Okay, this is probably going to be naive (and I am not a programmer), but wouldn't DCS be able to create a dynamic campaign server that we could all connect to via multiplayer? The server would inject blue/red assets into the game world as needed, as well as track all human players and create the missions. It would be a persistent war that would be started with realistic numbers of assets on each side (planes, infantry, helicopters, Sams, etc), and take into account randomly generated "events" like for example supply, weather, fighting strength,etc. The war would only be won after certain goals were completed, then restart.

Just an idea...

Fish, the issue with dynamic campaign system isn't coming up with something that sounds neat, it's implementing it. Creating a system like you described that is stable and fully functional takes an incredible amount of work and to support, something very few folks seem to appreciate. I don't have any insight into ED's activities, but just from the stuff they've been annoucing (FC3, Combined Arms, Flying Legends, DCS: P-51D) the staff is pretty darn busy on other stuff and haven't been focusing on this kind of system.

If a 3rd party would like to generate something, I'm sure ED would be very interested to see it.

That is easier said than done Fish. Even if it sounds simple, with the amount of things that needs to happen, can happen, might happen, or will happen, it won't look pretty before long.

IL-2 used to have dynamic online wars based on common public-domain database tech and apps. Hmmm... I wonder if anyone has ever taken a look at, say, SEOW to see if it would port to DCS?

I like the way you think! It would be my hope that someday this could be achieved with DCS. Of course, I'm also enjoying the scripted SP campaign..but a campaign with resource tracking and moving lines of battle would really be great.

It's not a bad idea. What we could/should do in the meantime is have a human campaign manager. (No political jokes!) Done manually, the campaign manager would take a list of assets at the beginning of the campaign and start weekly missions based on those assets. After a mission, the campaign manager would tally the results and adjust assets accordingly and make a new mission. As far as re-supply goes, we could write a small utility to randomly distribute supplies -- higher value assets, of course, would have a lower probability of occurring, ect.

My mission creating skills are developing nicely, so I could volunteer to help out there. I could also write the asset distribution utility.

What do you think?

Swingkid and Ross tried this a while back with LOMAC. Was very hard to do and things changed with each patch that broke what they had worked on previous to each patch. I fear unless someone philathropic soul comes along and offers a great deal of money to build one, the DC for DCS is a thing of the past.

EDs have said their long term goal for the DC is to get there in iterations. The First iteration was the random mission generator - FC3 will see the introduction of the resource allocation system (No idea what that will entail yet).

Personally I don't think we will ever get a Real Time Dynamic campaign, but more a normal Dynamic campaign, but I have no inside information.

Nate

Good idea Goblin but unfortunately will be a lot of work even for a small group of guys flying. Also, how do you account for the tactics and supply of the Red side?

Personally, I prefer scripted missions wherein you and your flight is the "center of attention" and you get confirmation on your performance. While being a "pawn in a bigger game" might be more realistic, I guess I like the idea of me being a "significant contributor" in the war effort

If you need any help with testing and ideas though, I'm all ears! And I'd love to help out with the mission building/testing as well.

Well, the ideal might be something like a combination dynamic campaign and scripted missions included. For instance, right now, the missions are only populated with mission specific entities. If you were to get shot up and wanted to divert to an alternate airfield, that airfield will be cold and lifeless. And enroute you wouldn't fly over anything friend or foe. So it would be nice to have some sort of auto generated world outside of the mission you are flying. Just to add some life to the theater.

Seeing as it takes forever +/- 2 weeks for the A-10 to get anywhere significant, why not whip up the ME after generating a mission and put some Blue assets on your planned divert airfield?

But yeah, too much work just to get "the atmosphere."

Currently working on some "atmosphere" elements on my missions, like A-10s coming overhead or landing or choppers overflying the airfield... anything to make it seem like there are other guys out there as well. And I really miss the tower/controller/ATC of Jane's F/A-18... who would scold you if you went above/below your assigned pattern altitude. Plus if you bolter and as you come around, you will see 2-3 other flights land as you make your way back to the pattern. I don't even bother with tower comms in DCS A10.

Beach and Ice: You both nailed it. Atmosphere. I use to call it "gameplay", but you get the idea.

The DCSA10C is the best sim ever, but also one of the dullest.
Even F-19 on my C64 was more fun. A DC is a must! (yes I know thw F-19 did not have one). How hard can it b?A lot of strategy games out there can keep track of many resources, so why not implement it in a sim like DCSA10C? It would be a winner!
Oh and we put men on the moon.
Hell, might even bury F4.

The gameplay is spot on, no faults with regards to flight models (what do I know about that anyway?) and we have real A-10 enthusiasts, pilots, and weapon crews that contribute to ED to make sure things are as real as possible. But like other ED sims before it, it does lack atmosphere. The quick missions that the mission generator whips up are good and there are other assets in the area -- nothing like seeing explosions and smoke and knowing someone just got killed while you are en-route to the target area. However, you do not SEE the other guys, you just know they're there. That's why I fly MP a lot, so that I bumble around the sky with another human being.

That there aren't more flight sims that do it should be some indication that it takes a lot of work. There's definitely a lot more to strategy games then just keeping track of resources. This has been discussed quite a lot of times in various groups on this site so you might find it interesting to search around and see some of the issues that are brought up.

Here's a link to a reply I made in an earlier discussion in this group that I think still covers most of the points I would make. The first page of the thread has a link to an interview with Kevin Klemmick who did the CD for Falcon 4.

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ub...tml#Post3237970

Elf

For me, the whole learning the A-10 is where the atmosphere is at. Doing what a real pilot would do to drop X on Y is enough for me to get atmosphere.

There are some really good points, and answers back to my original question! Just to ad to the lack of atmosphere... I play FSX alot and initially it was somewhat lifeless. With addon traffic programs (my traffic, ultimate traffic), weather generator (ASE), ATC live sound feeds it has all really come alive.

Amazingly, after all these years, the only place you can find what he's talking about is good old, twelve years old, Falcon 4.0.
As far as I know, anyway.

Even the really old Tornado had a bit of a dynamic campaign (1993?)

EECH has a good campaign system too. Although it suffered from the ground war not advancing like it should (tanks and stuff moving and taking territory). And while Falcon 4 has a great system - I often felt a lot of "interpolation" was going on. By that I mean, if you checked out a unit on one mission then came back and followed up later you'd see they had generated losses on their own and I don't know it was in response to any direct action by any campaign entities. Someone more familiar with the F4 campaign system could probably comment.

I've always wished for a persistent world where all the enemy and friendly forces are actually physically on the map (and virtual world) at the beginning of the campaign. A finite level of reserves could be held in warehouses (that if bombed would then be deducted from the overall inventory). EECH sort of did this with their "vehicle generator buildings", but I don't know that there were any finite limits placed on the generation of vehicles (aircraft, armor, and helos).

The other big thing I think is important to a virtual battlefield is object destruction permanence. As the war progresses, you should be able to see persistent damage to buildings, vehicles, runways, etc... Nothing improves immersion more than seeing the smoking remains of a convoy you blew up 6 hours ago or the shattered buildings that a previous flight destroyed.

I know these are wish lists..but I always enjoy this topic.

BeachAV8R

This is definitivly something i'm looking forward, however i think a dynamic campaign is not possible at this time.

To do so, we need the possibility to have a "create group" and "create WayPoint" command, and they aren't implemented yet. I'm not a big programmer but i did some scripting back in the Operation Flashpoint 1 time - without those two commands, nothing can be done on the game - except maybe by hard coding or heavy LUA modding.... and i'm not sure.

A DC involves too much time and resources - things that modern development companies do not have in tandem. Even the guy who did the DC for F4 said that he wouldn't do it again. The best that we could hope for is a semi-DC like that of Longbow or a hybrid type like RoF's dynamic career.

Developers like ED/Flexman have taken the time option in creating their DC's so all we have to do is wait and see.
The only other alternative is to fund a developer directly.

Have any of you used this to add some atmosphere? I've just downloaded it as I was wanting some comms chatter in flight. 20+ minutes of it, don't know what happens after that time, hopefully it loops?

I haven't tried the mod, but if the chatter's not based on real activity in-game it'd just be annoying, IMHO.

This is just a bunch of training chatter, fighter adversary guys working with a controller or an AWACS or something. Why would you want a bunch of training chatter inserted into a game that would be horribly out of place? Plus this is a sim that actually forces you to tune your radios to certain freqs -- you would kinda ruin the beauty of that with random chatter in my view.

Now maybe there is a way to insert a little bit of that, if it is relevant, here and there, on certain freqs, using trigger conditions, etc. Maybe some air to ground chatter, etc., for instance? But I think to make it worth doing, you need some real life real combat radio cuts, and not training chatter.

Just my view and I recognize opinions will vary on this -- to each his own I guess.

Ripcord

As for the topic of this thread, hell yeah, why not?

Nate, I think, nailed it... first they did the mission generator, next they will expand on that in FC3. I think we'd need to see what that tool looks like, and then maybe some enterprising bright fellow (or group of them) could use that to create a dynamic multiplayer environment. I kinda think this thing will evolve, as far as having a DC. I don't think someday we'll wake one day to learn that some real bright dude in Cleveland or Chelsea or Chelyabinsk has just created a kick butt DC engine for this thing -- pretty sure we'll see it coming on the horizon.

Ripcord

If we're dreaming, make the chatter dynamically generated by the AI so it's appropriate for the unit, the frequency it's transmitting on, and the the circumstances.

Didn't look very long for the post, but there was a confirmation that they have triggered audio messages based on frequency with the source being a unit or a fixed point (trigger zone) in one of the latest beta builds. Its not quite dynamically generated chatter, but its a step closer toward it.