The regular scan pattern is carried out at 70°/s. However the radar antenna itself is capable of moving at over 300°/s.
The simplest implementation of priority track IRL works as follows:
The radar is set to a 140° wide scan, with however many bars. As the radar beam passes a target’s position in azimuth it will rapidly jump to the target’s elevation, scan the area around the target, then return to where it left off.
Taking a 140° wide 4 bar scan as an example: it would take 8 seconds to complete the scan at 70°/s, meaning in a traditional TWS system targets would be updated every 8 seconds. However with priority track running targets would be updated at least every 2 seconds.
So while no one is claiming priority track is as fast as an AESA a 4x increase in effective scan speed is a pretty big deal (particularly as TWS+ in game seems to be less buggy at higher scan rates).
Are you sure? We went through the same scenario like 3-4 times already. Abandon your hopes.
I’m still mad over flight model nerf though… It’s just not fun to play anymore.
So I was gonna make a quick comparison between a couple different top tier radars to try to give a slightly more visual representation of how they “feel” and why I say the CAPTOR-M is so bad compared to other top tier radars, and I ended up comparing most of them cuz I built a table, so here y’all go:
APG-65 specifically has, oddly enough, arguably the best in class narrow scan
CAPTOR-M (EFT):
Utterly atrocious narrow scan patterns. Effectively worthless at what the narrow scan is intended for, which is to be a large vertical scan in short period of time to allow you to find an enemy in elevation whose azimuth you already have (generally using RWR). Due to this, should only be used in this mode when “tracking” a target in TWS (nullifies the poor/terrible update rate of the radar but is borderline just an STT without the lock warning for the enemy)
Average scan volumes
Worst in class volumetric scan rate
Effectively worst in class ability to find new targets (bad vertical coverage + long scan cycles)
Only good scan pattern for searching is 60x8.4deg, the rest are worthless.
Very comparable to N001VEP in values compared on this table (still a better radar though)
Just a bad Gripen radar
P-track would help the radar substantially in situational awareness and multi-target tracking
V004 (Su-34):
Generally the best volumetric scan rate
Second best update rate
Second best scan volume
Objectively the second best top tier radar in-game, but the RBE2-AA still blows it out of the water.
Very solid radar on a very poor platform
N011M (Su-30SM):
SUPER weird radar
Worst in class vertical coverage
Best in class update rate
Relatively average scan volume
Radar scans faster the more it volume it scans???
Requires a lot of fiddling to get the most out of it, but high potential
Should never really use anything but wide scan due to how this radar works
Radar is either massively overperforming in ESA area (currently ~11200 deg^2 in-game instead of 5500 deg^2 according to dev) or massively underperforming in scan volume (600 deg^2 in-game vs 5500 deg^2 according to bug reporters initial interpretation of sources) @sudo_su1Community Bug Reporting System
RBE2-AA (Rafale):
Best in class scan volume (and its not even close)
Very high scan volume + second/third best volumetric scan rate + third best update rate makes it near impossible to hide from the Rafale if it wants to find you
Best air radar in-game, no contest
Type 1473 (J-10A):
Surprisingly capable radar
Decent scan patterns
Decent scan volume
Good scan rate
Probably the best airborne radar China has access to atm
Not shown in graph but has disgustingly good ±85deg gimbal limits (tied for best in-game with MiG-29SMT and YaK-141)
Type 1493 (J-11B):
Copy paste of APG-70 for the data compared on this graph, super lazy on gaijins end.
PS-05/A Raven (Gripen):
Effectively just a CAPTOR-M with better scan volumes
Considering current WT maps and weapons, its just a straight up better CAPTOR-M
Feel free to lemme know your thoughts and agree/disagree with my conclusions.
P.S: I didnt include any notes on the N001VEP cuz its just the worst “top tier” radar. Its not really worth discussing imo, everyone knows its bad, I included it to show how close the CAPTOR-M is to it in some ways.
My experience:
Isn’t type 1473 just a copy paste Zhuk radar with less range? Not surprising it’s good.
V004 is such a good radar, shame it’s not on a fighter
N011M IMO is better than the rafale due to the update rate, Rafale’s vertical scans are too big which means it takes very long to find a target compared to say the n011m if you already know the general direction where they’re coming from.
Wish they kept captor M as a copy paste gripen radar, would be better in vertical coverage while still having the same scan rate.
APG series of radars are just good at everything, they don’t excel at anything but not bad at anything either.
In terms of radars (IRL) being able to track targets outside the current search volume or assign higher priority to some tracks, it’s not unique to ESA nor to CAPTOR; Even APG-66/68 which are quite basic as far as modern mech scan radars go can do it …
I don’t want to disrespect the work of the devs, but this same issue was fixed on the Su-30 very quickly during, I think, the 2nd day of Hornet Sting’s dev server.
Just wondering if we can finally get this as well.
Nope, Gripen radar has better scan volumes than the EFT’s. A decent amount better actually. The EFT has better range, but its irrelevant considering the maps and weapons. The tighter beam on the EFT might help it in some scenarios as well, but I dont think its to the point its noticeable.
Afaik, most if not all ppl who’ve used both have said the Gripens feels much better. I cant comment though since i dont have the Gripen myself.
Well from my experience I can say I can find target better than Faster than CAPTOR-M
I feel more comfortable using Raven than CAPTOR-M in any mode like 20 percent more comfortable than CAPTOR-M
first, I thought maybe because I’m playing with Gripen lot more times than EFT
but after I saw your table, I don’t think it a case anymore.
I don’t think an AESA on the Typhoon would make it better than the Rafale, BVR is still not the meta (as every match ends up in mid or close range furballs), so I’d argue that a Rafale with its micas would still be dominant.
