Harlikwin

In terms of radar slaving while the Juli in theory is slavable since it has 9L DNA and therefore SEAM in theory. The problem is all that has to be integrated plane side, and IDK if it was. I haven't seen anything to suggest the 550 had this capability. In fact the French military brochures make a big deal out of the magic2 having this capability so it's pretty likely the magic1 didnt have it. Which tbh makes sense it's a short range dogfight missile.

Yeah who knows which version will come first.

Good to know. IDK if the ED API for missiles can actually deal with how the 530 works, but I'll let em know.

So speaking of the 530. Currently in game it basically manouvers with full G authority right off the rail. Thats wrong per the manuals. It only gets its full G authority after the engine burns out. Should I go ping Chiz about that or you want me to send it through you? Also any ETA on getting the uncage behavior for the 9J/9P/9Juli and the re-cage behavior fixed yet? They need to rework the whole system to actually model how the early limited all aspect missiles actually worked. Currently its about all they can do to make it more all aspect.

Aim-7 doesn't have a DL (at least the early ones, IDK about the last ones like the P). The earlier ones in fact were limited by radar TX power rather then their max aero ranges.

A better SPO-15 model is coming with the mig23. Along with a decent radar model. And hopefully a better IRST model. The FC3 IRST is "not good" to put it nicely.

I'm well aware of what changed between the 9G and H. But every servo figure I've seen suggests there were no changes like this between the 9J and the 9P. Also the fins remained the same between the 9J and 9P (even up to the much later 4/5 series). Its possible that there were some improvements like that though I just have seen 0 evidence of them. Also the USAF had a vested interest keeping the 9P viable for export in a downgraded state, so they wouldn't have used any "sekrit" tech from the 9L/M project. Though I suppose stronger actuators or more gas pressure wouldn't exactly be sekrit. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest the tech base for the 9J/P was ever impacted by the 9L/M program until much much later with the 9P4 seeker section which even then was different in the sense it was peltier cooled and not gas cooled like the 9L/M. The 9G to H switch with the thermal battery meant the gas generator just had more gas available to drive the actuators, it wasn't actually "changed". It was just there was more gas pressure available since it wasn't driving the turbo alternator anymore which tapped off some of the gas. And the 9L/M were built off the 9H tech base. While the 9J was developed off the 9E tech base that diverged from the 9B very early on.

Its coming after the F15E. So likely a year out at least.

Surprised I haven't seen this till now. Thanks for the write up. One thing if you happen to know it, where were the in-service dates for the various variants?

Yup, and while for that era some docs can be tricky/hard to find, we know they exist and they are generally "gettable" with the right level of research access. For anything modern say past 2000, its pretty iffy on most things, you might be able to find some data for some systems, but mostly the planes we have already have gaping holes in them systems wise and the systems that are modeled are generally not done well depending on the dev.

Not really, The early P/P1 used the Mk17 motor same as the J. The P2/3 used a reduced smoke SR-116HP-1 Thiokol motor. The main changes in the various marks of missile had to do with different fusing, different warhead composition and so forth, so more or less stuff that ED doesn't really model for missiles. Amusingly the notes I have claim the P series had improved maneuverability over the J. But the seeker/fin sections seem to be the same for all missiles afaik.

I mean honestly this is kinda my point. Nothing in DCS modern is modeled well if at all. There are no documents, even stuff from 90's platforms is hard to find good data on. So you end up with "modern" DCS air combat looking like 3rd gen fighters with more thrust or a bigger missile. Instead of working in a 4.5-5th gen sensor-shooter centric kill chain, which is what "modern" air combat actually looks like. I mean we don't even have 90's era sensor fusion stuff that should be on the hornet, and there are at least some docs that ED does have on that. Personally Id prefer the focus of DCS to be planes we can actual model to a good degree of fidelity, in terms of FM, sensors, weapons etc. And unfortunately "modern" anything makes that very hard to do credibly.

I mean it is a pulse radar with little filtering, so low alt performance should be terrible due to sidelobe and clutter issues. Look down should in general be bad, but its going to be better at higher altitudes and lower grazing angles. Its also gonna depend alot on the target/aspect/strength of return. Best case its gonna be fine at med/high alt in lookup/co-alt situations. More modern systems for sure. But who knows if it will be modeled. Stuff like 70's era SA-10 were using basic LPI/LPD techniques even back then. But ED's modeling of SAM radars and actual SAM guidance techniques for even stuff like the single digit sams is not good, esp the SA-2 and the SA8, i.e. in terms of not modeling actual guidance modes or the optical trackers correctly. And honestly I do not think it is a priority for them to fix it.

Yeah honestly it does sound a bit suspect. I've got an MSI water cooled card, so maybe the issue is also card/case specific. I have plenty of room for the connector as well.

Yeah I'd agree on the Magic1 but honestly its down to personal preference and the shots you end up taking. Honestly I'm increasing convinced that the ED Aim9P is wrong in terms of G capability, since it looks like the modeled the Aim9P3 for this. And afaik this is still using the Aim-9J/N guidance section so I don't really see why it would all of a sudden pull less G's than the 9J. And while I have seen solid G numbers for the J, I haven't really seen much for the 9P1-3. At any rate Aerges still needs to model the Cage/Uncage button for the Aim9 series of missiles and the return to boresight mode for the Magic1 as well.

Yeah IDK, the connector is a bit jank IMO, and you can run it with only 3 PCIE cables (using one as a double). I think people bending that connector is a very likely issue, since it sticks out from the case so far. I've checked mine a few times and its straight/slightly drooping for about 30mm ~1". And so far it seems fine. Also it sounds like some of the PSU manufacturers are making 3-4x PCIE cables to that adapter themselves to help with cabling issues.

Well, my 2 cents and non exhaustive testing.... 12900k/3090/4090 Generally with my (mid/high) settings I was getting like 12-15ms frame times with my 3090. And now with the 4090 its literally like half i.e. 7-8ms. On most maps that I did a quick check of. Problem though. My CPU times offline are like 5-7ms (so, 5-7ms+7ms = 90FPS just fine) so looks/feels great offline on empty maps... However if I join an MP server with units, I'm often seeing 10-16ms frametimes. So basically 45fps locked at the worst case, and then like 60's-70's on the upper end, when the CPU time is low. I did also see some major uptics in "other" sims.

Yeah the range is the same. And the seeker should be better than either the early sidewinder or 550.

Yeah correct on all counts, modern radars know which way they are pointed. And yes false alarm rates are their own thing, though if you point it at the ground you are gonna get more clutter/false targets so its not exactly unrelated.

Nope not at all, I mean all radars will have a false alarm rate. Then you get into stuff like side lobe clutter at low alt, which again is barely modeled (i.e. autogain circuits tend to deal with this on modern radars but it basically means you get less range out of a radar at low alt)

Precisely. And honestly I think devs need to held to a higher standard on this stuff. Especially ED when it comes to core stuff. And double plus for actual IR modeling. But to do that right they need to actual model things like object IR reflectivity/emissivity correctly for background/map objects which is no small task even if implemented simply. (you could do it by there being some time of day based probability over different terrain types of there being some reflective/emissive down there, with a very high probability for areas with man made objects i.e. towns/roads/rail etc) False: They actually do use some ray tracing for it so it interacts with the ground, they basically put all that processing on a second core to do an actual "simulation" albeit a simple one. Do I think that its 100% correct? No, of course not but it does give you some basic behavior that should be there. Also I think the mirage does model merged contacts as well.

I mean radar physics/function are pretty well understood at least for the older stuff. Once you know things like antenna gain, power out, etc you can get some vaguely useful models since what a radar signal does when it bounces off the ground or an airplane is known and can simulated. IRST, its sort of the same in that regard, but the problem is what makes modern IRST "good" isn't the physics generally speaking. Its literally <profanity>loads of processing/algorithms, and how all that works is most definitely not public domain. And thats saying nothing of the current state of IR modeling in DCS which is terrible, I mean stuff like clouds blocking IR (and also reflecting it) should be a basic feature of the sim, and its not. Not to mention ground reflections etc. I had high hopes for the "flir" model from ED, but well, lets just say its not good despite the work they put into it, primarily because they focused on units not "background". I'm not talking about doing any of this in real time necessarily. But you do need to simulate/display things like false contacts. And aside from the M2k RDI radar I can't think of another radar in DCS that does it. Or simple stuff like merging far contacts into a single return. Alot of people have talked about, we just need to model what the pilot sees, well yes thats right, but aside from the M2k radar no one is doing it. I guarantee you that both the APG73/68/awg9 etc will have a false alarm rate, and they don't have magical resolution at long range to break out contacts. And they all suffer in terms of detection range when flying at low alt due to sidelobe issues, and the resulting processing therof. And then there is the meme that is "notching" in DCS, and as a hint, for modern radars that mostly doesn't happen. And yet all of these "pilot side" things aren't being modeled currently on the majority of modules.

Thats the fundamental problem, there is some general info on it, and of course the basic physics of it. But actual helpful details, not so much. Well, thats where I'd say you are both wrong and right. For example you can do a pretty good job with older systems, since there is a good amount of information on them, and you can basic physics to fill in the gaps. I.e. the RDI radar on the M2k, or the AWG-9 to various degrees are pretty well known how they work. I.e. you can build a radar model which is what Raz did with the RDI, and hey you have false targets in certain situations, when you are in situation A/B/C. Is it 100% right in terms of things like false alarm rate? No, that part is likely an educated guess. But it ticks most of the boxes of "simulation".

It could certainly carry it, internally it should work just like the Aim9P it already has.

Yeah IDK, seems like pretty easy question to answer. I did ask Chiz some months back about it and he said they were planning on fixing it, I figured 2.8 might the time to do it, as it has all sorts of cloud stuff. I mean in practice its a simple LOS check for units if they just want to make it binary, which would be fine by me. They could get more fancy later with IR seekers and dB signal reduction, but for now I'm sure everyone would be happy with a simple +/-.