Requesting possibility to turn off the engine when stopped

[PoorOldSpike]

I've played 5000 multiplayer hours in another popular game like DCS and it's standard procedure to switch off your engine when stationary so that the enemy won't see your hot vehicle on IR, and so he won't hear you if he's searching for you in a wood or in a town.

The enemy can't kill you if he can't see or hear you..:)

[silverdevil]

so you are saying that turning off engine immediately made the vehicle go cold? that is definitely a little short on realism. 

[shagrat]

4 hours ago, silverdevil said:

@shagrat i was tanker in 1980s M60A3. we were also not at war. when we were training in Mojave California, my tank was listed as a casualty, we all had health cards that told the medics what sort of injury we had. we got picked up by an M113 ambulance by what turned out to be the enemy. when we were healed, they just dropped us off in the desert to fend for ourselves. it was night and thankfully clear. we found our unit by following the noise. in this case i am glad the engines were on. war would be a different story.

OMG memories. The damn M113 "rolling fridge".

I had a night watch in Bergen-Hohne on the shooting range to prevent someone from "stealing" a 55to MBT... Of course the patrol and watch teams had the M113 as a makeshift cabin instead of setting up a proper biwak.

During the night the air inside that aluminium box condensed and I kid you not it virtually started raining inside! Then in the middle of the night after my second perimeter patrol when I just started to nap a bit, screams and hasty shouts! We grabbed our G3 standard issue 7.62 "Peace-Providers" and stormed out the back hatch to the following scene: on the nearest Leopard 2 engine compartment stood the two patrol guys shouting at a gang of around two dozen king size wild boars. Whole tribe of boars, hogs and cubs all surrounding the tanks and curious what these screaming flesh-bags were doing on their turf... Then they noticed us who just stumbled out of the M113.

I nearly shit my pants while scrambling back through the hatch, shouting over my back "Don't shoot! Don't shoot! They'll go away!"

That was us, real army heroes.

We were on the receiving end of "hog jokes" for quite some time.

Edited February 19, 2021 by shagrat
Corrected auto correct...

[PoorOldSpike]

2 hours ago, silverdevil said:

so you are saying that turning off engine immediately made the vehicle go cold? that is definitely a little short on realism. 

 

 

Nah, in Armed Assault and in the real world vehs take time to cool off, but even if they're stone cold and invisible on IR they still give their position away if they fire..:)

 

[Madone]

I was not really talking about tanks in my first post, I'm a field artillery guy, the cavalry operates differently than us, they go fast and never stop. It's hard to keep up with them! 

[Callsign112]

2 hours ago, Madone said:

I was not really talking about tanks in my first post, I'm a field artillery guy, the cavalry operates differently than us, they go fast and never stop. It's hard to keep up with them! 

Regardless of what kind of vehicle you are in, requesting to add the capability of being able to stop and start the engine was a very good suggestion. Regardless of whether you are in a forward position scouting, or in a well dug-in position waiting to ambush the enemy, turning off the engine was common among tank crews.

[Apocalypse31]

21 hours ago, shagrat said:

During the night the air inside that aluminium box condensed and I kid you not it virtually started raining inside!

tsk tsk. you need to crack open a hatch before you go to sleep.

[silverdevil]

4 hours ago, Apocalypse31 said:

tsk tsk. you need to crack open a hatch before you go to sleep.

if its cold or with boar hogs about or with a possible well placed frag, probably need to keep the hatch shut.

[Callsign112]

I have heard of raccoons removing garbage lids to rummage around for dinner, but wild boars climbing on top of an 8 foot APC to open a hatch, now that would be popcorn worthy.

[Revenant]

20 hours ago, Madone said:

I was not really talking about tanks in my first post, I'm a field artillery guy, the cavalry operates differently than us, they go fast and never stop. It's hard to keep up with them! 

 

I was a Cavalry Troop Commander. When we stopped for a duration of greater than 10 minutes, we turned our engines off. 

 

Regardless of the magic of IR and whether its effects are modeled properly or not, turning your engine off is part of noise discipline. You can hear better when you don't have a diesel engine idling. Fact. Furthermore, the first contact that you will usually gain with an enemy force on the ground is  from either spotting their dust trail if they are on the move, or hearing their vehicles (tracks moving, engines revving, undisciplined Soldiers talking loudly, etc). This becomes much, much more likely when you are in terrain that restricts your observation range (forests, mountains, valleys like those found to the east of Beirut, urban terrain, etc.) Having a button to turn on/off the engine of a vehicle will help detect ground and air elements beyond visual range. I can see no logical argument on why it should not be added from a tactical aspect. 

[Looney]

It was the case that when in a vehicle and pressing the autopilot button without any waypoint set, would switch off the engine, I don't know if that's still the case though.

[PoorOldSpike]

2 hours ago, Looney said:

It was the case that when in a vehicle and pressing the autopilot button without any waypoint set, would switch off the engine, I don't know if that's still the case though.

 

Remind us where the autopilot button is and i'll test it out..:)

[Northstar98]

On 3/17/2021 at 10:21 PM, Looney said:

It was the case that when in a vehicle and pressing the autopilot button without any waypoint set, would switch off the engine, I don't know if that's still the case though.

 

Yeah, can confirm. 

 

If you activate autopilot without a waypoint the engine shuts off. Turning the autopilot back off restarts it (though the vehicle does a little jump and the engine starts instantly).

 

CA_Autopilot_Engine_Off.trk

Edited March 26, 2021 by Northstar98

[Sacarino111]

On 3/17/2021 at 11:21 PM, Looney said:

It was the case that when in a vehicle and pressing the autopilot button without any waypoint set, would switch off the engine, I don't know if that's still the case though.

+1 LOONEY!!!

[shagrat]

On 2/20/2021 at 4:09 PM, Apocalypse31 said:

tsk tsk. you need to crack open a hatch before you go to sleep.

We had the top hatch in "soft-lock". The problem originated from the aluminum "armor" cooling off rapidly and the moist air condensing on the cold surfaces then starting to drop.

Another most uncomfortable fact, was the space between the stretcher and the ceiling. Bumped my head half a dozen times...

Not much asleep that night anyway, as always on training excercise.

 

On 2/20/2021 at 9:11 PM, Callsign112 said:

I have heard of raccoons removing garbage lids to rummage around for dinner, but wild boars climbing on top of an 8 foot APC to open a hatch, now that would be popcorn worthy.

Likely he referred to the aft hatch, but the cold is one factor, though the standard German Army sleeping bags are proper insulated.

[DaSneedston]

On 2/18/2021 at 8:52 AM, razo+r said:

Engine has no factor on heat emission for vehicles in DCS. If the vehicle is alive, it will show as hot in IR view.

 

If heat was actually modeled, one could try and see if heat seekers pick up the heat source.

 

Also, player don't have the option to turn off engine, the AI can turn it off though it seems

 

Well this post didn't age well

[JackCooper]

yes, I need that feature in topic

[razo+r]

Good news:

2:00 minutes into the video

[Callsign112]

+1 Great news indeed. Thanks ED!

[Wdigman]

Umm... maybe it has been addressed but for me left Ctrl+E shuts the engines off and restarts. 

 

 

[AH6OY]

On 1/8/2021 at 4:04 AM, Madone said:

Please I can't take it anymore, when I'm playing JTAC on a vantage point, I get the constant engine noise mixing with the comms and it's very annoying as I can stay up there for 2 hours, IRL we would most likely be dismounted and on overwatch position (not requesting this as it's asking for a game that already exist...), engine noise is something to deal with during a convoy or cavalry assault but NOT when on overwatch position. 

The "fix" I have for this is lowering both the world and cockpit volume because those 2 are used depending if you're in the vehicle as driver or gunner OR if you switch to binoculars... Then I loose all situational awareness as I'm unable to hear if someone is shooting or flying around me...

Any realistic fix would have to include battery drain and selections of what equipment is still tuned on. Then there is vehicle heat adjusted for outside ambient temps and winds for calculating what IR views see. Throw in hand cranking to save battery life if the vehicle is so equipped You would be amazed how battery life drops running everything off the batteries only. I guess be happy a little computer noise is the only annoying thing you have found killing make believe enemies. Seems that's all even the modern wars are now these days.  I figure everyone would love dragging slave cables around to plug into vehicles for a battery jump. Then throw in the realistic having to have a proper adapter for mating some vehicles in inventory. The game is trying to be realistic so going by the realistic view of things making those adjustments would keep software developers busy for a while. Hehehee then regardless guys would complain about their batteries went dead and nobody is around to jump them. I'm not trying to harrass your idea. Just daydreaming away at all the problems you have to see in the future like be sure to have all your vehicles running cranking up 15 minutes or so before you jump from a position so there is time to jump dead batteries. Believe me it isn't a click to solve. It would be interesting to see if any game adjustments would include positioning of vehicles and their standard slave cable lengths to calculate a battery jumping accomplishments. 

[Callsign112]

On 2/21/2021 at 3:49 AM, Revenant said:

 

I was a Cavalry Troop Commander. When we stopped for a duration of greater than 10 minutes, we turned our engines off. 

 

Regardless of the magic of IR and whether its effects are modeled properly or not, turning your engine off is part of noise discipline. You can hear better when you don't have a diesel engine idling. Fact. Furthermore, the first contact that you will usually gain with an enemy force on the ground is  from either spotting their dust trail if they are on the move, or hearing their vehicles (tracks moving, engines revving, undisciplined Soldiers talking loudly, etc). This becomes much, much more likely when you are in terrain that restricts your observation range (forests, mountains, valleys like those found to the east of Beirut, urban terrain, etc.) Having a button to turn on/off the engine of a vehicle will help detect ground and air elements beyond visual range. I can see no logical argument on why it should not be added from a tactical aspect.