Robo76

I haven't pre-ordered the FF MiG-29 yet because I fly missions from the 1980s on MP servers and even the current MiG-29 A/S from FC3 can't do CAP or Intercept on its own. The MiG-29 A/S has worse radars and therefore needs GCI support. If autopilot guidance is introduced, it will be fine, but when approaching the target it will start maneuvering and without GCI and a fast datalink it will lose it and you will easily turn from a hunter into a prey. The MiG-29 has a great advantage in acceleration, speed and maneuverability, but it loses a lot in terms of low fuel and weak radar, especially against the ground and its low resistance to ECM interference. Guiding two missiles at once is practically impossible, because the interference will reliably interrupt the guidance. In versions 9.12 and 9.12A, the parameters and functions of their radars were revealed to the West shortly after their introduction, so today there is no need to worry about lawsuits regarding the disclosure of military secrets, and therefore it is also modeled as the first (and probably the only possible) one. The red team in the new FF MiG-29 will not get a more effective fighter than it already has in the form of the FC3, but I would like to be wrong. And no one will produce a full-fledged FF mod of the MiG-29SMT, MiG-31, MiG-35S, Su-27SM, Su-30, Su-35, Mi-28, Ka-52 for about a couple of decades.

MP mission creators are already having a hard time balancing the options for both opposing sides. Servers for advanced players suffer the most, where lives are limited and unfair balancing will drive players from either side out and the server is dead. And advanced players are not very attracted to crowded beginner servers when endless waves of zombies start against you. In general, the future outlook for MP gaming is not good. And the arrival of the F-35 will make this situation even worse. I guess then there will be servers with F-35s on both sides and nothing else, because it will be impossible to send anything else against them. Calm down, it's just a game, we'll relax. No need to get upset, when ED gradually sends MP DSC to the bottom, they will go do something else.

I went through the discussion and the prevailing opinion is that ER and ET on iz.9.12A are nonsense. And the developers' reaction is practically none. The R-27 ER and R-27 ET missiles were purely for use by the Russian military air force, and after the collapse of the USSR, their modified versions ER1 and ET1 were later released for export to friendly countries, which were certainly not better. When ED is useful, they always swear by the necessity of matching reality, and when it is necessary to conjure for better sales, realism goes aside, no matter what. If you are going to conjure, just make some advanced version of the MiG-29 and, just like with the F-16C, guess the rest. Nobody really believes you in your efforts to match real machines anyway.

I noted a question about the R-27 ER and R-27 ET missiles here, but it was not (intentionally ?) answered. These missiles could not be used on iz.9.12A. It was only possible on the 6 prototype MiG-29M iz.9.15 (Fulcrum E), the production MiG-29S iz.9.12S (Fulcrum A) and iz.9.13S (Fulcrum C) and some later types. Moreover, these missiles were not released for export until after the collapse of the USSR, so they could not even be delivered with the first iz.9.12A. So the ER/ET missiles will unrealistically be added for sales and advertising reasons to match the MiG-29S from FC3 ? (Translated with DeepL.com)

We are solving a problem where a functioning DCS multiplayer PUBLIC server often does not show up in the list with other MP servers in DCS. Connection via IP address is functional, but someone who does not know it does not see the server and does not connect. Sometimes the server is in the list, then several times after a restart it is not, it randomly alternates and is rarely seen in the list for a long time. Do you know what the problem is? Does the server have to register with ED or is the connection to an existing server automatically forwarded to DCS? Or if some information about the server is not met, it does not show up for other MP players in DCS? Has anyone solved this yet?

The manual should be official, but it's not. I don't care because it's a much better replacement than the official one would be.

But I understood and counted on the fact that these unofficial manuals are known by most people in DCS and I put the link for sure. Since they are available from the community, then there is no need to ask the ED for them. Why do something like this again. I'm much more bothered by the functional bugs of modules like Ai Petrovitch. It would have been much more sensible to leave it in its original state until the new version was completed to a reasonably usable state, rather than immediately go work on something else and abort the completion of Petrovitch. Then it's hard to find the time, during that grace period the programmer forgets enough things and has to fully understand the code again.

Chuck's Guides

1. The default values of the variables plane_flares (72) and plane_chaff (1080) are the same even if only one KB dispenser Pod is suspended. If someone wants to use these values and only has one KB underhung, after dropping all the flares, the value of plane_flares is 36 (not 0). 2. Selecting the number of flares/chaff in KB is no longer possible as it was before. Is this according to the real machine or is it a bug ?

Was this discussion thread started by someone from the ED team that worked on the Mi-24 ? You can't tell from the posts that ED is interested in the unfinished state they left Ai Petrovitch in. They are now dealing with other things that will make them money. Repairing Ai Petrovitch is not making them money, so it is way down the list of their plans, trz. that repairs can be expected at best in 1 year, but probably in 2-3 years. For newcomers to DCS, this realization may be shocking, as they won't encounter this approach from developers of other games elsewhere today, as similarly working developers have gone out of business.I don't want to be mean to ED, I'm as much of an aviation fan as they are, but without feedback, the DCS situation can't change (and then there won't be enough paying players either).

enemy units in the AI menu is simple: 1. If AI sees units, it will sort them by their firing range in the menu 2. If an undetected unit within sight fires (anywhere), it is revealed and added to the target list and ranked according to point 1 (I wouldn't worry about who it's shooting at - although not me, it's shooting at a friendly aircraft in the area and mine is included in that too) 3. If units important for the functionality of the entire group have been destroyed in a SAMs group , the remaining units of the group will move to the end of the list (before unarmed targets). 4. On the command "check the target marked" - "orange", AI would check for the presence of units marked by JTAC with the nearest orange smoke. (This should not be automatic, because sometimes there are many marked places near the target and this would unnecessarily delay the search). 5. Damaged units MUST be listed in order to be destroyed - most MP missions will only destroy a base if there are no enemy units there. (This is more of a bug where AI doesn't see heavily damaged units when they have some health in the red color.) Using these rules, it will sort into groups in order: EWR radar (does not shoot but is very important for situational awareness on the battlefield) Long-range SAM (Patriot, S-300) Medium-range SAM ( Hawk , Sa-6 Kub, Sa-11 Buk, …) Short-range SAM (Roland, Sa-19 Thunguska , Sa-15 Thor, …) SAM IR ( Linebacker , Avenger , Sa-13, …) MANPADS AAA radar (Cheetah, Vulcan , Shilka , …) AAA ( Bofors , S-60, …) Airplanes and helicopters on the ground Armored ATGM Armored No armored Infantry SAMs remnants without control and guidance units Unarmed targets (trucks, tankers, ....) If these rules were introduced into AI , the main problems would be eliminated. I definitely don't want to create AI that serves the player a list of targets and he just stupidly destroys them one by one. When attacking multiple units, the pilot must always evaluate the threat and destroy it primarily based on its range. Disable the first Long range SAMs , medium range, short range Fox 2 and manpads , radar-guided AAA guns, radar-free AAA, armoured vehicles, infantry, other non-firing units. You need to use your wits, know what enemy units are capable of, don't throw yourself into a strong defence with kamikaze attacks, but gradually dismantle it according to its range. If Ai doesn't see the infantry Manpad for example because it is a very small target, that's fine. Ai should register it every time it fires. The pilot must have a reconnaissance of the area from JTAC, or must preemptively drop flares in the hot area (on the Mi-24, the option is after 4 seconds). If Petrovitch can see the incoming missile, he can drop flares automatically. There are usually up to 50 units defending the airport, with everything included, of which about half are more or less dangerous. And even if there were more, if they were arranged according to the rules above, it doesn't matter, they must be destroyed in order of range. It is up to the player-pilot's intelligence to judge whether it would be necessary to coordinate the attack with other players in different machines, or whether he is not enough to do it alone. I'm talking about MP missions, where the number of ground units is adjusted to the difficulty. If there were few units, several players would wipe them out in a few minutes. If there were more, one player would usually not be enough for them. That is why cooperation is necessary, like in real life. Regarding the destruction of specific units in SP missions that are defended. You can try a mission created in this way as a challenge, but it has little to do with real combat. In reality, such missions are solved using the procedures I described above. The first attack wave overwhelms and destroys the Fox 1 SAMs , the next drops the GBUs from a height where they are safe from the Fox 2 SAMs . If an attack has to be made from a low altitude, all SAMs and AAA must be destroyed first . If one phase of the attacks cannot be completed, the other attack waves are called off due to high risk and then, after evaluation, the entire attack is repeated until the targets are destroyed.

It is not necessary to rank the targets exactly according to their danger, It is enough if they are at all at the top of the Ai list and the player will be able to choose the one that is the most dangerous for his next planned attack. When attacking an airport, even in the current state of Ai, the order of the targets in the Ai list is not correct. For example, if you destroy a Hawk-TR or Hawk-CMD, the Hawk's launchers and search radar may no longer be at the top of the Ai menu.

It is difficult to maintain a phlegmatic approach in a discussion when people from the ED team or their admins oppose, despite the evidence, arguments and testimonies of more people, that something is different than what they think in ED. When they don't know where to go and it's embarrassing, they admit the error or problem by looking at it - and then usually nothing happens for years (like the unbreakable landing gear on the F-16 reported a year ago, which I reported a year ago and ED initially denied). The cancellation of the stable versions of DCS was made by ED out of beta testers who pay ED and report problems for free in their free time. And as a reward, most " beta testers " encounter an arrogant approach to reporting with the justification that we don't have time for it now, because we are making the next great news here and there (which they then release full of often serious bugs) and they don't care about fixing old problems because they don't make money from it anymore. With every major update, most MP players pray that DCS will work at least as it always has and not paralyze MP. Then comes the standard ED excuse that the fix was very complicated and took longer, but that they have discouraged many players during that time and they still don't get it. ED is supposedly just people. But so are we DCS players. If someone gets upset by this attitude and expresses themselves more strongly (not in a rude way), they will get demerit points and a warning of a possible discussion ban. The person who constantly excuses ED or defends how they are doing it right doesn't have a problem with such a debater, so you don't have to worry.

Whatever it is, I don't have the strength and time to prove it to ED for several days, and they won't touch it for several years anyway, with the excuse that it corresponds to realism as they see it. And if I don't like Ai, the most I can get from ED for dissatisfaction with their work instead of a fix is a threat of a ban from the discussion forum.

But those AI "eyes" suffer from cataracts. And when I look out of the pilot's window myself, I see enemy units before the AI calculates and realizes. That can't happen when the AI operator looks out of the window the same way as the (player) pilot. That has nothing to do with realism, it's just errors in the AI, which you then pass off as an imperfect pilot-operator who makes mistakes, has "bad equipment" and is having a bad day.

If an enemy unit is unmasked by its own fire, it should immediately appear in Ai Petrovich's target menu. From a greater distance, it could be "unknown". If Ai were not at a sufficient distance to identify it, she should be aware of the threat of hundreds of projectiles flying at her from a given location, and register the threat as a general designation according to the danger, e.g. medium-range anti-aircraft systems, short-range anti-aircraft systems. Because when you attack an airfield full of AAA, there are bullet paths in the air, do you avoid them and Petrovich? He pretends to look for fire units, even though they are already shooting at his sight. In such a situation, I always wonder how much vodka Petrovich drank again and that he must have gone blind.... And then next time I'll take the Ka-50, where I can find the target myself.

If George has a problem, he just needs to turn on the FCR radar, which can find and shoot at targets in the bushes.

So for another debater who apparently doesn't use Ai Petrovich : 1. AI doesn't even see the units already firing around the Mi-24 cockpit. If there are trucks next to the AAA firing, it refuses to target the AAA. I would expect the AAA firing to be at the top of the target list and not at the bottom (it often isn't there). 2. Ai cannot see the JTAC smoke signal. If the unit is near a forest or in a city, it doesn't matter if the colored smoke can be seen for miles. Ai "searches" all the trees in the forest and buildings in the city, she doesn't primarily look around the marked location, so she may find the unit after searching everything in sight. 3. Ai It cannot see and therefore will not target a partially damaged unit. I was killed several times by an M1A2, M2A2 and a Gepard, which had red health, but the AI did not see them even after repeated approaches until they shot me down with a machine gun / cannon. 4. Ai can swap an enemy target with a friendly helicopter. All she has to do is momentarily lose sight of the marked enemy and if another helicopter is nearby , Ai will continue tracking it. Ai won't even tell you that she's already tracking another target. (If you want to argue that this doesn't happen to you, it's just that you don't use the Mi-24 for combat.)

General: It's normal that not all of them are listed in the changelog, I've encountered this several times. The changelog cannot be relied upon.

with the Ai Petrovitch, I am convinced that whoever programmed it did not test it in combat with multiple combat and non-combat units at the same time

In some multiplayer missions it is necessary to destroy ground units in order to capture a base. Which you can't do well enough if Ai refuses to target a damaged Abrams, which has a bit of life in red but still fires a 0.5 machine gun at you. You can try to destroy him manually with the cannon, but he'll probably destroy you first. I've had this happen 3 times recently with Abrams, once with a Gepard. And yes, units with life in red shouldn't shoot anymore, but they usually do, which is also DCS's fault. When Ai sees logistics trucks from 10km and a Gepard standing next to them from 5km, it's not even remotely realistic. Ai will absolutely unerringly primarily list targets that can't hurt you and only then track down the dangerous ones standing nearby. And it doesn't matter that those targets are already shooting at you, Ai pretends not to see them and keeps long-as-searching for them. That has absolutely nothing to do with the realism of the search! As for the Ai night vision, I take it that the Mi-24 has an optical sighting scope and an operator with the night vision on would hopefully be able to see as well, though probably not as well as he does now. The Ka-50 transmits the image to the Shkval screen via cables, so the pilot's night vision won't help there. Plus, even the hardcore multiplayer servers don't play at night because no Russian machine in DCS has night vision or TGP, and most people on the red team can disconnect if they don't have a JF-17 or AJS-37. When a target is marked by smoke, Ai should first look to see what unit is at that smoke, register it, and then look for the others. Now it's just the opposite, like JTAC can't see the smoke. Ideally, he should also be able to scan the area for a particular color of smoke if there are multiple units in the target area. I think the smoke is used to make it easier to find the target. The Air Force has used target designation by colored smoke or flare since it's inception, it's not a DCS "cheat" contraption. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

Coordinates are now entered into CK37 in unrounded format. Would it be possible to round the coordinate values to insert them into CK37 from the Mission Editor / Route Tool ? Otherwise the deviation from the target is unnecessarily increased, for example when bombing with a Bk-90.

Think of it as a war and people prefer to hide at home. The lack of people bothers me in the Snowrunner simulator, for example, but it doesn't bother me a bit in DCS because I'm flying combat missions, not scenic flights over the countryside.

I'm of the opinion that ED could work on Ai in peace, and deploy it when it is functional and usable enough. In the meantime, the original working Petrovitch could have remained in service. ED always half-builds something and then runs away from it for 1-2 years and half-busts x other things. Buyer, you're out of luck, it's a preliminary approach and maybe someday we'll get it done, when that will be, no one knows. Over the years I see more multiplayer players quitting DCS than starting DCS. They'd rather go play something else that works and doesn't annoy them while playing. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator

1. Ai Petrovitch ignores the partially damaged targets, but they are still firing. A damaged target does not appear in the target menu and therefore cannot be selected and destroyed. But a damaged target will destroy you. (2). Ai also has poorly set priors - it can see and indentify trucks from a distance, and often doesn't register AAA Bofors that are nearby, even when AAA is firing at your Mi-24. (3). The colored smoke that JTAC uses to mark the target is also ignored by Ai, who rather takes it as smoke to mask the target. Ai should be the first to find units that are marked with colored smoke, and instead it searches all other objects in view - trees, bushes, buildings, thus stalling as if there were no colored smoke on the map. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator