"Real-time" ongoing SP mission?

[Nealius]

Basically I want the player to be able to jump into a mission "in progress." Let's say I start the mission at 0600 with a carrier in Location A. At 1200 the carrier should be in Location B and at 1600 it should be in Location C.

 

By default DCS starts the player at 0600 with the carrier in Location A. If I change the player's spawn time to 1400, the player has to wait 8 hours (or ctrl+z) before flying. If I change the mission start time to 1400, the carrier starts from Location A.

 

I want to negate the player's wait time, but I also want the carrier to be where it should be at 1400 when the player joins the mission, i.e. the carrier should be somewhere between Location B and Location C. Essentially like running a 24-hour MP server, but doing it on SP without having the mission running forever.

 

Is there any way to do this?

[Grimes]

That is basically what a dynamic campaign is. If it is the case of "merely" moving the ship then its just a bit of math of speed, time, route, and modifying the mission file itself. But I suspect you'd like everything else to be simulated appropriately, which goes back to it basically being what a dynamic campaign is.

[Nealius]

I don't know if I would call it a full "dynamic campaign" since the only dynamic part is the player's entry time (everything else is scripted), but I guess that's the closest analogy.

[feefifofum]

The same infrastructure is required, you're just varying the number of objectives.

 

The short answer, I'm afraid, is "no" for the time being though ED have stated in several posts and interviews that features like this are being actively worked on.

[Nealius]

Oh well. Since the only object I'm primarily concerned about is the carrier I'll just bite the bullet and do the math. Really wish I didn't have to have 4-5 different versions of the same mission depending on the ToD I want.

[feefifofum]

No math required. :)

Create a waypoint along the route and drag it to see the ships ETA at that point.