Vehicles radar system

[DancZer 65]

Our community play lot of PVPs especially combined arms C&H. The current radar system shows the visible vehicles which makes the vehicles very strong. With the current system is nearly impossible to engage enemy vehicles with vehicles. The infantry scouting and spotting is also almost useless because it is faster to go up to the hill with the vehicle and "look around". It is really arcade style and in my opinion it is unrealistic. As I know there is no radar which detect ground vehicles.

We made cover UI over the current radar to force players not use radar, but in some cases not properly cover the radar(different layout setup). With this radar cover the not only the detection functionality disabled but also the turret and vehicle orientation which is useful.

Check out the sample video, where you can see how enemy vehicle appear in the T-100's radar(Elite difficulty).

I want to discuss the possibilities of change in the current system.

Solution 1 - Make it optional

This is the simpliest solution to this problem is adding an option in the difficulty settings which makes us to enable/disable the radar vehicles detection.

Or via script command, the same way disableTIEquipment works for FLIR.

Solution 2 - Radar mode settings for each vehicle

More advance solution can be adding radar properties in the vehicle cfg and get/set functions for it.

vehicle setRadarType "NONE", "DETECT_GROUND", "DETECT_AIR", "DETECT_BOTH"

vehicle setRadarAngle 90-360

vehicle setRadarScan false/true (rotating)

vehicle setRadarRange 3000

vehicle setRadarSideRecog "FALSE" , "EMPTYONLY" , "TRUE".

vehicle setInvisibleForRadar true/false

And of course getRadar* equivalents.

Vote up if you like the idea!

Edited February 26, 2014 by danczer

[merlin 17]

I agree with all of your points, however there are many radars in use capable of detecting ground vehicles such as the millimeter wave radar in the apache longbow and ground moving target radars in many multirole fighters. So within the confines of those roles i think the current system is acceptable. For everything else i suspect the radar system is an artifact from the way AI locates targets and that really does not belong in the player's UI. I like your solution and perhaps the current radar UI can be re-purposed as a missile warning system (as it is now for many tracked vehicles)/ boomerang-esque gunfire detector in MRAPS.

[DancZer 65]

I didn't know about apache radar, thx.

The missiles are displayed in the current radar UI. I made a ticket for the request: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=17515

Edited February 24, 2014 by danczer

[x39 101]

sadly i got no time do do things on the arma UI ...

i totally agree with you but ... please also keep in mind that marker placing is also horrible ... (also created a ticket for that somewhere ... but still no review after 6 month or something like that)

[DancZer 65]

I agree with all of your points, however there are many radars in use capable of detecting ground vehicles such as the millimeter wave radar in the apache longbow and ground moving target radars in many multirole fighters. So within the confines of those roles i think the current system is acceptable. For everything else i suspect the radar system is an artifact from the way AI locates targets and that really does not belong in the player's UI. I like your solution and perhaps the current radar UI can be re-purposed as a missile warning system (as it is now for many tracked vehicles)/ boomerang-esque gunfire detector in MRAPS.

I red more about the longbow radar and as you mentioned it has a millimeter radar, but it is only for targeting. So it is not search for targets like the Arma's radar. Check out the link:

http://usmilitary.about.com/od/rotary/a/ah64.htm

[squirrel0311 16]

As far as I know there is no ground vehicle based radar system in use or being proposed.

For the most part I think terrain and objects (buildings, trees, cars) would make it pretty much useless.

As for the Apache’s radar and other aircraft systems like it… I wouldn’t say that count’s because it’s Air to Ground which is realistic.

Ground to Ground radar is where the problem lies. Radar waves would more than likely be bouncing off every tree, building, and friendly resulting in one giant blip.

I think it might be cool if you could actively scan the air for enemy aircraft but it should come at a high risk.

When you scan with your air radar, enemy aircraft in close proximity would or should probably be able to detect that you are actively scanning in which case that might prioritize you as a threat on their radar screen and allow for an instant lock or something… AGM-88?

In addition they could keep the radar feature as something that you turn on and off… perhaps if you drove to the top of a bare hill and turned it on you could scan and find enemy armor but then again it would be pretty useless if you have to drive to the top of a big hill and expose yourself in order for it to work.

I’d personally rather they just take it out for ground vehicles.

Radar should only pick up aircraft and it should only be on the Anti-Aircraft vehicles.

[Ezcoo 47]

Those are very good points Squirrel, I agree. The only issue I can think of that it would cause would be the overpowered CAS and in general air-to-ground vehicles. Maybe the mission maker would have to enable JTAC and/or target sharing (between units via comlinks) module in order to have the magic radar in the aerial vehicles? Without it the radar would be much less effective in spotting the enemies.

I'd be very happy to see content related to electronic warfare in general in the game. C'mon Bohemia, why did you leave the only exciting dimension of the future setting out of the game...! :D

[Bouben 3]

Unless the AI is disposed of the radar too then a player should have access to it. An AI chopper can one-shot-kill you from kilometers away even if you are in an AA vehicle. Not fair at all.

PVP is a diffferent deal of course.

[semiconductor 309]

I agree, there should be a possibility to configure and disable radar completely, it makes already fairly arcade game even more easier. It shouldn't be too hard for BIS to (at least) hide radar's UI.

Unless the AI is disposed of the radar too then a player should have access to it.

Well, according to my observations, AI already can't use the radar even when it's the only reliable source of information about AI's surroundings.

AI's extraordinary spotting capabilities is different issue.

[teacup 2]

I’d personally rather they just take it out for ground vehicles.

Radar should only pick up aircraft and it should only be on the Anti-Aircraft vehicles.

My thoughts exactly. The 360 degree radar, that can spot everything from quad bikes to aircraft, and also identifies them as enemy or friendly, is fantasy. Specially when mounted on things like MRAPs. And it ruins ground vehicles a bit, because all the effort players put into flanking enemy vehicles with their own and using concealment, is in vain. No matter how crafty you are in trying a surprise attack, as soon as you pop over their horizon even a tiny bit, Sauron's All Seeing Eye blinks at you. And then you see the flash..

It's unrealistic and arcade, but looking past that, i don't see what it adds to the gameplay really. On the contrary.

[squirrel0311 16]

Now going back to the removal of radar from ground vehicles… Although I am against the “All seeing eye†I wouldn’t mind some kind of Situational Awareness system.

Something like a hub that sits on top of the turret and continually scans… As a missile or heavy rounds come in, it registers and alerts the crew to the direction and general bearing of the threat (Within 10 degrees.)

However…since it sits on top of the tank it should be one of the first things to go out after taking a hit.

Although it’s a defensive system, the Active Protection System comes to mind… (Which by the way does use radar but not for situational awareness and like I said before mountains, tree, buildings and things like that tend to mess it up in close quarters.)

Of course not every country will adopt a system like the APS however, I think that it’s not too unrealistic to think that as more and more conflicts arise and most of them being in some sort of urban or built up area…Tanks will be used and in many cases, inevitably lost due to the use of inexpensive and easy to use weapons systems.

This trend will more than likely continue to push for the advancement of armor but also a realization for the need of better situational awareness.

I can imagine more resourceful people coming up with some sort of cheap short range radar hub that scans in close proximity, it’s linked with a compass and as a hit is taken it registers the direction of where the missile came from so the crew can react. After the engagement, if the hub is damaged it can simply be unbolted and replaced along with any armor… Only the necessary pieces would be exposed, the computer calculation parts would all be inside the armor protected turret.

This takes me back to my wish list about tanks…

Armor Optics Vulnerable to Small Arms Fire: Any mounted weapon with a remote viewer SHOULD be vulnerable to small arms fire IF YOU CAN HIT IT. For tanks and APC’s at least, they should have a redundancy system. The periscope view ports (the 3 slots on the driver’s hatches) should be used only as a last resort after their good optics have been destroyed, but even the view ports should be able to get shot up so bad that you can’t see out. Obviously I know that 3rd person will make this feature useless but it should still be added. It’s too bad that the devs didn’t think of this before the models were made. I would have given the gunner a primitive periscope sight mounted next to and looking down along the bore of the main gun so it and his coaxial machine gun would still be somewhat effective. The backup gunner sight would be receded inside the armor of the turret in order to help protect it better. The down side is that it wouldn’t be thermal or night vision, it wouldn’t have zoom and it would have a severely limited field of view...something to the equivalent of looking down a large magnified rifle scope. (Scenario) You’re hiding in a building and a tank pulls up beside you and stops in the street with no infantry support, you should be able to shoot out the optics of the tank partially or completely blinding it if you can hit all the cameras and view ports.

Better visibility and DETAIL for armored drivers Turned In: This is supposed to be the future...No one would make an armored vehicle with only one available view port unless they have absolutely no idea what they're doing and didn't learn from WWII. You can even see 3 distinct view ports on the driver hatches of the vehicles in Arma 3 right now, you should at least able to turn your head and look diagonally. Ideally the view ports would have...eh 135 degrees field of view? Also again, this is supposed to be the future… the drivers should have a dashboard with a screen that shows at least a rear facing camera that is Night Vision capable (ideally it would have a forward facing camera as well). And if you really want to get fancy... the driver's front facing camera should be connected to a slave system on their helmet like an Apache gunner... where ever he turns his head is where the camera looks, so that it would be just like if he was turned out. It doesn’t need thermal or anything super fancy just give him the tools to see where he’s going. (Night vision and a little bit of zoom to identify IED’s and mines.) We have web cams that can zoom, pan left, right, up, down, rotate 360, and track faces…I can’t see why we couldn’t mount a camera on a tank under the turret for the driver.

(OLD not as important top part)

Well I was at work and in hurry so I didn’t get to write everything I wanted too.

I don’t like the radar capabilities as they are and I wish it would change, however when I say “taken out†I mean removed from standard gameplay. (Normal and hard)

It would also be nice if you could choose in the editor what types of vehicles are detected. (Air, ground/Marine, missiles)

I don’t have much experience playing with AI but if they are allowed to keep their radar than that is a serious problem as well.

As for the air scanning radar…It might be neat but like I said you should be able to choose to equip tanks with it in the editor and choose when to when to turn it on and off in game. When you decide to turn it on, aircraft in that area are notified that they are being scanned and an easy lock-on able blip appears on the radar.

In regards to the Apache Longbow radar… It’s a Target Acquisition radar so it IS used for scanning but like I said before that doesn’t count because it’s Air to Ground. If I remember correctly it works by scanning its surroundings and matching the radar signatures that it reads with a database of known vehicles… When a match is found it relays that information to the crew for positive ID/action.

Edited September 19, 2014 by Squirrel0311
Moved the important part to the top since I can't highlight it.

[prykpryk 11]

My wishlist:

vehicle setRadarType "NONE" "GROUND" "AIR" "BOTH"

vehicle setRadarAngle 90-360

vehicle setRadarScan false/true (rotating)

vehicle setRadarRange 3000

vehicle setRadarSideRecog "FALSE" , "EMPTYONLY" , "TRUE".

vehicle setInvisibleForRadar true/false

And of course getRadar* equivalents.

[byku 13]

So ground vehicles would not have radar, but I suppose they will get live updates from ones that have? Right? I mean communication is the key in the battle now and I thing the exchange of vital(radar for example) information in the future will be rather sophisticated, so even vehicles without any sort of radar would act like they have it, imo.

I'm not against not having a radar in ground vehicles in Arma 3, but if we would like to stick to realism, then some kind of information exchange between radar equipped vehicles and those without it would be needed, and that might finally change nothing.

Edited February 26, 2014 by Byku

[DancZer 65]

My wishlist:

vehicle setRadarType "NONE" "GROUND" "AIR" "BOTH"

vehicle setRadarAngle 90-360

vehicle setRadarScan false/true (rotating)

vehicle setRadarRange 3000

vehicle setRadarSideRecog "FALSE" , "EMPTYONLY" , "TRUE".

vehicle setInvisibleForRadar true/false

And of course getRadar* equivalents.

I like it. With these the mission editor have more control over the radar.

I added these to the first post in the advanced section.

I think BIS don't have enougth effort now to do the advanded solution, but i hope they have enough for the simpliest one.

Edited February 26, 2014 by danczer

[teacup 2]

When getting into ground vehicles, you trade some situational awareness for speed, and depending on the vehicle, armor protection, powerful optics and increased firepower. When working together with infantry, this can result in some good collaborative gameplay, where vehicles support infantry, and in turn, infantry acts as the MRAP/APC/tank's eyes and ears, while also protecting it from enemy infantry.

The way it is now, every ground vehicle is like it's own magical AWACS, which i think is overkill.

A solution could be disabling the radar via script command, the same way disableTIEquipment works for FLIR. This way mission makers would be in control of it.

Or BIS could tie it to difficulty settings, that way server admins would be able to switch radar on and off. I don't want to have it completely removed, some might like it just the way it is, but i would like an option to disable it.

[merlin 17]

Really great post Squirrel, considering the A3 campaign is really oriented around guerrilla fighting and asymmetric warfare that would have been an amazing addition to the game. I can imagine the player walking around the base hub between missions and seeing one of the CTRG guys instructing the guerrillas in how to knock out tank optics as a 'learning' event for the player.

[xendance 3]

My wishlist:

vehicle setRadarType "NONE" "GROUND" "AIR" "BOTH"

vehicle setRadarAngle 90-360

vehicle setRadarScan false/true (rotating)

vehicle setRadarRange 3000

vehicle setRadarSideRecog "FALSE" , "EMPTYONLY" , "TRUE".

vehicle setInvisibleForRadar true/false

And of course getRadar* equivalents.

Shouldn't side recognition work only if the other vehicle has an IFF transponder? Then it would be dependent on the capabilities of the vehicle that is detected, not the capabilities of the radar.

[CaptainObvious 95]

Shouldn't side recognition work only if the other vehicle has an IFF transponder? Then it would be dependent on the capabilities of the vehicle that is detected, not the capabilities of the radar.

I think it would depend on both of them, the vehicle having/not having the IFF tag, as well as the radar system being/not being able to read it.

[DancZer 65]

Would be better if we remove function setRadarSideRecog from the 2. suggestion and add these?

vehicle setRadarIFFTagRecog true/false

vehicle setRadarIFFTag true/false

Edited February 27, 2014 by danczer

[xendance 3]

Would be better if we remove function setRadarSideRecog from the 2. suggestion and add these?

vehicle setRadarIFFTagRecog true/false

vehicle setRadarIFFTag true/false

setRadarIFFTag parameter should probably be something else than just true/false. Maybe the side? https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/side

That way it would be more flexible if some scripters wanted to make some weird things with it.

[DancZer 65]

I thought that too, but with that the vehicle can be BLUFOR and units inside OPFOR. Of corse it would be better, but I think this makes the system mutch more complicated for the AI. Its something like changing uniform.

[DancZer 65]

Many thanks to BIS for re-factoring the radar system!

Currently the ground vehicles doesn't detects the ground and air vehicles. Only AA vehicles detects air vehicles. I think that the new setup is satisfying and instead of suggest more advanced system(script commands and configs):

What about suggest a Radar module. The Radar module can placed in the editor and synchronize with units/vehicles/static objects just like other modules.

The synchronized items shares the radar information between each other.

[nodunit 397]

Oh? Haven't tried it yet but that is VERY good news indeed.

[TheCrusader 10]

Awesome, that this has been fixed!

Gesendet von meinem iPad mit Tapatalk

[king homer 1]

Since when is this fixed? Last night I was driving a Quad and was detected by an enemy APC nearly 2000 m away? I do not belive the detection skills for AI gunners are this enhanced.