No building returns on Radar

[Essah]

The Viggen radar appears to distinguish trees, sea, rivers and even vehicles but Buildings do not show up at all. How come?

[QuiGon]

The Viggen radar appears to distinguish trees, sea, rivers and even vehicles but Buildings do not show up at all. How come?

 

I guess it's because of how the DCS Engine handles buildings. Don't know if this can be fixed somehow or not.

[Flagrum]

I guess it's because of how the DCS Engine handles buildings. Don't know if this can be fixed somehow or not.

Not sure about that. Iirc, I've seen in one of the pre-release videos that for example the famous inop "X" landing strips "training range" near the coast showed up at the radar. But this might be a different case, though.

 

But I think, I've also seen radar shadows, many of them, when someone was flying low over a town. I could not spot the actual buildings, but it seemed as if there were a lot of small black streaks as if the radar would not get any returns as it was blocked by some small...ish obstacles.

[Essah]

Not sure about that. Iirc, I've seen in one of the pre-release videos that for example the famous inop "X" landing strips "training range" near the coast showed up at the radar. But this might be a different case, though.

 

But I think, I've also seen radar shadows, many of them, when someone was flying low over a town. I could not spot the actual buildings, but it seemed as if there were a lot of small black streaks as if the radar would not get any returns as it was blocked by some small...ish obstacles.

 

vehicles show up as small black dots. I would imagine buildings would reflect similarly being made of hard materials as opposed to dirt or water, but they don't.

[QuiGon]

Not sure about that. Iirc, I've seen in one of the pre-release videos that for example the famous inop "X" landing strips "training range" near the coast showed up at the radar. But this might be a different case, though.

They aren't buildings, but ground surface.

 

But I think, I've also seen radar shadows, many of them, when someone was flying low over a town. I could not spot the actual buildings, but it seemed as if there were a lot of small black streaks as if the radar would not get any returns as it was blocked by some small...ish obstacles.

I haven't actually tested if buildings appear on the radar or not by myself. I just went ahead with what Essah said, because it seemed logical to me, given how buildings are treated by the DCS engine. I can't really explain it, but buildings are not like units and of course not like surface, they are kinda weird.

[Corrigan]

Nope, no building returns.

[Essah]

Still nobody has addressed whether or not this is realistic behavior or if it's something that could be improved on

[grunf]

It's probably a DCS engine limitation. We'll see how it behaves in NTTR.

 

Anyone tried how it works with structures placed in Mission editor?

[Home Fries]

It has to be an engine thing. If there's one thing that stands out on a real ground radar, it's concrete. Concrete's properties make it stand out like a neon sign on a scope. The only thing even close to concrete is the land/water transition because you get a significant drop-off between land and water.

[fjacobsen]

You can see airbases on the radar. Not the buildings, but the boundary.

[Rotorhead]

Maybe they could add a different radar shade for the "urban" terrain type, just like they did for "forrest" terrain (trees aren't treated as "normal" object in 1.5 either, and yet wooded areas give different returns (right?). Assuming there is something as "urban terrain type" on DCS of course.

[Corrigan]

That would definitely be better than nothing, yeah.

[amalahama]

Is there any intention to fix this? It's quite annoying, towns and cities are fantastic navigation fix points

 

Regards

[Rangi]

It will be interesting to see how it works in NTTR.

[Home Fries]

Is there any intention to fix this? It's quite annoying, towns and cities are fantastic navigation fix points

Keep in mind that ED has never done a ground radar before, so they had no incentive to code returns on objects. However, given their screenshots of the F/A-18 SAR radar (where you can make out bridges, the aircraft carrier, etc.) I'm sure this will change. We're running an AG radar in the 1.x version of the Caucasus, so I'm taking it with a grain of salt and using objects as visual fix points instead of radar fix points.

 

I'm also curious to see if anything differs in NTTR.