No save game function frustrating for busy DCS fans

Hi all,

Has anyone ever read if ED are going to implement a save game function for campaigns and missions? I got to NTTR red flag mission 7 but since having kids its just too hard to get a solid block of time to sit down for for 2 to 3 hours and fly a mission. Between family life and work its just too hard to find the time to fly a mission from start to finish. I have several aircraft modules and campaigns but i dont bother even starting a campaign mission anymore since i know i wont have enough time to commit in one sitting to complete it thus losing all progress. This now means there is no real point in me buying campaigns anymore for the foreseeable future.

Anyone else in a similar situation?

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I understand your situation completely!

I've tried this mod but in my missions it did not work, maybe you should try:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=192588

Yep, I am in exactly the same situation.

Would be nice function. This function could possibly enable the dynamic system. Like start on airport and save on next one, and start from there with last A/C state . fuel / weapons / failure. Finally a proper sandbox.

Hope something with this come with dynamic campaign. Actually this function would enable semi-dynamic mission at least.

Funny thing is you can save track , reloading it and enter in game whenever you want... so , my honest guess , shoudnt be too hard to save the last 10 sec track and make it available as savegame.

Surely I miss something , it can't be that easy.

It can't, because track files/object states etc. don't interact with the triggers. Also, .trk are just recordings of your control inputs so the whole file has to run in order to reach the same point (and indeed with the element of randomness to countermeasure susceptibility there's no guarantee the same thing will happen twice. But tracks are a whole other conversation...)

Hypothetically, let's say your mission involves attacking an enemy base. When the enemy base is attacked, a late activated flight of fighters scrambles. On the way home, you are tasked with destroying a convoy. You complete the airfield attack and destroy the enemy fighters, but have to exit before engaging the convoy.

Since there is no way to automatically remove triggers from the mission once they activate, the entire trigger set is reinitialized when you load the new .miz; this is the biggest obstacle with a saved game as DCS is written now, and would lead to some wacky behavior in the example above:

The damage at the airfield persists. All units there are destroyed.

The late activated group is triggered based on destroyed objects. Since they do not exist until spawned, a save state will not catch that these units were destroyed as they don't technically exist at mission start. Since the airbase objects are still destroyed, the bandits re-activate and scramble immediately on mission start.

You will receive overlapping messages about damage states etc., the convoy being sighted, etc. because all prior trigger conditions will be met immediately when the mission starts.

If there were triggers that happened as you left the carrier they'd happen as you RTB'd instead, etc. etc.

It would likely require a huge effort to implement some sort of meaningful function of this type into the sim. As a person with a 9-month old baby myself, I do truly empathize, but I wouldn't count on this making it in any time soon unfortunately.

Same here, agree completely. About time a save function is implemented.

I fully agree that a save feature is pretty necessary in DCS, missions can be over an hour long (my personal record is over 2 hours in one of the Ka-50 campaign missions) and things can happen - malfunctions, bugs, mistakes... Plus you don't always have an hour or two to spare.

feefifofum makes a good point about the trigger system, but trigger state is saved in RAM, so DCS could could access that for its saves and store it on hard drive.

+1

I completely agree.

It may be better to transfer this topic to DCS Wishlist. Maybe it will be more visible.

+1

I guess it would need to save the data from the mission into the save. You can delete the miz file in Windows, so it wouldn't check if there are saved games relying on it.

+1

+1

I wonder what would happen if you ran it in a VM and saved a snapshot.

Thanks all. Here's hoping!

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I completely agree. I pretty much stopped playing any campaigns or missions but Through the inferno because the missions take forever and something always comes up. So I can only really play a quick online game or a sand box style game like Through the Inferno.

Same situation here. About 1 hour playtime when my daughter is asleep, if I'm lucky. Only small missions or a lot of ctrl-z...

Savegame option would be fantastic

blah blah blah everyone asks for this but apparently it's too hard is what we all get back from ED.

It sucks because with the crying kids at night I am limited to 30-45min flights. Sometimes I get an hour but that is after everyone has gone to bed.

I also fully agree that a save feature is absolutely necessary.

Same situation here..two kids, when they fall asleep, i a looking at 2200... Just dont have time to fly 1+ hour mission..Also i dont know if other have problem, but saving track record just doesnt work...When i replay track, plane just fly his own agenda

This would be excellent. Like many others, having 2-3 hours in one stint is a luxury! My life with children is spent in twenty minute slots!

Even having time as I do this function is overdue.

99% of the simulations and games out there have it.

No kids here yet but very limited time availability as well due to work and girlfriend. It is understandable that some missions need to be that long because realism. But, devs need to find a way to create a save function or a jump to a certain point ahead in time or something close to that.

Maybe if they stopped developing new module in beta. and started fixing thing..like replay function, or some sort of new save game option...