Aim-54C Non working Self activation

[RoyalWaffles]

There have been multiple instances where Aim-54C has simply failed to go aqquire a target or go active in a given situation that simply should not happen, Today I got the most blatant case of this that i literally just closed DCS. I was flying on the GS server at angels 45 ish at mach 1.6-1.7 to engage a F15 going about mach 1.8 also at angels 45 ish, I fired a Aim-54C at about the 1:19:15 mark on the Tacview file at a range of 45NM. The Aim 54 proceeded to close to 8NM with the nose pointing RIGHT at the F15 and then proceeded to pitch up and come within 1.9NM of a F15 who didnt change course or even MANEUVER in response to this missile. So, why did it miss? Target size was set to large, we supported it until it supposedly went active, so why?
Here is a link to the file serverside:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13LGyIMA63Dr6FgT7i2ryfBsdIv5zVFqq/view?usp=sharing

Here is a link to my track file clientside:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YCZ6DCQ42_kI1r5Mz36Pdn2L6-5mJIVa/view?usp=sharing

And here are pictures from tacview itself 

Edit: I would've included a direct video clip of the whole thing happening but my rio and I's reaction to watching this happen was quite... Vulgar and wouldn't be appropriate to post on the forums raw, so I'll upload one without audio: 

 

Edited January 18, 2023 by RoyalWaffles
Added video

[The_Tau]

Yeah, it seems bandit turned on Jammer on while your missile was in flight. 

Unfortunately it makes 54s in TWS while in air much more stupid. Its ED side I am afraid, DCS's ECM implementation.

Best advise I can give is that as soon you can see bandit starting to jam while u guide missile in TWS is to break lock ( quick PAL on/off) 54C hopefully goes active and finds him or/and STT him, manual loft and fire in STT

Edited January 19, 2023 by The_Tau

[RoyalWaffles]

1 hour ago, The_Tau said:

Yeah, it seems bandit turned on Jammer on while your missile was in flight. 

Unfortunately it makes 54s in TWS while in air much more stupid. Its ED side I am afraid, DCS's ECM implementation.

Best advise I can give is that as soon you can see bandit starting to jam while u guide missile in TWS is to break lock ( quick PAL on/off) 54C hopefully goes active and finds him or/and STT him, manual loft and fire in STT

 

If you saw the bandit was jamming you would've also seen the AWG-9 already randomly tracksplit and lost track in the first place, there was no lock to break. The advice you gave was already done

Edited January 19, 2023 by RoyalWaffles

[The_Tau]

2 hours ago, RoyalWaffles said:

If you saw the bandit was jamming you would've also seen the AWG-9 already randomly tracksplit and lost track in the first place, there was no lock to break. The advice you gave was already done

 

Sorry what? I dont really understand...

 

from your vid, your missile is in TWS, so you fired in TWS

But I see the jammer strobe coming from him too isnt ? So you fired in TWS, you lost track (its crossed out) and after couple seconds strobe appears. Isnt that what happened?
 

Edited January 19, 2023 by The_Tau

[Burner_]

The point you aren’t getting is the missile still got to him despite the dead track. However it should have activated on him. This was a large missile so it should have started searching at around 18-22 seconds. This ain’t exclusive to the c model. The c model should do this by itself. The a model can also do this but requires the launching aircraft to remain hot for guidance commands and the activation command.
 

I think they might have overcorrected a previous issue where the missile would go active on you behind a hill. 

[The_Tau]

In RL it should but HB already said that due to limitation of DCS missile API current 54 doesnt behave like this. Dead tracks make missile go active only if the target stay within very narrow "box" of air of that track. If bandit  deviate even a bit and will be outside of box at TTI 18-20s (for target Large) then missile will not go active due to AWG9 "go active" command (even though it should in RL). 

Best way is to "cut" missile support if its 54C with PAL and make missile go active on its own. Jammer changes missile logic though and in my experience in pvp, turning jammer on when 54 is in the air in TWS will greatly decrease chance of missile go active....

Edited January 20, 2023 by The_Tau

[RustBelt]

I wish they would just make a section in the manual of DCS-isms that covers all the stuff that just can’t work like real life due to game limitations. 

[DSplayer]

From what I'm seeing here, you manually lofted the missile in such a manner which made it go higher than it usually would and it couldn't get down to thicker air in time to engage the target. If you didn't manually loft it at like 20-30 degrees and used a more modest 13 degrees, the missile would've probably hit since it wouldn't have been so high while having a higher terminal velocity. Lofting at that high of a pitch would maybe be applicable against targets like 80 nm out but not at the range that you fired at the F-15. 

This is combined with you having an extrapolated track which basically made the missile rely on its own seeker and stuff and in DCS with the older API/scheme, it means that the missile goes active at a point and looks for the original target and it seems that it might've attempted to look for it but went active later on than the point you wanted it to go active at.

Edited January 20, 2023 by DSplayer