Announcing Lock On: Flaming Cliffs 3

[Rainmaker]

Surely a Radar computer would be able to process and target a target flying 90 degrees off a radar emotion source, when there is no ground clutter present.

 

Nate

 

 

From what I understand of the notch, it is not to make the aircraft disappear using clutter. For the way it was explained to me, the notch is used to eploit the radar's capability of tracking through aspect changes to confuse the radar's velocity tracking and spoil the HPRF track. You are not trying to make the airplane disappear from radar, the notch is a momenty maneuver used to kill the tracking capability at which point the user or radar must try to reaquire a lock. The tactic was used as a tactic against Soviet block aircraft because of their dependency on passive missiles. I think the usefulness of the notch is a little blown out of porpotion here. The notch is not going to turn you into any kind of stealth aircraft. I think a lot of people overestimate the usefulness on a notch maneuver and what it ACTUALLY is.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Rainmaker

[Nate--IRL--]

From what I understand of the notch, it is not to make the aircraft disappear using clutter. For the way it was explained to me, the notch is used to eploit the radar's capability of tracking through aspect changes to confuse the radar's velocity tracking and spoil the HPRF track. You are not trying to make the airplane disappear from radar, the notch is a momenty maneuver used to kill the tracking capability at shich point the user or radar must try to reaquire a lock. The tactic was used as a tactic against Soviet block aircraft because of their dependency on passive missiles. I think the usefulness of the notch is a little blown out of porpotion here. The notch is not going to turn you into any kind of stealth aircraft.

 

Understood, but without having to deal with ground clutter (Looking up) surely entering the notch would have no effect on a track, as the target is not masked within the ground clutter returns. The Radar computer should understand that the notch should not be applied above the horizon.

 

Nate

[Eddie]

It depends how 'clever' the RADAR system in question is and wether is uses different rejection/filtering algorithims depending on the antenna elevation and aircraft attitude.

 

But you don't necessarily need clutter for the notch to work, although it may help.

[Rainmaker]

Understood, but without having to deal with ground clutter (Looking up) surely entering the notch would have no effect on a track, as the target is not masked within the ground clutter returns. The Radar computer should understand that the notch should not be applied above the horizon.

 

Nate

 

 

Not really, You could perform a notch against a land based doppler radar in the same way. A doppler radar uses pulses in the term of deflection to track a target. When you create a greater shift than what the radar anticipates, it basically "loses" the target because of the aspect and velocity tracking that the computer is looking for and anticipating. You have to think about it this way, the computer is programmed to anticiate based on velocity where the target is going to be in a given space at a given time. Radar pules do not move at light speed, it takes time. By varying the aspect of where you are in the future and the angle at which the radar sees you, it now has to recalculate different numbers. You basically are not fooling the radar itself, you are fooling the program that is running it.

 

If you were to use a notch on a search radar, you really are not going to have any effect and are wasteing your time. You would effectively use a notch when the radar is in HPRF and trying to form guidance and tracking solutions.

[Rainmaker]

It depends how 'clever' the RADAR system in question is and wether is uses different rejection/filtering algorithims depending on the antenna elevation and aircraft attitude.

 

But you don't necessarily need clutter for the notch to work, although it may help.

 

 

Sniped... :megalol:

 

But we are basically saying the exact same thing. The better the brain running the radar, the less effective a notch will be.

[Cali]

No, it means shiny new AFM for AIM-9M for the F-15C :)

 

That's another thing that got fixed in FC2, because before that the AIM-9 was horrible! Had a range of about a rocks throw.

 

Not sure we're on the same frequency here Cali. What are you talking about?

I said flying low is not the only option for Su's and MiG's against F-15.

The Eagle has the upper hand at high angels but that doesn't mean you can't do the same on a Russian Fighter. Mutual support isn't exclusive to the F-15 either.

 

Just saying that F-15 were made to fly high and shoot from farther away. I didn't think mutual support was only to the US, just saying I don't know all the tactics other Air Forces use. I also fly the 27 and 33 and I don't say low either. The ER's have good range and if used correctly you can clip the Eagles 120's.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Cali

[GGTharos]

That's actually about the right range. About 1nm vs. a fast, retreating bandit.

[Weta43]

Radar pulses do not move at light speed,

 

Actually, they do. :)

[Dejjvid]

The purpose of the notch is to make the radar loose track due to filtering. The radar see you all the time. It is designed to ignore returns that doesn't move between two or more pulses. A correctly performed notch will make the missile loose track a few seconds so you can turn outside its detection cone. The missile is in a lead pursuit and will bore sight and go straight if it loose you.

 

And btw, how fast or slow is radio waves if they're not traveling at the speed of light? ;) I think you confused yourself.

[Rainmaker]

Actually, they do. :)

 

Zinger! Yah got me on that one.

 

I retract that statement.

[Cali]

That's actually about the right range. About 1nm vs. a fast, retreating bandit.

 

It happen head on, sideways, upside down, downside up.....all angles. Come on GG, you know the AIM-9 was porked.

[EtherealN]

Weight and diameter of R-27s was more than real life while for most of the missiles it was equal to real life. They don't have continuous rod type war head not just simple blast fragmentation. Missile losses lock too easily doesn't even go to its max G value.

 

Blast and flight data in FC2 should not be confused with reality: you cannot enter "real" numbers into it and be entirely certain that you'll get "real" effects; simply because it's a simplified model. The same applies to the SFM's of the aircraft, sometimes you get the wrong result if you put in the right data, which is where testers test it against available data and the numbers get tweaked such that the effect is as correct as possible.

 

Aim-120B/C weight and diameter were less than in real life. Weight of warhead was more while other missiles had the same as real life.

 

See above. FC2 system is incapable of accurately modeling the warhead of an AIM-120 - there's more to things that go "kaboom" than a fuze and a stick of TNT. ;) Specifically in the case of the 120, it has less explosive, but said explosive is set off shaped. FC2 was unable to simulate this, thus a larger warhead weight is required in the system to approximate reality. (Otherwise, what would happen is that the 120's explode at the correct range, but the explosion in-game is so weak that it will never, ever, kill anything ;) )

 

Catches targets out of its scan area after losing track.

 

Welcome to the internet, where sometimes strange things happen because of latency, jitter, packetloss and (most fun of all) out-of-order UDP packet arrival... ;)

 

As always, if you have documentation to offer towards a given desired change, the devs will definitely look at it.

Edited September 9, 2012 by EtherealN

[Kuky]

EtherealN, why can't devs take into account and code for MP that if client gets some packets that show aircraft (or missile) is going to fly mach20 90° of its original path (this is very common occurance in MP) simply tell PC on your end this move is not possible and ignore it and instead can allow only physically possible trajectories? This way you would not see sudden spikes and aircaft going from 500m alt to 10km and back in 0.1 sec, which of course your missile can't follow and will simly lose track of such target... this is one of the most annoying things I find in MP. If this can't be sorted out MP will not change much at all.

 

I know there is an Option to enter servers wil low pings, but not everyone that enters this server will have low pings... and because plannet is pretty big and Australia is damn far from rest of the world low pings are extreme luxury to have in MP.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Kuky

[EtherealN]

I'm sure they could, but the question is whether we'd be swapping one problem for another - for example, if someone loses a few packets (which the server will not know about --> UDP ), such a phenomenal correction might actually be 100% necessary to get that client back to the same reality as everyone else. Implementing locks like this might cause the exact same thing to happen, but also cause it to be impossible to get that client back to the same reality as everyone else on the server and suddenly we have a massive and irretrievable desync problem.

[Kuky]

Well you could allow to have flightpaths go little over what is possible in order to have some corrections if packets are lost. If you get 250ms ping that's still 4 updated every second, so if there was 1-2 sec of packets loss, you could make it to that you allow this extra manouvering on client end to compensate for different trajectories and other client who lost packets to "catch up" and align the two positions/fligth paths.

 

I think this would still be lot better then not check/allow/disallow and correct clients moves then not to do this. For me these lag caused spikes are by far biggest immersion killers in MP especially if I am in good position and I have tracking missile at someone... then there's a spike, my missile goes off on its own and I just want to swear my lungs out.

[EtherealN]

The problem here isn't really ping, it's jitter and packetloss. And there is no way for server and client to know that there has been packetloss. Note that ping has absolutely nothing to do with how often you get updates. A ping of 250 does not mean you have 4 updates per second, it only means that the two-way latency between server and client is 250ms. Remember that UDP does not have a "ping", only the TCP does, since UDP is not two-way.

 

Of course, switching everything to TCP would solve that, but it would come at a performance cost as well as make the game take a lot more bandwidth for both server and client, and quite possibly make playing on servers on other continents (quite relevant to Australia, I suspect) even more problematic than before. Imagine if you line up for a gun shot, fire, and with your 250ms ping the other guy will have this information half a second later. Or if you're being shot at, jink, and your jink does not exist for the other guy until half a second later. (There's other possible problems in here as well, since you can effectively stall out completely from TCP packet losses since the server will then try to re-transmit the lost packets after whatever time it took for the server to decide you didn't get the packet in question.)

Edited September 9, 2012 by EtherealN

[Cali]

I said both Flanker and F-15 were dumbed down in FC the Flanker being an old variant, if FC had an Su-30 or 27SM with TWS and actives then it would be a different ballgame to what we have now, nothing to debate for days there.

 

You are right, my bad. I just remember seeing talks about 27's not being able to fire R-77's. I'm all for realism, which is why I hated the many HUD when lock on first came out.

[71st_Mastiff]

The problem here isn't really ping, it's jitter and packetloss. And there is no way for server and client to know that there has been packetloss. Note that ping has absolutely nothing to do with how often you get updates. A ping of 250 does not mean you have 4 updates per second, it only means that the two-way latency between server and client is 250ms. Remember that UDP does not have a "ping", only the TCP does, since UDP is not two-way.

 

Of course, switching everything to TCP would solve that, but it would come at a performance cost as well as make the game take a lot more bandwidth for both server and client, and quite possibly make playing on servers on other continents (quite relevant to Australia, I suspect) even more problematic than before. Imagine if you line up for a gun shot, fire, and with your 250ms ping the other guy will have this information half a second later. Or if you're being shot at, jink, and your jink does not exist for the other guy until half a second later. (There's other possible problems in here as well, since you can effectively stall out completely from TCP packet losses since the server will then try to re-transmit the lost packets after whatever time it took for the server to decide you didn't get the packet in question.)

Exactly the same issue with cliffs of dover, i.e., i get shot at by a enemy fighter who's ping is over 250, about 5 minutes later I have holes and A/C damage what appears to me as ghost damage.But was in fact the guy i tangeled with 5 minutes earlier.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Mastiff

[EtherealN]

Mastiff, as I said in the quoted post: ping is irrelevant here.

 

But yes, most games will experience this issue to some degree, since most games use UDP for performance reasons. The difference between a jet sim and, for example, BF3, is however that the speeds things move at are obviously much greater when you're having things move at significant mach numbers compared to people running around on foot with AK-47's.

 

I'm fairly sure I remember this being worked on, but the details of possible solutions go above my programming knowledge and thus it is impossible for me to speak to their feasability and complexity beyond some educated guesses.

[71st_Mastiff]

Mastiff, as I said in the quoted post: ping is irrelevant here.

 

But yes, most games will experience this issue to some degree, since most games use UDP for performance reasons. The difference between a jet sim and, for example, BF3, is however that the speeds things move at are obviously much greater when you're having things move at significant mach numbers compared to people running around on foot with AK-47's.

 

I'm fairly sure I remember this being worked on, but the details of possible solutions go above my programming knowledge and thus it is impossible for me to speak to their feasability and complexity beyond some educated guesses.

 

Its all good i was just make an example, of that post you made.

[Case]

Just to bump two questions that remain unanswered.

 

master server issues

AI behaviour in MP

[Grimes]

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1545973&postcount=183

I *think* the AI bug has been fixed with the current 1.2.0 release.

[GGTharos]

There is some stuff happening in that direction, but it isn't going to be perfect.

 

The best solution is to hand missile control to the 'target PC', but that can cause other problems.

 

EtherealN, why can't devs take into account and code for MP that if client gets some packets that show aircraft (or missile) is going to fly mach20 90° of its original path (this is very common occurance in MP) simply tell PC on your end this move is not possible and ignore it and instead can allow only physically possible trajectories? This way you would not see sudden spikes and aircaft going from 500m alt to 10km and back in 0.1 sec, which of course your missile can't follow and will simly lose track of such target... this is one of the most annoying things I find in MP. If this can't be sorted out MP will not change much at all.

 

I know there is an Option to enter servers wil low pings, but not everyone that enters this server will have low pings... and because plannet is pretty big and Australia is damn far from rest of the world low pings are extreme luxury to have in MP.

[GGTharos]

The 9 was porked in LO and FC1. Not nearly as much in FC2, at least not in terms of rocketry.

 

It happen head on, sideways, upside down, downside up.....all angles. Come on GG, you know the AIM-9 was porked.

[Pilotasso]

It was still porked in FC2, I noticed if launched downwards by diving on a target, it would go for the hills. Not arguing the rocketry however it couldnt turn much either. Just like the R-73 despite being thrust vectored it was too easy to overshoot its targets. Perhaps something to do with having no gravity assist, or fixed within rigid speed intervals and funky drag functions leaving maximum G value as the only variable to determine turn radius.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Pilotasso