Tango3B

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.

Uhm yeah, that superimposed dot while VID'ing comes on top of it as a really unpleasant side effect. It really is a p.i.t.a. sometimes. Eyeballing or doing the mental work of calculating lead can work but is never accurate enough to make the missile come off efficiently. It drives you nuts when going against a capable enemy. Let's just say at this stage of development this bug simply should not be there anymore. Thank you. I know it was already reported some month ago but since no progress on fixing that bug can be seen I thought I'd revive this bug report as it also affects the F-16. Bringing these things to ED's attention can never be a bad thing, right?:D

Radar steering dot completely wrong The radar generated steering dot which should provide the intercept vector to the locked target is calculated completely wrong. This leads to missile shots where the missile has to perform an erratic an energy draining maneuver right from the start of the engagement. I am rather surprised this is still a thing after two years of development. Dear ED team, please take a look at this bug. This is a crucial and basic feature of every modern radar and should be fixed pronto as it currently puts Hornets drivers at a severe disadvantage.

And what you describe seems to be the exact issue. Server lag. I was flying on the same server a couple of hours ago and it was a horrible experience. The SD-10 tracked ok most of the time but some guys lagged that heavy the KLJ-7 even lost track on them coming from straight ahead. Does the new patch (would be an ED problem then) or the server sided settings cause these problems? I don't know. The only "problem" I noticed so far with the SD-10 after the recent patch seems to be reduced seeker fov. That might have changed but I am not totally sure. But anyway, getting kills with the SD-10 is surely no problem...

Don't worry, we still have the edge in BVR combat. We just need to be a little more cautious and aware of our actual performance data. My reply was just a heads up to put it right. Have a nice day, dude. :D

Sorry Chiron, but the value for CCM resistance did NOT change! I keep track of that particular value since the module has been released and 0.15 as CCM value for the SD-10 has been there for ages. The only missile in Deka's "arsenal" to have a CCM value of 0.12 is the PL-12 and that one is not available to us. You must have mixed that up, I am afraid. The CCM values range from 1 to 0, as far as I am aware. A CCM value of 1 would be an absolut chaff magnet whereas 0.15 original 0.12 for SD-10 and PL-12 is actually pretty decent in DCS. The PL-5EII i.e. has a CCM value of 0.5 and is spoofed by flares pretty easily, as you might know. The AIM-54 in its current state has 0.5, too which makes it go for chaff rather quickly. Overall, I must say the recent "nerf" with its slight reduction in range is acceptable. It does not break the missile in overall performance from what I have seen so far. And please remember that neither the F-16 nor the F/A-18 currently have a working steering dot for a valid missile shot so their AIM-120s use up a lot of energy from the start. We in our JF-17, however, can always launch our SD-10s in the most energy efficient way possible which gives again increased performance.:D

I know but for the russian version of the GSH-23 there are certain ammo types without tracers. HE/HEI and AP/API have versions without tracers, for example. The problem is I absolutely do not know which ammo types the chinese/pakistani versions of the GSH-23 use. But there must be tracer-less ammo for obvious reasons...

I would like to give a little feedback on the new lofting mechanics of the SD-10. While clearly needing refinement I must say I am impressed how the missile behaves now when lofting is used the proper way. I did some PvP testing and saw the SD-10 already retains it's energy level very efficently during climb and cruise. The dive down on the intended target works ok but during this stage it seems to start yawing a bit too much bleeding precious energy. This needs improvement. But anyway, the dive maneuver giving the target very little time to react is a game changer. On the famous GS server I recently got 17(!!!) kills that way. Thanks, DEKA, these changes are very much aprreciated.:thumbup: Another thing. Concerning gun ammo I wonder if it is possible that we could get tracer-less ammunition for the JF-17. Would be nice and handy if you sneak up behind a bandit. If you are a lousy shot with the gun like me tracers are a really bad thing, you know.:D DEKA, please consider giving us the choice between different ammo types for the GSH-23.