Jets - Sensor overhaul (Radars, IRs, Lazors, PGMs)

[Strike_NOR 898]

10 hours ago, oukej said:

Love them bulletpoints :) Will try to answer what I can atm

 

Hey oukej. Thanks for answering! Great to hear what your thoughts and ideas are behind your design choices. 

 

The bullets are nice to divide things into chunks instead of random wall of text that = setdammage 1 to developers ;) 

 

It's easy to get carried away when you feel strong about a game or some of it's aspects. :)

 

 

-How do the missiles act in relation to drag when turning? Do the missiles bleed off speed quickly when maneuvering?

IRL this is a common tactic for MRM and LRM threats. The missile aim point you talk of is "lead pursuit", where the missile tries to meet the aircraft at a future point.

-Do ARMA missiles use proportional navigation algorithms? 

 

Proximity fuses generally work by either laser or radar emitters in the missile body circumference that detect nearby surfaces, triggering the fuse. The warhead is normally surrounded by hundreds of pre-formed fragmentation fragments that shred nearby aircraft almost like a gigantic shotgun effect. This means that the missile will effectively always detonate as it passes the aircraft perpendicularly, which means the closest it will ever be to the target during its flight.

 

Generally this cloud of shrapnel generally leads to any of the following:

• pilot injury/death 
• engine seizure/fire
• fuel tank leaks/fire
• hydraulic systems failure (control loss)
• sometimes, structural failure (control loss)

 

The aircrash investigation on MH17 is quite interesting to watch, especially because they rebuilt the cockpit in the netherlands. Shows you how lethal BUK missiles (SA-11) are.

 

[jone_kone 158]

On 16/01/2018 at 9:54 AM, Strike_NOR said:

 

Hey oukej. Thanks for answering! Great to hear what your thoughts and ideas are behind your design choices. 

 

The bullets are nice to divide things into chunks instead of random wall of text that = setdammage 1 to developers ;) 

 

It's easy to get carried away when you feel strong about a game or some of it's aspects. :)

 

 

-How do the missiles act in relation to drag when turning? Do the missiles bleed off speed quickly when maneuvering?

IRL this is a common tactic for MRM and LRM threats. The missile aim point you talk of is "lead pursuit", where the missile tries to meet the aircraft at a future point.

-Do ARMA missiles use proportional navigation algorithms? 

 

Proximity fuses generally work by either laser or radar emitters in the missile body circumference that detect nearby surfaces, triggering the fuse. The warhead is normally surrounded by hundreds of pre-formed fragmentation fragments that shred nearby aircraft almost like a gigantic shotgun effect. This means that the missile will effectively always detonate as it passes the aircraft perpendicularly, which means the closest it will ever be to the target during its flight.

 

Generally this cloud of shrapnel generally leads to any of the following:

• pilot injury/death 
• engine seizure/fire
• fuel tank leaks/fire
• hydraulic systems failure (control loss)
• sometimes, structural failure (control loss)

 

The aircrash investigation on MH17 is quite interesting to watch, especially because they rebuilt the cockpit in the netherlands. Shows you how lethal BUK missiles (SA-11) are.

 

 

Just a small addition to the questions. 

 

- Is there a way for scripters to modify away the red flying "M" in the MWR? The red cone is ample warning enough for milsim scenarios and would bring a little more realism.

[snoops_213 75]

On 1/16/2018 at 5:04 AM, oukej said:

Love them bulletpoints :) Will try to answer what I can atm

• Missile warnings - we probably won't be removing the MWR but there's now a way a limit distance how far the vehicle can detect an incoming missile.
• Spoofing - no change planned in here, sorry
• Proximity - currently the range for proximity explosions is set to ~20m for short-range and ~30m for medium-range missiles. The indirect damage should still harm the plane if the missile explodes at this distance.

• Instead of removing could you adjust it  so that ground vehicles don't detect incoming missiles until they are visually spotted or if thats to hard at least only a few hundred meters, since APS isn't coming for vehicles in A3? And helos only out to around 1-1.5km? Even CAS jets should have a shorter missile tracking range. The more advanced jets should stay as they are as well as the larger VTOL as it would have room for a more advanced system.
• With spoofed missiles would it be possible to lessen the angle they veer from target and have their on board sensor auto target anything else that comes into its sensor zone instead? 
• Is this hardcoded or is there a config entry/entries for this? Also could this be applied to different ammo types for say AA guns or maybe even Air Burst Artillery rounds? 

Now for some other sensor related questions :)

• Regarding the VTOL Gunships sensors, could you please look at removing the radar from it and replacing it with the MAN sensor tied to the two gunners? I have done this to it and the difference is remarkable! You can set the loiter WP (plane has  to be in safe or careless other wise it goes nuts and dive bombs its targets) and it will operate as its supposed to, a slight change to the 105mm with aiAmmoUsageFlags and they even use the cannon on infantry ;)
• There seems to be a hard limit on locking distance of around 16km is this intentional and can it be removed? 
• Data Link- Is there a way to attach this feature to an object other than vehicles? something like a radio or a laptop/uav terminal? 
• Data Link- With current and future systems gearing towards a more integrated and network-centric based warfare will data link be implemented on armored vehicles in the Tanks DLC? With this and the feature above combined with the current extended map features already available in game (albeit on the easier difficulty setting) this could do as a somewhat glimpse of future combined arms warfare with a lot less effort needed to do it on your behalf.

On 10/21/2017 at 4:26 AM, oukej said:

"Tweaked: Using ammunition with the Datalink does not require line of sight on the target anymore

On 10/21/2017 at 4:26 AM, oukej said:

Mainly the missile is now able to lock onto the target provided by the said radar. Previously was only possible in some form with autoSeekTarget. Locking also allows the AI to utilize the feature.

• Can you clarify this a bit more please? The AI still needs a valid LOS to engage but not LOS to target? Terrain is taken into account but not objects? If terrain is taken into account would it be possible to via a config entry make said ammo/weapon use a firing solution that doesn't take terrain into account? 

 

[scavenjer 112]

@oukej

As strike_NOR already asked, what's the missile guidance based on? Normal Proportional Navigation, Advanced Proportional Navigation or something else?

 

I find that missiles quite often behave erratically, as evidenced by this video: 

 

 

You can see that several times the pilot didn't need to maneuver too much to lose the missile (also note how many Gs he can pull without blacking/redding out and there doesn't seem to be a limit of Gs the aircraft can sustain).

 

Considering how weak cannon fire is (compared to real life) the best option seems to be using dumb fire rockets or using more missiles.

 

1:10 example of how much cannon fire is needed and how several shots ricocheted of the plane

6:18 example how much damage cannon fire should do (including 20mm)

 

All of this applies to jets only, cannons do correct amount of damage against most other targets.

[SuicideKing 233]

5 hours ago, scavenjer said:

You can see that several times the pilot didn't need to maneuver too much to lose the missile

The plane was flying away from the missile at Mach 1. The missiles were flying straight into countermeasures. Try putting down a single Centurion and let me know how many missiles you can dodge :P

[scavenjer 112]

3 hours ago, SuicideKing said:

The plane was flying away from the missile at Mach 1. The missiles were flying straight into countermeasures. Try putting down a single Centurion and let me know how many missiles you can dodge :P

So were the jets behind him, that's what missiles are for, even with countermeasures if you don't maneuver IRL, you have a very high chance of taking a missile up the engine.

 

He kept "dodging" them when he ran out of CM.

And yeah, I know about the centurion lol, makes me giggle every time they fire those salvos.

 

I'm just pointing out that it requires too much ordinance (cannon and missiles alike) to take out a jet.

[x3kj 1247]

@oukej

I mentioned it in the past a couple times , but could we please get a script command that can read the objects(units) currently visible on the sensor-scope of a specific unit at the moment of calling? Everytime someone wants to do something that involves electronic detection or post processing of sensor info in any way, they have to write their own radar/sensor system from scratch, because the information from old and new sensors are totally inaccessible for scripts. There is so much potential for cool stuff (missions, extra features, nicer/ more immersive displaying, ...) if we could just read the units.

[SuicideKing 233]

I also think it would be a good idea to just give all aircraft all sensors, with some disabled by default. Mission maker could enable them via scripts or Eden attributes. Bonus points if their range, FoV can be altered via script. That said, I have a feeling that's only feasible in the "Enfusion era".

[scavenjer 112]

39 minutes ago, SuicideKing said:

I also think it would be a good idea to just give all aircraft all sensors, with some disabled by default. Mission maker could enable them via scripts or Eden attributes. Bonus points if their range, FoV can be altered via script. That said, I have a feeling that's only feasible in the "Enfusion era".

You mean arma "4"?

[SuicideKing 233]

@oukej It seems that the SAM turrets don't turn their radars on, even with EMCON on. I recorded two videos on dev that should illustrate a couple of issues apart from that. I used @the_one_and_only_Venator 's SEAD mod, but apart from that it's vanilla dev branch.

 

 

I've recorded the steps in editor too, so you'll be able to see exactly how i set things up.

• One Cheetah + One Centurion. Datalink disabled for both, EMCON active.
• Centurion doesn't turn its radar on, Cheetah seems to have it off initially but turns it on once i'm about ~9km away from it.
• Immediately after the the Cheetah gets hit (~2:30), I appear to be marked (yellow circle) by something that hasn't turned its radar on. Then, its radar turns on, and I start getting a lock warning.
• The centurion seems to expend all of its missiles on me in rapid succession, even after I've been hit. probably needs to be slowed down, and stopped after the plane's been hit.
• I found it's marginally easier to evade the missiles than it is on stable branch, which is good.
• CAS planes may need more flares if they're to pull SEAD duty, given the current SAM spam.
• Maybe the centurion should stop locking on once its out of missiles?

Now, after turning Datalink on: 

 

• The Cheetah appears to not turn its radar on until I'm 5km away (or, I cannot detect it - in which case, why not?).
• Again, the Centurion keeps its turret off. It seems to turn it on after the Cheetah picks me up. In the previous video it seems to only do that after the Cheetah has been destroyed, which magically tells it that there's a threat behind it.
• Countermeasures seem to just make the missiles miss, they don't track the countermeasures and explode when they're near them. Admittedly I just may be wrong here about how CMs are supposed to work IRL.
• Second run, after a restart, I can detect the Cheetah from further out again. Maybe in the first run it was to do with the angle/terrain? Not sure if that is intended behaviour on flat terrain.
• At 2:32 you see the yellow circle appear again from the Centurion, which is still ignoring EMCON settings. Then, it seems i'm getting locked from the centurion, I would assume, given the distance. It has its radar off. Then, it turns it on and starts firing. I'm assuming this is because of the target sharing feature introduced a few weeks ago?
• Next, two centurions with EMCON active, facing in opposite directions. They simply don't turn their radars on until they pick me up on (presumably) visual sensors.

[SuicideKing 233]

4 minutes ago, scavenjer said:

You mean arma "4"?

Allegedly.

 

13 hours ago, scavenjer said:

I'm just pointing out that it requires too much ordinance (cannon and missiles alike) to take out a jet.

BTW looking at the CAS videos i posted, and my general experience with SAMs vs planes, I think the case in that video you posted may well be specific to the pilots, ordnance and jets involved, so it's something that has to be looked at carefully on a case by case basis. Cannons could well be a general issue though - I've managed to take a lot of gun hits from a Cheetah, while in a Neophron, before it was substantial enough to be concerning.

 

That said, this is where I start wondering whether BI should make KOTH specific configs or KOTH should use config mods.

[scavenjer 112]

1 hour ago, SuicideKing said:

Allegedly.

 

BTW looking at the CAS videos i posted, and my general experience with SAMs vs planes, I think the case in that video you posted may well be specific to the pilots, ordnance and jets involved, so it's something that has to be looked at carefully on a case by case basis. Cannons could well be a general issue though - I've managed to take a lot of gun hits from a Cheetah, while in a Neophron, before it was substantial enough to be concerning.

 

That said, this is where I start wondering whether BI should make KOTH specific configs or KOTH should use config mods.

Yeah, unfortunately mods is not an option for KoTH as it's all about "vanilla" experience, I'm currently talking to a dev team working on a new KoTH and they essentially told me there's no way for them to change vehicle/weapon characteristics without modding.

 

One of the issues with SAMs is that there's three different kinds:

1. Manpads, relatively short range IR missiles designed for use against low and (relatively) slow flying aircraft.(stinger)
2. Mobile AA, usually featuring (radar or IR) missiles as primary armament and cannons secondary, much more potent missiles than manpads.(Tunguska, gepard)
3. Dedicated SAM launchers (radar) with extremely long range and high effectiveness (patriot, s-400)

In arma however, the effectiveness and scale is greatly reduced.

Not to mention that the tigris essentially has manpad missiles attached to it which are very weak(ineffective) compared to what they're supposed to field.

 

Now, arma is supposed to be scaled down from real life for gameplay reasons but that indirectly leads to AA being much less effective compared to the jets.

 

This downscaling in power for AAs and especially cannon fire (A2A and AA alike) and unrealistic behaviour of jets quite simply isn't a good combination.

 

Jets are very susceptible to cannon fire or close missile hits (missiles seem OK for damage), one or two hits from 35mm being enough to bring most aircraft down IRL.

Same can be said for airborne 20mm cannons, a short burst usually rips an enemy jet apart.

 

The damage that the Wipeout does with its 30mm cannon (against jets) is what the 20mm cannons should do, if maybe slightly less.

 

I know arma isn't supposed to be a flight sim and that the jets DLC has already passed so the likelihood of BI investing resources to introduce things like G forces or improved missile mechanics is very low, but that doesn't mean that the current state of jet combat is "set in stone".

 

The best solution IMHO would be to lower the health of all jets and tweak the cannon/missile damage.

 On top of that, I think they need to take a look at missile behaviour, as they seem to have inconsistent behaviour.

 

I've seen them perform 180° turns in a split second, this seems to happen when they are detaching from the launch platform.

Most likely due to missiles being server side and very dependent on the ping/desync of both players involved.

 

PS: sorry for the long posts and me coming back to this topic several times but it's genuinely a serious vanilla issue for PvP (not just KoTH).

 

[SuicideKing 233]

3 hours ago, scavenjer said:

The best solution IMHO would be to lower the health of all jets and tweak the cannon/missile damage.

All good points! I think the solution is where the potential problem lies - lowering plane health without looking at AI behaviour/usage may fix things for PvP but might mess up co-op balance. But yeah, they'll probably want to figure this out at some point.

 

Anyway, on a tangential note, this is pretty cool:

 

[the_one_and_only_Venator 163]

7 hours ago, SuicideKing said:

@oukej It seems that the SAM turrets don't turn their radars on, even with EMCON on. I recorded two videos on dev that should illustrate a couple of issues apart from that. I used @the_one_and_only_Venator 's SEAD mod, but apart from that it's vanilla dev branch.

 

 

I've recorded the steps in editor too, so you'll be able to see exactly how i set things up.

• One Cheetah + One Centurion. Datalink disabled for both, EMCON active.
• Centurion doesn't turn its radar on, Cheetah seems to have it off initially but turns it on once i'm about ~9km away from it.
• Immediately after the the Cheetah gets hit (~2:30), I appear to be marked (yellow circle) by something that hasn't turned its radar on. Then, its radar turns on, and I start getting a lock warning.
• The centurion seems to expend all of its missiles on me in rapid succession, even after I've been hit. probably needs to be slowed down, and stopped after the plane's been hit.
• I found it's marginally easier to evade the missiles than it is on stable branch, which is good.
• CAS planes may need more flares if they're to pull SEAD duty, given the current SAM spam.
• Maybe the centurion should stop locking on once its out of missiles?

Now, after turning Datalink on: 

 

• The Cheetah appears to not turn its radar on until I'm 5km away (or, I cannot detect it - in which case, why not?).
• Again, the Centurion keeps its turret off. It seems to turn it on after the Cheetah picks me up. In the previous video it seems to only do that after the Cheetah has been destroyed, which magically tells it that there's a threat behind it.
• Countermeasures seem to just make the missiles miss, they don't track the countermeasures and explode when they're near them. Admittedly I just may be wrong here about how CMs are supposed to work IRL.
• Second run, after a restart, I can detect the Cheetah from further out again. Maybe in the first run it was to do with the angle/terrain? Not sure if that is intended behaviour on flat terrain.
• At 2:32 you see the yellow circle appear again from the Centurion, which is still ignoring EMCON settings. Then, it seems i'm getting locked from the centurion, I would assume, given the distance. It has its radar off. Then, it turns it on and starts firing. I'm assuming this is because of the target sharing feature introduced a few weeks ago?
• Next, two centurions with EMCON active, facing in opposite directions. They simply don't turn their radars on until they pick me up on (presumably) visual sensors.

 

The problem with the Centurion is that it's radar cone is pretty narrow. Only a few degrees. You may just control one of them and notice the very small area that is affected by its radar.

 

It is only able to detect and so fire at targets within that narrow radar search cone.

 

The anti-radiation sensor (and passive radar) is only able to detect the radar beam (and so the radar emitting source) if it actually reaches the platform with the sensor.

So only if it is within the search cone of the centurion.

 

With that being said the centurion on its own is quite useless as air defence.

It can be destroyed by anything with a gun if it doesn't randomly manage to find it with that narrow search cone first.

It always needs other radars to detect targets for it and use the data link feature then. For example a SPAAG or the Praetorian.

That way the centurion is pretty much immune to SEAD but vulnerable to other airlaunched packages. But it is also not able to detect a target on its own.

 

I created a version of it with a 360 degree radar. That works absolutely fine.

[the_one_and_only_Venator 163]

I probably gonna release a small SAM addon that contains that 360 degree Centurion and also all of then 4 AA turrets for AAF and CSAT as UAVs

[the_one_and_only_Venator 163]

11 hours ago, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

I probably gonna release a small SAM addon that contains that 360 degree Centurion and also all of then 4 AA turrets for AAF and CSAT as UAVs

 

It is released now and can be found here:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1284137247

[SuicideKing 233]

13 hours ago, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

The anti-radiation sensor (and passive radar) is only able to detect the radar beam (and so the radar emitting source) if it actually reaches the platform with the sensor.

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this  I remember asking about this at one point, but don't remember getting an affirmative answer, so assumed this wasn't the case.

 

That has pretty strange gameplay implications, as you'll almost always detect a centurion only after you're within its engagement radius, at which point it's highly likely you'll get shot out :D

[the_one_and_only_Venator 163]

2 hours ago, SuicideKing said:

That has pretty strange gameplay implications, as you'll almost always detect a centurion only after you're within its engagement radius, at which point it's highly likely you'll get shot out :D

Yes, but it also has to spot you. If it doesn't have a second radar with greater radar cone that is very unlikely before you can detect it with for example your own active radar and kill it with an LGB or a gunrun.

[jone_kone 158]

22 hours ago, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

I probably gonna release a small SAM addon that contains that 360 degree Centurion and also all of then 4 AA turrets for AAF and CSAT as UAVs

 

Any chance for making a AWACS version of the NATO VTOL or a ground radar station of some sort? :)

 

[the_one_and_only_Venator 163]

10 hours ago, jone_kone said:

 

Any chance for making a AWACS version of the NATO VTOL or a ground radar station of some sort? :)

 

 

I could. But I'm not into 3d modelling at all. So all I could do would be add a powerful radar to the VTOL for the AWACS. I need to do some testing though about the possible range.

 

When it comes to ground based radars there is again the problem with the 3d models.

I once tried to create some just with the ingame radar dome models but when configuring them as vehicles to get the sensor system working there are multiple problems.

1. They are not able to be placed on the map in a proper way. I mean that you can not place them into the ground what leads to the problem that they are placed to high what looks really weird. Making them simple objects or disable their simulation doesn't help because it does though prevent them from exploding but it also disables their sensor abilities.

2. Their mass seems to be to low to be configured as vehicles. So when hit by a missile it is very likely that they fall over from the impact what looks awful.

 

One possibility to solve all of these issues was pretty simple though. You have to attach the radar dome to a static object like e.g. the 1x1m VR cube. I'm not sure what that does with the collision physics of the object though.

 

I could release that at its current state though if that helps.

[jone_kone 158]

1 hour ago, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

 

I could. But I'm not into 3d modelling at all. So all I could do would be add a powerful radar to the VTOL for the AWACS. I need to do some testing though about the possible range.

 

When it comes to ground based radars there is again the problem with the 3d models.

I once tried to create some just with the ingame radar dome models but when configuring them as vehicles to get the sensor system working there are multiple problems.

1. They are not able to be placed on the map in a proper way. I mean that you can not place them into the ground what leads to the problem that they are placed to high what looks really weird. Making them simple objects or disable their simulation doesn't help because it does though prevent them from exploding but it also disables their sensor abilities.

2. Their mass seems to be to low to be configured as vehicles. So when hit by a missile it is very likely that they fall over from the impact what looks awful.

 

One possibility to solve all of these issues was pretty simple though. You have to attach the radar dome to a static object like e.g. the 1x1m VR cube. I'm not sure what that does with the collision physics of the object though.

 

I could release that at its current state though if that helps.

 

The quick solution would indeed be to just make a awacs version of the unarmed VTOL? Its good enough for me. Until someday someone models a real one. :) radar range should probably be something +30 km and have a circular scan area. Othervise fighters can just intercept without almost any reaction time.

 

Its truly sad that BI didnt account for a ground radar. Id gladly taken one instead of the Stealth UAV. :) However could it be possible to use the MLRS model as a interim solution for a ground radar unit? maybe also as a SAM launcher? Turning the launcher would turn the scan area? just some ideas...

[ski2060 167]

So yeah, there's a mod out there for an AWACS/ AEW plane. AEW / AWACS frm Armaholic 
If someone could make a mod to to fix radar configs for that bird you would have what you were looking for. 
 

[chortles 263]

On 1/29/2018 at 3:37 AM, jone_kone said:

Its truly sad that BI didnt account for a ground radar. Id gladly taken one instead of the Stealth UAV. :) However could it be possible to use the MLRS model as a interim solution for a ground radar unit? maybe also as a SAM launcher? Turning the launcher would turn the scan area? just some ideas...

MLRS/MRLS model (M5 Sandstorm) as (Jets update sensors-based) SAM launcher has been done, and before that I've already seen shipping containers as makeshift (scripted, no config mods required) missile launchers years ago... no reason that the existing turn-the-launcher-to-turn-the-scan-area tech (see the aforementioned Centurion) shouldn't be reproducible on the Sandstorm model so long as you have the named selection for the scan area to be emanating from and aligned with.

[dragon01 902]

@oukej I noticed a peculiar thing. It seems that AI laser targeting would work perfectly well if LOAL was enabled on missiles. AI, it turns out, can illuminate and track a target just fine, but the moment you order the gunner to target the laser instead (currently necessary to fire the missiles) he stops tracking. Firing without lock would allow circumventing that limitation - it's a bit counterintuitive, but nothing a bit of tutorial/manual entry couldn't handle. Also, it would allow things like DAGRs to be properly converted to laser-only. Of course, that wouldn't help for AI-only helos, but they could just have their loadout set to something they can handle (assuming there isn't time to "fake" self-lasing for them).

[heavygunner 179]

Since it's kinda related to sensors..

 

The Turrets still attempt to shoot through the USS Freedom, even if the plane is on the other side of the ship, resulting in big damage on the  deck and self-destruction. Any chance of ever getting a fix? Otherwise you can't use the freedom  and turrets together since I'm not aware of a workaround, aside from making everything unkillable....