how to hunt down bandits

could someone point me in the right direction on how to hunt down bandits? on all the pvp servers I can never find a bandit visually I am fine when using radar and awacs to locate but then they know I am there, sometimes I win most times I don't, still learning tactics to that part but getting there. But a lot of pilots just sneak past me come up from behind and blast me away with a ir missile, I never knew they were there and that's but I have been trying to learn but never can find them. :helpsmilie: btw i came from the f-15 now in the f18

Yeah, that's the thing really. You have to do what the others do.

You can't see them (in most cases, talking the Caucasus map obviously) because they fly lower than you and use terrain to hide.

If you fly very low you'll see the difference. You can see a tiny dot aganst the bright sky but you will almost never see it from higher up against the ground.

Then, have your radar off most of the time and not on.

Watch your RWR.

Create a simple mission in the ME (mission editior) and practice a little.

Put yourself at, say, 300ft and place an enemy aircraft ahead of you at i.e. 1500ft (try different altitudes).

If you put the radar on he will see you on his RWR and immediately react.

If you leave it off he will just continue flying.

There's plenty stuff on youtube, just do some search like: "dcs how to survive online" or similar.

If you fly an SU-27 you can use the EOS which will find and lock targets without alarming the enemy.

You have to google a bit, read a bit and watch a bit and things should improve.

:thumbup:

Cheers

But a lot of pilots just sneak past me come up from behind and blast me away with a ir missile, I never knew they were there and that's but I have been trying to learn but never can find them. :helpsmilie: btw i came from the f-15 now in the f18

That's how F-5 pilots even the odds when fighting any of the more modern fighters. They get your location from AWACS, get down on the deck, come up on your 6 from below, and fire a sidewinder when they get a good growl. They don't use their radar because that takes away their advantage.

could someone point me in the right direction on how to hunt down bandits? on all the pvp servers I can never find a bandit visually I am fine when using radar and awacs to locate but then they know I am there, sometimes I win most times I don't, still learning tactics to that part but getting there. But a lot of pilots just sneak past me come up from behind and blast me away with a ir missile, I never knew they were there and that's but I have been trying to learn but never can find them. :helpsmilie: btw i came from the f-15 now in the f18

Me too man...

could someone point me in the right direction on how to hunt down bandits? on all the pvp servers I can never find a bandit visually I am fine when using radar and awacs to locate but then they know I am there, sometimes I win most times I don't, still learning tactics to that part but getting there. But a lot of pilots just sneak past me come up from behind and blast me away with a ir missile, I never knew they were there and that's but I have been trying to learn but never can find them. :helpsmilie: btw i came from the f-15 now in the f18

From my experience, under the right settings is very easy to see bandits from 8mn up to almost 15 mn against the sky, and even possible to see them against the ground. The odd thing about DCS is that this is true when playing at 1080p and with no excessive use of post processing like AF,MSAA,etc..., however, those users with great 4K monitors seem to have an insane hard time finding other fighters. It seems to bee the way DCS renders far enemy planes, they are like 4 pixels (i'm making up this number eh!), so 4 pixels in a 1080p monitors are easy to see but in a 4K monitors they are incredibly hard to see since the pixels are really tiny.

The best recommendation i can give you is, go to a instant action mission where you have some enemies in front of you, like Su27 or F15 intercept missions, or make one yourself using the mission editor, and from there start to play with different settings to understand which one let you see your enemy farther away. In my case, playing in VR, i've recently realized that playing with no AF, no MSAA and PD1.0 i can see bandit far away. I cannot ID them till they are stupidly close, but i know they are there, which is enough cause the radar will tell me if they are friends or not.

While on those missions and while playing with the settings until you find which is best for you, learn to "see" the bandits, this is, learn how the DCS engine renders enemies far away and how that change when they are getting closer, you will learn to distinguish them from the background. Also take advantage of things like smoke trails. When you get good with it, you will see even missiles, it is impressive cause you can track BVR shots coming your way and time your evasive manoeuvers.

Also take into account that because of how DCS renders the enemies, it might be easier to see them far and loose them a bit when getting close, there you have to practice keeping track of the enemy and maneuvering without taking your eyes off them, you will get used to.

There is of course zoom, or the derogatory term some use for it; Eagle Vision. Which whilst might be odd, isn't too much of a break from reality, due to combat pilots carrying monoculars/binoculars, also it mitigates for the fact we're limited to monitor res etc, whereas in reality where we have far better vision.

Actually I find one of the limiting factors isn't as much resolution as it is screen size. Most of us are used to setting the FOV to something that enables us to have an eye on most of the primary instruments while looking ahead, the 'tradition sim perspective'.

If you set the FOV (or zoom, as it were) to a realistic setting, you'd obviously look at the world through a small window the size of your screen, which is better for spotting, but a little annoying otherwise. I for one was rather surprised how that looked when I set FOV accordingly once.

P.S.: Of course your milage may wary depending on your setup. Screen size, distance you sit from your monitor etc.

use your radar senpai, that's why it exists.