Air combat rework

[ckfinite]

In my opinion, the chaff issue is the primary one to think about now. Chaff has gotten less effective recently thanks to ubiquitous TMA and related filtering software in advanced missiles, so it would seem to be reasonable for, say, early 2000's onwards seekers to have a lower probability of being spoofed by the chaff dispenser.

[Dimitris]

Many chaff & seeker tech gen tweaks in Build 524.

[Dragunov]

I bought this game because i am interested in realism. But i loose interest in it if my good sense says that something is not accurate. Four Tomcats with 16 Phoenix, 8 Sparrows and 8 Sidewinders vs. 12 Tu-22M3 and sometimes only 1 or 2 Bombers will be shot down (randomness is too high). The problem with air combat is so huge that i thought a log file is not needed.



"The OP is becoming conspicuous, and suspect, with his absence."

I dont understand your problem. Can you imagine that some people also have other interests?

[ComDev]

Hi Dragunov, please try again with B524 once its official [8D]

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

[Dragunov]

Thank you.

I look forward to the new version.

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: Dragunov

I bought this game because i am interested in realism. But i loose interest in it if my good sense says that something is not accurate. Four Tomcats with 16 Phoenix, 8 Sparrows and 8 Sidewinders vs. 12 Tu-22M3 and sometimes only 1 or 2 Bombers will be shot down (randomness is too high). The problem with air combat is so huge that i thought a log file is not needed.

That is fine but details help us get to the fix a little quicker. Its up to you if you want to help that way or not.

"The OP is becoming conspicuous, and suspect, with his absence."

I dont understand your problem. Can you imagine that some people also have other interests?

I hope that our customers do but what we're here for is exactly one[;)]

It is important to us to respond and actively engage customers who have legitimate issues with our product and want to help us improve it. So when we respond and don't hear back it is very disappointing as we view it as a missed opportunity for all. In retrospect we probably should have worded that way.

[:)]

Mike

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: Dragunov

Thank you.

I look forward to the new version.

Me too[8D]

[JS]

Reading this thread made me remember this very interresting article, where Command is used to simulate an engagement between some F-22s and Japanese F-15s and a bunch of Chinese fighters. Without any logged details, it's of course impossible to say exactly what happened, but it seems that the AA missiles were perhaps unrealistically ineffective, including the opening salvo of 6 Amraams from the F-22s (2 each at 3 targets) which all missed.

Unfortunately, I couldn't post a link for some reason, so if you want to read the article, add https at the beginning of the line below to get the complete link:
://medium.com/war-is-boring/e52ee5f73616

[mikmykWS]

Here is the article.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/e52ee5f73616

It doesn't read as a criticism of our game at all although he does question the amraam engagement here:

Incredibly, all six of the AMRAAMs in the first U.S. volley miss their targets. Two of the four missiles in the second volley hit, leaving the Chinese with three fighters. The Americans quickly re-target the Chinese with their last two AMRAAMs and a J-10 fighter goes down in flames.

Lot of reasons that could of happened and we invite all of you to game it out and tell us what you think. This is what matters to us.

Finally, to be fair War is Boring thought we were one of the top 5 war games last year.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/3d188a597e47


Mike

[JS]

Absolutely, the article is not criticism, it's rather a testament to the quality of Command, showing that it is extremely useful as a tool for simulating and discussing potential combat scenarios. Like I wrote, I just posted it because reading this thread made me remember the authors surprise that all those Amraams missed their targets, but I also noted, like you, that without more detailed information, there is no way to know the reasons why that happened. It could have been just bad luck.

Also, I wanted to mention the article here, as I'm sure most people reading this thread have an interest in air combat, and will therefore certainly find it very interresting.

[thewood1]

IIRC, it started a minor debate in that thread about the effectiveness of BVR AAM missile engagements and how they play out in real life. The short of it is that even the experts are overly optimistic in how effective those engagements really are. All the documentation presented had a pretty poor showing for BVR. It was either that thread of one similar to it.

btw, all the articles and books on the Iran-Iraq war state that almost all the Phoenix kills were against unsuspecting/unaware aircraft.

[Tomcat84]

ORIGINAL: thewood1
btw, all the articles and books on the Iran-Iraq war state that almost all the Phoenix kills were against unsuspecting/unaware aircraft.

problem with that in Command is an aircraft is never really unaware when countering a missile, it always gets the agility bonus

But we've discussed it at length already and I think the devs are aware of some of the limitations and in time it will improve. But improvement takes time so we will have to be patient

[mikmykWS]

UAV's are not aware so they don't get agility bonuses in our game.

4:06:49 PM - Weapon: AIM-120D AMRAAM P3I.4 #3 is attacking RQ-1B Predator UAV with a base PH of 95%. PH adjusted for distance: 88%. Final PH: 88%. Die Roll: 20 - HIT

Human piloted aircraft do get agility bonuses regardless. We'll take a look but as always player validation and reporting does help.

Thanks!

Mike

[Tomcat84]

ORIGINAL: mikmyk
UAV's are not aware so they don't get agility bonuses in our game.

I dont consider them aircraft [:D]


actually i wasnt aware of it, nice

but i do hate UAVs [:@]

[mikmykWS]

LOL. Can't imagine why. [:)]

[dillonkbase]

The global hawk has that towed decoy system... so it must be aware somehow? What about a UCAV?

I know a Shadow 200 would be totally unaware, also the 50 mile sensor range is a little optimistic... but if somebody fires an aam at one they are burning money. AS for the sensor modeling on UAVs how do you guys deal with the limited field of vision for UAV, I mean with my mk1 I can skan a whole room in a second but a UAV camera would be much slower...

[mikmykWS]

ORIGINAL: dillonkbase

The global hawk has that towed decoy system... so it must be aware somehow? What about a UCAV?

10:48:01 PM - Weapon: AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM P3I.3 #3 is attacking RQ-4B Global Hawk Blk 40 UAV with a base PH of 95%. Final PH: 95%. Die Roll: 66 - HIT
10:48:01 PM - Decoy (AN/ALE-50; Tech: Late 1990s) from RQ-4B Global Hawk Blk 40 UAV is attempting to seduce sensor: Active Radar Seeker (Tech: Late 2000s)(Guiding weapon: AIM-120C-7 AMRAAM P3I.3 #3). Final probability: 20%. Die Roll: 50 - FAILURE

So not agility bonus but got the bonus for having the decoy.

Once UAV's seem to have more advanced abilities to evade we'd probably just restore the agility bonus.

I know a Shadow 200 would be totally unaware, also the 50 mile sensor range is a little optimistic... but if somebody fires an aam at one they are burning money. AS for the sensor modeling on UAVs how do you guys deal with the limited field of vision for UAV, I mean with my mk1 I can skan a whole room in a second but a UAV camera would be much slower...

Right now we do consider arcs although it honestly depends on how much data we have on the sensor.. How should we?

[Dimitris]

ORIGINAL: dillonkbase

The global hawk has that towed decoy system... so it must be aware somehow? What about a UCAV?

I know a Shadow 200 would be totally unaware, also the 50 mile sensor range is a little optimistic... but if somebody fires an aam at one they are burning money. AS for the sensor modeling on UAVs how do you guys deal with the limited field of vision for UAV, I mean with my mk1 I can skan a whole room in a second but a UAV camera would be much slower...

1. 50nm is the max range for visual sensors because that's how far, on a good day, you can spot the wake of a carrier at flank or the contrail of a large aircraft. Doesn't mean you'll regularly pick out ant hives at this distance.

2. For narrow FOV there are two techniques. Make the sensor have limited detection range but long classification range (e.g. TCS on F-14), and/or give the sensor a long scan interval value so it takes forever to make a surveillance scan.

[VFA41_Lion]

Does the Mk1 eyeball sensor range scale with horizon block and weather/climate?

[Dimitris]

Yes.