homepage Forums Air Combat & Civil Aviation DCS World DCS: Combined Arms Human IADS

Considering the recent sale on DCS: CA, my interest is mostly in operating a smallish (5-25 units) force of air defense in the multiplayer arena. First I'm curious how much control one can have over AD units from the "map screen" in terms of radar use, engaging targets selectively, ignoring targets, etc.

You can set alarm state (radar usage) and ROE.

By switching both items you can get 3 different behaviors out of ai.
1. Radar Off
2. Radar On and searching
3. Radar On and tracking

The AI will still engage when they want to engage providing ROE is set to weapons free, and I believe aircraft will be revealed by Fog of War if the radar can detect them. But yes, if you have several small sams with radar off and a single EWR acting as the main radar dish, you can change the small sams ROE to weapons free and have them engage unsuspecting players.

One concern I just saw is that the state change time is long. Going to a shooting state from a silent state can take 3-5 minutes. That's waaaay too long to be practical. From a road march to fully set up, yes, it's going to be a long time. But radar inhibit to radar on? That should be a few seconds at most.

Also, how does one BUY combined arms. I can't find it on the ED shop page.

interesting - it's missing from the eshop as a item to select "add to cart"....

the download module is there (which I am sure you are aware of)

EDIT: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1705531#post1705531

I looked at the page source code, it's item #22 (FC3 is #26). I even tried to make up my own HTML to make a button that would add that item to the basket but no luck. Thanks for checking on it.

So far the armor/jtac/air mission offline play... not impressed. TOW's wonky, Russian uber-superiority, flying AI is suicidal, no control over artillery really (smoke? TOT? number rounds?), UI fails on my resolution (mashed in a corner), can't get into reverse often, no micro AI for engagement (shoot-scoot or pop up), telepathic hive mind AI, explosion fx buggy, can't actually JTAC for AI planes, suicide missions, unreal loadout, 12 Mavericks 2 targets. You can even click on the enemy units and see their targeting orders... ME features bleeding through where they shouldn't

The raw potential is displayed but as something you can actually play and enjoy? Nope.

So far I've only been using CA when playing JTAC/gamemaster to provide a bit more dynamic in MP games. It's all still very basic, with pathing often a pain in the a$$...