Mission Editor (perpetual mission) design change

[Pikey]

The below outlines a wishlist for the DCS World engine to allow and cater for campaigns, but also improve some multiplayer and single player mission design flexibility.

 

Current Limits:

-You enter a mission as single player, the mission must have assigned all resources or use external scripts to spawn aircraft/vehicles.

-You enter a multiplayer online mission as a player and when your vehicle is destroyed you are returned to a static pick list of pre designed flights as per mission running.

-Mission designing currently needs to account for every possibility and doesn't allow a method to update of units or efficiently use all parts of the resource management system to give full potential of the game.

 

Suggestion:

 

TLDR; add mission editor buttons to the F10 map in game.

To properly use the resource system, the decision point at mission start would be whether to occupy a predefined vehicle or a spawned vehicle from the resource system. I believe that it would be beneficial if spawned vehicles are chosen then there also should be the ability to assign waypoints and armament from the mission editor. This could be extended to vehicles/groups naturally, ultimately limited by the mission design.

 

The benefits of this design is that it allows change after mission start and adds the perpetual world folks have asked for for a long time whilst still having resource manager and mission design constraints.

 

In this case, when using a mission that has unlimited resources, when the player vehicle is destroyed, the player will return to the simplified mission editor and get to pick an aircraft mid mission, place it and give it waypoints and click fly. If the mission designer hasn't allowed access to any resources during the mission the pick list returns for a static flight.

 

Some use cases:

 

Single player benefit

Mission designer places static objects and resources. Possibly vehicles. Then decides on resources for resource manager. *Picks resources allowed to be changed mid mission*. Picks start time/weather and fly.

Mission launches. Entry point is... f10 map/mission design. Use permitted buttons, create a flight using resource manager resources, enter plane from mission editor. Result is that they return to the mission editor when they wish to abandon their vehicle and pick another resource. this will allow a new vehicle to spawn mid mission and allow a steady ongoing campaign with save ability.

 

Multiplayer benefit

Server exists where balance is not an issue, for example the Aerobatics server, some PvE servers. The mission designer sets allowable aircraft via resource manager, places static objects. Players join the mission, pick any aircraft, any start point and enter mission. Much simpler than the huge pick list.

 

Effectively we are discussing multiplayer mission editing, however this is only allowed on the server so the clients are mimicking the ability and sending requests to the server to add a unit and give it waypoints. This just needs interface/macros on the client side and some UI changes.

 

I'd appreciate open discussion on this, it is close to the perpetual campaign and some requests from the virtual aerobatics server mods.