Major issues in semi-active environments.

[169th_Jaws]

Ok, I'm not really one to get cranky about LOMAC very much but today is such a time. Now in most cases when a person has a problem like this there's often a logical explanation, or they're a noob and didn't read the manual etc. But I feel I know the sim pretty well now and am convinced that the problem I'm having is not normal.

 

I'm flying in a F-15 the other day and engage a Su-33 with EMs. He fires on me first so I break right 90 degress and watch my TEWS go blank and hear the lock tone cease. Lock broken. I hold this beam for a while and am convinced the missile is stuffed and turn back onto the bandit. The moment I'm nose on... BANG. Dead. Hmmmmm someone must've snuck up on me.

 

"Hey GK, who was that with the heaters sneaking up on me?"

"No heaters man, got you with my EM."

"Huh, but I broke lock for ages and was never reaquired."

"No you didn't, I had you locked the whole time."

 

?????????

 

So to add to this I'll be in a F-15, launch a Sparrow at a bandit within good launching parameters, F-pole to the left or right, reduce speed and retain lock comfortably. I'll look at my radar and can see the target is within gimbal limits and the missile is still on it's way. After 10 seconds or so I hear him launch on me, no problem I launched first, and continue to F-pole while he makes a gentle turn of around 50 degrees, then heads back onto me at full speed. I wait and wait and WAIT. What the hell is going on? I've held lock, he hasn't evaded my missile, he should be dead by now.... then BANG. I'm dead.

 

I say to him:

 

"Hey did you get a missile launch warning?"

"Yeah, but I broke lock about 3 times."

"WTF? You were locked up the whole time on my radar."

 

????????????

 

Well.... this is REALLY pissing me off. This is not right at all and has been happning to me a lot lately. Especially when I fire my last Sparrow. I can't remember the last time I scored a kill with my last Aim-7. After my final launch the ASE circle dissapears on my radar and no TTI data is displayed on the HUD. (is this normal?) The bandit will stay nose hot on me as though he's not even being locked or fired upon, yet I can see he is by the STT on my radar! He won't even pop chaff and the missile still misses! Something is wrong with my TEWS and Radar in semi-active environments.

 

Now I may very well be wrong, there may be a logical explanation. But I have NO IDEA what is happening and am convinced this is dodgy. Is this a bug, has this affected other people? Should I re-install? Comments please!

[Kula66]

Now funny you should say that ... couple of nights ago on HL, dancing with a 33 and I was shotdown, no warning ... assumed it was an 73 from something I had missed but in the log turned out to be an ER ... and I'd swear I had no warning! I normally fly high and I remember GGT saying that RWR has got angle limits, so I guess it is possible to get illuminated by someone from below and not get warned ... but this did seem odd.

 

James

[CTR]

Hi 169th_Jaws,

 

i've made a little test with a MiG-29 (me) flying 90° to a F-14 (AI, 40km away). A reinstall of lo-mac doesn't solve the beaming problem, i've noticed the SPO-15 doesn't receive any radar signals when you roll more than 15°. So I decided to beam the Tomcat only by using my rudders. I started wiht having the bandit at 75° and pushed my MiG so that I ended at 110°. I was :shock: that he never looses the look on me. So I think beaming is not implemented in Lo-Mac.

 

Sorry for my poor english... :oops:

[GGTharos]

Or maybe he was lower than you are, in which case you cannot notch.

 

And yes, the RWR's -are- angle-limited.

 

The SPO-15 has about 35 deg coverage up and down off the plane of the wings, the US RWRs have 45 deg ... even if you're flying at 26K and level it means your enemy must be right on the deck and 4nm from you so he's not picked up.

 

It also means when you roll hard to beam an enemy you'll lose his signal and you may thing you've notched when in fact you haven't - you need to return to more or less level flight to make sure.

 

Now I'll agree that tehre still seem to be bugs - sometimes a SAM will engage you from long range and you'll never get the warning. It SEEMS that this happens more on servers that have not been reset for a few hours.

[S77th-GOYA]

Or maybe he was lower than you are, in which case you cannot notch.

 

What?

[GGTharos]

Look down=you can notchthe radar

Look up = you can't.

[169th_Jaws]

Hmmmm yeah altitude may have something to do with the notching. Good point although I can't remember the alt of the bandit at the time. I'll have to do some more tests but that still doesn't explain why my TEWS goes blank and the lock tone ceases, I mean I'm not even being spiked. To me that shoud be a pretty damn good reason to think that the radar has been effectively notched. Could be the angle of my wings... more tests...

 

However my bigger problem is the one concerning holding a constant lock on a target with an Aim-7, with him claiming he broke lock multiple times. His claims of a solid lock break contradict my radar saying there's a lock! Very strange and very, VERY frustrating...

[Kula66]

Do you get a change in RWR signal/tone/symbol when you notch an opponent? Surely the radar continues to paint you but his radar processor removes you from display because of small doppler (<43kts ish) ... your RWR doesn't notice the diffference?

 

James

[GGTharos]

You lose the 'lock tone' if you successfully notch, you keep getting the 'search tone'.

 

Now here's the thing - if you turned so you could look at him through the top of your canopy, your RWR is outside detection limits, and will drop the contact in a few seconds. You might think you notched him because of this but it''s just your rwr being outside detection limits. It covers 360 AROUND you, but only 45 up and down off the plane of your wings.

 

Similarely, he may have thought he broke lock ofr the same reason - the other possibility is that you either locked onto someone else or that there was lag: A lost 'lock' packet could make it look like you're not being locked onto any more where in reality you are.

 

Keep in mind that if he claims he was breaking the lock he had to be maneuvering, and if you don't see him maneuvering, you're either dealing with lag or you were locked onto someone else.

[GGTharos]

I just remembered something - there seems to be a bit of a bug where the Radar gudied missiles launched by AI retain lock even if you defeat the radar.

 

There also exists another bug where the EOS can guide a SARH missile - this bug doesn't appear to be gone, but it is masked (you cannot fire a radar missile from EOS -typically-) ... now what happens, if you break radar track on a Russian bird, it'lla ttempt to track you with EOS automatically - you may have indeed broken the radar lock, but it switched to EOS and the other player may have not realized (or perhaps he was all too aware that this would happen) and the EOS continued to guide the missile onto your aircraft.

[169th_Jaws]

You lose the 'lock tone' if you successfully notch, you keep getting the 'search tone'.

 

Now here's the thing - if you turned so you could look at him through the top of your canopy, your RWR is outside detection limits, and will drop the contact in a few seconds. You might think you notched him because of this but it''s just your rwr being outside detection limits. It covers 360 AROUND you, but only 45 up and down off the plane of your wings.

 

Similarely, he may have thought he broke lock ofr the same reason - the other possibility is that you either locked onto someone else or that there was lag: A lost 'lock' packet could make it look like you're not being locked onto any more where in reality you are.

 

Keep in mind that if he claims he was breaking the lock he had to be maneuvering, and if you don't see him maneuvering, you're either dealing with lag or you were locked onto someone else.

 

I'm pretty sure there was no lag. I was dealing with a fellow 169th pilot doing some training runs. He was gently maneuvering, but far from 90 degrees. There's NO WAY he could possibly have beamed my radar with his evasive techniques. I watched him the whole time, he was flying as if he wasn't even being locked let alone being launched upon. Very offensive. I mean, during the engagement I was laughing to myself and thinking this guy is toast. Why isn't he evading?! He's got no chance, I've launched way before him and he's not even trying to F-pole. Then SMACK.

 

Wasn't laughing anymore. I was cursing at how it was a load of s***.

[Bug11]

GGTharos, can you explain why the altitude of the target respective of the emitter affects whether you can notch or not?

 

AFAIK, the reason notching works is because the closing velocity of the target is reduced to the point where the software filters the contact out for doppler radar (does this to filter out ground clutter). Does LOMAC model selective application of the doppler filtering dependent on relative height of the contact?

 

Regardless, if your notch is not breaking the lock, TEWS should still be notifying the target that it is being tracked (or rather, that the frequency of emission from the emitting radar is staying within the parameters necessary to show it is locked).

[GGTharos]

Jaws, Lag may not be evident. Also packet drops may not be evident, and with UDP being a lossy protocol (UDP is what all games use - it's lossy but its' FAST, so less lag) the 'I got a lock on you' packet may have gotten lost somewhere. You're right though, this sucks. What was the range? Also keep in mind that the R-27EM is WAY faster than the AIm-7. Even if he fires about 2-3 seconds after you at 10nm he's got a good speed and Time to Impact advantage. The EM is /evil/.

 

 

Bug, that is exactly correct. The radar 'notch gate' filters out ground clutter when looking down. The radar knows wether its looking up or down due to internal gyros which tell it the plane's orientation, and cna turn off the filter when looking up since clutter isn't an issue.

 

On the -other- hand, at longer ranges aspect can change the return enough that you can get a hit (blip on your radar) but you'll be unable to get and maintain a lock.

[CTR]

GGTharos is right it dependes on the relative altitude. Now my Bandit was flying 3000m above my and i can notch him. But why he doesn't go to the next waypoint & why is his nose pointing at me ? It seems he can get no lock, but he can see me !? :?

 

Why ?

 

Or is it like that ?:

 

On the -other- hand, at longer ranges aspect can change the return enough that you can get a hit (blip on your radar) but you'll be unable to get and maintain a lock.

 

very confusing :lol:

[GGTharos]

AI cheats, but also consider this.

 

If I saw you on radar and you notched, I'd keep looking for you.