Battlefield Commander control

Reading the history behind Jane's A-10 I have discovered that it was intended to came with an interesting commander view where you have an overview of your friendlies, your enemies and you can act as a commander, giving order to the units.

I think that idea has a huge potential, specially in MP, and it's much better than trying to make "drivable" armor or AAA.

For example, one guy can be in charge of the "red" troops and others of the "blue" force. He would move the infantry, AAA, give orders to armor to move, conquer cities and he could instruct JTAC messages to human-manned A-10C or Ka-50. Some kind of tactical strategy mixed with DCS simulation.

If maybe it is an huge change for a patch, it would be great to see it as a DLC or something similar, a là F-22 TAW. It would be an evolution from FAC view seen in first A-10C betas.

Only my 2cents. Being DCS nowadays highly CAS oriented, this sort of control could be a real workaround that solves IA drawbacks.

Regards!

I concur with the commander mode. I suggested this a while back but got shot down lol.

This was a feature in the early beta and was removed for contractual reasons iirc

This was a feature in the early beta and was removed for contractual reasons iirc

This was a feature in the early beta and was removed for contractual reasons iirc

Mmmm OK. But I am not saying to bring back again exactly the same functionality that USAF has in their simulators. This is probably not compatible with their military contracts. I'm talking about a new product developed only for the entertainment market.

Regards!

EB1 said back when they announced the removal, that they hoped to develop it further to possibly bring it back in another form at a later time. If that will ever happen is impossible to tell right now.

Personally, an addon pack with battlefield commander mode (with ability to create units on the fly etc) and fully functional JTAC that was playable in multiplayer I would pay good money for. The replayability of missions (which i feel is DCSs biggest draw back) would be endless.

EB1 said back when they announced the removal, that they hoped to develop it further to possibly bring it back in another form at a later time. If that will ever happen is impossible to tell right now.

Ohh nice! Let's see what the future is bringing :)

If finally ED didn't push in that direction, at least it would be nice if they provide the neccesary interfaces to allow making it possible by 3rd parties.

Regards

I remembered about that Battlefield Commander mode again these days. Ah, it would be so awesome to have it back or in another form . I should reinstall the beta and play a little bit with it.:)

It was an amazing feature, I'm sure i would have spend far more time commanding tank battles than I would have actually flying the A-10.

It is such a shame they had to take it out.

Im hoping so much that it comes back one day (soon!) but im not very hopeful. I hate laweys!!!

It was an amazing feature, I'm sure i would have spend far more time commanding tank battles than I would have actually flying the A-10.

It is such a shame they had to take it out.

Im hoping so much that it comes back one day (soon!) but im not very hopeful. I hate laweys!!!

It will never be back.

I'm willing to bet! and even if it did return in some form of lame 2d battlefield control, the whole purpose of it (ie the JTAC) will never return. Of that, i guarantee.

'T'

What about an AI commander for each side that followed ground engagement rules for tanks, troops and other ground units? It would be nice to see more dynamic ground units attacking or retracting depending on stans.

the whole purpose of it (ie the JTAC) will never return.

I tend to agree that the JTAC won't make a comeback

I'm hopeful that some clever modders will take a look at the existing code from the early betas and combine it with the drivable vehicles mod. I would image it would be workable as a rudimentary multiplayer JTAC format, but it's a long shot.

The concept of a proper "battlefield commander" mode is an awesome one IMO. The thought of a red team with some KA-50 assets vs. a blue team with some A-10s sounds pretty epic. But I won't be holding my breath on that one either

I tend to agree that the JTAC won't make a comeback

I'm hopeful that some clever modders will take a look at the existing code from the early betas and combine it with the drivable vehicles mod. I would image it would be workable as a rudimentary multiplayer JTAC format, but it's a long shot.

The concept of a proper "battlefield commander" mode is an awesome one IMO. The thought of a red team with some KA-50 assets vs. a blue team with some A-10s sounds pretty epic. But I won't be holding my breath on that one either

I wouldn't be surprised at all to find it was possible to mod back a form of the battle commander itself. I've done a small bit of investigating into the matter, and the fact is, at least some of the code that made the battle commander mode tick is still there. It's even possible that MOST of the code is still there. However, I do not intend to ever work on bringing it back myself. ED said that BC had to be removed because it might violate some contract they had. I wouldn't be surprised if ED took a similar view of a community mod to bring back battle commander mode, or any of its functionality. Whether or not it really uses their old code, it still would exist in the DCS world, and use DCS lua and C functions, so they would be supporting, albeit somewhat indirectly, a battle commander mode. So I think that ED might take a negative view of anyone trying to bring back battle commander mode, and could potentially have to change the game so that any mod that did bring it back would not work. The modding community needs the full support of ED, and if they are afraid that battlefield commander may endanger future contracts, I'm not going to second-guess them, and I sure as hell am not going to make a mod the deliberately circumvents a business decision that they made!

The same would go for drivable vehicles. If you could drive vehicles, you would set yourself on an extremely slippery slope towards a full battlefield commander. If it gives you the ability to command ground units, or act as JTAC, I'm not interested in doing it. I don't want to get myself, the whole community (because a change to the game to disable such a mod could have wide-ranging, negative side effects), or ED in trouble.

[...]

I don't think that this is the matter with the battlefield commander issue, using their code is very likely gonna lead to trouble, but pulling one of yourself, i'd be surprised to see ED object to that. I will however try to get some of the officials to comment.

OA-10C running AFAC, best of both worlds. :)

I don't think that this is the matter with the battlefield commander issue, using their code is very likely gonna lead to trouble, but pulling one of yourself, i'd be surprised to see ED object to that. I will however try to get some of the officials to comment.

Well, I donno. Any battlefield commander mode is going to have to use whatever function they have to set waypoints. And actually, that function may be solely accessible from C, so quite likely its not possible to bring it back in without using huge amounts of their code, and even if its a Lua function (if so, it's one that has remained elusive to me- I've been searching for it for about 9 months!), that's still using their code to make a battle commander mode. I just don't have a good feeling about ED taking a positive view of that. If I thought I could bring back battle commander with my own mod, I'd definitely ask them first before starting such an endeavor. Maybe that's a mistake, because maybe they would err on the side of caution about such things and say "no", but I'd rather have them say "no" than start making ED feel uncomfortable about what the modding community is doing to their software.

Sometimes wishes became reality hehe

Regards!

It will never be back.

 

I'm willing to bet! and even if it did return in some form of lame 2d battlefield control, the whole purpose of it (ie the JTAC) will never return. Of that, i guarantee.

 

'T'

Bad luck mate. You were so certain. :music_whistling: