Dynamic Campaing mod for DCS

[Haukka81]

HI.

 

 

Anybody knows how hard it would to create campaing generator for DCS ?

i know that complex full dynamic would take years but what about simple system.

 

Not realtime but generator that will make next mission based events in last mission, like IL-2 or Thirdwire style.

 

Limited amount of planes/tanks etc.. for red and blue.

 

Would be very nice to fly coop with couple friend in wingmen.

 

Sometimes "smoke and mirros" are better than nothing :thumbup:

 

 

-haukka81

[winz]

It's lot of tedious work just get the foundations done - the functionality for creating missions and parsing the mission result. Then you have somehow represent the region, define airfields, road map, water bodies, cities, buildings, terrain (you need this if you want some kind of ground war) - I don't know if these information can somehow be extracted from the map data files, if not...well, you're screwed.

 

Then comes the juicy parts of generating meaningfull missions - defining goals for AI, generating meaningful flights, simulating what happens outside the generated mission bubble and ensuring that it's consistent with what would happend if that part was processed in-game.

 

It's ton of hard work just to get some kind of simple prototype....

[daribouca]

Not that hard IMHO.

 

Keep it simple in the beginning, then expand over it.

 

I'm busy right now with exactly that, actually. Based all of it on the Falcon 4.0 dynamic campaign (one of the best dynamic campaign engine ever made AFAIK), already have all the fuzzy logic written down, got the parser for *.miz files (in & out), and most of the rules (which are based on some kind of board-game).

 

I won't say it was a breeze, but I'm expecting to release something solid in either a couple of months, or early 2014 (duty call from Augustus to December).

 

To be quite honest what I'm missing right now (code-wise) is some way to parse the events in-flight, a HTTP renderer to display info for the pilots, and a bit of glue here and there. None of those should prove such a challenge as to put the project on stall.

 

The whole thing is made with Python, and I'm far from being any kind of Programming-Guru, so it'll probably be quite opened for improvement ... and real basic at first, but one only has so much spare time =)

[skouras]

if you mean something like falcon BMS yes

A LOT OF WORK plus that your pc will be running at 10FPS with those details unless we have an option for low medium and HI action in real time for ground units and how many would be

in my opinion what we need is a new map ASAP;)

F15-SU27 with the AFM is always welcome

but expecting to see more like more detailed radar fuctionality

 

my opinion

ED work and expand to what you know better and working for years

digital combat simulation

modern aircraft or helos with clickable pits:D

[daribouca]

if you mean something like falcon BMS yes

A LOT OF WORK plus that your pc will be running at 10FPS

 

Not necessarily. All you need to do is parse what happened in the previous mission, and create a new one with the data. 15 seconds of CPU time between mission on average, so far.

 

The randomness comes with a lot of pre-generated random events.

 

One huge downside compared to Falcon is the impossibility to run a home-made server with hundreds of active units on the map. Units and groups have to be activated and de-activated based upon player proximity, and a hard-limit of units on map has to be set to prevent freezing the server with gazillions of things popping all over the place. Prioritizing is key.

 

It just cannot be as "live" as the old Falcon one, but we could do something close enough, I think.

[Haukka81]

Not necessarily. All you need to do is parse what happened in the previous mission, and create a new one with the data. 15 seconds of CPU time between mission on average, so far.

 

The randomness comes with a lot of pre-generated random events.

 

One huge downside compared to Falcon is the impossibility to run a home-made server with hundreds of active units on the map. Units and groups have to be activated and de-activated based upon player proximity, and a hard-limit of units on map has to be set to prevent freezing the server with gazillions of things popping all over the place. Prioritizing is key.

 

It just cannot be as "live" as the old Falcon one, but we could do something close enough, I think.

 

 

This just what i meant, no need to be complex like BMS, simple system is better than nothing.

 

Because now i have to always left dcs to collect dust and go to BMS, game side is so bad in dcs. (for now)

 

 

:thumbup:

[Haukka81]

Not that hard IMHO.

 

Keep it simple in the beginning, then expand over it.

 

I'm busy right now with exactly that, actually. Based all of it on the Falcon 4.0 dynamic campaign (one of the best dynamic campaign engine ever made AFAIK), already have all the fuzzy logic written down, got the parser for *.miz files (in & out), and most of the rules (which are based on some kind of board-game).

 

I won't say it was a breeze, but I'm expecting to release something solid in either a couple of months, or early 2014 (duty call from Augustus to December).

 

To be quite honest what I'm missing right now (code-wise) is some way to parse the events in-flight, a HTTP renderer to display info for the pilots, and a bit of glue here and there. None of those should prove such a challenge as to put the project on stall.

 

The whole thing is made with Python, and I'm far from being any kind of Programming-Guru, so it'll probably be quite opened for improvement ... and real basic at first, but one only has so much spare time =)

 

 

Any news ? are you ready to relase some info? :D

[daribouca]

Still working on it ! Right now I'm busy with getting my head around all the lua scripting that will be needed to run the whole thing.

[Davis0079]

back when IL-2 1946 was strong, a guy named Lowengrin made a dynamic campaign generator for it and it work rather well......I dont know the exacts about how he did it....but I can confirm it was the best addon I ever had for 1946.....

 

heres the link to his webpage....maybe it will have some info....

http://www.lowengrin.com/content.php?article.9

 

with the scripting system DCS has....i think it is possible to have some type of DCG here....even if its in a really raw form....it looks do-able....

[daribouca]

It is indeed very doable. Just as a tease, here are some basic mechanics I designed so far =)

 

The "main module" represents the "campaign state", which is basically the map of Georgia, divided into square chunks. Each chunks can be either red, blue, or neutral.

 

Each chunk can also (but must not) hold a particular type of resource. Resources can be, for example, an airport, a refinery, a civilian town of importance, some cultural objective, a factory, whatever.

 

Those resources give the coalition that owns the chunk specific advantages over each "campaign turn". Each coalition is free to spend those resource as they wish.

 

The "decision-making" is made very simple: a coalition has a "high command", which gives priorities to "subordinates HQ", which represents battalions and squadrons on the map.

 

Those priorities can be adjusted by the players, at the start or during the campaign.

 

For example, blue priorities could very well be "ask SEAD to get rid of any immediate threat along the FLOT, maintain tight CAPs at all time, concentrate mud-movers on CAS, do not engage assets over red territory, except for airport strikes. Tell ground commanders to hold the line, while giving priorities to those three chunks (because they contain bridges we gonna be needing soon)". This is just an example, of course.

 

Behind all that, the mission are randomly generated, based on numerous kind of differently shaped zones, that represents the "points of interest" on the map. To those "main zones" are added a lot of "random stuff can happen here" zones. All those zones are injected into the *.miz file, which at this point contain not very much besides inactive red and blue assets.

 

Once all that static generation is done, LUA takes control and makes the magic happen, based on a library of functions that I'm busy writing now.

 

At this point, I cannot give you any clue about a release date, because all of this has still to be tied together. One major headache that I'm struggling with since the beginning of the project is the balance of the ground forces, whose combats must be simulated when they happen outside the players "bubble". The results I'm having so far are so disappointing that I'm almost planning on a rewrite of this part.

[msalama]

:thumbup: This is something we've needed for years. The beers are on me if we ever meet!

[xXNightEagleXx]

As a programmer i would say that it is not that hard in term of core engine (without take in consideration troops template) when you have most of things out of the box which is the case of DCS series. You already have group and unit relationship management, you already have group and waypoints relationship and you also have missions definition relationship.

The work here is actually not hard but just a little bit long, but the more people work on this the fast is to build it.

 

I'm trying to organize a team to work on this since as a programmer with background i know that it is possible with actual tools (maybe not a perfect result but i'm sure that when the product is finished and good ED will give more tool functions to improve the product).

 

this is the thread that i started

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1801349#post1801349

 

whoever is interest on working on this let me know

[Haukka81]

BUMB!

 

 

Any news

[Denco]

I wish this would become a reality :(

[VuDuBu]

Sooooo, any updates?? :-D

[daribouca]

Still working on it !

[Milli]

Still working on it !

 

Keep going daribouca.

[Random]

Still working on it !

 

Good luck! If you pull it off, you will never EVER have to buy your own beer again ;)

[Haukka81]

Still working on it !

 

If you need beta tester im in!

 

I hope that you can finnish this someday :thumbup:

 

Even just airwar with static ground units would be nice :huh::joystick:

[REDEYE_CVW-66]

If completed, it will change EVERYTHING. Fingers crossed and good luck!

[Haukka81]

BUMB, now that 1.5 is out , maybe some info ?