SwingKid

Thank God! We need to talk about this, more than anything. Disclaimer: Although SwingKid has official "ED Tester" status, none of the opinions expressed in this message are derived from secret or "inside" information, or from studying beta versions of Black Shark. Rather, they are the result of his analysis of the already-released Lock On/Flaming Cliffs Mission Editor and file format, from extensive mission-building experience and "SkyWars2" dynamic campaign development. I hate to be the party pooper, but I think this thread is getting far too optimistic. I remember when Lock On's release was delayed, month after month, and people were excitedly asking, "does this mean that now with extra time, maybe they can update the Russian avionics to the Western level?" And none of the testers were able to answer, because they were under NDA, so the hope continued to snowball in an uncontrolled way. And then finally at the time of release, everyone realized and was disappointed - the real problems were with the new Western jets, that they had taken for granted would be more correct! Of course, that is how real software development works. You don't intentionally delay the release of a functional product, because you want to add more bells and whistles. You delay it because the basic, most minimum features that you absolutely need in order to release it are STILL not working. Similarly, I think that the development of a new ME may potentially be more bad news than good. If ED is replacing the ME from scratch, rather than improving the existing one, then there can only be one reason: because they have no other choice. It's not about listening to the community or adding new features - rather, the existing ME is so old and complex, that nobody can anymore fix it to work with Black Shark. The programmer who made it left the ED team many years ago. Ross and I noticed this during Storm and SkyWars DC development when the new "fortification" building objects were added. They were not integrated well into the existing mission structure, and it was very obvious that someone tried very hard, and barely succeeded. Static objects! Imagine now trying to integrate all the new vehicles and AI planned for BS. How many months has BS been in development? And this decision is coming now? And ED is not even sure that it will actually be in BS? I am pessimistic. I expect the features of the existing ME to be gutted down to the bare-bones minimum that will still put helicopters into the air. No new payload features, no savable debriefings - I'll be surprised if we even still get Mission Goals. The Lock On ME is not a module like in other sims - it is the core foundation of the whole UI. Starting it now from scratch is like saying "today, we started programming Black Shark." Right now, we should be helping ED with a sad and desperate triage: deciding which of Lock On's existing ME features contribute little to gameplay, so that we can live without them (e.g. random failures, variable AI skill levels, pilot logbook, IMHO) and which things we desperately need to save for the future, that they would otherwise be tempted not to include because we took them for granted (e.g. Mission Goals and debriefing structure). IMHO, :( -SK

Серьёзен? Вы его попробовали? Давайте то, делаю вам радо правильный ДК. -SK

Thanks for the update. I think I missed this topic - do you have a link? What was said about this? -SK

It says I need JavaScript enabled. Any info/drawings of Ka-29 in that one? -SK

Я так же интересуюсь, но - честно, буду больше когда Ка-27 заканчивается, если потом от его сделать Ка-29ВПНЦУ: Вот он в симульяторе Ка-50 нам будет нужен :) -SK

Moving an airbase requires editing: (a) the correct .rn file, which defines the location of the airbase icon on the map and the routes AI aircraft will follow when taxiing, (b) the VPP Onlay .sup file, which defines the actual hard surfaces and the textures used to draw them, and © the .scn files, which define the locations of buildings and vehicles at the base. Each of these files has its own binary data format that can be quite complex. For an experienced programmer starting from scratch, it would take about two solid weeks to figure it out and write the programs necessary to make the desired edits - hex-editing byte-by-byte is not a practical option; large quantities of data need to be systematically broken down, rewritten and rearranged. For example, the map is divided into grids of 20x20 and 10x10 km square cell size. If the desired new location of the airbase will be outside these existing grids, then you will need to make your own larger grids that will accomodate all the new airbase locations, and redefine the locations of all the old airbases, so that their positions then remain correct in your new grids. Hope this helps, -SK

Well duh, carrierborne Eagles of course :doh: -SK

That's odd... I could have sworn I heard that exact same rumour months ago about Lakenheath, from a crew member on the f-15estrikeeagle.com forum. Is one of us mixing them up? Then there's this: http://www.493rd.tripod.com :confused: -SK

Seeing as Alaska and Langley are going Raptor (or AESA) and Lakenheath has decommissioned its F-15C squadron, should we rather request a skin for the 390th FS "Wild Boars" of the ACC Mountain Home rapid-reaction wing? -SK

Hmm, maybe I was incorrect, and the pump looks rather more like this? http://www.iaiamedia.be/bestbalsakits/kitsDetail.asp?kitnumber=132 -SK

There used to be photos of these being used in Iraq or Afghanistan, on kiowapilots.com I believe, but I can no longer find them anywhere. The bilge pump used with them was about the size of a breadbox if I recall, and just connected one at a time by a single hose. When deflated, the tank looks like a crumpled black rubber tire. They seem to be used mainly as a backup resource, when the forward base is located somewhere that the usual M978 HEMTT or other refuelling vehicle cannot go. It thus makes sense that they are delivered by helicopter when setting up the FARP, as shown in the b&w photo from Vietnam. So, such a FARP might be expected to have a variety of helicopter types, but few to no ground vehicles at its location. There was also a recent book ("Ambush Alley" IIRC) that described similar bladders being hauled around roped to M1A1 tank turrets to give them longer range, that were cut away manually before entering combat (much as the long-range jerry cans attached to the rear of T-72 and T-80 tanks can also be jettisoned). Of course, I completely agree with all the thoughts you've expressed in this topic, and admire and applaud your effort. The Ka-50 and other CAS helicopters should also spend much of their time reconnoitering interesting ground sites through their high-powered optics, in addition to shooting tanks with PGMs. IMHO, the ability to see muzzle flashes from a particular window of a building for example, and to defeat the sniper in that room with aimed gunfire while not destroying the rest of the building, would be a great addition. Your contribution seems to be a step in that general direction. Many thanks! Happy New Year, -SK

Nitpick: I'm not sure such cans are in military use anymore. Rather, the modern US Army seems to prefer 500 gallon collapsible fuel bladders for use at FARPs: http://www.army.mil/cmh/books/Vietnam/tactical/chapter5.htm http://www.tpub.com/content/fuelpumps/TM-10-8110-203-12P/css/TM-10-8110-203-12P_47.htm http://www.tpub.com/content/fuelpumps/TM-10-8110-203-12P/css/TM-10-8110-203-12P_16.htm -SK

In case anyone is interested.. -SK

Пока говорим о точности ( http://forum.lockon.ru/showthread.php?p=262660#post262660 - !!): Его голова не чуть слишком высока? Куда ими плёчами? Сравниваем: -SK

I think that this journal contains some of the most recent, complete and accurate research on this topic: http://www.aviapress.com/viewonekit.htm?TVO-200602 Good luck, -SK

This discussion moves too quickly for me to thoroughly follow, but let me try another post, risking that someone has already posted the same thing I am about to write: D-Scythe, If I understand correctly, you continue to believe that in the real world, there exists a technology in the AIM-120 seeker that allows it to maintain track on a look-down beaming target. Further, that the lack of modeling this technology in Lock On is what causes it to have a Pk approaching zero. If this were the whole explanation, then by extension, we should expect that any real-world missiles lacking this technology should also have a Pk approaching zero. Are there any missiles in the real world that you feel were vulnerable to the look-down notch? If the answer is yes, and these older missiles were nevertheless able to score kills in the real world, then we should conclude that the problem is not so simple - a lack of look-down notch immunity does not on its own produce a Pk of zero. There must be other factors to consider, and this opens the possibility that the whole problem may be elsewhere. IMHO, the problem is not mainly in the seeker, but rather in the way that the beaming/notching maneuver itself may be far more common in the sim than it is in real life. The AI may be too effective at performing a perfect notch, regardless of the skill level to which they are set. Human players might also have it too easy, with lag-free RWRs or on-screen labels giving them overly precise bearings to the threat. The RWR might stop beeping the moment the player has entered the notch, while the missile should still be illuminating in his general direction. Or, the permissible angular margins for entering a notch may be too lenient. I think you need to try Flanker 2.0 to discover how incredibly boring a simulation can be when there are no consistent weaknesses to be exploited in an incoming enemy missile seeker. Until then, we're never going to be on the same page. The missiles are the way that they are today due to seven years of ED responding to user complaints about them. Your comments in this thread have a good intention behind them, but don't provide much reason for distinguishing themselves from angry rants of many others, including myself, over the past seven years. Too often we rely on our own opinions of how missiles "should" work or "must" work, sensing that our own intuition is superior. I feel that way too, posted my rant and have been waiting ever since. You seem to need a new thread about this topic every three months. What's your exit strategy? Because I must say, removing notch susceptibility from the seeker sounds an awful lot like going back to square one - Flanker 2.0 missiles. For what, then, is any attention paid to us worth? -SK

As an aside, this might be one reason why the NEZ no longer exists as such, having years ago been renamed Rtr. More to the point, the NEZ provides information to the shooter to make shooting decisions, not to the target to make evasion decisions. It tells the shooter that there is no further Pk advantage to be gained by holding off on launch to approach any closer. This is still valid information, regardless of what the actual Pk is after firing. I would expect the information to leak out somewhere. For example, the ability of modern RWRs to detect LPI radar is advertised in their brochures. And yet I have no trouble finding more books than I can absorb on the topic in my local university library. And where is the "basic flight manual" that advises you to do the latter? You seem to be looking for VCR programming instructions in a bible. That is decidedly not what is happening. Realistic missile lofting tactics would require adding an Raero indicator to the DLZ in the HUD. It should also be impractical to use loft against jamming targets, and HOJ shots should have comparable range to Sidewinders. Last I checked, none of the above was true. -SK

Count me out. Unless something doesn't exist, I can't recall there being too much success keeping such technology totally secret. Certainly not something as irrelevant to national security and as academic as a new radar look-down technology - all the other radar technologies that we know about (HPRF, monopulse, HOJ etc.), we knew about pretty much from the day they were introduced. Classified is specific stuff like Combat Tree, that exploits the enemy leaving his transponder on, not physics or signal processing. We all even knew about stealth for years beforehand. Well, that much was already clear. :rolleyes: At the beginning of a realistic BVR engagement, I as an AMRAAM shooter would like the option to fire one of my missiles in a high loft, at extreme Raero range, to keep the enemy on the defensive as I approach for a closer, higher-Pk shot, and hopefully keep him from firing at me in the meantime. You wrote that the top priority should be the "end game" - but the end game is going to be a whole lot different if the enemy is on the offensive or on the defensive when I close for that high-Pk shot. So, the launch conditions - lofted or not lofted, and the aerodynamics model to produce the resultant difference in range and Pk, are in fact first and foremost. How can any end-game be optimized without the launch conditions first being correct? Of course, if the opponent is using ECM, then lacking range information, the lofted shot should not be available to me - and I should have to choose between taking the time to perform some kind of kinematic ranging maneuver, taking a shot and risking that the now-PN HOJ AMRAAM will lack the range to hit, or closing to WVR and risking a shot in my own face. That is what I think about as "BVR tactics," and because of the ranges involved, it absolutely depends on the aerodynamic performance of the missile more than anything else. You respect a BVR threat regardless of its Pk. On the contrary - dancing around the sky with hard maneuvers, popping chaff and rolling the dice after a threat is already inbound - that is IMHO not distinguishing BVR from WVR. Perhaps, but that's hardly a fair comparison, since the cheated AI on the other side on those sims don't complain nearly as much as paying human customers on the other side in Lock On. Or, you mean it's all about you? ;) -SK

(oops - I replied before reading the last page of the thread) -SK

No, but they have access to classified data in a look-up table, and that IMHO makes a big difference. Perhaps you can help with one of the problems we may be having with this thread: Does "NEZ" have anything to do with seeker look-down, notching, or ECCM capability? I have always understood it to mean what the MLU2 flight manual says that it means - that the missile cannot any longer be defeated within this range by the target turning and running away - and nothing more. IMHO, many people seem to rather interpret "no escape" as meaning "no miss," or "perfect." It reminds me of the "fire-and-forget" Hellfire, that isn't, in fact, fire-and-forget... -SK

Be careful, I think it may be a political excuse. This report is for making recommendations about how to spend US taxpayer money. In order to purchase such missiles from a foreign country, they must show that this missile can do something, that no competing American-built missiles will do. Otherwise, they will be accused of stealing jobs and business away from Americans, and helping "the enemy." If an American target can perform sea-skimming (which it can), then it will be difficult to approve purchasing the MA-31 as a sea-skimmer. So, I think that this repeated, careful separation of MA-31 into a special category, "high-altitude powered dive," is very conscious and intentional, especially if the Kh-31/MA-31 has multiple trajectory modes that can be selected. If the US Navy finally receives the missiles, they might really be more interested in the sea-skimming mode: "The extended range modification is intended to increase range to approximately 42 nm (nautical miles) at 10m (meter) altitude." http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/9/9/170025.shtml US MA-31 purchase was already the subject of such political controversy: http://www.softwar.net/ma31.html http://www.softwar.net/kh31.html -SK

Well put, I agree. However... ...I don't think that using such general terms as "overmodeling" is going to be helpful. For example, Flanker 2.0's missiles had a much higher Pk, and were even less popular. tflash is more on the right path IMHO, in trying to break this discussion down into salient points. Look at the main points brought up in the first post of this topic: (a) I should be able to beam in look-up (b) I should not be able to beam in look-down Do we really agree with this as the definition of "overmodeling?" Does it even make sense? What are we trying to say here? Trying to rush into a realistic ECM/ECCM/IRCM/HUD/ACM tactics model when we don't even have a solid foundation in basic aerodynamics is just going to add layers of new bad code onto old bad code, making the whole thing a complex buggy mess to which making changes or additions becomes ever more impossible. In fact, we arguably passed that point long ago. We need to get back to basics and start with something simple, get it right and start building on that. e.g.: 1. Get the Sidewinder to fly pure pursuit, straight at the target 2. Now make the Sidewinder fly PN, increasing its drag and decreasing its range as it maneuvers 3. Now make the target IR signature depend on aspect, and 4. make the Sidewinder lock range depend on the IR signature 5. Now make the Sidewinder seeker able to lock onto vehicles, hot rocks, the sun, etc. 6. Now when the Sidewinder can lock onto heat sources, provide the target with flares and/or IRCM 7. Now when the target can use flares, provide the Sidewinder with IRCCM For example - we can skip step 3, by making the Sidewinder lock range depend directly on target aspect, rather than on an IR signature that depends on target aspect. But if we make that shortcut, then we can't make it to step 5 - hot rocks and the sun can't compete with the target IR signature, when the target has no IR signature! And that's why we are where we are today, with IRH missiles that can't lock onto ground targets, and no plans to see that feature in the future. The case for radar missiles is similar, but even more complex of a mess, what with illumination, PRFs, different types of ECM, etc. I agree with tflash, that we need to go back and get more basic stuff fixed first. -SK

Finally!! I am not alone!!! :) You said it better than I could, for the umpteenth time. Happily, "WAFM first" seems to be the route that ED is taking, fingers crossed - it just takes a long time. As heartbreaking as it is to have to wait so long, I hope they can resist the temptation to get distracted by the never-ending proposed "quick-fixes" instead. Sorry guys.. I don't believe there's an alternative. Patience is a virtue. -SK

What if the fighter is flying at Mach 5 at the moment of launch? (or Mach 2, or Mach 0.3, or whatever... the point is, I don't believe we can be so specific, when the launch conditions are not similarly specific) -SK

Just when you thought you'd heard the last from Donald Rumsfeld.. -SK