I like to use this well known spreadsheet to compare missile performance.
However, I don’t know what some rows of variables mean and how they influence the ingame missile behavior. I tried looking for a guide everywhere but unfortunately I was unable to find anything of the sort. If someone could at least point me in the right direction, I would greatly appreciate it.
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Which type of missiles are you trying to compare? Or do you just want to know about all of them?
Which values specifically are you curious around?
Not comparing any missiles in particular. I just wanted to better understand the variables that influence the missile behavior however insignificant they might be.
There is quite a few I want to clarify :
Engine Properties
Fuze and Warhead Properties
Guidance properties
Orienting properties
Flight characteristics
It’s a lot of variables hence why I was originally hoping to find something similar to a guide or a glossary like in this spreadsheet. I don’t expect anyone to do research on this for me, but rather point me into the right direction where I might learn more. Most of these missile mechanics are very obscure and so it’s hard to find any concrete information on how any of this works ingame.
I’d like to add that I’m not a plane guy and did not express much interest in military aviation before playing ARB hence why I am unfamiliar with most of the terms that might appear obvious to some.
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Engine Properties
Raw acceleration at ignition: [m/s²]
yes, only at the time of ignition, it increases afterwards as the remaining fuel mass decreases.
Specific impulse of booster/sustainer: [s]
How efficient the engine is, ie how much thrust it provides relative to its mass. The exact thing it factors is a bit complex but thats it simplified down.
Warhead
Proximity fuze delay: [s]
Safety arming time, ie, how long after launching the missile before the fuze becomes active. Before this time the missile will only detonate on direct hits.
Guidence properties
Seeker warm up time: [s]
correct
Seeker search duration: [s]
correct
Track rate: [degrees/second]
correct
Maximum lock angle before launch: [degrees]
Correct, although note that while the displayed zone is circular, it’s actually an (angle x angle) square, so by rotating yourself 45 degrees you can actually lock outside of the circle by a decent margin.
Maximum break lock time: [s]
Correct
Baseline flare detection range: [km]
This goes into a whole formula for calculating IRCCM, with a higher value of this relative to other lock types determining what the missile will go for. But yes this does also represent a baseline value for which the missile can “see” flares.
Baseline IRCM detection range: [km]
Baseline DIRCM detection range: [km]
Both likewise to the above, although how they handle what happens when they “see” an object is different.
IRCCM rejection treshold:
How hot a flare has to be before tracking suspension activates. Flares have something called rise time, where basically they get hotter over the course of around a second after launch.
IRCCM reaction time: [s]
Basically the blink time for tracking suspension, so after it activates the seeker will stay off for this amount of time, before checking again to see if tracking suspension needs to stay on or off.
Angular speed rejection threshold:
The missile filters out targets with an angular momentum difference of this amount or greater. Fun little known fact, this does mean you can literally pull at this amount or higher and the seeker will reject you as a target. Its only viable on a few planes like the EF2K or F-2 though, and only at mid speeds.
Acceleration rejection threshold range: [m/s^2]
Same as above, but for acceleration, basically helps to make it so that the radar wont lock onto a fired missile if it already has a lock on a plane. PD seekers have other ways to do so.
Inertial guidance drift speed: [m/s]
When in inertial guidance, the target point will drift according to this rate in a random direction away from the current inertial guidance target.
Sidelobe attenuation
Relative energy dispersion of the sidelobe. Don’t worry about this. Effects stuff like RWR pings,
Transmitter power:
Effects lock range, particularly as doppler energy is lowered (target has lower closure rate), although its non-linear, so don’t bother regarding it as anything more then bigger is better.
Transmitter angle of half sensitivity:
Basically just imagine this as the FoV of the transmitting antenna.
Transmitter sidelobe sensitivity:
Basically just effects how far out the missile will trigger RWRs. Also effects things such as the angle at which the ground will come into the FoV of doppler filters. And a few other clutter related things.
Receiver angle of half sensitivity:
More or less just the primary FoV of the receiving antenna.
Receiver angle of half sensitivity:
Like the transmitter sidelobe sensitivity, but doesn’t effect RWR pings for obvious reasons.
Distance minimum value:
Hard minimum range at which the seeker will lock a target.
Distance maximum value:
Hard maximum range at which the seeker will lock a target.
Distance width:
Do not worry about this. The really short of what it does is act as a range for the seeker to assume the target is within around the target’s actual location. But all missiles use the same value
Distance minimum signal gate:
The minimum distance apart objects must be from each other for the missile to differentiate them.
Distance refWidth:
The missile searches within this distance of the target.
Distance gate alpha filter:
Distance gate beta filter:
Filters that go into the distance filter, honestly dunno what they compare off the top of my head.
Doppler speed width: [m/s]
Doppler speed ref width: [m/s]
Doppler speed minimum signal gate: [m/s]
Doppler speed gate search range: [m/s]
Doppler speed gate alpha filter:
Doppler speed gate beta filter:
The same as their distance based counterparts, but instead comparing detection’s velocity.
Proportional navigation multiplier:
Navigational lead gain, basically affects how the PID logic tries to lead the target. 4 is a near ideal value used by modern missiles for very reliable results. A value of 1 would result in a tail chase algorithm, think how ace combat missiles behave.
Base indicated air speed: [m/s]
This can be ignored. Has to do with certain timetables not included in the chart, but basically helps the game to know when to expect the missile to hit.
Orienting properties
Orienting phase:
Some SAM missiles (usually vertically launched ones), have something called an orienting phase, this is a period where instead of operating under normal control laws, they instead aggressively try to immediately orient themselves to lead the target. This is often done by TVC, or by side thrusters which specifically exist for this purpose.
Orienting start delay: [s]
How long after launch before the orienting phase controls become active.
Orienting control time: [s]
For how long the orienting phase is active.
Orienting elevation addition: [m]
Basically makes sure that the missiles goes up atleast that amount before the orienting phase fully takes over, to prevent missiles from falling back down and hitting the ground.
Flight characteristics
Maximum launch angle (horizontally / vertically): [degrees]
More or less just maximum lock angle for launch, except sometimes isn’t a square. In game its specifically used for air to ground weapons, however internally it is actually technically fully interchangeable with maximum lock angle for (almost) all seeker types.
Maximum fin angle of attack: [degrees]
This is how far the fins on the missile can deflect from their standard position. (Note, missiles kind of only have 1 fin).
Maximum fin lateral acceleration:
The maximum rate in degrees / sec for the change of the deflection of the missile’s fins.
Wing area multiplier:
Relative size of the fins to the missile’s overall size against some arbitrary constant.
Start speed: [m/s]
Basically missile guidance wouldn’t actually work from true zero velocity launches, so all missiles are given a little nudge to make sure the guidance works.
Maximum speed: [m/s]
Yeah this is a hard speed cap, although its not really that important as theres not a single missile in the game that can reach theirs.
Minimum range: [m]
Yeah mostly just to stop the missile from hitting what was launching it.
Flight range limit: [km]
Yep, hard limit, its more so a thing for unguided weapons, as seeker timeouts will basically always self destruct guided weapons before reaching this range.
Flight time when pull limit reaches x%: [s/%]
Basically, how long after launch a specific multiplier to the missile’s PID maneuver output is applied. Assume 1.0 to be full proper guidance and 0.0 to be no guidance, although values above 1.0 and below 0 are technically supported. Linear transition between the values based on exact time.
ETA to impact when prop multiplier reaches x%: [s / %]
Basically, the game predicts how long until the missile hits the targets using a set of timetables unique to each missile, but not included here. And it uses this value for proportional gain, to effect how hard the missile pulls / how much it tries to lead the target.
Target elevation:
Basically, on lofting missiles, the missile will try to position itself so the missile is this degree in elevation above the target.
Maximum target angular change: [degrees/s]
Basically, the maximum rate at which the missile will try to change its loft profile in order to stay in accordance with target elevation and loft angle.
Its okay, even most diehard ARB players or miltech enthusiast don’t know most of these values, because gaijin’s naming of some of them is a bit peculiar, and most of them are very niche technical things.
P.S.
Sorry for the late reply, for some reason this didn’t show up in my notifications.
I would’ve replied if only I knew what it all meant in exactitude. Better to not spread misinformation and keep it to myself. 😅
I cannot express how thankful I am for your response. Your reply really cleared up most of my questions.
Do you happen to know how a proximity fuze works exactly? It doesn’t explode as soon as it enters the proximity fuze range so there must be a condition that sets off the fuze.
This doesn’t seem right to me but I could be wrong. Looking at the table, some missiles have this value set to either way too low or straight up zero. For example: 0,02s for AIM-9M and 0s for AAM-3. This is too low for a missile to “blink”. Could it be a delay between the time the missile sees a flare and the seeker shut off is engaged?
This is extremely cool. I had no idea such a condition even existed. I just assumed that as long as the SARH/ARH receiver didn’t filter you out as clutter, it would always see you.
It might be a bit of a silly question but I really gotta ask: how do you know so much? The game hides this info from the player and it’s really tough to find anything online on it’s mechanics. It’s a real pain if you want to learn how the game actually works.
That’s a cool resource/table there!
I also keep wondering especially about guided bombs flight characteristics, and the table gives some indication about the differences - but sadly lacking how the variables are used still makes it impossible to calculate range depending on dropping altitude, initial speed and vertical angle… = /
You can put guided bombs into statshark.net as a custom weapon. Although it is a bit finnicky, and not 100% accurate.
It basically does.
That’s part of it, its both how long it takes to activate once a flare enters FoV and how long to shutoff once it leaves, hence me saying it’s the blink time.
It basically is forcing the missile to filter you out as clutter.
I mess around with the CDK making custom weapons and such for user missions. Also I just have lots of background knowledge.
Very interesting idea!
But…
Tried it out a bit with AGM-62A and 62A ER, but come to counter intuitive results, with the ER version actually falling shorter than the other one.
I don’t see where for example wing area would play in, so I’m afraid that model isn’t working very well at all for dropped ordonnance…
Most of the variables are self-explanatory, but a large portion are significantly harder to understand and visualize. For example, PID controller terms, which can be generally understood with a little studying, but I bet you would have to know the specific implementation in the code to get it down to an exact replica. However, these values can be understood in relation to each other, that is, relative low/high values compared to other missiles. Most of the radar-related variables are also significantly harder to understand, at least for people without background knowledge.
For that reason, I recommend review of game replays in free camera with Sensor Mode enabled if you want a general feeling as to a specific missile’s performance. Using both the datamined variables and testing is pretty comprehensive combination for information.
Ah, disregard: I actually was confused about the ER designation, wrongly assuming this means extended range of the weapon, when it’s actually referring to the extended range of the datalink (which isn’t modelled in WT anyway.
The variant with actually extended weapons range is of course the AGM-62B…
Hmmm, I mean, shouldn’t it? I’m looking at the stats for it and they definitely are saying it should be shorter range.
What would give the ER more range?
Ah, kay, yeah, so is it working out fine then?
Well, finnicky as you said, but with some experimentation maybe can be base for something useful… = )
A very first experiment, using the Walleye I as example:
So for example if I’m 2000m above the target, and fly 900 km/h, I should drop the weapon at max about 9.5km from the target (horizontal distance)…
Would you guys interpret it similarly?
…but it’s really strange: This is now with angle zero. According to Statshark the Walleye gets slower and slower while falling, which makes no sense.
And if you put in a slight dive angle on release, e.g. -10°, the weapon speeds up while dropping.
Walley is what, MCLOS? PID values for MCLOS will bleed a ton of speed from AoA trying to align to a target. Itll probably be more accurate on othet guidance types.
I have actually configured it without guidance. I assume it thus tries to keep the initial angle and thus angle of attack, which breaks the weapon during it’s drop.
Will have to experiment further, hehe!
What is a problem then is that I would need the distance to the target, which is actually the unknown I try to determine… = /
