PLID (Hornet mini update)

[RED]

Will there be any point of having PLID in DCS in the future because of changed RoE etc?

 

As I understand it, currently you can ID the side of any aircraft as long as you have a second source (fighter, AWACS, ...) and get the hostile/friendly symbology. Will that change? Will we be able to set different RoE requirements for missions? Will a CA controller have the ability to do ID?

[Saltat_cum_mortem]

Optionally you could use it on that "friendly" that keeps lobbing missiles in your general direction.

 

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[blkspade]

I can forsee this causing problems, if a manually set contact is mislabeled foe and acts as a 2nd donor for everyone else's SA page.

 

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[dorianR666]

I can forsee this causing problems, if a manually set contact is mislabeled foe and acts as a 2nd donor for everyone else's SA page.

if its realistic, then its a good thing :thumbup:

[Harker]

I can forsee this causing problems, if a manually set contact is mislabeled foe and acts as a 2nd donor for everyone else's SA page.

Things like that happen IRL though. IFF is a huge and complicated deal in modern battlefields. Why do you think that so many air-to-air kills are well within WVR, even today? Because you need to be sure of what you're shooting at and sometimes, it's not simple. In a lot cases, pilots don't rely on IFF alone, since the systems are susceptible to both human and technical errors.

[de.Impact]

The obvious question evolving from this feature for me is, when will we finally see a "neutral" or 3rd, 4th coalition, etc. on the battlefields in DCS. Because right now everything is automatically either friend or foe for the game engine. Id really like to see some "unidentified" contacts on the F10 map in the near future.

[Harker]

.Impact;3953838']The obvious question evolving from this feature for me is' date=' when will we finally see a "neutral" or 3rd, 4th coalition, etc. on the battlefields in DCS. Because right now everything is automatically either friend or foe for the game engine. Id really like to see some "unidentified" contacts on the F10 map in the near future.[/quote']

I'm really looking forward to have a neutral coalition. So much potential for mission building.

 

It'll also be useful if they model IFF system failures. You could mark a friendly aircraft that had its IFF transponder fail or suffer battle damage. This would work very nicely with Raygun and BuddySpike calls in MP.

[RED]

.Impact;3953838']The obvious question evolving from this feature for me is' date=' when will we finally see a "neutral" or 3rd, 4th coalition, etc. on the battlefields in DCS. Because right now everything is automatically either friend or foe for the game engine. Id really like to see some "unidentified" contacts on the F10 map in the near future.[/quote']

 

You don't even need a 3rd coalition. If there are contacts not meeting RoE they shouldn't be marked as hostile.

Let's take the Syria scenario as an example. As a mission designer you could place Syrian jets and Russian jets on the Red side and give the Russian jets RoE "weapon hold" and the Syrian jets "weapon free". The player (blue side) is only allowed to shot down Syrian jets because they are a threat, the Russian ones are not a threat until provoked. Right now you would see only hostile marked jets, but it would be way better to only have the 2 Syrian jets hostile (red) and the rest neutral (yellow).

Since DCS is a simulator, I hope ED decides to make it possible to simulate all aspects of air to air combat. Doesn't need to be perfect, but leaving one aspect completely out, will degrade 4th gen Air to Air combat to a game level on certain subjects like we have with FC3 or get with MAC. Looking forward to more official news on this subject.

[Ahmed]

Hoping that the introduction of PLID also changes the current arcadish IFF that automatically marks as hostile after failed interrogation from 2 f/a18 donors, and then proper ROE can be implemented such as in RED's example

[Rennes]

You don't even need a 3rd coalition. If there are contacts not meeting RoE they shouldn't be marked as hostile.

Let's take the Syria scenario as an example. As a mission designer you could place Syrian jets and Russian jets on the Red side and give the Russian jets RoE "weapon hold" and the Syrian jets "weapon free". The player (blue side) is only allowed to shot down Syrian jets because they are a threat, the Russian ones are not a threat until provoked. Right now you would see only hostile marked jets, but it would be way better to only have the 2 Syrian jets hostile (red) and the rest neutral (yellow).

Since DCS is a simulator, I hope ED decides to make it possible to simulate all aspects of air to air combat. Doesn't need to be perfect, but leaving one aspect completely out, will degrade 4th gen Air to Air combat to a game level on certain subjects like we have with FC3 or get with MAC. Looking forward to more official news on this subject.

 

How would real world IFF know the difference between a Syrian jet and a Russian jet? In fact how does a contact ever get marked as Hostile. My understanding off IFF is that you either get a reply as friendly or you don't.

[Ahmed]

IFF can only positively identify a contact as friendly. For any other (lack of) responses, the ROE will dictate whether they are classified as bogeys, bandits, hostiles or even friendlies depending on multiple criteria.

 

The current system in DCS is quite arcadish.

[RED]

How would real world IFF know the difference between a Syrian jet and a Russian jet? In fact how does a contact ever get marked as Hostile. My understanding off IFF is that you either get a reply as friendly or you don't.

 

It doesn't. Too decide if a contact is hostile or not you either need enough 3rd party information (e.g. AWACS or other surveillance tracking the contact getting airborne from a hostile airbase) or a VID. Since DCS is not a surveillance simulator you could simplify this process in some ways.

[QuiGon]

I really hope DCS at one point will simulate IFF transponders, which have to

1) be available in the interrogated aircraft,

2) be turned on,

3) be tuned to the correct code

4) and not be damaged

in order to give positive IFF responds on interrogations by friendly aircraft.

 

For now every friendly aircraft will give a positive IFF response, even aircraft that don't even have any IFF transponder like the WW2 I-16 or the Christen Eagle II.

 

I wrote about that in more detail here a few years ago: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=161240

[backspace340]

I really hope DCS at one point will simulate IFF transponders, which have to

1) be available in the interrogated aircraft,

2) be turned on,

3) be tuned to the correct code

4) and not be damaged

in order to give positive IFF responds on interrogations by friendly aircraft.

 

For now every friendly aircraft will give a positive IFF response, even aircraft that don't even have any IFF transponder like the WW2 I-16 or the Christen Eagle II.

 

I wrote about that in more detail here a few years ago: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=161240

 

I'm not sure how much that would really add to the realism to be honest - if an aircraft either didn't have a Mode 4 IFF transponder or it was damaged, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be able to fly in an active warzone. Seems like most Mode 4 IFF codes are entered via data cartridge (for the modules we have) as well, and default to always on (this is true for the Hornet, anyway).

 

So you're asking ED to spend however many man-hours and money updating every single module to work on something that once implemented really doesn't have much practical difference from what we have now in the vast majority of scenarios/missions that are played in DCS. There are much more important things to add to the game that will affect gameplay in more substantial ways.

[Oceandar]

Optionally you could use it on that "friendly" that keeps lobbing missiles in your general direction.

 

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Lol. Good one.

[QuiGon]

I'm not sure how much that would really add to the realism to be honest - if an aircraft either didn't have a Mode 4 IFF transponder or it was damaged, I'm pretty sure it wouldn't be able to fly in an active warzone. Seems like most Mode 4 IFF codes are entered via data cartridge (for the modules we have) as well, and default to always on (this is true for the Hornet, anyway).

 

So you're asking ED to spend however many man-hours and money updating every single module to work on something that once implemented really doesn't have much practical difference from what we have now in the vast majority of scenarios/missions that are played in DCS. There are much more important things to add to the game that will affect gameplay in more substantial ways.

I would already be happy if ED would just do a very basic implementation that checks for the availability of an IFF transponder (any kind) aboard the interrogated aircraft and if it's turned on or off.

 

Heatblur for example has already implemented such functionality, although with no use so far, because DCS itself doesn't support IFF transponders:

When we developed the Viggen we actually developed a simple transponder based IFF challenge/reply system. The issue is that it's.. well, useless in the context of DCS because the only aircraft equipped with this level of detail would be the Viggen.

 

I believe we deactivated the code and the IFF panel buttons work but do not do anything.

Edited June 26, 2019 by QuiGon

[de.Impact]

In regards to IFF Wags already stated some time ago:

 

"Yes, all you have to do is make sure IFF is "ON". Later we plan to add specific frequency selections. But, this will be a much more complex task as it will also require a rather large update to the AI logic to account for sqawks."

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3853101&postcount=64

 

In most modules that have a transponder installed, the frequency buttons are clickable - even though they still do nothing.

 

Realistic IFF is a very interesting challenge and I'm very glad that DCS is getting this aswell, even though it probably will still need a long time to arrive.

Edited June 26, 2019 by [de].Impact

[QuiGon]

.Impact;3962060']Realistic IFF is a very interesting challenge and I'm very glad that DCS is getting this aswell' date=' even though it probably will still need a long time to arrive.[/quote']

Indeed :thumbup: