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

[hcpookie 3770]

On 1/9/2017 at 9:48 AM, oukej said:

You need this

componentType = "PassiveRadarSensorComponent";

inside

configfile >> "CfgAmmo" >> "My_Antiradiation_Missile"  >> "Components" >> "SensorsManagerComponent" >> "Components" >> "MyAntiradiationSensorComponent"

You can set up the other properties as you need. (Sometimes inheritance from templates can be used to simplify the process). As long as you don't add any other sensor component (you can have multiple on one vehicle or weapon) the missile will only be able to lock and track radar emitters.

 

RadarTarget and RadarTargetSize only say if and how detectable you are by an Active Radar. They are an equivalent to RCS.
Detectability of radar emittors on the other hand is given by the range and search angle of that particular radar.  

 

Can't say yes or no atm.

 

 

You, sir, have made my day!  :)

 

A QUESTION, and maybe this is a feature request:

 

I am interpreting that the radar emitter is "always on".  Can the emitter be switched off via a config or variable setting? 

 

The notion to switch it off would be to imitate Real Life radar practices to avoid lock-on by the HARM missile.  This switch-on-switch-off tactic is how the F-117 was shot down by an SA-3 site in 1999!  Thanks for your reply.

[ski2060 167]

Going by the first page, it looks like any vehicle or airframe equipped with Radar will be able to cycle that radar on or off.
So happy you are in this thread now.  I can't wait to see what you can do with this stuff for your mod.

[oukej 2911]

14 hours ago, WastedMike1 said:

Does this mean that stealth vehicles will also be in the game?

They can. But in this regard we'll be taking some artistic license. Game balance first. Goal would be to make you invisible if you are skilled enough to fly NOE. Not just because you grabbed an airplane that was lucky enough to get stealthy shapes ;) (although it may help).

 

13 hours ago, hcpookie said:

Can the emitter be switched off via a config or variable setting?

12 hours ago, ski2060 said:

Radar will be able to cycle that radar on or off.

Confirming that. By default it's Ctrl+R on updated Arma 3 or Apex preset. And switchable radar is one of the overhaul's primary features. Radars will usually be the most powerful sensors - be it because of their range or their ability to give additional info about targets. But switching radar ON means you'll flash on everyone's screen on 2x the range of the sector your radar is looking at. Making you an easy target even for vehicles that don't have any other sensor than RWR. That includes also transport helicopters so you can as well use your radar for intimidation. Your call :)

[chortles 263]

24 minutes ago, oukej said:

They can. But in this regard we'll be taking some artistic license. Game balance first. Goal would be to make you invisible if you are skilled enough to fly NOE. Not just because you grabbed an airplane that was lucky enough to get stealthy shapes ;) (although it may help).

For anyone wondering NOE stands for nap-of-the-earth flight... so can you say terrain masking? Apparently it actually works on dev branch.

 

As for stealth aircraft... here's the relevant config parameter, subject to change like everything else dev branch.

[oukej 2911]

FYI we've changed the symbology - you can check it in current Dev-branch or on the first post here. It's now closer to the old one - squares and triangles. Hoping it's more familiar and intuitive. Plus there were some tiny legibility tweaks.

[veles-zv 176]

On 1/1/2017 at 10:36 PM, Primaate said:

An idea would be to -

 

Associate radar signals commensurate with the real world attributes of vehicles

e.g  (This is all related to KotH gaming)

1. A 'Little Bird' flying at 5m through trees and terrain should be essentially, invisible to a Jet 5kms away, and same for a Quad bike/Car etc

 

2. The 'Blackfoot' inspired by the Boeing–Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche have a radar cross-section (RCS) which is less than that of a Hellfire missile; WHY (oh god why) then are they so easy to 'see', lock and kill by jets, AA, Manpads etc?

Please address that and the Jet rape of spawns would disappear.

 

Additionally with respect to KotH spawn areas, if a vehicle is 'invulnerable' perhaps make it invisible/unlockable too? It's so easy to 'lock and wait' choppers/AA/tanks etc while still in spawn then obliterate them once out of spawn area.

(For full disclosure I jet and play within the rules and spirit of the game but, .... points are points.)

 

We need Autopilot (so we can go for a piss while in flight : ) and a choice of multiple 'Waypoints' (Red/Blue/Green etc) to help identify airfields etc.

Also in KotH, real time shading of spawn areas to help us identify boundries. Spawn camping in Jets is usually because we don't know boundries as we fly toward them, and looking on map and using the one and only waypoint is difficult.

 

We all love ARMA (I just discovered gaming in 2016 and A3 last April, at 47 years of age : ) and its possibilities are huge, keep up the awesome job BISTUDIO.

 

P.s. If you're into Jets/Neos, and like the challenge of landing them, check out this vid on Youtube --> (ARMA3 Neophron ALTIS ABDERA Landing and TakeOff )

Can anyone else do this consistently? My best on Editor now is 8x in a row without damage.

 

 

no kotH is a gamemode made by the community... also ditch the public servers and find a community to play with which does real missions you will have a much better time.  

[hcpookie 3770]

Thanks for the explanation.  What command can I issue for AI to switch on/off their radars?  e.g. is it capable of being scripted?

[Ivanoff.N 61]

HI.

I have tested the radar and a have a few suggestions:

On the figure below I am inside an AA vehicle with the 360 radar, the circle of the radar is not shown in full so I can not see what is behind me although the radar can see it.

I can only spot something behind me if I turn my turret there.

There needs to be an indication that something is there and spotted by the radar.

 

The other thing is a visual. 360 radar is possible because the dish is spinning around, but on your models it is static, perhaps it could be tweaked to spin when radar is on and be static when off or something like that:

[PFC Moller 0]

as long as the nato aircraft have shorter detection range than their csat counterparts due in part to stealthier shapes, I will be happy. always found it annoying that it seemed nato went through all of the trouble of making their choppers and aircraft stealthy (looking) only to have them be just as easy to detect and shoot down as the csat aircraft that didn't even try to be sneaky.

[xxgetbuck123 945]

10 hours ago, PFC Moller said:

as long as the nato aircraft have shorter detection range than their csat counterparts due in part to stealthier shapes, I will be happy. always found it annoying that it seemed nato went through all of the trouble of making their choppers and aircraft stealthy (looking) only to have them be just as easy to detect and shoot down as the csat aircraft that didn't even try to be sneaky.

 

inb4 someone from King of Hill cries unbalanced and OP. 

 

 

[x3kj 1247]

On 13.1.2017 at 3:36 AM, Ivanoff.N said:

The other thing is a visual. 360 radar is possible because the dish is spinning around, but on your models it is static, perhaps it could be tweaked to spin when radar is on and be static when off or something like that:

 

Yes, can we please have animation sources for active radar enabled/disabled ? You should be able to specify a period in the config (radar rotation frequency). The radar animation source could for example go from 0 to 1.0 in the defined period, and then reset back to 0 and repeat the cycle. This would enable us to do looping rotational animations. When the radar is disabled it should stop at whatever value it is at currently, or keep running until it is 1.0, automatically reset back to 0 and stop at that point.

 

Also, a new radar/sensor feature/parameter would also be really usefull to have:   "radar disabled by animationSource".  So in case the defined source is 1.0 , the radar is automatically switched off and can't be turned on. Similar to the turretlock when driver is turned out, or turret lock at certain speeds.

 

This can be used for a variety of things, for example when a commander is turned out (dont want to grill him with radiation...), or get retracted when on the move/not in use (e.g. Gepard Flakpanzer)

[PFC Moller 0]

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2017 at 1:45 AM, xxgetbuck123 said:

 

inb4 someone from King of Hill cries unbalanced and OP. 

 

thing is, a lot of the csat equipment has a lot more firepower and troop transport capability in single packages than nato. nato has transports, and then gunships, while csat has gun-transport-ships

 

 

[chortles 263]

Is the direction of the Blackfish (Armed) infrared/visual sensor -- currently a 'combined' cone with the same animDirection, horizontal/vertical angles, and maxRange -- supposed to be in the direct opposite direction of wherever the co-pilot is looking?

[TeTeT 1523]

Thanks a lot for the new sensor technologies! I just started to experiment with it and it looks promising. After fiddling around I've setup a 12km active radar with a 16km radar display on a very early build of the EA-6B from flanders. Thanks to da12thMonkey's help and advice found on the wiki this was possible... The config is very crude still, but can be inspected from http://tetet.de/arma/arma3/Download/unsung/uns_ea6b_Config.cpp 

 

While I understand that the electronic warfare birds are not in the focus of the sensor overhaul right now, I would hope that some future EW possibilities via script commands or even built-in engine config values are considered. Ranging from a conversion of the Unsung A-3 to EKA-3 or EA-3, E-2, flanders EA-6B and EA-18G there are some mod planes that would benefit from jamming and other electronic warfare capabilities.

Edited January 20, 2017 by TeTeT
added e-2

[Primaate 5]

On 12/01/2017 at 2:57 AM, veles-zv said:

no kotH is a gamemode made by the community... also ditch the public servers and find a community to play with which does real missions you will have a much better time.  

Yes I do ASOR MilSim group too. KotH is good to hone other skills and 'mix it up'.

[chortles 263]

On 1/20/2017 at 4:43 PM, pierremgi said:

Hi, I don't now where to write this request, but as far as you're speaking about a future DLC for jets

There's a thread for that, though having announced three main new platform features and a projected release window I doubt that they've planning (publicly) any more major features, an Advanced Flight Model was already declined...

 

@oukej: Did some Pawnee 'versus' Tigris testing (team-switching to the former to toggle active radar on) and I noticed that at least with the Pawnee a zoomed-in-enough display  (i.e. 2 km display resolution) can cause a detected contact to not appear at all instead of 'merely' being at the display circle's edge and having to zoom out (i.e. 8 km) to see it at all; is this intentional behavior?

[TeTeT 1523]

I tried to get an ARM missile (the Unsung Shrike) running, but I don't think it works right currently. With the radar off I eventually see an ammo-less Tigris in the radar display, but I do not know if this is because I visually identified it, or because it turned on radar and passive radar detected it. However, once I have the Tigris identified, I can engage with the Shrike. 

 

A wishlist for this would be some debug option for the displays to show which sensor picked up which target. Might be color coded or with an abbrevation.

 

The configs for the EA-6B and Shrike as of today are up at http://tetet.de/arma/arma3/Download/unsung/EA6B/

[oukej 2911]

On 13. 1. 2017 at 3:36 AM, Ivanoff.N said:

On the figure below I am inside an AA vehicle with the 360 radar, the circle of the radar is not shown in full so I can not see what is behind me although the radar can see it.

I can only spot something behind me if I turn my turret there. There needs to be an indication that something is there and spotted by the radar.

On 22. 1. 2017 at 1:37 AM, chortles said:

@oukej: Did some Pawnee 'versus' Tigris testing (team-switching to the former to toggle active radar on) and I noticed that at least with the Pawnee a zoomed-in-enough display  (i.e. 2 km display resolution) can cause a detected contact to not appear at all instead of 'merely' being at the display circle's edge and having to zoom out (i.e. 8 km) to see it at all; is this intentional behavior?

 

Will try to improve that.

 

On 13. 1. 2017 at 3:36 AM, Ivanoff.N said:

The other thing is a visual. 360 radar is possible because the dish is spinning around, but on your models it is static, perhaps it could be tweaked to spin when radar is on and be static when off or something like that:

On 17. 1. 2017 at 7:38 PM, x3kj said:

Yes, can we please have animation sources for active radar enabled/disabled ?

Good idea :)

 

On 19. 1. 2017 at 8:56 AM, chortles said:

Is the direction of the Blackfish (Armed) infrared/visual sensor -- currently a 'combined' cone with the same animDirection, horizontal/vertical angles, and maxRange -- supposed to be in the direct opposite direction of wherever the co-pilot is looking?

Nope, that's a bug :)
 

12 hours ago, TeTeT said:

I tried to get an ARM missile (the Unsung Shrike) running, but I don't think it works right currently. With the radar off I eventually see an ammo-less Tigris in the radar display, but I do not know if this is because I visually identified it, or because it turned on radar and passive radar detected it. However, once I have the Tigris identified, I can engage with the Shrike. 

 

A wishlist for this would be some debug option for the displays to show which sensor picked up which target. Might be color coded or with an abbrevation.

 

The configs for the EA-6B and Shrike as of today are up at http://tetet.de/arma/arma3/Download/unsung/EA6B/

Try this for the missile: (with comments)

class Components: Components
{
	class SensorsManagerComponent
	{
		class Components
		{
			class ShrikePassiveRadarSensorComponent                   
			{                                                 
				componentType = "PassiveRadarSensorComponent"; //ESM, only track radar emitters
				class AirTarget      // ranges for targets with sky background
				{                                            
					minRange = 5000;             	 //irrelevant - range not limited by view distance
					maxRange = 5000;                       
					objectDistanceLimitCoef = -1;    //range not limited obj. view distance
					viewDistanceLimitCoef = -1;      //range not limited by view distance           
				};                                                                                    
				class GroundTarget      // ranges for targets with ground background - background/reflections play a different role in ESM. I'd just ignore it and set it the same. You may also want to set it higher than 5km to fully utilize the ability to detect sources at 2x the range of their own radar.
				{                                            
					minRange = 5000;                
					maxRange = 5000;                 
					objectDistanceLimitCoef = -1;               
					viewDistanceLimitCoef = -1;                 
				};                                                                                           
				angleRangeHorizontal = 60;            
				angleRangeVertical = 60;           
				groundNoiseDistanceCoef = -1;  // I wouldn't use this for ESM. Flying low shouldn't hide a target if it has an active radar.
				maxGroundNoiseDistance = -1;   // Same as above
				minSpeedThreshold = 0;        // Same as above           
				maxSpeedThreshold = 0;       // Same as above
				minTrackableSpeed = -1e10;     
				maxTrackableSpeed = 1e10;      
				minTrackableATL = -1e10;       
				maxTrackableATL = 1e10;            
				animDirection = "";                          
				aimDown = 0;                    // You had 90 - that would mean the missile's sensor would be looking straight down in 60deg cone. That would make it nearly impossibly to lock anything without flying right above it.         
			};
		}
	};	
};

In the vehicle's config you have a typo - SensorsManagementComponent instead of SensorsManagerComponent

[TeTeT 1523]

Thanks a lot for your help, oukej! I believe the Shrike works now, though it's a bit hard to test in single player as the Tigris tends to shut down it's radar right away. So I used the switch unit hack suggested by Chortles to enable the radar on the Tigris and subsequently it can be detected from the EA-6B and the Shrike engages it nicely. 

 

It would be great for debugging and gameplay to force a unit to turn on its radar, either via config or script command (action maybe?). 

[oukej 2911]

2 minutes ago, TeTeT said:

Thanks a lot for your help, oukej! I believe the Shrike works now, though it's a bit hard to test in single player as the Tigris tends to shut down it's radar right away. So I used the switch unit hack suggested by Chortles to enable the radar on the Tigris and subsequently it can be detected from the EA-6B and the Shrike engages it nicely. 

 

It would be great for debugging and gameplay to force a unit to turn on its radar, either via config or script command (action maybe?). 

For now you can use COMBAT mode (either in group attributes in editor or by setBehaviour) - that will make the AI use the Radar. A note - you're only able to detect a radar if you're positioned within that radar's scan sector and within max. 2x that radar's range.

[sammael 366]

Autipilot sytem will be part  of the sensors  development plan?

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

These sensor changes have me extremely excited.  Today's change log mentioned that the PCML now uses its sensors to lock onto targets, does this have anything to do with these sensor overhauls you're working on oukej?

If so how does it now work?

 

Quote

Tweaked: NLAW now uses the new sensors

 

Must still be referred to as the NLAW on the config side? ;)

[oukej 2911]

Correct. The PCML ammo is the first to use a sensor component and also to utilize some of the other new properties for limiting lock angles, range and speed. To work well all in all the missile performance has been slightly tweaked as well.

[oukej 2911]

18 hours ago, sammael said:

Autipilot sytem will be part  of the sensors  development plan?

I'm sorry. We acknowledge the need of it but it's not planned.

[Imperator[TFD] 444]

1 hour ago, oukej said:

Correct. The PCML ammo is the first to use a sensor component and also to utilize some of the other new properties for limiting lock angles, range and speed. To work well all in all the missile performance has been slightly tweaked as well.

 

Awesome, thanks for the response.  Do you foresee any significant change to how the user will employ the PCML or will it remain a point-and-lock missile and these changes will mostly be config kind of changes?