Proximity fuzing.

[DarkFire]

Hopefully this is the right place for this topic as it pertains to all missile-equipped aircraft in DCS.

 

I've been watching a pile of videos by Growling Sidewinder (great videos, definitely check them out) which are mostly dissimilar ACM videos, many of which are IR missile only WVR battles.

 

Something I've noticed is the number of missiles (R-73 and AIM-9M/X) which appear as though they should have proximity detonated but did not. It appears as though the only missiles that detonate are contact hits on the target. Finding reliable information on proximity detonator activation radius for both the AIM-9 and R-73 seems to be nearly impossible though there appears to be some sort of consensus that kill radius is ~30 feet.

 

This is something I've not really considered before, but does DCS model proximity detonation of AAM warheads?

[Northstar98]

Yes it does, all missiles that have proximity fuses do so (AFAIK).

 

However, there's a fairly large caveat:

 

In DCS, IIRC, how it works out when to detonate the missile is based on the distance to the missile and the head of the pilot/cockpit (or it might be the geometric centre of whatever aircraft it's going for), meaning it's possible for a missile to be within fusing distance of an aircraft part, but end up not fusing because it's too far away from whatever reference point it uses. You can also see that missiles will only proximity fuse on aircraft and weapons, and nothing else (even when they should - the target detection device doesn't differentiate, it's either it's within the range, or it isn't).

 

I'm not sure what can be done to remedy this, unless ED considers some form of raycasting or something to better simulate proximity sensors.

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

Online this might also prove to be difficult, unless ED implements vastly improved net code.

Speaking of which, there is a certain MMORPG developer (I know the name of the developer and the company he works for but won't mention it here because of forum rules) who created groundbraking net code that is said to be very good at dealing with collision models (player models not being able to bump into eachother has plagued MMOs since forever but I imagine it's not trivial to properly implement). It's apparently so good they attracted the attention of other development studios who are willing to purchase said code...

[nighthawk2174]

Yes it does, all missiles that have proximity fuses do so (AFAIK).

 

However, there's a fairly large caveat.

 

In DCS, IIRC, how it works out when to detonate the missile is based on the distance to the missile and the head of the pilot (or it might be the geometric centre of whatever aircraft it's going for), you can also see that missiles will only proximity fuse on aircraft and weapons, and nothing else (even when they should - the target detection device doesn't differentiate, it's either it's within the range, or it isn't).

 

I'm not sure what can be done to remedy this, unless ED considers some form of raycasting or something to better simulate proximity sensors.

 

Even then it really only works rarely in SP and not really at all in MP.

[Northstar98]

 

Even then it really only works rarely in SP and not really at all in MP.

 

Yes, though I wonder to what extant that 'caveat' plays a part...

[DarkFire]

Thanks for the replies everyone, that's just about what I expected the explanation to be. I guess we're largely at the mercy of internet latency, whatever the cause.

[Dragon1-1]

It's not like those things are 100% reliable IRL, either. They should probably be a little more reliable than what we have now, but it's not a massive problem.

[FlippingGerman]

See

 

And Wags' pinned comment on the comment:

Pinned by ralfidude

Matt Wagner

Hi Ralfidude, It is very old and conceptual issue of all modern jet flight sims with AAMs. The flight of the AAM is calculated by the host of launched weapon. The missile’s position is transferring to the server and to all other clients on the server. This also includes client aircraft positions. Due to the fact that data packets arrive at different speeds on the network (not just DCS), based on the ping, the positions of aircraft and AAM can, at times, vary slightly between clients. For example: for an AAM that has speed about 900 m/s, and a ping is 0.1 second, then the difference in position of the AAM for clients can be 90 meters. Because of this, the calculation of the hit is always conducted on the “weapon owner” client. Only he/she has a “true” and precise position of the weapon. If you were to see the track of the client that fired the AAM, you’d see that the AAM in fact passed outside fuze range.