STT symbology and behavior

[UWBuRn]

 

Took a break for a while from DCS, i went back to it and spun up the Tomcat for a flight, after some time not using it i wanted to see if there was some improvement or change.

To my displeasure, i see that the radard still behave somewhat strange to me, just like it has been since the changes that reintroduced AIM-54C going active also in STT, IIRC.

I looked into the forum to see if anybody else has mentioned this, but found nothing, so i would like to understand if it's just me finding STT to behave very strangely or not. To show that i recorded three videos of firing different missiles in STT:

 

 

 

Videos are commented so it's easier to understand all of this by looking at them, bu basically:

• I'm flying against a single opponent (old AI F-4E, no ECM equipped)
• STT the target, fire on him
• After some time on the TID, the track is marked as trashed (X upon it), radar lock is still on
• After some more time, another track appears on the line showing the antenna position; the old "ghost" track is still there and highlighted, the new one stays on the bar
• As time passes the offset between the two tracks increases

This seems odd to me in multiple ways:

• Why the track should be marked as trashed? Wasn't that only for TWS to indicate that the track was lost? Thy this does show while STT lock is still on? Can be the FCS trying to estimate that the missile is not going to hit the target? Still odd, as target weren't yet maneuvering
• Why the track splits? Doesn't make any sense to me...
• Why the tracks offset increases? It's like if the ghost track shows where the missile "thinks" the target is...

I tried to use STT more, as TWS for maneuvering target is not very reliable and STT should be the go-to choice in thoose situations, but it seems to have its share of issues as well.

This is on a clean install, latest version. Is anybody else experiencing this? @HeatBlur, is this expected?

TBH, i'm not very happy about this, the Tomcat flies great and it's enjoyable in guns and SRMs fights, but as soon as you start its main ordnances it turns out to be rather frustrating. Part of it might be realistic, but some behaviors are rather hard to belive. I don't even think that the missions from original campaign are doable any more in this state. And FIVE years after its release this is rather disappointing.

[captain_dalan]

Is this only against the Phantom? And when you say no ECM, you mean no jammers or no counter measures? 

[UWBuRn]

Happens against other a/c as well. With no ECM i mean just no ECM pod on the F-4E, chaffs and flares are equipped.

I've seen this happening regularly, more or less since Phoenix was overhauled, i just never had time and willingness to record this in detail before.

[UWBuRn]

I drafted a dead simple mission with a Su-33 (no ECM pods) just to rule out that could be an issue with missions designed with old versions, but happens there as well.

The more you crank, the more easily it happens, if you flight straight to target, it tends to not happen.

[RustBelt]

In a way it makes sense, as the STT is a “different” track than the TWS track you pointed at, but it seems like it should be correlated and removed since you’re NOT in TWS anymore so all the tracks but your lock should drop.

[UWBuRn]

1 hour ago, RustBelt said:

In a way it makes sense, as the STT is a “different” track than the TWS track you pointed at, but it seems like it should be correlated and removed since you’re NOT in TWS anymore so all the tracks but your lock should drop.

If you look at my videos, the problem is not related to TWS at all. Locking up a target from TWS or RWS works as expected, the track is either correlated or the radar cleans everything up and start with a single track derivated from STT lock (i can't recall which is the actual behavior).

The "ghost" track spawns when i'm already in STT for some time, and once it's there it stays, it's never correlated back (iirc tracks are never merged, even in TWS, if for some reason two tracks are generated from a contact one of them will be dropped after some time, but never merged). That seems definitely wrong to me.

[captain_dalan]

Confirmed. And it has nothing to do with the missiles. As soon as the track reaches the edges of the screen, there is a VERY high probability of getting an X over the track. And it's not even that far off boresight. This is probably worth investigating. 

EDIT: the target is a MiG-15, so no ECM or CM. 

Edited June 16, 2024 by captain_dalan

[WarthogOsl]

I've seen the "ghost track" as well against AI bandits.  I initially thought I was being jammed or something, but it's not the same.

[captain_dalan]

To whom do we address this finding? And should we file it as a bug?

[draconus]

3 hours ago, captain_dalan said:

To whom do we address this finding? And should we file it as a bug?

Best would be here:

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

with a short track.

[UWBuRn]

Will post there asap.

[UWBuRn]

Reported.