Visible radar scanning area wish

[Furious]

Have to agree with Frostie. It would be an extremely extremely useful tool, with no downsides whatsoever. I for one still cannot get a good grip of visualizing what my radar screen is telling me (or not telling me more importantly) and I've been flying this for 4 years. I may be particularly dumb, but my guess is I'm not alone there.

Edited September 30, 2014 by Furious

[KLR Rico]

I don't see what all the commotion is about, it's a useful training tool that will have zero impact on players that don't want to use it. Put the option right next to unlimited ammo and labels.

[Exorcet]

perhaps you'd like auto targeting as well, perhaps? :D

 

Isn't game mode like that already? I wouldn't have a use for it though. If it was in the sim, I wouldn't mind either as I could turn it off and it would effectively not exist as far as I was concerned.

 

You've got your own opinion on what's good and bad for the sim, but I don't think more options has a downside besides developer time. I also don't think people should be worried about how other people decide to learn.

 

I have a pretty good understanding of radar, but I still think it would be worth it for me to use this option for my own reference. I could see applying to a previously recorded track, especially in MP, to look for gaps or deficiencies in my radar search pattern. Every so often, I get ET'd from no where or jumped in WVR and it wouldn't surprise me if I was making mistakes with the radar. You could probably make this option fairly complicated and deep. Something like marking your volume of search in every point in time and then displaying the total volume you've searched in a mission which could reveal various gaps and locations for terrain masking. Just the simple outline of the radar cone would be enough to generate useful data.

 

Saying that it's "not realistic" doesn't make a good argument in my opinion. Obviously a real pilot on a sortie wouldn't see this (bar F-35 like displays or something), but a real pilot using a learning resource very well could. DCS can be just as much a simulator of real combat as it is a simulator of combat simulators. I've got plenty of Inception and yo-dog jokes in response to ideas like that when I discuss things like rewind in racing simulators, but I think it's a strong point. Some people get so caught up on realism that they cut out a lot of options that would have in reality just because they mistakenly narrow down the scope of a simulation a bit too much. You don't have to pretend to be a pilot on a mission, you can just be a civilian sitting at your PC.

[Sceptre]

I have a pretty good understanding of radar, but I still think it would be worth it for me to use this option for my own reference. I could see applying to a previously recorded track, especially in MP, to look for gaps or deficiencies in my radar search pattern. Every so often, I get ET'd from no where or jumped in WVR and it wouldn't surprise me if I was making mistakes with the radar. You could probably make this option fairly complicated and deep. Something like marking your volume of search in every point in time and then displaying the total volume you've searched in a mission which could reveal various gaps and locations for terrain masking. Just the simple outline of the radar cone would be enough to generate useful data.

 

This is a very good point, we could turn it on in replay tracks too see where we went wrong!

[DGC338]

I agree with Frostie. It has little downside. It would teach you about scan volume and how that relates to your B scope. It would demonstrate easily how as range decreases aggressive use of elevation/azimuth controls are required because of the pyramid nature of the scan volume. When used in a training environment with appropriate use of labels and such a great tool.

[vicx]

I don't understand why people have to shoot down ideas that wouldn't even affect them.

 

There's a lot of stuff in DCS that should have a visualization option AND it would do a lot more than just help people learn the systems.

 

From my perspective it would help me work out some of the odd mysterious things that the sim does sometimes. The classic question; is this a bug or a feature would be more easily answered and a lot of bugs would be found a LOT quicker if we had visualisation tools for a lot of the black box functions of DCS.

 

+1 to this idea but I'd say take it even further and allow us to see visualtions for damage and all sorts of other interesting stuff.

 

You can't call it a STUDY sim if you can't study the SIM :)