Multiple Radar/AWG-9/Phoenix Issues since patch 2.5.6.52437

I have flown the F-14 in MP (Blue Flag server) as a RIO after the latest update and have not noticed any difference in radar or missile performance :dunno:

I think some of these guys expect a flawless A.I that immidiately sees and locks everything for them perfectly with it's ancient old as hell radar , in a 60 player multiplayer environment , where planes are constantly lagging hard and exploding by missiles from other players.

"jester drops lock" (in reality, plane exploded or lagged out) as an example.

I think some of these guys expect a flawless A.I that immidiately sees and locks everything for them perfectly with it's ancient old as hell radar , in a 60 player multiplayer environment , where planes are constantly lagging hard and exploding by missiles from other players.

 

"jester drops lock" (in reality, plane exploded or lagged out) as an example.

Heatblur has already said they think jester has some issues since the last patch. "expecting the rio to not switch radar modes upon firing" is pretty reasonable.

Are you sure he's switching to RWS? and TWS-A is not just auto-adjusting the width of the scan zone?

I've had this issue too. Jester definitely switches to RWS in this case as all track disappear. Had this issue a couple of times. I suspect its related to changing radar modes/going STT while still having a PH in flight. If I don't touch the radar while the TTI counter is still above zero, I don't get any issues. If I get impatient and go STT on a bogey before the PH has hit him or the timer ran out, I get issues (can't change mode or go STT, Jester will go RWS from TWS right after PH launch).

Rubber banding could definitely cause issues here. There's no way in mitigating that, however this should be rare, and you would generally notice a laggy server environment, warping players and so, and it would likely affect other radars as well.

The SP equivalent also tends to mess things up, and likewise there's not much you can do about it, since it's a DCS engine issue: weapon calculations being tied to the framerate.

Especially in VR this is a huge problem: in small to medium sized missions, with proper framerate, my AIM120 and -54 hit chance against AI (with being extra mindful of firing well within envelope) is north of 90%. In heavier missions, my framerate often drops well below 20, and so does the hit rate of said missiles: 40-50% at most.

We can only hope the new DCS engine that's being developed, alleviates that.

The SP equivalent also tends to mess things up, and likewise there's not much you can do about it, since it's a DCS engine issue: weapon calculations being tied to the framerate.

Especially in VR this is a huge problem: in small to medium sized missions, with proper framerate, my AIM120 and -54 hit chance against AI (with being extra mindful of firing well within envelope) is north of 90%. In heavier missions, my framerate often drops well below 20, and so does the hit rate of said missiles: 40-50% at most.

We can only hope the new DCS engine that's being developed, alleviates that.

Wait, so hit chance is related to fps??? Man, i should really drop my graphical settings!

It probably has to do with the 'framerate' of the server. So if there are a lot of things going on, like ground units, players, etc.... it gets worse.

That is very interesting.

Are you sure he's switching to RWS? and TWS-A is not just auto-adjusting the width of the scan zone?

Yes

You can press CTRL ENTER and see your joystick positions, as well as the Radar mode the Rio is in. Its an overlay for the game, so Im 100% sure hes going RWS

Not sure if its been said here yet but I have seen quite a few 54s that seconds before impact pull a hard 90 degree turn and simply fly next to the bandit. Doesnt seem to be a notch or anything of the sort.

Does anyone else have weird datalink behaviour as part of these radar bugs?

I noticed the last few times I flew the Tomcat I don't see most of the enemy DL contacts. Some of them pop up some of the time, usually when I get close to them or if my radar can see them anyway, but a lot of contacts that DL really should see clearly either aren't there or pop in and out.

I haven't been playing the Tomcat much lately primarily because of all the aforementioned issues. It's just not much fun when 90% of the tracks I fire on are dropped within seconds of me firing, to be replaced by 3-5 ghost tracks, without the target maneuvering much if at all.

If that's realistic, I'll not criticize, but I seriously doubt it's realistic - and it's not how the Tomcat behaved up until two or three months ago. The only thing that sometimes saves the missile IMO is the magic INS.

Wait, so hit chance is related to fps??? Man, i should really drop my graphical settings!

I'm pretty sure the problem is latency: with higher framerates and lower ping, the missile gets datalink/radar updates a lot more frequently, and thus the hit rate increases. Ideally, these calculations would be done in a parallel process, unaffected by the rate at which your graphics card can draw stuff on your monitor or in your headset...

Ok. So, after a long absence from the Tomcat due to all these problems (which makes things sooooooo frustrating!), I decided to give it a spin last night.

Busy multiplayer environment (~30-40 players).

You know what?

Jester behaved IMPECCABLY.

No dropping of contacts. No rabidly refusing to change radar modes. 4 Phoenixes launched in TWS mode, with 3 kills. Respawned and tried again. Less success on my part (3 Phoenixes, 1 kill), but that was due to my lack of skill combined with more skillful evasion of the targets. Jester, however, was not to blame -- did his job perfectly.

So tonight, hop into Tomcat again. 2 sorties/respawns, 6 kills. Again, perfect behavior from Jester.

A couple of weeks ago, before I gave up on the Tomcat, I would run into one or more of the issues reported in the first post on every spawn (same server). Now this is 4 spawns with no issue, I don't know what's going on. I've not changed my system or run a repair or done anything in between. And, of course, there's been no change in code. So I have no doubt the problem(s) are still there, and I was just luck. But thought I would report it anyway for more complete information.

Maybe Jester and I just needed some time apart for us to start treating each other nicely again?

Ok. So, after a long absence from the Tomcat due to all these problems (which makes things sooooooo frustrating!), I decided to give it a spin last night.

 

Busy multiplayer environment (~30-40 players).

 

You know what?

 

Jester behaved IMPECCABLY.

 

No dropping of contacts. No rabidly refusing to change radar modes. 4 Phoenixes launched in TWS mode, with 3 kills. Respawned and tried again. Less success on my part (3 Phoenixes, 1 kill), but that was due to my lack of skill combined with more skillful evasion of the targets. Jester, however, was not to blame -- did his job perfectly.

 

So tonight, hop into Tomcat again. 2 sorties/respawns, 6 kills. Again, perfect behavior from Jester.

 

A couple of weeks ago, before I gave up on the Tomcat, I would run into one or more of the issues reported in the first post on every spawn (same server). Now this is 4 spawns with no issue, I don't know what's going on. I've not changed my system or run a repair or done anything in between. And, of course, there's been no change in code. So I have no doubt the problem(s) are still there, and I was just luck. But thought I would report it anyway for more complete information.

 

Maybe Jester and I just needed some time apart for us to start treating each other nicely again?

I agree with this bit, had no real issues with Jester recently. He was swapping modes fine, putting the scan zone where I told him, locking and only dropping when it was completely understandable for that to happen. Last night I had an issue in a sortie where TWS-Auto would not come on even when firing AIM-54s at TWS tracks, but I don't think that was Jester's fault. I managed to reset the Auto by clicking to SP then back to PH.

One thing that was Jester's fault is calling "we locked a friendly" when PAL picked up an enemy. Made me second guess and miss a kill, but I got away.

How was your datalink picture on the busy server? That's still somehing I have a problem with.

How was your datalink picture on the busy server? That's still somehing I have a problem with.

What kind of problem?

I'm often flying the Tomcat on very busy MP servers (50 players) and I'm not sure what problem you might hinting at?

What kind of problem?

I'm often flying the Tomcat on very busy MP servers (50 players) and I'm not sure what problem you might hinting at?

I don't see most enemy DL contacts even when I logically should, e.g. AWACS is giving me BRAA calls to them but they aren't on my TID.

More detail:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=4453761#post4453761

I see, thanks. I haven't really noticed such issues, but it's difficult to analyze DL performance in the heat of battle, especially if F10 map options (seeing friendlies or even enemies) are disabled on the server.

I don't see most enemy DL contacts even when I logically should, e.g. AWACS is giving me BRAA calls to them but they aren't on my TID.

 

More detail:

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=4453761#post4453761

I definitely have always had upside down HAFU's on the TID, and never had the impression I was missing any.

But I could be wrong --- there's a lot going on, and it's hard to say what the AWACS is seeing and I am not seeing. On the busy servers, I switch of the AWACS calls as the non-stop spamming of contacts from 5 to 500 nm away is a useless distraction.

Try hitting the PLM whenever Jester switches to RWS or you need to reset the scan azimuth back to centre. Jester would kinda reset himself to TWS-Auto and reacquire the contacts.

I noticed the AWG-9 tends to give Jester problems when I'm flying too high in relation to the target. I would have to drop altitude to gain solid radar hits for the TWS Phoenix shots.

I definitely have always had upside down HAFU's on the TID, and never had the impression I was missing any.

 

But I could be wrong --- there's a lot going on, and it's hard to say what the AWACS is seeing and I am not seeing. On the busy servers, I switch of the AWACS calls as the non-stop spamming of contacts from 5 to 500 nm away is a useless distraction.

When TID shows not a single enemy HAFU from DL despite there being 30 people on the enemy team on a sever they can only take off in two places and the fight is always in the same area, AWACS spamming calls so you know roughly where they are and that it can see them. And all you can see from DL are a few friendlies right next to you... something is very wrong.

Well, looks like the reconciliation honeymoon is over.

Jester is back at his raging self.

First two spawns/sorties were great. I even thought, maybe this is going to work out? Third one though ...

First two phoenixes fired went off OK.Third one: even as it was off the rails, Jester switches to RWS without announcement or warning. All the contacts were still there, no manouevering/jinking (which was what made it more frrustrating, as these would have been pretty high probability of kills), but Jester refused to switch back (or stay after switching back) to TWS.

Oh well ....

On several occasions I have also seen the Phoenix, once in the terminal stage, start to wiggle like mad, burning an ungodly amount of energy in the process (going from 1000+ knots to 300 in a few seconds, even while diving on its target)...

Jester consistently fails to get locks on nose bandits (precisely called by AWACS / GCI), he also has a tendency to switch between TWS modes before phoenixes go pitbull (causing them to go dumb), etc.

As a consequence, tomcats have become virtually useless without a RIO... Jester / TWS need urgent fixing.

Also, please implement a TWS menu for Jester, so pilot can command it to switch between tracks (and can also prevent him from doing stupid stuff on his own)

Please someone tell me the MLC Auto was what was causing jester to screw up? I really hope this patch fixed jester. Another several months of not reliably being able to TWS with him would be really obnoxious

Please check radar performance now after the MLC fix. During testing I had no issues with it anymore. Feedback will be greatly appreciated, thanks!