Hear me out

I realize DCS is a air combat simulator. However, after 1000+ hours in the SIM and owning/flying the A-10, Harrier, KA-50, UH-1H, and the F/A-18; since day 1 there's always been something I felt was missing from the SIM...a 1st soldier option. I'm sure this has been suggested before, but please, hear me out.

It's always been lackluster to me rolling up on a target to save my ground units from utter destruction of enemy fire while using the roaring scream of the Huey's miniguns, or a ravage gun-run from the A-10, or from a strategic GBU hit and there's absolutely no response from the AI (unless you pre-record voice overs in the mission editor). It often feels like you're just a cog in the wheel of an unappreciative AI unit on the ground that gives no response to you when you just destroyed a T-52 tank rolling in on them saving them from death. There's nothing...just silence. Without playing a pre-built mission/campaign it make the gameplay feel like you're just there to complete a mission filled with brain-dead AI.

Thus, it would be incrediebly immersive if players were able to play as soldiers to call you in for air-strikes as needed. Their perspective of angels of death flying by dropping death and destruction and hearing the engines roar on each fly by would also be in itself amazing to those players.

Alternatively, the same result would be achieved if we could have "good-hits" call outs when enemies are destroyed near friendlies - or some other form of communication from the ground.

Having a combined arms Human FAC/JTAC (on foot, not in a Humvee or APC) with only a radio and a designator would be cool - if they could be dropped by a chopper somewhere close and make their way to a concealed position with a view...

Then the folk manning the tanks, APCs and SHORAD would have to keep their eyes (scopes) open for single soldiers making their way across the countryside...

This guy, plus a pair of binoculars

I doubt the current engine with its terrain will make playable foot solders an enjoyable experience.

Just think of CA with even slower movement ;).

Any work on this would, IMHO, be a waste of ressources. DCS is simply not layed out for this.

Would need an extra team, new animation would need to be created, more detailed damage model for the ground units, Netcode if an extra 50 guys run arround on the ground etc.

ArmA, even on the smaller scale, would be a better choice.

But it would certainly be awesome. Especially with helicopters it would be awesome to do hot LZ extractions without waiting the AI to stay arround, line up and get in one by one :doh:

And a more clearer topic name would have been better ;)

Arma would be a big leap, allowing a player to occupy a ground unit would be only the first step towards that, but most of what was needed for the JTAC idea.

They already have a new skeletal animation that could allow running not sea sick inducing fast walking - and either the mission designer can put a JTAC somewhere handy, or let CA users move between vehicles, choppers and foot soldiers...

If some people will play ATC, someone would volunteer for JTAC

If some people will play ATC, someone would volunteer for JTAC

Well, they are already dooing that from a Invisible Humvee ;)

There is a playable pilot mod, so a playable JTAC cant be to hard.:smartass:

the current pilot physics are pretty clunky though - a new skeletal animation body with an actual run and crouch behind designator (into ‘cockpit’ mode) would be pretty much the job done...

While I get the appeal of this, DCS ever being a legitimate FPS is so farfetched in scope as to be utterly pointless to even bring up. This isn't a first person shooter and realistically never will be. Some vehicle expansion MAY happen eventually, but even that is likely to stay fairly limited in scope.

PBI and vics are for the most part too small scale for this world environment and to have a meaningful # of people would crush the already strained network code.

Arma and/or Planetside are that way --->

...and now we are dreaming. How about an API which would allow to link up games like DCS and call of duty......whooooa...

Sendt fra min SM-G975F med Tapatalk

I spotted an odd ground effect once near a river, and couldn’t get my F-5 to hover to check it out, so I just ejected...once on the ground (mountainous and wooded Caucasus terrain) I took a bearing+distance reading and started hoofing it. Walked straight thru trees, found tree-less corridors which resembled actual forest environments, and had to continually retake bearing+ distance readings (F10 map). The plodding rate of the pilot’s walk as well as the inaccuracy of facing a specific direction (it seemed like Mr Pilot turns in 30° - 40° increments) meant I was walking for a long time. The last obstacle I came across was a river which sounded like a gentle stream, and I could hear it from some distance away. It was quite disappointing after walking so far, I got within about 10 meters to the edge and suddenly... I died. Drowned, apparently.

Based on this, I would suggest a few very basic modifications which are enabled whenever the pilot/individual person is on foot:

First, have some kind of direction + speed indicator for someone on foot. The little bar that is used when viewing the aircraft from the outside (F2) would work well for this.

Second, have a more accurate directional input. The ability to adjust heading and the rate of the turn should be able to incorporate the yaw input controls just as the aircraft does.

Third, “crouching” is just a way of reducing perceived height above ground. If a pilot is 1.8 meters tall, then by pressing “crouch” (“q”, perhaps) the pilot’s “altitude” would be reduced to .9m.

Typical first shooter controls are a (slide left), s (reverse), d (slide right), and w (walk forward), with q = crouch and e = jump. Once on foot or ejected, all aircraft control bindings are inactive, perhaps a secondary set of control bindings could be activated for pilot body/parachute controls? One in particular would be “activate Mae West” (“v” for vest) which would prevent pilot death when landing in water. Also, these directional controls (except “run”) could be used with water as a basic “swim” function.

Fourth, there should be a “run” modifier. Caps Lock would be good for this.

This kind of setup could also be used (when combined with a groundcrew request to put/remove a boarding ladder against the cockpit) to do a walk-around pretrip, for those who like doing that or who just want to check out the airfield (or possibly even have an “airshow visitor” perspective).

I understand having or using individual weapons would be well outside the scope of DCS, but if we limit available individual equipment to:

Binoculars (which are not necessarily visible in the characters hand) which use “zoom”);

A simple representation (perhaps a tube integrated into the hand, aligned with direction of travel or designated target) of a manportable laser designator, and

A simple on-screen radio interface (which could be a third-party program, like SRS or TS) which is active when on foot...

This should be adequate for most players’ purposes...I’m not a programmer but in the words of many others....”This should be easy to incorporate into DCS!”

Just a suggestion, thanks for reading.

Having played Arma in its various iterations for many years; since basically the first OFP game; I can say that the FPS side of the life is really good but they suck hind tit at anything related to aviation. The best thing about Arma is the modularity of the game itself and the wide variety of the styles of gameplay from community to community. DCS is by far the best flight sim for modern flight combat there is. To attempt to make DCS with CA an all around/all encompassing game experience would be a truly magnificent undertaking similar in scale to Star Citizen and even then the game would still take years to catch up with the newest tech.

the TL:DR version is as follows...

DCS don't screw up a good thing.

Having played Arma in its various iterations for many years; since basically the first OFP game; I can say that the FPS side of the life is really good but they suck hind tit at anything related to aviation. The best thing about Arma is the modularity of the game itself and the wide variety of the styles of gameplay from community to community. DCS is by far the best flight sim for modern flight combat there is. To attempt to make DCS with CA an all around/all encompassing game experience would be a truly magnificent undertaking similar in scale to Star Citizen and even then the game would still take years to catch up with the newest tech.

 

the TL:DR version is as follows...

 

DCS don't screw up a good thing.

That’s why a ground element, if any, should be secondary to the main mission of flight. Somehow I don’t see many current players of DCS wanting to control company-sized units, most talk about a single squadron of armor (5 units) or squad size or less infantry.

But...once one gets used to 5, they’ll want 10...then 30...

But those decisions are well above my paygrade, and I’m just glad that some form of integration of ground elements are in the consideration pool.

Thx BigNewy!

I agree with the request and as clarified by BigNewy, an enterable (Combined Arms Required) Designator, or even a ManPad for that consideration, would be great, however, most of us probably set the unit to invisible as the AI at any intelligence level can spot and destroy the observer, even if we hide him in a bush.

I get the sentiment, it'd be cool, but as others have said, rebuilding the terrain in order to offer a decent infantry / ground unit experience will be too much for current hardware. DCS is pretty heavy as it is. In my opinion, if anything, focus should be given on optimization, if possible. A JTAC vehicle with limited capabilities sounds like a good compromise.

[...]A JTAC vehicle with limited capabilities sounds like a good compromise.

I agree. I think JTAC "gameplay" must be somewhat vehicle-bound to be viable in DCS. This could either be a dedicated vehicle, or a more generic vehicle with the possibility to get in and out but with movement and combat being done mostly with the vehicle in Combined Arms fashion, being able to switch between different units etc.

For fully immersive infantry gameplay in a simulation as "big" as DCS, infantry players would have to be fine with sitting 2 hours in a truck, waiting 2 hours in a bush etc. then logging out without even seeing an enemy. Even hardcore arma milsim has mission design that compresses time and space, so that a operation plays out in hours, instead of days. You could say that the typical DCS mission also compresses time and space (making it more digestible and less boring), but it does so to a much lower extend.

I'm sure some people would still want to play as JTAC creeping through the map for hours without contact, but i think the concept of Combined Arms is a good compromise: It just needed to be more refined in general and specifically more refined for JTAC-gameplay: Either by offering a dedicated Recon/Jtac-Vehicle, or allowing for JTACs to get in and out of vehicles for lasing and maybe shooting...

I am not sure to follow some of the comments made in this topic. Did ED changed something within Combined Arms ? There is already the possibility to take control of a JTAC vehicle and use it to designate targets. As there is already a basic implementation of controlling infantry though the use of manpads. Has something changed in this regard ?

The request from BigNewy to the team would be a real novelty and a big step for Combined Arms, as well as an incentive to buy this module. But it means that some work need to be done for infantry movement. Hope something will come from the request no too far in the future (perhaps for the upcoming overhaul of Combined Arms ?).

I agree with the request and as clarified by BigNewy, an enterable (Combined Arms Required) Designator, or even a ManPad for that consideration, would be great, however, most of us probably set the unit to invisible as the AI at any intelligence level can spot and destroy the observer, even if we hide him in a bush.

Check out YouTube FLIR videos from Afghanistan...the US isn’t AI, but we can see everything.