EnDSchultz

The issue I've reported does seem to be related to radar resolution... an AI flight of 4 Flankers doesn't seem to get differentiated any better whether they're forced into a trail or echelon formation, but when allowed to diverge into their default combat stagger they are spotted just fine. I think a lot of the crazy behavior I've seen here comes from launching and/or guiding while tracks of closely spaced aircraft are being picked up and/or lost.

There was really nothing to it, just a basic test mission so I didn't think to save it... 4x (veteran) Russian Su-24 on an Anti-Ship Strike mission and appropriately armed, angels 30 hot towards a carrier at max speed. I launch as F-14A from the carrier (catapult start) to intercept.

The Forrestal also comparably has a very dark flight deck, at least on my monitor, which makes judging alignment a lot more challenging in my experience.

I have matching Tacview recordings for that engagement and the one below, attached. Very true @ the notching. Offsetting doesn't seem to help me in this scenario, even when I do so by as much as 30 degrees. Tracks are still unreliable and it struggles to pick up more than 1-2 of them reliably. Here's another run at the same scenario except I've set up an offset... maybe it's just not enough? I get lucky and don't see any of the insane behavior noted above this time, but you'll notice it doesn't pick up more than 2 tracks until I'm practically WVR. PS: Apologies for kind of stealing this thread from the OP but they seem to have abandoned it, so... Example 2.zip.acmi Example 1.zip.acmi

Pretty sure chaff and/or ECM combined with multiple bandits in close formation are largely to blame. RWS tracks 4 targets just fine but as soon as you switch to TWS, it struggles to pick up more than 1, maybe 2 tracks until well inside 50nm, even with offset. If you launch at the wrong time, when it is in the process of picking up or losing tracks, combined with magic chaff precognition, you can get some seriously messed up stuff like the screenshots... I checked the Tacview on some of them and the aircraft were chaffing so I must have screwed up somewhere. Here's a video example of what happens, though this is a rather mild case. You see that the track goes haywire immediately upon launching, presumably in response to instantaneous chaff deployment.

Same thing again, this time with an offset and AI instructed not to chaff or ECM. For some reason was only seeing a single target on the TID, launched at 50nm and the instant I did, this happened.

A few things make long distance shots a gamble against the AI. First, they magically know exactly when you have launched and will start chaffing immediately when subjected to a TWS launch, which can result in a lot of phantom contacts and dropping the TWS target almost immediately. This is exacerbated by the AWG-9 having trouble tracking multiple targets in close trail, especially if you don't have a large lateral offset to paint them— this increases the risk of the AWG-9 losing track of engaged targets as it can't decide if it's looking at one aircraft or multiple. The end result being that odds of keeping more than 1-2 of your TWS tracks long enough to reach pitbull are very low under some circumstances. Typical TID behavior against 4x Su-24 in trail, hot, non maneuvering. Target aspect NOSE, my angels ~35:

Were you doing a custom mission? See if it helps to make sure you add at least one waypoint for your flight outside of spawning on the carrier.

I admit my first impressions were very cynical but it's still a pretty good missile after getting used to it. I will say the extra burn time of the mk60 is more than worth the price of the smoke trail in my opinion, especially against AI who don't care anyhow. Finally managed to splash all 4 Jeffs before merge in the Instant Action scenario, even though there was a hefty bit of luck. I was sloppy and launched pretty significantly off the T, and my wingman ended up biting it. Actually quite a bit of missile-on-missile action here as an SD-10 appears to go after my barrage instead of me, and one of my Phoenixes actually engages and destroys a missile, presumably because its target got splashed. I think once the -C variant has the ability to go pitbull on its own (that is a feature that's on the table, yeah?), it's going to become a hugely more viable alternative in those shoot-and-jink midrange fights against AMRAAM throwers. Tacview-20220227-145832-DCS-F-14B_IA_Marianas_BVR_JF17.zip.acmi

I seem to recall somebody in a video noticing the same behavior with the 120 since the recent update and the Phoenix may be affected as well... I thought maybe it was due to a successful notch, but shouldn't a notched missile go stupid and fly straight? I've seen instances where it will be tracking fine, and then at the last second pull a hard 15G turn to pass well ahead of the target.

Even in singleplayer I've had issues with tracks breaking on non-maneuvering, non-chaffing hot targets with a very gentle crank. Noticed as well that the active command doesn't seem to get sent on a broken, extrapolated track.

Confirmed, flew it the other day and they aren't departing. Maybe there's some sort of trigger for them to takeoff that's been broken?

See this thread:

This has been my experience with AI wingmen as well. I can get their position as a DL contact but I never see any of their radar targets displayed.

Yeah, I've found the burble to be very brutal (especially since my HOTAS is partially broken and I don't have anything to bind the DLC rocker to so I'm flying power only). It seems like I need to precog the sink and add the exact amount of power before it even happens. Get it slightly wrong in that first preemptive power change and it's already too late; I either slam into the deck or float right over the wires no matter how much I jockey the power levers. But that said, I still assume it's mostly my own failing, and I would just never cut it as a naval aviator.