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Notching AIM-120C [R-77], but still a hit


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Following that logic snap views and TrackIR is also cheating because it allows higher gradient of head movement than what is possible physically. The bottom line is that this is not a black and white problem and just because someone makes a macro to do something it does not mean he's cheating.

 

There is an upper limit of how many keys you can trigger within a timeframe (atleast this is what I found in a couple different programs I've tried in the past) and you will have a hard time managing to generate more than 20-30 inputs per second. Also, compared to the typical spinbots etc. you see in FPS games there is a practical limit to what you can do in a flight sim:

  • Generating an extremely different flight controller input every 10 ms does not result in any advantage (actually it'll only bleed your energy or outright stall your plane).
  • FCR macros for targeting are practically not possible because it would require image processing AI to get it right (since you cannot automatically move the cursor somewhere, this is generally the largest issue in FCR management, especially in high G maneuvers).
  • Countermeasures are a common field of use, although this is something you can achieve by modding the .lua files (in this case modding only achieves that you don't have to waste 1 minute setting the profile every time you spawn - and this is a huge QoL feature since anyway IRL you never airspawn etc.).
  • Cockpit management: you can have some macros to set display pages to predefined state, which is mostly bypassing the lack of implementation of appropriate features by ED or improving trashtier avionics design (this could be argued as unrealistic, however I'm clicking MFD buttons on a 2D screen not feeling G effect, so then again this is kind of a pointless argument). I.e. on the Hornet you could have macros to swap MFD pages as you wish.. but this same advantage can be achieved even much better by having external screen exports, so this is far from cheating too.. or are people with cockpit builds also cheaters now?
  • ECM blinking: this was a clear case of an exploit that had a strong impact in the past but in general should not work.
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Most of these ^ are  strawman arguments. (track-ir, really ? 🙂
Of course not every macro is automatically cheating, i've stated that numerous times already. 

We are talking about creating a macro that lets you dump more chaff than the plane can in real life, and goes beyond what the game intented you to do. 
Also please note i don't really care if a person dumps 20 chaff, or 15 chaff with one button or 15.

But it becomes an interesting topic when the limit for aircraft SHOULD be 10 chaff. In that case that macro becomes technically cheating. 

The same can be said for editing files i guess, that's probably why they locked some of them (quite recently some missile parameters were locked, and for good reason)




 


Edited by Csgo GE oh yeah
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1 hour ago, Csgo GE oh yeah said:

...

But it becomes an interesting topic when the limit for aircraft SHOULD be 10 chaff. In that case that macro becomes technically cheating....




 

 

 

What limits applies to which aircraft then, and how do you know?

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Then the developer should model the aircraft with it's limits properly. You cannot expect that users know and adhere to non-trivial limitations that even the people with the best documentation available might not know. The best virtual pilots are always looking to excel in the simulated environment and will develop tactics that are effective in the simulated environment (spoiler alert: the real life pilots do the same for the real environment). The simulated environment is always defined by the current state of DCS.

 

The unfortunate side effect that unlike the real world, DCS has bugs (hmm, maybe it could be argued that the real world has some serious defects, especially lately.. :) ). Therefore the environment that's driving the tactics can be impacted by these bugs.. although generally discounting some major issues (i.e. ECM) the fundamental tactics are in principle similiar to real life because the #1 factor is alway reliability.

 

If users going out of their way to creatively macro something that gives them an advantage (not an easy task to do to result in a significant advantage, CM macroing is minor difference in FF modules) then what can we say about people in general not adhering to other basic airframe limits that are also not modeled? i.e. F-16 pulling 9G with bags, F-15C pulling 12G with bags that has been cried over for a decade etc.

 

I generally don't get the point. If someone manages to find a way to break the game via macros it should be reported and fixed by ED. Period.

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1 hour ago, Csgo GE oh yeah said:

We are talking about creating a macro that lets you dump more chaff than the plane can in real life, and goes beyond what the game intented you to do. 
Also please note i don't really care if a person dumps 20 chaff, or 15 chaff with one button or 15.

 

How do you know what the plane can do or what was intended by ED?  What kinda joke is this?  🙂

 

Quote

But it becomes an interesting topic when the limit for aircraft SHOULD be 10 chaff. In that case that macro becomes technically cheating. 

 

Really?  Who said?

Here's an eagle dumping flares - again, chaff comes out of the same buckets:

 

 

Quote

The same can be said for editing files i guess, that's probably why they locked some of them (quite recently some missile parameters were locked, and for good reason)

 

No, they weren't.  You're completely clueless and making stuff up that you don't even know about or understand.  All these files were already 'locked up'.  If you wanted to fly with modifications, people had to agree to fly together with the specified mods on a 'closed' and 'dirty' server.

 

With those mods you could have different armaments (Eg add 9X to the 15), you could modify missiles to be more realistic - and if you had a clue you'd know that the community came up with better missile parameters a long time ago just for the aerodynamics (ED switched to parameters with almost identical performance after they did their own CFDs), but we could also do small things like remove lofting for the AIM-7 which didn't have it until the MH and even then it wasn't default - as well as modify radar ranges to be realistic.  We could also reduce chaff sensitivity for R-27s and we'd fly like that.

 

But all of this had to be done in private mods since the IC system would guard against such mods on 'clean' server anyway.

I didn't see anyone asking these files to be locked up, but I couldn't say no one did - from this perspective though it feels like ED did it to stop people from experimenting at all.

 

You sit around here yelling cheater, no respect to you here.  You're just a whiner who came to throw shade at people, including people who did a lot of hard work to make some progress in the simulation at least in private settings all while not having a clue about what's going on and why.

 

Shame on you.


Edited by GGTharos
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Basically it's a matter of philosophy. 

 

1) If it isn't explicitly stated as being illegal, then it has to be assumed legal.

2) If it isn't explicitly stated as being legal, then it's illegal.

 

No1 seems to be the less bureaucratic one and the one used where I live.

 

 

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Just now, Svend_Dellepude said:

Basically it's a matter of philosophy. 

 

1) If it isn't explicitly stated as being illegal, then it has to be assumed legal.

2) If it isn't explicitly stated as being legal, then it's illegal.

 

No1 seems to be the less bureaucratic one and the one used where I live.

 

 


Fair points @ blaze and Sven. 

I do not exactly know what the limits of CM are in the aircraft, (20 per second SEEMS a lot but i don't know for sure),....but the question is more general : 

"What if you use macro's to give you abilities that you shouldn't have". 
I still don't exactly know how you feel about this specific example:  
Let's say we do know what the CM capabilities are supposed to be (it's in the manual or something) and it's 10 per second.
But you can find your way around that by using a macro. 

Would you consider that cheating, or not ? Just curious. 



 

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I would see it from a context of the simulation sandbox.

  • Is this parameter simulated in other aircraft?
  • Does it create a relevant advantage?

 

If both answers are no then from my point of view it does not matter. If one developer wants they can always add more realism and hopefully the others will be inspired to continue in their path.

 

If it creates a relevant advantage then it should be reported and fixed and depending on the extent of the advantage banned from competitive plays (i.e. ECM bug in the last months). Unfortunately this is kind of a stupid issue, because there is no way to enforce - think about how they tried banning Hornet memory of 16/32 sec by asking for screenshots / etc. from the user that ultimately proves nothing..


Edited by 104th_Blaze
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6 minutes ago, Csgo GE oh yeah said:


Fair points @ blaze and Sven. 

I do not exactly know what the limits of CM are in the aircraft, (20 per second SEEMS a lot but i don't know for sure),....but the question is more general : 

"What if you use macro's to give you abilities that you shouldn't have". 
I still don't exactly know how you feel about this specific example:  
Let's say we do know what the CM capabilities are supposed to be (it's in the manual or something) and it's 10 per second.
But you can find your way around that by using a macro. 

Would you consider that cheating, or not ? Just curious. 



 

 

I would consider that a bug.

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1 hour ago, Csgo GE oh yeah said:

hmm ok. 
Different perspective, didn't personally look at it like that yet. 
edit* @104th_Blaze so i guess opinions differ on the hornet memory thing as well?

Because i honestly thought that was an intended feature of the hornet myself  

 

 

Not sure to be fair. I've never really spent the time to see how broken it is to use it on 32 sec. I personally found it completely counterproductive to use anything above 8 because your B-scope will be so horribly cluttered you cannot read what's going on. Especially when you're maneuvering to shoot a maneuvering target.

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I don't own the hornet so neither have i. 
Altough i have been surprised once or twice by some sneaky hornets in the recent past. 

Take off from airbase, start climb. 
See an 18 on my RWR for a split second but going cold immidiately and is still 40nm away. 
*some time later*
Suddenly out of nowhere, missile warning with no F18 in sight... 


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On 5/2/2021 at 3:25 PM, Teknetinium said:

Same rules regarding jammers should apply 4gen aircrafts or we could go the road clamming some aircrafts jammers should be better or worse with no intel behind it.  

 

 

Agree.

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On 4/26/2021 at 2:57 PM, GGTharos said:

Yes, but it may also be possible to remove the filter in such circumstances.  Does that actually happen?  We don't know.

In the old F-14 radar (also in DCS) it would remove that filter (MLC) if the target is sufficiently above the horizon.

 

In the F-16 (in DCS) and more modern jets, tankers can notch the radar when flying above you at ranges where I can even do LIDAR with my cockpit flashlight. This as well as the AIM-120 in general is somewhat broken right now. And has been for ages.


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2 hours ago, deadpool said:

tankers can notch the radar when flying above you

Havent tested the 16, but the F-18 i know for sure cannot be notched in lookup, and TBH you shouldnt be able to, or at least it will be a very, very small notch gate

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IMO the macro vs cheating talk is nonsense. There is no rule against using macro in DCS. It's like saying a user using a warthog stick beat a user using a cheap logitech 3d pro in a dogfight competition is cheating. However, if there is a rule against using macro in a match, then you can call it cheating. But I doubt there is a rule like this out there in any dcs competitions. 

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On 5/10/2021 at 5:44 AM, dundun92 said:

Havent tested the 16, but the F-18 i know for sure cannot be notched in lookup, and TBH you shouldnt be able to, or at least it will be a very, very small notch gate

I always wondered: does a Dopler radar need frequency shift in order to see targets at all, or does it just need it against the ground clutter?

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Doppler filters out all the 'garbage' so that you can see targets.   But needing it vs not is really more of a question 'will the automation turn the filter off or not', because no, you don't need it up there but someone could clutter things up with chaff etc.

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On 5/1/2021 at 3:52 PM, Max1mus said:

Notching does not work against the sky in DCS. You need to be in a lookdown situation.

Chaff works against the sky, though much worse, requiring very slow speeds.

That is, against air to air missiles and radars. SAMs can be notched at any altitude.

 

 

I noticed a few things here and would like your opinions/corrections/clarifications to the following: From what I understand so far, if your aircraft is in a resolution cell large enough, has a very small radial velocity relative to the targeting radar and is dropping chaff while maneuvering, there should be generally a great chance of break lock. This would usually happen further out where the res cell is larger. Ground clutter doesn't come into the requirement for break lock here. Pilot's I've talked to have mentioned chaff in the beam will have an effect in the typical ranges you'd expect to either merge or run even at high altitudes - no look down required. Testing in MP with others, it appears some radar and missiles have more of a problem with look-up, beaming chaff-popping targets than others. The M2k for example with the S530 seemed impossible to spoof in look-up 12 nm or less. We did not test beyond that range. Is notching and chaff up high a little nerfed in its effect in DCS in this specific scenario? Not sure, but I didn't expect not to be able to break lock at all. Any FC3 aircraft, and sometimes the Hornet and Tomcat will have their locks broken in the same situation. 

 

If you are close to the ground, then the ground clutter plays multiple roles. For one, it might be in the res cell while the target aircraft is beaming with very little radial velocity (you'd have to be but a few meters from ground clutter for the typical res cell's range size). Another factor of lookdown is all the sidelobe clutter return the targeting radar could get if it's flying close to the ground as well. Right now as GG mentioned earlier, either the attack radar or the missile itself in DCS has to look down for the break-lock/notch logic to function (can't remember which one or is it both?). This behaviour isn't correct because it's basically ignoring the range gating which all radars have nowadays to ignore the ground beyond the target aircraft. So here, the notching meta is overpowered in its effect.

 

In the case of the AIM-120 (which might even use Ku band for targeting, FFTs, rejection of high-scintillation RCS returns, MPRF processing etc.) I can see that chaff and beaming would have a very tiny if not negligible effect but I'm not so sure for the older radar types. One thing is for sure is that the logic for look-down creating high chance of spoofing a missile is a bit inaccurate today.  

 

Thoughts?

 


Edited by SgtPappy
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4 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

I noticed a few things here and would like your opinions/corrections/clarifications to the following: From what I understand so far, if your aircraft is in a resolution cell large enough, has a very small radial velocity relative to the targeting radar and is dropping chaff while maneuvering, there should be generally a great chance of break lock.

I wouldn't say its a great chance but it will be the highest chance.  IMO the chance of actually breaking lock though is still going to be very low.  

4 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

If you are close to the ground, then the ground clutter plays multiple roles. For one, it might be in the res cell while the target aircraft is beaming with very little radial velocity (you'd have to be but a few meters from ground clutter for the typical res cell's range size). Another factor of lookdown is all the sidelobe clutter return the targeting radar could get if it's flying close to the ground as well.

Even if in the res cell returns from the ground will still be filtered out by the PD filters.  Additionally I know there are ways to mitigate these effects but when I first read about them I wasn't well versed enough to really understand what was going on.

4 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

Right now as GG mentioned earlier, either the attack radar or the missile itself in DCS has to look down for the break-lock/notch logic to function (can't remember which one or is it both?). This behaviour isn't correct because it's basically ignoring the range gating which all radars have nowadays to ignore the ground beyond the target aircraft. So here, the notching meta is overpowered in its effect.

Agreed

4 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

In the case of the AIM-120 (which might even use Ku band for targeting, FFTs, rejection of high-scintillation RCS returns, MPRF processing etc.) I can see that chaff and beaming would have a very tiny if not negligible effect but I'm not so sure for the older radar types. One thing is for sure is that the logic for look-down creating high chance of spoofing a missile is a bit inaccurate today.  

 

Thoughts?

Sure for older radar types it would be more effective than the negligible effect that imo it would have against the amraam.  But in a document posted in another thread in testing against a 50's X-band FCR showed only about a 1-2% break lock chance up until the notch where it just lost lock anyway.

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11 hours ago, SgtPappy said:

 

I noticed a few things here and would like your opinions/corrections/clarifications to the following: From what I understand so far, if your aircraft is in a resolution cell large enough, has a very small radial velocity relative to the targeting radar and is dropping chaff while maneuvering, there should be generally a great chance of break lock. This would usually happen further out where the res cell is larger. Ground clutter doesn't come into the requirement for break lock here. Pilot's I've talked to have mentioned chaff in the beam will have an effect in the typical ranges you'd expect to either merge or run even at high altitudes - no look down required. Testing in MP with others, it appears some radar and missiles have more of a problem with look-up, beaming chaff-popping targets than others. The M2k for example with the S530 seemed impossible to spoof in look-up 12 nm or less. We did not test beyond that range. Is notching and chaff up high a little nerfed in its effect in DCS in this specific scenario? Not sure, but I didn't expect not to be able to break lock at all. Any FC3 aircraft, and sometimes the Hornet and Tomcat will have their locks broken in the same situation. 

 

If you are close to the ground, then the ground clutter plays multiple roles. For one, it might be in the res cell while the target aircraft is beaming with very little radial velocity (you'd have to be but a few meters from ground clutter for the typical res cell's range size). Another factor of lookdown is all the sidelobe clutter return the targeting radar could get if it's flying close to the ground as well. Right now as GG mentioned earlier, either the attack radar or the missile itself in DCS has to look down for the break-lock/notch logic to function (can't remember which one or is it both?). This behaviour isn't correct because it's basically ignoring the range gating which all radars have nowadays to ignore the ground beyond the target aircraft. So here, the notching meta is overpowered in its effect.

 

In the case of the AIM-120 (which might even use Ku band for targeting, FFTs, rejection of high-scintillation RCS returns, MPRF processing etc.) I can see that chaff and beaming would have a very tiny if not negligible effect but I'm not so sure for the older radar types. One thing is for sure is that the logic for look-down creating high chance of spoofing a missile is a bit inaccurate today.  

 

Thoughts?

 

 

 

The 530D is a Razbam missile and works differently than the other ones. It has an extremely high chaff resistance, much higher than any semi active in the game, and probably even higher than AIM-120C.

 

What makes up for it is the Mirages radar being relatively bad. So you can defeat it in look down where the Mirage radar gets defeated, but thats why youre seeing it never take chaff against the sky.

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20 hours ago, nighthawk2174 said:

against a 50's X-band FCR showed only about a 1-2% break lock chance up until the notch where it just lost lock anyway.

Yeah I'm basically only thinking about beaming while chaff as usual in these kinds of discussions. There are too many ways to break a target out if it has radial velocity relative to the targeting radar even before PD... crazy creative solutions even in Vietnam. Other than that one video where the RAAF Hornets are dogfighting and their HUDs are going crazy plus some info I got from retired fighter pilots, I still believe it should do something more but my suspicions more revolve around the S530 which is an 80s missile that seems super resistance to being trashed. Which Max1mus talked about below.

 

14 hours ago, Max1mus said:

 

The 530D is a Razbam missile and works differently than the other ones. It has an extremely high chaff resistance, much higher than any semi active in the game, and probably even higher than AIM-120C.

 

What makes up for it is the Mirages radar being relatively bad. So you can defeat it in look down where the Mirage radar gets defeated, but thats why youre seeing it never take chaff against the sky.

This is very interesting and unexpected! I wonder if it should be so capable. Hard to say.

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Someone, dont tell him he can dump all the flares in the world in the Harrier with a press of the button...also with the A-10A/C/CII, F-18, F-16, and every other aircraft where you can jettison stuff like that...

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On 5/1/2021 at 7:15 PM, Csgo GE oh yeah said:

Never even occured to me to be honest GGtharos. 
To use macro's to do stuff you can't physically do is kind of pathetic , at least that's what i've always been taught (it's...well... cheating)

I am very disappoint in flight sim community integrity if what you say is true GGtharos, but i also find it quite funny so i won't b^tch about it 😄 
 

 

 

 

 

The real problem:

- The game allows you to spam a physical button in the virtual cockpit many more times than physically possible

- The game does not take into account that 100 chaff or 50 chaff blooming at the exact spot in space makes little difference (afaik chaff currently gives you a dice roll to beat a missile lock (though not an aircraft/SAM lock))

 

So be disappointed in the game. If you don't want to use anything but proprogrammed CMDS stuff, then do that.

 

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On 5/2/2021 at 7:01 PM, GGTharos said:

The community doesn't think so, therefore it is not cheating - you're the only who thinks that.  You've chosen the wrong hill to die on.

 

Don't speak for everybody in the community please, at least not for me!

I'm not going into a "my Hornet can't do it so no other plane can" argument because obviously, each airframe differs in equipment and capabilities, some more than others.

While i don't know about other, specially REDFOR, aircraft capabilities in that regard, i tend to side with @Csgo GE oh yeah:

If you use macros in FC aircraft to simulate likely realistic CM programs, that is all fine and well, but if you use macros to spam 20chaff in 0.1 second because "i say the aircraft is capable of doing so", there's something wrong with it imho..

All that discussion gives me is more reasons to stay away from public MP airquake servers and enjoy the sim for what it is with the community i fly with on a regular.

Keep in mind "the community" exists of very different folks enjoying the sim in different ways, loads of them not daily on the forums - don't act like your way is the only one everybody else is in agreement with.

Thanks.


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