Currently, the radar multipath effect in War Thunder appears to be overstated, leading to unrealistic behavior and negatively impacting gameplay balance between aircraft and AA/SAM systems, especially at high BRs.
Expected behavior (realism)
In real-world conditions:
Multipath degrades tracking quality, but does not make aircraft invisible
Modern radars with:
Pulse-Doppler
Look-down / shoot-down
Advanced clutter filtering
are still able to maintain target tracking, albeit with reduced accuracy
The effect strongly depends on:
altitude
terrain type
radar frequency band
radar mode (TWS, STT)
Current in-game behavior
In War Thunder, the following issues are frequently observed:
Aircraft flying at ~10–30 meters above ground become nearly immune to radar tracking
SARH and ARH missiles:
lose lock without evasive maneuvers
miss targets flying straight and level
Modern SAM systems (e.g. Pantsir, Buk, Tor, Samp/T) lose effectiveness even at short to medium ranges
Flying extremely low has become a dominant, low-risk tactic
Gameplay issues
Balance problems at high BR
Encouragement of unrealistic tactics:
low-altitude rushing
suicide base attacks
Reduced tactical value of:
radar systems
SAM platforms
radar-guided missiles
The mechanic shifts from a realistic countermeasure to a gameplay exploit
Suggestions for improvement
Possible adjustments that could improve both realism and balance:
Reduce multipath strength below ~20 m altitude
Differentiate multipath effects based on:
flat terrain
urban environments
water surfaces
Provide clear advantages to:
Pulse-Doppler radars
Look-down capable modes
Scale multipath effects according to:
radar frequency band
tracking mode (TWS vs STT)
Make radar lock degradation gradual instead of instant
Conclusion
Multipath is an important and valid mechanic, but in its current state it is overperforming.
This negatively affects both realism and gameplay balance, particularly at top-tier battles.
A more refined implementation would make AA vs aircraft combat:
more technical
more fair
and better aligned with War Thunder’s simulation goals
immune is a very strong word it has little to no effect on missiles coming from more than like 60 degrees above you
yes, intentionally so, because this is a game and without multipathing it would be BVR only (because half the air rb maps are flat (smolensk, denmark, moscow) and BVR is miserable to fight and boring to play
if every map has terrain on the level of pyrenees or afghanistan then it could be changed to realistic levels but every map being like that is just as unrealistic
warthunders goal isnt to be a simulation, its to be a game with accurate depictions of real life weapons and vehicles, if you want a simulator go play DCS
This “go play DCS” argument makes no sense.
Multipath is not a simulator feature, it’s basic radar physics.
If the game uses real-world radars, they should behave like real-world radars. Simple as that.
I get your point, and I agree that counterplay is necessary at top tier.
The issue isn’t the existence of multipath, but how it’s currently implemented.
At the moment it behaves like a binary switch that consistently defeats radar guidance just by flying low, regardless of geometry, closure rate, or radar type.
In reality, multipath is highly situational and depends on multiple factors.
A more accurate implementation would still allow low-altitude tactics, but without turning them into a universal hard counter.
To be fair, DCS isn’t exactly outstanding in its vehicle modeling either.
Most modules from third party, just like Heatblur are probably the most accurate, but modules produced by ED (especially FC3), with the exception of the FF MiG-29A, often deviate significantly from real life.
It’s ridiculous that the F-15C doesn’t have a DL but, good thing is we are getting FF F-15C.
it’s very unbalanced and so much stress no matter what i do the amount air to air missiles to deal with it’s a lot and very hard to deal with.
top tier jets needs to get there defense systems to help deal with with air to air missiles this will fix part of the issue.
Even if ECM is modeled, the situation is unlikely to change significantly.
While it is possible to reduce the range of ARH missiles performing lofted maneuvers by making it harder to accurately gauge distance to the target, ECM disrupts signals indiscriminately, affecting both friend and foe. Considering the average skill level of current WT ARB players, this would likely end up hindering teammates instead.
No. You should be banned for spamming the forum. I have no idea what points you would be trying to make since you didn’t and I certainly don’t care about what clanker who never played WT hallucinated.
I’m not spamming. I’m discussing a specific game mechanic. If you disagree, feel free to explain why instead of attacking me personally. Let’s keep it on the topic of multipath.
No? Its in fact quite the opposite of a switch, the lower the go the stronger it is
Basic radar feature that would have to be suggested as a feature to devs because it currently isnt in game and as i said leads to much more boring gameplay
They do, what harms does one exception really do, just dont shoot radar missiles at people in multipath range tbh
So fun fact, due to how lofting works in warthunder (angular difference), missiles could still loft in home on jam mode without any real difference. Although yeah it would be more realistic for an inability to loft due to such circumstances.
