Better track replay system

[Valtime]

The current track replay system always reproduce the flight from the beginning and taking into account only the inputs, so that after a while all parameters seem to drift from the original events (A/C flying crashing into the see, bomb being drop not at the same location). 
I mean I don’t need the whole flight to be replayed. Some times I just want to see the landing, or this moment when I drop that bomb that fell 3m exactly on my target. 
 

It would be nice to be able to set when you want the replay to start, either by:

- setting the event in game by pressing a button like the WW2 gun camera (which was triggered when firing), or the first stage of the trigger in the f16, or a dedicated button

- selecting an event or a starting point in the debrief view.

 

[WelshZeCorgi]

I don't really understand why the track replay works the way it does. Now, I'm no magic box wizard, but I kind of feel like it should just record what is actually happening instead of control inputs.

Edited January 22, 2021 by WelshZeCorgi

[Valtime]

I think as is, it is a very good debugging tool, but even so, if you have a very long track, I don’t think it can serve its purpose due to the drifting in inputs and their results. 

[Sesam118]

I can absolutely agree with that, I love watching dcs replays and i make dcs cinematics but it's annoying as hell that it didn't work properly 

[No1sonuk]

Agreed.
I wanted to play back a sweet 3-point landing (P-51), but all the playbacks end up in the sea a mile or so from where it should.

[DoctorVixen]

On 1/27/2021 at 11:17 PM, No1sonuk said:

Agreed.
I wanted to play back a sweet 3-point landing (P-51), but all the playbacks end up in the sea a mile or so from where it should.

it can help to move all controls to the max outputs when starting a mission. also don't mess with the time speeding the track. But yes the track file's are very iffy, lately on top of the last 10 minutes missing in track files on multiplayer you cant see enemies anymore (i know its a setting from the server), but it makes multiplayer track files completely useless. on some server u can download a 400 mb track file like a day after. Obviously thats very annoying as well.

[Rubberduck85]

I don't really understand why the track replay works the way it does. Now, I'm no magic box wizard, but I kind of feel like it should just record what is actually happening instead of control inputs.

Exactly this. Why not implementing 2 types of tracks:

1) only recording what happens for nice videos and replays (impossible to take control)
2) record of control input for debug (possible to take control)

Regards

Sent from my MI 10 Lite 5G using Tapatalk

[No1sonuk]

5 hours ago, DoctorVixen said:

it can help to move all controls to the max outputs when starting a mission. also don't mess with the time speeding the track. But yes the track file's are very iffy, lately on top of the last 10 minutes missing in track files on multiplayer you cant see enemies anymore (i know its a setting from the server), but it makes multiplayer track files completely useless. on some server u can download a 400 mb track file like a day after. Obviously thats very annoying as well.

Hence why being able to choose a start point is desirable - I only want to review the landing near the end, not the long cruise to the airport.

[Harry_Haller]

I've read somehere that this has never worked. I just don't understand why put a whole section in the game - called replays - that doesn't work and never has. At least not in multiplayer. For me. and many other youtubers I imagine - this is he reason if we play the game or not - to be able to watch fights from different angles and do content/cinematics. Surely that would attract more players as many content creator would freely advertize this beautiful game. Many much less advanced games like War Thunder can do it, Tac view can do it in DCS - so why can't the replay system? How come this isn't a priority?

[Exorcet]

On 1/21/2021 at 8:58 PM, WelshZeCorgi said:

I don't really understand why the track replay works the way it does. Now, I'm no magic box wizard, but I kind of feel like it should just record what is actually happening instead of control inputs.

 

 

DCS tracks work the way they do because it's better than just recording positions. Track files that record inputs allows them to be structured like miz files, small file sizes, and allows a player to take control at any point. It has nothing to do with errors in the replay. That is simply down to how the inputs are recorded. If DCS record positions they would suffer the same error and you would get the exact same result when an error happened (ie fantasy replay).

 

2 minutes ago, Harry_Haller said:

I've read somehere that this has never worked. I just don't understand why put a whole section in the game - called replays - that doesn't work and never has. At least not in multiplayer. For me. and many other youtubers I imagine - this is he reason if we play the game or not - to be able to watch fights from different angles and do content/cinematics. Surely that would attract more players as many content creator would freely advertize this beautiful game. Many much less advanced games like War Thunder can do it, Tac view can do it in DCS - so why can't the replay system? How come this isn't a priority?

People exaggerate. I watch tracks all the time and the majority work fine. Now for sure there is some issue with the track feature. ED is aware of this and they've tried to fix it in the past. However it looks like the problem is deeper than they thought because their fix from last year didn't change much and they haven't addressed it since. I imagine that the code is old and poorly documented and probably can't be fixed completely without starting from scratch, which could possibly delay other features and so isn't a priority right now.

[Harry_Haller]

1 hour ago, Exorcet said:

People exaggerate. I watch tracks all the time and the majority work fine. Now for sure there is some issue with the track feature. ED is aware of this and they've tried to fix it in the past. However it looks like the problem is deeper than they thought because their fix from last year didn't change much and they haven't addressed it since. I imagine that the code is old and poorly documented and probably can't be fixed completely without starting from scratch, which could possibly delay other features and so isn't a priority right now.

I have never gotten them to work properly. Most of the time my plane, in replay, crashes on the runway. Some glitches would be ok - but there is nothing remotely similar to what happened. The only time it seems to work is on "server replays" which is impossible to get if you play a multiplayer server (Burning skies, Storm of war etc) not created by yourself. DCS started 2011. It's ten years it hasn't been a priority right now.

Edited March 17, 2021 by Harry_Haller

[Ironhand]

How accurately they replay depends on several factors complexity of the aircraft among them. The other big factor is whether or not the aircraft or sim environment has changed since the track was made. So a track that played correctly may not do so after an update depending on what changed.

 

Track files are small but that is also their Achilles heel. It makes them very fragile.

[chumpeagle]

I wish it was like IL-2 where you can just watch it back from different angles and skip around in the recording etc. I just assumed it would be like that when I started playing DCS and spent a while wondering what I was doing wrong.  

[rayrayblues]

21 hours ago, chumpeagle said:

I wish it was like IL-2 where you can just watch it back from different angles and skip around in the recording etc. I just assumed it would be like that when I started playing DCS and spent a while wondering what I was doing wrong.  

Also War Thunder has a good one.

Too bad it's not a very good game.  

Edited March 19, 2021 by rayrayblues

[J-1775]

Am I wrong? Some months ago I set up a demo flight to later show a friend how state-of-the-art flight simulation felt like in a Reverb VR HMD and on a motion platform. However I had to skip the idea because when I replayed the track I found that all my head movements had been recorded, too. I wasn't able to turn my head and sight freely. Which in VR is a nightmare and caused nausea even to a hardcore VR user like I am. So no Cliffs of Dover for my friend, but a Spitfire recon flight along the Kuban Black Sea coast! (You know what sim I'm speaking of...).
Then today I replayed a new flight and my jaw dropped. Was I on a replay or in a mission? I could freely turn my head without the need of 'taking over' controls!

Has anything changed in the past months? Apart from the fact that I now run VR on the WMR openXR runtime ─ which hardly can be the reason for that?

[Ironhand]

1 hour ago, J-1775 said:

...Then today I replayed a new flight and my jaw dropped. Was I on a replay or in a mission? I could freely turn my head without the need of 'taking over' controls!...

Don't know about VR but in on a monitor you have always been able to take control of views by, first, changing a view. If I want to control the view and, as an example, the TRK starts in the cockpit, I will press "F2" and then "F1" to return to the cockpit before I even unpause the sim. From then on I control the views in the replay.

[J-1775]

3 hours ago, Ironhand said:

Don't know about VR but in on a monitor you have always been able to take control of views by, first, changing a view.

Thanks, that (probably undocumented) game 'mechanism' is interesting to know. Maybe I had missed that...

[Ironhand]

57 minutes ago, J-1775 said:

Thanks, that (probably undocumented) game 'mechanism' is interesting to know. Maybe I had missed that...

I think view changes can be locked when flying on a server, if the owner so desires. But the default is for them to be unlocked. You just need to hit a different view key and you’ll then have view control. If locked by the server you can always unlock them by editing the mission using NotePad++ to change the parameters. Or that edit used to be possible. Haven’t needed to do it in quite awhile.

[snowman[FR]]

Is something happening about that matter????

[Dangerzone]

On 7/13/2021 at 5:40 AM, snowman[FR] said:

Is something happening about that matter????

 

I haven't seen any official word from ED regarding the matter. I believe they're aware of the issue - but I have seen no information about it being actively considered at this time. I suspect with the HIND development, the AH64 development, the Vulcan development, performance enhancements, and Marianas, while dealing with other higher priority bugs - this is something we may not see fixed in a while / or until a rewrite of no small part of the system. In short - don't hold your breath. Disappointing for those who use track files for sure - but I guess they only have so many resources and have to prioritise accordingly. 

[Nealius]

2.7 has made track reliability worse for some aircraft. It's also quite module/situation/mission dependent. The customers have been asking for fixes and improvements to the replay system since 2008, if not before considering LOMAC and FC2. The only "official" word I've ever seen from ED is that it's "low priority." After 13 years that's zero priority. I doubt it will ever be addressed until it gets so broken they can't make product trailers. 

Edited September 15, 2021 by Nealius

[SharpeXB]

Honestly the track feature should just be removed from the game until it can be made to work properly. There’s no point in trying to use it at all. 

[Morpheus]

On 9/15/2021 at 9:44 PM, SharpeXB said:

Honestly the track feature should just be removed from the game until it can be made to work properly. There’s no point in trying to use it at all. 

Don't agree, it doesn't work for you ? Don't use it, it works fine for others and many video makers, so let it be present for those who use it with success

[SharpeXB]

2 minutes ago, Morpheus said:

Don't agree, it doesn't work for you ? Don't use it, it works fine for others and many video makers, so let it be present for those who use it with success

I’m amazed that people produce such great videos given the poor functionality of the replay system. Sure it’s better than nothing but it’s hardly of any use in it’s current state. 

[Ironhand]

4 hours ago, SharpeXB said:

…but it’s hardly of any use in it’s current state. 

Works just fine for my purposes most times. So I hope no one removes it.