In the DCS world, trees are not collidable. Radars, rockets, guns and missiles can fly through them.

(Unless i have missed it of course.)

With combined arms. What is to stop a person with a mobile sam launcher to hide inside a forest where they are very hard to see, but yet can aquire targets and fire missiles off from within dense cover as if there is no cover at all ?

The fact that they too need to see their target and track it visually.

Nothing...

^^^ from The Highway


The RWR will point the way.

WC

Guess that's why they made IR sensors

Yes- we will start seeing a whole new kind of crafty out there and as the saying goes "sometimes, the other guy does something right."


Right now I think the number of Sam sites is elevated a bit because their methodology is more predictable and (more) easily overcome. Put fewer, less predictable human assets in place and things will stay exciting though possibly even more balanced than they are now. a couple of guys who are really interested in ruining our day could probably accomplish a great deal. Fortunately we can hang out of reach from most of the sam inventory in the game- Oh wait- but now we also have migs to worry about... Pick your poison I guess.

I am curious though- if the slots aren't occupied by people do those assets still exist in the game as ai until someone comes in? Or are they completely separate entities with start points similar to what we are used to?

Balance is a game design word, not a simulation word. It would be up to the scenario creator to make believable or even possible scenarios. Some do; some don't and it has been that way before CA.

I believe the normal CA behavior is the units are there per the mission and human "nudging" is the result of player action. Otherwise they are normal AI under AI control.

While balance is a game design term and not something typically associated with simulation, it is still a simulation game and to a certain extent balance still matters. Unless the rules of the simulation world are nearly identical to that of the real world we must apply balance and game design to overcome these limitations. One of the unfair advantages that AI posses is the ability to see and shoot through trees. Mission designers may realize this capability and place sams outside of wooded areas, however with CA players can order AI sams to move within a forest, thus negating the intent of balance from the mission builder. Yet the "foul" location of the SAM is but one alternative. CA players can move the sam anywhere, which creates a lovely situation where an attacking player controlled aircraft simply won't memorize the location of specific threats on subsequent replays of the mission.



Unless they added a feature that limits which groups can be controlled, any unit that exists on the map, which has the capability of being directly controlled (FPS), can be AI or player controlled at any point in the mission. Some units are limited to an RTS type of control, but you can change the groups ROE, State, formation, and waypoints.

"Balance" I think is the wrong term here. This is more like an "exploit". You take advantage of something in the game that goes "against the spirit" of the gameplay. From a simulation standpoint it would need to be fixed at some point. Totally killed the immersion for me watching my JTAC vehicle drive through trees like a ghost.

As an example here is another post from a member playing a tank in CA.
clicky

The player is aparently being engaged by tanks that can see through the forest yet he has no way of engaging said enemy until they break cover.

As for the other posts. I think it is a balance question. As now you can control the ground units, If the AI can see and engage through dense forests and a player contoled unit of the same ability cannot due to visual implemetation of vegetation. Then that surely would come under balance?

Anyway just curious if there is any plans for this or "not at the moment"?

Disclaimer: I am not trying to insite a flame war of any kind for or against.

It is an acknowledged problem - however I've no idea what the solution may be, if there is one.

Nate

ok, thanks.

DTAC may very well go a long way towards solving this particular irritation....Certainly looking promising at present.

It's definitely missing some of the depth and realism I'd expect from DCS, but for only $30 the value is pretty solid.

The whole tree thing is what made me lose interest in BS as soon as I accidentally hit a tree and didn't go boom. It's an old, glaring issue.

Wow never knew that. Sounds like this issue may never be fixed then, wish I would have seen this thread before buying.

Don't jump to conclusions just yet. As said previously, DTAC is looking promising.

Not a balance issue.........design flaw. As soon as they did the geee, lets make a bunch of stuff human controlled and playable there where bound to be issues. As a force control element or JTAC......I love the concept. As a ground force simulation I have no idea how that could work and not end up bad. On the fence about getting it. But as of now without better more real world landscapes and trees that do somehting there will be issues. As to playable tanks and stuff...........just a bad idea IMO. Do not match up in quality at all to the aircraft. If I do make the pludge........which I probably will. I forsee messing with that aspect 1 time and wanting to vomit. But to make little plans for ai to go kill stuff with myself zipping around in the air.......hell ya. The ground ai will need to improve ALOT to be a true tactical style game and just forget ground vehicle sim. A couple high detail JTAC type models that work as per real world would serve much better than bad arcade tank game built into a vary good aircraft sim. But I reserve the right to eat my old combat boot if I end up being wrong.

It has been very very clearly stated that CA was not designed to be as detailed as the aircraft. In fact for me the best part of CA is the RTS element of controlling the whole battlefield - the First person control of the vehicles is secondary for me.

Nate

Ehrm...what's DTAC?

Updated EDM models and textures for the ED engine. Pics look great, I'm interested to see how it affects frame rates, but all sorts of awesome can come out of this.

DTAC apparently stands for "DCS Tactical Terrain". Kitchy, but catchy.

I'm keen to step into CA with the Nevada land upgrade, as CA is the only module I don't own already. Eventually this concept could be fantastic, but it's going to take a bit of time I reckon. Encouraging to see such potential already.