ATFLIR Point Track Mode does not work

[putze4711]

Hey,

 

at the new ATFLIR the Point Track Mode does not work. Matt said in his video it's working like in the old Pod, but it won't work.

 

I press the sensor controll switch to right to get the two brackets with the point inside over the moving target.

But the pod will not follow the target, it doesn't matter if it's TV or IR mode.

 

 

Any ideas?

 

 

Putze

Edited April 14, 2021 by putze4711

[VFA41_Lion]

works for me. you have to press it twice to cycle to point track, or called AUTO mode now

[putze4711]

Yes i know, it's working now, but u have to be in a range of 9-10 nm..... then i can track only....

[Swift.]

40 minutes ago, putze4711 said:

Yes i know, it's working now, but u have to be in a range of 9-10 nm..... then i can track only....

I believe thats always been the case.

[dresoccer4]

i'm struggling with this too. So after reading the comments, is this correct?

 

You have to be:
1) In auto mode
2) less than 10nm from target
3) press SS right twice?

4) target is tracked

 

Is this right?

 

EDIT: i can't get it to lock on this ship. also the weird boxes are across the bottom. also the coordinates are super blurry. is this happening to anyone else?

 

Edited April 14, 2021 by dresoccer4

[Swift.]

14 minutes ago, dresoccer4 said:

i'm struggling with this too. So after reading the comments, is this correct?

 

You have to be:
1) In auto mode
2) less than 10nm from target
3) press SS right twice?

4) target is tracked

 

Is this right?

 

EDIT: i can't get it to lock on this ship. also the weird boxes are across the bottom. also the coordinates are super blurry. is this happening to anyone else?

 

 

I wonder if thats related to the display resolution setting

[Harker]

also the weird boxes are across the bottom....

The boxes are a scale, used to tune the image. They show up when you have SETUP selected. Deselect it and they'll go away.

As for using AUTO in A/G mode, I had zero success, both TV and IR, all down to 2 NM. Works fine for A/A.

LITENING PTRK doesn't work either... Other modules work fine (tested A-10C II, AV-8B).

[LastRifleRound]

Have you tried with absolutely clear skies mid-day? Usually these tracking issues have to do with the functions that handle target visibility under the hood.

[Harker]

Have you tried with absolutely clear skies mid-day? Usually these tracking issues have to do with the functions that handle target visibility under the hood.

That did it, thanks for the suggestion. At least I know it's working on my system.

It's strange though, the contrast was really good before and it was in IR, so it should be picking it up just fine (I know DCS doesn't actually use contrast, but it seems they added a very restrictive filter for successful track).

What's more, it appears to only be an issue with the Hornet, other modules track fine in the same conditions.

EDIT: This doesn't make any sense. Clear sky, noon, IR auto-tracks from more than 12 NM away. Same conditions, midnight, it doesn't track at all, no matter the distance. The FLIR picture is equally clear, with good contrast, in both cases.

This looks like a filter that was applied for the TV mode, working in IR mode as well.

[Harker]

8 hours ago, Swiftwin9s said:

I wonder if thats related to the display resolution setting

Tested with both 512 and 1024, no difference.

[Bunny Clark]

33 minutes ago, Harker said:

EDIT: This doesn't make any sense. Clear sky, noon, IR auto-tracks from more than 12 NM away. Same conditions, midnight, it doesn't track at all, no matter the distance. The FLIR picture is equally clear, with good contrast, in both cases.

Doesn't surprise me at all, DCS handles visibility in some pretty weird ways. I once spent hours troubleshooting why an AI flight of Hornets wouldn't attack in a mission using AGM-65Fs only to discover it was because it was night time with a new moon. Changing the mission to a night with a full moon solved the problem and they attacked just fine. 

[Recluse]

I did notice something interesting. I Point Tracked a stationary vehicle and attacked with AGM-65F. Unfortunately, the Maverick decided to lock a neighboring vehicle. After the neighbor was destroyed, the targeted vehicle started to move, and the ATFLIR FOLLOWED IT!!  I don't recall the Litening pod doing this, so MAYBE the ATFLIR does have better moving vehicle tracking.

 

I originally locked just out of MAV range ~12-14 miles, fired when in range and pulled off target, so by the time the MOVING vehicle was being tracked it was quite close ~4-5 miles

Edited April 15, 2021 by Recluse

[dogsbody59]

Think I'll stick with the old pod...this one us just meh!

[oldcrusty]

5 hours ago, Recluse said:

I did notice something interesting. I Point Tracked a stationary vehicle and attacked with AGM-65F. Unfortunately, the Maverick decided to lock a neighboring vehicle. After the neighbor was destroyed, the targeted vehicle started to move, and the ATFLIR FOLLOWED IT!!  I don't recall the Litening pod doing this, so MAYBE the ATFLIR does have better moving vehicle tracking.

 

I originally locked just out of MAV range ~12-14 miles, fired when in range and pulled off target, so by the time the MOVING vehicle was being tracked it was quite close ~4-5 miles

 

 

Yea, Mav F is very finicky. Once you get within 8nm you can cage/uncage quickly to get the Mav to follow the FLIR. 

ATFLIR IS A BLAST!

 

Edited April 15, 2021 by Gripes323

[=4c=Nikola]

I believe there's no tracking based on contrast in the game. Tracking mode is probably hardcoded to snap on object if inside x range * some multipliers or something similar.

Edited April 15, 2021 by =4c=Nikola

[oldcrusty]

12 minutes ago, =4c=Nikola said:

I believe there's no tracking based on contrast in the game. It's probably hardcoded that tracking mode snaps on object if inside x range * some multipliers or something similar.

 

You're probably correct.

[LastRifleRound]

14 hours ago, Harker said:

That did it, thanks for the suggestion. At least I know it's working on my system.

It's strange though, the contrast was really good before and it was in IR, so it should be picking it up just fine (I know DCS doesn't actually use contrast, but it seems they added a very restrictive filter for successful track).

What's more, it appears to only be an issue with the Hornet, other modules track fine in the same conditions.

EDIT: This doesn't make any sense. Clear sky, noon, IR auto-tracks from more than 12 NM away. Same conditions, midnight, it doesn't track at all, no matter the distance. The FLIR picture is equally clear, with good contrast, in both cases.

This looks like a filter that was applied for the TV mode, working in IR mode as well.

This is the same bug AGM65F has with the AV8B, and can be observed functioning erratically with the Walleye. I believe there are "visibility modifiers" under the hood that are meant to give the appearance of a contrast lock. These modifiers determine how "lockable" an object is. Cloudier, darker, smaller, and size relative to tracking gate means lock range decreases from max, down to 0 ("unlockable"). Those values likely need some tweaking.

 

EDIT: Just realized Nikola said the same thing. 

Edited April 15, 2021 by LastRifleRound

[Harker]

This is the same bug AGM65F has with the AV8B, and can be observed functioning erratically with the Walleye. I believe there are "visibility modifiers" under the hood that are meant to give the appearance of a contrast lock. These modifiers determine how "lockable" an object is. Cloudier, darker, smaller, and size relative to tracking gate means lock range decreases from max, down to 0 ("unlockable"). Those values likely need some tweaking.
 
EDIT: Just realized Nikola said the same thing. 

Both you and Nicola are correct, there isn't and never was a contrast-based system in place. Same as radars, there isn't an actual radar simulation. It's all tables and parameters, that if tuned correctly, they give the correct results. The problem here is that, in the last update, some rework was done in the Hornet (that wasn't done in other modules - at least not the same) and those parameters got messed up.

[=4c=Nikola]

Fortunately, contrast based system is "not that hard" to implement so I'm confident we will have it in the future. Radar is different beast, we are stuck with what we have right now for years.

[fisadev]

I just tried and can confirm that the bug is probably some of these penalizing factors being incorrectly applied to the IR mode when they should only apply to the TV mode.

 

Took a mission that was at 8am where I couldn't for the love of god lock the pod into a tank, modified the time to 12:00, and now I can lock everything without any issues.

 

Back to 8am, and again can't lock anything unless I'm practically touching it with the pod, hehe.

 

It makes sense for the TV mode, but most probably shouldn't be the case with the IR mode.

[AstonMartinDBS]

6 minutes ago, fisadev said:

Took a mission that was at 8am where I couldn't for the love of god lock the pod into a tank, modified the time to 12:00, and now I can lock everything without any issues.

 

Back to 8am, and again can't lock anything unless I'm practically touching it with the pod

I observed the same and reported the issue (which is related to the ATFLIR as well as to the LITENING) already in the bug section. I hope, ED sets a high priority to fix this issue. It's an absolute no-go when a FLIR is only useable under daylight conditions and nearly useless at night or dusk/dawn.

[GrEaSeLiTeNiN]

Couldn't get ATFLIR to auto track moving target even up close. Use to work just fine. Now it's bugged. As of today latest version of Open beta.

 

[BastiScholz]

I just found out that the track on moving targets won´t work while you are in setup mode (the green-scale-thing on the bottom). Exit it and the ATFLIR will show "MVTGT" in the top right corner. Otherwise it wont.

 

[IkarusC42B Pilot]

What does this tag mean? It has heen talked alot about it ,has been shown videos and poited out at frm and 746 that the aq gate is suppoaee to expand until it reaches the moving target

[CBStu]

I spent 2 hours yesterday flying a user file mission using flir and MavF to take out tanks in a convoy. Still don't have it right though. One thing I learned from a tutorial was that the target diamond has to be in the main HUD window for the Mav to lock. The flir seems to have ability to look down at a steeper angle than the MavF. So, if you get too close to the target, the flir can still see it but the Mav can't so you need to dive toward the target so the Mav can lock on. At least I think that is what is happening, but there is also the limited Mav distance capability too. I also have a hard time getting the flir to lock. Push the sensor select right is flaky. I lock the flir onto the road a short distance ahead of the tank, start right pushing and sometimes the flir reticle changes super quickly and sometimes it needs 1-2 seconds. Since you need the reticle to change twice, it is a huge guess how far ahead you need to start out. I often lock onto the second vehicle. Then of course I unselect and the flir moves way back up the road which makes re-trying to get a lock a pain. This particular mission doesn't have much in ground defense weapons so I tried a few runs w/o the flir. I actually had better success using just the MavF targeting system. I am going to fly this some more but so far Flir + MavF I am not impressed.