AWACS improvements?

Are there any improvements planned to how AWACS behaves and speaks?

I've been spoiled flying aircraft with datalink, I admit it. I would love to spend more time flying ones without it and I'm sure I could train my SA in them but the AWACS experience in DCS is frustrating and a barrier to really enjoying and being effective in a lot of planes.

I would love to see:

• more responsive and faster speaking AWACS; right now it takes forever to answer a bogey dope, both delay and slow talking, and sometimes misses the call completely (especially in MP)
  
• some AI prioritisation of what AWACS tells you about; it needs to stop wasting your air-time with calls on contacts 100+ miles away while there are bandits hot on you within 30 miles
  
• automatic increased frequency of updates on priority contacts based on their threat level (range and hot or not) and whether they have maneouvered significanlty since last call
  
• interrupting; part of responsiveness, if it is halfway through a generic call and something pops up 10 miles away it should stop and tell you that instead; and if you call bogey dope it should also stop what it's already saying and reply
  
• if possible, AI GCI providing same service as AWACS but using ground based EWRs, for when AWACS is not available
  

This would really improve the experience for many modules covering a wide range of historical scenarios where datalink is not available in the plane or not realistic for the time period.

Would love to see this, can't say I've ever seen it mentioned by devs though. I'd guess it might see progress after carrier and field ATC comms gets attention first, so maybe a few years away.

Yeah this is hugely needed especially for MP environments as not all planes and certainly not all planes of all eras have a working datalink and AWACS/GCI is crucial for situational awareness.

I would like to echo two primary things that the OP posted

1. the prioritization of contacts is hugely needed. I don't give a shit about tankers or enemy awacs most of the time, so perhaps the default calls are only for fighter/bomber aircraft, and again AWACS should be able to figure out roughly what it is based on flight profile/RWR info.

2. Some sort of GCI system thats analogous to the Awacs but uses ground radar info plus the awacs info if it is available. This is critical for alot of nations that didn't operate awacs but had GCI nets.

Other things I'd love to see.

3. Some sort of "check in" procedure and frequency assignment. I.e. I can "check in" to the awacs on freq XYZ, and then they send me to my personal frequency ABC. Its annoying as hell to just hear random calls that aren't for me specifically, especially if another player is "spamming the awacs" with constant update calls. (You cold war server guys know what I'm talkin about).

4. Awacs sense of preservation, if the AWACS sees an aircraft coming to kill it, it starts calling for help automatically.

5. Instead of just some basic BRA call, give me an option to request an intercept course for a specific target or include that info with the BRA call. I.e. Awacs tells me there are 3 bandits, bandit A is BRA ABC, Bandit B is BRA XYX, Bandit C is BRA GHJ. Then I can ask awacs for an intercept tasking on bandit B for example, and the AWACS provides updates on that target. With of course some logic to warn me if a closer enemy target pops up.

Multicrew awacs would be fun. A basic but user friendly operator dash board, sending info to clients via this screen. it is a agreat game changer for mp environment.

It would definitely be a lot of work, not something I'd expect quickly. I guess if it hasn't even been mentioned in passing it wouldn't be on the radar for a long time.

It would benefit from the signal and comms simulation improvements also, it's ability to detect targets and how good the detection is based on it's altitude and the target's altitude (and distance in general ofcourse) ...

But I don't know much of AWACS capabilities to make any ideas right now. Whether it can detect terrain relief (ground radar), and like does it have minimal range? Could someone hide by riding just below it?

However here's an interesting twisth I propose, AWACS in Combined Arms wouldn't need to be necessairly a flyable unit when controlled directly, it could be a hybrid, more plausible/practical for DCS to support, to only provide non-pilot seats to take control of. The main thing in this case would be the Cheif/Master Radar Specialist seat/slot/position and perhaps a Radio/Comms Chief seat/slot/position and you might jump from these seats as they're available, if not occupied by a Human Player it would default to internal AI simulation as per usual (perhaps even including AI Skill levels).

This could kinda go along my whole Tactical or Battlefield Commander specific "F10 Advanced AWACS View" (***) idea that I talked in-depth a while ago, overhauling it to support a lot of detailed signal/comms information that gets pulled in from all the individual sensors of all the aircraft including simulating AI Pilot Visual Spotting and showing it graphically in some performance optimal fashion (separate indicator for direction of eyesight/head decoupled from the direction of the airplane, approx max distance of that eyesight depending on weather(not easy to dev IMO)). The B.Commander's extra sensor info ranges from various radio comm detections for example if there's a transmission of radio voice then the icons of the receiving airplanes would have a distinct visual FX effect along with some indication of the clarity/strenght of the receiving signal, so that you as the human B.Commander you would see on the F-10 Advanced AWACS View several of your units' icons to indicating(**) they have detected a radio/comm voice signal but you would need to use your experience to determine the rought position of that manually, the strenght of the signal each unit receives would be represented graphically too so you would get an idea which units got more and less strenght, but you wouldn't magically get some approx location of the enemy/unknown transmitter ... -->

... -> Unless if you as the Battlefield Commander have special units with proper radio detection equipment in your arsenal positioned correctly as they would in real life be able to determine the source location of the enemy/unknown transmitter, you may get an additional indication (yes additional, not replacement, it's about all sensors, some or many info may be redundant logically but they are separate layers of data), in this case it's ordinary radio voice so it's up to radio trilateration(triangulation*) of the signal that your units would perform automatically (AI) (not sure if you'd be able to do this with only ordinary ground units in real life(tanks, IFV, artillery, AA)), but the location would be marked as an area radius, perhaps shrinking as the game progresses and the signal is better detected, so this would not be indicated like a pinpoint (GPS) location ofcourse, which would mean the source somewhere inside that area, this kind of radius would be it's own uniquely colored and indicated graphical effect, which fades away slowly until it disappears from the live view, but there should also be a history/timeline slider in which you could go back and view older hits pretty much live in-game (with granularity optimized for keeping optimal performance).

The B.Commander would send commands out to the AIs and possibly Human players too, perhaps in a overhauled way than how Combined Arms currently works, part of the whole "dynamic campaign", there may already be a whole new way of commandeering the battlefield I think, but with Human players it's actually more interesting to be more realistic where possible and rather encourage use of the integrated internal DCS radio Voice comms system, that's exactly what that feature is for, nice!

This F10 Advanced AWACS View would have all kinds of filters to show only specific kinds of sensors from your coalition's forces, but all data would be logged into the timeline archive so you can always go back , in-game, and see the other data you previously filtered out. Perhaps a better term is to hide/show.

But there's a question if there could be a step higher than this, even better sensor data that's more specific and finesse that would only be available when the B.Commander would go into direct control of an AWACS or other unit, perhaps temporairly going out of the F10-AWACS view, or some kind of a split screen, or a simpler version overlay.

The question is how practical is splitting the data to base, mid, high level and what kind of gameplay would be preferred in DCS and whether it's approximately realistic or not of simulating what the whole agency (pentagon, military) sees on their 500 comptuer screens and big projections.

So I wouldn't want to gimmickly split something away from the F10 Advanced AWACS View into the specific unit (AWACS Airplane) direct control slot/position, while more of this would benefit the folks who want some playability out of less-armed and un-armed military units, and I'm one of them, I still prefer to do it right and it has to make sense, not just put data purposelly into the internal unit's sensor screen/buttons for the sake of it being there and not in the global simulated F10 Advanced AWACS View, but there should be enough simulation depth that there is enough use of the internal slot for it to be worth it, so the prerequisite is that some form of research on these units and their sensor systems would be needed, that level of depth that would not be practical to show on the F10 Advanced AWACS View, it would clutter it too much, for example, among other things.

However, another hybrid idea, the same thing I wrote above, except, the Battlefield Commander Human Player slot wouldn't be able to control any of the units directly, but that would only be possible by other Tacitcal Commander Human Players and they would feed extra finesse data to the B.Commander, over some simulated datalink way that would make that data show up automatically on B.C's end, perhaps with some delays or instantly, depending ofcourse on the signal simulation in DCS, but some of it wouldn't be feeded into the datalink that realistically also isn't, so that's where the DCS Voice comes in again, just have to call and tell them manually, that's the big gameplay spot right there ofcourse, but here's the kicker of the possibilities, flexibility and combinations, the B.C. can do multiple things and he will, but he can't focus on every single thing at once in a huge area with many units and when he's focused on a hot engagement in a smaller area, the human T.Commander could simply relay/copy the same information that the T.C.'s unit sensors are sending to B.C. via data link automatically, manually via the DCS Voice and get the B.C.'s attention that way, so the T.C.'s don't need to be silent and hope the B.C. sees the visual effects, graphical indicators, and/or blinking icons on the F10 Advanced AWACS View, in this case this shouldn't be considered wasteful redundancy, this all adds to the battlefield awareness, more is always better than less, and these layers of infos from all the unit sensors that feed into B.C. is visualizing what probably goes on in the military command centers, even tho they may not have it all electronic/dynamic, aircraft carriers like have a miniaturized set of physical figures for the positional awareness (not saying that's old or worse, no opinion right now)

The Tactical Commanders would only control specific units and wouldn't have access to the B.C's specific F10 Advanced AWACS View ... without human players I guess there would need to be several types of AI models designed for that role specifically, the fighter-pilot AI, the bomber-pilot AI, the Tactical Commander AI, ... we normally don't distinguish and just say it "AI" this or that, but I think the future complexity of all of this would be greater and we should be just for clarity separating these things, and perhaps for development benefits it could also be separated in the code it self, it already is separate but it's just not indicated, or else you'd have B-52 acting like F-16.

Which is pretty much how it would work in real life kinda so it's really not any idea, just a version of simulating the military structure, but funny how I kinda get to the obvious conclusion in a twisted way around my back heh, silly me.

*** = placeholder name of the idea, but it can just be a mode, with the same name.

** the way indicators would work is up for creative imagination (visual FX, icons, etc) but I only have some basic things that pop in my head, but would need to draw in pictures, not doing that right now.

Su-27S receive EWR data like AWACS.

It is currently only for the few Russian EWR as their GCI design.

It is nice thing as combining the SAM network with scripts you receive a large scale information network that single AWACS can not provide.

Su-27S receive EWR data like AWACS.

 

It is currently only for the few Russian EWR as their GCI design.

It is nice thing as combining the SAM network with scripts you receive a large scale information network that single AWACS can not provide.

Yes but the Su-27S has datalink. I'm talking about improving the AWACS and possibly also GCI communications in the radio menu, for planes that do not have datalink to have a less frustrating and more realistic experience.

I think the most annoying thing about the current AWACS is that you get directions to tanker and home base in bullseye format instead of just "fly heading XX for XX".

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Yes but the Su-27S has datalink. I'm talking about improving the AWACS and possibly also GCI communications in the radio menu, for planes that do not have datalink to have a less frustrating and more realistic experience.

Would rely on DCS Voice for my idea above, additionally the B.C. would be able to draw indicators, lines and various markers himself onto the F-10 Advanced AWACS View (temp name) manually to accomodate this but not necessairly required, he can remember it all in his head if he wishes.

I already had an idea I think I partially wrote about the overahuling of the F-10 AWACS view it self and how it ties to the idea above.

I should go more serious and bring this together, find all the old posts on this topic and do a good draft with it, incorporating or supporting most of the ideas you guys had too, but I'm just busy with other things right now.

I mean a full re-work would be nice. But in the meantime I Think some sort of target priority logic, and separate comms channels for A/C would be a good enough band-aid for MP users.

Yes but the Su-27S has datalink. I'm talking about improving the AWACS and possibly also GCI communications in the radio menu, for planes that do not have datalink to have a less frustrating and more realistic experience.

You should be able contact with just radio to get the EWR picture etc. No datalink required for that.

But I do agree that the logic and calls needs to be redone. You should get a individual GCI operator for the flight to help you fight even dogfight on red for side.

I mean a full re-work would be nice. But in the meantime I Think some sort of target priority logic, and separate comms channels for A/C would be a good enough band-aid for MP users.

Simplest addition would be include EWR info in existing AWACS logic.

And put x1.5 playback speed on all the radio chatter :D

Simplest addition would be include EWR info in existing AWACS logic.

Have you tried the Russian EWR on map? You should get the GCI menu in radio to use AWACS kind logic.

There was an AWACS for F-22 Total Air War.

DCS would benefit immensely from similar functionality.

Multicrew awacs would be fun. A basic but user friendly operator dash board, sending info to clients via this screen. it is a agreat game changer for mp environment.

I watch a video of it being used in dcs.

Pretty neat.

Have you tried the Russian EWR on map? You should get the GCI menu in radio to use AWACS kind logic.

The online servers I use have a EWR readout, bandit bearing/range etc, and age of contact. Its fairly useful, but the update rate is quite slow. So its there.

Frankly I wouldn't mind seeing such a menu for awacs contacts with a the additions of type: "likely fighter" ", "likely tanker, or awacs" etc, and intercept course along with BRA.

LOTATC application serves this purpose to an extent.

I watch a video of it being used in dcs.

Pretty neat.

Yeah, alot of servers won't use it tho, bluflag being a key one.