Jester calls out "bandit" on negative IFF return

[Dragon1-1]

Just something that I found rather immersion-breaking about the IFF system. Jester will run an IFF check on a bogey, and will immediately, with full confidence, announce it's a bandit, should the check fail. An IRL WSO would never do that without additional information such as an AWACS "declare" call, positive Combat Tree return or a VID (on later aircraft, NCTR print or datalink info would also work). A positive IFF check confirms its a friendly, but lack thereof might be from a friendly with no IFF (busted, forgot to turn it on, never had it in first place due to being a single engine Cessna...), a civilian who blundered into the wrong place, a large enough bird, or, just perhaps, an actual bandit.

Sure enough, the check sometimes does fail on friendlies in DCS, underlining the point, it's not just a realism gripe. A bogey that doesn't respond to a Model 4 interrogation is still a bogey. In any case, I'd request Jester be a little less trusting with the Phantom's IFF.

[Mermoz]

not forgetting that during vietnam war it was standard for A6 pilots for exemple to turn off the transponder when feet wet so as not to give Vietnamese radar an additional beacon to trace. Meaning the A6 would never return an IFF response while being interrogated by a F4

[Northstar98]

Yeah, absolutely have to agree with this:

1. If DCS ever receives a realistic game-wide IFF system (though this sort of thing is already possible to an extent with RAZBAM's own system), the current way Jester may result in negative training to players, who may come to assume that any non-response = hostile, regardless of what they actually are, leading to more cases of friendly fire.
   
   This is already possible in-game - as Dragon1-1 mentioned, Jester will sometimes call out definite friendlies as bandits if no response is seen for whatever reason.
    
2. It isn't realistic and assumes ROE (and a pretty lax one at that).
3. It results in Jester not really being all that verbose. Given his lack of radio etiquette, this can lead to stepping on comms for longer.

I might just have a go at modding out the problem voice lines so only those that just say "No IFF" or similar get through.

Edited June 11 by Northstar98