FEATURE REQUEST - black triggerable smoke

currently as listed here https://wiki.hoggitworld.com/view/DCS_enum_trigger

we have

0 = Green

1 = Red

2 = White

3 = Orange

4 = Blue

it would be really nice if we had black smoke in this list as well to simulate burning stuff

It does already exist !? Black smoke with or without fire and different sizes.

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It does already exist !? Black smoke with or without fire and different sizes.

 

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Correct it does not exist

The smoke triggers I listed last for 5 minutes then stop

The ones you are showing run forever and do not stop

I think, but could be wrong, you can set a trigger in the ME to accomplish this.

Yes you are wrong

Wrong smoke for the task

to simulate burning stuff

Smoke marker is a smoke marker, it does not belong to the effect group and yes it lasts 5 minutes, as intended and close to RL.

Now, to simulate burning stuff you can use EFFECT-SMOKE under trigger actions.

It does exactly what you need, it is black(ish), it burns, and it is trigger happy.

Smoke marker is a smoke marker, it does not belong to the effect group and yes it lasts 5 minutes, as intended and close to RL.

 

Now, to simulate burning stuff you can use EFFECT-SMOKE under trigger actions.

 

It does exactly what you need, it is black(ish), it burns, and it is trigger happy.

So how do you stop it?

I don't think you can. Maybe something ED has planned for later but as far as I am aware this effect is there for the duration of a mission.

I don't think you can. Maybe something ED has planned for later but as far as I am aware this effect is there for the duration of a mission.

exactly, you cannot stop any of those effects

now do you understand why I created this thread ?

It would be good to have a smoke effect that either stops after a while eg 5 mins or has a triggered "OFF" command

No, I don't.

Units that you destroy explode nicely and burn for a period of time.

If you want to simulate burning of other objects you can use that effect. Simple as that. Why would it need to burn for exactly five minutes? Not a single fire burns exactly same outside of a lab environment.

Besides, do you hang around for five minutes to watch it burn?

I have got nothing against, doesn't bother me at all, just saying.

I was kinda wanting this for doing fun stuff like simulating a moving forest fire

so start some black smoke at position X , wait 2 mins start another smoke at x + 10 metres ... repeat etc so it appears the forest fire is moving

Of course if we had a :Stop trigger command for the big fire and or smoke it would not be requesting this

The point is that these coloured puffs of smoke are the smoke markers, basically. Canisters that burn for a more or less set amount of time.

Having the options to switch effects on and off through scripts sounds like a good idea really, to simulate a scenario evolving with fires breaking out, for example through ground fighting which is supposed to be atmospheric and doesn't warrant all the workload necessary for real units, which would also be a bit unpredictable in regards of hitting buildings.

Being able to switch them back off wouldn't be a big effort then, I believe, and while there are fewer reasons to want it, it might come in handy to simulate fires being put out and such.

This could really add up to the immersion that can sometimes be missing in DCS missions.

+1

I tried messing about with vechs and destroying them, they seem to burn for 15 mins then go out, which is a bit too long sadly

Definitely +1 for an option to turn off the big fire and smoke effects or letting them burn for a defined period of time. They look nice but also eat up resources.

Would like to see this happen. Thanks.

They look nice but also eat up resources.

Just to help with the resources bit,

On the Storm of War server, we've used the static smoke effects with the "density" set to its lowest possible value, which I think is 0.1 (it defaults at 1.0).

This drastically reduces the performance hit, whilst still looking pretty good. In fact, visually, I far prefer the lower density value because the smoke looks more whispy/ hazy and doesn't start and stop so abruptly like the full density setting.

Doing this means we can have 10 or more smoke effects in visual range without any appreciable impact on FPS for players. If set to full density, having more than 3 or 4 starts to tax the frame rates.

Maybe give it a try?

Smoke control is vital. Ability to run smoke for time, ability for Big smoke to sync in MP (wont show to clients joining after created), ability to turn Big Smoke off is very important for mission design.

The 5 minutes thing with normal smoke, I can live with that, been working around it for a long time, a 5 minute refresh is easy enough, but the actual smoke is to vertical for a normal infantry marker, it's normally only 10-20 feet high and disperses quite broadly and is less concentrated. Current smoke is way to highly visible (>10 miles)

I wanted this to simulate damaged, burning moving tank. Since moving the effect with the tank was not possible I wanted to create new smoke at the new position and remove the old. But realized it is not possible. Would be nice for creating a firefighting mission for the helos as well.

+1

+1