Neutral side

is it possible to have a neutral side by default without editing a .lua?

I can set airfields to neutral but I can’t find any way to place neutral units, no neutral aircraft or ships or ground units anywhere, nothing.

I've been hunting for a solution and all I can find is this post from 2018

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=217549

And this one from 2019,

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=246847

it would be great to have a neutral side to add complexity to a mission, civil air traffic etc

I know it’s been talked about a lot, any idea if this has been implemented yet? Or if there’s a working work around at present? Or even if it’s on EDs Radar?

On the radar, not implemented. It's a matter of uncommenting one line.

On the radar, not implemented. It's a matter of uncommenting one line.

But hell yeah we really need this in DCS.

BTW, which line is it? File line number? I am willing to risk it and try it out.

I have been asking for this for years, its illogical for buildings to have a red or blue 'side', they are inanimate objects which might belong to one side or another, or be occupied by one side or another but they should have no impact on the game, they dont shoot back, they dont react, they just sit there doing what buildings do - sod all.

The really annoying bit about this is that if you place a red building on or near an airfield no blue aircraft can land there, they divert to the nearest blue side airfield.

Solution - Give them a neutral option, they can still be red or blue so you can attack them if that's your thing, but a neutral option will overcome lots of issues.

When I say years I really mean years, I think I first asked about it back in the days when Flaming Cliffs first appeared - the response from ED has always been zero.

They are working on it, as it is commented out in the lua file along with a load of other stuff.

>>>>Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta\MissionEditor

I have been asking for this for years, its illogical for buildings to have a red or blue 'side', they are inanimate objects which might belong to one side or another, or be occupied by one side or another but they should have no impact on the game, they dont shoot back, they dont react, they just sit there doing what buildings do - sod all.

 

The really annoying bit about this is that if you place a red building on or near an airfield no blue aircraft can land there, they divert to the nearest blue side airfield.

 

Solution - Give them a neutral option, they can still be red or blue so you can attack them if that's your thing, but a neutral option will overcome lots of issues.

 

When I say years I really mean years, I think I first asked about it back in the days when Flaming Cliffs first appeared - the response from ED has always been zero.

But this exactly is what we need to emulate ROE, by setting Units, Groups and Statics to neutral (as non-combatants) and prevent eager AI from killing them.

BTW I've found the parameter in the Editor.lua so that's sorted.

Still I hope this finds it way into the release quickly, as it isn't reliable and can break any time, as long as it is not implemented officially.

has anybody recently mentioned this in the wishlist forum?

has anybody recently mentioned this in the wishlist forum?

Not sure about recently, but I do recall posts about it. It's not that it hasn't been implemented, its more that it would cause havoc and unpredictability. I have seen it and it works, but generally I've had just as much success with using "invisible". Use it if you want to, because the way it is modelled is that blue and red still hate each other and white, the new coalition is ignored and ignores everything, so its kindda pointless that way.

As for deciding what AI can shoot at, they dont regard buildings, they just regard "statics" and even then need to be forced to attack statics through the tasking system, they prefer to rampage on actual units. You can get them to attack themselves using the Tasking system also. The main issue around coalitions is the stupid magic mode 4 IFF that shows everything on your coalition as friendly and with IFF enabled and everything else as hostile. 3rd coalition will break a lot of scripting for sure. A lot of people have been expecting red or blue only for th elast ten years and wrote thigns that way.

has anybody recently mentioned this in the wishlist forum?

It has been mentioned a lot in the "Top user requests for the Mission Editor" Thread, a while ago.:thumbup:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=252485&highlight=Mission+editor

holy crap there a lot of requests there hahaha