MrWolf

IMO we need a Dynamic Campaign topic in the forum. F35 already has it, but Dynamic Campaign still no luck. A FAQ would also be useful.

Alright didn't know the hornet had a separate antenna for the IFF transciever. Then the whole point is clear. The implementation is wrong because it's linked to the radar antenna. All my comments on this thread were because I thought the IFF system used the radar antenna. I don't know why this is not fixed then...

The antenna used by the IFF system is the forward array (most commonly known as the RADAR antenna). This means that the beam of the fwd array is what dictates what you are iluminating at the moment (RADAR signal, IFF signal or both). What we need to know if how the antenna array is distributed for each signal. An array with 3x3 aprertures could use the middle aperture for the IFF interrogation pulse and reply pulse TX/RX (respectively); the rest of the apertures for the RADAR signal. In that case (with simultaneous operation of RADAR and IFF) the IFF beam would be much more wider than the RADAR beam. A pretty standard microstrip aperture antenna has about ~120° Beamwidth (-3dB) E and H planes. The point is that it all matters on the antenna. The IFF signal it's not sent/received isotropically. So if the bogey aircraft is outside the beam of the IFF antenna then you shouldn't receive a reply. And the IFF antenna it's bound to the RADAR antenna (unless there's another array in the aircraft that I'm unaware). In civilian aviation it's called secondary radar because there's actually a second antenna (besides the one that belongs to the scanning radar, on the image the top one): In an aircraft there's only one main antenna ( not counting the comms, and navigation ones). You can convert one antenna in two either as explained above by subdividing the array or performing some kind of timing between the usage of the main antenna. Even in the civilian case, if the antenna is not moving and it isn't pointing at the aircraft neither the Primary Radar or the Secondary radar will get any return from the aircraft. So in conclusion this issue could be a bug or not. That depends on how the antenna works for the IFF in comparison to when it works as a RADAR. In either case this should be stated in the manual. For example: IFF has an effective beamwidth pointing at the LOS of the antenna dish of 120° (or 180° or 200°), at a given range.

+1

It's sad getting hyped by learning new aircraft procedures and tactics, etc. with new planes like the f-4. But after hours and hours with your new aircraft and procedures you come to a stale Simulated World. Where ATC, GCI or any radio communications do not exist. Where you are your own general. Where the closest interactive person is the crew chief by Heatblur. And you eventually fell like you learned stuff just for nothing. If this was just a trainer then we wouldn't need dynamic campaigns or AI radio comms. Because we would we training for real life. The objective would be just training procedures with respect to the aircraft, not the other humans around us when we fly. In a sense DCS needs to be more than a simulator. If you just want to simulate an aircraft, then DCS is already the sim. Humans need objectives in order to incentivate the learning of something. We need objectives, games are just that. Challenges in order to fulfill an objective. The objective in a trainer is training for real life. What should DCS be? A trainer? Or something else? It looks that DCS aims to be something else, no? Why would they want to create more maps for a trainer? If DCS wants to be that something else, we need a simulated environment. With a simulated environment a user no longer interacts with DCS as a trainer but as a real life virtual simulation. In order to simulate a virtual life environment we need a virtualization of what we have in life: - Objectives, goals, tasks, desires, sensation of uncontrolled events around yourself. That it's achieved with a dynamic campaign. - Sensation of existence, reciprocal interaction with the environment, environmental communication, individuality between other individuals. That is achieved with a set of radio comms and or other means of interacting with virtual thinking entities. For now we can fake with cardboard and rollers that indeed we have that kind of interactions in DCS world, by creating very complex scripted ( and well made) campaings. But once the campaigns are done or when we replay them, we start to notice the tape that is holding the cardboard together. We are then left again with the trainer. So many years have passed and a few more will pass until we get (if we ever get them) this features. Until then, DCS will be a trainer. A very good one. The thing is that I don't fly f-4 in real life. Once I train all that can be trained then I would be left again with the desires of more objectives which probably new cardboard temporary substitutes will satisfy. But until when?

Yes, that's the QoL development allocation for DCS. Like aircraft BIT, damages, component simulation, EM simulation, realistic Comms. You can drop all the weapons you like. Just try following NATOPS manual procedures, and you will suddenly find that some steps are just ignored in DCS because the aircraft does not care about most buttons. Have you ever tried doing all the BIT tests? F-4E looks like will change the standards of aircraft for DCS, we'll see if others adapt.

There's no dynamic campaign without this, that's for sure.

So hornet is out of EA.... But are the major bugs fixed? There was a bug as old as I can remember that made dropping bombs with the hornet without gps availability impossible. I've seen recent updates about the Viper INS, does the hornet have it fixed? Or we are obliged to fly with GPS in order to have the aircraft correctly working? Slant range drop calculation for bombs in ccip shouldn't depend on ins anyways, just radar range and mathematical computer calculations. The original bug threads were closed and I don't recall seeing the solution anywhere.

Simple question. I see this map adds only ground. So I guess the f-14 and f-18 won't be able to deploy from carrier? I mostly fly carrier based aircraft because I like all the stuff involved with it. Just evaluating if I want to buy this on pre-release or in a few years.

Yeah, Doppler filtering should help discard "floating chaff" from moving aircraft, very easily indeed in active missiles. For semi-active missiles it's more difficult, because the missile needs the reference signal (which for example could be taken from a backward looking antenna in the missile that gets the transmitted field by the radar antenna) in order to obtain the beating frequency and from that obtain the velocity. I guess chaff in modern days is similar to flares, meaning that momentarily (when it gets released) the chaff can distract the missile seeker until the speed of the chaff gets low enough to get discarded and thus the seeker points again to the aircraft. If the chaff cloud returns much more power than the aircraft scattering, then the chaff could mask the signal level scattered by the aircraft. Anyway, the point was to show that there are multiple ways to approach the SAM problem. But in DCS we have only 1.

Totally agree. I saw mover (real life f-18c pilot USN, has a podcast, etc.) talking about dropping bombs, and he said that even with earplugs, headset, helmet and the engine noise he could hear and feel the relief of tension when dropping bombs on the entire aircraft. Imagine dropping bombs from the wings with a +5g pull, the sudden change of tension would probably affect the wing integrity. Or even because of the g's applied the bombs could get stuck by friction to the bomb holders of the aircraft. Or the fuse wouldn't release correctly.

Probably another repeated post. Probably repeating myself. The thing is that I've found some 60-70's USAF-USN training videos about radar and countermeasures. With this information available, the implementation of these features can't be flagged as "TOP-SECRET" unimplementable features. I don't want to keep it very long because videos are self-explanatory. Anyway, just wanted to point out that in the chaff video they say that chaff can stay quite a long time in the air, generating false returns. This is not implemented in DCS, and I think it would be a great feature, because if chaff stays in the air it can disrupt both enemies and allies for the entire sortie duration. Blinding entire map spots for 2 hours, or maybe having special notes on the mission on not dropping chaff (because of the possible interference to allies). They even mention the super top secret ECM decoy drones on 60's.... Resources are there. The long video is about ECM basic principles, systems and radar targets. Basically showing up that adding that to DCS is not "TOP-SECRET" (unknown information, or whatever). It serves as a basis of principles for more modern techniques, too. Chaff1: Chaff2: ECM:

Very cool DCS an beyond! MIG-29 was ovbious it has been teased for so long in previous DCS videos, sharing screen time with other full fidelity modules in most of the recent ed videos. I've watched Nick recent interviews and I know that DCS Dynamic Campaign is still far from release. But what about ground crew and ATC? Is DCS and beyond a hint to that? If I remember correctly the video has some yellow shirts passing command to another one. A more realistic ATC (like X-Plane, even old ones), JTACS, air commands and ground/sea crew is something that it's not as shinny as a new aircraft but IMO it's much more immersive than anything else. I mean we have all kind of navigation systems, but for what? We are currently the Kings and Queens of the game, all NPCs just vow to us when we want to do any manouver or whatever. Since the Dynamic Campaign wants to achieve a lot of things I'm not sure if ed wants to release all in one version release or progresively. Getting ATC and the other things before Dynamic Campaign it's also a way of keeping us entertained while the big project comes out, heheh. Well anyways, great job ed!! Until next DCS an beyond!

Thanks, this is a good summary of what i've explained on the previous messages (more detailled). Just 2 comments: Mode 4 only replies a set pulses at a given delay from which the interrgator can know if the target is frendly or not (this is the only information that we are sure we can trust since it's the only one comming from military source https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/navy/nrtc/14308_ch8.pdf). No other information it's carried on the reception. Mode S really doesn't function the same as the previous ones. It's a digital design. There are no "Codes" as in the sense every aircraft tune to a given code. Digital information it's sent using Mode S. The S interrogation and replies are created by selecting fields of information and the values. This different than with the other Modes. Message are generated similar to a packaging aproach like TCP/IP. .

I've looked on how Deka implements IFF and it seems wrong. This is because: For Modes 1, 2, 3: You only need a code FOR REPLY (Deka sets codes for the interrogator too from what I understood from a youtube video, that doesn't make any sense) since interrogations doesn't contain any information of the interrogator. So you would only need to configure the transponder (the system that replies to interrogations) reply squawk codes for Modes 1, 2, 3/A. From what I've read from general aviation forums, the civilian transponders when set ON mode only reply to Mode A type interrogation, and when set to ALT it replies to Mode A and Mode C interrogations (providing squawk code and altitude, 2 interrogations needed). Other things to mention: Military aircraft should provide the same capabilities that civilian aircraft have with ON mode or ALT mode. In the case of F/A-18C DCS implementation, it shows that Mode 3 can be set to Mode 3/C (on the UFC). I guess that when the UFC shows Mode 3/C it's just plain Mode C. The ALT equivalent to military it's Mode 3 A/C: "Mode 3/C provides the aircraft's pressure altitude and is usually combined with Mode 3/A to provide a combination of a 4-digit octal code and altitude as Mode 3 A/C, often referred to as Mode A and C" (reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aviation_transponder_interrogation_modes). So it seems that DCS it's pretty much simulating it! Some aspects have to be polished, as I commented here. This is great because when we get the ATC improvement we would get the possibility to use them along the ATCs. And more importantly since DCS it's also implementing Mode 3 simulation we can have a simulation working between civilian and military, simulating air intercepts, hijacks with transponder emergency transponders, military aircraft working with civilian ATCs with Mode 3 settings, etc.