TBD Server – Spectrum Development – Part 1

So, I’m sure plenty of people have joined a few of the main persistent DCS Servers and really enjoyed what people have managed to create. There’s been some really impressive servers, that I won’t list in case I miss one. However, if there is one thing I’ve seen over and over again is the repetition of the same processes and something missing. It’s rarely feels coordinated or planned out battle space. I think it is in the mind of the creator and admins but when it hits the server the best of intentions can be thwarted. There’s rarely any nuance or ability to respond to on-going events. The same convoy rolls down the same road. A captured airfield gets the same response, in the same order. Every time.

Well, I’d had that feeling. We’ve been hosting Foothold missions on the TBD server. They’re really incredible. The amount of work that has gone into developing that system is impressive. We’ve really enjoyed them and they’ve finally given us our own persistent campaign that requires minimal management. This isn’t to knock the development that’s gone into such systems, but I wanted more.

So, we’ve flown a couple of Foothold campaigns now, Syria, Georgia, Marianas, Kola and now we’re on to the Persian Gulf. We have really enjoyed what they’ve allowed us to do, the cooperative gameplay, the persistence of the missions. However, we found that there is a pattern to actions and reactions. This is to be expected. It’s a scripted system. This led me to wonder if there was another way. An unscripted way. I wondered whether I could move vehicles or assets from another system on my network. I researched how to link into DCS Server in such a way, without the likes of Olympus and discovered that there may be a way. 

I’m not a coder, I have little experience of lua, python or anything else. I’ve worked on Skynet scripts as part of missions for the server, and dabbled with MOOSE Framework. I’ve always appreciated what they can bring to a mission. I wanted that but with more and unscripted. I didn’t want patterns, I didn’t want predictable. I wondered what I could do to get a vehicle to move from another machine.

Well, back in March, I set out to do just that. I felt confident I’d get nowhere with this…then the solitary tank that I’d placed in the Mission Editor moved from a command in the terminal on my Mac. Well…this quickly got out of hand. What else could I do? Could I spawn aircraft? Can I order them to carry out missions? What could I do to make missions entirely dynamic and replayable? Something that I could develop and give some personality to.

Spectrum was born.