The All Seeing AWACS & EW Radar

[169th_DedCat]

I know there is probably no chance of this getting changed in the patch, but the omnipotent vision of these objects really bothers me. They don't actually detect anything, they just automatically know the position of every aircraft object in the game, even parked ones.

 

The AWACS and EW radar sites really should have line of sight limitations, and they shouldn't be able to see stationary aircraft on the ground.

[bSr.LCsta]

i agree.

Also, haven't tested this in 1.1 but in 1.02 if you were to put a ground based radar on red and blue then destroy one of them, both sides would still recv' data from the one thats left.

1 thing i did notice is that there is a range on the ground based radar, it is almost the size of the theatre, but it is possible to go beyond the detection range of the ground based radar. (I think i had the EWR at anapa, and lost detection past the south western point of the crimea.)

[Prophet_169th]

It would give much more room in mission building.

 

Nice for BVR A2A missions, to be able to see around your airport, but not very much further.

 

And why doesnt a carrier and airport give AWACS type data at shorter ranges, wouldnt they normally?

[169th_DedCat]

Having a working ATC would be cool too, but I doubt it will happen.

 

I believe the data link for NATO aircraft is something that has been instituted fairly recently. It would be still nice to have though, seeing as there are various other modern developments in the game that don't quite fit the era but are there for the sake of equalization of game play (e.g. R-77 Adder). The NATO AWACS logic is a pain in the ass too, I often find myself having to wait seemingly forever for it to report 3 or 4 completely irrelevant 70 mile pop-ups in order to get a vector to a threat under 20. The Russian data link in the game gives instant and precise data on enemy contacts at all times.

 

And about that instant and precise data... here's a couple summarized quotes about the EW radar systems from the SSI Flanker user manual:

 

"The 1R13 EWR station ... a typical detection range for a fighter flying at high 10 kilometres equals 230 kilometres. The information is refreshed every 10 seconds.

 

"The 55Zh6 EWR station ... the typical detection range for a fighter at an altitude of 10 kilometres is about 300 kilometres. The system measures target coordinates with an accuracy of 500 meters in range. It provides refreshed data every 10 seconds."

 

That isn't the way they work in LOMAC... their data is updated and corrected real-time, they see through hills and track aircraft on the ground, elevation and terrain curvature limits are not instituted, and their range is well beyond 300 kilometres for a fighter at any altitude.

[169th_DedCat]

Bump...

 

I'd love to see realistic refresh rate, range, and line of sight limitations implemented for the AWACS and EWR datalinks in any upcoming patches or upgrades.

[MikeRocker]

Keep in mind though, that realistic radar behaviour with terrain masking etc. would likely require a completely new algorithm based on raytracing. This is difficult to develop and would be CPU intensive (imagine dozens of radar systems in theater at the same time).

 

What might help as a first step for ground based units is defining fixed detection volumes in the simulation space, based on earth curvature and range. And maybe one could introduce a detection and a tracking probability variable that scales with range,altitude,jamming,etc. This ought to eliminate some of the most glaring EWR inaccuracies.

[Kula66]

What bugs me is the way it reports a/c on the ground! You go chasing after someone only to find thing at an airfield ...

[169th_DedCat]

...realistic radar behaviour with terrain masking etc. would likely require a completely new algorithm based on raytracing. This is difficult to develop and would be CPU intensive

 

I agree that this kind of radar modeling would be time consuming to design, but JF/A-18 pulled it off years ago, and CPUs were quite a bit slower back then.

 

I'm sure many of the real-world limitations of these systems could be modeled well without having to totally redesign the EW theatre.

[GGTharos]

Actually all you need is the already existing 'bubble' for detection via SAM's, aircraft etc. Maybe the way the code is written makes it difficult, but the actual concept and code that needs to support it aren't.

[S77th-GOYA]

Yep, this is one of the things I'd like to see fixed, too. Spotting jammers behind mountains is a problem too, but if only AWACS would stop reporting A/C that are on the ground, that would help.

 

As far as datalink for NATO a/c, it doesn't fit the grey area time frame, so its ommission is fine with me. The lack of information from the AWACS is a problem, though. Maybe a call for, "Vector to all bandits within 40nm" would help. And, tell me the altitude, not just "high" or whatever.

 

I've had AWACS call bandits on my six as both hot and cold. Does hot mean he is closing and cold mean I am extending? That's my best guess.

[GGTharos]

The hot/cold call in lomac is completely messed up.

 

It's supposed to mean that the bandit in heading towards you or it's pointed away from you. Flanking would mean he's more or less beaming you.

 

Unfortunately, LOMAC's got all of this completely messed up,a t least for the NATO AWACS.

 

INsofar as the datalink goes, I'm not so sure that nayone actually knows ...

 

FOr the AWACS, what is needed badly is a) a picture call

b) better decision making in terms of calling out bandits. I don't care about a bandit if he's 100nm from me, unless I call closest bandit and he *is* the closest bandit.

 

I do care to hear where every aircraft group is if I call for a picture.

[Kula66]

What would be good would be to hear other peoples (own side) AWACs/landing calls in multiplay ... I guess this is how it happens in RL ... a common frequency. Add to the immersion of the sim

[S77th-GOYA]

I wouldn't think the tower and AWACS would be on the same frequency.

[Kula66]

But how about the ability to switch radio channels ... AWACS or landing and hear traffic on each ... certainly help with those landing/take-off crashes!

[169th_DedCat]

Holding short and looking both ways is a good way to avoid take-off and landing crashes too. Having an intelligent ATC would be nice, but it isn't that big a deal.

 

IMHO what needs to be implemented the most is line of sight, range, and update limitations to the datalink (and of course no more detecting parked or taxiing aircraft). I think it is silly the way the datalink displays every twitch and turn a contact makes in real-time. The real update period for a EWR datalink would be closer to 10 seconds. I don't know what rate the Russian Mainstay can detect contacts and provide datalink updates, but I'm sure isn't real-time either. I almost never use either in my missions, because it seems kind of arcade-ish as it is now.

 

As far as the NATO datalink not fitting the general LOMAC time period, there are plenty of other aspects of the current game that are too modern to fit the assumed time period (the R-77 Adder for one). Implementing the NATO datalink would compensate for the god-awful AWACS coms logic. One, or both, should be fixed.

[sickboy]

bump

[JaBoG32_Prinzartus]

Intelligent ATCs would be cool, but maybe is quite komplex to develop algorithms for, BUT implementing line of sight restrictions to Radars (airborne and grounded) should be rather easy.

 

It would also provide better game immersion if 3rd Party ATC programmes (which are already in use by squads using lua-exports) would have dissappearinng radar contacts as they are going "weeds" behind the caucasion mountains and sneaking through the valleys.

 

ED: Line of Sight restriction to Radars would be cool, if ground reflection limitations are modeled too, even better :icon_jook . But think at least about line of sight limitations, will ya?

 

I personally can't imagine "Ray Tracing" is very cpu demanding, but I am not an expert on such algorithms, so teach me better!

[GGTharos]

Intelligent ATCs would be cool, but maybe is quite komplex to develop algorithms for, BUT implementing line of sight restrictions to Radars (airborne and grounded) should be rather easy.

 

It would also provide better game immersion if 3rd Party ATC programmes (which are already in use by squads using lua-exports) would have dissappearinng radar contacts as they are going "weeds" behind the caucasion mountains and sneaking through the valleys.

 

ED: Line of Sight restriction to Radars would be cool, if ground reflection limitations are modeled too, even better :icon_jook . But think at least about line of sight limitations, will ya?

 

I personally can't imagine "Ray Tracing" is very cpu demanding, but I am not an expert on such algorithms, so teach me better!

 

 

 

It can be fairly demanding, but there are ways to reduce the CPU hit ... the problme is that you have a LOT of things trying to use it at the same time, plus doing other things, so it adds up - BUT! - Jane's F/A-18 did it, so I think ED could too ... but I believe that this will not happen in LOMAC but in the next project. :(

[Brit_Radar_Dude]

You need to be careful about what you actually mean by ray-tracing when discussing radar performance. Back in the day, I have worked on systems which used weather balloon data (temperature, pressure, water vapour content) from various altitudes to calculate the varying index of radar refractivity. This data was then input into ray tracing algorithms to calculate the actual radar beam bending rather than the standard default 4/3 earth radius model.

These techniques are quite important with long range height finding radars since the 4/3 model is actually pretty c**p at heights above 1,000m.

 

I know that in this context in Lockon, you simply mean line of sight. I'd like to see that in ED's future sims. I want to be able to hide in the valleys, I need all the help I can get - I suck so bad at a2a.....

[JaBoG32_Prinzartus]

One of our Squad members developed a fine working ATC-AddOn (for our Squad's Radar Controllers) for Lomac.

 

Currently he is trying to find a solution to model "realistic" Radar instead of the "all seeing" one.

 

The following image shows a map with radar shadows of the Krasnodar Airport Radar.

 

This map is static and pregenerated by the use of raytracking in combination with the topographical information of the area.

 

 

Maybe he will explain his work himself soon. So the interested ones of you might get a chance to ask him specific details about the Radar Model.

[Mole]

Is it geographically fixed? Actually you can put an EWR at any place on the map, so you should have data for every single spot on the map: see above CPU and stuff...and what about moving devices? Yes an EWR is moving (they are mobile systems) if it ever gets spotted and therefore threatened, I can remember the training...(and AWACS is moving too ;) )

And what about jamming the EWR?* The list is soooooooo long I don't think it could be done all in a flight sim- if you ask for reality.

 

*Anyone here who knows how jamming actually interferes an AWACS?

 

edit: would be more useful to let the F10 view only show detected aircrafts in the range of given EWR sites, and if jammed.... :rolleyes:

[Prophet_169th]

EA6B can do amazing things with their jammers.

 

From what I have heard from a co-worker who worked on them, they can make it appear on radar that there are planes, where there are no planes.

 

And they produce enough power to take down a small power grid.