Cacetudo

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Admiral, thanks for the subs and the upcoming ships, as always, they look great and definitely add to the enjoyment. Here are a few photos I took during San Francisco Fleet Week recently. USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) was moored near USS McCain (DDG-56) and a sister ship. There are a few others: USS Tripoli (LHA-7), USS Rushmore (LSD-47), USS Potomac (AG-25, President Roosevelt's yacht), and a couple of USCG and smaller armed police boats for security. And a couple of obligatory shots of the Blue Angels, of course. Enjoy.

A suggestion, for your consideration: the Anzac class frigates from New Zealand & Australia. I don't think there are any MEKO frigate models in DCS, and any of these 10 ships would fit into a range of modern-era scenarios. There appear to be candidate models on Turbosquid for HMNZS Te Mana and HMAS Ballarat. It sounds like you already have an oiler in mind, but if not, a good fit with the Anzac class would be HMNZS Endeavour, and maybe HMNZS Canterbury. Again, there seem to be models available.

Perhaps this brief overview (4+ minutes) of wave generation mechanics/physics here will be of assistance:

Well earned, thank you for your excellent work on LHA-6!

Great screenshots, Admiral, thanks for all the work and I'm looking forward to enjoying these when they're ready!

It's Farallon de Medinilla, and yes, it's a bombing range when it isn't being used for other military activities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farallon_de_Medinilla Coordinates: N16.0172 E146.0586

The parking spots referenced are all coded with the terminal type 104, which is OpenBig. This means that KC-10 and KC-135 (and C-17, etc) AI aircraft can spawn here, with the pictured results that are guaranteed to result in AI aircraft crashes. I included the parking info for spots 146 & 147, which are also type 104, and have no problems handling these large aircraft. May I suggest changing the terminal type for these spots to 72 (OpenMed), assuming that would - or could be used to - block these larger aircraft? Thanks

I second this request, for the same reasons. I opened a thread within the Marianas forum about this exact thing, and suggested NOLF Orote or Rota / PGRO (yes, I know those would both be fictional).

I'm liking the Marianas map very much so far. It's obviously going to be a good fit for flying from the Supercarrier. One thing that's not available in DCS anywhere AFAIK is a carrier deck outline painted onto a runway (with correct lighting) to facilitate field carrier landing practice (FCLP). The nearest real-world example I know if is on Iwo Jima (RJAW / Iwoto), which is ~700nm from Guam. MCAS Iwakuni is next closest, but this isn't a map of Japan. May I suggest, since we apparently aren't going to get Iwo Jima on this map, that an alternative location be used for this? With the current set of airports available, I would suggest the runway at the former NOLF Orote, or alternatively PGRO / Rota. I've tried dropping the Navy Equipment mod's FCLP box lights onto both of those fields and flying several circuits. The terrain at NOLF Orote is smooth and both of these fields are long enough for the Hornet to do touch & go's. Alternatively, if anyone can point me in the right direction to the texture file(s) that contain these runways, perhaps I can try adding it myself. I realize that this request is for a fictional feature, but it could be very useful considering that FCLP is a pretty critical part of carrier flying training. Thanks.

Good spot, looks like USS Mount Whitney LCC-20. That's a nice surprise.

Caballeros, the ships and the Harrier skins look really good, and I would like to have these naval assets in my DCS missions. However, I am not willing to use this mod in its current EXE-only format because I have no way to verify that the desdemicabina-simulation 3.2.exe file is authentic before I run it on my machine. In simple terms, while I do not suggest that your file is malicious, it does present a significant security risk. Perhaps you can release a zip version of your mod with visible contents? Otherwise, I will have to use another computer with virtual machine software in order to isolate your EXE file while I "install" it, and then copy the files back into my DCS open beta folder structure. Thanks for your consideration - based on prior posts in this thread I know I'm not the only one who has this view! Saludos

This is looking great already, I'm really looking forward to seeing her weigh anchor. Thanks for all of these ships, Admiral!

No comment on the ACL or if/when it'll be implemented in DCS... but wow, that was a lucky escape from becoming a smear on the stern of the ship! Well worth a watch.

If what you're looking for is to be launched from one of the waist cats while another aircraft is being launched off the bow, this is probably the best way to do it. If it's an AI aircraft on the other cat, just watch the crew members in action, and you'll know when the other launch is about to happen.

Totally support this 100%! It would really unlock a lot of real-life functionality for the Supercarrier, as well as allow more than the default 16 spawn spots. Pretty please?

Thanks for the feedback and info - good to know. The USS America sounds like it will be worth waiting for!

Totally agree with both points. The Tomcats cause more on-deck collisions than the Hawkeyes do, which seems strange. And as far as dynamic deck changes go, I'm envisioning something analogous to MOOSE, where there's a deck management script running continuously that tracks the count/location/state of all aircraft on-deck and can suitably deal with the aircraft and the deck routes. For example, when aircraft land and park on the bow, they will automatically despawn after 30 minutes. A script like this could catch this despawn event and spawn the same type of static in the exact same place on the deck. And when that aircraft needs to launch again, the spawn unit trigger results in the static aircraft disappearing. Or, when a helo lands at the forward end of the runway it should be despawned automatically, x minutes after its engines stop, and respawned as a static in front of the island. This same script could also force reloads of the routes Lua file as needed/when triggered. That kind of thing.

I don't use a full Lua development tool (yet) but that may be the way I go eventually. For now I'm using Visual Studio Code as a (free) smart text editor that makes working with Lua files much easier visually. It also has an extension that validates Lua (any errors are highlighted in red), but this doesn't seem to catch everything. As I mentioned, one missing curly bracket or misplaced comma will blow up the entire file - fair, since it isn't valid Lua - so I found the online compiler a good next step before I get a LDT like https://www.eclipse.org/ldt/. I also think there's something more complex going on in terms of parking spot order, etc. I don't think we've seen any documentation on this file yet. I think we could do a lot with that. I too would really like to have the ability to reload this file on the fly vs. once per DCS session (or mission, I'm not sure). Having said that, here's the latest version of my USS_Nimitz_RunwaysAndRoutes.lua file. I'm testing it in the Persian Gulf with MOOSE traffic (1x rescue helo, 1x recovery tanker, 1x AWACS, and enough random air traffic to fill all the spawn spots + extras). I would recommend loading it into model viewer before trying it with DCS so you can see the paths. Three caveats: Use of this file is at your own risk - please make sure you back up the original file so you can revert to it! Having read some of the post-crash log files, I strongly suspect that any mods to this file will break the multiplayer integrity check. This version of the file (usually) doesn't crash DCS at mission launch/reload. I hope this helps someone else, I'd appreciate suggestions for improvement, and I look forward to seeing what else we can come up with. USS_Nimitz_RunwaysAndRoutes.v05.lua

I'm making some progress, with 8 aircraft spawning and parking on cat 2, which is out of service in this mission/demo scenario. I'm finding the USS_Nimitz_RunwaysAndRoutes.lua file to be extremely touchy in terms of crashing DCS at mission load. Certainly any kind of Lua syntax error will do that (this can be checked in model viewer or with an online lua validator like https://rextester.com/l/lua_online_compiler), which is totally understandable. The config file seems to be very sensitive to the order of the spawn/takeoff spots so far. It seems like it's best to leave the first 4 6-pack slots at the top of the list and add new spots after the original 16 spots, but I'm not certain yet. I can get the original 16 + 8 on cat 2 (as shown here), but when I un-comment the next 6 spots I created on the fantail, I get crashes again - despite validating the Lua using the tool above as well as visually within the model viewer. When I get it running consistently smoothly, I'd be happy to share. Once I figured out how to quickly get x/z coordinates from model viewer, it was relatively easy to put the first 10 recovering aircraft onto the bow similar to the video example from @norman99 above. BTW, that model viewer is a great way to see the effects of x/z coordinate changes in the config file without having to start a new session of DCS each time - it really helped make rapid iterations. I'm still working on keeping the Tomcats behind the foul lines and not randomly exploding, and also trying to understand the limitations of the supercarrier's parking engine and/or my knowledge of how to manipulate it.

A question for @Admiral189 or any other ship modelers: is this the type of 3D model that you can turn into a DCS unit? https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/uss-boxer-3d-model/690634 It's the USS Boxer (LHD-4) and we don't have the Wasp class ships in DCS as far as I know. Nor do we have any static CH-46 models. I know basically nothing about how to do 3D modeling, so I'd be curious to know how this particular 3D model's polygon count/texture size/etc stacks up in comparison to the great work you've been doing. I'm using all of it.

This just put a whole lot of sunlight into the black box. I have heard about model viewer but I think I've only opened it once before. I certainly didn't know you could load routes like into it like this. Big DCS knowledge gain for me - thank you for sharing it! Reminds me of something I heard in school: when you get a bachelor's degree, you think you know everything. When you get a master's degree, you realize you don't know anything. When you get a doctorate, you understand that nobody knows anything.

I've been digging around in the various Lua files that appear to control the carrier configurations, including the taxi routes at issue. Here's an overview of what I found that I think relates to aircraft movements - not the general ship unit/weapons/sensors stuff - perhaps this might help shed some light on the what's happening behind the scenes. From the searching I've done, there doesn't seem to be any public documentation for these config files. I'm posting this not to reverse engineer DCS, but with the aim to improve it for my own and others' enjoyment. Supercarrier main config file: [DCS World OpenBeta]\CoreMods\tech\USS_Nimitz\scripts\USS_Nimitz_RunwaysAndRoutes.lua The comments in the first 3 lines suggest this file is for the USS Stennis, which is obviously at odds with the filename. GT.RunWays section for the landing strip (lines 7-11), and each of the 4 catapults (lines 12-20), with xyz coordinates for (I think) their launch points, as well as their respective azimuths (relative to the ship centerline, I think). I think we can safely ignore the azimuth/length/width/glide path numbers. GT.TaxiRoutes section for, quote: "taxi routes and parking spots in LCS" (line 23). There are 16 parking spots defined, with 4-6 point paths to each. I think this is for aircraft being recovered. As we know, they all park on the starboard side, which agrees with what's in this file. There are 4 additional parking spots & paths in this file for the 6-pack area, but they are commented out (lines 157-188). GT.TaxiForTORoutes section, which I think is for aircraft being launched. There are 16 spawn spots defined, with 5 -9 point paths to each catapult. The cat used for each spot, as mentioned, is set with the RunwayIdx = [1-4] line that precedes each array containing the path. This means that an aircraft spawning at a given point will always go to the same cat. GT.HelicopterSpawnTerminal section with 8 spots. I suggest we get into the naval rotary-wing stuff later. I believe there are a couple more files for the stock carrier, despite their names. Or, they're deprecated - I have no idea, because I've never used the stock carrier. Or, I'm completely wrong about what these two files do. Main config file: [DCS World OpenBeta]\Scripts\Database\navy\blue\nimitz.lua GT.ArrestingGears section for the 4 wires, with xyz coordinates for the left and right side of each (lines 47-65) Line 4 calls the next file Runways & routes file: [DCS OB]\Scripts\Database\navy\blue\nimitzRunwaysAndRoutes.lua GT.RunWays section for the landing strip (lines 7-11), and each of the 4 catapults (lines 12-18), with xyz coordinates for (I think) their launch points, as well as their respective azimuths (relative to the ship centerline, I think). I think we can safely ignore the azimuth/length/width numbers. GT.TaxiRoutes section (for, quote: "taxi routes and parking spots in LCS" (line 21). There are 13 parking spots defined, with 2-4 point paths for each. GT.HelicopterSpawnTerminal section with 5 spots. Also note that for the xyz coordinate systems referenced above, y is always 20.1494 in USS_Nimitz_RunwaysAndRoutes.lua, which means it's the deck height (as far as these routes are concerned). I think we can safely ignore the y axis. z axis is port/starboard distance from the center (of the model?): - port < 0 < starboard + x axis is aft/forward: - aft < 0 < forward + Lastly, I note that @astazou also posted some detail about this in Jan 2020: I'm more than happy to get corrections to the above material - fire at will! I hope this stuff is helpful, and I'm going to continue playing around with it myself over the next couple of days.

These look outstanding. Thanks for the hard work to date and count me as another person looking forward to deploying these!