and, in the case of MMO's, even while you're not playing. (EDIT: Though some MMO's rely heavily on a form of instansing which I'd say also is an example of something that is not "persistent".)

 

Both of these are not required to make a "Dynamic Campaign", but I definitely agree that they are desirable. "Dynamic" basically means that events are not scripted. The DCS system right now is semi-dynamic; the missions and campaigns can be made to react to what the user (or just AI forces involved) has done in a mission, but these reactions have to be implemented by the mission/campaign designer. So it's not truly "dynamic", but it's not "linear" either. (Well, it will be linear if the designer makes it linear, but you get my point - it doesn't have to be linear.)

[djembe]

I've heard rumors that very few people have completed a campaign dynamics of BMS, it is true?

I'm not interested in dynamic campaigns, with the DCS: CA can be much better.

All we need is a save function.

With DCS: CA I can edit an MP mission with a long duration (12h) and fly into pieces of 2 hours like a campaign.

With the DCS: CA the work of editing the missions (campaign) is far less because the movement of ground units is done in real time with the CA.

From my point of view a save function is more necessary and better than a dynamic campaign.

[SUBS17]

I know of quite a few people who have beaten the Falcon 4 DC in F4AF and BMS. It is not that hard just follow the campaign guide.:thumbup:

[Cali]

I've said this before, if DCS can mange to have a few features that BMS has it would be cool. The ability to change individual waypoints and weapons, change the DTC and everything it encompass, recon the map, see threats if they are known (mobile or stationary).

[Nate--IRL--]

I've said this before, if DCS can mange to have a few features that BMS has it would be cool. The ability to change individual waypoints and weapons, change the DTC and everything it encompass, recon the map, see threats if they are known (mobile or stationary).

 

I'm not sure I understand - you can do that in DCS.

 

Nate

[Eddie]

I'm not sure I understand - you can do that in DCS.

 

Nate

 

In the sense Cali is referring to, you can't, with the exception of payload customisation added in world. Mission planning is the biggest weakness in DCS present.

[Nate--IRL--]

In the sense Cali is referring to, you can't, with the exception of payload customisation added in world. Mission planning is the biggest weakness in DCS present.

 

Ok like edit these in the F-10 map in sim rather than the actual Mission Planner?

 

Nate

[winz]

Threath assessment might we one of the things he's talking about. The other thing might be seeing the bigger picture - other packages objectives and schedule. Because units visbility in the mission planner is linked with units visiblity in the F10 map you, most of the time, don't see anything apart from your own flight in the mission planner. So, while theoreticaly you can change payload and wps, in reality you have no information to base these changes on.

 

Ability to separate units visibility in mission planner form the F10 map, or the ability to add mission planner specific icons, threath zones might help in that area. So mission designer can use the mission planner as part of the briefing... now it feels somewhat separated.

 

DCS relies solely on the missions written briefing and pictures provided by the mission designed, and these most of the time don't contain anything more then a simple mission description.

 

Another problem is that mission logic often relie on plane xy be in trigger zone zx, so changing you flight plan might break the mission logic. But this is something ED cannot affect, and is something mission designers should aware when creating missions.

[Nate--IRL--]

Threath assessment might we one of the things he's talking about. The other thing might be seeing the bigger picture - other packages objectives and schedule. Because units visbility in the mission planner is linked with units visiblity in the F10 map you, most of the time, don't see anything apart from your own flight in the mission planner. So, while theoreticaly you can change payload and wps, in reality you have no information to base these changes on.

 

Ability to separate units visibility in mission planner form the F10 map, or the ability to add mission planner specific icons, threath zones might help in that area. So mission designer can use the mission planner as part of the briefing... now it feels somewhat separated.

 

DCS relies solely on the missions written briefing and pictures provided by the mission designed, and these most of the time don't contain anything more then a simple mission description.

 

Another problem is that mission logic often relie on plane xy be in trigger zone zx, so changing you flight plan might break the mission logic. But this is something ED cannot affect, and is something mission designers should aware when creating missions.

 

I see now - I pretty much agree with all of that.

 

Nate

[sorcer3r]

With Combined Arms the Battle Commander could do some "recon" stuff. If I understand it correctly he can see everything what all of his own (AI) units can see.

 

So he is able to provide other flights with target coordinates.

Based on this information the pilots can create their own flightplans via CDU/Abris etc.

(one reason why a radio enviroment for Combined Arms would be very useful)

 

Also a nice feature on my wishlist: battle commander / flight leads can edit the briefing ingame. :)

[Grimes]

DCS relies solely on the missions written briefing and pictures provided by the mission designed, and these most of the time don't contain anything more then a simple mission description.

 

Indeed. Its quite difficult to relay useful information when limited to a 512x512 image.

[Silver_Dragon]

That is a good issue for continue update: more big image resolution to relay them.

 

Other interesting point has military overlays and battle planning graphics relayed by the side commander to the ground forces to planning movements.

 

http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/service_pubs/101_5_1.pdf

[Eddie]

Ok like edit these in the F-10 map in sim rather than the actual Mission Planner?

 

Nate

 

No, actual mission planner functionality. What we have now it just a flight plan editor, it doesnt have any of the main features of mission planning software and it is for SP only.

 

Such a system would also need changes to the aircraft modules, allowing for things like nav point databases, known threats, DMPIs, kill boxes, FLOT lines, OAPs, VRPs, PUPs, Weapon settings and DSMS/SMS profiles etc etc etc to be created in the planning screen and then loaded in to the avionics via the data cartidge. Put simply you shouldn't have to do anything in the cockpit.

 

It you want an example of a good mission planner take a look at either Falcon BMS's Weapon Delivery Planner or, even better, the planning interface in DID's Tornado.

[DAZnBLAST]

Multiplayer is already dynamic, e.g. Multiplayer designers should start with a finite amount of (non respawning) assets e.g.

 

-HQ’s x1

-Fuel depot x1 (key roads and bridges to airstrips)

-Weapons cache x1 (key roads and bridges to airstrips)

-Airstrips x3

 

Military resources and hardware:

-Air defences x??

-Infantry x??

-Engineers x??

-X3 KA50

-x6 SU25

-x6 SU27

-x2 AWACS

-2x Tanker etc

-key roads and bridges

YOU GET THE IDEA..

 

We need a slot inside our multiplayer servers called: BattleCommander who can see everything from a console including maps, how many planes he has left, how much fuel and weapons he has left at x airstrip, whether to send a tanker up etc. He should have a command prompt to talk to his AI units to move fuel and weapons around and VOIP built into DCS to talk to players directing them to protect his assets, or attack the OpFor assets etc etc

 

Would actually be quite a blast to play BattleCommander and quite pressuring too

 

And then I woke up, feel free to delete this post lol

[jester_]

No, actual mission planner functionality. What we have now it just a flight plan editor, it doesnt have any of the main features of mission planning software and it is for SP only.

 

Such a system would also need changes to the aircraft modules, allowing for things like nav point databases, known threats, DMPIs, kill boxes, FLOT lines, OAPs, VRPs, PUPs, Weapon settings and DSMS/SMS profiles etc etc etc to be created in the planning screen and then loaded in to the avionics via the data cartidge. Put simply you shouldn't have to do anything in the cockpit.

 

It you want an example of a good mission planner take a look at either Falcon BMS's Weapon Delivery Planner or, even better, the planning interface in DID's Tornado.

 

This is something that is very important that if ED decides to implement a DC, THEY NEED TO TAKE NOTE OF.

 

A dynamic campaign, single or multiplayer, NEEDS to have the capability of fragging flights and packages. Without that functionality, a dynamic campaign is essentially worthless in my eyes.

[Beagle One]

EECH, Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs. Hokum had the best Dynamic Campaign I have experienced so far. Due to the rather small scale and the automated action camera I spend hours watching the battle develop without taking part myself.

 

The key features were reducing the enemies strategic capabilities. The campaign mainly evolved around capturing towns, factories, FARPs and Airfields. Fpr that purpose you could direct the ground forces using the tactical map and fly support in a attck helo for them. Destroying bridges could halt the enemy advance ad stop your own advance in the same turn. The real fun part was to play that campaign in multiplayer against another player doing the same. One of my favorites was flying escort for Insertion missions were transsport helos would unload Infanrty at the targert area that would secure the area und turn it into yours.

[Trailer]

I know of quite a few people who have beaten the Falcon 4 DC in F4AF and BMS. It is not that hard just follow the campaign guide.:thumbup:

 

I have, it's not difficult. You need to understand the basic tenets of warfighting like air superiority being the number one priority in the very beginning, then the destruction of all C3 assets (command, control, and communications), then interdiction and CAS missions to keep the enemy on a backpedaling footing. Set the sliders to those priorities and fly the missions and the war will be over in about 4 days in-game.

[chromium]

Just an ingame save option and we are a huge step closer to a DC.

Would that be such hard to implement? :notworthy:

 

It could be done with limits, cause it does not save the exact moment but the mission scenery.

 

Check FSF Ian witchcraft, or this:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=149899

(if you're interested please check that is undergoing update)

 

The very hard thing isn't the save scenery function, is a the work beneath the single mission, what create automatic planning for ground units, logistic, scenery building persistence, etc etc. Also the flight planning and related information for briefing would be a terrible thing to face on while building a campaign system. But what developed by ED with mission generator is great, simply not much used by the community and by mission designers.

 

A whole system can be done, but that is HUGE. IMHO the best way is to build it step by step, submodule by submodule.

Edited November 7, 2015 by chromium

[Galwran]

Just an ingame save option and we are a huge step closer to a DC.

Would that be such hard to implement? :notworthy:

 

This. If only you could export mission states (or acmi) in to mission editor files. You could continue the fight and even fix few things manually. (Ie. Add new packages and support)

[ESAc_matador]

It could be done with limits, cause it does not save the exact moment but the mission scenery.

 

Check FSF Ian witchcraft, or this:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=149899

(if you're interested please check that is undergoing update)

 

The very hard thing isn't the save scenery function, is a the work beneath the single mission, what create automatic planning for ground units, logistic, scenery building persistence, etc etc. Also the flight planning and related information for briefing would be a terrible thing to face on while building a campaign system. But what developed by ED with mission generator is great, simply not much used by the community and by mission designers.

 

A whole system can be done, but that is HUGE. IMHO the best way is to build it step by step, submodule by submodule.

 

Is it working fine already?

[chromium]

Yes ESAC exept for a single issue with autosave that in 1 over 39 test till now does not work, but it work in manual save mode anyway. I may be fine with that, but sadly I need time to update the manual, and those days are really busy due to my work scheduling :).

 

PS: sorry for the OT.

Edited November 7, 2015 by chromium