[WIP] Jester is just not doing his job in air to ait engagements

[BlueAngel]

Situation: Trying to perform air-to-air BVR combat in a multiplayer environment on a average 50/100 ping server.

 

Setup: Cruising at Angels 30, I instruct Jester to scan the azimuth and altitude automatically. AWACS and F10 map indicate two groups (3 F-5s, 2 SU-33), one group at 50nm Angels 15 and the other at 100nm Angels 20.

 

Observation: Jester is unable to find any targets.

 

Adjustment: Descend to Angels 15 and instruct Jester to Scan Middle and Center, range 50 nm, basically where the first group should be.

 

Observation: Jester is still unabel to find any targets.

 

More adjustments: Turned to a 45 degrees intercept and instructed Jester to scan to the side (right). Desecended to Angels 10 to prevent cluttering. Enemies now turn to flank.

 

Obervation: Jester continues to be unable to track targets.

 

Final Adjustment: Close in hot with Phoenixes armed, replacing Jester with auto Azimuth, Range and Elevation.

 

Observation: Dead ahead, 25nm, enemies turn to engage, RWR warnings, Jester is still unable to find targets.

 

Engagement: Jester calls out bogies in visual range. I finish two with sidewinders, making the Tomcat a glorified F-5 Tiger. The final bogie evades with gun damage, I give chase at Angels 5. Instruct Jester to scan closer, center and middle.

 

Observation: Jester is finally able to find the targer. I instruct to lock, prep the Sparrows, but Jester soon loses lock again. I try to reach the target and finally finish it off with guns.

 

Conclusion: As a single player in a MP environment, I am unable to switch seats. As it is, then, Jester is not operating the radar with enough confidence to rely on him at BVR rules.

 

I do understand the radar is very powerful and prone to cluttering. But I am also sure Jester is not really good switching azimuth, distance or elevation. This just my opinion. I am not using Tomcat with Jester for dogfights for now.

Edited April 2, 2019 by IronMike

[Badger1-1]

Id suggest leaving him in tws and there he is really good, then once he identified friend and foe, you can tell him to stt. Dont micromanage him

[Neuse]

I found him to lose sight very often as soon as a contact closes in to the 35 ish range. He just wont try to find it again.

 

TWS seems so be the only thing he´s ok at.

[Fri13]

Jester is fairly silent guy, mirror his TDI and you will see that targets pop up here and there. But he will lose a lock easily.

 

I think that is fairly realistic, as no matter that radar is powerful, it is very "hands on" required and lots of testing and searching without idea of targets.

 

It would perform better at high, but really force you to go guns at closer ranges, why the Top Gun was started as it was so important as you couldn't engage targets so easily at distance and anyways ended to dog fight.

 

If the target ain't a bomber, better just forget all Phoenix stuff and go with sidewinders and gun.

[BlueAngel]

So it's not just me, then.

 

Coming from the Hornet, this is very frustrating for me, to be honest. I thought this platform was more capable than the Bug. It may be, but Jester just isn't cooperating. I will try TWS and see if it improves.

[backspace340]

It's a lot better with a human RIO, so it's not a limitation of the aircraft itself. Jester seems to really struggle with maintaining TWS closer than 30nm. From talking to human RIOs, it sounds like Jester isn't controlling the radar elevation himself as much as he should be to maintain the targets - someone else mentioned that TWS Auto isn't working properly yet. I'm hoping that there are more improvements to come - right now flying with Jester isn't particularly competitive in MP, and there's a significant gap between Jester and a human RIO.

[Steve Davies]

He definitely doesn’t manage scan volume properly, and I think that the scan low and scan medium-low commands are buggy.

[BlueAngel]

Yes, it seems he's only able to find targets at higher elevations or at the same level. At first I thought that was just from clutter, but I jumped into his seat and could clearly see the targets he was missing.

 

 

Overall, Jester is a major disappointment. I was in doubt whether or not I should buy the Tomcat for this very reason. I don't fly with a Wing or a Squadron, my buddies don't fly the cat so I was counting on Jester to be my Goose. He's not a Goose... he's a Merlin, nagging and joking instead of doing his job. He's cool, but not that much of a breakthrough HB was publicizing.

 

As an example. I was studying bombing and reached the LANTIRN part and was utterly frustrated with him not able to do anything right with it. It's just impossible to drop a GBU without jumping into the back yourself.

 

It's just a let down.

[AvroLanc]

He definitely doesn’t manage scan volume properly, and I think that the scan low and scan medium-low commands are buggy.

 

Agree on this. He’s effectively using TWS MAN mode and he never changes the scan volume to best track targets. We desperately need the TWS AUTO mode working so that at least the system will work on our favour when Jester doesn’t.

[Neuse]

The missing lantirn usability in mp should really be on the sales page. Youn can't gbu at all without human rio. That was a real bummer for me. Jester really feels like a very rudimentary implementation with cool voiceovers for everything combat related.

[OnlyforDCS]

I've had reasonable success with Jester but yeah, it looks like he doesn't do that well in TWS as soon as targets start to maneuver and lose altitude.

 

One thing is hugely important I've noticed and after I started doing that Jester's skills improved. Manage Jester's radar max range setting and don't touch any of the other commands. Also make sure to always turn on your datalink to the Awacs (if available)

 

With all of that said Heatblur's Tomcat is still in early access, and Im sure that many of these issues will be ironed out eventually.

[QuiGon]

I've never flown with Jester or from the front seat at all so far, but I've accumulated about 30h as a virtual RIO by now and I have to say that keeping a radar track of maneuvering targets is pretty difficult with the AWG-9. Adjusting for altitude is not as easy with the AWG-9 as it is with more modern radars like in the hornet, as the AWG-9 doesn't provide you with as good information about the vertical scan area. It's possible though with some experience.

What is even more frustrating is the susceptibility of the AWG-9 for notching. I constantly loose track of targets because of this and getting a pulse lock instead is not possible in many situations.

 

So what I'm reading here about Jester sounds actually pretty reasonable to me. :dunno:

[Banzaiib]

I've never flown with Jester or from the front seat at all so far, but I've accumulated about 30h as a virtual RIO by now and I have to say that keeping a radar track of maneuvering targets is pretty difficult with the AWG-9. Adjusting for altitude is not as easy with the AWG-9 as it is with more modern radars like in the hornet, as the AWG-9 doesn't provide you with as good information about the vertical scan area. It's possible though with some experience.

What is even more frustrating is the susceptibility of the AWG-9 for notching. I constantly loose track of targets because of this and getting a pulse lock instead is not possible in many situations.

 

So what I'm reading here about Jester sounds actually pretty reasonable to me. :dunno:

 

Yeah, in the F-15 and F-18, you get elevation limits on the tdc to let you know precisely your scan height / volume, in the F-14 you just get the height limits at the maximum displayed range you have selected, but you do get the degree offset, which is nice... <insert meme> It's going to take time to get used to this... and maybe even some 123 quik mafs...

 

You really need to get below your target to stop him from notching you when he's maneuvering, as the AWG-9 does not do well against ground clutter, and it has a HUGE doppler filter, so if he turns cold, he's gonna vanish from TWS and RWS. The F-15 doplar filter is like +/- 40 kts... the f-14 doppler filter is +/- 100 kts... (yes it is modeled in the F-15 in DCS). This (and JDAMs) is why I'd love to get the F-14D... i love the 14B hud, actually :), but i digress...

Edited March 18, 2019 by Banzaiib

[backspace340]

So what I'm reading here about Jester sounds actually pretty reasonable to me. :dunno:

 

I've flown both with him and with several human RIOs, Jester isn't remotely in the same league - not even compared to the day 1 RIOs who were learning as they went. His main problem is spotting and tracking anything between 30nm and 5nm - things will drop off radar and arrive in the merge (or you'll merge with a contact that never even appeared on radar). You can see human RIOs moving the radar left and right, up and down looking for and tracking targets - Jester's radar is fixed straight ahead unless you tell him to move it with fairly coarse commands (which you don't have time for). I'm sure it's fine for fighting AI in SP, but he's just not competitive in MP. Hopefully when TWS auto gets fixed he won't lose contacts so easily.

[BlueAngel]

Which is kind of a contradiction. Being synthetic it was supposed to be better.

In multiplayer is really a tremendous let down. I keep losing aerial engagements because jester is doing god know what back there. Having to turn on VSL or PAL and do his work is a major negative point for this system.

[Neuse]

I've flown both with him and with several human RIOs, Jester isn't remotely in the same league - not even compared to the day 1 RIOs who were learning as they went. His main problem is spotting and tracking anything between 30nm and 5nm - things will drop off radar and arrive in the merge (or you'll merge with a contact that never even appeared on radar). You can see human RIOs moving the radar left and right, up and down looking for and tracking targets - Jester's radar is fixed straight ahead unless you tell him to move it with fairly coarse commands (which you don't have time for). I'm sure it's fine for fighting AI in SP, but he's just not competitive in MP. Hopefully when TWS auto gets fixed he won't lose contacts so easily.

 

This so much. As soon as he comes closer then 35 miles Jester will often drop the target without any try to reaquire

[IronMike]

Noted! Please note that JESTER radar work is WIP and will see improvements.

Edited April 2, 2019 by IronMike

[F900EX]

I think players expected Jester to be working 100% from day one, but I do agree with all of the above statements he's very far away from been a real virtual Rio. WIP indeed

[Oceandar]

Noted! Please note that JESTER radar work is WIP and will see improvements.

Please make him IFF target locked by any acm mode and tell the pilot instantly the result. So far I feel very stupid because of team killing.

 

Thanks.

[IronMike]

Please make him IFF target locked by any acm mode and tell the pilot instantly the result. So far I feel very stupid because of team killing.

 

Thanks.

 

 

He already does that. :-) But IFF in the Tomcat is not instant, you have to actively do it, to get a return, and so does Jester. So sometimes he just cannot be quick enough.

[Oceandar]

He already does that. :-) But IFF in the Tomcat is not instant, you have to actively do it, to get a return, and so does Jester. So sometimes he just cannot be quick enough.

Oh yes he does.... sometimes. But in my case mostly not and occasionally gives ambiguous shouting when I lock target with PAL like "target 12 oclock" well I shoot the Phoenix and get team killing message.

 

Thanks

[StandingCow]

Yea, he definitely does not give you the IFF information 100% of the time. I had someone locked up via PAL mode multiple times in MP (because I wasn't sure if I trusted jester) and he wouldn't tell me if he was friendly... would just say "target 10 miles or whatever". I VID'd and it was a friendly tomcat, thank goodness I didn't shoot.

Edited April 2, 2019 by StandingCow

[Shotgun Dexter]

When I had similar issue, my problem was I was flipping the ACM switch....

Not realizing that greatly limited Jester.

[StandingCow]

When I had similar issue, my problem was I was flipping the ACM switch....

Not realizing that greatly limited Jester.

 

 

I didn't touch the ACM switch, I was doing the lock via PAL mode though.

[kengou]

Oh yes he does.... sometimes. But in my case mostly not and occasionally gives ambiguous shouting when I lock target with PAL like "target 12 oclock" well I shoot the Phoenix and get team killing message.

 

Thanks

Realistic. Don't fire on targets before ID'ing them. That's not a Jester limitation so much as an ROE you need to follow. The TCS is designed for this exact purpose, leave it up on the main screen during engagements to see who you're targeting quicker than Jester can tell you.