I really hope they finally address Aim-9M lock ranges,
Because its driving me nuts that you sometimes cannot fire until the target is fast approaching the minimum launch range
The bot jets are going at like 50% throttle, which makes them pretty cold and hard to lock with any ir missile (i think)
I’ve had this in SB against Su-30s and the like.
Too many times for me to count have I been unable to fire even with the target well and truly inside the LSZ. In contrast, R-73 and Magic II appear to lock pretty much from their max ranges against the same targets
And we have a report for the lock ranges to be fixed 2 years ago
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/PX7CKrwWNGdr
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Aim9M can lock heat from the friction generated by the airframe. It is not just the heat from the engine
Fun thing i noticed actually, the Su-30SM engine temps are in the low 900°C in-game, despite the fact the blue afterbuners indicate a temp more likely in the 2000°C+ range. Gaijins modelling being based off cockpit instruments seem to be massively beneficial for the newer russian jets in that regard.
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That isnt how IR signatures work in game. Engine temp means nothing. Its all to do with the thrust out put of the engines.
Its why the F-5s are so cold and the Harriers are so hot
Spoiler
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Friction heating can’t be that hard to put in game. Just do something like…
Drag of aircraft*speed/Altitude
Quite frankly, They need to actually add IR signature code. Period.
That way temp is based upon the exhaust temp and friction heating. Can even throw in the directional exhaust code from the Helis for aircraft like the Harrier.
Would fix soooooo many balancing issues imo
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the 27SM has the blue afterburners, the Su-30SM has the same afterburners as the Su-27S or J11
That doesnt make any sense tho… @Gunjob can I get a clarification on this? Wth is a “thrust to flare ratio”?
Thrust cant be the dictating factor of IR signature, seeing as there are jets that have higher thrust than the Harrier or F-14B, but those jets do not have the same issue with succeptability to IR missiles.
The AV-8 in particular has very low thrust compared to other jets, so if it was thrust related it should have no issues flaring missiles off?
That’s a Harrier.
Do you have the wrong jet?
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Ty for the correction on that, point still stand tho, the Su-27SM has ~900°C engine numbers ingame but AB colour indicates temps in excess of 2000°C.
I mentionned it since you said the harrier is “so hot”. Theres actually no real reason I can see why the Harrier should have IR singature issues unless gaijin has royally screwed the pooch on how they model things and i just cant understand what they did. Its thrust is comparatively low, and its engine temp numbers are as well at ~700-800°C from a quick look.
I kind of wonder if its issues are more due to the fact its engine and exhaust nozzles are all centermounted and the flares come from behind the exhaust nozzles, which could just mean the missile isnt seeing the flares in the first place under some circumstances?
I also dont buy that IR modelling isnt done atleast somewhat properly in-game. Clouds block IR signatures to a large degree, tracks, barrels and engines heat up when in use, and engine thermodynamics has long been a feature in-game, and even got its own detailed devblog back in the day:
Well, It has enough thrust to hover and has a wierd thrust curve that increases in thrust at lower air speeds. @MatrixRupture and me were testing this a little while ago (after the Harrier buffs) and found that to flare a R-60M, fired rear-aspect from 3km away, it took 8+ flares to defeat when the Harrier was traveling around 420-450 kts (which is not an unusual speed to be at in the middle of a dogfight) but was virtually instantly defeated by 2 flares when traveling at 600kts
It’s actually quite an elegant solution for a fairly basic modeling of an IR signature. By having the thrust be the exhaust temp, it changes based upon engine settings and means they can get away with not modeling multiple things.
Just fails miserably with more modern systems.
Heck, with the current implementation, the F-117 is hotter than an Afterburning F-5
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this seems to just be engine temp and not IR signatures. Were there even IR missiles in 2016?
Edit, Aim-9Bs were added in Dec 2018, 3 years after that post
su-30 should have blue afterburners as well as the J-11B
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/yPW7px7C2PlD
this is also a reason why i think the Su-30 should have more thrust (or atleast a different ammount) than the Su-27S, because you cant just change the fuel or the temperature without changing the thrust
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What GunJob said is correct. It has been independently verified by data-miners:
That graphic has been doing the rounds for a while. I believe it was originally put together by the Snail Mine discord.
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Maybe just maybe this can change with the new AB effects of the next major?
I hope that change they mentioned doesn’t just mean that they edited the inner texture of the burner
That’s from TWR, not just raw thrust, and technically any jet with a TWR above 1.0 could do the same if they had the FCS to do so, they just aren’t designed to.
Its thrust curve just decreases as airspeed increases. Its basically just the opposite of a normal thrust curve.
As indicated in the linked devblog, thrust definitely should not be the single determining factor of the exhaust temp.
Also, it still wouldn’t make sense with the lock ranges seen against the F-14A for example, seeing as it can be locked at 30km+ through clouds in rear aspect by an R-60M (havent tested it recently tho, but i doubt they fixed that, since they marked the bug report as “not a bug”)
Itd be incredibly stupid to accurately model engine thermodynamics and then NOT use it for IR missiles. The devblog also specifically mentions radiated heat being modelled among other things, as well as heat being radiated from the correct components at the correct locations.
You can also just check in thermals to see variations in temps and locations on the jet.
That seems super scuff, ty for sharing tho.
True, but they do nonetheless have a lot of thrust when compared to other single engines.
For example Hunter F6’s Rolls Royce Avon engine produces around half the thrust of the Rolls Royce Pegasus Engine.
Spoiler
Given just how hard it is to defeat anything IR based in a Harrier, something else must be at work, either that or they’ve really really screwed up
It doesnt state that IR Signatures for IR missiles (given they were added 3 years later) are affected by those features though. I’ve been wanting a Devblog on how IR signatures and flaring actually works in game.
I was having this… discussion with Smin a little while ago, and even he appears to have no idea how IR signatures actually work and took some time to explain the basic understanding of what the hell “Thrust to flare ratio” actually means
F-14 is a strange edge case that doesnt quite conform with all the known variables.