WobblyFlops

The modules themselves range from good to almost perfect but they are held back by tech debt and engine limitations, a very limited core game and a questionable business model. It's an excellent cockpit simulator but as a combat game the core itself makes the experience very often less than ideal. Most of these issues are well known and I'm sure ED would love to fix them as much as we would but since the business model incentivizes making more modules, the core upgrades roll in at a snail's pace. The most pressing issues are the terrible AI, lack of proper multicore support, simplified damage models, lack of dynamic campaign, ATC and a mission planner-DTC functionality. There are a lot of things they can improve (sensor simulation in the core engine, weather to name a few) but as long as the AI is so limited and the engine can't handle more complex mission setups on large servers all the other changes will have a somewhat limited impact. For example, a dynamic campaign would be great and it surely sounds promising but how well would it function with the AI being as it is? Even in Liberation the things they do will frustrate you to no end.

No idea why people are actively against making the sim more realistic. The idea that it would be a factor makes sense (fogging, icing, different ECS modes are definitely something that are relevant to high performance jets) so someone assuming that it would be the same for the Apache makes sense from a logical point of view. Now, SMEs are required to explain why it may not be a factor in reality, but anything that makes the experience closer to the real operation of the aircraft is a welcome addition. If defogging is only an issue during the startup, model that. If the downwash keeps the canopy clean even in bad weather the game should reflect that. Sims exist to replicate the operation of an aircraft as accurately to reality as possible, which is constrained by OPSEC/lack of available data and technical limitations. Not sure why there's this resistance against adding functions to supposedly high fidelity modules that aren't an issue whatsoever. In fact, these mundane and innocent aspects are the ones where the developers can really go in depth modelling interactions, limitations and quirks. How can they make it both as realistic as possible while simultaneously making it fun for the ***thunder refugees?

Unfortunately the current behaviour and lack of implemented nuances make the aircraft much more annoying to operate than reality. Mo's workflow and the way it's done in the real jet sounds like being on par with the Viper, but since many of those minor aspects are missing, people are forced to adapt a very peculiar workflow, like the one describe in the video. I don't disagree that what the team has managed to achieve with the Hornet so far is incredible and all the major pieces are there (and if you're willing to adapt to a more cumbersome way of operating it, it will be effective), but the smaller inconsistencies and things that are left to do add up fairly quickly. And without properly implemented MSI the workflow is even further removed from the one described by Mo. I believe this is the main reason why people who are less knowledgable about the Hornet say that it's HOTAS/pvi is trash or that it has a terrible system integration. When all those final things fall into place the Hornet will be just as nice to operate as the Viper.

All right, that's a fair point, thank you for the correction. I see where you're coming from but at this point it's blatantly obvious that ED have overstretched themselves and they need to sell new modules to fund the development of old modules. And if the even older modules aren't expected to make too much money anymore, spending resources on fixing them would just simply burn through resources faster. I'm willing to bet that ED would love to deliver that quality that people expect but we have to consider two things: 1.) In the last 2-4 years the community has transformed a lot. Newcomers aren't interested in having every system simulated, they definitely aren't interested in having to deal with modelled deficiencies or drawbacks and they get very angry whenever something changes. This whole simcade, air quake crowd became interested in DCS because for modern jets, there are very few offerings out there and some of them are objectively terrible. And this is why the vast majority of people actually like when systems are being left out. Less time spend learning, less complexity and they are happy to shoot tanks or plink each other off of the sky on some Air Quake server. 2.) ED have a ton of different modules and the core game to manage. After the pretty sim released, they were forced to address some deficiencies in the weather system, with VR becoming more popular and in general better and better they are expected to work on performance and with the addition of popular helicopter modules and a very COIN focused era, they are expected to deal with ground AI issues, add in new AI assets (like the technicals) all the while supporting 3 high fidelity, flagship modules. It's understandable that they are running out of resources to deal with everything.

This is how it should work based on available sources: QTY release should allow you to drop 4 JDAMs in a single pickle. The current behaviour and entire JDAM implementation is fundamentally wrong. In reality, you should be able to pass the coordinates to specific weapons. Each JDAM that you have on the aircraft can have 8 stored coordinates at the same time, 6 PP and 2 TOO. The reason why this makes sense (to upload the same target to different weapons) is that if you need to destroy 4 targets, two of which are high priority but one JDAM doesn't work, you can change the target of another JDAM from a lower priority (PP 5 for example) to a higher priority (PP 2). The targets and thus the coordinates should be independent of one another in PP mode. In TOO mode, if you have QTY selected then every station boxed gets the same target coordinate (so you shouldn't do that!) but if you have no QTY selected then the priority station gets the TOO coordinate for the selected mission. (TOO 1 or 2) If the designation is slewed is slewed or automatically updated in any way, the JDAM gets the new coordinates. If you undesignate, the last stored coordinates will be saved for that TOO mission for the selected weapon. The other gotcha moment is that if you have a new designation but you go back a JDAM mission which has previously designated coordinates, the new ones will automatically overwrite the old ones. You can use radar, HUD, JHMCS, TGP or waypoint to designate a TOO target but if the TGP gets slaved to that target, you castle into it and slew it around, the TGP will become the coordinate source for the selected JDAM-selected mission. (This is critical because the elevation will change from stored to sensed if you slew around, the latter being more accurate.) QTY release should be available for both TOO and PP, it allows you to release 4 JDAMs of the same type and fuze configuration in a 8-2-7-3 sequence with a fixed minimum 300 ms interval between releases. So realistically speaking, you should be able to step through all missions with a designate-undesignate workflow, populating each JDAM with 2 different targets. These targets are stored for later use. Then you undesignate (very important) and you can select which station you want to release from and which of the two TOO targets you want to use for each JDAM. Now tactically this may not necessarily be all that relevant (if you have fixed targets you will know coordinates in advance anyway in 99% of the time, moving targets are obviously out of the question. However: If my sources are correct, TOO wasn't even authorized for the time frame we're talking about for Charlie Hornets, so this interaction with deleting the previous designation may actually simulate some kind of software problem or issue that was present in the real jet at that time frame that SMEs talked about, and the documentation only describes the intended behaviour. Regardless, once we get an actual DTC-JMPS PP missions will be much less cumbersome.

Is that even planned? Isn't that added in a newer tape?

The upcoming TAD functions are much more important imo. I'm obviously not against the new radio but honestly, why is it that important? In terms of gameplay it really won't give any appreciable benefits but the missing TAD functions will have huge effects, even if we only get the same functionality for preplanned threats as the Hornet and the VIper that will still be a game changer.

I imagine that they have 3rd artists, modellers, sound designers, people who deal with the legal hurdles, interpreting and acquiring the documentation and so on that have to be shuffled to new and upcoming modules. Most if not all of the visual and sound related stuff is already done with the flagship modules so moving these people over to the upcoming ones would definitely make sense. The likely tease is going to be something that's already confirmed or sort of hinted at. We know about the Mig-29, the BS3 and the Me-262, as for rumors there's another unannounced helo and a very likely Hellcat. Since there are two high profile helos coming in 2022, I doubt they'd tease yet another one. WW2 modules don't generate that much hype, so I think a Mig-29 is the most likely candidate. We know that the F-4 is not coming from ED and from Cobra's statements it's incredibly likely that HB will be the one making it. As for secret upcoming modules, the most interesting one is the next HB release, which is pointing towards a 2022 release. Either it's something simple, like a WW2 aircraft (I'd love to see HB take a crack at something like a multi crew WW2 night fighter for example) or perhaps a Draken. The AI Draken was rumored years ago, so it makes sense that they may be further along with the project than expected. I don't think that an F-14(U)B is very likely and an F-14D is known to be impossible.

What makes you think they will implement them? Bignewy very often clearly emphasizes that the Roadmap is just plan. They can decide at any time to leave it as it is and stop all development regarding new features and still would be legally in the clear. Considering that we don't have any kind of updates, answers or any reaction about a plethora of missing features, it's safe to assume that the Hornet is in maintance mode. It has made the vast majority of the profit it is ever expected to make in its life cycle so spending more resources on further functions is likely not deemed to be cost effective. Bugfixes and general maintenance can be expected until it leaves EA for sure but I don't expect any new features at this point outside of ACLS.

There is some data that indicates this behaviour may be due to simplified implementation. There may be a workaround to keep the designation and still slew but I haven't seen ED ever address these issues.

Glad to have helped, Spiceman's videos are fascinating and very informative. CVW-11 is one of the best DCS channels and every single video they have uploaded is incredibly high quality, they would deserve a lot more subs and views. In my experience a lot of great DCS content creators are kind of obscure or not that well known by the community.

Was it this video?

As far as I know, everything that's mission critical legally has to be loaded and set up on the ground, so stuff like target point coordinates, JDAM PP data, laser codes all have to be set prior to takeoff. Sources indicate heavy preference to using DTC whenever possible, you can manually load virtually anything in the Hornet, including things like JDAM/GPS crypto for example but for obvious reasons it isn't recommended. As for in DCS, I feel like the more stuff you set up on the ground, the easier your life will be. When you're flying you should focus your attention on staying in formation, clearing six and maintaining proper SA. Anything that requires you to go heads down for extended periods of time to fiddle with settings or profiles is obviously not ideal. You have plenty of stuff to check and monitor anyway so do anything you can to make your life easier.

The behaviour you're describing only applies to old radars with analog receivers back in the days when there wasn't enough computing power to do fancy stuff that is possible today. For example, modern radars with a digital receiver and monopulse processing don't have to completely notch out the main beam and zero doppler frequencies, they can set thresholds above the predicted ground return and if a return exceeds those thresholds, they can display it. So if the target is close and has a high enough RCS, they can show up even in the notch.

The difference is that ground stabilization is using some kind of pixel magic and the camera focuses on a specific point on the ground visually while space stabilization keeps them stabilized inertially to a point in space that the system calculated. Ground stab is never used by real Hog pilots. Picture the following: the target is masked behind a large mountain. Ground stab would focus on the mountain itself that is blocking the target, space stab focuses on the actual position of the target in space, so esentially it keeps the seeker at the correct point. Kind of like the INR mode of targeting pods.

As always, the answer is it depends. Modern radars and missiles do ignore chaff and ground clutter to some degree and the techniques employed have been described above to some degree. (Chaff is implemented inaccurately anyway so it doesn't even matter in this discussion). The main purpose of implementing a proper simulation of SNR is to get rid of the extremely simplistic and static notch margin and behaviour and make it dependent on factors that would influence it, such as RCS, ground clutter, PRF and the different filtering and proccessing employed by the seeker. Look down performance against a notching Mig-21 in a mountainous area should be very different than the same against an Su-27 flying above water. If SNR indeed got implemented all these factors should influence the effectiveness of the notch. Do you honestly believe that an Aim-120 would be defeated that easily in the real world? Even if we discount the highly unrealistic RWRs in DCS that make notching a lot more reliable than in real life, do you think that without any regard for the circumstances, flying a bit below the missile or turning cold at extremely close ranges would beat it? If modern missiles were that useless would it make sense to treat them as the primary weapon for achieving air supremacy? Real life TTPs base the timeline and the entire approach to BVR combat around defeating missiles kinematically. If a skilled pilot would be virtually immune to Fox 3s, why wouldn't real pilots do the same thing as in DCS, namely notch, close in and try to win a WVR fight? Then of course there are anecdotal statements, which are just that; anecdotes. If you read Tailhook's comments on reddit you may see him talking about how better real life missiles are than any game depicts them. You can see Klarsnow and other Strike Eagle WSOs make off handed comments on Discords about how notching an AMRAAM with its MPRF seeker active is virtually impossible and even if you do notch it somehow, you can't notch the radar and the missile at the same time and even in that situation it can get datalinked close enough to a proximity hit. Ultimately a lot of things are implemented inaccurately in DCS that makes the problem worse: -Radars are highly simplified (no real PRF simulation, static notch threshold, RCS being static, etc.) -RWRs are much more reliable -Notching is way too effective -There are a lot of weird bugs in the netcode and the missile autopilot logic itself (competitive PVPers can abuse that unless its specifically banned, like the high AoA 'abuse') If you consider this and add in the inherent qualities of it being a video game (as a game you can test actual performance a lot easier than it would be possible in real life, you can have essentially a perfect understanding of your own capabilities and the capabilities of your opponent, you don't fear death, scenarios are inherently unrealistic for the most part, you have an high amount of incompetent or beginner players who don't know what they're doing and are essentially target drones online etc.) you'll see why tactics that work in DCS in a competitive setting are absolutely and completely different than real life TTPs. It's a well known thing that in DCS Fox 3s stop being an actual threat and become a nuisance at the highest levels of play, which incentivizes "fun" dogfights. Since Nick Grey talked about how much he appreciates the "gladiatorial" nature of close combat and him being a WW2 afficionado and how big and vocal the anti BVR playerbase is, it'd make sense for ED to purposefully gimp missiles to cater to these huge audiences. People who take air to ari combat simming seriously play something else anyway.

This boils down to the age old debate when it comes to working around the simplifications and inaccuracies in DCS. Do you use the real life technique knowing that it's realistic, or do you use an in game technique that's highly unrealistic but much more effective? Obviously it's not that extreme but generally, to be truly effective in a metagamed scenario in DCS, you can easily abuse the AI, abuse the fact that you can get much more data on threats and countermeasures effectiveness than real pilots, and you have a fairly primitive netcode/technical simulation side of things where highly nonsensical things tend to happen. (Like the AI tracking you through a mountain and opening fire immediately when you pop up, or laser accurate BMP-s hunting helos with impunity, better than an SA-19) So, if you know that a realistic technique is suboptimal you have to make a choice; do you still use a realistic way of employment and accept that in game, you're at a disadvantage compared to competitive metagamers or do you metagame yourself? Obviously these differences in this topic aren't as extreme as the ones in air to air engagements (no one uses realistic timelines and competitive 'BVR' in DCS has absolutely nothing to do with reality, you have to set up specific constraints to simulate real tactics instead of abusing netcode and the in game missile guidance logic for example) but ultimately it boils down to your preferance. Obviously this is a complex topic, there are a lot of things that aren't publically available, so making your own TTPs based on a lot of experimental data and practice is still required and that will fundamentally closer to the metagamed solutions in the vast majority of cases. Because this is a heavy simplification that won't necessarily work in reality that way. So, you choose; realism or metagamed tactics? Maveric employment is one of the topics where a lot more realistic approach can be approximated a little bit better because there is some real life data (and tactics) to base this on. So the choice here exists. If you compare that to ECM use for example, or CMS profiles, those are classified topics so you're forced to rely on fundamentally unrealistic DCSisms as your approach. IR Mavs are short range weapons. Getting a lock 6-9 nm out is highly unrealistic, more than 3-4 times the publically described range (for the D in this example). If you're doing CAS or in general there are more realistic ROE requirements in play and we're not talking about SCAR missions, you won't even get to VID based on the TGP and you certainly won't get to legally clear yourself hot without a JTAC. I cannot emphasize this enough. Getting closer to the target with a Maverick run is highly realistic, based on publically available data. I've never heard of any pilot ever saying anything nice about non laser Mavericks. Even if we get the ROE related things out of the way, the idea that you can get to utilize the TGP standoff distance with the Mavs is highly questionable. If there are shadows near the target it drops lock. If the target drives in front of a background object that makes the contrast less distinctive, it drops lock. It drives through an area of similar brightness and the they overlap, guess what? Drops lock. If the machine spirit doesn't favour you, it won't even acquire the target in the first place without trying a few times to begin with (but it may end up locking the shadows near the target or whatever else). If the reworked FLIR/optical rendering gets a realistic implementation at all, people will tear their hair out.

Unfortunately only the Viper has this procedure, the other jets are simplified in this regard. Based on what I've found on the Internet from real Hog pilots, the technique described above is highly realistic. Using the TGP as a primary sensor for a Maverick engagement and relying mainly on the slave all to SPI seems to be a DCSism, many pilots explained that Mavs in DCS (especially older IR Mavs) are much, much better and reliable in game and can lock up the target much easier than in reality. (A well known Rhino pilot on Reddit said that IR-CCD Mavericks in DCS are closer to Ace Combat super missiles than real 65s) In the Hog community it seems that the visual nature of Mavericks is highly emphasized, and I've seen that space stabilization and visual target acquisition is the go to procedure for locking up targets with the Mav. They use the slave all to SPI as a backup technique to overlay the TGP diamond on the Mav wagon wheel to absolutely ensure that they are attacking the proper target. Public data shows IR Mavs being employed at a fairly short range. (Exact figures can be found on the F-16.net and Hoggit but I'd rather not post hard numbers knowing how serious this forum takes real life data.)

It's not about gatekeeping, it's about ensuring that realism won't be compromised just because a lot of people want a more arcade experience with simplified avionics 'for fun'. Very interesting text. It's a strange contradiction, every Viper or Hornet pilot I managed to talk to about the air to ground radar unequivocally agreed that it's useless, even in the Hornet, which should perform better on paper. It's a possibility that they were simply lying to me (as unlikely as it may be) but it's also possible that the book exaggerates the role of the radar plus it's not exactly a rigorous examination on its effectiveness anyway. Maybe that sortie was indeed successful but how reliable was it? How much did certain conditions (reflectivity, ground clutter, weather, etc.) degrade the capability? How important is it to know the target's location in advance? Was it only useful for certain specific target types? Keep in mind that doctrine and capabilities in the 90s wouldn't necessarily apply for a 2007 Viper.

If the GPS network is down, use IAMs with INS guidance only. Since that's not simulated in DCS, you either have to descend below the cloud layer to attack with LGBs, or if that's not possible for whatever reason (the weather is so poor, or there's heavy AAA in the area) you can still try using dumb bombs. Note that strike planning takes into consideration the quality of the GPS constellation and the weather near the target. So you'd need a very high value and time sensitive target to warrant using dumb bombs and attacking in such adverse conditions. Keep in mind that this is 100% irrelevant to the topic at hand because regardless of your weapon of choice (IAMs, LGBs, dumb bombs, even the gun) you wouldn't use the A2G radar to generate coordinates, you'd put a steerpoint to the location of the target. If it's such a high value target, it's very realistic to assume that coordinates are available and in general if it's a fixed target, you'd obviously have coordinates even before you take off. The only situation where you'd use the A2G radar is anti shipping (and that's a task for which our Viper isn't the best tool) or attacking moving targets in a killbox but pilots heavily imply that GMT is highly unreliable and isn't as good as it's depicted in DCS. Since in DCS it's an almost magical tool, you can absolutely use it to find moving TOOs but the dude specifically stated that he'd use the ground mapping radar outside of tank hunting.

If you're going up against fixed targets, like factories, power plants, C2 installation or similar targets, you definitely should have preplanned coordinates in the vast majority of cases. The air to ground radar can show clouds and it doesn't necessarily mean that it would automatically make you an all weather platform as explained above. Even if you're not using IAMs and GPS (for example you're simulating a degraded GPS network), you should still have steerpoints in the target area and you should be able to penetrate the cloud layer and attack it with LGBs. In reality, we know for a fact that the Hornet's ground radar can't detect anything reliably, so much so that aircrew weren't even trained to use it in a tactical situation whatsoever. The Viper, without SAR, using DBS only should have an even worse radar picture that's even more useless than the Hornet. If the capabilities of the radar are exaggerated for gameplay purposes to make it more 'fun' it's a huge problem.

Yes, it does, if you actually talk to pilots they will tell you that the resolution that these small, relatively old MSA radars are capable of makes the completely useless for any kind of tactical scenario, so much so that they aren't even trained to use them tactically. Navigation, SCAs, INS updates and maybe anti shipping are the only valid use of A2G radars if you're not flying a dedicated strike platform(A-6, Mudhen, etc.).

I don't believe those are implemented yet. Maybe with the upcoming additional TAD functions.

If it's export controlled how can it be implemented in the game? Anyone can extract the data and with enough time and testing make an EM chart for any fighter in the game. I honestly don't believe they actually said this, it's just... well not very likely. How can the performance of something in a video game be export controlled? Just to emphasize my point, we're talking about EM charts for the aicraft as they perform in the game. Real EM charts are surely export controlled but that's not what the poster you're replying to was talking about.

No, there really shouldn't. The day that happens to weapons and avionics is the day when DCS loses any reason to exist at all. Not simulating things due to lack of available information, some type of technical reason that makes it impossible to accurately simulate is perfectly fine but the last time this type of things came up at all, people got really worked up and Nick Grey had to clearly state that they don't intend to balance weapons for gameplay reasons. There really isn't any reason why a simulator needs to sacrifice realism when it comes to missile performance or ranges other than lack of available data.