Tango3B

Thank you. I can confirm everything you say. The bug is still there. I was barely able to fly since the last patch dropped due to RL work and didn't report since. Yesterday I was able to fly a few PvP sorties, though. My first sortie showed everything was working fine but then all of a sudden the bug was back. And now I do indeed observe the above mentioned behavior in TWS, too. Something is clearly wrong and we need an official statement on this FCR behavior. My two YouTube clips show the problem. Can we please have a statement from an ED Mod if this bug is already adressed?

Yeah, MGC helps for sure in the meantime and you guys are on it. BN, you guys did a great job. I am very satisfied with what we got this patch. Even that RWS-SAM "autoscaling whatever it was" seems to be gone, now. The most important thing is that the basic stuff works. And it does. Again, thumbs up from me.

Just tested the Litening pod in A/A and A/G. Everything works as intended on my end. Although I have to admit that ground targets could stand out a little more even when pod is fine-tuned with MGC. Especially, WHOT/BHOT mode could use a little more "glow" to the targets in A/G mode. The MFD image seems to be really washed out. Otherwise, everything is working fine.

Yeah, great update! And a big thank you to all of those guys involved at ED (and Ugra). You did an awesome job. I just flew the Viper around Beirut and Damascus to intercept a pair of Floggers and it was an awesome experience. The sim runs absolutely smooth on my end. The Syria map looks gorgeous and I love what you did to the Viper. Even the loading times seem better and the Viper "auto-scaling issue" seems gone. Man, I am not one of those guys who praise things lightly but this is a good patch. Again, thank you ED & Ugra. :thumbup:

Well, Frederf put it right and very simple in his post: "Changing from 80nm display to 40nm display is strictly a difference in presentation to the pilot visually. If you change displayed range the radar would already have built those tracks just as if you were in that longer display range the whole time." So, this is spot on and has absolutely nothing to do with the ability of the FCR to maintain a lock or build a trackfile. Absolutely zero. And of course this goes for all other display ranges, too. There is no fighter jet FCR in the world I ever heard of that would drop a lock because you change the range presentation on your MFD. Think of this actually happening to you in a real fight. That would be hilarious. So yeah, good to know you can repro this every single time in SP as I don't fly in that mode. It is there in MP, too as you can see in my two youtube clips posted on page 1of this thread. Again, this has to be a bug. The observed behavior is just not supposed to be happening with a real FCR.

Yes, it does also happen if I am co-altitude. I tried that, too. Indeed, there should be no reason to lose target track during an automatic FCR display format change. I suspect the radar completely resets its scan zone while the auto-scaling occurs. What we see in those two clips is not supposed to happen. Under absolutely no circumstances. And the funny thing actually is that the observed behavior does not happen if you manually change the FCR display range with a bugged target in an identical situation. Exactly. I still wait for an answer from an ED official on this. They wanted something to see and now they have it. I hope they are able to recreate the issue which should not be too hard because you literally can´t fly any engagement using RWS-SAM without seeing this potential bug.

Well, you know that Wags likes to tease. So maybe he literally saves the best for last. I have a strong feeling that we might very well see HARMs and MAVs showcased in the course of the next few days. Fingers crossed.:D

Everything is fine. Now that we can actually see these much needed Viper updates are indeed coming along quite nicely most of us should be pretty happy with what we will most likely get next week. The "small things" can come aferwards. You guys at ED did a good job on the Viper. I am looking forward to get my hands on all of that new stuff. :thumbup:

As promised here I have two short YOUTUBE clips showing the suspected "auto-scaling bug" in all its glory. Sadly, my tracks did not work and actually did not show the problem at all. The tracks did not even show me loosing lock. Pretty wierd, huh? Video 01 https://youtu.be/UeonTTYgKJA Description: Situation 1 is a target at more or less constant 6000ft coming from a front aspect. Radar range auto-scaling from 80nm scope to 40nm scope automatically happens at a target range of 35nm. Bugged target gets dropped when auto-scaling happens. Also, radar altitude coverage gets automatically changed when auto-sacling happens. Radar altitude coverage set by me during bugged target track was 42k feet upper limit / 01k feet lower limit. This gets automatically changed when auto-scaling happens to 34k feet upper limit / 11k feet lower limit. Thus, the radar is not able to find the previous target due to a suspected scan centering bug. Video 02 https://youtu.be/8MemIiCsXwQ Description: Situation 2 is a target at 30000ft again coming from a front aspect. Radar range auto-scaling from 40nm scope to 20nm scope automatically happens at a target range of 12.7nm. Bugged target gets dropped when auto-scaling happens. Also, radar altitude coverage gets automatically changed when auto-sacling happens. Radar altitude coverage set by me during bugged target track was 30k feet upper limit / 15k feet lower limit. This gets automatically changed when auto-scaling happens to 27k feet upper limit / 16k feet lower limit. Radar is again not able to find the previous target due to a suspected scan centering bug. I hope you guys at ED get an impression of this wierd stuff and I hope my contribution was helpful.

As soon as I am home from work I'll do a quick PvP engagement where I'll use RWS-SAM to showcase what we believe to be the so-called "auto-scaling bug".

This bug is back, indeed. And I must say I am little surprised this bug report was recently marked as "cannot replicate". I think we described the rather obvious problem fairly well here concerning what happens and when it happens. And people talked about it happening in other posts, as well. What really irks me the most is that apparently no effort in even reading through this stuff has been taken by an ED Mod. Currently you cannot fly a single engagement in RWS-SAM mode without this auto-scaling bug (most likely related to severe scan-centering problems) happening. It is so easy to replicate, come on. Get online, fly a PvP sortie and use RWS-SAM mode. Watch what happens. This bug is really hard to miss, guys. The same goes for the aforementioned problems with TWS behavior.

See, it IS getting better with more practice. And no, the last patch did not include any changes to the APG-68v5. At least, the patchnotes do not indicate any changes. It is just you getting better.

Auto-scaling in RWS-SAM can be a p.i.t.a., currently. I agree with you on that point, Csgo GE oh yeah. You need to be quick in that mode and you will most likely need to lock and bug the target a second or even a third time. This mode is currently very unreliable because of severe scan-centering problems as correctly described by dundun92. And when you loose lock you need to have a look at your upper and lower radar elevation settings. These will most likely be off quite a bit to where your target actually is in space. Reset them quickly to the correct values in combination with desired radar range. If you are quick enough and you understand what is happening with your radar, you will be able to get safe follow-up locks on your desired target 9 out of 10 times. I am an old man and I can do it so you might be able to perform even better. Always keep in mind that every radar system is only as good as its operator. And as dundun92 stated concerning the use of TWS this system is also pretty capable of a successful engagement (yes, PVP) if you understand what is happening with your target in relation to your aircraft. TWS on the APG-68v5 has problems with all aspect situations. This is correct behavior. The problem is that in its current DCS iteration it tends to loose lock a little too early when it clearly shouldn´t but you can overcome this with clever maneuvering. Also, trackfile building seems a little slow to me. But I do not have access to the relevant data anymore and I can´t remember how quick exactly this worked so I have no proof for my claim which I could present here. Otherwise TWS is absolutely workable. Until we see a patch for the Viper that addresses all these issues I can only suggest you to just train harder on the F-16C and try to understand what is happening with the radar. Train on a popular and chaotic public A/A server. If you get shot down don´t give up. Just train harder. You will get better. Currently, the F-16C is the most lethal A/A platform in DCS in my opinion. Yes, the Viper has some really unpleasant bugs but it can dominate other aircraft pretty easily and this will be your reward when you get to master her.

Indeed, and let me say I absolutely get your point there. This is exactly why ED did the right thing and made that survey. I am very curious which Viper features are prioritized by the majority of the community. And as MAVs and HARMs already seem to be coming along quite nicely I am sure you (we:D) will not have to wait too long to finally see them in action.

Thank you for sharing this, ebabil. Let us all take part in that survey to give ED the best possible impression of our 2020 priorities for the Viper roadmap. I for one voted for completion of A/A radar, tuning FM including ground handling and completion of Litening TGP while new features like Maverick and HARM are nice but in my opinion the basic and existing features need to come first.

Yup, I was flying there that same weekend and can absolutely confirm that. I think we had decent success with the Viper. Within 40 nm the radar is totally usable in BVR/TWS when handled the correct way. Only thing that really annoys me is when auto-scaling kicks in at 40 or 20 nm in RWS SAM mode I tend to lose lock because it seems that the radar elevation setting is automatically changed in a rather erratic way and is then way off to where the target actually is in space. I observed these automatic elevation setting changes sometimes being off by +/- 20000ft so this has to be a bug and will hopefully be fixed in the near future. Another thing is that the current APG-68v5 iteration tends to loose lock a little bit too quick when it shouldn't.

Yeah, yesterday I took the JEFF out for a little PvP and all was beautifully well. Radar and aircraft work absolutely fine. DEKA does a really good job in polishing the JEFF. Nice work, guys. :thumbup:

Just saw that and now I am a happy man. This is a good decision by ED. Recently we have come to a point where any update to the Viper is greatly appreciated, be it to it's various radar modes, the FM, ground handling or even new features. There are so many things that need tweaks or fixing, ED's list must be a rather long one. I mean, the Viper surely is pretty usable in PvP right now. It is a beast if you know how to handle her. But imagine what you can do in the Viper with a polished radar, guys...

Exactly. AGM-88A-C HARMs can only home in on radar signals emitted by whatever airdefense system. If there is no radar emission by the targeted system anymore the missile will most likely miss. Fortunately, the "IADS system" in DCS is not that smart meaning it won't use many of those nasty RL tactics that can give SEAD/DEAD crews a really unpleasant surprise. Targeting capabilities changed with the introduction of the AGM-88D, however. The D model added a GPS reciever to the missile so that it can hit the last known position of the target if the radar signal is lost. The most recent AGM-88E even got a millimetre wave radar installed in addition to the GPS reciever so that it can now target highly mobile air defense vehicles directly. This is a game changer but this capability exists with the AGM-88E, only. Therefore, the best tactic when using AGM-88A-C is to use a flight that has different weapon loadouts. Think of using HARMs combined with intelligent cluster munitions, AGM-65s and/or JDAM. This tactic applies to DCS, also.

Exactly! Thank you for clarifying that here. Concerning nicktune1219´s statement we can safely say that chaff is not the problem. It is the ground clutter, though when the missile was lofted and dives for a much lower target or when other severe lookdown situations exist (don´t know about SD-10´s RL capabilities in that respect, though). And that irritates some DCS Jeff drivers as the SD-10 used to excel in that category not too long ago. And then there is the DCS online community. It is rather small compared to other online games. Sure, you will encounter the occasional "noob" on the popular servers but most of the guys flying there are literally "living" there and are "battle hardened". They fly there nearly every day. These guys are very aware of every working BVR tactic in DCS. You can safely assume these guys will evade many of your missile shots - regardless of the missile used. You need to get your own BVR tactics right to have success online. Yesterday I flew on Growling Sidewinder´s server and scored 9 kills and no losses before I left. I killed six aircraft with SD-10s and three with PL-5EIIs. Statistically, I used three SD-10s for every kill with that missile although I even got a rare double kill. What can I say. I can´t complain. These guys simply knew their business so everything is good. But on the other hand I went up against so many AIM-120s (mostly Cs I suspect) and was able to defeat them so reliable that many a Hornet or Eagle driver might have been in rage. But this is all due to tactics. Get them right and you will get kills or avoid being killed. For the moment we have to deal with the SD-10 as it is. There will be a time when the SD-10 is able to profit from the new DCS missile API that the AMRAAM uses but until then it is all about tactics. Can´t stress that enough.

That will surely be the case sometime in the future. But I think it is a big hindrance that 3rd party developers are tied to ED´s development progress in that respect and can´t do it their own way with available data. It is painful to see the AIM-120 is getting all the love and the AIM-54/SD-10 (and russian missiles) are currently not playing in the same league. I can only hope we do not have to wait too long for updates to these missiles. I am mostly a RedFor guy. I mostly fly PvP. The current situation is rather sad.

Excellent news! Thank you for keeping us in the loop.:thumbup: Stay safe.

Hi Mike_Romeo. Well, let´s say there are some EF2000s which wear the badge the way you made it. We even have some that were the badge in both places (see my attached picture!) and some on the tail, only. But anyway, you decide if you wanna change it. Greetings

Nice work, Mike_romeo!:thumbup: I appreciate the german skins very much. Let's say we were a little bit underrepresented. Only one slight correction. Put that Richthofen squadron badge on the tailfin, please. That's were it would be irl. Would be a blast if you can change that. Greetings from Wittmund...:D

Great stuff! These updates are very much appreciated. Let's just hope some last second changes didn't break some of the new features. Let's keep our fingers crossed and hope for a nice and smooth patch, today.