TXDSG

[Joni]

So after wags video I run into some questions.

 

Are we not going to be able to make a markpoint on the designated target points of wingman or other flights? 

 

Is this new feature only for situational awareness?

[raelias]

I'm courious if we could make a wingman's designated target our on by TDC depressing on it or something

[BIGNEWY]

51 minutes ago, Joni said:

So after wags video I run into some questions.

 

Are we not going to be able to make a markpoint on the designated target points of wingman or other flights? 

 

Is this new feature only for situational awareness?

 

The feature is as you see it in the video. 

 

thanks

[Joni]

16 minutes ago, raelias said:

I'm courious if we could make a wingman's designated target our on by TDC depressing on it or something

 

Exactly the type of functionality I was expecting, but it seems ED found out it wasn't there in the real jet.

 

Personally I don't know why a cosmetic thing will be a benefit for a combat pilot in the middle of the war fighting to save a multimillion dollar aircraft and his/her life.

 

But that's the beauty about this, no one cares what I think 

 

 

Thanks BN and raelias.

[naizarak]

probably another case of ED refusing to make the logical bridge in functionality because they don't have explicit documentation or w/e.  the SA page already has a slewable cursor along with target-locking using the STEP button.  i find it very dubious that TDC depress wouldn't at least offer the same functionality, if not slaving sensors altogether

[raelias]

45 minutes ago, naizarak said:

i find it very dubious that TDC depress wouldn't at least offer the same functionality, if not slaving sensors altogether

 

That's what I would expect, I mean it's called "Transmit Designate", the name implies that I can hand-off targets to other jets

Edited January 18, 2021 by raelias

[AvroLanc]

Yeah it's a curiosity to be sure.

 

However, giving the benefit of doubt it - it seems the Hornet is somewhat limited compared to other aircraft here..... There's no ability to select and transmit a standard markpoint or waypoint in F-18, however it very much is a basic feature of the F-16 and A-10C (IRL). In the case of the F-16, even before Link 16. 

 

Maybe the legacy Hornet really is lacking with this, or least it was in 2005 ish. No doubt the latest Super Hornets can now do this, but remember that in 2005 MIDS/L16 was a pretty new capability and it may just have not matured enough. 

[naizarak]

6 minutes ago, AvroLanc said:

Yeah it's a curiosity to be sure.

 

However, giving the benefit of doubt it - it seems the Hornet is somewhat limited compared to other aircraft here..... There's no ability to select and transmit a standard markpoint or waypoint in F-18, however it very much is a basic feature of the F-16 and A-10C (IRL). In the case of the F-16, even before Link 16.

 

assuming you can transmit TGT points, you would simply use the WPDSG box to turn a wpoint/mpoint into a target point.  a10's datalink is basically the same concept with different terminology (SPI vs TGT, etc.)

[dorianR666]

F-16 was already able to do this with the old IDM datalink.

I find it very unlikely that our fairly modern Hornet cant, especially for a plane with A in name. But ED always models only fraction of datalink functionality, because these things are excessively complicated. The practical limit has to be somewhere...

Edited January 19, 2021 by dorianR666

[Fri13]

10 hours ago, naizarak said:

probably another case of ED refusing to make the logical bridge in functionality because they don't have explicit documentation or w/e.  the SA page already has a slewable cursor along with target-locking using the STEP button.  i find it very dubious that TDC depress wouldn't at least offer the same functionality, if not slaving sensors altogether

 

Well, the AI at least know ho to automatically slave their targeting pods to shared target points.

It can be seen how suddenly the another flight lead targeting line will jump to his wingman target, that jumped to it because the Wags wingman targeted it first.

 

The long time ago in various discussions among hornet pilots there was the remarks about how great the hornet is because you could do exactly that, where one target via datalink could be automatically designated as target for targeting pod by "simple keypress".

So one finds something interesting, you just place TDC on it and designate and your TGP and target designation goes there.

 

In DCS this was possible only in the A-10 with TAD for so long that it made even decade ago wish to see a Hornet as it had same capability. But now ED just denies it.

The whole SA page idea is that one can get information about anything that is there, slave sensors on them or see what they are doing etc. It is not just a pretty screen with "I am targeting right there somewhere, go to look it yourself!" or "let me read out you the target coordinates from TGP display, ready to receive?".

 

Even the Harrier has the target share capabilities with the CAS page between JTAC and flight. And they can send pictures and video of the TGP to the JTAC, that can draw on it, and send back even images with drawings. The Harrier pilot can generate a CAS page from TGP or DMT, modify it and send it to other flights, that can then receive it and accept it to their CAS page and then use it to designate their weapons on it.

 

So Hornet in DCS is even less capable than Harrier is.

10 hours ago, AvroLanc said:

Yeah it's a curiosity to be sure.

 

However, giving the benefit of doubt it - it seems the Hornet is somewhat limited compared to other aircraft here..... There's no ability to select and transmit a standard markpoint or waypoint in F-18, however it very much is a basic feature of the F-16 and A-10C (IRL). In the case of the F-16, even before Link 16. 

 

Maybe the legacy Hornet really is lacking with this, or least it was in 2005 ish. No doubt the latest Super Hornets can now do this, but remember that in 2005 MIDS/L16 was a pretty new capability and it may just have not matured enough. 

 

It is not. In mid 90's it was one of the promoted features for the F/A-18C Hornet, even when they were without Link-16 itself. The capability to share all target data and to handle shared data as own sensor data was one of the key sales points for Hornet Attack capabilities.

 

ED just cuts off these basic core Hornet capabilities off that datalinks support.

[BarTzi]

24 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

 

Well, the AI at least know ho to automatically slave their targeting pods to shared target points.

It can be seen how suddenly the another flight lead targeting line will jump to his wingman target, that jumped to it because the Wags wingman targeted it first.

 

You can't tell that from the video. It's more likely that they have absolutely no idea who is targeting what, and accidentally target the same objects.

[Fri13]

Just now, BarTzi said:

You can't tell that from the video. It's more likely that they have absolutely no idea who is targeting what, and accidentally target the same objects.

 

You can tell it. The datalink would be there to share the target designations (so if you designation moves it would show up there) and AI does anyways magical instant snap-on targeting as it is not limited to time or reaction times to slew things around etc. And you can not find it odd that AI is targeting various targets instantly by the same parameters, but that how it is.

So by the game logic, the AI can do that as they know what there is.

[Martin2487]

Although I haven't had a chance to test it yet. But all the time I was afraid that this feature would do something similar to the SPI in SADL on the A-10 which I never really liked. Here I see several problems in integration and usability that were also seen in the video. I was surprised to be able to see TXDSG on AG target from all people on NET Link-16 and not just those I have on the flight. I don't want to see what the SA page will look like on some big mission where it will be performed by more aircraft.

 

So the feature that it's being sent to everyone certainly didn't inspire me. Unfortunately, we do not yet have the opportunity to change the NET Link-16 for AI units or our aircraft, so we are on the same network. Adding this feature, including multinetting, would help eliminate it. I guess we all expected that this feature would allow you to send a TGT waypoint as a coordinate point to the aircraft's avionics.

 

Compared to the A-10, this has the disadvantage that I could move the TAD there. Here, the SA page will be centered on the aircraft and outside the range of the screen it will be difficult to find the marked waypoint. Link-16 can send a waypoint selectively to a given subscriber. In my opinion, they do not have the avionics of the aircraft ready for that. Maybe we will see further progress with the arrival of the datacard, which I consider for MP to be one of the biggest gamechanger, and it is a pity that there is no discussion about it. The TXDSG function, although in AA, will be very important for sorting. So the benefit for AG is difficult for me to express. As far as the accuracy of the implementation is concerned, I am very surprised that without TGP I am not able to mark the waypoint sent to the SA page in any way. That's weird.

 

It would be nice if ED shared the road map of Link-16 development in DCS with us. I started a thread some time ago hoping to get an answer.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/topic/232161-roadmap-datalink/?tab=comments#comment-4445698

Edited January 19, 2021 by Martin2487

[BarTzi]

6 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

 

You can tell it. The datalink would be there to share the target designations (so if you designation moves it would show up there) and AI does anyways magical instant snap-on targeting as it is not limited to time or reaction times to slew things around etc. And you can not find it odd that AI is targeting various targets instantly by the same parameters, but that how it is.

So by the game logic, the AI can do that as they know what there is.

You can't snap to a D\L target in the Hornet. The AI doesn't use some magic code to do it. It uses the same old targeting logic to avoid conflicting with their wingman \ lead only (it just went to the next available target, which happened to be targeted by the wingman of Wags). You are more than welcome to prove me wrong when the patch is out. 

Edited January 19, 2021 by BarTzi

[Fri13]

Just now, BarTzi said:

You can't snap to a D\L target in the Hornet. The AI doesn't use some magic code to do it. It uses the same old targeting logic to avoid conflicting with their wingman \ lead only (it just went to the next available target, which happened to be targeted by the wingman of Wags). You are more than welcome to proove me wrong when the patch is out. 

 

You are agreeing with me about the AI. But the real hornet can share the ground targets over datalink since the mid 90's and Link-16 capability just widen the capabilities between various arms instead just the flight. That was one of the key selling capabilities in the Hornet over competitors decades ago that how seamlessly you can perform ground attacks where one finds a target and it is possible be used by others to target same one.

[BarTzi]

Just now, Fri13 said:

 

You are agreeing with me about the AI. But the real hornet can share the ground targets over datalink since the mid 90's and Link-16 capability just widen the capabilities between various arms instead just the flight. That was one of the key selling capabilities in the Hornet over competitors decades ago that how seamlessly you can perform ground attacks where one finds a target and it is possible be used by others to target same one.

When I say "The Hornet", I mean the DCS version. We can't slave sensors to a ground target shared by someone else, as it seems. 

[Fri13]

Just now, BarTzi said:

When I say "The Hornet", I mean the DCS version. We can't slave sensors to a ground target shared by someone else, as it seems. 

 

What is wrong.

In our exact Hornet Lot 20 version.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Fri13

[Martin2487]

This is a disappointment for me and at the same time I find it strange. It is strange for an aircraft to be forced to have a TGP and not be able to obtain the contact sent in this way other than through the TGP.

 

[BarTzi]

26 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

 

What is wrong.

In our exact Hornet Lot 20 version.

 

If this is based on real documents rather than opinions, send it to the team. As for the AI - it uses a standard logic that has nothing to do with D\L

Edited January 19, 2021 by BarTzi

[Fri13]

Just now, BarTzi said:

If this is based on real documents rather than opinions, send it to the team. As for the AI - it uses a standard logic that has nothing to do with D\L

 

 

What I say is based to real documents, sales and military secrets. So deal with it.

And you still do not understand that you agree with me about AI....

[BarTzi]

Just now, Fri13 said:

 

What I say is based to real documents, sales and military secrets. So deal with it.

And you still do not understand that you agree with me about AI....

If you have the documentation, send it to the development team. That could help everyone.

You said they know how to automatically slave their sensors to shared target points, which is not what they are doing. 

[Fri13]

27 minutes ago, Martin2487 said:

This is a disappointment for me and at the same time I find it strange. It is strange for an aircraft to be forced to have a TGP and not be able to obtain the contact sent in this way other than through the TGP.

 

The fact is that not all have a targeting pod. In a flight of 4 only one might have the targeting pod, that is used to generate the targeting data for rest of the flight. In the old days you got the coordinates that you needed to readout over radio and others to input them to their systems when such capability came. It was far better than visually trying to talk someone on target that was far away.

In datalink era it became easier when you get targeting pods and one does the target designation and shares it to others, and in Link-16 it became possible to share the coordinates in the network that can be used to slave sensors on them.

 

 

[AvroLanc]

11 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

 

What I say is based to real documents, sales and military secrets. So deal with it.

And you still do not understand that you agree with me about AI....

ED will not implement something based on hearsay, rumours or anything not found in publicly available documentation. Rightly or wrongly they want to cover their own backsides. 
If you’ve got a hard and detailed documented source on 90’s era (Link 4?) DL capability please share it. 

Edited January 19, 2021 by AvroLanc

[Fri13]

Just now, BarTzi said:

If you have the documentation, send it to the development team. That could help everyone.

 

ED should have already it documented.

 

Just now, BarTzi said:

You said they know how to automatically slave their sensors to shared target points, which is not what they are doing. 

 

It is, because it is AI. You are missing the point. AI knows everything, they can just go and switch between the targets that one knows.

It is the basic core DCS AI limited functionality and capability. All units in one group will automatically know everything that every unit knows and they use that in their actions.

[BarTzi]

6 minutes ago, Fri13 said:

 

ED should have already it documented.

 

 

It is, because it is AI. You are missing the point. AI knows everything, they can just go and switch between the targets that one knows.

It is the basic core DCS AI limited functionality and capability. All units in one group will automatically know everything that every unit knows and they use that in their actions.

Apperantly they do not have a lot of available sources to work with, as they got the type of target lines wrong. Saying "ED should have this documentation" is like saying "I don't have any valid document".

It doesn't because it has to be coded, and you don't know that ability was coded in.  Who said this capability of the AI to know who is targeting what, is not limited to a section of aircraft? You are implying a handoff (AI aircraft sending a target to another AI aircraft). That never happened in the video. They happen to end up attacking the same target. They could have just launched an AGM-65F at their first pair, and then targeted the remaining targets in the area, which happened to be the one targeted by the AI flying with Wags.
 

Edited January 19, 2021 by BarTzi