ECM Blinking

[GGTharos]

I thought SPJ jammers were simply a kind of selective transponder? They get a radar pulse, and send back a bunch of similar pulses at different intervals to create false range information (seen in game as 'strobes'). I cant really see that making an aircraft a 'bright target' to someone who's antenna may not be pointed at the jamming craft at the time.

 

Realistically speaking, there'll be a whole bunch of other radars pointed your way. Let's take an example of two F-15's vs. a Mig. The MiG jams one F-15 (the closer one - he's higher priority) but not the 2nd one, because he uses a slightly different frequency or prf - yet, the energy output by the jammer -is- within that radar antennas tracking capability, and it's basically increasing the SNR, giving the other F-15 better tracking without the detriments of being jammed.

^^^^ Educated guess on my part.

 

I do, however, agree that a SPJ jammer would drop jamming aircraft radars when it picks up missile guidance radar, either from aircraft STT lock or missile self-guidance.

 

Right - keep in mind that to keep things simple, I stated that we have a jammer that can only jam one target at a time. Obviously if you have two radars using the -exact- same radar characteristics in the same general vicinity, both will be jammer despite the jammer's limitation.

So with a more modern jammer you -could- theoretically jam both. But it makes the discussion harder, so I'll put that aside.

 

A certain change in defense priority there. But if no missile is in the air, and you have, say, 4 aircraft, 2 with TWS-attack capability, and 2 without, would you not want to make life harder for the TWS-attack capable birds before the missiles fly?

 

 

Yep, but the trouble is that by firing your jammer off you just might make it harder on yourself, since now those radars are operating in some HoJ mode doing things to your jammer that will (hopefuly) help -them- out. And the longer you're blasting music at them, the more time they have to deal with your ECM. It's a trade-off, and in addition, false signals is something you have in reality - less chance of getting a false positive of 'he's attacking me' than 'he's scanning me' ... and think about this, too:

 

I'd just release a couple of small drones with a powerful emitter that would just play back a TWS scanning signal. That's all. What does your jammer do then? :D

[GGTharos]

If I was a jammer I would certainly do something if I have a F-15 in search mode on the RWR. If he is within 30 nm or so there is a good chance that he is preparing to fire a missile or already did so. If you wait for the AMRAAM to go active before doing something you are in serious trouble.

 

And how are you going to know how far he is? He can use a whackload of different radar modes which have different effective power output...he could look a lot farther or a lot closer to the RWR than he really is (again, N/A LOMAC).

You don't wait for the 120 to go active - you fire and crank. If you're not armed with actives then you're at a disadvantage and that is basically that.

[GGTharos]

I'm with your proposal, GGTharos, but if it would prove to cumbersome to adopt, I would turn to Pilotasso's proposal as a fall-back.

 

I don't like pilotasso's idea for one simple reason: As the code is right now, that means everyone would just make jammer on part of their startup procedure.

 

The result of this , as the code is now, again, is that the F-15 cannot use TWS since jamming aircraft force any TWS lock into STT when you bug a jamming target.

[MBot]

And how are you going to know how far he is? He can use a whackload of different radar modes which have different effective power output...he could look a lot farther or a lot closer to the RWR than he really is (again, N/A LOMAC).

You don't wait for the 120 to go active - you fire and crank. If you're not armed with actives then you're at a disadvantage and that is basically that.

 

And because of this I would expect a modern SPJ to consider any search spike on the RWR of a TWS capable fighter as a serious threat that has to be countered.

 

If you have a F-15 on the RWR there is a high chance he is using TWS. If you don't try to jam him and let him use his TWS mode you will not only allow him to fire and guide ARH missiles at you, you will also allow him to get a good situation awareness ( and the ability to execute proper team tactics ) already from a large distance.

[Pilotasso]

I would actually prefer a more complicated fix.

 

One of the suggestions I made - aside from fixing the blinking issue - would also give us dynamic break-lock and burn-through in HoJ.

 

Basically the idea was as such

 

1. Jammer has warm-up and cool-down times - blinking is fixed

2. Jammer is automated. It will emit when you're locked on-to, stop when you're not. TWS now becomes much more useable.

3. When the jammer emits, a couple things happen.

Right off the bat, you roll a die (read: random probability) to determine if it breaks the offending radar's lock outright. You do this again every x seconds that you are locked.

The attacking radar rolls a die to see if it burns through.

 

Burn through and break lock probability are affected by radar power on target - meaning range ... relative to your radar strength (so a MiG has more difficulty burning through for example)

So, at longer ranges - more chance to break lock. At shorter ranges - more chance to burn through.

 

At this point, what you end up with is a more dynamic ECM/ECCM environment without a set burn-through range and no guarantees of maintaining lock on a jamming target.

 

At the same time ... fear the F-15's with their TWS systems - AS it should be.

 

 

I want this as well, we discussed this before and it seemed a good idea. But I dont believe ED is going to spend much time fine tuning it when theres so much other work to be donne on the helo, then we could expect them to reject doing this stuff you proposed to them. In that case the burn through range would be the last ditch proposal for the simplest trouble free compromise.

 

Fingers crossed.

[GGTharos]

I want this as well, we discussed this before and it seemed a good idea. But I dont believe ED is going to spend much time fine tuning it when theres so much other work to be donne on the helo, then we could expect them to reject doing this stuff you proposed to them.

 

Correct.

 

In that case the burn through range would be the last ditch proposal for the simplest trouble free compromise.

 

Fingers crossed.

 

 

Actually, jammer warm up/shut down time is a far, far better solution IMO. Burn through distance being increased just makes the jammer effectively useless save for forcing 15's out of TWS.

[GGTharos]

And because of this I would expect a modern SPJ to consider any search spike on the RWR of a TWS capable fighter as a serious threat that has to be countered.

 

And that is simply /not/ how it is. SPJ's only bother themselves with 'attack signals', not scan signals. As I said, false positives, the ability to trick the jammer into using itself up, and other issues such as operational security and interference with your own team make jamming 'every scanning signal out there' (And just about everyone now is toting TWS) undesireable.

 

If you have a F-15 on the RWR there is a high chance he is using TWS. If you don't try to jam him and let him use his TWS mode you will not only allow him to fire and guide ARH missiles at you, you will also allow him to get a good situation awareness ( and the ability to execute proper team tactics ) already from a large distance.

 

 

He'll do that anyway because even if your jammer is on, he can range you sing a 20-30 second trig procedure. It doesn't give you anything at long range. The SPJ's purpose is to degrade an attacking weapon, *not* to degrade the opponents SA or destroy his ability to track you. That's a standoff jammer's job.

 

Under those circumstances, so long as YOU execute your tactics correctly, your jammer is still there to help you defeat an AMRAAM when it goes active; yep, you're at a disadvantage if you have no actives, but that's life: Deal with it. If SPJs worked the way you want them to, they'd always be used (like in LO) regardless, not only against locked threats. To do it your way is basically to spread yourself thin.

[Pilotasso]

THe other option without increasing burn through range would be the one I first mentioned, Auto transition from TWS to HOJ, lets keep that one in mind too.

[Guest IguanaKing]

You need net framework 1.1 installed to use it. Grab LMR here. You can grab my s/p and m/p ground attack missions here. Get back with me and let me know how you like the missions.

 

Thanks Rugg! I'll definitely get back to you on that. It might be a little while though. I've got all kinds of flight test craziness going on right now, including getting a FLIR mounted and approved by the FAA on a PC-12. What the hell though...the money's good and I get to fly even more, so its all good! :D Thanks again buddy!

[Raptor22]

The ECM blinking technique never seems to work for me... no matter how slow or fast I flash my ECM. The enemy always seems to be able to lock me and fire a semi-active. I've even tested this out before, I was going against a friend and told him to fire semi-active missiles at me... then I flashed my ECM but he always said he had a solid lock on me, and the missiles eventually reached me and killed me. I also have the same problems with other pilots flashing ECM, naturally I am not able to lock them. By the time we get close enough I already have an R27ET in my face :mad:. So I guess this is my mini rant about this topic so far :doh:

[brewber19]

I read the fisrt 4 or 5 pages, not all 33 or whatever but...

 

For an ED Tester that's a fantastic attitude, glad to have you on the team.

 

And how are most of those exploits, they are all intended by the DEVs, key point there.

 

This reminds me of Al Gore talking of global warming.

 

Doesnt matter to me, like I said I wont have to deal with it, as I wont be in the server. I will fly A2G and if not that I have F4AF, BF2142, NWN2, GRAW. Lots of games, so this one can collect dust.

[Shaman]

I read the fisrt 4 or 5 pages, not all 33 or whatever but...

 

For an ED Tester that's a fantastic attitude, glad to have you on the team.

 

x2

 

WHAT A SHAME!

[Prophet]

x2

 

WHAT A SHAME!

 

Coming froms someone with 50% warning.

 

Not sure why it matters. It has nothing to do against the developers.

 

If people want to cheat so that the experience is no longer any fun, why would I continue to play it.

 

BS is awsome. I still fly A2G mostly, and have great fun at it. But I play mostly online. If somehow my squad went away. None of the servers had pure A2G missions, and this issue still existed. Sorry, it would be a waste of HDD space for me.

 

Glad you enjoy my pressence on the team.

[OldFrankHog]

I dont see a problem with =Prophet= giving his opinion on how he thinks cheaters spoil his fun and how he would rather have it collect dust then live with it or do it himself ...

 

"OMG someone broke my tail light :( ... Its cool ill park my car 3 streets further. Or better yet ill smash the ones next to me."

[Kindred]

Brewber and Shamandgg, you guys are way off base. Before you make your decision how about you read the other 70% of the thread you conveniently ignored? Get back to me after you've read all of them. Prophet's point was that cheaters and exploiters are the problem here. People that do that stuff cause problems in almost all m/p servers. It's just becoming more prevalent and it sucks. Just when Lock On is getting larger numbers playing online stuff like this pops up and dissuades others from trying multiplayer.

 

I totaly agree.

 

GG thanks for your ideas. I read them, and they do show promise, your ideas are up too par as for what I would expect, hopefully is the key word. Thanks for at least bringing it up to ED. Hopefully ED will not only take it into consideration. But hopefully ED will make it happen.

 

 

Cheers all

[Prophet]

At the bare minimum the warm-up delay, which to my programing uneducated self, seems to be a simple thing.

 

But the rest of the ideas would really improve the ECM model.

[brewber19]

@ Prophet: I don't disagree with you about the principle of cheats/exploits ruining peoples funs, and I personally cannot comment on the ECM thing as I exclusively fly A2G in the Frogs (I know ecm does feck all for me I must say), what I DO disagree with is your attitude.

 

My view is that as a tester you have a responsibility to support your game title/developer and promote solutions (like GG), not throw your toys out the pram and say "I'm never playing online if I dont get XYZ what I want" - its irresponsible as well as childish.

 

I won't say "all games have cheats, deal with it", because that isn't constructive, and I'm sure if you're a fighter jock the ECM must be a big issue (33-35 pages supports that I guess), but at least try a positive attitude buddy.

 

EDIT: With regards to online play, the use of any exploit cannot be policed due to a lack of dediserver or ability to block a dynamic IP. We have all sorts of problem people visit our 2 servers, which Zorlac kindly works to maintain, but removing problem people usually proves impossible. So, for any exploit, be it ECM, flying <10m, PRTSCN or whatever else, these issues cannot be policed. That's the kicker for those squads who go to the effort (and it is significant) to put up public servers, create missions for people to fly and do their best to make it a decent play environment. When someone complains to server-hosts they won't fly online any more, without the tools to actually address the issue, it's irritating. As a tester you of all people should know better, both the limitations in policing and the effort it requires to host a public service...because that's what all the LO servers on HL are you know, a service!

 

By all means don't fly on our servers (or anyones), or uninstall the game I don't care, but don't be ragging on server admins/squads to do something they can't ever achieve (re: server rules, missions briefs, bans etc).

 

PS: Warnings or 'kudos' of a forum poster are irrelevant, I can't imagine why you focussed on that :music_whistling:

 

Coming froms someone with 50% warning.

 

Not sure why it matters. It has nothing to do against the developers.

 

If people want to cheat so that the experience is no longer any fun, why would I continue to play it.

 

BS is awsome. I still fly A2G mostly, and have great fun at it. But I play mostly online. If somehow my squad went away. None of the servers had pure A2G missions, and this issue still existed. Sorry, it would be a waste of HDD space for me.

 

Glad you enjoy my pressence on the team.

 

 

@Rugg: I'm sorry but I'm sure I don't need to read 30 more pages when the essence of the issue is repeated ad nauseum in the first 5. I don't disagree with the issue around cheaters, and I'm in no position to have an opinion about the ECM thing because I only fly A2G, what I take issue with is Prophets "toys out of the pram" approach which, frankly, is reprehensible from a tester. If people want to wear the label of "tester" in a public forum then my expectations of them are that they have a duty of care to (A) find bugs and exploits (?) in the game and (B) to support the developer and their hobby by promoting a positive attitude of the game title they've signed up to test. Whilst bug finding etc might be limited to certain release dates/versions/parameters, if one continues to wear the label then they should continue to meet those responsibilities.

 

Again then, I agree with the issue of cheating, it spoils peoples fun in all games (since all games have cheats/exploits), but I disagree with his attitude when IMHO he should be more supportive...or at least come across as something other than a 5 yr old because he has a problem and no (immediate) solution.

 

I've had my say in this thread and won't respond further, I've made my point that I don't agree with Prophets attitude (I don't disagree with his opinions specifically).

 

I'll go back to happily move mud in my Frog (or playing SupComm which has the attention of what little free time I have lately:()

 

Brewber and Shamandgg, you guys are way off base. Before you make your decision how about you read the other 70% of the thread you conveniently ignored? Get back to me after you've read all of them. Prophet's point was that cheaters and exploiters are the problem here. People that do that stuff cause problems in almost all m/p servers. It's just becoming more prevalent and it sucks. Just when Lock On is getting larger numbers playing online stuff like this pops up and dissuades others from trying multiplayer.

[Zuki]

More popcorn!

 

Munch ... munch.

[Anytime]

lol I'm in two minds about jamming now. Given the ECCM available on modern radars the best SDJ is going to do is give you is seconds to try and hide or degrade a missiles performance. The modeling of a the noise jammer against the APG63(1) is fair enough but forget it for any frequency agile radar, you'll need standoff jamming or deceptive SDJ.

 

With the later the track should start in the right position and then slowly move off by a few miles. The bogus track should also be dropped as it moves too far away from the original track and the whole process starts again until the jammer can no longer produce returns strong enough to confuse the radar/missile radar.

 

An active missile chasing a a deceptive jammer would end up doing small s turns until it gets burn through or the targeted pilot has managed to get out of the seekers fov. Same thing while any missile is being supported by the host platforms data link. It'll be flying for an intercept course on the bogus track. As for GG ideas it should be limited to the top 1 or 2 threats only.

 

see the description in: Airborne Pulsed Doppler Radar.

 

Think it would work well, 1 the ECM does something useful, 2 you can fire salvos of missiles to increase you pk and 3 it's reasonably realistic and implementable.

 

I'd also love to see standoff jammers modeled in the next project, with the ability to call them up and ask for support when needed. They'll make for nice HOJ tgt :)

[Prophet]

@ Brewer - Well I did have a long winded response, but I will just leave it at this. Testers shouldnt be fanboys. It doesnt serve anyone. And just because I will not be supportive in this issue, because it completely ruins the online A2A experience, doesnt mean I havent been supportive of everything else. Maybe you should read more of what I have written.

 

And I pointed out his 'kudos' because they are just as relevant as me being a beta tester. You only point it out in some childish attempt to see me reprimanded by ED :thumbup:

 

Oh, and there is a difference between policing, and endorsing.

[51GRIZZLY]

@ Brewer - Well I did have a long winded response, but I will just leave it at this. Testers shouldnt be fanboys. It doesnt serve anyone. And just because I will not be supportive in this issue, because it completely ruins the online A2A experience, doesnt mean I havent been supportive of everything else. Maybe you should read more of what I have written.

 

And I pointed out his 'kudos' because they are just as relevant as me being a beta tester. You only point it out in some childish attempt to see me reprimanded by ED :thumbup:

 

Oh, and there is a difference between policing, and endorsing.

 

 

Endorsing people not to take off from the taxiway has never

worked either.... not on 504 , or on any other server i know of ,its

written in the server rules but i se players do it all the time cause

 

1. They dont give a rats **s about server rules

 

Or

 

2. They havent read the briefing at all

 

Endorsing, not to use Flash jammers will have the same effect, the snakes are out of the box

people know about it and people will use it.

 

Just face it ...... You can rant, rave and vhine at them, and you can call them cheaters, lamers

and exploiters and you can report them to the united nations demanding a resolution

to severely punish them !!!!! .......

 

But thats about all you can do and thats all the server provider can do .........

 

Players will just carry on flashin their jammers.

 

So as i said before you might as well allow it cause you cant prevent/ police it for the time beeing

untill ED comes up with some kind of solution.

[OldFrankHog]

Wow thats lame...

 

Yes your totally right some ppl dont give a rats azz about the briefing or the server rules, but some do. And allowing something when you admit it being a cheat just because some ppl wont respect the rules is not the way to go man. At least dont allow it, thats like inviting ppl to use it. If you say in the briefing dont use this or that at least ppl who read it might maybe consider not doing it.

[Program2]

Instead of posting endlessly in this thread. Everyone should team up and sign a petition/request to be submitted to ED.

 

Every beta tester should also bring up this issue to ED and maybe they will listen.

 

Nothing can be done about this ecm blinking but I think more people are using it now since it's all out in the open. No thanks to this thread :(

[GGTharos]

Several potential solutions have been submitted to ED pretty much the same day that Prophet posted his rant - this was done in the beta forum.

At the same time, some of us went a step further and contacted some people inside ED directly about this.

ED is looking into it, and we're days ahead of this thread in terms of 'doing something about it'.

[Program2]

Several potential solutions have been submitted to ED pretty much the same day that Prophet posted his rant - this was done in the beta forum.

At the same time, some of us went a step further and contacted some people inside ED directly about this.

ED is looking into it, and we're days ahead of this thread in terms of 'doing something about it'.

 

Thanks GGTharos.