Hack your DCS! or how I stopped worrying and love the BMP

Flight Sims
1

Hey gang, here’s a little something I feel the need to share with y’all:

I had been having problems doing close air support in DCS. The vehicle mounted guns always made mincemeat out of me unless I stayed at 10.000 feet and lobbed very smart weaponry at the Democratically Challenged. Or stayed at least 3km away.

So I went and did a bit of a whinge at the ED forum. Just to report the fact that every soviet BMP is manned by a crew of Vasili Zaitsev clones you know :wink:
And then someone gave me a simple little hint:

Take a look at the deviation_error_speed_sensor values found in Scripts\database\scripts\sensors.lua…

And voila! the more modern vehicles such as BMP-3 have the same values for miss distance as the radar laid dedicated, purpose-built AAA vehicles! So I changed them to more sensible values:

[code] – weapons sensors
– zero errors, for debugging purposes
WSN_0 = {}
WSN_0.deviation_error_azimuth = 0.0000
WSN_0.deviation_error_elevation = 0.0000
WSN_0.deviation_error_speed_sensor = 0.000
WSN_0.deviation_error_stability = 0
WSN_0.deviation_error_distance = 0

– softpoint mount, machinegun_12_7, machinegun_7_62, RPG
WSN_1 = {}
WSN_1.deviation_error_azimuth = 0.006
WSN_1.deviation_error_elevation = 0.006
WSN_1.deviation_error_speed_sensor = 0.2
WSN_1.deviation_error_stability = 0.05
WSN_1.deviation_error_distance = 0.2

– human gunner, hardpoint mount, automatic_gun_KPVT
WSN_2 = {}
WSN_2.deviation_error_azimuth = 0.003
WSN_2.deviation_error_elevation = 0.003
WSN_2.deviation_error_speed_sensor = 0.2
WSN_2.deviation_error_stability = 0.05
WSN_2.deviation_error_distance = 0.1

– human gunner, hardpoint mount, ZU-23
WSN_3 = {}
WSN_3.deviation_error_azimuth = 0.001
WSN_3.deviation_error_elevation = 0.001
WSN_3.deviation_error_speed_sensor = 0.2
WSN_3.deviation_error_stability = 0.04
WSN_3.deviation_error_distance = 0.1

– human gunner, hardpoint mount, BMP-2, Marder, LAV-25
WSN_4 = {}
WSN_4.deviation_error_azimuth = 0.005 (was 0.0007 like below)
WSN_4.deviation_error_elevation = 0.005 (was 0.0007 like below)
WSN_4.deviation_error_speed_sensor = 0.2
WSN_4.deviation_error_stability = 0.04
WSN_4.deviation_error_distance = 0.2

– human gunner, hardpoint mount, rangefinder, M2, M6, BMP-3
WSN_11 = {}
WSN_11.deviation_error_azimuth = 0.005 (was 0.0007 like below)
WSN_11.deviation_error_elevation = 0.005 (was 0.0007 like below)
WSN_11.deviation_error_speed_sensor = 0.15
WSN_11.deviation_error_stability = 0.04
WSN_11.deviation_error_distance = 0.015

– automatic gunner, hardpoint mount, radar rangefinder, Tunguska, Vulcan, Kortik, Phalanx, Gepard, AK630, Shilka
WSN_5 = {}
WSN_5.deviation_error_azimuth = 0.0007
WSN_5.deviation_error_elevation = 0.0007
WSN_5.deviation_error_speed_sensor = 0.005
WSN_5.deviation_error_stability = 0.01
[/code]

No way the gunner on a LAV-25 can be as accurate vs an A-10 as a Shilka. So I tried a hop with the changed numbers and it was awesome! There were tracers flying everywhere but my wings remained attached to the aircraft. If I flew low, slow and straight, they’d still manage a few hits but no longer the instant wall of deathmurderkillage that it was.

So people, if you see as we see, set your chickens free!

9 Likes
2

Thanks for looking into this! I will trying these out later.

3

That is great info…I am curious if it will make your sim fail the integrity check and make MP unavailable?

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@schurem Oh man this is everything I’ve ever wanted. So many times doing a gun run, dodging IR SAMs like a boss, and then one magic 12.7mm round from some superman on the top of a T-72 kills my CICU and one engine…

5

@schurem

Actually, after looking at the files today, it looks like ED actually updated this file in the 2.5.1 patch and didn’t include it in the notes.

When I first opened the file before patching today, the deviation_error_speed_sensor values for the BMPs was 0.1. (This was the suggested value to increase by msalama on the ED forums). However, after patching to 2.5.1 those values are changed to 0.2. I confirmed this by going back to my release branch folder, where the values are still 0.1. You can see in your post above they are at 0.2, which means that is the file that ED patched today with those new values.

So, it’s possible that the end result you saw (which is a very good thing), was from the change ED finally made in the patch. It would take more testing to know if it’s from your change, or ED’s.

Either way, I can get down and dirty with the A-10A now!!!

5 Likes
6

There’s a whole bunch of “garbage” on top of that file. At least, my box did not make sense of it. Might be it’s an explanation in russian?

I wouldn’t be surprised if my changes make it fail the more stringent integrity checks. It would not be fair if I were the only one on a server not having to contend with an army of superhuman sniperbots would it?

Ideally, these changes would be made official and rolled into the openbeta branch for all of us. I hope someone official picks up on it.

7

That’s a bad term there.
It’s “Democratically Challenged” that you want to use.

1 Like
8

This is actually accurate lingo.

1 Like
9

Yeah, I think it was Dimitriov from the Gaz team who originally came up with the concept. Was a great find indeed…