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May I kindly ask if this has been acknowledged?

May I kindly ask about this again? I am doing a lot of bomber intercepts and this is a very common problem. The target is non-maneuvering and the interpolated track remains in the target vicinity, yet the Phoenix stops to guide.

Please allow me add some of my own recent experiences. I got the Crystal about a week ago. Unfortunately I must say I am pretty disappointed. Yes when it works, it provides very impressive clarity. But unfortunately I encountered quite a few problems. 1. With the provided USB-hub, just starting the headset was a huge problem with constant connection failures. Each time this required multiple unplugging and re-plugging of the connections to eventually get the headset to be recognized by the Pimax software and start-up. 2. I could somewhat solve this by using my own powered USB-hub (the Pimax provided one is apparently very low quality). The headset now starts up pretty reliably but the connection problem still exists sometimes. Just yesterday I had the Crystal spontanously disconnect while playing DCS. 3. Even with either the Pimax provided or my own powered USB-hub, the headset empties it's batteries in 2-3 hours of playing DCS. It just seems as if the powered USB-hub is not charging the battery at all. This is a show-stopper for me, as this will not cover the duration of my regular multi-player sessions. Hotswapping the batteries is no option, as this will crash DCS. Other makeshift solutions with extra cables is not what I am looking forward to either. This is a premium product I paid $1700 for, which I expected to use for the next several years. I am not interested in having a makeshift solution for years. These are things which just need to work for a product of this price. 4. I have noticable chromatic abberation starting about 1/3 away from the center of the screen. When looking straight ahead in DCS and glancing down at the instruments with just my eyes, I can see a green copy of the white instrument needles about 1/2 needle width above. Unfortunately this greatly takes away from the otherwise great visuals. I saw quite a few reports online about chromatic abberation problems while others apparently do not have it. I wonder if this is a quaility issue in the manufacturing. 5. The headset is heavy and bulky (which I knew beforehand). Unfortunately it is also quite uncomfortable to wear. I haven't contacted the Pimax support yet as I am dreading the process ("yes I have connected the cables, yes I have updated the firmware... "). But I guess I will have to do it soon in order to deposit any potential warranty claims. Franky I have serious doubts that support will be able to do a lot about my issues. Looking online all of them seem to be very common without any real solutions. Frankly at this point I am already regretting the purchase and would really just like to have my money back. This is not a $1700 experience.

What is your experience with the battery life? Today I had both batteries, initially fully charged, drain in about 2-3 hours of playing DCS, with my own powered USB hub connected (the Pimax supplied USB hub had terrible connection problems). This is awfully short and you cannot hot swap either without crashing DCS.

In the Falklands War, Argentine Roland SAM shot down two 1000 lbs GP bombs. So the possibility exists in principle.

Whenever the AI is tasked to attack, it will first decelerate (using air brakes if available) and immediately accelerate again (using afterburner if available) to ultimately attack with exactly the speed it had when the attack task was given. The deceleration and acceleration is completely unnecessary. This pretty annoying AI quirk exists probably since the Lock On era. Demonstration track attached. AI_Attack_Slowdown.trk

There is a problem with lofting Phoenix against low supersonic targets. I tried to engage SS-N-19 Shipwreck missiles. If the Phoenix lofts, it comes down too late resulting in a terminal perpendicular dive from which it has no chance to hit the target. It would need to dive earlier and flatter to hit the target head-on. The only success I had was launches under 20 NM where the Phoenix doesn't loft at all and goes straight for the target. If it lofts it is a guaranteed miss. No track because they don't play back correctly anyway, but you can check out the test scenario in the mission below. Phoenix_Shipwreck.miz

Another 20 years old request from me that I think is worth repeating every now and then. Please add a text area to the debriefing screen. The current end mission screen we have since the Lock On era is basically just an events log with no mission oriented debriefing. There should at the very least be a text area where the player can be given the outcome of the mission he just played. From a simple "Congratulation on destroying the nuclear reactor, the world is safe now" to a small novel, whatever the mission designer wants to put in. This text area should support conditional text blocks, so that various mission outcomes can be covered. Ideally the text string for the debriefing should be editable by script during the mission, which opens almost unlimited possibilities. In the same vein, conditional pictures should be addable to the debriefing screen. A debfiefing screen must also be viewable after ending a multiplayer mission, to support mission oriented coop play. This is all pretty basic (for any game) and rather simple stuff, especially the text. 3D briefing rooms or other bling, while being nice to have, is not being asked for here. Frankly if DCS wants become a better game, this should have been implemented since Lock On.

Our recent discussion on the Rb 04 made me think about better ways to allow single players to execute saturation attacks on warships (not that this is currently needed with the Rb 04 ). So I went ahead and put together this little script. What this does is to allow AI wingmen that are in formation to launch their Rb 04 anti-ship missile on cue when the player launches his own. No further radio commands or mission editor task setting required. Setup for mission: Initialize the script using your preferred method in the mission editor (Do Script or Do Script File trigger). That's it. Use: If your AI wingmen are in formation (considered within 200 m of player altitude and within 5000 m distance), they will automatically launch their Rb 04 when you do and immediately return to formation. Having your wingmen in a stable formation and aiming precisely at your target helps everything to go as smooth as possible (just like you would do with a human wingman). Due to the way DCS works, AI can launch anti-ship missiles only on actual targets (no bearing launch only). The script will consider the closest target within 10° of your nose to be your intended target and that is what the AI will attack. If you launch into empty ocean, you wingmen will not launch as they need an actual target. Beware, if you launch on a friendly ship, your wingmen will do so too! The default setting is that everybody in the flight launches on the same (the closest on your nose) target (saturation attack). If you want to attack a group of ships that are close together (convoy attack), you can change the first variable in the script to single_attack = false. Now your wingmen will distribute their fire amongst the targets. The script is fixed to Rb 04E, as it is a very simple weapon to aim. It won't work with other missiles (RBS 15) as it doesn't really make much sense with more complex targeting. Of course the AI might still show some wonky behaviour, but that just is DCS AI. I didn't really stress test this that much, so if you find any scripting errors please let me know. I hope you enjoy Rb04_AI_LaunchWhenIDoScript.lua

There are performance discrepancies between the player and AI version of Rb 04E. Burn time: 76s vs. 65s Cruise alt: 9-10m vs. 15m Speed: the AI version seems to be accelerating throughout the burn I understand that the AI version has simplified guidance, but hopefully the performance can be made to match.

I have been trying to look more into the SA-N-4. Being the primary anti-aircraft system of the Grisha V and Krivak II in DCS (and a secondary system for the Slava CG), it is especially relevant as a target for the Viggen and Rb-04. From what I could find, OSA-MA was introduced in 1979 and had a minimum target engagement altitude of 25 m. This is the capability we currently have in DCS. Though we don't realy have a specifc naval OSA. The ships simply have a copy-paste of the land system. The improved OSA-MA2 was introduced in the mid-80s and had a minimum target engagement altitue of 5 m and was thus capable against sea skimmers. From what I could find, the initial Krivak II were built with the earier OSA-M, the later units were built with OSA-MA. The Grisha V were apparently build with either OSA-MA or OSA-MA2. Slava (Moskva) was built with OSA-MA and her sisters with OSA-MA2. I could not realy find good info to what extend these units had their OSA systems upgraded to the latest level during their service. Does anyone have any information on this? I think it would be realy interesting to know whether the ships we have in DCS should be able to intercept sea skimming anti-ship missiles.

I guess it boils down to this and this is were we disagree. I am far from being an expert on naval matters, but from all the things I have read on the subject this is exacly what I would expect. Even if that means that you have to spend 3 or more SAMs to reliably hit a sea skimmer, which with VLS is not a fundamental problem. With the introduction of AEGIS (and later similar systems) and VLS in the 1980s, saturation is essential to defeat a modern warship. Of course you still want a layered defense and ultimately CIWS for the holy-mary save against any leakers. But I do not see how indivdual or pairs of subsonic sea skimmers have any reasonable hope to penetrate a modern, prepared(*) SAM defense. And I don't want to see it in DCS either. *This of course exludes major goofs such as Moskva.

Unfortunately this is getting way beyond the fidelity of the naval envorinment in DCS. We only have a very generic SM-2, the Perry class has SM-2 instead of SM-1, the naval S-300 situation is a complete mess, most Russian naval SAMs are mere copies of the land units, the fire control radars are not correct etc. In any case, RIM-66M SM-2 Block III introduced fuze improvements for low altitute targets and entered service in 1988. That is 2 years after the introduction of the first Ticonderoga VLS and 3 years before the first Arleigh Burke we have in DCS. I think it is safe to say that these ships are designed to defend their fleet against contemporary threats (including sea skimmers from 1975). I will just say that I think it is wrong to see such potent wessel as Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke depending entierly in last-ditch CIWS to defend themself against Rb-04.

First let me say that I highly appreciate that you continue to engage in this discussion. Hopefully we will be able to reach a more satisfactory solution. But I think you are mistaken regarding the ability of "long range" SAMs to engage sea skimmers. Here for example is a video of SM-2 engaging a GQM-163 supersonic sea skimming target. According to wiki the GQM-163 cruises at 9 m.

While that is true, there is also a practical side to it. That engagements are successful if the target is 0.1m above a threshold or fail if it is 0.1m below it, is due to a simplified simulation model. I think it is extremely unlikely that ED will change this. Asking ED to lower the altitude thresholds of SAMs (which to that degree of precision are rather artificial anyway) because Heatblur's missile happens to fly a couple of cm below the threshold, is very unlikely to result in any ED movement. Therefore insisting on a specific cruise altitude, even if it is factually correct, will continue to result in an unrealistic outcome. The question therefore is, would it be so wrong to increase the Rb 04E cruise altitude by let's say 1 meter, on order for it to be consistently above the discreet 10 m threshold of a number of important SAMs, if such change would result in a more realistic outcome in an imperfect model? I don't mean this as a rhetorical question. I am not sure myself.

It's the hen and egg question of bug reporting in DCS. If I make a bug report to ED that SAMs can't engage Rb 04E, they will say that Heatblur should fix it (if the report ever even gets looked at in the black hole that is ED bug reporting). If I report it to Heatblur, they say that it is an ED modeling issue. It is an all too common situation unfortunately. I have little hope that this will be looked at by anyone unfortunately..

Just out of curiosity I just had a quick look at the game data. The only naval SAMs in DCS which are currently capable to engage Rb 04E are SeaRAM with a set minimum target altitude of -1 m and HQ-16 with 5 m. Sea Sparrow should in principle also work with a set minimum target altitude of 1 m but it wont engage Rb 04E for some other reason. SM-2, Tor and S-300F have set minimum target altitude of 10 meters and will therefore not be able to engage Rb 04E which cruises between 9 and 10 meters. All the other SAMs are higher. So except for the Supercarriers and the Chinese frigate, Rb 04E is currently uninterceptable in DCS.

Sure it is difficult, but should the Rb 04E really be the least interceptable anti-ship missile in DCS? If the Swedes really found the holy grail of anti-shipping in 1975, you do have to wonder why navies to this day continue to use SAMs as primary means to defend against missile attack. If all it takes to defeat a warship is to fly a missile at 10 m, AEGIS would not be deployed on 110+ ships today. Just to put Rb 04E into historical perspective a bit. The Swedish Air Force was expecting to fight mostly transports and second-line units. The Soviet Baltic fleet's most numerous and capable units where Krivak class guided missile frigates with SA-N-4 and a few Kashin class DDGs and a Kynda CG with SA-N-1. All the "good" stuff of the Soviet Navy was with Northern and Pacific Fleet dealing with NATO. I guess it really comes down to the rather crude game mechanics, which Rb 04E happens to exploit to the max (even if not intentionally). SAMs have a defined minimal engagement altitude value and they will not engage a target that is below it (or explode if the target dives below). I highly doubt that there is such a hard and specific boundary between engaging and not engaging in real life. I think the SM-2 in DCS has a set minimum target altitude of 10 m. The Rb 04E happens to cruise between 9 and 10 meters. Each time the Rb 04E dips below 10 m, the SM-2 explodes mid-air. This makes the missile uninterceptable by the Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke in DCS. rb04_vs_aegis.trk

Yes I re-tested it. The missing hitbox (or whatever the true issue is) only seems to affect guns, not missiles. Not that too many SAMs in DCS will engage Rb 04E in the first place. It's cruising altitude of 9-10 m seems to be below the minimum engagement altitude defined in DCS for most SAMs. So for example between SM-2 not properly engaging and Phalanx going through it, even the AEGIS cruisers are currently completely defenseless against the mighty Swedish AIr Force. It's quite comical

Yes, player F-14 getting DL from Ticonderogas is something that Heatblur has implemented on their own. This is not related to the core-game EWR functionality (radio calls for players, giving target data to AI).

Another oldie but goldie request. Please add the EWR task to ships, so that ships can act as EWR and provide target information to AI aircraft. Doesn't seem like this should be too hard to implement. Carriers/ships controlling aircraft is a common concept.

Bump. According to ED this seems to be on Heatblur to fix. I would not classify this as [ART]. Actually this makes the Rb 04E vastly overpowered.

Good post. In the US Army this firing technique is apparently called Volume Fire. Check out the date of the post

That may be one of the problems. The 57mm AK-725 on the new Ropucha class in DCS actually engage both air and surface targets and in either case it uses the same ammunition. Which is fine as the AK-725 only has impact fused shells. But it shows that dual purpose in DCS is possible in principle. Another problem may be that DCS cannot handle proximity fuses for shells. Some DP naval guns shoot time fused anti-air shells though, which already exist in DCS.

The player launched Rb04E anti-ship missile cruises at 9-10 meter above the sea. In DCS this makes the missile uninterceptable by SA-N-4 (Osa), SA-N-9 (Tor) and SA-N-6 (S-300). Even SM-2 launched by Aegis cannot intercept it in DCS (SAMs are launched but explode shortly after, probably because the target oscillates around the SAM's defined minimum engagement altitude). The Rb04E cruise altitude of 10 meters seems to be correct. Now I do not have any hard data about the various naval SAM's minimum engagement altitudes. But I find it extremely hard to belief that a Swedish missile from 1975 is uninterceptable by modern warships. rb04_vs_aegis.trk rb04_vs_s-300.trk