DCS: F-14 Development Update - AIM-54 Phoenix Improvements & Overhaul - Guided Discussion

[BubiHUN]

18 minutes ago, IronMike said:

Maybe guidance will get improved by ED

Like I said...maybe=years

[IronMike]

16 minutes ago, BubiHUN said:

Like I said...maybe=years

It's not that far off anyway. If a missile gets notched, 90% of the time it will be trashed anyway, so if it climbs up after or not, will rarely matter - given that at times it can reacquire, but it is still a rare thing to bet on. And an improved guidcane will not magically turn the phoenix into an amraam (which suffers from guidance issues as well btw). It won't be a silver bullet to what some think is a "broken missile", when it is not. The best is to accept how the phoenix compares to an amraam, and learn to use it accordingly, because what will change, won't bring out some overperforming missile suddenly that will save you from all your troubles.

[The_Tau]

9 minutes ago, IronMike said:

It's not that far off anyway. If a missile gets notched, 90% of the time it will be trashed anyway, so if it climbs up after or not, will rarely matter - given that at times it can reacquire, but it is still a rare thing to bet on. And an improved guidcane will not magically turn the phoenix into an amraam (which suffers from guidance issues as well btw). It won't be a silver bullet to what some think is a "broken missile", when it is not. The best is to accept how the phoenix compares to an amraam, and learn to use it accordingly, because what will change, won't bring out some overperforming missile suddenly that will save you from all your troubles.

I would take 10% chance over 0% every time 
 

and unfortunately vs current (100% SA) AI this behavior is much more common 

I think @Callsign JoNay explained it very well

 

Edited November 17, 2022 by The_Tau

[FMBluecher]

Agreed with The_Tau. The weird notching behavior, especially when combined with the 100% AI SA, makes it almost impossible to do anything effective with the Phoenix in its current state against the AI. I mostly find myself using it to set myself up for a more advantageous Sparrow shot now, because that's all it can do with any reliability.

[BubiHUN]

2 hours ago, IronMike said:

"broken missile"

 

1 hour ago, FMBluecher said:

makes it almost impossible to do anything effective with the Phoenix in its current state against the AI.

Nor against a player. 

 

2 hours ago, IronMike said:

won't bring out some overperforming missile suddenly that will save you from all your troubles.

Nobody asked for such a weapon. 
I just leave my F-14 grounded until "that not that far away change" will come. 
Let's see how far it will be.

[lunaticfringe]

1 hour ago, Бойовий Сокіл said:

The "notch" should simply not be a thing on any missile newer than the 90 's. Not to mention all the weird guidence sideffects on guidence in dcs. Better to completely remove it than deal with this crap.

 

The notch is a thing and should be modeled.  The DCS notch is overly wide, and should be corrected, along with representation of radar and missile track recovery functionality.  And the notch should only apply when the defender is challenging the correct emitter/antenna pair at the correct time- pre-active, the launching airframe, post-active, the missile.  

It's difficult to get into effectively, and even harder to stay.  Entry should not be an instantaneous break lock, because track files and recovery methodologies exist for a reason.  Flat out notching a launching opponent should require substantial seconds spent running the 90, rather than passing through as part of a turn away, because it's going to take time for the attacking radar to run out of track recovery time.  

[BubiHUN]

how about just rollback the AIM 54s where they were 4 months before?

[The_Tau]

16 minutes ago, BubiHUN said:

how about just rollback the AIM 54s where they were 4 months before?

If you mean back to days when mk60 engine was burning for 27s, then those days are not going back

[BubiHUN]

36 minutes ago, The_Tau said:

If you mean back to days when mk60 engine was burning for 27s, then those days are not going back

when I got the F-14 i always used the A Mk47. back in the day, yes they missed, but mostly I could get about 3 kills out of 4 54s. 
Now its about 10% hit rate, wich is trash IMO

[lunaticfringe]

2 hours ago, Бойовий Сокіл said:

We've had 2-3 years of it "being worked on" with often the same or a worse result. I think it is safe to say the engine does not support it.

The notch being an issue in DCS  predates the Phoenix, and isn't exclusive to it- because it's baked in to the radar and missile guidance models as they currently stand.  

[Kondor77]

1 hour ago, BubiHUN said:

how about just rollback the AIM 54s where they were 4 months before?

You're welcome to roll back your game to those patches and dominate AI to your heart's content. Maybe the AIM-152 mod is more your liking? 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Kondor77

[BubiHUN]

42 minutes ago, Kondor77 said:

Maybe the AIM-152 mod is more your liking? 

nope

[draconus]

1 hour ago, BubiHUN said:

mostly I could get about 3 kills out of 4 54s. 

Did you also got hit by 3 out of 4 missiles targeted at you?

[Fliegerkalle]

Hi I wanted to ask is there a fix / adaption planned regarding the top speed of the aim 54 ? I don’t argument over the drag which occurs in low altitudes  or the notch resistance, I believe in these points the development that we are close to the real ones. But I am still wonder about the high-speed in high altitudes. The missiles barely goes over Mach 3.5 even shot in altitudes of 40k and own speed of Mach 1.4. In several sources the missiles is stated as a Mach 5 missile. 
 

it would be nice to hear your thoughts about that. I am no experts regarding the fact of the aim 54 in real life ? Are these sources/ infos wrong or are there issues in DCS ? 

Edited November 17, 2022 by Fliegerkalle

[Skarp]

3 hours ago, BubiHUN said:

when I got the F-14 i always used the A Mk47. back in the day, yes they missed, but mostly I could get about 3 kills out of 4 54s. 
Now its about 10% hit rate, wich is trash IMO

My assumption was it was amazing against the foes they expected to face. Not against an F16 with aim120C and link16. But the MK60 is superior still especially down low. Just focus on the optimal distances to kill a fighter. I’ve been dominating F16s >:). 

[Fliegerkalle]

4 minutes ago, Skarp said:

…. Just focus on the optimal distances to kill a fighter. I’ve been dominating F16s >:). 

Can you give some examples regarding your range, altitude and speed ? 
 

BR Kalle 

[lunaticfringe]

35 minutes ago, Fliegerkalle said:

Hi I wanted to ask is there a fix / adaption planned regarding the top speed of the aim 54 ? I don’t argument over the drag which occurs in low altitudes  or the notch resistance, I believe in these points the development that we are close to the real ones. But I am still wonder about the high-speed in high altitudes. The missiles barely goes over Mach 3.5 even shot in altitudes of 40k and own speed of Mach 1.4. In several sources the missiles is stated as a Mach 5 missile. 
 

it would be nice to hear your thoughts about that. I am no experts regarding the fact of the aim 54 in real life ? Are these sources/ infos wrong or are there issues in DCS ? 

 

This has been discussed at length in this thread.  Go back and you'll see the breakdown as to hows and whys.

[-Scrat-]

14 hours ago, Fliegerkalle said:

Hi I wanted to ask is there a fix / adaption planned regarding the top speed of the aim 54 ? I don’t argument over the drag which occurs in low altitudes  or the notch resistance, I believe in these points the development that we are close to the real ones. But I am still wonder about the high-speed in high altitudes. The missiles barely goes over Mach 3.5 even shot in altitudes of 40k and own speed of Mach 1.4. In several sources the missiles is stated as a Mach 5 missile. 
 

it would be nice to hear your thoughts about that. I am no experts regarding the fact of the aim 54 in real life ? Are these sources/ infos wrong or are there issues in DCS ? 

 

I do agree ! They should do something for the drag at high altitude. 

For me the performances at low and med atlitude are definitely ok but at high alitutude they should be better according to the open sources.

[near_blind]

2 hours ago, -Scrat- said:

For me the performances at low and med atlitude are definitely ok but at high alitutude they should be better according to the open sources.

Mach 5 gets tossed around in a number of secondary sources. Have you ever seen a source specifying that an actual AIM-54 hit Mach 5 during an actual flight?

Edited November 18, 2022 by near_blind

[Spurts]

46 minutes ago, near_blind said:

Mach 5 gets tossed around in a number of secondary sources. Have you ever seen a source specifying that an actual AIM-54 hit Mach 5 during an actual flight?

 

OTHER than the NASA paper about an empty AIM-54 Shell 

[IronMike]

Even the M4.3 that is being mentioned often, was just a proof of concept, which was proven with the missiles as is in DCS as well. For an actual in service missile you are looking at top speeds around M3.45 - ish and sometimes, with very favorable conditions it may reach 3.7-3.8.

[IronMike]

On 9/5/2022 at 10:15 AM, KlarSnow said:

And here is what that looks like in DCS. I fired a 54C-Mk60 and Mk47, and then repeated with a 54A-Mk60 and Mk47 so you can see that all missile variants meet the performance. Fired in PD-STT. Only difference from the real test is the AI wont fly at 50,000 feet. Highest I could get the Backfire was 43600 feet. All missiles impacted with ~50 seconds of battery life to spare.

110NmPhoenix shot.zip.acmi 182.96 kB · 8 downloads   110NmPhoenix-A shot.acmi 181.73 kB · 6 downloads

 

Since looking through 35 pages admittedly is a bit much, here are two posts to share with the newcomers to the thread. See above and below. It's hard to stress how close the current missile is to irl performance, likely among some of the closes end-consumer missile simulations we have to date. This is just to underline once more, that we have zero intentions on changing the performance anymore, whatsoever.

On 9/5/2022 at 10:37 AM, KlarSnow said:

Just one thing I wanted to note on this, in the outsiders view for the 110 mile shot, it states the phoenix topped out at 103,500 feet and travelled a distance of 72.5 nautical miles to impact the target.

Note how closely the current AIM-54A Mk47 matches that. Tops out at 103,943 feet (103,500 for the real world) and travelled a ground distance of 74 Nautical miles to impact the target. That's.... quite close.

 

[Noctrach]

@IronMike Would it make sense to discuss the AI defensive behaviours with ED in context of the ongoing missile work?

An AIM-54Cmk47 launched between 20 and 40 miles has a Pk of near 0 because the AI will always opt for a split-S defence
An AIM-120C at identical parameters will have a Pk of roughly 0.5 because about half the time the AI will just crank and fly into the missile.

The exceedingly rare occurrence where the AI doesn't immediately split-S and burn away the Phoenix tends to arrive with a little bit more energy than the AMRAAM on long-to-medium shots. Kinetically there's no reason why the Phoenix would perform as much worse as it does... it's all in the AI response.

[IronMike]

1 hour ago, Noctrach said:

@IronMike Would it make sense to discuss the AI defensive behaviours with ED in context of the ongoing missile work?

An AIM-54Cmk47 launched between 20 and 40 miles has a Pk of near 0 because the AI will always opt for a split-S defence
An AIM-120C at identical parameters will have a Pk of roughly 0.5 because about half the time the AI will just crank and fly into the missile.

The exceedingly rare occurrence where the AI doesn't immediately split-S and burn away the Phoenix tends to arrive with a little bit more energy than the AMRAAM on long-to-medium shots. Kinetically there's no reason why the Phoenix would perform as much worse as it does... it's all in the AI response.

Sure it would, the more you guys report on the issue, the more likely they will take notice, etc.

[Fliegerkalle]

On 11/18/2022 at 6:47 PM, IronMike said:

Even the M4.3 that is being mentioned often, was just a proof of concept, which was proven with the missiles as is in DCS as well. For an actual in service missile you are looking at top speeds around M3.45 - ish and sometimes, with very favorable conditions it may reach 3.7-3.8.

Hi ironmike, okay I understand - I asking only my self as a completely noob in military aviation. I am only a gamer which became interest in these topics because of your wonderful game / module DCS F14.  But why are so different  information in the www. At least from a US Aviation History museum I would expect valid informations regarding F14 and Aim54 . They also stated in their videos that the aim 54 was flying Mach 5  

 Sad to hear from gamer perspective that heatblur has different informations so that the mach5 info seems to be fake news. 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Fliegerkalle