Nice. I thought about doing that a few years ago. Ick, what a project that was going to be. Being lua -driven made it possible (is an extensible language) but still, ick…
Thought I heard ED was looking at making the editor 3D? That sounds like it would be very helpful.
If they could make an Arma 3 like editor, it would be incredible indeed. The jump from the 2D editor we all knew and loved to the 3den editor was an amazing leap and sets a good standard.
It’s more the arcane set of things you’ve got to add in the “advanced” waypoints category that trips me up, getting an AWACS that will datalink contacts to the client has always been frustrating to me. I could live with basically any visuals if somebody fixed that for me (e.g. have all the “advanced” stuff automatically added depedent on mission, and also maybe some in-editor help as to what each option does - “awacs” is obvious but a few of them, like the one to turn datalink on, aren’t!)
That’s what gets me too. Like having to disable or delete the “CAP” task to prevent AI from going full-burner and trying to engage something 200nm away instead of doing…an actual CAP…or having to tell A2A tasked AI not to engage ground units…or having to tell A2G tasked AI not to jettison and run away at the first enemy RWR contact.
A lot of the extra functions are extremely useful for customizing missions, but the above stuff is basic and should be default AI behavior under the hood without being an Advanced Waypoint Action entry.
The AI is…
Frustrating. I’ll leave it at that.
I hope the reason ED seems to be ‘quiet’ on what I feel are good suggestions is: they are about to improve all this. Maybe?
Frustrating, bordering on game-breaking in some cases. At the moment I can get Spitfires to engage 2 Ju-88s, but as soon as I increase the enemy group to 3 Ju-88s the Spits go haywire and fly all over the map.
I haven’t even broached A2A yet; my system is strictly A2G at the moment ("Attack Pilots Make History kind of thing). The inability to do a basic thing like attack a target I can spot, visually, IS game-breaking IMHO.
My sincere hope is they’re making simple things like this work for they Dynamic Campaign Engine.
[rant: ON]
I mean, I KNOW the engine KNOWS what I’m looking at: they have a mechanism for this via Cockpit Visual Recon - that even works! It responds with feedback when I ‘hit’ something with my eyeball cursor.
I want the id (object) of this unit. I suggested an event via the ED forms Wish List but nothing but crickets in response. Research (forum search) showed a few related requests from years gone by too.
A2A it should work too, if you can follow another plane well enough with your head.
[rant: OFF]
You mean getting your wingmen to engage what you see? I have that issue with A2G and A2A as well. I’ve found that if your group doesn’t have an advanced waypoint task to engage something (best case the specific target you want to hit) your wingmen will just give “negative” even if they report the contacts themselves.
It’s confusing to explain (or I’m bad at it) but I can get my AI wingman to kill any specifiic ground UNIT (or attack a GROUP) -IF- I can ID that object via:
grp = Group.getByName(“groupName”) for instance.
Then run my :attackGroup(grp) function. Works like a charm. But I have to know the ID of the group. A random, arbitrary (to me the player) unit is programmatically unidentifiable while flying within the game.
The Cockpit Visual Recon thing does acknowledge (only method that comes close) when I’ve successfully looked at something (there’s a key combo + mouse input you have to do) but I don’t know the id of that object to then ‘feed’ to my AI wingman the id for use above. When trying to simulate real-world combat the AI might attack anything, or nothing, as you’ve observed.
The “Negative” or is it “Unable” response thing happens when the AI loadout isn’t correct (using the above mech). They’re picky about this in A2G stuff. If I recall (been a month since I last tested this) I reverted to giving my AI wingman MK-xxx’s for just about every mission cus they wouldn’t attack if I supplied them with anything ‘exotic’.
Another test, somewhat related: I spent a LONG time playing with their spotting abilities One example: Me and Bot are 25NM flying straight at a convoy. Armed with (I think it was MK-82s) they didn’t ‘tally’ anything, ever. Gave them IR-Mav’s and they suddenly had superman vision - id’g things all over the place. Or something like that. Have to look at my notes again.
Oh with scripting? I haven’t messed with that.Is the ID for the script the same as the Unit ID in the Mission Editor?
Interesting. I have not experienced that exact situation, although I have experienced my fair share of “Unable” responses. That said, when I am creating sandbox missions I usually add an “attack task” advanced waypoint action for the WP prior to the target (the IP as it were).
If CAS, this would be an ATTACK GROUP, or or UNIT; for Ground Attack, Bombing or Attack Map Object.
At the approbate time I order an “Engage - Mission Targets and Rejoin Formation” (or something like that). I almost always get positive - “Roger”, etc. - replies and they engage with missiles or different types of bombs.
The frustrating AI Engage call can be “Engage - Ground Targets”. They prioritize Air Defense targets…which makes sense but may not be what you want them today the time.
…and that said…you can actually do some good “on the fly” (pun intended) targeting to AI wingmen with the Black Shark DL. The challenging part is entering the the target(s) into the system in a timely manner.
I ran an experiment (several) on this and there was, at the time (year ago?), a “sweet spot” for the distance from the target to do what you say. DCS mission making feels like a moving target sometimes too.
Anyway, I try to stick to 20-25 NM’s to send the task (note I do everything in code cus it’s much easier for me to organize things). I don’t know if I’m getting better at it or DCS is but my ‘bots’ (not in my flight, the other AI attackers I have doing stuff) are performing in an expected, based on the code, manner more lately.
Seems you have to micro-manage them, from taxi to target, and back, however. The code to get them to climb out, to altitude, blow something up - without getting blown up [stupidly], RTB, all without running out of gas…well, that took me months.
I’m getting closer to using the stored combat radius values too; before all this work anything over 150 miles and they never made it back; my baseline mission is about 285 NM from home; one pass, haul azz, do AR on the RTB leg - and they are doing it; what happens over the target is kinda outta my hands but that’s what makes it interesting, though I try to mitigate it using MANPAD-safe attack profiles. MANPADS are crazy deadly lately.
I still have to limit them to a max range (combat radius) as they remain HORRBILE at air refueling. So I only ‘let them’ do it on the return leg.
Little things like building a route that doesn’t have turns of more than about 25 degrees, while climbing out (else the lead will orbit waiting for -2; it’s an odd behavior and took a long time to resolve). Finding a ‘best’ range to Engage/AttackXXX; the right combo of pushTask (and whom to apply it to); that pushTask to ALL flight members is necessary - just sending it to the group isn’t good enough (made no sense to me); etc.
PITA.
Yes but here I’m using ‘id’ generically; each unit has a unique, numerical, ID yet can be referenced by group/unit name. Either works but some functions want the number - at the end of the line I’m pretty sure the number is used either way. The numerical value is the same you see in then mission editor (it’s stored in the miz | mission [lua] file/table.
Can’t say I have full, complete, control over them but, either by luck or pure stubbornness, I’ve written a system that will send in n-flights (up to 8 right now; could be more but overall performance is a primary goal), broken down into ‘phases’:
1 - SEAD: give them 1 HARM, 1 Mav, gas - based on the threat (there may not be any SAMs).
2: Kill Guns: Any weapon seems to work but as I’m trying to ‘simulate’ a MANPAD rich environment I make them (or try to, usally works but not always) force them to do a Level bombing release with either MK-8x’s or Mavs.
3.a: Break things: MK-8x’s, level bombing (MANPAD thing again) using ‘fast’ multi-role jets (Viper, Hornet, Harrier)
3.b: Slow attackers (A-10s and Apaches) for non-air defense targets, etc
4: Cleanup (this one is still in the works as it can be just about anything)
Now, they WILL ‘go rogue’ after hitting the primary target. Getting them to STOP doing something isn’t always cut-and-dried either; I give them a completely new tasking - replace the entire ‘brain’ if you will (basically make them go stupid, only task is to follow a route) - yet they still have independent logic swirling around in their lil heads it seems. Be nice to know how the AI really IS programmed to work cus it would save us all months (and months) of pain.
This all works within a system that is limited in scope (number or targets) because, a) it helps it all work and, b) it runs much faster.
I’m testing my “Alpha Strike”-like logic right now and I can get 5-8 flights all, mostly, hitting the target within about 1 minute of each other, on a 250-300 NM outbound route, (along with other flights: tankers, AWACS, ABCCC, and ‘generic’ stuff for ‘feel’) and have no issues with performance. I do ‘cheat’ a little here: since it’s permissive A2A environment they will all do 1-2 laps over the control point until all the ducks are in a row (there’s YT video from former F15E WSO that confirms this is authentic - I even have a “Roll Call” callout when it’s time to drop the hammer here).
A [good] side effect of doing this all in lua is I have easy control of how often things are checked, ie; my wingman “Bingo/Joker” checks are only done once every minute (configurable) - haven’t lost a Bot to fuel starvation in a long time (MANPADS are a different thing 
). Using lua to me, is MUCH easier to manage than pages of triggers.
My “Todo” list contains a bit on using the waypoint time (eta) value again, to help with the timing - I tried it a while back and had issues but now that the system works well enough without it (scheduling the start time based on route distance and such - they all come from different bases) this should help me get this closer.
Makes it easier on the player too if you have a ‘solid’ TOT. This is on my schedule for today (and likely through the next two days).
It’s just REALLY time-consuming to test; doing the math is trivial. Massaging the AI so the math works is the trick. But I have to run it to validate everything (time compression helps).
I suspect in the real world (for this kind of operation) things need adjusting sometimes too.
Open Beta Planned Today
Current version number: DCS 2.8.1.34667.2
Next update: Planned 25th January 2023 ( subject to change )
Thank you
Ooh really looking forward to Mirage F1EE and Super 530Fs for both versions
Ooh that’s a doozy!
DCS Open Beta 2.8.2.35632
Introducing new campaigns:
Note: Initial implementation of improved bomb fusing options for mk-x series bombs. Please note this is a WIP and will not function for multiple racked weapons. Some options may not yet be fully implemented.
Note: It is our plan to release ARC-210 radio with UHF and VHF functions in the February 2023 update.
FM:
Control system:
Engine:
Radar:
Other features and improvements:
Documentation:
Missions:
The Museum Relic Campaign by Apache600
DCS: Fw 190 A-8 Horrido! Campaign by Reflected Simulations
DCS: P-47D Wolfpack Campaign by Reflected Simulations
DCS: Spitfire Beware! Beware! Campaign by Reflected Simulations
DCS: F-14A Zone 5 Campaign by Reflected Simulations
Mi-8MTV2 and Ka-50: Memory of a Hero Campaign by Stone Sky
DCS: Mi-8MTV2 Crew Part 1 Campaign by Stone Sky
Black Shark 2 Republic Campaign by ED
DCS: Ka-50 2 Pandemic Campaign by Armen Murazyan
DCS: A-10C Iron Flag Part I Campaign by Baltic Dragon
DCS: F/A-18C Raven One Campaign by Baltic Dragon
DCS: F/A-18C Raven One: Dominant Fury Campaign by Baltic Dragon
F/A-18C Serpent’s Head 2 Campaign by Badger633
F/A-18C Rise of the Persian Lion Campaign by Badger633
F/A-18C Rise of the Persian Lion II Campaign by Badger633
Can anyone please tell me what VR performance is like in 2.8 now?
I’d held off updating as 2.7 was working so well and people were saying 2.8 had an impact on VR performance. Only just got really good framerates with the sim and didn’t want to lose that again already.
Also got a weird error now, so I’ll run the repair then update.
later: repair only took a few seconds, so I’m good to go