What a silly response. Just replace "user" in the scaling design with "userbase." The dynamic detail of course is global when it matters for consistency. You're finding insurmountable problems that have been solved in 1998. I didn't think the parallels needed to be spelled out.

To be fair though, just because something was solved or invented fifteen years ago doesn't necessarily mean that it should be any easier or commercially viable today. Now where'd I put my Betamax player?

BeachAV8R

On the other side, just because something that works great was invented in the past and would be great today why still not use it today??
With all due respect, comparing Betamax players to stuff such as AI bubbles doesn't make sense to me. Betamax is analog technology, AI bubbles belong to the current day digital technology era.

Today we (including the developers) don't want "practical" stuff. Today "we" want "cool" stuff and developers want stuff that not only looks "cool" but it's also easy to develop. So in terms of "Computer technology" we end up with useless stuff such as Tablets instead of advances in AI implementation which IMO would be much more useful not only for gaming but for humanity itself.

At the end of the day - a dynamic campaign for DCS would be the .....

dogs bollox, the bees knees, the ducks nuts and just plain awesome.

So FFS, just make one so I can STFU and die lots of time in a dynamic environment!!!

See - even a good analogy can't survive the march of progress..! LOL...

BeachAV8R

And FWIW - I don't think ED (the developers) want things that are cool and easy. I think they are probably interested in finding the price point of development and realism that is situated somewhere between their military contracts and their entertainment products. Having seen how these guys work, they are mostly interested in getting every detail right, but some concessions have to be made when confronted with a realistic corporate environment where budgets and time are not limitless. And if they do a dynamic campaign, they would probably want to do one right. I think they could do it. I want them to do it. I'd rather see them do it at the expense of other projects... I guess we'll see..

BeachAV8R

Well, as a DC has never been an announced product, but EDGE is, and they've been working on it since before A-10C's beta started, I'm not holding my breath.

I suppose it's possible that contrary to how they've portrayed it they have NOT been working on EDGE continuously for all these years, or with more than a token programmer, and in fact had large gaps where work was halted or scrapped and restarted, but that's conjecture as only they know that. It would explain the delays, but in the absence of any such statement I suppose we're supposed to believe that they've been working on EDGE nonstop for several years now.



The Jedi Master

Well its not as long as that team working on fighter-ops....


Oops did I really say that....

ED HAS released multiple updates and modules and stuff, worthy stuff, not just a handful of screenshots and a pay forum, so I will not sully ED's name with a FO comparison! That's far too harsh!



The Jedi Master

Thread still going?

I just wanted to add that IMO the EF2000 DC is pretty good, but was never completed. The developer's full original intentions are described in the EF2000 Manual...

http://198.65.10.229/DID/Temp/EF2K_Manual.zip

These were the new campaign features in V2.0 (pp. 11, 12)...

==========
+ Dangerous neutrals - neutral aircraft (blue) will now fire upon you when you intrude into neutral airspace.

+ A more extensive campaign - Finland and Russia can now be invaded, the neutrals may also ally with you at a later stage of the campaign.

+ Ships galore - anti-ship missions now occur in the Campaign. Be careful, they are well defended with SAMs, and at sea there is no terrain to hide behind.

+ More enemies to fight through - there are more long-range strategic CAPs in Campaign. Be prepared to 'go stealthy' to avoid contact.

+ Deadlier opponents at airbases - when approaching enemy airbases in Campaign, the enemy fighters will scramble to intercept you. Approach with caution.

+ Plane arming screen - now available in campaign single and network play. Load up with your favorite weapons.

+ More detailed mission debriefings - you'll find out more about your exploits, and we have included debriefings for wingmen in the campaign.

+ Time on target (TOT) is now included in the in-game mission briefing for simulator missions (<0> on the keypad).

+ You may also find the campaign automatically views eight hours for a number of days. This is not a bug, it is because your bases are decimated. Losing the War is often the result. However, do not give up - the neutrals may ally with you, and give you a fighting chance.
==========

IMO, DID had really unique game-play ideas, like having really large maps (four million square kilometers) representing multiple nations with changeable alliances. An AI generated mission may not be as detailed and unique as a hand-crafted mission, but a dynamic environment makes even a cookie-cutter AI mission more interesting to me as you interact with a large living world while having an impact on multiple levels.

One of my most surreal flight sim moments is similar to what HomeFries described, returning to base late one evening in Falcon and watching the glow of explosions and tracers light up the sky several miles away. And knowing this wasn't some scripted or triggered eye-candy, rather it was an actual battle raging off in the distance. To me, this makes even an uneventful CAP worth it.

Same with TAW as you're flying yet another boring AI-planned AWACS or Refueler Escort mission, the map is so big and so full of activity that you really don't know what's going to happen, or when the enemy will decide to go after the HVA you're protecting.


Anyway, IMO the most notable missing features of EF2000's DC are:

- no limited ground war with active supply routes (limited by terrain and choke points).
- no Carrier Fleets (including submarines) striking and protecting ports.
- no helicopters flying as FAC (as described in the patch release notes).

You can read about the full set of features on pp. 300-314 of the Manual posted above. Fascinating stuff.

Is the campaign Multiplayer compatible in F4, I honestly don't know? I ask again, would it more productive to invest time in creating a bubble system, or invest that time in the ability to offload the AI onto it own Core(s)?

In my mind the Bubble Idea is a solution to a problem that generally doesn't exist any more - lack of available CPU power. The correct solution in my mind is tapping into that available power, not reducing the AI to mere rolls of a dice.

Nate

EDGE has seen several iterations already for Non-commercial customers AFAIK. The EDGE we'll get is built off those foundations.

Nate

It depends if one or two cores is enough to simulate hundreds (or more) of AI units over the whole map.

I think back 10 years ago when I first started posting on SimHQ...

I thought by now we'd have a different Falcon:

- multiple flyables, each with as much avionics detail as the SP3 F-16 (starting with the F-16 era flyables of Jane's USAF).

- multiple maps and accompanying campaigns, including a Eurofighter and remake of EF2000's map and campaign.


I also never thought we'd be talking about GOG/Steam re-releases of classics like F-117 and Fleet Defender, I figured by now TK's Strike Fighters would have surpassed the ancient sims (also Fighters Anthology, USAF) in every way possible.

And now, 10 years later...


But I never expected too see a DC for "Flanker" and I still don't, if the interest was there it would have happened already. Now in 2014, my guess is that what some of you dream about in a DC would take a budget of a AAA shooter.

Because there is not a combat flight sim "of today." All modern combat sims are based on ancient codebases. ArmA, IL-2, DCS, FSX etc. are stretching the life out of previous work. As great as it would be to slip a new foundation under a historical building, it's infinitely less practical. Until someone starts a sim project with a blank piece of paper the spherical-earth, multi-threaded, scalable, DX12, etc. sim loses to the bandaid approach. Abandoning an old code base is very costly even if it is holding you back.



The customer and by any extension any dev who asks the customer, has no idea what it wants. Until the satisfaction of solving a puzzle or working closely with a group of other players or the surprise at being ambushed by a clever AI can be summed in a screenshot, we're doomed.



F4 is more "single player compatible" the whole thing was designed for MP of which SP is a subset so it absolutely MP compatible. The bubble is a rather primitive on-off system, VTEC for Honda. More levels or something approaching continuous would be more admirable (iVTEC). The limitations of resources are still a factor and will continue to be so in the foreseeable future. Scalability is probably more important today than it was before. Asynchronous FSMs that are multithreaded would greatly help the situation. We're just in the in-between generation of computing where the old code that isn't that flexible is still good enough not to throw away and rewrite.

I still think the "multi-role" Su-22 and MiG-29K of Flanker 2.51 were far more enjoyable and fun that what we have now.

You mean Su-27? Only place I've ever flown the Su-22 (and the Su-7 and 17) is Strike Fighters, and it was never very good at air to air.

I admit I wish that LOMAC and all the FC's since had the MiG-29K instead of the G. It's a slightly different A, and it would never have been in the Black Sea area anyway, but a K would've been perfect!



The Jedi Master

I will say one thing - the more sandbox ARMA3 I play, the more I want a dynamic campaign and environment in DCS. I can't remember the last time I logged 20 or 30 hours in a week playing a game, but the Pilgrimage campaign for ARMA3 has me playing non-stop. Only bad part is, I have to play between 11PM and 6AM or when the little guy is in pre-school because I don't play "killing games" when he's around to watch over my shoulder. <g>

Sure would be nice to have such a living and persistent environment in DCS World. Like, you get out of your airplane, walk to Base Ops, and that is where you manage your pilot records, maintenance, fuel, armament, save games, etc..

Maybe someday...

BeachAV8R

So many forums. So many DC discussions. Always highly popular. Frequent mentions of a 16 year old F-16 simulator that still has a dedicated and knowledgeable following. Yet the conclusion is always the same. Dynamic Campaigns are nothing more than a bit of coding trickery fooling only the bottom feeding troglodytes who don't mind living in a 30km bubble. I for one am sick of sandboxing.

Beach. What you have described is an idea I had for Rise of Flight a few years back. If forums were really physical rooms, I was laughed out of the building and escorted to my car by the doorman.

I'm playing original F4 (+ pit/sky/terrain) with intensity and serious study, while following the source code (the sections I understand) if just for a glimpse of how it's done. No one is fooled, they just know good game-play.

My problem with F4 has always been that it's a little too detailed with too much micro-management. This is where IMO the 30MB DOS-based EF2000 really shines (although incomplete).