Outstanding Major Bugs in FC2

[Nate--IRL--]

You do realise the Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog was released long after FC2 was released.

 

Nate

[jmod]

Yeah!

That's why I said:

That would be great if FC3 have a good support for it.

 

Anyway, I'm just guessing FC3 is going to be released in 2012, would it be possible supporting DirectX 11, as a gift?

Edited December 4, 2011 by jmod

[159th_Viper]

Yeah!

That's why I said:

 

Are there issues specific to the Warthog that are bugged at present in FC2? If so, what are they?

 

A request that the Warthog be 'Plug-and-Play' to save you from setting everything manually is not really a bug now is it.

[jmod]

A good support for Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog for F-15C in FC3 is a requested feature!

Aren't we supposed to request features for FC3 in this thread?

 

Dear All

Please give more feedback on bugs and additional features for an FC3.

Edited December 4, 2011 by jmod

[Nate--IRL--]

A Good support for Thrustmaster HOTAS Warthog for F-15C in FC3 is a requested feature!

Aren't we supposed to request features for FC3 in this thread?

 

Good point, originally the idea for the thread was to tease out the current problems in FC2 so they could be fixed for FC3. But it seems the intent for the thread has morphed a bit.

 

Nate

[Moa]

IvanK, when you are in ILSN mode 4 waypoints are selected (not visible to players, but you can see them if you are exporting nav data). IIRC, Waypoint 1 is on the base (the others are on approach). I think this is why you are seeing what you do - althogh if course this behaviour could be modified by the developers.

 

It would be nice it if worked as you suggested and showed the airfield number.

[jmod]

Q: Will all Flaming Cliffs 2.0 flyable aircraft now have the Advance Flight Model (AFM) system?

A: The Su-25 and Su-25T most certainly will and will have some performance tweaks. The other aircraft will have the Standard Flight Model (SFM) but will see more realistic performance in regards to such items as climb rates, acceleration, and top speeds.

 

Could F-15C have AFM as well for FC3?

[GGTharos]

I don't think that's likely.

[bigdog4215]

I'm not sure that its a bug but the su25 has no easy flight model.If it does then its a buy cause the weapon systems look fun to play with.

[jmod]

What about full 6 DOF for FC3?

 

Q: Why are the Flaming Cliffs 2.0 limited 6 DOF and not full 6 DOF?

A: Unlike the Ka-50 cockpit in DCS: Black Shark, the Flaming Cliffs 2.0 cockpits are not full 3D in every aspect that allows unlimited 6 DOF movement around the cockpit. Yaw, pitch, and Z-axis are as they were in Flaming Cliffs, but X, Y, and roll are limited.

[Nate--IRL--]

What about full 6 DOF for FC3?

 

That would require a full rebuild of all the cockpits, I'm not sure that's feasible, but it would be nice. You can Hack a full 6DOF into FC2, but the cockpits don't look good at all.

 

Nate

[blkspade]

There is a bug in waypoint transitioning, that I see with the F15 and A10.

Basically after the NAV system automatically moves past the last programmed waypoint, manually toggling waypoints freezes the entire sim for 45+ seconds. It may or may not require further toggling to actually unfreeze everything.

[jmod]

Do we still see pilot's reflection when canopy is open?

And also, it seems the OIL PRESS gauge doesn't work (all in F-15C)!

Edited December 8, 2011 by jmod

[zzzspace]

Gross dysfunction of low-level flights in LOMAC, FC2.1 and DCS A-10C

 

These DCS A-10C v1.1.0 low-level flight experiments were kept deliberately simple and prosaic. Nothing complicated was attempted and basically the AI takes-off then flies over a coastal plain, over a few small hills, up a steep valley and over a dam wall and lake, then over a few ridge lines connecting classic deep glacial valleys, at a suitably low-level to avoid early detection and warnings by medium range GBAD radar. All waypoints in the flight are thus set to 65m AGL (~200 feet AGL). This is a very low level of flight, but strike pilots are typically trained extensively to do this consistently. I of course realise the Ai in this program, nor any human or aircraft can fixate rigidly on maintaining that sort of height, in practice (though pending death would help). But what I do expect and what should occur is that the Ai will try to smoothly and efficiently attempt to approximate a 65m AGL within the smoother valley floors, and also to not exceed 65m AGL by much as it noses over any high ridgeline, and to be back well below it again within a few seconds.

 

I wanted to see if the Ai would again begin to fly over the dam lake at a steady 65m AGL, and it did, but as soon as it reached the end of the lake and met terrain again any semblance of low-level flight became a debacle, leading to crashes into terrain, and the ludicrous 'heavy-metal yo-yo' behaviour as the AI repeatedly over and under reacts to the changing contours of rising and falling terrain.

 

The flight plan follows the valley WNW for about 150 km and the flight emerges from terrain masking, back toward the edge of the coastal plain near the SAM site, thus unmasking from cover at waypoint 16, and either attacking, or else RECON of the SAM site, then a rapid dash back into steep terrain. I tried this exact same rout and SAM placements for SEAD, CAS and RECON modes with Western and Russian types, to see the effect of weapons on the Ai.

 

All the aircraft in these tracks were set to EXCELLENT AI setting, and the opposing SAMs are set to AVERAGE AI level. The tests were done with a Tornado (1 & 2), Su25T (3) and Su34 (4).

 

 

TRACK NOTES:

 

 

 

TRACK 1 http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?325zlbv6mj8m0cd

The first track shows a 4-ship Tornado EXCELLENT SEAD flight armed with ALARM and Sidewinders, that takes off then completely ignores the mission flight plan's waypoints and instead flew almost directly on a track to the nearest (Buk) emitter and attacked it from about 2,000 feet up (despite being set to 65m), where upon all 4 aircraft were systematically destroyed. Some of the SAM units were destroyed. There were no tactical 'pop-ups' of pincer manoeuvres used by the Ai, to find it's targets and fire, then dive back towards radar degrading clutter, and terrain-masking. The Ai RWR should sense the emitter type and thus fly an appropriate arc to avoid a direct pass over or too close approach to the SAM (Buk, with TORs and Tunguskas nearby). Instead the SEAD aircraft simply flew straight in at about 1,800 feet AGL toward and over multiple active SAM systems, in full and continuous radar view. Naturally all aircraft got wasted. Thus tactical target 'addressing' was a complete FAIL also, and thus egress and RTB observations were not applicable. FAIL

 

 

 

TRACK 2 http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?815j26xrrxhp2oa

This attempt worked only slightly better -- i.e. extremely badly. It is exactly the same scenario as Track 1, except this time I removed the ALARMS and other weapons and set the Tornado to EXCELLENT RECON role. So a 4-ship RECON flight takes off and does attempt to follow the mission waypoint plan this time. The usual absurd yo-yo routine as aircraft leap vertically up to 5,000 feet AGL soon develops. But it's worse than what you see in LOMAC and FC1 and 2, because the DCS aircraft fly an open formation in transit, so only the lead aircraft flies down the actual path plotted through the valley, so it the only one able to meet the time speed and alt requirements. The rest are all over the shop and the flight becomes very disorderly, disconnected and uncoordinated. Thus it can not reach the waypoints as planned and tactical surprise and coordinated time-compressed attacks are also completely out of the question with such a chaotic nonsense of yo-yo-ing aircraft. They are highly visible to any EW or AEW or even fighter radars, much of the time, thus completely defeating the point of planning a low-level undetected approach. And keeping ultra low most of the time is the only way you're going to minimise detection and break tracking by AEW and vectored fighters.

 

The manic yo-yo-ing finally stopped only when one crashed and the others finally ran low on fuel while still about 120 kms short of their closest approach to the recon 'target' area. Yeah, that's right, they got about 50 kms along the flight path before they ran out of fuel, caused by a combination of the aircraft not having the flight performance envelope necessary to reach the next turnpoint, due to the ridiculous afterburning climbs to avoid a ridge line that is soon >2,000 meters below!

 

Pure FAIL insanity - DCS - digital COMBAT simulation

 

The mission planner provides no feedback of the intended flight path's consequences regarding topographical profile changes directly along the planned flight path transect, and it does not calculate the turn radius arc and pitch radius arc sizes required to pass smoothly at about 65m (instead of >2,000m) above the ridgelines. The mission planning system itself needs to be forward-looking, even as the plan is being manually created, in order to anticipate and calculate to and inform the mission builder something like;

 

"This aircraft type at that height and temp, with that load-out, at that speed, in that flight formation, can not make the turn radius requirement to the next waypoint, or else it can not pitch sufficiently to nose-over the next ridgeline. Please manually move the waypoint further away until it can, or else allow auto adjustment to speed, load-out or waypoint location (in that order) so the aircraft can make that turn.

 

Do you want to auto adjust now? [Yes] [No], etc.

 

The mission planner should simultaneously recalculate if the aircraft is going to have sufficient fuel to complete the planned waypoint route for the attack and RTB. If no, the fuel should be increased, or waypoints edited, or else speed reduced, until it can achieve RTB at the planned base, with a sufficient fuel reserve buffer for emergency evasion needs.

 

I personally think an emergency evasion from actual direct attack by fighters or SAMs, or from mechanical failure and damage are the only valid reasons for ANY aircraft to autonomously disregard flight plan waypoint details. In which case a low level flight SHOULD STILL KEEP FLYING AT LOW LEVEL, and the aircraft should RTB as a soft 'mission kill'. You should be informed of its failure to achieve its planned task.

 

 

 

TRACK 3 http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?9fyu1bah2n6p1b6

With this track I took exactly the same scenario as the first two and simply replaced the Tornado with the Su25T, and swapped the Russian SAMs for NATO medium and short range Hawk, Avenger and Chaparral units in unchanged locations. I gave the Su25T EXCELLENT CAS role, with no weapons. The track developed in much the same way as Track 2, except the combination of the Su25's lower performance and the open formation within a narrow valley led to it being more prone to collide with high terrain. But the three surviving aircraft eventually simply gave up on terrain-following yo-yo-ing altogether the moment they flew high enough (thousands of feet above a ridgekine) to be detected by the Hawk SAM radar once in range of it. Thus once an aircraft is detected by the Hawk SAM radar it then flies level at about 2,000 feet AGL!

 

The completely wrong tactical response!

 

But the aircraft that are disordered and have fallen behind due to the open formation keep on yo-yo-ing until they also are individually detected, then they too fly level at about 2000 feet AGL in view of the SAM system. Now common sense would tell a pilot this is a particularly dumb thing to be doing right in front of a Hawk battery, especially when there's a deep valley right below you.

 

But the DCS AI is indeed depressed, at it's general inability to fly low-level, so is ready to end it all.

 

Thus the remaining aircraft fly toward the SAM in lower mid-level flight, totally ignoring their 65m AGL mission planning waypoint alt level, plus they're now strung-out over a 6 to 7 km distance, due to the yo-yo nonsense. So they independently trundle towards their dooms, with the airbase's SAM defences whereupon they are one after the other blown out of the sky without further ado. Good riddance. But if there were AEW and fighters around, they would not have made it even that far anyway.

 

Turkey shoot = SYSTEMATIC Ai FAILURE

 

 

 

TRACK 4 http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?82y8dw9uy29rl8j

Exactly the same as Track 3, except I replaced the Su25s with Su34 in EXCELLENT RUNWAY ATTACK role, with iron bombs to see if they could fly any more sanely, but they were even worse than the others, with three of them crashing into terrain, and the fourth did so many afterburning yo-yo's that it simply ran out of fuel, aborted to the nearest runway. This is an aircraft with a loaded combat range of several thousand kilometres!!! But it could not make a 200km low-level attack because of the staggering inefficiency of the way the aircraft attempt to fly at low-levels.

 

Another sad and pathetic EPIC FAIL of low-level attack flight tactics. I considered making another track with the A-10C, but what's the point, the whole thing is the mother of all cluster effs.

 

 

 

--

 

What I'm most appalled by is to see a supposedly dedicated low-level flight attack combat sim, in this ludicrous state of terrain following and target addressing dysfunction. This is actually supposed to be a Hi-Fi simuilation of low-level ground-attack!

 

--

 

See also ED thread:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1316213&postcount=21

 

And recent discussion of these issues at SimHQ

http://simhq.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/3468087/Re_FC3_Confirmed.html#Post3468087

[zzzspace]

Eureka Nate!

 

A very promising breakthrough / discovery.

 

I found an aircraft that does fly low-level in terrain-following mode, as planned, and it does it very well.

 

The B1-B

 

TRACK 5 http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?j7ar0c8a570foae

 

I set the B1-B to PINPOINT STRIKE with EXCELLENT AI (although I suspect the role and Ai level does not alter the low-level flight behaviour, but need to check).

 

It all works for the B1-B, flies just like I want, as planned, and as I expected it could, and should.

 

I discovered this with FC2.1, and then tried it also in DCS and it works equally well in both sims.

 

I suspect it may even work for all of the heavy bombers in each but have to check that.

 

It may even work in LOMAC 1.02, but I've yet to try that.

 

This demonstrates that there is fully-functional low-level flight code in FC2.1, already, but the other aircraft are not using it.

 

Or rather, they are not using it properly.

 

I then studied the F/A-18C, using the exact same mission, and waypoints, and determined that these also are in fact using a terrane following code, but they're massively over reacting to the terrain.

 

i.e. the terrain sensing parameter and reaction trigger is simply set way to sensitively for fighters and attack aircraft.

 

The next track #6 shows that they are in fact trying to do the same thing as the B1-B, but they are just constantly over and under reacting to the terrain map. They react much too late, and when they finally do react, they massively over-react with pitch and power, then are much slower to cut power and nose over, like the B1-B does.

 

That's what's going wrong with it all Nate.

 

If this is fixed it will solve most of the problems, then it is a matter of refining the way the AI addresses the targets, with attack and egress tactics that are realistic, and it may all work.

 

You need to get your guy to isolate the code for the B1-B's terrain avoidance then macro apply it to the other aircraft, and there's a good chance this will be the necessary solution to this low-level flight disaster.

 

F/A-18C

 

TRACK 6 http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?c7yq5cp3qumwh6d

Edited December 13, 2011 by zzzspace

[Presing]

What is maybe the biggest bug what they can, maybe, repair is freezing HSI on the Su's and MiGs when you change from navigation to the any combat mode. It will unfreeze after changing back to the navigation mode. That is not proper working and that bug is from lock on 1.0.0 till now. Would be nice to maybe change that.

Edited December 15, 2011 by Presing

[borchi_2b]

@ the DEVs:

 

we have some good resource in our squad from luftwaffe guys and well what would be cool to have in FC3 would be the deactivation after 3 sec of the ARH AIM120 misiles after they loose a target while still on datalink to the motherplane, for example when a bandit turns away or notches. this deactivation also happens when a missle looses lock on a target when it tracks with its own radar . this is a safety setup of real life missiles. as far i can try to get some more informations if they are not classified, but about the 3 sec deactivation, i can remember in janes f15 game this was also implemented into the game ages ago.

 

also would be cool, to have real flight models for the missiles, so that when you go super, that your kinetic energie would be taken into account to your missiles energy too. this is something real, which are tactics of the real airforces too.

 

the r27et also needs to be handeled again, cause do to the data of its flight characteristics, after burn out it deaccelerates at a such huge ratei in the sim, that it is compareable to a brickstone in the air, cause the g forces according to the data, are close to 10gs, which means that it slows down way too fast, in comparrison to the aerodynamic airframe of the real missle which is simulated here as a 3d model, but it would be cool to have some real behavior and no parachute at the six of the missile when the rocketmotor burned out.

 

also, a datalink to the r27er and a tws for su27, simutaneaously lock on 2 birds, and for the mig 29 too, would be nice to have too. also a time to impact, as far the su27 and mig 29 have such thing, but i guess they do, when they have datalink in real life too, but if you like i can get in touch with the luftwaffe guy ior ask him if he iswilling to give informations to you guys, as far possible.

 

some other stuff is allready said, like the tracking at the rear hemisphere and also the autoswitch from radar to eos, which is by far not realitic, regarding to our source, who worked allready on the mig29s which we sold to poland :-)

 

these are a few things which would make the skys of FC3 way more interesing again and closer to reality, which would bring back many pilots who fly dcsa10 only now, i guess.

 

hope you guys might think about such thinks. if you need more information i am willing to ask the guys of our squad who have a deep inside to the real things, if they are willing to get in touch with you guys or even can.

if you need such people, just pm me and i can pass that on to the guys of your interest.

 

cheers

borchi

Edited December 16, 2011 by borchi_2b

[joey45]

What is maybe the biggest bug what they can, maybe, repair is freezing HSI on the Su's and MiGs when you change from navigation to the any combat mode. It will unfreeze after changing back to the navigation mode. That is not proper working and that bug is from lock on 1.0.0 till now. Would be nice to maybe change that.

 

Didn't know that was a bug??

 

I don't normally usee the HSI when I pound mud.

[Presing]

Didn't know that was a bug??...

 

Tell my one good stuff what pilot have with freeze HSI and why should HSI do that? That is major bug but no-one care, they will said that stuff is not in the MANUAL so we (ED) do not have to repair. There is a lot of bug's in any ED product but they just don't care.

[Nate--IRL--]

It isn't a bug as such - it is a design "Feature". That may sound silly, but it was designed this way, back in the early days of Lock On/Flanker 2.5.

 

So it isn't a bug to be "Fixed" so to speak, it requires a much more substantial redesign of the Lock on Avionics system.

 

That said everything is being considered at this point.

 

Nate

[Alfa]

@ the DEVs:

 

....also, a datalink to the r27er and a tws for su27, simutaneaously lock on 2 birds, and for the mig 29 too, would be nice to have too.

 

:huh:

 

* the R-27ER does have datalink in the game.

* the Su-27 and MiG-29 do have TWS(SNP) in the game.

 

* the real Su-27 and MiG-29 cannot lock on to two targets simultaneously - their radars do not have that function.

[borchi_2b]

ok, so did you get that info about the su27 and the mig29 from the companies? or is it just an assumtion, cause i heared diffent things, even from a pilot about the tws lock capability.

would be interesing to know

 

ok, when the r27er have datalink in the game, then to be honest, the relockability of the r27er in the game needs to be improved alot, cause the relock, well it is really bad, and a datalink would stear the missle right, even when you switch a target, but it does not at all.

 

i will make some testing on that relock and show what i mean, cause datalink is not dependend on the reflection to stear a missle. datalink stears to midflightupdates which does not happen in fc2 as far i can tell.

[GGTharos]

Alpha has very good sources for these facts. So does ED. The radar simply does not generate an M-link for heaters. Also re-lock with data link is not necessarily correct either, the m-link may be inhibited after the missile switches to homing mode. The radar will certainly no longer generate an m-link after it has properly lost lock (ie. after radar memory is exhausted etc).

[Hellfire257]

I'd love to see the cockpits pulled out of 2003 and into 2011. I'm not asking for DCS standards as that wouldn't be feasible, but higher resolution textures wouldn't go amiss (I'm lookin' at you, F-15C canopy frame!).

[borchi_2b]

well the r27er is no heater :-)

 

but the m-link, well it should make it possible to switch targets, my 2 cent, because, actually, the missle will only get new datainput of a new cours correction when i lock a diffrent target for example and as far we talk about SARH it uses the reflected radar beams just for a precise course data comparison, cause a SARH shot with datalink could just fly straight, when i lock nochting, which they do, but when i shot at a target, they get course data constantly, which i can break up too and relock again, which works in lomac, but when the target moves to far outside although i have a constant radar picture, the missle will not correct its course. which i would understand when there is for example no radar working at all for some time, but when i have data, or an radar activated, the missle should still wait for informations from its datalink.

 

but right now it is very late here an di should discuss this maybe over the weekend, cause it is hard for me to express my thoughts in a good constructed way right now.