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

[Naquaii]

1 hour ago, Sindar said:

I remember a discussion of several dozen pages when we were convinced that the missile settings matched the actual performance. And it took off vertically upwards and flew in the opposite direction from the target. And I remember who from the community fervently defended these "real settings". We've been over this. 

Not sure who you've been discussing that with. I've seen exactly no-one defending the missiles going backwards. What we've said each and every time is that the missile kinematics, i.e. the motor performance and the aerodynamics are really close. The guidance however is lacking which makes the missile worse off than it should be due to that, but that also not really something a 3rd party can fix.

The issue with the backwards lofting/firing missiles is due to how lofting in DCS works (at least with older missiles) and the fact that players have started to manually loft which wasn't really intended either in DCS or IRL. But no-one is defending that and it's not correct behavior, but again, also not something HB can fix on our own.

[Sindar]

25 минут назад, draconus сказал:

But this is AIM-54 thread. Why do you care about number of F-14s on servers? Player figured it's easier to score with newer aircraft and weapons. They also have new toy modules like F-15E. Idk. I don't care. You like the Tomcat - you fly the Tomcat. If you find a bug - report. Easy as that.

I agree. This thread is not about the F-14 and servers, it's about the AIM-54 changes. Why did the servers make them? It was better without them. If you don't like the AIM-54 changes, then load up on AIM-7M. It's just as good as the R-27. You're right. It's simple.

 

[Kageseigi]

9 hours ago, Naquaii said:

The guidance however is lacking which makes the missile worse off than it should be due to that, but that also not really something a 3rd party can fix.

 

I think that is the main source of frustration for me. It doesn't matter if the Phoenix is five times faster and more maneuverable than any other missile, or has ten times the range... if its guidance system doesn't track, it almost becomes like a super long-range gun shot. I don't know how well a real Phoenix would be able to track more modern fighters dependably (or if there is actually anyone who does know), but I do hope ED hurries and gives it the attention and care it deserves.

But I want to thank you guys at HB for doing your best to get the kinematics as close as can be! 

I hope ED does as much with the guidance system! But I'm sure everyone at HB is even more eager for that than us players! 

[draconus]

10 hours ago, Naquaii said:

The guidance however is lacking which makes the missile worse off than it should be due to that, but that also not really something a 3rd party can fix.

Do you track it with ED? Is it WIP or just planned for the future?

[Sindar]

-Cipher-   the only one who has written anything in this discussion that makes common sense. This is evidenced by the number of endorsements of his post.

В 15.01.2024 в 20:41, -Cipher- сказал:

it was very very common that lots of Iraq planes jettisoned their bombs as soon as locked by an F-14 (commonly mentioned, mentioned by Shahram Rostami as well)

В 15.01.2024 в 20:41, -Cipher- сказал:

I don't really like the way some people want to represent the phoenix as a slow fat brick only able to crash into straight flying big bombers. 
Phoenix is a very capable missile, and it is proven to be a very good and reliable weapon against agile fighters even in DCS with current state. 

В 15.01.2024 в 20:41, -Cipher- сказал:

these maneuvers did not help them as they got close as below 20 nautical miles, missiles fired within that range had a really good PK and I don't remember reading somewhere they miss within that window,

Why is HB constantly mentioned and justified here? If this rocket is made by Mexicans in a small town car shop, but done well, it makes no difference to me who they are or what their name is. Personally, I have no beef with HB.  The end product is the result of ED's work. And the ED, unfortunately, is silent.

From others I read again a thousand words about everything but the answer to a simple question. What class of missile in the current DCS reality does the AIM-54 belong to?

Long or midle?

 

[draconus]

7 minutes ago, Sindar said:

Long or midle?

Long.

[Naquaii]

11 hours ago, draconus said:

Do you track it with ED? Is it WIP or just planned for the future?

Afaik it's an ongoing thing.

[DD_Fenrir]

AIM-54 has changed again.

In vCVW-17 since the last patch we are seeing a drop in overall Pk to a ~25%  level vs ~45% at the end of last year.

Notch resistance seems to have plummetted plus terminal energy is down. 

This is bloody frustrating. Our BVR timelines are all over the place. 

Can someone please justify these changes and at the very least ensure that patch notes reflect any adjustments to the AIM-54 physics.

[DSplayer]

3 hours ago, DD_Fenrir said:

AIM-54 has changed again.

In vCVW-17 since the last patch we are seeing a drop in overall Pk to a ~25%  level vs ~45% at the end of last year.

Notch resistance seems to have plummetted plus terminal energy is down. 

This is bloody frustrating. Our BVR timelines are all over the place. 

Can someone please justify these changes and at the very least ensure that patch notes reflect any adjustments to the AIM-54 physics.

At least nothing code-wise has changed on the end that I can see. No drag, motor, or guidance changes that I can see. If it were something that changed, it would probably be on ED's end.

[Karon]

I haven't checked this post in a while, and apparently, I missed a lot of nonsense. Skipping the complaints about realism whilst mentioning ""Cybersport"" which cracked me up, there are lots of posts in this infinite thread that talks about the current issues of the missiles, the game in general (inconsistent radar and missile simulation, rwr, bug/exploits and so on - lol at esport again), and the fact that the Phoenix in DCS is actually a good missile no matter the API limitations. It has a very high top speed but slow acceleration; its behaviour changes a lot depending on the range, and whoever expects a preventively defending target to be splattered at 70 nm does not know how the phoenix works. At those ranges, a minor offset or changes in Vc can seriously affect the missile envelope.

 

So far, people complaining mostly have three-four main "issues":

- they haven't tweaked the AI to make it less dumb but exceptional at notching;

- they play with no set era. Who would have thought that missiles from 2000+ are better than the Phoenix, especially vs fighters, right?

- they play against modules with subpar avionics simulation: everyone can defeat a Phoenix if their SA and RWR are better than the F-35's fusion;

- they expect Pk to be 100%. Well, it doesn't work like that.

Obv this does not mean that there no issues, on the contrary, but the game can be made better and closer to real situations. It's boring AF, but only a matter of patience and will.

 

Sorry to sound a bit annoyed, but I can't believe that almost 60 pages later we are still repeating the same things.

Edited March 27 by Karon
typos - I have cellular phones

[DD_Fenrir]

3 hours ago, Karon said:

I haven't checked this post in a while, and apparently, I missed a lot of nonsense. Skipping the complaints about realism whilst mentioning ""Cybersport"" which cracked me up, there are lots of posts in this infinite thread that talks about the current issues of the missiles, the game in general (inconsistent radar and missile simulation, rwr, bug/exploits and so on - lol at esport again), and the fact that the Phoenix in DCS is actually a good missile no matter the API limitations. It has a very high top speed but slow acceleration; its behaviour changes a lot depending on the range, and whoever expects a preventively defending target to be splattered at 70 nm does not know how the phoenix works. At those ranges, a minor offset or changes in Vc can seriously affect the missile envelope.

 

So far, people complaining mostly have three-four main "issues":

- they haven't tweaked the AI to make it less dumb but exceptional at notching;

- they play with no set era. Who would have thought that missiles from 2000+ are better than the Phoenix, especially vs fighters, right?

- they play against modules with subpar avionics simulation: everyone can defeat a Phoenix if their SA and RWR are better than the F-35's fusion;

- they expect Pk to be 100%. Well, it doesn't work like that.

Obv this does not mean that there no issues, on the contrary, but the game can be made better and closer to real situations. It's boring AF, but only a matter of patience and will.

 

Sorry to sound a bit annoyed, but I can't believe that almost 60 pages later we are still repeating the same things.

 

Karon, with the greatest respect, I have been a proponent of "Phoenix = not a golden BB" philospohy myself for some time.

That said given that our mil-sim air wing operates the AIM-54 on - as close as we can gather to - actual AIM-54 timelines, that is, >30Kft, 0.9-1.0M, hot targets, 20°-30° manual loft launching at between 50nm and 35nm.

Without changing an iota of how we operate, the Pk is dropping - we track or weapons envelope employments to gather robust data on this and it is showing a downward trend.

We could stand a PK of around 40-45%. That's reasonable; the enemy gets a vote after all and sometimes the AWG-9 does AWG-9 things. But something HAS changed, and the Pk overall is dropping.

Repeatedly our missiles are getting trashed in the endgame - whilst still kinematically viable -  because *reasons*; two of us launched a total of 8 Phoenixes at a Backfire raid that was climbing through 20Kft at 45nm (still launching ~32K @ 0.9M with manual loft) the other day.

ONE hit.

ONE.

One went stupid after a track file loss (fair enough) and the other 6 were all somehow notched and passed within 100ft of their target. By BACKFIRES. This is not a hard manoevering target but a large bomber that doesn't manouvre well.

It is ridiculous, on that we agree, I just think it's ridiculous that the missile still performs so badly even when launched under optimal conditions. 

Edited March 27 by DD_Fenrir

[draconus]

22 minutes ago, DD_Fenrir said:

Repeatedly our missiles are getting trashed in the endgame - whilst still kinematically viable -  because *reasons*

https://forum.dcs.world/forum/535-bugs-and-problems/

[Karon]

1 hour ago, DD_Fenrir said:

Karon, with the greatest respect, I have been a proponent of "Phoenix = not a golden BB" philospohy myself for some time.

That said given that our mil-sim air wing operates the AIM-54 on - as close as we can gather to - actual AIM-54 timelines, that is, >30Kft, 0.9-1.0M, hot targets, 20°-30° manual loft launching at between 50nm and 35nm.

Without changing an iota of how we operate, the Pk is dropping - we track or weapons envelope employments to gather robust data on this and it is showing a downward trend.

We could stand a PK of around 40-45%. That's reasonable; the enemy gets a vote after all and sometimes the AWG-9 does AWG-9 things. But something HAS changed, and the Pk overall is dropping.

Repeatedly our missiles are getting trashed in the endgame - whilst still kinematically viable -  because *reasons*; two of us launched a total of 8 Phoenixes at a Backfire raid that was climbing through 20Kft at 45nm (still launching ~32K @ 0.9M with manual loft) the other day.

ONE hit.

ONE.

One went stupid after a track file loss (fair enough) and the other 6 were all somehow notched and passed within 100ft of their target. By BACKFIRES. This is not a hard manoevering target but a large bomber that doesn't manouvre well.

It is ridiculous, on that we agree, I just think it's ridiculous that the missile still performs so badly even when launched under optimal conditions. 

 

Sorry mate, I was not talking about you; I should have specified. I was referring to the broader discussion. This, assuming it is not a one-off occurrence, seems to be the side effect of something changed on ED's side since they control terminal guidance, and I am not aware of any changes on HB's side. Do you have tracks / tacview, or have new noticed if there was something in common between the shots? Laggy server otherwise? Finding a common point and recreating the problem would help to find the solution.
I'm happy to test the same conditions (SP though) if you provide more details.

[Lurker]

@Karon ED might very well be unaware of the problem, if this is an unintended consequence (read > bug) of some other changes they made. You have an ED Closed Beta Tester Team tag, so you probably know best how this works and how many new bugs are introduced for every one they squash.

[WarthogOsl]

I know there weren't any HB updates this last patch (April 10), but does anyone know of any ED changes to radar or guidance?  I've been seeing some consistently wonky behavior with the Phoenix since then. In this example (on a single player mission I've often used for practice), the second missile loses track almost immediately after launch, and makes a bee-line into the stratosphere.  A third, follow up shot taken while still about 55 miles away barely lofts at all.  It seems like most of the time since the patch, the second missile fired at a 2 ship won't even make it even near the target, let alone any terminal problems.

[The_Tau]

yeah i think there is something linked with firing on close flying two-ships. I just had the same during my squadron mission. 1 missile goes to space, another one tracks nicely

 

https://we.tl/t-6Gn8GdLhWm

 

at +01:25:39

Edited April 15 by The_Tau

[WarthogOsl]

7 minutes ago, The_Tau said:

yeah i think there is something linked with firing on close flying two-ships. I just had the same during my squadron mission. 1 missile goes to space, another one tracks nicely

 

I remember it being more of an issue a long while ago, but fixed for the most part.  There are definitely times where I see the track of the trailing bandit pop in and out, while the lead stays solid.  In those cases I will hold off on firing two missiles.  But in these cases it seemed I had a solid track and both, right up until launching #2.

[Kageseigi]

14 hours ago, WarthogOsl said:

I know there weren't any HB updates this last patch (April 10), but does anyone know of any ED changes to radar or guidance?  I've been seeing some consistently wonky behavior with the Phoenix since then. In this example (on a single player mission I've often used for practice), the second missile loses track almost immediately after launch, and makes a bee-line into the stratosphere.  A third, follow up shot taken while still about 55 miles away barely lofts at all.  It seems like most of the time since the patch, the second missile fired at a 2 ship won't even make it even near the target, let alone any terminal problems.

 

In light of recent events, the cynic in me says your problem in this particular case is because the MiG-23 is already dead 

[WarthogOsl]

1 hour ago, Kageseigi said:

 

In light of recent events, the cynic in me says your problem in this particular case is because the MiG-23 is already dead 

Lol.  I get what you're saying, though fwiw just in case, I tried it with some MiG-25's as well.  Same thing :)

[trenchfeet]

I agreed two close bandits is one missile in space and another losing guidance due to the other popping in and out

[riboyster]

Not sure if this has already been discussed/address - please fill me in if so.

When firing a phoenix at 40k feet from mach 0.9, the missile barely makes it past Mach 2. Public data has it as a Mach 4 missile. What gives?

[NeedzWD40]

40 minutes ago, riboyster said:

Not sure if this has already been discussed/address - please fill me in if so.

When firing a phoenix at 40k feet from mach 0.9, the missile barely makes it past Mach 2. Public data has it as a Mach 4 missile. What gives?

Mine are making it past Mach 3 depending on the loft altitude. Lower altitudes without a loft is usually a Mach 2.5 cap. The Mach 4 figures are from a NASA testbed missile. It's been discussed in this thread before, but I've no idea what page it's on.

[riboyster]

1 hour ago, NeedzWD40 said:

Mine are making it past Mach 3 depending on the loft altitude. Lower altitudes without a loft is usually a Mach 2.5 cap. The Mach 4 figures are from a NASA testbed missile. It's been discussed in this thread before, but I've no idea what page it's on.

Got it. Thanks!