Just when should you get a MWS launch warning?

[zamboni]

I know with the updated sim that you will get friendly missile launches along with enemy launch warnings, but just exactly triggers the warning?

 

The reason I ask is that I was doing some testing on a mission with myself and the wingie launching mavs, I was moving around a bit and the wingie was usually launching from behind me. For the most part I was ending up with the warnings going off after the missiles past in front of my nose and not when the missiles were launched. This may have been because it may take time for detection and the system to do its work.

 

I also was firing some Mavs, and a couple of times after I fired off a mav, I would maneuver, and then to back nose towards the target and I would get a missile launch warning from my own maverick. Should the MWR only be able to detect the launch plume, or will a missile with an active motor be enough to trigger a launch alert?

 

I'm having a hard enough time already trying to figure out if a missile launch is something I should be worrying about, be nice to know if I am seeing more of them than I should :)

[nomdeplume]

Every description of the system I've read suggests it's looking for the smoke plume, e.g. "CMWS is a totally passive detection system, requiring only the electro-optic (EO) signature of the missile plume."

 

Reliance on the plume suggests there will be a delay from the firing of the missile to the warning being issued. Not a huge delay since missiles are pretty fast, but a delay nonetheless.

 

Obviously the game has to approximate things. In real life, the smoke plume usually hangs around for a while, so it might be 'detectable' by the in-game MWS for longer than the plume is actually visible for in-game.

 

So in order to give 'realistic' behaviour here, it may be that a) the initial alert is delayed by a second or two (in order to give time for the plume to form) and b) the window in which a missile launch is "alertable" in the sim might not correspond directly to the visible smoke trail, especially since the smoke trails are obviously simplified from real-life in order to keep the game at playable framerates.

[slug88]

I don't think it's got anything to do with the smoke trails, especially since many modern missiles are smokeless. I think "missile plume" refers to the fire of the rocket motor:

[Frederf]

Apparently it does its spectral analysis in the UV band. It claims a very low false-positive rate but I don't know what very low is. It says it can classify detections, presumably by spectrum, size, shape, and motion.

 

http://www.eis.na.baesystems.com/boldstroke/pdf/10_a73-01_oct20.pdf

 

The old Beta4 MWS had no false positives at all. It knew if the SAM was going for you or your wingman in formation. Now vehicle fires, outbound missiles, everything sets the darn thing off. Now that false positives are possible they'll code in some filtering to cut down the rate to believable levels.

[EtherealN]

The old Beta4 MWS had no false positives at all. It knew if the SAM was going for you or your wingman in formation.

 

That was a bug.

 

Now vehicle fires, outbound missiles, everything sets the darn thing off. Now that false positives are possible they'll code in some filtering to cut down the rate to believable levels.

 

AFAIK, the criteria for something to be a "false positive" isn't "the missile/object is headed for someone else", rather it is when the detected object is identified as a missile launch but isn't (for example, it might be an impact explosion/secondaries etc). Just for clarity - wasn't entirely sure if you meant all of those classified as false positives. Missile launches close to you should set your MWS off no matter if they are launched at you, your wingman, or even from your wingman. So the only "false positive" case in there is the vehicle fires/explosions, but I don't know if it is entirely correctly modeled. (Not even being an american national or NATO member national, I think the chances of me getting the requisite security clearance for that knowledge is slim. :P )

[Frederf]

I figured it was more of a "We just got this thing coded and we haven't gotten all the code in for cases other than obvious SAM-to-player yet."

 

A false positive in this case is all missiles that aren't a threat. An outbound Mav is a false positive from an overall design standpoint. There are methods to differentiate between a SAM at 5 miles and a Maverick leaving the rail and I'm sure the BAE engineers have at least considered if not attempted that distinction. The CMWS's goal is to warn you about missile threats, not just missile launches.

 

That being said I have no reasonable way of knowing what typical -57 performance is with regards to falsies without some insight into their methods of rejection. I can't imagine it's this bad though. Automatic CMS dispense is not an option in most situations and I'm losing confidence in the veracity of the warnings which something that's specifically designed against.

[Druid_]

Usually, when my MWS goes off, its followed by a 'thwmmphh', a small aero sequence and manual reversion.

 

I can live with it, helps in MP with all on TS calling 'rifle'. I do find however that there can be up to a 5 sec delay between said 'rifle' call and the MWS illuminating !

[Jerry]

Usually, when my MWS goes off, its followed by a 'thwmmphh', a small aero sequence and manual reversion.

 

I can live with it, helps in MP with all on TS calling 'rifle'. I do find however that there can be up to a 5 sec delay between said 'rifle' call and the MWS illuminating !

Yeah we say rifle just before firing, its very useful with comms and the false positives.. I used to set my cms to auto and it was a bad idea lol :megalol: