Objective markers (smoke) and LZs

Hey all

I was just playing my favourite mission for the Huey, Stray Eagle, and when Stray Eagle popped his smoke I found that I couldn't see it until I was right on top of the area, I used to be able to see it quite clearly when crossing the settlement that has all the AAA and the road running through the middle, so I'm guessing something was changed recently in an update as I've not changed my settings.

Is there a way to increase the visual distance of markers like smoke without increasing overall draw distance?

Also, the LZ you have to land on to pick up Stray Eagle seems a little small and rather poorly defined.

Can anyone tell me how I can identify the edge of the level area from the air? Landing on that LZ is the biggest problem I have in that mission (despite the recently increased enemy activity and seeming lack of any air cover!!) because I can't tell where the flat terrain starts for the LZ.

Thanks in advance.

Making the smoke more visible is easy enough.

Look in Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Bazar\ParticleEffects\Effects\SmokeMarker.lua

Change Line 2: local smokeLife = 8*smokeLifeC

to something higher local smokeLife = 40*smokeLifeC

This creates the normal column that ends in a slowly fading whispy smoke cloud that you can easily see from 5 miles away.

I'm sure that the rest of the parameters in there could produce nicer results, but this works ;)

You might want to mess around with the LOD settings if this doesn't cut the mustard..

Thanks, I'll give that a go. At least now I should be able to see the marker flare and be able to aim for the right hill...

Wish I knew a better way of identifying the edge of the level area of ground, it's difficult for me to tell where it is until I get real low, by which time it's too late...

I haven't tried the mission you are talking about, but I get what you mean.

DCS doesn't allow the creation of lines on the map to designate FLOT & target areas like F4 BMS, or other sims like ARMA for most aircraft. KA-50 excepted.

I can only suggest making good use of the Kneepad map.... If you want to go one further, then KneeboardBuilder might come in handy.

For example, you could take a screenshot of your map & add an image of it with hand drawn marks to show areas of interest, FLOTS.