Matrix Games Forums

davedashftw wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 9:35 am Visibility, radars, and situational awareness are all way over-modelled.

How would you model and display per-unit SA without confusing the hell out of the average player?

Radar detecting incoming missiles also should be extremely unreliable at best.

How would you model this?

The whole spotting system and situational awareness needs a complete overhaul.

How would you model this?

The game has gotten away with these abstractions for some time, but now that missiles are being made more realistic but situational awareness hasn't, we have this unbalanced situation we see now.

We are open to suggestions. Please explain your better SA, networking and information exchange mechanics. Spare no detail.

Another factor to take into account that have not being said is the aircraft performance. One problem that i see is that when the aircraft turn around to evade the missile it acelerate too fast without take into account his "agility" and other factors as it does in the endgame calculations when the missile reach it.

I have to test it but the aircraft reach their maximum speed too fast and regardless of their loadout which is not realistic and not on par with the new missile model.
An F-16 with A2A loadout plus 2 external tank and medium fuel remaining can not turn around reducing his speed to 400knt and then accelerate to 920knt in 20 seconds. This model does not match with the new missile model and in consequence the missiles seem less lethal.

This is observed in the test where un F-22 launch and 120-c7 from 50000ft at mach 1,7 to an incoming aircraft at 36000ft (by far the best case scenario for a missile). The NEZ here is about 10nm with in my opinion is not realistic, and part of the problem is that the other aircraft turn and run too fast.

Now there are a good model for the missiles (small details are still missing) but the aircraft performance model is overpowered. My suggestion is limit the performance of the aircraft to their calculated agility (this value already exist in the game) thus limiting parameters like maximum speed, acceleration etc...

Regards

This is exactly the hole I predicted would be dug as more detail was added to the air combat modeling. Abstraction dissonance would bring in a crowd of people looking to add one more layer of detail after the devs satisfy the current request for more detail. No level of detail will be good enough. The pursuit of the perfect air combat model continue to consume dev cycles.

And so CMANO gets better and better.
My suggestion is already taken into account by the game now you have to adapt it to this particular case.

Regards

"And so CMANO gets better and better"

A) Its CMO. CMNAO is as far as it is going to go.

B) Where does it stop? It seems like every detail thats added is exposing the next layer that some players focus on.

thewood1 wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 12:20 pm "And so CMANO gets better and better"

A) Its CMO. CMNAO is as far as it is going to go.

B) Where does it stop? It seems like every detail thats added is exposing the next layer that some players focus on.

A) Really?? Now i understand a lot of things.

B) Where the people that make this possible want.

Regards

Just ran a bunch tests on various targets and their ability to detect missile launches against them. I used an F-15 with an AIM-7M. I used the sparrow because a fighter target gets a tight bearing detection at 7-8 nm when the 120 lights up its radar. After that, with IR it gets a detection at 3nm and by eyeball at less than 1 nm.

A mig-29 RWR gets "guidance radar detected" contact on the missile at at 32 nm with only rough bearing. I think the rationalization here is that the F-15s radar is lit up so the 29 knows its there and has some bearing information at a minimum. If the IR is already slewed to the F-15, it sees a missile launch and has a rough track on it. Its about 3 nm before the track is ranged, but no altitude. Eyeball detection is 0.4 nm and it knows altitude. No defensive maneuvering happens until that eyeball detection. The pilot has 1-2 sec at best to evade. The first sparrow usually missed btw. As I tested before, with the Mig radar on, it detects the missile inbound around 12 nm.

A mig-23M with an older radar and no IR fairs no better. At 32 nm, the RWR picks up that a missile has been launched with a very rough missile uncertainty box. The sparrow missed and the Mig-23 never saw it go by. A second run through and the Mig saw the sparrow at 0.3 nm. With radar on, it detects it at 6 nm. Interestingly, as the Mig starts evasion through a notch, it lost sight of the sparrow and never regained. The other thing I noticed is the second missile is still only detected by seeing the F-15's guidance radar spike, but the track is a lot more accurate and the Mig-23 starts evasion immediately by running away. So it kind of remembers or maybe sees the smoke from the motor since the two planes are closer at that point. It easily out runs the missile based on that.

The short of it is that there's a lot more intricacy in detection, tracking, and evading missiles than I thought. Some of this can be altered through ROEs and such, but visual detection doesn't seem that bad (.3 to .4 nm). Maybe the only questions are how easily the IR sensor can be skewed through the RWR and a fighter's radar ability to detect a sparrow-sized object.

I did some less stringent testing of bombers and cargo aircraft. They rarely saw the missile. If they did, it was so close as not mean much. I also test different engagement angles. It looks like anything but a 90-120 FOV to the front means they will not even see the missile coming.

Kobu wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:56 am This is observed in the test where un F-22 launch and 120-c7 from 50000ft at mach 1,7 to an incoming aircraft at 36000ft (by far the best case scenario for a missile). The NEZ here is about 10nm with in my opinion is not realistic, and part of the problem is that the other aircraft turn and run too fast.

Getting too focussed on NEZ. The issue here is how the hell did the target detect the missile?

The AESA on the Raptor didnt tell the targets RWR anything, even if it was seen. The update rate on the AESA (scan) wont change. The PRI wont change. This is the whole point of an AESA doing TWS (Track While Scan). The target should not know it's a target, it should not know where to look. It will have no idea a missile is launched at all at longer ranges. The first is should know about it is when it is 7 to 10 seconds away and goes active... Bit late, IMO, at that point, you are now WHOLLY reliant on your DAS to do it's thing. You certainly should not be notching or dragging on the basis of a missile detection which, IRL, is not happening by the means it does... Bad enough this happens in 1 v 1, but that's a fairly rare thing in most era's. Fighters go round with 'buddies', this makes it all more difficult, who fires what at whom and how do you know if you are the 'lucky recipient'.

Right now in multiple fighter v fighter conflict, your best bet is to AMRAAM wall (or similar), make the bad guys run away. Accept the misses. Rinse and repeat for as long as you have BVR weapons and hope that you have either more missiles than they do OR the window of Air Superiority you have just opened has allowed your missions to succeed (bit like how SEAD works compared to DEAD).

Coming back to the missile detection of radar, I saw this in an article about AAM sizes and RCS.


The only source I can find on it is Air Power Australia, but I'm always skeptical of their info. But it doesn't look like they are the original source.

That means an AESA radar is predicted to detect a AMRAAM-sized missile between 20 and 40 nm. Not sure how accurate that is, but the best I've seen so far from the web.

Dimitris wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 11:11 am

davedashftw wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2023 9:35 am Visibility, radars, and situational awareness are all way over-modelled.

How would you model and display per-unit SA without confusing the hell out of the average player?

Radar detecting incoming missiles also should be extremely unreliable at best.

How would you model this?

The whole spotting system and situational awareness needs a complete overhaul.

How would you model this?

The game has gotten away with these abstractions for some time, but now that missiles are being made more realistic but situational awareness hasn't, we have this unbalanced situation we see now.

We are open to suggestions. Please explain your better SA, networking and information exchange mechanics. Spare no detail.

Speaking from the lack of knowledge of how radar simulation is implemented, and picking up the idea that the question is not at what distance the plane/missile will be detected but whether or not it will be detected, I do not know if it could be feasible to include as a feature of the scenario, one more step to detect a missile, aircraft etc.. A mathematical model that takes the RCS of the aircraft/missile, its stealth capabilities and the most important characteristics of the radar and, that as in the calculation of the weapon endgame, a dice roll is made to decide if the object is detected or not. Or even in a simpler way a unit stealth scale that affects the probability that these units can be detected or not.

Sorry in advance if I said something stupid.

thewood1 wrote: Sat Feb 11, 2023 2:09 pm That means an AESA radar is predicted to detect a AMRAAM-sized missile between 20 and 40 nm. Not sure how accurate that is, but the best I've seen so far from the web.

That chart is theoretical, likely a non contested clean RF environment. (edit.. also just noted nomenclature - it's very old, long time since the F-22A has been referred to as the F/A-22 and the F-35* as JSF).
But it has to be looking at it. If lofted it needs to know it's there... how?
The problem, as best as I can figure, is with the implementation (or not) of vertical scan limits for radars (mech scan) and limitations on dwells/pointing angles for AESA's.
If that AMRAAM is lofted how does it see it at the same time as seeing a sea-skimmer - because in the sim it can, IRL not a chance.
Lofted missiles were supposed to give the firer added advantages, they seem to do no such thing.

Also for a radar that is optimised to defend a location (ship or land location) I am content that the scan modelling does that (within the limits of what can be modelled), but for AI radars I am much less content, after all their job is effectively 'jack of all trades' with the compromises that this type of multi-function brings (cant (IRL) do everything all at once).

So I guess, for an AI radar, I am not saying it can't, I am saying it shouldn't because it is an AI radar and not a missile warning radar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMYxg5K2W7g

Just some perspective on this discussion.

thewood1 wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 12:38 am https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMYxg5K2W7g

Just some perspective on this discussion.

Don't know enough about DCS to know if the models are even comparable. Anybody?

Where I'm skeptical with CMO is where and what systems decide the detected contact is a missile that's a threat which starts the reaction clock. I know most systems are classified and we'll never know, but a generational model would be fine.

M

IMO, DCS does a good job around the players' aircraft. But when you start looking at behavior and fidelity of the AI units and systems, there is a lot of doubt. They have been going through a fairly major project to build out a better AI, but the AI radars and other systems still have a heavy layer of abstraction. In some cases, CMO probably does a better job representing behavior and systems.

It still makes me chuckle a little when anyone comes along and tries to hold DCS up as the source of comparison. They do somethings well, but even Eagle Dynamics people admit there's a lot of issues with AI and lesser modeled systems.

DCS players make a lot of the same comments as CMO players around radars.

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/273559-on ... y-modules/

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/237705-radars-in-dcs/

Note the wishes to be more like CMNAO/CMO. Grass is always greener...

thewood1 wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 5:10 pm DCS players make a lot of the same comments as CMO players around radars.

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/273559-on ... y-modules/

https://forum.dcs.world/topic/237705-radars-in-dcs/

Note the wishes to be more like CMNAO/CMO. Grass is always greener...

Haha! True.

thewood1 wrote: Thu Feb 16, 2023 4:58 pm IMO, DCS does a good job around the players' aircraft. But when you start looking at behavior and fidelity of the AI units and systems, there is a lot of doubt. They have been going through a fairly major project to build out a better AI, but the AI radars and other systems still have a heavy layer of abstraction. In some cases, CMO probably does a better job representing behavior and systems.

It still makes me chuckle a little when anyone comes along and tries to hold DCS up as the source of comparison. They do somethings well, but even Eagle Dynamics people admit there's a lot of issues with AI and lesser modeled systems.

Ok thanks. Good to know if what is being used as a control is really in control

Mike

As someone who came over from the Strike Fighters 2 community a few years ago (don't think I've played SF2 since buying CMO), it's great to actually have a game that's updated regularly. While the odd CMO Beta release occasionally introduces a new bug, it's usually patched within days (if not hours) whereas most SF2 updates somehow broke the game more. In the end, the only reason SF2 lasted as long as it did was due to the outstanding modding community and having the ability to bridge the gap between hard-core flight sims and arcade games like Ace Combat, sitting in the sim-lite area.

From what I remember about that game, it was mostly designed around 1950-80s combat, so AHM were very difficult to deal with. The only time you might get an indication of being targeted by a AHM or IR missile was a call from your AI wingman telling you you'd been fired upon (with red subtitles, as opposed to white for other friendly aircraft, and yellow for other members of your squadron). Your RWR was useful against SAHMs but the game didn't model MAWS or anything more advanced than a directional RWR with some fairly general range rings.

Most of my DCS experience has come from watching Growling Sidewinder YouTube videos, which although are entertaining, don't seem massively realistic. As others have stated on here, their weapons modelling requires work even if their aircraft performance models are more comprehensive than CMO.

If you want to bathe in the real negative vibes on DCS, read this...

https://flyandwire.com/2022/12/06/thoug ... ombat-sim/

I haven't played DCS regularly in 5-6 years. The add on planes became too expensive and the enemy and same-side AI was horrendous. But I still follow it on various forums. To me, DCS has become a button-pushing simulator. Great if that's what you want. I used to play DCS to set up missions and follow their execution. Since CMNAO/CMO came out, I have never opened the DCS mission builder. CMO so outclasses it in that respect. The devs have put immense effort into developing the AI and giving designers the tools they need. Unless you are really looking for great 3D visuals, PvP competition, or button porn, CMO might give a better view of simulated combat.

One of the things in that article was that this guy had a lot of complaints about DCS that we see pop up here. A great example is attacking aircraft egressing over and through SAM sites/zones with no way to control them. I had flashbacks.

I don't have data, but when my F-22s are being shot down by J-8s, I have to wonder if there is maybe, just MAYBE, a problem with the simulation?