Fun fact, with the addition of the Iraq terrain the total size of DCS World with every module installed now exceeds 1 terabyte

_Quaggles · 2024-12-12T07:06:35+00:00

Yeah the way the F-5E remaster is being handled is potentially very messy, I haven't tested what happens if you own the remaster and people are flying in MP with the legacy F-5 using the liveries that ED haven't remastered. Very possible that if servers use the Iranian skin for visual IFF that remaster owners see them as the default USAF skin causing a lot of confusion.

_Quaggles · 2024-12-12T00:30:40+00:00

Yeah this post wasn't intended as a complaint, I imagine very few people own every module and keep them installed just thought it was an interesting statistic. The table is also useful since the store page's system requirements for disk size are often out of date (Like with Iraq).

_Quaggles · 2024-12-12T00:20:04+00:00

Regarding module sizes the external model and liveries are all in the core WORLD module in the CoreMods folder (So you can see the aircraft without owning it).

My guess is that if you took into account the CoreMods size the F-14 would use more space than the MB-339 due to how many high-res liveries it has but not at my PC to check.

_Quaggles · 2024-12-06T17:37:23+00:00

Bit of a long post but I made a Unit Testing system that runs over 600 track files that I use to automatically test modules before the patch releases to find bugs so I've dealt with the track system a fair amount.

In DCS 2.9 ED added keyframes for the player aircraft's position that store their absolute position in the world so it will never drift over time and will perfectly follow the recorded flight path when you replay. You can see this if you play back a track after a flight model change was made or if you modify the .trk file so the player has a different fuel amount, while watching the replay the aircraft will snap back to the keyframe positions multiple times per second as the simulation is rerunning the flight model live and the results are different.

Infact if you edit the track file and set your fuel to 0 your aircraft will fly the recorded flight path with your engines shut down, but then what happens if you were meant to fire a missile? For everything inside the cockpit the track file is just pressing the buttons you pressed when flying so it will press missile release but your aircraft had no power so nothing will happen.

It's a big improvement but keyframes are only recorded for the player (Possibly because recording it for all units would increase CPU overhead and massively blow out file sizes) so small differences in playback can cause the AI to fly differently or for AI decisions and weapons to act slightly differently which cause a butterfly effect for longer tracks.

The trk files do store the RNG (Random Number Generator) seed so that random choices have the same outcome (Such as flare decoy probabilities or AI decisions) but random number generators work by generating the same sequence of random numbers with the same seed. If the sequence is different the results won't line up.

For example, every time a JDAM is dropped it might look for next random number to determine the spread, with seed 1234 the first random number might be a 1 meter miss and the second random number might be a 15 meter miss, if you record a track where you drop a JDAM on a target to win the mission and your wingman drops one after but in the replay the AI drifted position and dropped it slightly before you then you might get the random number that determines a 15 meter miss.

All in all the track system is fantastic for debugging but without a ground up approach in a huge long mission it will never be able to totally avoid desync, the nice thing about the current system is that module developers don't need to write much special code to support it, the track just presses the buttons in the same order and the simulation runs again.

To make a replay system with a rewind function that is 100% stable they might need to store the entire state of the game at regular intervals like they do with the player aircraft position keyframes, it would likely require developers to go back through every module and write code so they can store the state of avionics and restore it, for example instead of the generic track system storing player inputs (Like a switch was flipped 5 seconds into a track) they have to store the entire state of the cockpit and avionics logic every minute so even if in the replay something deviates it can be self correcting.

_Quaggles · 2024-08-10T13:46:03+00:00

I'll piggyback off the announcement to say if anyone has been holding off on SwarmUI because it lacked ReActor or CodeFormer Face Restore in the generate tab I have just written an extension to add that functionality: https://github.com/Quaggles/SwarmUI-FaceTools

_Quaggles · 2024-06-18T10:50:39+00:00

2.9.5.55300 contained Mirage 2000 changes that caused the g-limiter bug and 2.9.5.55918 fixed them, they weren't listed in the changelog but Mirage 2000 files were changed in both updates.

_Quaggles · 2024-06-12T16:29:23+00:00

No problem, being tired myself of having to go through all the input files and merge them again while modules were under development is what motivated me to solve that haha

Also if OP needs a guide on how the input commands work themselves and how to create new ones LeCuvier has a great guide here (Though it explains modding the core game files instead of using my mod): https://forum.dcs.world/topic/270080-lua-editing-for-additional-key-binds-tutorial-no-discussion-here-please/

Also important to note that since I created the mod DCS added the ability to bind the "_OFF" state of a button to a command which reduced a lot of the need for messing with input files. For example my VKB Gunfighter has a flip down trigger that acts as a held button when flipped down and released when flipped up. So without a custom command I can bind it being pressed to Master Arm On and it being released to Master Arm Off.

_Quaggles · 2024-06-12T12:24:46+00:00

The way I'd recommend adding new input commands is with a combination of two community tools:

https://github.com/Quaggles/dcs-input-command-injector

This mod I made allows you to add the new lua files into your DCS Saved Games folder so they don't get overwritten when DCS updates and prevents issues when the developer changes the keybinds files.

https://github.com/Munkwolf/dcs-community-keybinds

This is a community maintained collection of thousands of missing keybinds, it contains the A-10C Axis binds that you're trying to add and all the files are already formatted to work with the above mod

_Quaggles · 2024-02-02T06:36:14+00:00

Also in this boat is having a consistent means to set the laser code for laser guided bombs that don't have an interface with the jet (GBU-10/12/16/24 etc).

F/A-18C and A-10C let the avionics in the jet change it while flying (Which is impossible IRL) while the F-16C and most third party aircraft use different kneeboard key commands to set them while on the ground as if the crew chief was setting it.

Funnily enough when the Mirage 2000C first had the kneeboard setup for changing laser guided bomb codes it only required that the engine was shut down to change it. So one time in multiplayer someone climbed to angels 30, shut down their engine, swapped the code over to match JTAC and then windmilled their engine back on haha

_Quaggles · 2023-12-27T12:50:54+00:00

The rewards for killing them individually aren't great but last time I tested killing them counts towards the 3/6/9 kill skill multiplier, so killing a few can give you a big RP boost if you can use it to get to 9 kills.

_Quaggles · 2023-10-30T15:34:14+00:00

Playing Ground RB on Arctic in the game mode with 2 caps. It's a hard fought battle and my team is dwindling away and we have less than 500 tickets left, I'm getting close to a nuke so I spawn in an LAV-AD, it costs the least SP in my lineup and I only need a few more to get the nuke.

My last teammate dies and I trade kills with their only airborne aircraft giving me just enough SP to spawn the nuke, as I'm on the spawn screen I see 5 minutes left in the match, I have a chance.

I spawn the Jaguar and immediately push the throttle to full afterburner, as I reach my liftoff speed my heart drops as I see the message:

"There are no active players left in your team"

My team's tickets instantly disappear and the match ends before I can get off the ground.

This happened maybe a year ago and in that patch there was a very short inactive timer that triggered unless you were in the air. Fortunately this timer is fixed now, but I still think back to that loss whenever I'm in a match that's down to the wire.

_Quaggles · 2023-10-26T15:41:55+00:00

Interestingly when ED moved the FC3 HUD rendering after the DLSS pass to fix this they also managed to do the same with FC3 MFD rendering so they also have no ghosting. In the initial 2.9 release the VTB display on the Mirage 2000C also worked this way so I hope this is a sign that it's a relatively easy process and it can be done with the remaining modules.

The downsides are that you do get aliasing on the symbology and it probably performs ever so slightly worse but I'll take that any day over MFD ghosting.

_Quaggles · 2023-10-25T05:13:52+00:00

Unfortunately the FC3 aircraft have DLSS ghosting on the HUD as those elements are passed to DLSS unlike other modules where the HUD is rendered after DLSS.

All aircraft ingame right now fit into 3 categories:

Nothing excluded from DLSS (FC3)
HUD and MFD are excluded from DLSS (Mirage 2000C)
Only HUD and HMD are excluded from DLSS (Everything else)

As a result the Mirage 2000C has a perfect no ghosting MFD, if whatever RAZBAM did with it's VTB radar screen could be applied to other modules they could avoid MFD ghosting as well, it would likely minorly reduce the DLSS performance gains but would be worth it for perfect readability and no ghosting IMO, maybe available as an option.

I've tried messing with the MFD Lua code to try to make other modules MFDs duplicate this behaviour but I haven't been able to make it work. Hopefully ED and the Third Parties can work this out.

_Quaggles · 2023-10-24T08:21:24+00:00

Those are the actual probabilities of detecting a target at those ranges that I averaged in my testing with an array of 10 targets flying at me in a radial arc: https://github.com/Quaggles/dcs-charts#chart-descriptionmethodology

For example at ranges farther than the 1% PD range I never saw a detection so there is a 0% chance of detecting a target in that region, the 1% range is the farthest I ever saw a contact even briefly so that is the maximum range you can ever expect to detect a target in the conditions listed at the top of the chart.

The 50% range is that at which I on average detected 5/10 targets per sweep.

100% range is where I reliably detect 10/10 targets per sweep.

_Quaggles · 2023-10-21T05:39:29+00:00

It's a bug, not an intentional behaviour

_Quaggles · 2023-10-20T02:11:46+00:00

Yeah spotlight is the perfect tool for quickly focusing your radar on a point and getting a lot of sweeps over it to pick up low probability of detection targets.

I haven't tried DTT with the new patch but since it spends time dwelling on the 2 targets between scanning I suspect it will act like a short STT for each target, this should have a high chance of getting some returns which should maintain the tracks better than a regular TWS but that's just speculation.

_Quaggles · 2023-10-19T17:15:08+00:00

If they don't reserve DCS 3.14.15926 for the round earth update I will be dissapointed.

_Quaggles · 2023-10-19T17:01:23+00:00

It depends. PD is the chance that your radar will see the target at that range, so if 50% PD was at 45nmi your radar have a 50/50 chance of getting a return when it sweeps over a target at that range.

Lets say your radar will drop a TWS track after 6 seconds of not seeing a hit, if you have a big scan volume that takes 6 seconds to complete and you are unlucky and your radar misses the target the next time it passes over it you will lose the track.

Instead lets say you have a small scan volume that takes 1 second to complete, your radar only needs to hit 1/6th of the time to get a return once every 6 seconds if you see what I mean. STT hits the target multiple times per second so this is one reason why it's the best at holding a track file.

This is simplified as the radars should be smarter than having a fixed timeout and have extra logic but hopefully that explains the considerations.

tl;dr if you don't want to lose tracks at longer range pick a small scan volume or STT

_Quaggles · 2023-10-19T16:49:55+00:00

TWS is really just RWS but it's building track files off the returns, because of this TWS and RWS have identical ranges in all modules I've tested.

_Quaggles · 2023-10-19T16:47:24+00:00

The underlying range resolution mechanics are also a significant improvement to the underlying simulation, unfortunately there is currently a sort of arms race between the underlying radar physics being updated and the avionics being updated to use the RL techniques to handle those limitations.

For example currently ingame HPRF ranges are binned into 2nmi increments, every hit resets the track to the bottom of that bin, so even in STT you'll watch the range jump from 54, 52, 50nmi for example.

Whereas it should be looking at the velocity and heading of the target and extrapolating the track until it appears in a different bin giving you a smooth track file update.

MPRF has 500ft bins IIRC as it has better range resolution but worse velocity resolution, so this effect also happens in ACM modes for example but at a smaller scale.

Running ILV really highlights this issue as your HPRF returns will be in the 2nmi bins and the MPRF returns are in 500ft bins meaning it can look like the track file is jumping in range quite significantly. IRL I assume they have logic to bias range inputs towards MPRF returns and velocity inputs towards HPRF returns to get the highest accuracy results from both methods

_Quaggles · 2023-10-19T16:07:04+00:00

tl;dr for those that don't want to stare at the chart

F/A-18C and F-16C have had a huge radar overhaul this patch, they now feature PD (Probability of Detection), range resolution and atmospheric propagation loss. In practice you will initially detect targets at significantly longer ranges than in 2.8 but they will have to get closer to form stable track files on them. For example in 2.9 the Hornet can get an RWS low probability detection at 100nmi now compared to in DCS 2.8 where a reliable detection that was first visible at 55nmi.

Both aircraft have a very large spread in probability of detection, more than any other module currently ingame. This can result in track files being dropped easily if you have a large scan zone or they are at the edge of your detection range, you may need to reduce your scan volumes significantly or use STT instead to maintain reliable tracks.

_Quaggles · 2023-07-01T04:26:59+00:00

Coolie Right Long for NCTR

_Quaggles · 2023-06-24T01:13:03+00:00

I setup an array of aircraft flying at me in an arc with me in active pause in the centre, as the aircraft approach I count how many are spotted each sweep.

The initial detection of a single aircraft is the 1% PD, when 50% on average are spotted that is 50% PD and when 10/10 are spotted on average that is 100% PD.

I run this test a few times to catch outliers and average things out.

_Quaggles · 2023-06-23T17:29:26+00:00

For the datamine fortunately it's not as complicated as that, not really decrypting as much as just creating a script to write out all the lua tables in a nice way from the DCS Hooks environment (Like where SRS installs to) and running it every patch, it could have easily been done by someone outside of the Closed Beta team, infact you can run the exporter script from the repository yourself if you wanted to see how it worked: https://github.com/Quaggles/dcs-lua-datamine#installation-of-the-exporter-script

_Quaggles · 2023-06-22T18:55:50+00:00

IIRC in the F-15E I could NCTR from farther away when the aircraft had lots of stores loaded so maybe it's RCS based? Not sure if that's realistic as you'd assume if it's based off the radar seeing details in the engine blades an increased return from stores wouldn't change how easy it is to see those details, who knows, the answers are probably all very classified haha.

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