How to track ship

[dresoccer4]

Any tips on how to track a moving ship? I'm not having any luck. Have a big guy dead in my sights but unsure how to track it automatically. 

I thought it was PTRK but that just locks the screen and doesn't seem to do anything. 

 

 

I tried in FLIR mode but the screen is god awful for some reason. Black hot and white hot are almost unusable. Also wouldn't track still

Edited April 14, 2021 by dresoccer4

[hotrod525]

Use Air-Ground sea radar mode, it will slave TGP to the brick track.

Oh and keep in mind that you have to push sensor switch in the direction of the SOI DDI with you're AG Radar selected when you put the captain bar over a target to track it, if you go TDC depress you'll made a "Ground target" instead of actualy locking the brick.

Edited April 14, 2021 by hotrod525

[Recluse]

Or if you are just using the FLIR, you have to Lead the ship. Go to POINT TRACK just ahead of the ship and when it sails through the Point Track bars, the FLIR will pick it up and continue to track. NOTE: You may have to do this several times to get the lock.

 

SEA MODE slaving is so much easier, but the GIMBAL limits of the Radar are less than the FLIR so as you get closer (e.g. for a L-GBU drop or L-MAV) you might lose your lock. There are some threads with work-arounds to make the FLIR lock primary.

 

Note: I don't know if 2.7 or the ATFLIR change any of this behavior.

[Lineaxe]

Since version 2.7 I cannot lock at all anymore on the shipping targets. I will try a couple of things suggested here to see if that will help at all.  But, it was locking all the time in 2.6 and now it won't.

Seems to me , that is not something that I have any control over at all. It's in the new software, somewhere. 

[DLEGION]

i somehow menaged to track with atflir, still have to understand exactly how, in the equivalent of "area track" mode 

[Recluse]

23 minutes ago, DLEGION said:

i somehow menaged to track with atflir, still have to understand exactly how, in the equivalent of "area track" mode 

 

If the ship is MOVING you cannot use AREA track. You have to go to POINT TRACK (LITENING POD) or "AUTO" mode (ATFLIR).  Both are entered with successive Sensor Select Switch movement in the direction of the FLIR DDI to "catch" the moving vessel.  In SEA mode Radar,  slewing cursor over the brick and SSS in the direction of the radar DDI will give you a Radar FTT track. The FLIR will automatically track this target as long as the radar has it in GIMBAL limits.

 

At the moment there seem to be some issues with getting the FLIR (either pod) to get into a PTRK/AUTO trk with a moving target at the distances that it used to be possible at.  I just tried and managed to get a PTRK with LITENING on a moving ship, but not until about  8 nm. Conditions were perfect, and pre-2.7 it would have tracked long before.

 

SEA RADAR tracking worked perfectly at a longer distance.

Edited April 30, 2021 by Recluse

[DLEGION]

ahh you right... distance was the problem.

[Lineaxe]

I keep trying to get a lock using PTRK at 16000 ft. With this version 2.7  I can not lock, even at 1.6 nm , 5.6 nm , 8.7 nm , 15 nm and so on.   I have tried PTRK Locking on Tanks and ships and see that PTRK is not working at all. 

I hope someone can explain a method to me on how to lock on now , or perhaps have the software bug reported so that we can all Lock on to our Targets again .   Now , even at 16000 ft. I sometimes am getting missile attacks . I cant go any lower to lock in , or DIE.  This PTRK is not working as far as I can see...

[Harker]

I keep trying to get a lock using PTRK at 16000 ft. With this version 2.7  I can not lock, even at 1.6 nm , 5.6 nm , 8.7 nm , 15 nm and so on.   I have tried PTRK Locking on Tanks and ships and see that PTRK is not working at all. 
I hope someone can explain a method to me on how to lock on now , or perhaps have the software bug reported so that we can all Lock on to our Targets again .   Now , even at 16000 ft. I sometimes am getting missile attacks . I cant go any lower to lock in , or DIE.  This PTRK is not working as far as I can see...

Try it with good weather and lighting, during the day. Not too early in the morning, not too late in the evening.

IRL, the ability to track is based on contrast and image clarity, but in DCS, it depends on other factors and two important ones are time of day and distance.

[Sarge55]

You could switch to the Lightning TPod as an option as well. 

[Hulkbust44]

You could switch to the Lightning TPod as an option as well. 

He is using the Litening.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

[AstonMartinDBS]

6 hours ago, Sarge55 said:

You could switch to the Lightning TPod as an option as well. 

He is using the LITENING already. But ATFLIR isn't an option, because the issue occurs sadly on both pods (already reported here)

 

Tracking should IMO be dependend on contrast only but not on time of day and/or distance.

[Harker]

Tracking should IMO be dependend on contrast only but not on time of day and/or distance.

Agree. But it's not how it works in DCS. I don't even know if the new FLIR tech will help with that, because as I understand it, the latter is a texture mask rework, whereas the issue is with the system logic itself.

[AstonMartinDBS]

54 minutes ago, Harker said:

I don't even know if the new FLIR tech will help with that, because as I understand it, the latter is a texture mask rework,

Let's wait and see...

I'm optimistic and trust in ED. At least the A-10C (II) pod works under the same conditions.

Edited May 23, 2021 by AstonMartinDBS

[Lineaxe]

eek, Well I wrote up a mission using over 3000 lines of Lua over the last 12 months.  And not having the PTRK work at night kind of throws a monkey wrench into all the effort I had put into researching, coding and writing up the instructions for each sortie.

 The mission looks best at night time, and so I play it at that time. It makes carrier landings more fun and so on. So I have to lose all that and play in the daytime ,since they changed the way the Litening works?  Not very happy to do that at all, to be honest with you.

[Lineaxe]

I might mention here that I have coded in DirectX since  Directx 2 version. I have coded in C++ for over 30 years. (Since Borland 3.0)  and ,well, I could probably write some code to fix this issue. I just gotta get at their framework.  Oh,I also use Blender & 3ds Max for my 3d modeling needs . Blender rocks now for a free package. Tons of options in it and one can always download and install other features into blender. I like the one that lets me browse through online textures and then it downloads & puts the texture onto any selected surface ... Yup, Blenders pretty good these days 

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Lineaxe

[Lineaxe]

Switched my mission to start at 08:00  in July .    

I can track shipping and tanks in daytime even with a bit of weather conditions added.   I am hoping that they will re-implement the FLIR for hunting at night. Most of my sorties, as I have mentioned are done at 21:00 in December. They are all situated around Al Dhafra/ vicinity & are in various vehicles.

So not tracking at night means reloading the map for implementing the Litening Missions I guess, as a solution for now.     I noticed that the carriers are now moving about in the bay North of Al Dhafra. They had stopped for a bit in the later 2.5.6 beta versions. Now they seem to have more weapons & are moving like the targets I want em to be    Much appreciated !!!   Once again, I will say that I am willing to help troubleshoot /code/etc  with the main DCS engine.  I wonder where I can dig into that subject ?

 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Lineaxe

[Furiz]

On 4/15/2021 at 12:03 AM, dresoccer4 said:

I tried in FLIR mode but the screen is god awful for some reason. Black hot and white hot are almost unusable. Also wouldn't track still

 

 

Since this is in Blackhot mode, the ship should be black and the sea should be white since ship is hotter than the sea. ED has this reversed with F-16 as well.