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F-18 Radar issues and pilots either say it is broken or working


Ramstein

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I think it has some issues dropping targets in A-A. I know we need to post tracks, but that never solves it when many people have problems and then there others who say we use it wrong. Maybe post a poll to see a consensus on how many people are having problems. Not so many of us can be that bad at using the a-a radar. IMHO

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I think it's probably a fair bet to say most aren't using the radar correctly, but the radar is also definitely very broken, so it's both.

Understandably though, it is hard for people to learn how to use it correctly when the way it works in DCS is pretty "strange" to put it nicely, in addition to some misconceptions in the community that also muddy learning  (e.g. "soft" lock) that make it harder.

It becomes a circular game of learning how to do it correctly, then learning what is bugged, or incorrectly implemented in DCS, then learning how to get around the bugs or wrong implementations, and then the people who teach others the above have to go through the whole cycle constantly.

e.g. The LOST cue in DCS still indicates LOST incorrectly which makes people believe their missile should no longer be supported (this is the right idea for them to have!).


Edited by MARLAN_
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Yeah that 'LOST' is a killer. Drives me nuts cause it won't go away. On one mission which I screwed up another way I thought keep flying and use it as a test of how to get rid of 'LOST'. Never did make it go away. Well 'shift' - 'R' to restart the mission got rid of it.

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11 hours ago, MARLAN_ said:

definitely very broken

Please do not make false statements like this, while we have a few areas to tune and add it is mostly accurate. As always, unless you have proof of such claims, please do not make them.

Thanks

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3 hours ago, dawgie79 said:

Maybe nobody has official non-classified documents which they can share with ED, yet they keep complaining. 

When you say 'nobody' you mean 'yourself' right? Because other people (ED included) have the documents that detail all this stuff.


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1 hour ago, Swift. said:

When you say 'nobody' you mean 'yourself' right? Because other people (ED included) have the documents that detail all this stuff.

 

See Nineline’s post. Such statements from users are almost never backed by official documents. And if they are we won’t see that because PM. 
 

 

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It's usually people using it wrongly. You need to use the TWS and as soon as you lock a target, you need to switch to AUTO. And, you need to use the correct PRF (I use HPRF 99% of time) + increasing the memory timer can help even more. I never had a problem that it was dropping lock 

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43 minutes ago, dawgie79 said:

See Nineline’s post. Such statements from users are almost never backed by official documents. And if they are we won’t see that because PM. 
 

 

@MARLAN_often proves that he is right and have been making numerous bug reports for a while. For example, aforementioned LOST cue, it used to be almost instantaneous after you cranked, now it way better, but maybe not as good as it should be. With new AI most of my AIM-120 get LOST cue and then hit a target. I think, it is strange.

P.S. Maybe we should be more polite and don't call things "broken" or such, but it sometimes hard to choose other appropriate words when you commit a lot of time studying stuff.

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1 hour ago, dawgie79 said:

See Nineline’s post. Such statements from users are almost never backed by official documents. And if they are we won’t see that because PM. 
 

 

See my statement, just because you don't know about the document doesn't mean the person posting and ED don't

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4 hours ago, NineLine said:

Please do not make false statements like this, while we have a few areas to tune and add it is mostly accurate. As always, unless you have proof of such claims, please do not make them.

Thanks

While I wouldn't say that it is "completely broken", there are a lot of areas where it is not accurate. Unfortunately, the available documentation is often refused by ED. I can understand that if you have "insider knowledge" of ED's simulation of the APG-73 radar, you might have a good idea of if it is accurate or not according to the developpers, but we don't have access to that information and unfortunately we never got (so far) the radar whitepaper that was discussed some months ago.

As such, we have to assume from what we have as users: the available real documentation and the end product we currently use in DCS. Comparing one with the other highlights some significant discrepancies.

Some examples:

- Jammer/Radar Priority
- Waveform selection (should be able to make an STT track appear as if it is guiding an AIM-7 even if it is not)
- PVU
- Velocity Search
- Terrain Avoidance
- RWS horizontal slewing
- Integration of sources with MSI and the radar, including having a L&S track without radar, getting range source from MSI on an AOT radar track, etc.
- Proper trackfile death model that does not rely on the display-only brick age-out setting.

Again, I do not condone hyperbolas such as "completely broken", but I personally believe that more than "a few areas to tune" is left to be done on the APG-73 to be "mostly accurate". Hopefully these will be covered and implemented at some point.


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4 hours ago, NineLine said:

Please do not make false statements like this, while we have a few areas to tune and add it is mostly accurate. As always, unless you have proof of such claims, please do not make them.

Thanks

We all are allowed to have our own interpretation/opinion of what is considered broken or not, to me it's very broken (I never said "completely broken" by the way) and to you it's mostly accurate, but what I said though is not a "false statement" that you have proof is incorrect, the proof of my claims is in the module, the many sources, the SMEs, the bug reports, the provided evidence, etc.

There is a long list of bugs or incorrect implementations in the forum, many of which are supported with evidence and many are considered accepted/reported by ED, whether it's specifically F-18 radar, general radar, or otherwise, and the Google Doc you've seen that lists a lot of missing (and very important) features that are needed for proper F18 radar operation that all have sources.

Making claims that it is "mostly accurate" is hurtful to the community because any informed members (and there are many, they are often just quiet observers in these public spaces) start to lose hope that the module will be fully (as far as usable evidence can support of course) completed one day. I've seen many diamonds of the community start to fade away because they've lost hope. My words are probably too harsh, but your words are too "fantastic". ED has created something absolutely wonderful in this sim and everyone in the community I'm sure are extremely happy that DCS exists and they (I assume, can't speak for everyone of course) just want to see it come full circle. The DCS: F-18 is so close, but needs that extra love to finish it off, but pushing it under the rug saying it's basically done isn't the right move, but I also shouldn't be so harsh, maybe I am just jaded for waiting so long and seeing so many steps forward combined with many steps backwards.

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3 hours ago, toilet2000 said:

Again, I do not condone hyperbolas such as "completely broken", but I personally believe that more than "a few areas to tune" is left to be done on the APG-73 to be "mostly accurate". Hopefully these will be covered and implemented at some point.

I'm not flying the F/A-18, but thought I'd just drop a note here that the radar simulation is just a rough approximation in all simulators - even the professional military ones. The reason for that is quite simple: there is not enough computational power available to truly simulate the radar waves and their interaction with the entire environment, and then all the electronics, filters and software logic that are used to create a radar picture in the cockpit.

All of the simulations are just approximations that will feel similar and do similar things in similar situations most of the time, but technically speaking, none of them are accurate in any way. They're all guestimating and randomizing, and you'll find numerous corner cases where something completely different than in the simulation would happen in real life. There is no practical solution to this problem, simply because the technology that we have can't do it.

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47 minutes ago, Aquorys said:

I'm not flying the F/A-18, but thought I'd just drop a note here that the radar simulation is just a rough approximation in all simulators - even the professional military ones. The reason for that is quite simple: there is not enough computational power available to truly simulate the radar waves and their interaction with the entire environment, and then all the electronics, filters and software logic that are used to create a radar picture in the cockpit.

All of the simulations are just approximations that will feel similar and do similar things in similar situations most of the time, but technically speaking, none of them are accurate in any way. They're all guestimating and randomizing, and you'll find numerous corner cases where something completely different than in the simulation would happen in real life. There is no practical solution to this problem, simply because the technology that we have can't do it.

That's not the issue discussed here, no one is asking for a full simulation. All we care about is that it looks and feels correct according to available information. In the list of examples that @toilet2000mentioned, all of them have nothing to do with actual radar wave and E/M interaction simulation. They merely require the correct logic to be implemented, and with the exception of MSI, all others exist in some form in other modules, which proves they can be done within the context of DCS (I'll also add a correct TWS AUTO myself). None of this is about the simulation of a real, physics-based radar (although I'd personally love it if some aspects were actually simulated).

The combination of the Hornet's radar and MSI (both indispensable to A/A and extremely integrated into each other, alongside other MSI sources), is something that would be a first in DCS - true sensor fusion. It is an amazing capability and the Hornet is tailored to fight using it (a lot of the HOTAS logic and various options in different pages only make sense with MSI correctly implemented - notice the lack of Radar Slave on the ATFLIR, it's because the ATFLIR generates its own trackfiles, you don't need to slave the radar, you can just designate them). We just want to see this already nice module reach its full potential - or come close to it.

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vor 7 Stunden schrieb vtaf_archer:

It's usually people using it wrongly. You need to use the TWS and as soon as you lock a target,

It starts here. 😉 

 

but you‘re totally right though. I totally disliked the Hornet first, wouldn‘t get to grips with its FCS and avionics, coming from the A10. It tool a while and background knowledge of what a radar is, how and why it sees object, what TWS is and how an AIM120 or an Aim7 works (or an R77 and R27 to survive for a change). Know the ranges of your weapons at different altitudes and suddenly the Hornet wasn‘t so bad anymore, in fact it was pretty darn good and complete when I started flying it. Sure, currently there are a couple of things that are broken but usually they get fixed soon (and other things break *cough*). It‘s just what software development is I guess.  

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vor 3 Stunden schrieb Atazar SPN:

Yes, the radar is failing and the ACM submodes as well. Yesterday I was shot down by a bandit on visual when HACQ didn't want to lock him into effective range. When you try to play a track, everything is out of sync, that way you can never prove that there are systems that are failing.

Do you have a tacview of the situation and can you tell the timing as well?

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posts moderated, please read the rules before posting. 

 If you think something is wrong show us the evidence, PM us if needed, we will take a look at it, but please understand we have lots of people making claims from many perspectives, and we will take take our time checking them, we have been on to many wild goose chases with peoples claims in the past and it cost time and money when they are ultimately wrong. 

 

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13 hours ago, Swift. said:

See my statement, just because you don't know about the document doesn't mean the person posting and ED don't

Not what I meant. I'm sure such documents exists. Point is, ED has said over and over that if someone thinks some system on a plane is wrong, provide evidence in PM. If you don't have those documents or other forms of evidence of some sort, then ED can't do anything because they require evidence. Hearsay, even from (former) pilots, is not evidence, it's hearsay.

To play the emotional blackmail card by saying "boohoo people are leaving because of this!@#" isn't helping either. Sorry to put it rather harshly but it's been clear for a long time on how ED likes to operate.

That's all I'm saying.

 


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vor 4 Minuten schrieb Atazar SPN:

I can also say that they are not errors that always occur. They occur randomly, so it is very difficult to identify and reproduce them.

I have tried to play the tracks where the error occurred to record the exact moment of the error, but all the tracks show up out of sync.

 

That's why I ask for a tacview and the approximate time it will happen, that's all I need to know 🙂

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15 minutes ago, Atazar SPN said:

I would like to know how a playback track showing out of sync can help. If the playback tracks showed what was actually happening, it would be easier to prove that there is an error.

On the tracks I'm playing, things happen that didn't happen during the mission. Perhaps that is why they are not attached to the report.

I use track replays daily for reporting issues, they are helpful when they are short and to the point, using only the units required to reproduce the issue. If someone sends a long track I will always check it, but I have to reproduce the issue in the shortest possible track replay for the dev team. 

Track replay system was intended as a debug tool in the early days and DCS has grown a lot since then, we plan to update it, but it is a huge task and we dont currently have the development time for it. 
 

With that said lets not get off topic, this thread is on a knifes edge as it is. 

thanks

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3 minutes ago, Atazar SPN said:

I get the point and I respect it. I also appreciate the team's effort and appreciate what it offers us. But understand that not all bugs happen in five minute missions, they happen in one hour missions, so our tracks are not going to show what has happened.

A large part of our closed beta testing volunteers role is helping to test in MP, they do it frequently, and when issues are seen they get reported. Some issues do take a long time to reproduce, if that is the only way we have to see a bug we use longer tracks. 

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1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

posts moderated, please read the rules before posting. 

 If you think something is wrong show us the evidence, PM us if needed, we will take a look at it, but please understand we have lots of people making claims from many perspectives, and we will take take our time checking them, we have been on to many wild goose chases with peoples claims in the past and it cost time and money when they are ultimately wrong. 

 

As far as I'm aware, you were shown proper documentation (ie that Google Docs) for most of the claims in this thread, but otherwise feel free to browse the following documents (no links, no files, just names):
A1-F18AC-FRM-000
A1-F18AC-742-100
A1-F18AC-746-100

If I missed something or I'm unaware of anything about it, please feel free to correct me.

Thanks.

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any information that can be publicly used by us will be checked and investigated, but as mentioned we are not going to rush, we will take the time we need to check all the sources we have. 

thanks

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vor 1 Stunde schrieb Atazar SPN:

tacview does not show that HACQ is failing, it will just show a situational map of the two aircraft. Tacview won't show that I had visual contact with a bandit at 5 miles, activated HACQ, put him on the reticle and the radar didn't lock on him.

I know all that.  However, it is enough to get the tacview and the approximate time when you observed the problem to reproduce the error.

This is not my first time😄

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16 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

any information that can be publicly used by us will be checked and investigated, but as mentioned we are not going to rush, we will take the time we need to check all the sources we have. 

thanks

Oh I agree with not rushing it. I apologize if my comments could be interpreted this way. My goal was simply to point to the correct information.

I agree that rushing it is a bad idea, both because as you said what is shared by users and such can be wrong, but also because ED's quick interpretation can be wrong too. Take your time, I think I do not only speak for myself when I say that as long as "it's getting there someday", I'll be here backing ED. I think most people that are passionate can be patient if it means getting the correct implementation some days. As long as we get the "we're aware and will be/are working on it" from ED, I am personally satisfied.

Anyway, I'll stop derailing the topic. 🙂


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