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Is target/threat symbol for ident AD (Friendly Air Defense) supposed to be red?


FalcoGer
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All control measures for enemy units are red, while for friendly units they are blue. Those are default nato symbol colors for friendly/enemy units, with unknown being yellow and neutral being green.

All but AD in the target/threat category are of course in the "targets and threats" list. But a friendly air defense unit is neither a target, nor is it a threat, thus a placement in this category is silly. The fact is though, that the apache has a threat symbol for AD and it means Friendly Air Defense.

Unfortunately ED decided to plaster it all over our MFD, and since it's all red it's very hard to filter out. The -10 manual doesn't explicitly say which color the symbol is and all the diagrams are black and white and I couldn't find any other information.

It's friendly, and the apache's MFDs are capable of displaying blue icons, and friendly CMs are colored blue, and having it red would mean more filtering and workload required for the crew. Considering all these factors, I think a smart design decision would be to make the AD target/threat to display in blue. ED displays them as red, as is every other target and threat symbol, all of which, but that single one, make sense to be red.

Is the red coloring correct?

If it is, I would like the automatic ADs replaced with AD control measures (still friendly ADUs, but in blue, with the default nato symbol for air defense), with a freetext name that reflects the type of ADU. This leaves the target/threat list more spacious for actual targets and threats while providing better visuals and SA for the crew by not showing a sea of red, half of which might be friendly.

If it is not, I would still like to see friendly ADUs to be put in as control measures, just to keep the threat list for actual threats and targets.


Edited by FalcoGer
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I suspect that in real life FRIENDLY air defense units are simply not plotted on the TSD (i.e...be part of the DTC mission load). The colour is irrelevant. Those rings are for Threats (clues in the name). 

Friendly AD would be plotted as a friendly CM as you suggest. 

Maybe one day (before the end of time?), we might have some kind of mission planning system with module specific options for pre-planning CM's, Threats and the like.

Remember you can always delete any type of CM or Point. You'd have to make a note of which AD T-numbers you need and what you don't. A few minutes spent in the TSD menu's at the start of a mission usually pays off big time.


Edited by AvroLanc
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a) please dont mix NATO coloring and DCS AH64D TSD coloring. NATO unknown color is definately not red. 

For the TSD afaik friendly CM are blue, enemy CM are red and all Target/Threats are red - no matter their "origin".

Hazards are the only yellow symbols.

If this is close to real life or not, i do not really care in this case. It is how ED simulates it.

 

b) i dont think that friendly AD will simply not be plotted into the database just because it is "friendly". Remember that you only get threat rings in the Target/Threats category of the TSD. And ASE wont tell you if it is a friendly radar or not, it will just tell you "radar searching" for instance. If it detects e.g. a Roland radar, it might tell you there is a Roland radar and if you then know that all Rolands on the map are friendly, you know you are in the clear.

But if you dont get all that info and you are in an AD rich environment, i have a look on the TSD after getting "radar searching" and see that i am in a threat ring of an AD and then know that the position of that AD is a friendly position. So i rather like to have friendly AD on the TSD.

 

c) I would like to say that i dont have something against pre plotted blue AD symbols instead of the red, i am just not fond of the idea of blue AD as CM.

After all it is all about situational awareness and pre-briefed info and a good look at the F10 map - especially with "dynamic" missions where you often have no clear front line or battle area even though it is a symmetric conflict depicted.

 

d) Said all that, i think that ASE, radar IFF and RFI are topics that are still pretty sensitive to touch. At this point i like it that ED gives us the tools (ASE and TSD currently) and the rest is for the player to work out. I dont want an rwr system simulated that drops out all "friendly" radar just to make our lives easier - if it is not so in the real aircraft.

e) currently i dont have many ideas on how to "de-clutter" the target/threats category especially on big missions with a lot of pre-placed AD. Maybe it would be an idea to give the player another TSD database category for creating target/threats without touching the pre-placed ones. Even though this seems not to be like in the real Apache, i think this could be a small alteration for a greater benefit without touching other systems. 🤷‍♂️

 

Greetings 

K

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2 hours ago, AvroLanc said:

Remember you can always delete any type of CM or Point. You'd have to make a note of which AD T-numbers you need and what you don't. A few minutes spent in the TSD menu's at the start of a mission usually pays off big time.

Ok, now let's assume there are 50 of them.  And to delete them you either have to type in their Txx number, or cursor click on them.  Then let's assume that the list the PLT sees is different from the list the CPG sees, and deleting them for one doesn't delete them for the other.

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41 minutes ago, Kharrn said:

Said all that, i think that ASE, radar IFF and RFI are topics that are still pretty sensitive to touch.

How they work is classified. Their capabilities and what it looks like on the screen is very much publically accessible. For instance the RFI threats are shown on the inner box/circle of the TSD/ASE with a special symbol that looks like "X X" for a coarse detection and with an arrow between the Xs for a fine detection. A fine detection is possible in a specific arc in front of the RFI antennas. The RFI coarse and fine detection areas are shown on the RMAP and GMT pages for the FCR page as well. Up to 10 such tracks can be displayed at any one time. The primary RFI threat is highlighted. You may press the cued search button to slave the radar to the primary RFI threat and attempt a correlation. That will switch the radar to GMT if not already in GMT or RMAP mode and set the scan width according to the target emitter. You may select any RFI threat with CAQ to set it's bearing as your aquisition source. I could go on and on about this. You can read all about how it looks and what it's capable off. As long as ED models that, I'm happy. There is neither a need, nor are our computers capable of handling the simulation of the individual antenna elements, FPGAs for signal processing and electrical signals in the wires.

I'm not talking about the RWR or RFI anyhow. I'm talking about the target/threat symbols with ident "AD", which stands for "Friendly Air Defense". This is nonsense, since a friendly air defense should never be a target or threat. I propose that it should instead be a control measure with ident "AD", which WILL show up blue on the map, giving better SA. You can still correlate RFI and RWR.

41 minutes ago, Kharrn said:

If this is close to real life or not, i do not really care in this case. It is how ED simulates it.

You should care. After all it's a SIMULATION. So it should be as close to the real thing as one can make it.

41 minutes ago, Kharrn said:

i dont think that friendly AD will simply not be plotted into the database just because it is "friendly"

Indeed. That's why i propose not to put it into the target/threats file but instead into the control measures file, because it's not a target/threat, but you still want to know where they are.

41 minutes ago, Kharrn said:

I would like to say that i dont have something against pre plotted blue AD symbols instead of the red, i am just not fond of the idea of blue AD as CM.

The thing is, if the target/threat symbol for friendly air defense is red in the real appache, then it should be red here, too. But in that case, I think that having a red symbol is counterproductive. I would much rather have a blue symbol, and a CM is the way to do just that. Because friendly control measures are, in fact, presented in blue on the TSD.

Friendly units are not targets or threats, and thus should not be classified as such. Especially automatically.


Edited by FalcoGer
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38 minutes ago, Floyd1212 said:

Ok, now let's assume there are 50 of them.  And to delete them you either have to type in their Txx number, or cursor click on them.  Then let's assume that the list the PLT sees is different from the list the CPG sees, and deleting them for one doesn't delete them for the other.

Well, it's an option as a workaround currently. What kind of missions are you playing with 50 active friendly AD sites? Crazy unrealistic MP servers? There's only target 50 slots available total.

The simple fact is that adding Control Measures into the ME isn't available yet, and who knows when it will be.

I agree that ED needs to make FRIENDLY AD not appear on the Threats list. If you're making the mission yourself, you could set the unit to 'hidden' and that would also serve as a simple 'temporary' work around.

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4 minutes ago, AvroLanc said:

Well, it's an option as a workaround currently. What kind of missions are you playing with 50 active friendly AD sites? Crazy unrealistic MP servers? There's only target 50 slots available total.

The simple fact is that adding Control Measures into the ME isn't available yet, and who knows when it will be.

I agree that ED needs to make FRIENDLY AD not appear on the Threats list. If you're making the mission yourself, you could set the unit to 'hidden' and that would also serve as a simple 'temporary' work around.

It's not unreasonable to think that there are 50 manpads strewn about in a large city. And suddenly you got yourself 50 threat points on your hand. I like to fly on rotorheads. People deploy air defenses on captured positions and throughout the map. There really are a lot of units. It's also not unreasonable to deploy 2 or 3 AAAs, 2 or 3 short range sam systems and a long range sam on an airport. and suddenly you already have 7 threat points. You do that with 5 airports and place a few around in other places and you're already full on the threat file. I think you exagerage.


Edited by FalcoGer
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59 minutes ago, FalcoGer said:

It's not unreasonable to think that there are 50 manpads strewn about in a large city. And suddenly you got yourself 50 threat points on your hand. I like to fly on rotorheads. People deploy air defenses on captured positions and throughout the map. There really are a lot of units. It's also not unreasonable to deploy 2 or 3 AAAs, 2 or 3 short range sam systems and a long range sam on an airport. and suddenly you already have 7 threat points. You do that with 5 airports and place a few around in other places and you're already full on the threat file. I think you exagerage.

 

OK, but the issue is not the Apache's system, it's the gamey-ness of DCS.

The fact remains that the Air Defense symbols (threats) are always red, blue is not an option. Which was your original query.

Friendly Air defense would not be plotted as threats, that's an ED thing and there needs to be a way of pre-planning CM's in the ME. No idea how this would work for multi-player, but you certainly wouldn't plot every MANPADS either. Remember there are only 50 target/threats slots available total. In real life you wouldn't plot every air defense site in the theatre (Friendly OR Enemy), only the ones likely to impact your specific area of operations / route.

In the meantime, you can delete a few to free up space.


Edited by AvroLanc
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Personally what I'd doing right now is scrubbing the ENTIRE database using a voice attack script on each new mission, and only adding back anything I want. This is designed for MP where there are no waypoints in the mission.

As people have said, this is purely a workaround for the (rather rash in my opinion) implementation ED have rushed to of dropping EVERYTHING in the targets and threats part of the database without an understanding of how that's used, and what those points are for.

 

Scaley's Threat data scrub v0.1-Profile.vap Data Scrub Keybinds.txt


Edited by Scaley
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The answer is DTC / mission planning should have been implemented years ago.

And yet, it continues to be put on the back burner.  😔 

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3 hours ago, Sarge55 said:

The answer is DTC / mission planning should have been implemented years ago.

And yet, it continues to be put on the back burner.  😔 

They’ve really got to prioritise it now. There are now too many modules that are seriously crippled by a lack of a DTC. At least if you want to have any kind of realism to missions. 
 

 

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Am 27.6.2022 um 13:39 schrieb FalcoGer:

How they work is classified. Their capabilities and what it looks like on the screen is very much publically.

Think you understood me wrong. I did not want to say that these topics shouldn't be touched by us cause of some classified/sensitive info that "could be" in there. We can surely discuss this as long as the forum rules are applied.

What i wanted to say, is that i think that ED and the SMEs will be very 'sensitive' in touching these topics (in my posted case: ASE, RFI and Radar IFF) and have a lot of back-and-forth with military and industry to give us the best possible sim of an AH64D.

Am 27.6.2022 um 13:39 schrieb FalcoGer:

You should care. After all it's a SIMULATION. So it should be as close to the real thing as one can make it.

And i do, believe me. But as i already stated "not really... in this case" = meaning the case of colored symbology in the TSD. After all i trust in ED and the SMEs to develop it 'as close to the real thing as it can be'. If there is a difference in coloring some symbols from real live cause of NATO classification or something.... well you should get the point now 😉

Am 27.6.2022 um 13:39 schrieb FalcoGer:

Indeed. That's why i propose not to put it into the target/threats file but instead into the control measures file, because it's not a target/threat, but you still want to know where they are.

Again as stated by myself earlier: then you wont get threat rings from a friendly or neutral AD!

IMHO its okay in the target/threats category (if that is true to rl).

For gaming reasons i would rather have blue/yellow AD symbols in the target/threat category then have it moved to CM category.

And yes, from my point of view, an eager Gepard Crew can be a f* lethal threat to my helicopter if i stumble into their detection and engagement range cause of bad situational awareness...

Also AvroLanc had a good point. It is a 'clash' of the game-ness of DCS "missions" (e.g. MP dynamic/ foothold/ etc) and real world limitations of a module. Guess we will have to wait and see how ED copes with it 🙂 Best way i guess is to present ideas, what we surely did in this thread.

K

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4 hours ago, Kharrn said:

Again as stated by myself earlier: then you wont get threat rings from a friendly or neutral AD

By giving the target/threat point the ident AD, you label it to be a generic, friendly air defense. Any "threat ring" it gives you would be a arbitrary, generic value, which of course has no relation to the actual site and it's capabilities. Also you need to differentiate between a target/threat point with ident "AD", a control measure with ident "AD" (which is blue and which I think is more desirable) and the actual air defense sitting there and threatening things (not you), which you abbreviate as AD multiple times.

3 hours ago, Raptor9 said:

As the thread is tagged, ALL target/threat icons in the database are colored red.

Great. Now that that's cleared up, I still think it's an issue of having them on the TSD and would rather have blue symbols (aka control measures with the sam type as label). Threat rings don't give you any info anyway, having them in CM helps clarity and SA and allows for easier deletion without the risk of deleting actual threats and leaves more room for actual target points in general.

4 hours ago, Kharrn said:

And yes, from my point of view, an eager Gepard Crew can be a f* lethal threat to my helicopter if i stumble into their detection and engagement range cause of bad situational awareness...

Gepards should be a threat symbol "GP", which will give you the actual threat ring for a gepard adu, if it is hostile. Otherwise a AD control measure with label GP would be fine, because there is no such thing as a blue target/threat symbol with GP to give you the actual threat ring. Again AD threat rings are an arbitrary distance and don't give you any valuable information.

 

Until we get a mission planner to put down points, lines, routes, radio presets, counter measure presets and so forth, I think this is the easiest and fastest solution.


Edited by FalcoGer
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Mission planner and DTC, is to dream I think.  Still on the back burner... sigh.

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vor 2 Stunden schrieb FalcoGer:

By giving the target/threat point the ident AD, you label it to be a generic, friendly air defense. Any "threat ring" it gives you would be a arbitrary, generic value,

[...]

Again AD threat rings are an arbitrary distance and don't give you any valuable information.

*facepalm myself* My bad! I totally overlooked that it is only one generic symbol... 😞Shouldn't drink and type. 😉 

+1 for friendly "AD" automatically put to CM instead of Target/Threats as an 'interim solution' 

Thy for clarifying!

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