[Suggestion] Improve SA for Pilots via Jester Menu

Hello everyone.

As i understand in reality the RIO is in command if the plane. He has the huge TID Screen with different View Modi and all the RIO Stuff. The Pilot is only the driver. He just can switch his bottom Screen to a Mirror from the Rio one and has no way to interact with them. And you have your stick in the view.

In a real tomcat or with a real RIO that is not a problem. People could talk. But with Jester its not that easy. Sure he can give calls and help with looking for missiles ect. But for me as pilot its hard to get a picture or details after that initial call.

So thats my idea:

In the Jester Comm Menu we got a new button in Air to Air Combat. This open a copy from the TID Screen where the plane is in the middle and a 360degre view around it (think about the SA or HSI Screen in the Hornet) there you see every contact which the Tomcat could see.

If you look on a contact and click you see every info Jester got about that contact. Altitute, heading, speed, type, iff ect.

That will help a lot to improve the SA from Single Pilots and is nothing a human rio cant provide (and as disadvantage its blocking your view when active)

Also you could add orders for this special contact. Like lock, ignore, iff, direct radarcone to target, find with nosecam only ect ect.

I think that will close the gap between real RIO and Jester without giving unfair advantages.

Thank you for your suggestion, Larkis, I think there are definitely some good ideas there, we will think about it.

Try telling Jester to go ground stab I normally use indefinite time unless I will crank soon. This puts you in the middle of the screen like the top down view you want and with the link it is very similar to the SA page.

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I could think that such information should be text-only, instead visually given.

As the RIO should be there to process and prioritize anyways the information and not to tell the pilot things that they do not require.

Getting an artificial 360 degree radar scope is like a having datalink with overall picture...

So if SP pilot would get a textual history of the targets, types headings etc that the RIO would then focus to search, it would help as well.

Fri it's not artificial the 360 degree top down view is called ground stab and is available to everyone and part of the system.

While I agree Jester just leaves it positioned with your aircraft in the middle it still works very well for geometry and SA in the front.

Here is my YouTube of how it's used

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I know that the RIO has the option to do that.

But the screen for the pilot us really small and the stick is in front of it. And as pilot i cant select a plane to get for example a speed and Altitude. That is the RIO Job indeed. But Jester cant provide this information to me.

For example:

Im on altitude 5000, Datalinked to a Awacs which feed 2 groups of enemy planes to me and i have Order to intercept and identify. One has Altitude 2000 and the other altitute 10000. Position nearly the same. Now its hard for me to sort aus which fromation is which and where i must move to intercept. A human rio just would say "ok we take the high group first. Fly heading 210 and climb to 10.000". But thats a specific context information jester could not provide. So imo we need a way the pilot get that information to provide this decission himself.

This is why I was asking about expanding the ground stab options in another thread, and I would like to echo Larkis' suggestions. Right now, Jester is practically a loud and personable RWR. I need a Radar Intercept Officer, ie someone providing the front seater with information to conduct an interception. Preferably sophisticated enough to not place me on a course to be inside the target group's radar scan.

I either need to be able to control the ground stab functions myself from the front seat, or preferably have Jester providing me with options to prosecute the contacts he is calling out and exclude calling out irrelevant contacts I'm not committing to, provided that they're not a danger to me.

The flow would basically be to have Jester call out contacts and at that point provide a context menu selection to commit to a specific contact from what is currently visible. From that point I either need Jester to provide calls for bearing, range, altitude and target heading so I can calculate my intercept correctly, or I need Jester to know how to make that calculation. I need to be at a point where at 10nm I have 40,000ft of lateral separation from the target. That's my objective in an intercept. Arrive at a point where I'm close enough to conduct a stern attack immediately or have room to turn in pursuit in order to conduct an attack with my sidewinders, whilst being outside of enemy radar gimbal limits the entire time.

All of that stuff is probably very hard to do, but I think if anyone can do it, it's the Heatblur people.

I guess the problem is being a Rio is not that simple and there are multiple different scenarios.

I guess ine solution you are kind of looking for is an HCU overide for the front cockpit along with a next target button so you can prioritize the target you like and hook and ground stabilize wherever you like.

In fact I guess a bind that would turn your controls into whatever you have the RIO stuff bound to would work.

I will admit if I am in the front I hide the stick (backspace by default ) most of the time so that I can clearly see the TID.

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I guess the problem is being a Rio is not that simple and there are multiple different scenarios.

 

I guess ine solution you are kind of looking for is an HCU overide for the front cockpit along with a next target button so you can prioritize the target you like and hook and ground stabilize wherever you like.

 

In fact I guess a bind that would turn your controls into whatever you have the RIO stuff bound to would work.

 

I will admit if I am in the front I hide the stick (backspace by default ) most of the time so that I can clearly see the TID.

 

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This is however something we want to avoid. We do not want Jester to offer reach-back functions. Instead we hope to evolve him into a more self-reliable and knowledgeable RIO. It just takes time, as it is a very complex task.

The Jester concept in this module is pretty groundbreaking, and you guys have done a great job with it so far.

The problem is that the task of being a RIO is so complex and dynamic that it's got to be hard to program an AI to do it! It darn near needs human cognition and adaptability- this is the curse making a module out of a two-crew aircraft!

Curse I would definitely not call it that, it's what brings the true joy to the module just find someone to go fly with. I love the module and the 2 crew concept especially with this older more labor intensive radar system (admittedly I may be slightly bias) .

I use Jester occasionally in testing and I have to say he has worked pretty well I just get my F18 wingman to sort around what I can get him to do. When I get him to ground stab the radar indefinitely I wish I could offset my aircraft NSE or W 50nm.

But as someone who spend 90% of my time with another person in the module its a blast. Calling my front seater a f*-+/+-**+. A*-+ for taking the radar just as I am grabbing a lock is priceless.

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I'd definitely like it if he called out my airspeed in a dogfight

This is however something we want to avoid. We do not want Jester to offer reach-back functions. Instead we hope to evolve him into a more self-reliable and knowledgeable RIO. It just takes time, as it is a very complex task.

Indeed. Using RIO Controlls as Pilot is the wrong turn. But seriously i doubt your Ai can adapt to every situation.

For Example Standard Dogfightraining. 2 F14, clear friendly, start from the carrier and fly to the designated dogfight zone. Now Jester must label the other plane as hostile and monitor it while dogfighting. And after the Training the F14 us now friendly again.

It would be really hard and imo impossible to make an ai which could adapt to every possible situation and make it bugfree

It would be lot easier and controlable if the pilot just could say "ey Jester, that F14 on 4 o'clock is hostile now, make it your SPI".

Indeed. Using RIO Controlls as Pilot is the wrong turn. But seriously i doubt your Ai can adapt to every situation.

 

For Example Standard Dogfightraining. 2 F14, clear friendly, start from the carrier and fly to the designated dogfight zone. Now Jester must label the other plane as hostile and monitor it while dogfighting. And after the Training the F14 us now friendly again.

 

It would be really hard and imo impossible to make an ai which could adapt to every possible situation and make it bugfree

 

It would be lot easier and controlable if the pilot just could say "ey Jester, that F14 on 4 o'clock is hostile now, make it your SPI".

Absolutely, not even mentioning the fact that DCS does not allow for clean coalition switching etc.. In that sense we also do not intend for Jester to become more than what is possible or reasonable. (Sometimes wanting too much can be bad, too, so we need to manage expectations on both sides.) He is the first of his kind, and thus limited of course, and limited by his environment, too. But your ideas are all very nice and thinking along the right lines and they do not go unnoticed. In the end it will be up to Daniel, to see what is really possible, but the thinking follows the same logic.

Btw this is an invitation to keep the discussion going, we appreciate that a lot and are eager to hear more of your input! :)

Another Idea comes into my mind is using Jester as some sort of navigation system for intercepts.

For example i select a contact from the AWACs with some sort of selection system. Now i can select what i want todo like "intercept and fire a Phoenix" or "Indercept and approach for formation flying" and Jester tell me how i should fly to optimize the target selection for him.

Example

-i select "Jester Silent Intercept Contact 3 for a Sparrow"

And Jester will answer something like:

- Roger that, Radar is silent. Climb to angels 12, heading 152 with 350kn for 45seconds

- Target is moving, change Heading to 120

- Have him on the camera. Contact is hostile, proceed with attack.

- we are in weapon range. Activate Radar. Talley-Ho

- we good a lock, good range, shoot that guy.

This will put Jester more in his role as leader of the plane.

Btw this is an invitation to keep the discussion going, we appreciate that a lot and are eager to hear more of your input! :)

Have you considered voice recognition? In the other civilian sim it works very well & it's very realistic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5lxzFKsEpc.

There are already many voice attack profiles available, and it works really well.

Another maybe helpfull thing would be if jester could call interceptions.

Yesterday i want to Intercept 2 friendly F18 for formation flying. I got the information where there are via data link. Now the human rio could get the info about heading, altitute (and i think speed) without a radar lock just from the "map" . A humen rio could say "turn heading 350 and altitute 20000, 12nm left" and update this periodly until i have visual. Jester cant to that and i need to buddy spike the plane to get the HUD symbology. It would be cool if the Pilot could select a target and choose intercept silent insteat of lock, and Jester will give calls about heading, altitude, distance and speed of the selectet plane without annoying them with spikes.

Gotta say, this thread has some awesome ideas I'd love to see implemented.

 

Btw this is an invitation to keep the discussion going, we appreciate that a lot and are eager to hear more of your input! :)

In that case!!! :thumbup:

Another Idea comes into my mind is using Jester as some sort of navigation system for intercepts.

 

<snip>

Example

-i select "Jester Silent Intercept Contact 3 for a Sparrow"

 

And Jester will answer something like:

- Roger that, Radar is silent. Climb to angels 12, heading 152 with 350kn for 45seconds

 

- Target is moving, change Heading to 120

 

- Have him on the camera. Contact is hostile, proceed with attack.

 

- we are in weapon range. Activate Radar. Talley-Ho

 

- we good a lock, good range, shoot that guy.

 

This will put Jester more in his role as leader of the plane.

also.....

Another maybe helpfull thing would be if jester could call interceptions.

 

Which finally leads us to this:

Hello everyone.

 

As i understand in reality the RIO is in command if the plane. He has the huge TID Screen with different View Modi and all the RIO Stuff. The Pilot is only the driver. He just can switch his bottom Screen to a Mirror from the Rio one and has no way to interact with them. And you have your stick in the view.

What would be really nice (with or without TWS auto) is for Jester to be the one guiding us to the merge. Take this video as an example

(after time index 3:00)

In order to intercept, lock, launch and guide the missiles, i spend almost the entire time fixated on the TID repeater. In the meantime my SA has gone the way of the Dodo. It will be most convenient of Jester was able to leads us to it, just with simple commands, like "slightly to the left", "drop a few 1000 ft", "keep her steady", "bank right" or just by calling preferred BRA headings and angels. It would allows us to still look outside the window and keep better track of what's going on :thumbup:

EDIT: fixed the link