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Dynamic Campaign Engine


MBot

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Have you already thought about airfield attack mechanics ?

 

Because if an airfield is attacked its runway can be destroyed and the squadrons can loose fuel, ammo and aircraft.

 

I understand that it may not be on top of the list but I think that it is an important mechanic for a dynamic campaign.

 

By the way Awesome work, looking forward to use and abuse of it.

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Jacks said a very interesting thing. Recon fligths.

 

 

i guess, the way the campaing is planned is with hiden enemies on map. And just fixed locations can be seen or somethin like that. But It would be great, to unhide units by flying over them... if you could keep track of the fligth, then you could unhide every unit that was below.... would be awesome fligths


Edited by ESAc_matador
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Good escort logic, Mbot.

 

A few other considerations:

 

  • Whether the strikers are capable of "self escort" (e.g. F-15E, F-16C, F/A-18 ). AMRAAM/Active Radar Homing (ARH) missiles are the key criteria for self escort capability, and even then may require dedicated escort if the threat is high enough. With the example you used about the MiG-21 (or aircraft not capable of look-down-shoot-down), self escort would be sufficient in this case even if it were a high altitude ingress. That said, if you had dedicated bomb trucks (e.g. A-6, Tornado, FB-111) flying at low level against the MiG-21 threat, you would still need a fighter escort, though one section of F-15s with AMRAAM would probably be sufficient.
  • Fighter Sweep in addition to or in lieu of escort, depending on threat level and self escort capability. The sweepers will be primarily BVR platforms, preferably with ARH missiles, that will engage targets of choice along their route, but will try not to get themselves into a close fight. Think of a fighter sweep as a wrecking ball. Put a fighter sweep ahead of the main package to clear bandits so that the escorts (or self escorts) only need to worry about the ones that get through the net.
  • This might be down the road, but SEAD escort. An EA-6B with a pair of HARMs can take out two threats as necessary and barrage jam the rest. Modern air doctrine doesn't launch a strike into an Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) without an Electronic Warfare bird.

Thanks again for what's to come! :thumbup:


Edited by Home Fries
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A few other considerations:

 

  • Whether the strikers are capable of "self escort" (e.g. F-15E, F-16C, F/A-18 ). AMRAAM/Active Radar Homing (ARH) missiles are the key criteria for self escort capability, and even then may require dedicated escort if the threat is high enough. With the example you used about the MiG-21 (or aircraft not capable of look-down-shoot-down), self escort would be sufficient in this case even if it were a high altitude ingress. That said, if you had dedicated bomb trucks (e.g. A-6, Tornado, FB-111) flying at low level against the MiG-21 threat, you would still need a fighter escort, though one section of F-15s with AMRAAM would probably be sufficient.
  • Fighter Sweep in addition to or in lieu of escort, depending on threat level and self escort capability. The sweepers will be primarily BVR platforms, preferably with ARH missiles, that will engage targets of choice along their route, but will try not to get themselves into a close fight. Think of a fighter sweep as a wrecking ball. Put a fighter sweep ahead of the main package to clear bandits so that the escorts (or self escorts) only need to worry about the ones that get through the net.
  • This might be down the road, but SEAD escort. An EA-6B with a pair of HARMs can take out two threats as necessary and barrage jam the rest. Modern air doctrine doesn't launch a strike into an Integrated Air Defense System (IADS) without an Electronic Warfare bird.

 

Good points.

 

- A self-escort capability is a good idea. This could be added as property of a strike loadout (self_escort = true) and would offset a certain amount of its own escort requrement. Should be pretty straightforward to implement.

 

- Assigning SEAD escorts is already in and working. Compared to fighter escorts this is pretty simple logic. Each AD system has a value defined how many SEAD aircraft are required to neutralize it. As the package route passes through unavoidable threats, the values are combined to form the total amount of SEAD escorts requested. Once EW aircraft are added to DCS, these will also be assigned to packages as escort jammers.

 

- If I understand it correctly, the fundamental difference between sweep and escort in support of a package is that sweep engages on its own terms, while escort is forced to engage threats to its package. Unfortunately I do not think that AI in DCS is able to make such fine differences. So sweep is basically an escort moving ahead (in game terms). Therefore I suggest the following approach, which might not totaly conform to real-life terminology:

 

* Packages are supported by fighter escorts only, which have a ROE to engage enemy fighters that are close (within 20 NM?) but ignores other aircraft. If there are multiple escort flights, the first flight leads the package close (10 NM?), the second flight leads the package further ahead (25 NM? this would correspond to a supporting sweep) and subseqent flights are added on the package flank.

 

* Sweeps in DCE terminology will then be independent offensive fighter missions with an ROE to engage anything at considerable range (fighters, attack aircraft, AWACS, transports, helos etc.).

 

 

Thanks for all the input, this is greatly appreciated and I think very fruitful.

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Have you already thought about airfield attack mechanics ?

 

Because if an airfield is attacked its runway can be destroyed and the squadrons can loose fuel, ammo and aircraft.

 

I understand that it may not be on top of the list but I think that it is an important mechanic for a dynamic campaign.

 

I agree that this is very important. Unfortunately DCS does not track runway damage. In the Guardians campaign I made a workaround to this by tracking each individual bomb in game and checking whether it would land within the manualy defined area of the runway. This is a very performance intensive approach that I think is not feasible for the larger scale of DCE. So for the moment I think I will forget about it and hope that in the future ED makes runways tracked objects.

 

Some kind of logistics module with things like fuel and ammo (or even exhaustion level) affecting sortie generation rates by airbases/aviation units is something I have been thinking about. Defenitely on the table for the future.

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MBot, great work! Will the ATO generate tasks for attack helicopters and support helicopters? Also with the gazelle on the horizon, will it be able to generate recce tasks?

 

I personaly love the helicopters and am eagerly waiting for the Gazelle. But due to the scope of DCE, helicopters will not be supported.

 

Helicopters realy need to exist in the context of a ground war. In most militaries, attack and anti-tank helicopters are organized under the army as maneuver units and not under the air force. A command engine capable of giving meaningfull orders to the full range of ground maneuver and support elements would be needed to also command helicopter units in the same way. Helicopters would then be viewed and commanded as highly mobile ground units and therefore have very little in common with fixed wing aircraft. This is not something in the scope of DCE.

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MBot, simple question here I hope. :)

Will your method attempt to deliberately use server restarts or handle everything as persistent without restarting the mission?

 

Yes its a boring functional question but I found the approaches met thus far look to using the restart to make changes due to the DCS limitations. Generally finding a way to handle restarts as not part of the continuing battle is best but then we end up fighting the engine - assuming 24/7 servers will one day not ahve to be restarted anyway due to memory/object and desync issues.

 

Also, is it worth a quick PM to Wags to let him know your course? We recently voted overwhelmingly in a multiple choice survey for dynamic campaigns from ED. I'd hate for your efforts to be in duplicate.

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SIMPLE SCENERY SAVING * SIMPLE GROUP SAVING * SIMPLE STATIC SAVING *

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Although we have a LUA engineer writing a bomb tracking algorithm right now, I agree but i'm sure this can be simplified and tracked outside DCS. Put a custom trigger shape on the runway, detect for any bomb in zone whatsoever and close the airport for 30 minutes. (You would have to clear a runway manually for FOD) Doesn't need to be complex, the harder part is getting past the bug in the SE where you cannot lock out slots due to the group ID all being 0 in MP. We are working on trying that with unit ID's instead right now.

 

I agree that this is very important. Unfortunately DCS does not track runway damage. In the Guardians campaign I made a workaround to this by tracking each individual bomb in game and checking whether it would land within the manualy defined area of the runway. This is a very performance intensive approach that I think is not feasible for the larger scale of DCE. So for the moment I think I will forget about it and hope that in the future ED makes runways tracked objects.

 

Some kind of logistics module with things like fuel and ammo (or even exhaustion level) affecting sortie generation rates by airbases/aviation units is something I have been thinking about. Defenitely on the table for the future.

___________________________________________________________________________

SIMPLE SCENERY SAVING * SIMPLE GROUP SAVING * SIMPLE STATIC SAVING *

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MBot, simple question here I hope. :)

Will your method attempt to deliberately use server restarts or handle everything as persistent without restarting the mission?

 

Yes its a boring functional question but I found the approaches met thus far look to using the restart to make changes due to the DCS limitations. Generally finding a way to handle restarts as not part of the continuing battle is best but then we end up fighting the engine - assuming 24/7 servers will one day not ahve to be restarted anyway due to memory/object and desync issues.

 

The scope of DCE is for singleplayer and up to 4 player coop (one flight) with a single sortie flown per mission instance. So after you return from your sortie and land, you are supposed to end the mission. DCE will then evaluate the reults and prepare the next mission (file) with your next sortie. The ATO will be filled with sorties for the AI to fly that last for the expected duration of your own sortie plus some extra time (so you still see airraft take off when you RTB). If you keep running the mission beyond that, the world will eventually dry out. So this will not be suited for 24/7 servers.

 

 

Also, is it worth a quick PM to Wags to let him know your course? We recently voted overwhelmingly in a multiple choice survey for dynamic campaigns from ED. I'd hate for your efforts to be in duplicate.

 

I hope that if ED has any concret plans for a dynamic campaign, it would be a more ambitious persistent world approach (Falcon) :)

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Generally because runway attacks can usually be patched up within a few hours, I'd say tracking aerodromes resources as more validating for operational levels.

For example, you can track if the tower is hit, if the fuel tanks are hit, if any ammunition hangers are hit etc...

By monitoring these aspects you can then use the DCE which is running between missions to also change the warehouses levels accordingly, this will effect the aerodrome directly.

 

This also bring up the question if you are planning to track how much ammunition/fuel is taken out of an aerodrome to update the warehouse of that aerodrome on the newly generated mission?

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Very disappointing :(

 

Well, the 24/7 servers are pretty unsuited to support realistic, "sortie oriented" gameplay. A sortie needs to be planned, coordinated and briefed. How can a briefing be made if you don't even know which flight the client will be in. How can waypoint ETA and TOT be adhered to if a client can take off 24/7. How can the client be part of a multi flight package with AIs if there are no TOT.

 

24/7 servers are good for self-service action, but they cannot depict realistic military operations.

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Totally agree, I was disappointed regarding the multiplayer scope you are planning this for.

Only Coop and up to 4 players in only 1 flight which is only a single sortie per mission, was already planning to use it for large scale PVP stuff.

 

Edit - non the less, this is ground breaking work which is amazing by itself!

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One step at a time, I would say. A dynamic 4 player coop campaign is much, much more than we have now.

 

Indeed. And even if ED will start working on dynamic campaign engine it will take years before we'll see it :) So in the years to come I'm anxiously looking at MBot's future creation :)

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One step at a time, I would say. A dynamic 4 player coop campaign is much, much more than we have now.

+1

 

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The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously.

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24/7 servers are good for self-service action, but they cannot depict realistic military operations.

 

What about Falcon 4, where the war is already happening 24/7, and you can take on the role of different participants? I've always appreciated its lack of distinction between single-player and multiplayer campaign play.

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What about Falcon 4, where the war is already happening 24/7, and you can take on the role of different participants? I've always appreciated its lack of distinction between single-player and multiplayer campaign play.

I believe Mbot was referring to the limitations of the current DCS Mission Editor. Falcon's campaign engine does create briefings, ToT, etc. all on the fly, and these features are integrated into its engine so that it can do a 24/7 dynamic server and still provide the briefing information for clients regardless of which aircraft they choose.

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MBot very cool. I didn't know how much I wanted a campaign until I just recently started messing around with BMS 4.33. I really like the route you are taking. My only question is the limit to 4 per mission. Is that a hard limit due to code stuff? I ask because being able to have 8 would be awesome so the group could have a strike flight and a SEAD flight as an example. We will play the heck out of it even at a cap of 4, but I was just curious. Thanks for tackling this long awaited project.

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Looks great!

 

Personally, I believe that the ground element could be simulated with "piece movement on a game board", kind of like in the Hearts of Iron game series. So most of the time ground units would not engage each other in 3D. They would move on the game map according to their strength and the player could destroy units and thus reduce the enemy strength.

 

If ~similar opposing ground units meet on the strategic map, the one with more strength would advance. Having an artillery unit nearby would increase the strength, etc.

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My only question is the limit to 4 per mission. Is that a hard limit due to code stuff? I ask because being able to have 8 would be awesome so the group could have a strike flight and a SEAD flight as an example. We will play the heck out of it even at a cap of 4, but I was just curious. Thanks for tackling this long awaited project.

 

Having only one player controlled flight makes the overall design easier. The mission generator needs to make sure that a mission is fun to play. For example the player flight should take off at mission start and not 60 minutes into the mission, intercepts should only be player assigned if there are enemies inbound and the sortie is actually launched, if there are no suitable sorties for the player the mission phase should be skipped etc. This quickly becomes unmanageable if there are more than one player flights.

 

Another problem is that in DCS MP, everyone gets the same briefing. So only one flight can receive a specific briefing. The same for the debriefing.

 

And last but not least, there is also the issue of available slots. Due to the dynamic nature of a campaign, the amount of playable slots depends on how many airworthy aircraft are left in the playable squadron/regiment. So what if you meet 12 friends for some online play and then the campaign has only 10 serviceable aircraft left for the next mission? Better to keep the number low and have a consistent and fun coop expierience throughout the campaign.

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Are you going to open source your framework? I've been wanting to do some procedural strike package scripting, and if it worked with this, that would be super cool.

 

The program will not be compiled, so everyone can modify the code for private use. I haven't yet thought about how to handle public modifications. Let's get something out in the first place :)

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