what constitutes a Dynamic Campaign

[Viking1]

Since the question has now become relevant here for KOREA, I thought many would enjoy reading an answer from basic AI query. Sorry image order is backwards..

 

 

 

 

Edited Thursday at 03:00 AM by Viking1

[Husar]

Reverse engineering the BMS 

 

[AndreiTomescu]

Hmmm.....i'm starting to worry, @Viking1. I have some thoughts/questions on my mind, and zbang! you are throwing a thread on that matter! 

First the 9070xt, now the Dynamic Campaign.....

Troublesome! 😂😂😂

I have asked the AI about this, gave me approx the same ideas.

The questions that remains, imho, are this:

- is it possible for your actions to actually change the course of an entire war??? Like instead of Yamamoto you manage to shoot down MMcArthur's DC3 ? But he was fired afterwards, still.....

--i am really passionate about the alternative history theories. And so far it seems history has a kind of viscosity.....

--- would this be kind of @LuftManu's server, except that fully single player?

---- might the Dynamic Campaign files be shared between players, as to see how things evolve due to different choices?

[Avimimus]

My take:

- Originally, the term just meant procedural generation (or randomisation) of missions.

- People also talked about strategic campaigns (where one could give orders to other units).

- Two sims became famous for having persistent strategic campaigns: EEAH/EECH and Falcon 3.0 (or was it 4.0). This moved from having discrete missions in a stepwise strategic layer to continuous RTS style strategic layer. But these two sims were exceptions.

Modern usage tends to refer to a strategic campaign patterned on the one in Falcon (I suspect this is due to the fact that DCS announced a dynamic campaign eight years ago in 2018, and the point of reference for most DCS players is Falcon - so we've had eight years of people using the term to refer to what they imagine a strategic campaign built by Eagle Dynamics in the image of Falcon 4.0 would look like. This has likely changed how most people interpret the phrase 'dynamic campaign').

However, the usage of the term 'dynamic' is broader and older... and we should really be talking about a strategic campaign.

[Husar]

For sure Falcon 4.0 had/has good dynamic campaign because author was a passionate about strategy in games in first place not so much an actual combat flight enthusiast.

Edited Thursday at 10:12 AM by Husar

[LuftManu]

Hi! 

The news of a dynamic campaign sounded reaaally good! I love career for being historical but having another mode that changes completly from play to play would also be a great idea and add a lot of replayability.

In my opinion, for this system to be fun we would need  some kind of persistance, order of battle and logistics. Then, the game could generate missions for both the player/players and AI based on this data and see how the frontline progresses or objectives are achieved. With the career system simulating outcomes when you don't fly, this new mode could also do the same with AI filghts all around the conflict zone, thus making it feel more alive and dynamic besides the player's squadron.

Having the whole map populated 24/7 and flights being generated real time is something that I would like to see but... I think it would be impossible in today's flight sim engines. Still, a system that would have the stats of the campaign and generates missions for players and AI automatically based on outcomes would be also great. @AndreiTomescu that was somewhat the idea of the Server, yes! but it's really simple compared to what I would love! as explained here.

Avi commented on a really interesting topic and I think strategic campaign would work better for what I think a good campaign like this would be.

In my opinion, this also would be a great idea for multiplayer and probably easier to do than a career MP mode. I can think of really cool situations like a city being sieged, being low on equipment and throwing anything to the meatgrinder or even the opposite, having a field day fighting a lower number of enemy forces because they were taken out on the first few days.

I think there is a lot of complexity here, on my idea, because you need priorities for targets and how the system would manage logistics, but I think this would be a great addition to the game.

I have high hopes on the team, they did an excellent job and I think we will be happy here too! Besides some AI issues I'm having tons of fun in career so more options and better AI down the road would only make this even better 🙂

PS: This also would open up more options for planes that were not that common or present. For example, Il-28 that would ended up being used if the UN nations kept their pressure and China did not manage to push South.

[Husar]

Good read about Falcon 4, Campaign AI, Player Bubble, Force on Force 

https://www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=451

 

[LuftManu]

PS2: I've been trying to create a career file reader to see the stats and seems like the current Career mode already tracks stats from all of the missions flown. This is something that was also in GB, but the interesting part is that even if the player has not flown the mission, the stats are detailed. This is a gooo sign.

Here is an example: 

I did not fly any mission with this career, yet we have hours, units destroyed and more. Even names from downed pilots.

:) 

 

[Husar]

2 minutes ago, LuftManu said:

PS2: I've been trying to create a career file reader to see the stats and seems like the current Career mode already tracks stats from all of the missions flown. This is something that was also in GB, but the interesting part is that even if the player has not flown the mission, the stats are detailed. This is a gooo sign.

Here is an example: 

I did not fly any mission with this career, yet we have hours, units destroyed and more. Even names from downed pilots.

🙂

 

Maybe for an online statistics page, I’d like to know, just for my personal use, the total global flight time, overall AA/AG kill numbers, etc. So after 10 years I can look at it and say to myself, “WTF, OMG.” 😂

[LuftManu]

4 minutes ago, Husar said:

Maybe for an online statistics page, I’d like to know, just for my personal use, the total global flight time, overall AA/AG kill numbers, etc. So after 10 years I can look at it and say to myself, “WTF, OMG.” 😂

I thougth the same, but besides player stats, you can see how the squad did and who the enemy was shot down and where, even if youd didnt fly the mission. I hope this means the above! 😄

As for the personal stats, well! Thankfully I got the game in standalone so I won't be able to see the hours I play in the future 😁

[Viking1]

4 hours ago, Husar said:

Good read about Falcon 4, Campaign AI, Player Bubble, Force on Force 

https://www.combatsim.com/review.php?id=451

 

I was with Glenn 'Sleepdoc' at E3 that year. not long after the iBeta team was formed that eventually killed so many of the bugs in falcon 4. We dont really have a better model for a functioning dynamic campaign.

[Husar]

42 minutes ago, Viking1 said:

I was with Glenn 'Sleepdoc' at E3 that year. not long after the iBeta team was formed that eventually killed so many of the bugs in falcon 4. We dont really have a better model for a functioning dynamic campaign.

Absolutely. Falcon 4.0’s dynamic campaign is still something really special. It’s amazing that, after all these years, we still don’t really have a better model for how a truly dynamic campaign should work.

[Avimimus]

3 hours ago, Husar said:

Absolutely. Falcon 4.0’s dynamic campaign is still something really special. It’s amazing that, after all these years, we still don’t really have a better model for how a truly dynamic campaign should work.

Falcon 4.0 released in 1998 (in the midst of other sims which had strategic layers).

When the Dot Com bubble collapsed finances dried up and almost all flight sims were cancelled (I think there were something like a dozen cancellations in that period)? When funding returned, most of the industry shifted to Consoles. Ignoring professional glider simulators, the survivors were:

- WarBirds (a MMO).

- MSFS survived until 2004 (with the last combat instalment - CFS3 being in 2002). However, after 2004 MSFS was shut down for several years. X-Plane (a civilian simulator) also has an unbroken lineage - but any talks of a combat oriented expansion were ended in 2001.

- LOMAC (later DCS).

- Il-2 Sturmovik.

The combat flight sim genre was largely rebuilt by these two Russian companies (1CGS/Maddox Games & Eagle Dynamics). They were joined by the Rise of Flight project in 2008, but by 2011 Maddox Games had collapsed, and we were back down to two combat flight simulator companies. So, a single-player strategic campaign could only have come from one of these two development teams.

I know Maddox Games was introducing some features, particularly around the destruction of carriers, where one could influence battles - but any further plans (if they existed) may have been shut down after the Pacific Fighters settlement. DCS relied on branching scripted campaigns, and didn't make the announcement until 2018 (and still hasn't released the dynamic campaign).

So, Il-2 1946/Rise of Flight/Great Battles has had the most dynamic campaign available since 2000. But they also had a lot of other things they were working on and were generally modelling theatres where a strategic layer wouldn't make that much sense. It is most apparent if you are doing close air support for specific ground units or carrier battles or controlling a strategic bombing campaign... but with the type of fighting that have been depicted a strategic campaign doesn't add that much to the game. Improving the dynamic campaign (or improving AI and other features) might be a higher priority over adding a strategy game layer.

[Aapje]

I think that 1CGS and ED even more so are very lucky that the community is willing to make their own content, mods and tools to such an extent.

Anyway, I think that a dynamic campaign is a good fit for Korea because the front lines were mostly quite static, especially during the period chosen for the game. So moving the front lines in a fictional scenario, can really spice up the game and make different air fields important, and shift where the targets are to be found.

However, I would also like to see improvements to the career mission generator itself. My ideal would be if they would learn from PWCG and would implement Pat's solution to allow for a more filled mission, where it is more common to encounter enemies that have their own missions.

In general, I would like the career mission generator to be a little less strict about following a specific template, because 'no plan survives contact with the enemy.' So more unexpected things would be nice. For example, moving targets like convoys wouldn't always be where the planners think they are, and enemies could also move camp, so more often having differences between the map for the mission and the actual locations of the targets would spice things up. The Russians also twice set up a trap for the F3D where one MiG flew higher up alone and a few more tailed from below. The radar only saw the lone MiG and when the F3D went after the lone MiG, the others would climb up and get behind the US plane. Of course the F3D is not in the game, but perhaps the mission generator could set up such a trap for the player with other planes now and then, if the AI can handle that.

Edited Friday at 01:59 PM by Aapje

[AEthelraedUnraed]

6 hours ago, Aapje said:

In general, I would like the career mission generator to be a little less strict about following a specific template, because 'no plan survives contact with the enemy.' So more unexpected things would be nice. For example, moving targets like convoys wouldn't always be where the planners think they are, and enemies could also move camp, so more often having differences between the map for the mission and the actual locations of the targets would spice things up. The Russian also twice set up a trap for the F3D where one MiG flew higher up alone and a few more tailed from below. The radar only saw the lone MiG and when the F3D went after the lone MiG, the others would climb up and get behind the US plane. Of course the F3D is not in the game, but perhaps the mission generator could set up such a trap for the player with other planes now and then, if the AI can handle that.

Agreed, especially now that the custom radio messages provide a good and immersive way to communicate that to the player and provide pointers.

[Viking1]

Rowan's Mig Alley and its impressive dynamic campaign... 

 

[Avimimus]

The campaign crashed for me back in the day 😞 So I just had the individual missions.

I rather like the bullet impact flashes, and the time skip feature seems a bit more intuitive. I recall people complained a lot about the Mig-15 shrugging off 0.50cal hits.

[HarryM]

Weird that I never had a CTD in MiG Alleys campaign. It had other annoyances such as entire flights of aircraft sent off to bomb something and crashing in hilly terrain. Very limited replacement aircraft. The persistent world damage was great. Fly along a route and buildings strafed and on fire yesterday we're still smoldering ruins today.

[actionhank]

I take it as a campaign that you could actually change from reality. So you could fly as North Korea, and if you or the digital commander can actually manage to successfully push the enemy forces far enough along and destroy enough of their things, you could win the war as North Korea and the campaign would end in a new reality where all of Korea is controlled by North Korea and allied with China and the Soviet Union. Alternatively, you could have the UN/South Korean forces push the North Koreans all the way to the border with China where they would then win control over all of Korea. Another cool alternative would be if it boiled into a stalemate for however long, both sides would just agree to stop the conflict along the existing lines, so you could change the location of the DMZ from what we currently have.

I guess my take is that this differs from a campaign that your past missions affect the campaign (bridges you bomb stay gone, airfields destroyed don't spawn flights, trains hit deny enemies supplies, etc) but it only affects how the things happen in the missions going forward, but doesn't actually change the way the war happens, so eventually you'll still be at a point where things will draw to a standstill at the 38th parallel. 

It could be cool to have it offer different "starting points" like what a lot of Falcon BMS campaigns have. Like one where the South invades first with the UN helping, in an alternate reality where the UN forces started building up their numbers and launched the war with heavy support from the air right at the start, maybe at a later date. Just fun changed starting points that make it fun to replay the campaign and start from different alternate history scenarios. Maybe one where it's only the US and South Korea on defense as the other UN allies are too tired of war to join, or one where North Korea attacks but China stays neutral and the Soviet Union doesn't bring the MiG-15 to the war (that one might be a little boring, but could be a fun challenge for people that want to try and take things on with just North Korea).