peterbrownbyu

Skynet is an absolute must for every mission I make. SAM AI in DCS is almost distractingly simple. It's like playing a shooter where enemies are programmed to run straight at you across big fields. Ground AI in general needs some love, but SAM AI is one area where they could probably make some pretty significant progress relatively easily Frankly I hear this a lot but it just seems like speculation, there could be 1000 reasons why that module didn't go through. If you've heard something from ED or from that dev team that i'd missed, I'd be interested to hear it

I agree, add it to the list. I'd love to see it modeled too, and I hate to be cynical but there's like 10 other issues, each of them 15 years old, that need to be addressed first. Given ED's development timelines, I'd rather they pushed it back Though I'm with you, it's irritating that only like 3 modules have it modeled

SEAD/DEAD has the potential to be one of the coolest missions in DCS. There are simple changes they could make that would yield night and day results for the better, and the sky's the limit as far as how much depth they want to put into these systems. It's been frustrating seeing so little change on this front over the past decade or so, but it seems like ED is starting to realize that this is one of the most pressing issue with their game now, so I'm hopeful the wild weasel wannabes among us will start to see improvements If I were king of ED, I'd propose the following, organized loosely from more realistic to more ambitious: 1: Basic IADS logic. No more constantly emitting radars, and let them communicate and share info between one another. Skynet is a great starting point, as others have mentioned. It's simple, but even if these were the only changed ED made it would still improve the situation dramatically. 2: Add all the relevant radars. Early warning radars, height finders, search radars, track radars, etc. Get them all in there with basic functionality. And by golly update the 3d models on some of these older ones 3: Add the SA-4 4: Implement or improve the different engagement modes starting with the easy ones like TWS or home on jam. Eventually I'd love to see some real crafty SAM operators doing optical shots or locking on late after launch. 5: Add AI jamming platforms like the EF-111 and the EA-6B, and ELINT platforms like the rivet joint. Hot take, but if ED brings SAMs up to standard, going 1v1 against a SAM site should not be a viable strategy anymore. IRL SEAD efforts have relied heavily on jamming since the '60's. Obviously that will require a rework of how jamming works in the game, but that's a different series of rabbit holes for a different thread 6. Accurately model the characteristics of the radar emitters themselves. As in make the waveform of the thing accurate. Put it on the right frequency. Make a CW radar behave like a CW radar. Model changes in PRF for pulse radars. I wanna be able to pick out different radars on an oscilloscope, or recognize them by sound. I understand any time EW is mentioned, DCS players respond with the knee-jerk "THAT'S CLASSIFIED" response. Obviously this level of detail is not possible for every system in the game, but you could get damn near true to life for the SA-6 and previous systems. This would be 80 percent of the work required for accurate EW in the game, at least from the SEAD perspective. Which would lead us to the ultimate holy grail of Air Defense / SEAD: 7. Playable SAMs, and 8. Playable EW aircraft, like the F-4G or one of the ALQ-99 platforms Wags laid out a sort of vision for an IADS system in DCS here at 1:37:50. It sounds like some great first steps. I hope we see changes like this in 2024. This has the potential to be the best mission set in the game, and I hope improvements are made sooner than later

+1 on the bump, the bar lock is one of the most prolific early warning / cgi radars in history and we already have a pretty good 3d model for it (compared to the spoon rest and tall king anyway lol). It's kind of mind boggling that it hasn't been implemented as a usable radar. All of the radars in game need a little facelift to some extent or another, but it seems like if the end goal is to implement EW / SEAD in the game, that's the obvious path forward

Depending on what specific systems you're talking about, they may very well be omnidirectional. In fact, in the case of self defense jammers, they typically are (at least as far as public info suggests). Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like you're assuming that jamming pods are most efficient when they're pointing directly at the emitter they're countering, and this typically isn't the case. Antennas (generally, depending on the type) are typically most powerful when they're broadside to the receiver, so the fact that the aircraft are not hot or cold to you would probably increase their jamming effectiveness, not decrease it Plus, ironically, the further away jammers are from you the more effective they usually are up to a point. Inverse square laws and all that. If you're mathematically inclined, give this a read if you have time. It's unclassified and does a great job of laying out the foundations of how ew systems work Not every system allows you to put energy on a certain azimuth, those are typically reserved for electronic attack systems, like the ALQ-99E pictured below. You can see how the different jamming antennas physically swivel to put jamming energy where it needs to go Newer systems, like the ALQ-249 pictured here, use phased arrays to steer the jamming beams. This takes up quite a bit of space and makes for a wide pod Unfortunately air to air radars and ECM systems are usually the more secretive ones, so there's less public info out there. Fortunately however, that is the most boring part of EW, and the cool part of EW (namely electronic attack in support of the SEAD mission) is much more well documented. Hopefully we see some improvements on that front, and maybe if we're good we'll get accurate simulations of SAM radars / dedicated jamming platforms / wild weasel airframes in DCS as a treat

Don't give them any ideas, they might just release a MAGTF asset pack as a former crayon boy myself I agree 100 percent, it would make an amazing dynamic campaign scenario, whenever that releases. Even if all those aircraft are just released as AI assets / re-released with updated 3d models it would be awesome.

I can only speak for myself, but I've kinda reached the point where the current radar and EW environment in DCS is so simplistic it's almost distracting. Every jammer works exactly the same, every radar seems to have hard-coded detection ranges regardless of the target's radar cross section, RWRs are accurate down to the minute, very few radars in game will give you false returns, etc. These are things that most DCS players probably don't care much about, but I agree 100 percent I'd like to see them addressed. Unfortunately DCS players have a knee jerk "it's too classified" reaction to any EW conversation. People act like radars and jamming pods use the power of god to make RF magically break the laws of physics and behave in ways it otherwise wouldn't, therefore we have no possible way of knowing how they work. The principles that make these systems work are well understood, and there's more than enough info to bring the current level of EW up to a 7 on a scale of 1-10. There's not enough public info out there to make it a 10/10, at least for newer systems; you'd have to extrapolate or guesstimate as necessary. You already have to do that to some extent to make a flight simulator. Even if you believe the levels of extrapolation required would be unacceptable, that's still not a good reason to just leave it at a 2/10. There's a lot of work to be done and we shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good I wouldn't consider this a super high priority for ED necessarily, they still have Vulkan to release and the ground AI to revamp, so if these fixes were a year or more off I wouldn't be losing sleep over it. It does seem like these things are on ED's radar though (no pun intended), and we've already seen great improvements with certain air to air radars in the game. Heatblur and ED should be releasing a ton of features with the F-4 that will raise the bar in the EW environment. I'm hopeful for the future

Great idea. I'd love to see a rivet joint added while we're at it

Absolutely. The mission editor in DCS is actually super capable, just in need of a facelift and some QOL additions. In addition to an undo button, being able to select multiple units by dragging a box would save so much time I brought this up to NineLine on the discord a few months back, and his answer was basically "that would be nice, but it would require us to change the code". I agreed with him

The JTAC in its current form can lase and pass a CAS brief, that's about it. More of a JFO than a JTAC. As someone who reads the 3-09 in its entirety at least twice a day, I never play CAS unless we can get someone who knows what's going on to hop in a combined arms slot

+1 on both counts, IADS logic and the lack of early warning / search / GCI / height finder radars in the game should be step 1 and 2 to improving EW and SEAD in the game Also while we're on the subject of improving the SA-5, add the bar lock as a usable radar, one of the most prolific Soviet early warning radars out there and we have a great static model for it in game already. Kinda mind boggling why it's not a usable radar. But hey I don't work here

Amazing map! Y'all blew it out the water Is there a plan to add cities and airports to Lebanon? The map goes as far north as Beirut, but there's nothing there. Obviously this could prove a little redundant since we already have Syria, just wondering if it's planned Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Played it for a few hours last night, this could be my new favorite map. Cities bigger than any other map in DCS as far as I can tell. The suez canal area alone is one of the coolest, most unique areas I've seen. The coastline is amazing and the wave animations, although subtle, are well done. Israel's terrain looks incredible Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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You're right. But like it or not, games updating quickly and without these types of hiccups is the standard now in the gaming industry. It's not unreasonable for people to get frustrated when none of the other games they play have have these kinds of issues. Especially after almost 8 hours without a solution in sight. I love DCS and I hate the constant whining too, but when there's a legitimate problem we should be able to bring it up without all this pearl-clutching Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

ED better get that hamster on some tren or we're screwed come streegle/fantom release Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I personally think RAZBAM is playing major 5d chess: the development of the strike eagle started in 1978, and it entered IOC in 1989. That's 11 years. RAZBAM announced the module 11 years ago This means that RAZBAM is so committed to realism that not only did they model the systems, sounds and flight model of the airplane, they actually accurately simulated the airplane's IRL development time. RAZBAM is truly the goat and will stop at nothing to deliver the most accurate product

I'm in it for the long haul, as long as its being worked on that's better than nothing

Conspiracy theory alert: I think ASC (the company behind the C-130) is doing the F-111 A couple months back, people got on the ASC discord speculating / asking for updates about upcoming releases etc. Then one of the devs, someone_somewhere, drops this in the chat I went to the Q&A video in question and at 1:33:00, he starts talking about the F-111 and how their flight model expert is the last person to go through F-111C training in the RAAF. He repeatedly says that developing the F-111 is "an interesting idea" and that he can't say more

Anyone have any idea what this means? It got brought up on the Heatblur discord a day or two ago Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

POLL

I'd rather have a Su-24 since it's similar-ish in scope and mission but it's redfor; granted that's probably a long shot for al the reasons mentioned above. F-111 seems like the move and would fill a void in DCS gameplay, especially in multiplayer. Plus Heatblur already has multicrew, swing wings, the TF30 and ground radar pretty well polished by this point. Heatblur pls gib