TADS IAT will only lock onto live vehicles

[Loophole]

I couldn't find any other mention of the issue; my apologies if this is a re-post!

I have noticed that the IAT function of the TADS - similar to many other optical targeting systems implemented in DCS, will only lock on to a live vehicle target.  If the target is dead, it will no longer lock on (providing a cheaty way to determine if that dark blob is a live target or not).  It also won't lock on to an arbitrary spot, even if that spot provides a nice contrast-y image (e.g. a house or a parked vehicle that is just a map object).

Presumably this is all a limitation of the implementation; its simply checking if the TADS LOS is looking at a live unit in the unit list, not actually analysing the image.  Simulating IAT "properly" would clearly be impractical, but given the effort put into so many other details in the sim it seems like perhaps some more work needs to be done on this mechanism, to bring it a bit closer to realistic behaviour?

I'm thinking:

- Lock on to vehicles regardless of whether they are alive or dead.

- Lock on to any map object.

- Lock on to arbitrary locations on the ground.

If you wanted to get really clever you could do a quick & dirty analysis of the image rendered on the TADS (or other sight - I imagine this logic could eventually be ported to all optical sensor systems) to see if it has enough contrast to plausibly allow image tracking, but the cost-benefit of doing that is probably not worth it.

[Schlomo1933]

+1

[Antix70]

-10

When the target is AI, there is no "cheaty" way. No one is harmed, because there is no foul. George has a better memory than you, and remembers who he's killed, pick whatever excuse you like, I kinda like it this way. Until the graphics are Mk.1 Eyeball quality, there needs to be assists. The MPD's are not even as high of a resolution as real life, as confirmed by SME's, so you can't rely on them to be clear enough to help you decide.

Remember it's a game, not all of us are trying to milsim.