Guns: Can't lock target while holding 1st trigger detent

[Lixma 06]

So apparently the current method of having to hold the trigger safety open to obtain a computed gun pipper is wrong and will be changed to a toggle switch in a future patch.

Okay...but there remains an issue. If you lose target lock while in 1st stage the pipper reverts to a funnel - but - you can't re-lock your target from there. You need to release 1st stage and go back to CC and then you can attempt to re-lock your target.

Thus the Mig-29 pilot is expected to constantly flip/un-flip the gun safety every time he wants to re-lock a target during a gunzo encounter. This doesn't sound plausible.

The FC3 Mig-29 does allow you to re-lock from the funnel which I suspect is the correct behaviour; certainly it makes more sense to me.

[AeriaGloria]

I’m not sure this is incorrect. Combat employment says nothing. 
 

You can always use coop with rest in dummy do if one sensor loses lock the other will pick it up

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

2 hours ago, Lixma 06 said:

So apparently the current method of having to hold the trigger safety open to obtain a computed gun pipper is wrong and will be changed to a toggle switch in a future patch.

It depends on which hardware you use: for me in practice it already acts as just like it does in the real aircraft, but with just requiring 1 keybind instead of 2.

It's just that the wording is misleading.

And yes it’s fairly annoying to always have to flip the trigger back up every time the radar loses lock (which is quite often but that’s another topic entirely).

[Lixma 06]

1 hour ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

And yes it’s fairly annoying to always have to flip the trigger back up every time the radar loses lock (which is quite often but that’s another topic entirely).

No, it very much is this topic. 

Regardless of whether we are using a toggle or held....this Mig-29 does not allow you to lock a target with the gun safety OFF.

That's insane.

[AeriaGloria]

Why is it insane? 

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

9 minutes ago, Lixma 06 said:

No, it very much is this topic.

No: the radar losing lock (too) easily is discussed here:

 

[Lixma 06]

9 minutes ago, Raven (Elysian Angel) said:

No: the radar losing lock (too) easily is discussed here:

This has nothing to do with this topic. 

This isn't about having difficulty locking a target - it's about the inability to lock a target up when the gun safety is off (held or toggled).

22 minutes ago, AeriaGloria said:

Why is it insane? 

It's self-evident.

If anyone can explain why it is actually a good thing for the Mig-29 pilot, during guns combat, to have to constantly flip the safety catch back & forth just to re-lock a target, I'll listen.

[AeriaGloria]

25 minutes ago, Lixma 06 said:

This has nothing to do with this topic. 

This isn't about having difficulty locking a target - it's about the inability to lock a target up when the gun safety is off (held or toggled).

It's self-evident.

If anyone can explain why it is actually a good thing for the Mig-29 pilot, during guns combat, to have to constantly flip the safety catch back & forth just to re-lock a target, I'll listen.

I’m not saying it’s a good thing. I’m saying that MiG-29 is chock full of inexplicable design decisions and things that don’t make sense. 
 

Apparently an RWR that didn’t work well with radar atleast a lot of the time? 
 

Same RWR only shows a notch within WVR ranges? 
 

An IRST vertical scan that only goes 16 degrees up when it could have gone 30 degrees up despite being the fastest scanning mode? 
 

Coop mode forces MPRF/pursuit mode for some reason locking IRST out from picking up any HPRF/head on mode lock?  
 

Oh, it’s fine that you don’t have enough down elevator to counter the pitch up at low altitude and heavy payload at high speed. 
 

Yeah, let’s make LEF only have two positions so you have a stark transition between up and down? 
 

Yeah, let’s use a complex bifurcated louvered intake that reduces fuel space instead of the intake grids Sukhoi was using at the same time? 
 

Yeah. Let’s make them put radar to EKV/dummy to use COOP only in IRST modes, even though the system is already fully capable of turning radar on and off in ILLUM. 
 

Yeah, let’s have the radar scan a 50 x 11 degree area when range finding instead of just the target location. Even though it already only return range when looking at target. 
 

We used InSb sensitive IRST crystals in MiG-23, lets use worse PbSe crystals for the IRST this time! 
 

You know what, let’s put some of the symbology including the entire right HUD border only on the HDD! 
 

And we won’t have it show target location within 8 km like MiG-23! It won’t show target location at all unless in gun mode! Let’s basically do nothing but digitize MiG-23 HUD why add anything new! No target speed or altitude even though the plane knows it! 
 

Yeah autopilot could fly plane under Lazur guidance for MiG-23, let’s remove it for MiG-29! Well even use smaller flares then MiG-23! 
 

Make HUD show IFF in coop when radar is leading? Nope, only in Radar mode! 

it is so full of “they could’ve easily made that so much better!” And “why the hell did they do that?” And “Jesus why did they make it this way?” Design decisions, that it not being to lock a target in gun mode hardly passes as a blip on my common sense radar so to speak. 
 

Im sure they were like “a smart pilot will enable coop so both sensors lock, and it will stay locked” and went about their day. 

 

Edited October 1 by AeriaGloria

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

40 minutes ago, Lixma 06 said:

This has nothing to do with this topic.

That's what I said... 

[Lixma 06]

19 minutes ago, AeriaGloria said:

I’m not saying it’s a good thing. I’m saying that MiG-29 is chock full of inexplicable design decisions and things that don’t make sense. 

The examples you cite, to me, are varieties of technical limitations/compromises.

The gun thing, because it's so bafflingly counter-productive in combat, is I suspect incorrect modelled.

[AeriaGloria]

Some are sure. But coop only works with MPRF! It works in any mode automatically all the time in flanker! And the HUD? The Flanker has 24 HUD improvements over the fulcrum! It’s mind blowing! 
 

Why is IRST vertical scan only 16 degrees up when they obviously know how to do vertical scan with radar mode? 
 

Why not show IFF when my radar is literally locked? 
 

The Soviets have inexplicable confusing design decisions on almost every product they make. It is practically a characteristic of the Soviet era. Especially for MiG products such as the 29 where the idea was to make a plane that was “just good enough” as cheap as possible. 
 

Why downgrade the IRST material from MiG-23, why not show target location within 8 km like MiG-23, I want to eat a rye bread sandwich while my plane flies itself to the GCI Target Like MiG-23

Edited October 1 by AeriaGloria

[Lixma 06]

Update!

IR Close Combat Mode -

Cannot (re)lock target while in 1st stage trigger detent.

RAD Close Combat Mode -

Can (re)lock target while in 1st stage trigger detent!

I can't think why the two modes (IR Close Combat, RAD Close Combat) would behave so differently when they're essentially doing the same job. 

Here's a vid attempting to show what's happening. In RAD Close Combat mode I lock up the target via the vertical gates, switch to guns (1st detent), and then proceed to unlock (funnel appears) and re-lock the target a few times, all while remaining in 1st detent. Everything works as expected.

Next I switch out of RAD and into IR Close Combat. I lock up the target okay, switch to 1st detent, then un-lock the target which brings up the funnel. I then attempt to re-lock the target as before but nothing happens. I try long presses, short presses, swearing. Nothing works. I have to release 1st detent to return to vertical gates and then start over.

Another oddity is that RAD Close Combat takes a couple of seconds to lock the target, while the IR CC is suspiciously instantaneous.

 

Edited October 5 by Lixma 06
bad speling

[AeriaGloria]

39 minutes ago, Lixma 06 said:

Update!

IR Close Combat Mode -

Cannot (re)lock target while in 1st stage trigger detent.

RAD Close Combat Mode -

Can (re)lock target while in 1st stage trigger detent!

I can't think why the two modes (IR Close Combat, RAD Close Combat) would behave so differently when they're essentially doing the same job. 

Here's a vid attempting to show what's happening. In RAD Close Combat mode I lock up the target via the vertical gates, switch to guns (1st detent), and then proceed to unlock (funnel appears) and re-lock the target a few times, all while remaining in 1st detent. Everything works as expected.

Next I switch out of RAD and into IR Close Combat. I lock up the target okay, switch to 1st detent, then un-lock the target which brings up the funnel. I then attempt to re-lock the target as before but nothing happens. I try long presses, short presses, swearing. Nothing works. I have to release 1st detent to return to vertical gates and then start over.

Another oddity is that RAD Close Combat takes a couple of seconds to lock the target, while the IR CC is suspiciously instantaneous.

 

The difference is radar vertical scan takes 2.2 seconds to lock and just as long to scan the whole scan zone. IRST vertical scan scans the whole zone in 0.4 seconds ands locks in 1.5 seconds

 

[Lixma 06]

8 hours ago, AeriaGloria said:

The difference is radar vertical scan takes 2.2 seconds to lock and just as long to scan the whole scan zone. IRST vertical scan scans the whole zone in 0.4 seconds ands locks in 1.5 seconds

Then there's an issue - in CC mode the IR lock is instant.

I'll repost all this in the bug section later; try and get some eyes on it.

Edited October 5 by Lixma 06

[AeriaGloria]

The pilot literally has finger on trigger, they just need to flip it up to get full functionality. I don’t see how MiG could see this as a problem. 

10 hours ago, Lixma 06 said:

Then there's an issue - in CC mode the IR lock is instant.

I'll repost all this in the bug section later; try and get some eyes on it.

Radar vertical scan max time from scanning and lock: 4.2 seconds 

IRST vertical scan max time for scanning and lock: 1.9 seconds 

[Kuky]

13 hours ago, Lixma 06 said:

Then there's an issue - in CC mode the IR lock is instant.

I'll repost all this in the bug section later; try and get some eyes on it.

I think both the radar and IRST don't need to wait whole scan area to be completed in order to get a lock, it should depend on in what area the target is in. If scanning starts on top and goes down then its logical that if target is on top of the scan area to be scanned and locked earlier than target which is in bottom of scan zone.

I don't think the IRST VS locks too quick, I think that radar CC mode locks too slow.

[AeriaGloria]

Yes I agree. They were still working on vertical scan as of last patch. I expect more changes