investigating Pilot always die when F/A-18C is hit by (any) missile - version 2.9.13.6818

[ruxtmp]

I still see the same thing as well. All air to air missile hits result in 100% pilot kill. Only gun shots are survivable. I am not sure how ED is testing this but a player flown F-18 in single player being hit always kills my pilot. I setup a test with getting shot by a mig-29 from my 6 o'clock with an aa-11. When in an f-18 100% pilot kill. When flying Fw-190D, F-15C, F-16, A-10C, AV-8, F-14A, or F-14B the pilot survives at least 90% of the time so I can eject. II would test with other planes but I don't own them.

Edited April 27 by ruxtmp

[ricnunes]

Thanks for the feedback, @ruxtmp!

That's exactly what I'm experiencing here! This only diference is that I don't own F-16, AV-8B and F-14. But the rest is the same. With F-15C, Mig-29, Su-27, A-10C I can always survive the scenario that I previously set. With the F/A-18, I can't survive any single time! 
And yes, I'm flying/experiencing this in Single Player. Don't know if this makes a diference but I don't play in multiplayer.

It's simply impossible that no-one on the dev part notices this. This is one of perhaps few issues that I found in any computer game which I (and not only, it seems) can reproduce it 100% of the times!

[Racoon-1-1]

Hey @BIGNEWY, I am practicing a lot of bvr and bfm vs. ai with the hornet lately and whenever I got shot down by a fox1/2/3 my pilot was killed (most of the time mig29A or mig29S with R60/R73 or R77). As a matter of fact I wasn't on a parachute even once in the last 2-3 weeks. That's far from "game breaking" for me, but something seems off here tbh. I am playing in VR btw..

kind regards.

Edited April 30 by Racoon-1-1

[BIGNEWY]

As mentioned previously we have tested and we are not seeing the issue. 

We have already tweaked this and the values are correct. 

thank you 

[ruxtmp]

Thats OK I fixed it by making myself immortal and using triggers around the plane to set damage after a detected missile in zone works well too as I can simulate multiple system failures too.

[GeoS72]

@BIGNEWY, +1 on the survival rate of the pilot. Based on my experience flying the Hornet & Tomcat in a multiplayer environment: it is exceptionally rare for my pilot to survive an incoming missile.

The running joke when I fly multicrew RIO in the Tomcat: Goose's turn to eject the lifeless pilot and notify the Next of Kin.

I'd say that 99.999999999999999999999999999999% of the time, the F-14 pilot will die and the RIO will survive any missile attack from any direction. I have ridden the Tomcat as RIO to splash down after being hit by a Fox 1 or Fox 2; the entire back end is spewing flames and tumbling like a weed while my multicrew pilot is dead as a door nail.

Getting back to the Hornet pilot survival problem: it is exceptionally rare that my pilot survives after a missile attack. The percentage of death is equal to the Tomcat pilot percentage (discussed above).

While your testing and adjustment to values may appear correct, could there be some unforeseen factors affecting the pilot survival rate? Nearly all of my stick time is in a multiplayer environment. Could there be something in that multiplayer setting to cause the higher mortality rates?

Could you specify the conditions that were tested so we could replicate and confirm or disprove the results? To me, there appears to be a disconnect between the test environment and the 'live' environment.

[GeoS72]

I created an ad hoc Hornet vs MiG-29S mission. Hornet client (me) in front with MiG-29S in trail about 5 NM. I tested with a variety of missiles but settled after 5 with the R-60M. Here are my initial findings from the single player environment:

20 flights total
Hornet Pilot survives: 5
Hornet Pilot dies: 15
Survival percent: 25% alive, 75% dead.

Track & MIZ files attached.

Basic tests:
Co-altitude with bandit at 20,000, once I spawned into the cockpit Autopilot BALT hold enabled and throttle set to 50%. Variables: I would add afterburner to increase heat signature; set Client altitude to 25,000 and kept bandit at 20,000; set co-altitude to 25,000 ft. Most of the time, I observed the Hornet from the F2 External View. That yielded the most deaths of the pilot. My pilot's survival did not appear to be correlated to in-cockpit view or external view.

This test was done VERY late at night so my scientific method may be flawed. I'll revisit this experiment once I am well rested in the morning.

Hornet-Pilot-Mortality-Tracks.zip Hornet Survival Test-001.miz

[Racoon-1-1]

vor 18 Stunden schrieb BIGNEWY:

As mentioned previously we have tested and we are not seeing the issue. 

We have already tweaked this and the values are correct. 

thank you 

Ok, so the devs seem to get different results than at least some players. Do you know how it is calculated if the pilot dies? That's just a shot in the dark, but is it possible that the framerate has an impact on this? For example to get a smooth flying experience in VR I need to limit the fps to 45. And it could make a huge difference if the calculation just takes into consideration in which frame the missile exploded or where it exploded according to a physics simulation that is just a function of t. I mean since a lot of things are also calculated concurrently for multithreading purposes we could in fact have some kind of race condition here that is affected by framerate.

As I said, that's just a shot in the dark and guesswork, but I will try to create some test scenarios and then run them with different fps limitations (and vr vs non-vr) when I am home again.

kind regards.

Edited May 3 by Racoon-1-1

[GeoS72]

@BIGNEWY, et al:

Here is a more methodical approach to testing the Hornet Pilot survival rate. The Fulcrum Pilot survival rate was 100% on 2 separate runs.

I modified the MIZ file to simulate a multiplayer environment. Each side has 10 spawns, each human pilot (me) is being chased by an AI pilot. The conditions are very similar: engage autopilot and wait for impact. I don't play the MiG-29 so I had to manually keep the jet level (the autopilot is foreign to me). All airplanes configured with 60% fuel, unlimited fuel (waypoint action) enabled, all missiles shot were Fox 2s (R-60Ms & AIM-9Xs for the respective side). The track files should play out as if I were in a multiplayer server and jumped into the next available slot. When you spawn into a new aircraft, the previous wave from the opposing force will despawn (had an issue with the final wave of the Hornet test).

Here's the breakdown. The numbers next to each status represent the spawned round (e.g. 2 = 2nd Spawn):

Take 1:
Hornet Alive: 4
Hornet Death: 1-2-3-5-6-7-8-9-10

Fulcrum Alive: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9 (no 10th spawn due to trigger error)
Fulcrum Death: No deaths

Results: Hornet 90% mortality rate; Fulcrum 100% survival rate

Take 2:

Hornet Alive: 3-7-8
Hornet Death: 1-2-4-5-6-9-10

Fulcrum Alive: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
Fulcrum Death: No deaths

Results: Hornet 30% survival rate; Fulcrum 100% survival rate; combined Hornet survival rate = 20% (4 out of 20 slots resulted in pilot surviving missile hit).

I agree with @ricnunes, @Racoon-1-1, & @ruxtmp that the Hornet mortality rate is far too high at 80%. Especially when compared to the 100% survival rate of the MiG-29S. That allows the frustration level to get VERY high.

You guys are welcome to run the same MIZ and report on the results. I'll be even more curious to learn more about the tweaked/correct settings on pilot survival rates. If there are some open source docs that pertain to Hornet survival rates after missile strikes then I'm interested in reading about them.

HornetvsFulcrumSurvivalTracks-Take01.zip HornetvsFulcrumSurvivalTracks-Take02.zip Hornet Survival Test-002.miz

[ricnunes]

@GeoS72 and @Racoon-1-1,

I'm experiencing this issue in single player (I always play single player) and I don't use VR.

My framerates are good and even more so since most of my tests involve 1 versus 1 "F/A-18 versus Mig-29" or "Mig-29 versus Mig-29" without any other added objects.

I also want to tank @GeoS72 for your extensive tests and examples. I concur with them and that's basically what I've been experiencing!

On 5/2/2025 at 2:21 PM, BIGNEWY said:

As mentioned previously we have tested and we are not seeing the issue. 

We have already tweaked this and the values are correct. 

thank you 

@BIGNEWY

Don't get me wrong but it's not ok!
Are you ignoring all the posters here? Are you going to continue to ignore the FACT that there's simply NO-ONE else here - namely from the PLAYER crowd - that concurs with you?

[GeoS72]

@ricnunes,

You are welcome for test results and samples. While it is frustrating to contend with exceptionally poor survival rate of the Hornet pilot, there shouldn't be a need to beat up @BIGNEWY. He and the other mods have a monumental task of sifting through threads & responding to user posts. The tone set in your post could be easily misinterpreted as a personal attack. I don't believe that is the intended purpose of your post.

Let's keep the conversation civil, please. I would like to explore this bug; or some may call it a 'feature', further. The reason for the delayed response could be caused by the evaluation of tracks & other data that were provided in my files.

While I dislike the length of silence, please be patient. It is very easy for us, as users, to get all worked up because we are passionate about the game. Trust me when I say, "I get it!" I get equally frustrated when there is a very long delay in replies or the response doesn't match my expectation.

I've had some positive experiences identifying problems which lead to fixes. Some take longer than others.

Keeping the train on the tracks: I'm curious to see other test results in Hornet Pilot survival rates!

[ricnunes]

@GeoS72, I'm not trying do any personal attacks here. Maybe I'm showing a bit of frustration which results in @BIGNEWY's constant reply of "I tested and everything is ok" which is clearly not the case as this is something that can be reproduced 100% and there's still no one else that concurs with Bignewy's "everything is ok" assessment. Actually 100% of all other users here reported the same that you and I are reporting here. This has little to nothing to do with the monumental task of supporting DCS. By the way, I also worked as IT support, supporting the software that the company develops and sells and if I replied to customers when they are all reporting the same issue/bug with Bignewy's "I tested and everything is ok" type of response, this in face of all and every costumer reports with evidence then I would have been fired on the spot!
I also must remember that I paid for the DCS modules that I own, including the F/A-18 which is one of the most expensive that I own and as such I believe I'm entitled to not being satisfied with a simple "I tested and everything is ok" reply without any further evidence - for example no several tracks of the "I tested and everything is ok" were shown - and being left without any further support about the issue.     

And if you look at my post history, I rarely post/report issues here. I'm reporting this because I'm 100% sure (not even 99%, it's 100% all in!) about what I'm seeing here and I can reproduce this bug/issue 100% of the times (as well as you) which is quite rare with complex software suites like this.

But yes, I agree to keep this in track in the hope that this eventually gets solved!

Edited May 8 by ricnunes

[BIGNEWY]

12 hours ago, ricnunes said:

@GeoS72, I'm not trying do any personal attacks here. Maybe I'm showing a bit of frustration which results in @BIGNEWY's constant reply of "I tested and everything is ok" which is clearly not the case as this is something that can be reproduced 100% and there's still no one else that concurs with Bignewy's "everything is ok" assessment. Actually 100% of all other users here reported the same that you and I are reporting here. This has little to nothing to do with the monumental task of supporting DCS. By the way, I also worked as IT support, supporting the software that the company develops and sells and if I replied to customers when they are all reporting the same issue/bug with Bignewy's "I tested and everything is ok" type of response, this in face of all and every costumer reports with evidence then I would have been fired on the spot!
I also must remember that I paid for the DCS modules that I own, including the F/A-18 which is one of the most expensive that I own and as such I believe I'm entitled to not being satisfied with a simple "I tested and everything is ok" reply without any further evidence - for example no several tracks of the "I tested and everything is ok" were shown - and being left without any further support about the issue.     

And if you look at my post history, I rarely post/report issues here. I'm reporting this because I'm 100% sure (not even 99%, it's 100% all in!) about what I'm seeing here and I can reproduce this bug/issue 100% of the times (as well as you) which is quite rare with complex software suites like this.

But yes, I agree to keep this in track in the hope that this eventually gets solved!

Please read my post again.

I said "We have tested", its not just me deciding the issue is not a bug, the QA team have spent hours testing it and the results were satisfactory. As mentioned before we have already tweaked this issue and are happy the values are correct. 

thank you 

[Lt.Turbo]

4 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Please read my post again.

I said "We have tested", its not just me deciding the issue is not a bug, the QA team have spent hours testing it and the results were satisfactory. As mentioned before we have already tweaked this issue and are happy the values are correct. 

thank you 

It might not be a bug, but your values are not correct. This is a problem for most single seat aircraft. You vastly overestimate the likelihood of a pilot being killed when their plane is stuck by a missile. This thread is about the hornet, but lets use the Viper as an example. In Desert Storm Vipers were hit and shot down by an SA-6, SA-3, SA-8, SA-16, and even a mk 84 bomb that exploded under the airplane as soon as it was released. In all of these, the pilot safely ejected. The plane hit by the SA-3 flew for 150 miles before it's engine quite. Another Viper was hit by an SA-3 over Bosnia and also flew for a while before the pilot safely ejected. There's even evidence to believe Scott Speicher ejected from his hornet after being hit by a R-40 from the front. The pilots, across all aircraft, are much more likely to survive after being hit by a missile than you give them credit for. I'm sure the numbers match your targets currently, but it's your target pilot killed percentage that is wrong. The combat records are there to prove it.

[GeoS72]

Not to sound like a broken record, but the values your team tested are incorrect. Based on my limited test, a 20% survival rate from a rear aspect shot is unacceptably low. That's like saying there is an 80% chance of your computer crasheing upon loading Windows. Would you find that acceptable?

Here are my questions:

1. What is the target that a missile (Fox 1, 2, 3, or other SAM) aims on the Hornet? From my perspective, it appears to be the pilot!
2. Why is the survival rate of the MiG-29S (as I tested) at 100%?
3. Does this imply values for the MiG-29 are incorrect or unrealistic?
4. (Speculative) Will the values for the upcoming MiG-29A (full-fidelity) have parity with the Hornet or similar Western aircraft?
5. Why does ED believe the survival values for the Hornet are correct?
6. What is it going to take to improve these values?

[ricnunes]

Thanks for both your replies @Lt.Turbo and @GeoS72!

I fully agree with you assessments and if the values surrounding the Hornet pilot survivability are to be correct then they are clearly wrong!
Moreover, I echo @GeoS72 words that's it's odd that the ED team considers the Hornet pilot values "correct" when in fact the chances of survivability of the Mig-29 pilot are much, much and much superior compared to the Hornet. All of this while in reality the likehood of a Hornet pilot surviving and ejecting after a missile impact shouldn't be any lower compared to a Mig-29 pilot. But currently in DCS, this is clearly the case!

[ruxtmp]

Im not sure if the missiles aim for the pilots head or not. It would be nice to see what the hit box is for the pilot, I believe a few years ago the entire volume of the canopy was a hit box. If that is still the case then there is a good probability that shrapnel will hit somewhere on the canopy. The only issue I have with that theory is that I was under the impression that DCS does not model shrapnel and its resultant damage. Either way for me any missile hit results in instant pilot death 100% of the time. I actually stopped flying the hornet as of this week. It's still missing items and the damage model is abysmal. 

Edited May 12 by ruxtmp

[ricnunes]

On 5/12/2025 at 11:33 PM, ruxtmp said:

Im not sure if the missiles aim for the pilots head or not. It would be nice to see what the hit box is for the pilot, I believe a few years ago the entire volume of the canopy was a hit box. If that is still the case then there is a good probability that shrapnel will hit somewhere on the canopy. The only issue I have with that theory is that I was under the impression that DCS does not model shrapnel and its resultant damage. Either way for me any missile hit results in instant pilot death 100% of the time. I actually stopped flying the hornet as of this week. It's still missing items and the damage model is abysmal. 

From what I'm seeing and testing, the missile will kill always kill the Hornet pilot independently of the angle that it impacts the Hornet. That's why my tests that I shared in this thread always involve the enemy aircraft shooting a heat seeking missile from exactly from behind and without me (player) doing any type of evasive maneuver (just flying straight), so that a rear missile impact is always ensured. But and independently of the reason (hit boxes or other) there's clearly a problem with the Hornet and that's why and like you, I don't play it in campaigns and only do one or two occasional missions with the Hornet, usually quick missions and all of them without using my main pilot profile (I have one created just to fly in the Hornet and "die" in it everytime I get hit by a missile).

Actually I would like to watch the hit boxes of the Hornet compared with the Mig-29. BTW, I keep comparing the Hornet with the Mig-29 as their sizes and therefore pilot survivability should be very similar. The Su-27 and F-15C like the Mig-29 also don't have this problem but are quite or even much bigger aircraft and so it makes sense to compare the Hornet with the Mig-29 instead.

[ricnunes]

Oh and BTW, I just want to add the following to @BIGNEWY or any other ED member/dev:

• I'm willing and available to have a videocall with any ED member/developer in order to show what's happening here with the Hornet in whichever chat platform desired.
• Or alternatively, if you can provide me a contact of another ED member that I could present this issue such as Wags, I would also appreciate.

I'm saying this because and again, I'm 100% sure about what I'm talking about here, which is not that often! (and of course, I paid for the module)

[Racoon-1-1]

@BIGNEWY I created 3 testmissions where a MIG29S is directly behind a Player F/A-18 to test 3 different scenarios where either the player is shot down with a R77, a R73 or a R60M. Always from behind, so the missile explosion is as far away from the cockpit as possible.

I tested this 10 times each (non-VR, 90fps cap) and the survival rate of the player pilot was exactly 0.0!

I have no mods installed.

 

 

TEST_F18_PLAYER_SHOT_DOWN_R60M_FROM_REAR.miz TEST_F18_PLAYER_SHOT_DOWN_R73_FROM_REAR.miz TEST_F18_PLAYER_SHOT_DOWN_R77_FROM_REAR.miz

Edited May 26 by Racoon-1-1

[Racoon-1-1]

@BIGNEWY As a reference I created the R73 scenario again, but now with a player F16 instead.

I tried it 10 times and the pilot survived 6 times!

So I have a 0% survival rate against a R73 in a F/A-18 and a 60% survival rate against a R73 in the F-16.

I don't know why the qa team is happy with the results, when they tested this for hours, but there is definitely something wrong with the hornet damage model.

kind regards

TEST_F16_PLAYER_SHOT_DOWN_R73_FROM_REAR.miz

Edited May 26 by Racoon-1-1

[ruxtmp]

I dont think they are going to fix this. Based on a response to another thread for a Bf-109s damage model the jet damage model is even more simplified. I doubt the pilot is a part of the damage model. I suspect the cockpit area is a part of the damage model so if a missile hits the plane there is a good chance that its explosion radius encompasses the cockpit space as shrapnel is not modeled. If the cockpit is hit then I expect there is a simple random die roll calculated, and you are either dead or alive. Since we are the select few that seem to experience this we are probably the statistically unlucky few that keep rolling the number for dead pilot each time. Also unfortunately, historical data shows any F-18 that has been hit by a missile has resulted in the pilot being killed 100% of the time. Although the sample set is 2, one during ODS and one during OIF.

Edited Thursday at 01:46 AM by ruxtmp

[okopanja]

How many igla missiles from ka-50 does it take to take hornet?

Edited Thursday at 06:27 AM by okopanja

[ricnunes]

21 hours ago, ruxtmp said:

Also unfortunately, historical data shows any F-18 that has been hit by a missile has resulted in the pilot being killed 100% of the time. Although the sample set is 2, one during ODS and one during OIF.

That's not entirely correct or at least not the way to do a proper analysis.
The shot down during ODS was the one where a F/A-18 was shot down by a Mig-25. During this event when the F/A-18 was shot down, it got hit by a large and powerful AA-6 (R-40) missile and the pilot actually survived the missile impact and managed to eject. It was only somewhere after the pilot reached the ground that he died and it's not know if he died from injuries or because of the elements (desert can be very cold during night which was the case) or due to both reasons which we don't know and will probably never know. But what is known is that the pilot survived the missile impact and successfully ejected.
In the second situation this one during OIF, the F/A-18 was shot down by a Patriot (friendly fire) which is an extremely deadly missile where for example and also during OIF a Patriot also shot down a Tornado (also friendly fire) and both crewmen also died.

So and regarding the F/A-18 it's actually 50% of the two only cases/samples.

Moreover and during ODS, F/A-18s took direct hits from surface-to-air missiles and survived, something which is impossible with DCS F/A-18C. Source:
https://www.military.com/equipment/f-18c-d-hornet

Edited Thursday at 10:52 PM by ricnunes

[ricnunes]

21 hours ago, ruxtmp said:

I suspect the cockpit area is a part of the damage model so if a missile hits the plane there is a good chance that its explosion radius encompasses the cockpit space as shrapnel is not modeled. If the cockpit is hit then I expect there is a simple random die roll calculated, and you are either dead or alive.

If that's the case then why do we have a survival rate of 100% in the Mig-29 while in the F/A-18 is 0% when both the Mig-29 and F/A-18 are similarly sized?

Actually that's the reason why I compared the F/A-18 with the Mig-29 and not with the F-15C or Su-27 which while having similar survival results as the Mig-29 are much bigger aircraft than both the F/A-18 and Mig-29.