SA page design/concerns

Whilst the majority of single players for the Hornet module will appreciate a virtual AWACS classifying contacts as hostile or friendly, the multiplayer audience is looking much deeper into this.

I/we have some concerns on the design for classifications (upgrading) contacts to hostile/friendly etc.

So far, the FC3 "coalition" has been predominantly deciding contacts in a simplified manner and that is the core game design and AI needs that. A part of Datalink is that the classification isn't automatic and that members contribute to the classification.

In the more (in depth?) MP communities, we use external tools and human controllers to cover those factors of IFF, using Squawks and human classification such as "guilty by association", i.e. we don't have any automatic classification going on, it's very much part of the "game" and an exciting immersion.

I think we would all appreciate that continuum, and herein lies the issue.

In Public Multiplayer, if designation of a contact is freely allowed, it would provide a way to poison the Datalinked picture. I think these groups would strongly appreciate something automated rather than have player classification, for obvious reasons.

However in organised private multiplayer, we wouldn't like the gamed automatic version of classification via DCS coalition, else the Hornet drivers (and future Datalink contributors) would know more than the dedicated Weapons Directors who might be using LotATC or other tools and be a non datalink contributor. Thus it would pretty much ruin their job having to ask the Hornet who has the contact what the IFF result is on their own SA page.

Thus could I humbly suggest a simple tickbox for the core game that chooses either to pre-designate contacts as hostile or allows all contributors to freely change the designation? This could be in the form of;

Prefer AI to classify contacts as hostile

Allow Players to override contact designation

There could be other design methods, such as a tick box per aircraft that prevents DL contribution, but I'm simply asking that Players can contribute to the Datalink rather than a "magical" classification based on coalition, which would be a bit of a disaster for those squadrons who already include a player whose job it is to handle declarations, labelling, classification and such, on a radar tool external to DCS.

Thank you for considering this. Obviously you already have, but we don't hear about such things.

Do we even know how the contacts on the SA page are getting classified? You say they get classified through DL by AWACS, but how do you know that? What if there is no AWACS on the map?

In general I'm all with you. I don't want some kind of automation that is close to being magic either. It would take a lot of the fun away, as you explained, but before making any judgement I would like to know how this will actually work.

I'm assuming this in reference to the Facebook screenshot of the new SA page that ED put up, could the colour of the contacts being red just mean that these are shared contacts from another radar as apose to them being classified red as emeny.

That being said good point Piky it would be nice to have that as an option assuming it functions in that way.

Do we even know how the contacts on the SA page are getting classified? You say they get classified through DL by AWACS, but how do you know that? What if there is no AWACS on the map?

 

In general I'm all with you. I don't want some kind of automation that is close to being magic either. It would take a lot of the fun away, as you explained, but before making any judgement I would like to know how this will actually work.

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If you look at the Left MFD of screenshot of Wags you will see that there are 3 buttons : unknown friendly and foe. It appears that the pilot can also do the classification by himself.

 

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That would be nice. It might also just be a filter though :dunno:

That would be nice. It might also just be a filter :dunno:

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Possibly, but i read somewhere that the classification can be done, this could be the way of doing. Notice also the cursor on SA page.

 

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Alright, the question would still remain though how DCS handles classification.

Will it (only) be up to the pilot to designate contacts?

Will it work automatically with DL?

Will it work automatically with IFF?

...?

I wonder if the NCTR system would come into play with classifying contacts that are not using IFF equipment? Maybe this might be part of "auto classifying targets"

I wonder if the NCTR system would come into play with classifying contacts that are not using IFF equipment? Maybe this might be part of "auto classifying targets"

Good point! I totally forgot about it.

So there are a lot of possibilities. The question is how DCS handles them.

I don't think NCTR by itself would mark a target as friend/foe, NCTR attempts to identify what type of aircraft it is, since there are aircraft that are flown by both sides in some conflicts you would not be able to positively ID a contact as enemy based on what type of aircraft. However the pilot using his judgement could manually mark a contact based on what type of aircraft NCTR showed.

I don't think NCTR by itself would mark a target as friend/foe, NCTR attempts to identify what type of aircraft it is, since there are aircraft that are flown by both sides in some conflicts you would not be able to positively ID a contact as enemy based on what type of aircraft. However the pilot using his judgement could manually mark a contact based on what type of aircraft NCTR showed.

Depending on the conflict you would know if a certain type of aircraft is hostile. If the system gets configured prior to the flight that a certain aircraft type can only be hostile, then it would be able to automatically classify them based on NCTR.

It seems a very common misperception that IFF is able to be used as a sole means to declare someone hostile but this is very rarely the case. The decision to declare an aircraft/track as hostile will depend upon the rules of engagement in force, which in turn will depend upon the situation. They are 'operator' decisions, not technological ones. A positive response to IFF will generally mean that the track is a friend, but a non-positive return just means that the status of the track is unknown. It could be hostile, or neutral, or even friendly (as your interrogator may be unserviceable, or their transponder unserviceable). The confusion is worsened when people refer to the HUD symbology on the F/A18 for IFF response as either friend or hostile - it should start as Unknown, and then if there is a POSITIVE response to IFF interrogation it would change to friendly, but UNKNOWN would be the default state. Other methods of NCTR may aid the declaration of hostile, if for example an aircraft type is only operated by one side or the other (which is often not the case). This potential for confusion could even apply to visual ID, if an aircraft type is operated by both sides. But overall, it would be an operator's, decision taken with the help of the technology, on whether an aircraft is hostile, friendly or unknown (unknown should be the default until decided otherwise). Self defence aside, ROE would decide if the operator able to make the decision was in the fighter, or in the command aircraft/position. I do not know if the buttons on the displays referred to above are filters, or a means to declare a track. Or if they are used to classify a track, whether that information is sent to others on the datalink and into the recognised air picture. To me, they look like filters. My own experience from Link 16 operations was that only command units (for example AWACS or GCI) had the ability to declare any particular track as hostile, and we as fighter aircraft would output tracks as Unknowns. Our tracks may have then subsequently been classified by a command unit as Hostile, and would be correlated on our in cockpit displays. If we had a valid IFF response from a radar track, then those would generally be passed as a Friendly by our system. That was from an older RAF system no longer in service, so I don't know if things have changed in more recent times.

Thanks burrito for making that clear! That shows how important operator input is and that not everything can happen automagically. :thumbup:

If i read the OP correctly, he's worried about people trolling or incorrectly assigning friendly to tracks on purpose. The same was said for RIO's ejecting in the F-14. I frequent DDCS a lot and have been exclusively engaged in multiplayer DCS for 5 years. (I literally have 0 time in single player). I don't think this is a great concern. Especially in DDCS, there is a pretty good respect for the community, and if you get black balled, it's not like you can just go find another server like that to troll around on. There's blue-flag, and then the 104th when they're running a campaign style map, TAW has a good continuous campaign server, and that's about it. It's a tiny community (compared to many other online games) and with that means there isn't as much troll-anonymity as typical of a lot of gaming communities. You get identified pretty quickly, and the consequences are pretty severe.

Just my 2 cents (which is all its worth).

I don't think he's referring to trolling. He says that with all that automation in regards to contact classification there will be a huge loss for the players part in regards to target identification, especially on servers with human AWACS/GCI.

Burrito good job explaining that, guess the man in the loop still has the final say. The gives good credence to what Piky was saying really.

With regards to what Pikey was saying, I would expect that an AWACS aircraft that was Link capable would indeed classify tracks and that these would appear on a fighter's screen as hostiles. In much the same way that a call from these AWACS aircraft call hostile aircraft, though the SA building is so much easier with a picture in front of you. In the case of multiplayer, you would have the option of not having an AWACS for those automated calls (and datelined tracks), or having it. I guess if you wanted an AWACS not to contribute to the picture (by having it manned by someone rather than the AI), then you would want the option to put the AWACS on a different L16 Net, which will come down to how well the datalink is modelled. Given that on multiplayer you may want L16 capable aircraft on different sides, I would hope that different nets would be an option.

nvm...