Matrix Games Forums

Hi guys,

i own this game for quite some time now and am enjoying it very much. Being relatively inexperienced player and a military strategy noob, I am having a few things I find difficult to do in the game or difficult to understand. I post them in this new thread as concerns and/or ideas because they might be solved already (am I doing something wrong) or contribute to the continuous improvement of this already great game and its incredible support.

The points are written from the context that I typically play future scenarios and my comments involve the F35 a lot because I have been playing and experimenting with the carribean dutch scenario 2021 a lot (which is awesome btw).

1). AC speeds. I don't understand how speeds work in the game for different types of planes. For example, in the scenario I play a lot, the F35s battle with the SU35. Obviously, the SU-35s are capable of much higher speeds (mach 2.25 vs mach 1.x), but for some reason, the speed is always limited to ~950 knots. This way, it is easy for the F35s to move away from an area when a SU35 is approaching, because they run similar speeds. Why is that? Am I doing something wrong or is this realistic? The SU35's don't utilize this advantage which should be there?

2). Electronic Warfare. This is also a subject I don't understand and I am sure I do not use this as much as would be the case in real life. Perhaps I am doing stuff wrong.. For ships, it's relatively easy. You switch on the OECM, it becomes labelled 'JAM' and you jam all opponents in range. For AC such as the growler, it is not clear to me what the effect of this jamming is (effective range, beam limitations, etc.). Is there a range indicator (such as with AA weapons) that shows the effective area of OECM? This would be a tremendous help in positioning AC to cover attacks... Another alternative would be the option to plot OECM vectors like targeting vectors...
Also, the F35 is fabled to be great at OECM. Why is it that the word 'JAM' doesn't become visible when i mark OECM? Do these planes lack the utility in the game? Is this not (yet) modelled? Or is the aircraft simply not capable of it without additional pods?
And last, what I would like to have is an 'electronic attack' option under shift-F1 to target specific planes/installations with OECM so that the AC aligns itself and maneuvers to remain aligned for OECM. I guess OECM could actually be used to destroy or disable enemy equipment? A dedicated shift-F1 attack would be great for this?

Thanks for your patience with a noob and any comments or tips would be more than welcome!

Erik

Firstly, its important to know that this is a true "simulation". That is, although it aspires to as much realism as possible, it isn't practical to make it a direct 1-to-1 comparison to reality, this would require immense computing power (on the order of industrial supercomuting), even with this simulation the hardware in your computer puts a hard limit on the complexity of the scenarios you can run - though you can achieve quite a lot.

So...

1) There are a LOT of different aircraft in the world and having accurate models of each ones engine performance would be very difficult to maintain accurately, either becuase of classified information, or because of the sheer number of platforms. It would probably also add to the complexity of calculations and slow the sim down, as alluded to above.

So a simplified engine model is used where the majority (not all) of aircraft have similar speed capabilities, and variability is contained within their fuel consumption under various conditions. In this way it is much easier to build a *broadly* accurate comparison between planes, even if some individual properties suffer.
There are also more real-world reasons. For example, whilst a plane may have a theoretical capability to reach Mach 2.25 at a certain altitude and another only able to reach Mach 2, in real life neither would ever attempt to reach this speed, for any number of reason from reasonable fuel consumption, to service life of engine parts, stress on the airframe etc. etc.

If an aircraft does have a high speed dash capability, for dogfighting, avoiding missiles etc. this can be represented in its agility value, a hidden property that is applied in these situations.
Some aircraft are specifically built to take advantage of their high speed, eg: MiG31 Foxbat, and these do get a higher speed setting.

Similar logic is used for altitude capabilities as well.

So whilst a Su35 may theoretically be able to rach a higher speed than the F35, the fueld consumption at that speed would mean he could still only catch him if he was not too far away (drag increases with the SQUARE of velocity, so a bit more speed = a lot more drag).

Howver, at the standard 950kn max speed, the Su35 may be given, for example, better endurance at that speed meaning that you can still chase him down, but you will still have a hard time catching him if he has a lot of fuel.

In conclusion, there are trade-offs when building a sim, it is more practical to go for broad realism than 1-to-1 and the disadvantages can be dealt with in different ways. In this way, even though aircraft speeds are somewhat standardised, you can still build a realistic picture.



2)ECM
OECM and DECM are treated differently. DECM (Defensive ECM) represents those jammers that aircraft carry for self defence, such as those carried by the F35, super hornet etc. etc.

As you know ECM is terribly good at announcing your presence to the enemy, so for the vast majority of time, DECM jammers are kept off, if they do transmit, it is only momentarily, when a search radar sweeps over them, or if your systems determine that a missile has locked onto you (these are points where you are already detected/would be detected anyway).

In-sim, DECM operates automatically and cannot be manually activated/deactivated and affects things like hit probability and possibly probability-of-detection-at-certain-ranges (although Im not totally sure about that one). If you turn on weapon endgame calculations in the message log options, you will see the calculations that are used, you might see something that says "xxx jammer is attempting to spoof missile, 25% chance of success, roll:37 FAIL" or something like that.

So don't worry, you do get the benefit of onboard self-defence jammers.

For offensive ECM (OECM), these simulate those high-power jammers that seek to blind or confuse enemy radars. These very much give away your presence. For example, if the enemy has a jammer aircraft accompanying a strike group, you will detect them on your radar but you will have very large areas-of-uncertainty, specifically with range, so you get big, directional "spike"-like contacts on your screen so you know there are aircraft there but not exactly where and you cannot target them.

OECM effectiveness is also dependant on range, that is, when they get close enough to you, the contacts will resolve more and more until eventually you get full contacts at a certain range. This is called "burn through" and in reality is the range at which the strength of your radar return is now stronger than the jamming signal.

When you use them yourself, you should notice that the enemy cant seem to locate you as easily, aslo when they do engage you, OECM is very effective at reducing their missile hit chance, many missiles will fail half-way if you have a good jammer.

OECM aircraft only jam on a narrow bearing, between the jammer and the observing radar, and will only effectively protect aircraft who are on a similar bearing. You can keep the jammer with your strike group and they will be protected, but you dont have to, as long as the strike group remains in the same bearing "shadow". For example, keeping a jammer between an enemy radar and your strike group, or vice versa, with the strike group closing and the jammer standing off, will hide the strike group.
If ou have the jammer to the west of a radar and the strike group approaches from the south, they will not be covered and will be more easily detected.

Think of it like shining a vey bright torch in their eyes.

Jamming can be very effective, for example, have a jammer accompanying an anti-sam-site strike and the jammer can prevent the SAM site from shooting down the anti-radiation missiles fired at it.

On aircraft speeds, here is our (the game designers) take:

http://www.warfaresims.com/?page_id=2920#624

Great answers guys!

Especially your comments on the speed are much more clear now! Also thanks for the link emsoy, there was much more useful information on there!

I'll invest a bit more time in OECM and DECM to build my knowledge on the subject. I guess my own knowledge for now limits my use of in-game units!

Thanks!


Erik

If I were you, I would focus on knowing mission planning, ROE and unit options, and zones. Those three combines allow you to automate probably 95% of any thing you do as a player.

Getting hung up on individual unit performance and the detailed stuff can be saved after you can run a scenario with minimal detailed intervention.

For the speed limit, if the argument is totally legit between planes with similar characteristics, like an F15 and a SU27, some other may end overrated.
Let's take the example of the F35 and the SU35.

F35 max speed is mach 1.6 and SU35 max speed is mach 2, but the F35 ingame can reach its theorical max speed while the SU35 can't. The hierarchy between planes isn't respected. Without modelling all the dynamic caracteristic of each planes, some main categories could be set. If the SU35 won't go up to its max speed, for the same reasons, the F35 should not reach its max speed of mach 1.6. It should be in the next category and have a max speed from mach 1.2 to mach 1.4 ingame. The standardisation of values shouldn't give the F35 an agility of 5 and 1.6 max speed, since it's erasing one of the main flaw of the plane, it should get in another dynamic category such as 4 agility mach 1.3, etc.

My take on the point of max speed is that the acceleration to get to that speed, combined with fuel consumption to get to and maintain that speed, along with physical airframe stress makes 1.6M vs. 2.2M a moot point.

I don't know the physics behind the SU35's acceleration curve, but it seems a rational explanation. I know some real pilots agreed last time it was discussed.

That's the thing... the Mach 1.6 limitation for F-35 isn't really a limitation, simply because combat aircraft don't normally go beyond that speed operationally [8D]

As such it makes perfect sense that the F-35 and Su-35 have similar if not identical maximum operational speeds. So please note we are _NOT_ 'standardizing' speeds, we use practical limitations.

The F/A-18 had a Mach 1.8 max speed and that was never a problem operationally. Why? [;)]

Likewise, the F-14B/D had a max speed of Mach 1.9 or thereabout, ca Mach 0.4 less than the F-14A. And no-one ever noticed. Why? [;)]

If aircraft were actually operating in the Mach 1.6 - 2.5 speed range there would be a ton of writing about the F/A-18s top speed limitation. But there isn't. Because they don't.

Supercruise, on the other hand, Mach 1.0 - 1.3, is a pretty hot topic because that's where the aircraft actually _DO_ operate [:D]

Just a note, drag at Mach 2 is approximately double that of Mach 1.6, with a similar effect on fuel consumption and airframe/component stress/heating.

Max speed of a combat aircraft is more relevant to thrust/weight ratio and excess thrust than raw velocity.

I don't know, I havn't tested it, but how do the acceleration rates and speed lost in the turn compare between the two in-sim?

Also if you are wondering about the effects of your OECM, you could also try opening the scenario in the scenario editor and switch sides to the enemy to see what he sees from your jamming, make sense?