missing info Ground vehicle accuracy and helicopter survivability - any changes coming soon?

[Flogger23m]

For a number of years now DCS AI/NPCs have had some obscene behaviors which makes the game difficult to enjoy at times. I know the game is constantly changing but some of these issues have been present for years now.

First of all, ground vehicles are far too accurate with their cannons and machine guns. Two or three gun or rocket runs in an A-10 or Su-25 is nearly impossible without being blown out of the sky. BMP-2s have absurd tracking ability and accuracy. They will even shoot down players in Su-33s or MIG-29s.

It isn't an exaggeration to say that BMPs are actually better anti aircraft weapons in DCS than dedicated AA guns like the Vulcan or Shilka. Why do BMPs and similar vehicles have an easier time tracking fighters and picking them off with extreme accuracy than those systems? It makes little sense. The ID and reaction time for these vehicles is just far too quick to be realistic. And I feel like the tracking is also far too accurate.

 

The next major issue I see is survivability of helicopters. I find that they easily evade missiles far too easily and take far too many hits and continue flying on. Missiles have a harder time hitting slow moving helicopters than they do maneuvering fighters. AIM-9X, R-73, even AIM-120s are much less accurate against helicopters. It seems like a single flare will throw off a heat seeking missile 80% of the time when used by a helicopter.

They also seem to be able to take far more hits than other aircraft. Often times I will hit them with 20-30 rounds of 30mm from a Flanker/Fulcrum or Su-25. This does little damage to them. On top of scoring dozens of hits with cannons, they will very often shrug off hits from missiles like the AIM-120 or R-73. Again, they can survive a missile hit very easily while typically a fixed wing plane will go down. Yesterday I hit an AH-1W with around 20-30 rounds, and scored a direct hit with an R-73. It kept flying on.

 

Related to both of these topics is a helicopters ability to track and shoot down fighters. I again find the reaction times and precise accuracy to be a bit unrealistic. Generally it is hard to do a gun attack on them as they can swing 180 degrees around, and within 1-2 seconds, fire a pin point burst of cannon fire directly at a fighters cockpit. I've also been shot down by missiles like Hellfires, while turning and climbing away. It seems like they can again, acquire a fast moving target obscenely fast, lock on and fire. Ironically missiles like Hellfires are more accurate than dedicated air to air missiles like the AIM-9X, R-73, or AIM-120.

 

These issues have been around for a long time and they do not seem very realistic in the slightest. Why would there be dedicated anti aircraft gun systems designed if an IFV/APC was more accurate? Why are air to air missiles less accurate against aircraft than anti tank missiles? It doesn't add up.

 

Are there any planned changes coming soon? I feel like these are game breaking issues because of how prominent they are and how it greatly affects planes like the A-10 or Su-25.

 

 

[LooseSeal]

I can't see us getting a direct answer on this - despite how important it is.

I think the damage thing... well, I hope that will be dealt with when their new damage modelling system is transferred to the modern aircraft.

But the AI accuracy, I mean it's being brought up all the time. I have to assume that the guys at ED play the same sim as the rest of us and are therefore equally aware of its limitations. I've been finding it much more noticeable with the time spent in the Apache this year. As you say, it's hard to explain BMP-1s, let alone -2s or -3s, having that sort of accuracy. I personally despise ZU-23's more than almost anything in DCS. They're notorious inaccurate in reality - but essentially a precision weapon here.

I've said it before, and I'll say it yet again - these kinds of things need to be worked out before the dynamic campaign is released. Or it's just going to be a fancy version of the Liberation mod; ie: fun for a while, but increasingly frustrating to try and get the AI to do what you want it to do.

[Flogger23m]

7 hours ago, LooseSeal said:

I can't see us getting a direct answer on this - despite how important it is.

I think the damage thing... well, I hope that will be dealt with when their new damage modelling system is transferred to the modern aircraft.

 

I am hoping this is the case, but I don't think helicopters are going to be updated? I don't think the AH-1W has gotten a new model in around a decade, and they used to have a more sensible damage model. You'd think it would be easy to revert to that. Making a direct hit with a modern missile alone should be an instant kill.

 

7 hours ago, LooseSeal said:

But the AI accuracy, I mean it's being brought up all the time. I have to assume that the guys at ED play the same sim as the rest of us and are therefore equally aware of its limitations. I've been finding it much more noticeable with the time spent in the Apache this year.

That is too bad. Because DCS was not always like this. I did stop playing A2G missions for a while, but have been doing A2G missions again as of late. Was disappointed to see years later that the issue still exists. You'd think it would be a near top priority because I assume it will hurt sales for A2G based planes, especially those that employ unguided weapons.

 

[schurem]

Used to be you  ould mod the accuracy of ground fire. That .lua has been encrypted now iirc. One of the things I found messing with it is that indeed the BMP3 has the same values as the ZSU23 for accuracy. Its insane nonsense. It would be great if this could for once get fixed.

I rather see them less accurate vs ground targets than too accurate vs air targets if it turns out these values are inseparable. 

Edited May 6, 2022 by schurem

[McVittees]

Oh pretty please let something be done about this.  I didn't know about the LUA mod of past, that would be a simple quick fix.

 

[okopanja]

1 hour ago, schurem said:

Used to be you  ould mod the accuracy of ground fire. That .lua has been encrypted now iirc. One of the things I found messing with it is that indeed the BMP3 has the same values as the ZSU23 for accuracy

ZSU-23 although having radar, it has limited capabilities. BMP-3 on the other side has optics and laser range finder. As long as it is able to acquire the target and is able to start tracking it, should be reasonably accurate. The cannon should be fairly accurate, and If I got it right 60 degree of vertical movement freedom.

However I am not aware of the IRL performance of BMP-3. I would expect in general it would be low unless they knew the direction where the target is coming from, but again this is true for ZSU-23 as well.

Anyone here with more actual RL info?

As for helis: the damage model is troublesome. Even 5-6 30mm rounds should damage the toughest heli heavily. I believe war in Iraq contains an example of complete apache unit being battered heavily.

[NineLine]

Guys, please include tracks and I will take a look. We are working on things like proper suppression, but in some cases its not flying defensively enough, I need to see tracks so I can better request issues be looked at. 

19 hours ago, LooseSeal said:

I can't see us getting a direct answer on this

We need tracks, see my direct answer above. 

[Flogger23m]

13 hours ago, okopanja said:

ZSU-23 although having radar, it has limited capabilities. BMP-3 on the other side has optics and laser range finder. As long as it is able to acquire the target and is able to start tracking it, should be reasonably accurate. The cannon should be fairly accurate, and If I got it right 60 degree of vertical movement freedom.

 

Realistically spotting a fast flying target at such a distance through the optics would be very difficult. I am also doubting that even if the crew could spot a plane flying at 350 knots, the reaction time would be so slow that the plane would be out of range before they could react. I am also doubting that the targetting systems on BMPs/LAVs/IFVs in general are more accurate than dedicated anti aircraft weapons. If a BMP was just as or more accurate, dedicated anti aircraft units like the Shilka or Gepard would not have been invented in the first place.

 

13 hours ago, okopanja said:

As for helis: the damage model is troublesome. Even 5-6 30mm rounds should damage the toughest heli heavily. I believe war in Iraq contains an example of complete apache unit being battered heavily.

 

Yeah I'd think 5-6 rounds would do a large amount of damage if hit in the engine area. Add in another dozen hits plus a missile and they should be going down, not swinging around and acquiring locks with anti tank missiles within a few seconds.

[NineLine]

Tracks please. 

[Mediocre_Chaos]

I don't know that tracks would help with this issue as the problem relates to non-AAA ground units' ability to instantly detect and overly-accurately engage a threat.

IRL, visibility is extremely limited from within an armored vehicle. Target detection against a moving aerial threat is actually very difficult. These vehicles are designed to detect ground threats and their systems/optics/sensors are often only designed for that purpose. The AI now seem to instantly detect a threat by simply being within LOS, which is not realistic.

 

Then there is also the issue of overly accurate gunnery. Un-aided gunnery is difficult against ground targets, let alone an aerial target moving through 3D space at unknown distance, speed, and angular velocity. Non-AAA ground systems are typically not set up tracking aerial targets. The laser-range finders in these vehicles are not designed to track a fast-moving aerial target and compute the lead required to accurately engage that target. The truth is that most fire from these systems would be mostly harassing in the general direction of a threat and at best cause a threat to go defensive. The vast majority of rounds fired would be misses, especially in the initial bursts before the gunner can start adjusting fire based on the path of the tracers. The current perfectly led and accurate fire is simply unrealistic from these platforms. Hits would mostly be rare and after fires were adjusted.

This doesn't even take into account that most vehicle crews likely rarely train on aerial gunnery, if at all.

To be more realistic, non-AAA ground units should have a reduced/slower threat detection/reaction ability and a vastly decreased chance of a hit when engaging a target, especially with the initial bursts. 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Mediocre_Chaos

[NineLine]

6 minutes ago, Mediocre_Chaos said:

I don't know that tracks would help with this issue as the problem relates to non-AAA ground units' ability to instantly detect and overly-accurately engage a threat.

IRL, visibility is extremely limited from within an armored vehicle. Target detection against a moving aerial threat is actually very difficult. These vehicles are designed to detect ground threats and their systems/optics/sensors are often only designed for that purpose. The AI now seem to instantly detect a threat by simply being within LOS, which is not realistic.

 

Then there is also the issue of overly accurate gunnery. Un-aided gunnery is difficult against ground targets, let alone an aerial target moving through 3D space at unknown distance, speed, and angular velocity. Non-AAA ground systems are typically not set up tracking aerial targets. The laser-range finders in these vehicles are not designed to track a fast-moving aerial target and compute the lead required to accurately engage that target. The truth is that most fire from these systems would be mostly harassing in the general direction of a threat and at best cause a threat to go defensive. The vast majority of rounds fired would be misses, especially in the initial bursts before the gunner can start adjusting fire based on the path of the tracers. The current perfectly led and accurate fire is simply unrealistic from these platforms. Hits would mostly be rare and after fires were adjusted.

This doesn't even take into account that most vehicle crews likely rarely train on aerial gunnery, if at all.

To be more realistic, non-AAA ground units should have a reduced/slower threat detection/reaction ability and a vastly decreased chance of a hit when engaging a target, especially with the initial bursts. 

 

Yes this aspect is already reported and known. 

[Mediocre_Chaos]

Is there any plan in the near future to address the issue? Having ground units that detect, track, and engage aerial targets more effectively than dedicated anit-air units is frustrating, unrealistic, and frankly degrades the simulation/gameplay.

Edited May 31, 2022 by Mediocre_Chaos

[bkthunder]

@NineLine any news on this front? This literally ruins DCS in so many aspects it should be considered a top priority IMO

[Mr_sukebe]

There are some settings that you might want to play with in mission editor, eg;

- min engagement altitude, which I use for large WW2 AA

- enemy engagement restrictions.  These allow the option to disable engaging Air or Ground targets.  Personally I’ve started disabling tanks and AFVs from engaging aircraft, unless they’re specific anti air units

It’s not perfect, but IMO better reflects reality than having T55s sniping helicopters with their main gun

 

[bkthunder]

Good to know, but it looks like I can only set the option for the whole group, so if there's a group of tank with one shilka, also the shilka will inherit the option of not engaging air units (which is dumb). Do I get this correctly?

[NineLine]

On 9/3/2023 at 12:58 PM, bkthunder said:

@NineLine any news on this front? This literally ruins DCS in so many aspects it should be considered a top priority IMO

I am pushing it, please make sure you are including tracks when you can, the more info I can throw at the wall the more will stick. I did just make new tracks myself for this as well.