[BUG] Radar TWS wierdness

So something that seems to have become a regular occurrence is:

that after a short while tons and tons of ghost contacts will start spiting out of real tws contacts in random directions.

(All the contacts behind the two groups marked as 1&2 and the one quite close to the bottom of the screen)

-No jamming

-Targets are flying straight and level

-It starts to happen after shortly after a tws target is given a priority number.

-If a missile is in the air it will start to track the new contact, stop lofting, then stop again, then start tracking the original contact and go back into the loft. Each time jinking hard and killing speed.

This is a pretty critical bug as if this doesn't get fixed it will effectively render TWS and by extension the updated phoenix's useless.

I've been noticing this behavior in the AIM-120C too, just last night as a matter of fact. I think it might be a DCS issue.

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Silly question...chaff ?

I know, shouldn't be detected in Pulse Doppler.

Not sure for the Phoenix but the 120 never used to jink like that even when homing on chaff. Did ED make the 120 more sensitive to chaff with their recent update to the missile's guidance?

Edited for spelling

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Silly question...chaff ?

I know, shouldn't be detected in Pulse Doppler.

no they weren't deploying chaff

Can I get a bump on this? Both me and another RIO I fly with have experienced this issue since release.

Do you have an AWACs in the mission? Is this because of DL and OWN A/C INS Drift?

This is something I routinely see myself in multiplayer, and I (and many other RIOs I fly with) assumed it was just the actual AWG-9 modelling.

After looking through all the documentation I can find and testing in singleplayer, I can't get the repeated ghost contacts problem to show up when looking for it.

If it's caused by INS drift, it's an EXTREMELY aggressive drift to make the contact drift 10s or 100s of NMs between radar hits while the own A/C INS solution is only drifting maybe 1-2NMs.

It shouldn't be related to datalink either, as the contacts that are duplicating are radar contacts, not datalink contacts.

Good question. I will do some testing tonight and try to isolate that as a potential cause.

Can I get a bump on this? Both me and another RIO I fly with have experienced this issue since release.

Same. I never quite understood where all these ghosts contacs (at least that's what they seem to be) come from. :dunno:

I think the community as a whole just assumes it's intended behavior, since the AWG-9 has so many limitations that are accurately modeled, and many RIOs don't have an extremely detailed understanding of how it all operates under the hood to begin with.

I doubt its accurate but if I am wrong please do correct me

+1. It happens to me a fair amount. I just figured it was an implementation to show the target was jamming and the AWG-9 hadn't burned through (though enough has been posted that jamming effects haven't been implemented, I began to assume maybe it was some other weird behavior). Sometimes it is just a single contact track-off, other times it is as the pic OP posted with a whole bunch. I'll have to start paying attention to see the circumstances of when it happens, if it's only with an AWACS, or if the radar does it on its own, etc.

Agreed it seems to be quite random, from my very limited testing it seems to happen most often after you have fired a phoenix in TWS. I really need to do a lot of testing though.

I've encountered it only in flights of 2+ bandits, when the target are very close from each other on the DDD.

Seems like the track file keep being messed up and jump from one contact to the other, creating contacts moving very fast because of the jump.

The more aircrafts in the formation the more ghosts. It generally happens at range when you switch to seeing one contact to seeing multiple.

That's the standard behavior for the AWG-9 when receiving noise jamming

Well I went in an made sure that the AI couldn't jam and it was still happening besides iirc this is not what jamming looked like in the manual. + jamming effects on the radar aren't even modeled yet.

It is modelled and that's it. You can find real sources where it says that jamming will display a line of contacts in that manner.

That's the standard behavior for the AWG-9 when receiving noise jamming

This is absolutely wrong. You can test this yourself by loading a mission in SP with targets set to leave their jammers on all the time.

The AWG-9 has no issue tracking them in TWS and does not cause ghost targets like this, regardless of if they're near the notch, closely grouped with other contacts, banking and cranking in a fight, etc.

I've done extensive testing on this to confirm it's absolutely not jamming. Also, you can read the manual and see plain as day it states what jamming indications look like, and that they aren't currently modeled in-game.

This is the exact kind of thing I was talking about earlier where the community doesn't know how the AWG-9 actually works and just assumes this is correct behavior.

It is modelled and that's it. You can find real sources where it says that jamming will display a line of contacts in that manner.

Jamming effects on the displays are not implemented in the DCS Tomcat yet...

And the jamming strobes would look different anyways...

What seems to happen is that the awg-9 misses the contact on one of the radar sweeps, then picks it up again in the next sweep, then the ghost contacts pop up. I think the event of losing then immediately reaquiring the contact causes this bug/anomaly to occur.

This may occur if the pilot is rolling or turning too hard for the radar to compensate and loses the contact because it is no longer facing the target correctly, then picks it up again when the manuver has ended or the radar has caught up compensating for the violent manuvers

What seems to happen is that the awg-9 misses the contact on one of the radar sweeps, then picks it up again in the next sweep, then the ghost contacts pop up. I think the event of losing then immediately reaquiring the contact causes this bug/anomaly to occur.

 

This may occur if the pilot is rolling or turning too hard for the radar to compensate and loses the contact because it is no longer facing the target correctly, then picks it up again when the manuver has ended or the radar has caught up compensating for the violent manuvers

Could be I think that this is a pretty logical possibility. Just to add to it though I often notice it even when in level flight. Just in the BVR instant action it seems to happen quite often that once I go level and fire it will occur some time durng the 54's flyout time then sometimes it doesn't happen at all.

Could be I think that this is a pretty logical possibility. Just to add to it though I often notice it even when in level flight. Just in the BVR instant action it seems to happen quite often that once I go level and fire it will occur some time durng the 54's flyout time then sometimes it doesn't happen at all.

We need to verify target disposition as well. I feel these ghost contacts happen more often with a near co-speed and/or near notching targets, which can only be checked with ground stabilized TID.

We need to verify target disposition as well. I feel these ghost contacts happen more often with a near co-speed and/or near notching targets, which can only be checked with ground stabilized TID.

I mentioned it earlier in the thread, but I tested this in singleplayer with targets at/near the notch and didn't ever see it show up. I think it's a bug with the RADAR generating new tracks because it either incorrectly extrapolates the target's velocity, or it incorrectly computes the target's position during a sweep.

As mentioned by others, I see this happen routinely while flying straight and level, and it's become quite common during missile flyout for the AIM-54, so much so that I've just stopped using TWS to launch on targets, as more often than not the TID gets filled with garbage contacts and and I lose the originally tracked target during the launch, even when continuing to fly straight and level.

Hello Again!

With TWS-A, I was definitely stoked to actually be able to launch a Phoenix at someone and more properly crank away, rather than trying to hold the guy ~+/-20 degrees off center-line. But, this whole "track-off" thing is really throwing a wrench into that ability. I went ahead and made a video from a single-player 1v1 test of TWS-A. I ran the scenario twice and it executed exactly the same both times. The video is from the second test. Because this is a potential bug, I made this an unlisted video. The "target" aircraft was a Mirage 2000C.

At the start of the video, I tell Jester to select TWS even though he's already in it just to keep him in it (I don't want him to switch out). I fire the first AIM-54 at 1:03 and take an offset to the right, very slowly and not too extreme because I'm still testing the mode, allowing the radar to maintain track (still smiling that it can do this). I then pull back across, bringing the nose back left, and the target is now offset right of the nose. As I level off, the trouble starts.

At 1:36, the radar will generate another (false) return which tracks off of the actual target very rapidly. TWS-A attempts to track the false target and pulls itself off of the actual return. At about 1:55, I pull to put the proper return on the nose, and the radar continues trying to chase the false return. I switch to PAL, then back to TWS-A and the radar reacquires the original return. At 2:40, I fire at the original return again, which then turns into a bad track, and the radar again goes chasing a false target. At 2:55, I switch to PAL, and the radar continuously is picking up chaff packets (expected behavior for a pulse mode), until I eventually find the target (when he fires a Fox 2 at me) and shoot it down with a pair of AIM-9Ms.

I don't know what is causing this, and I will need to do a lot more testing, but if this false return stuff isn't supposed to happen I can see it breaking TWS-A functionality because the radar keeps getting pulled off by a bad return and keeps adjusting relative to that return. If it gets multiple bad returns (like in OP's picture and as I've experienced before), I'm not sure what the behavior will be, but it certainly won't be good. Will see if I can simulate that.

Other notes: I was using the AIM-54C, and did NOT have an AWACS.

Video here:

Hope this helps figuring out the strange behavior, and keep up the good work, HB!