Radar/IRST automatic switching of tracking modes

Game Discussion General Discussion
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Currently in the game your Radar can switch from a Radar lock to an IRST lock automatically. This causes the following problems.

  • SARH missiles lose their guidance
  • Radar missiles of any kind can’t be launched since they require a radar lock
  • Missiles with datalink guidance lose it since IRST doesn’t prove DL data.

This “feature” has been in the game for almost a year now since it was introduced in “Alpha Strike”. I am aware that this feature exists in real life, however I believe its implementation right now is flawed. I am not a real life plane expert so what I am going to say now are mostly educated guesses.

  • A Su-27 for example wouldn’t turn off its radar illuminator and ruin an R-27ER shot by switching to IRST
  • ARH missiles can be launched without a radar lock
  • ARH missiles can probably be launched in the direction based on IRST lock
  • ARH missiles can probably be slaved to HMS
  • More modern IRST can probably provide DL data

None of these are modeled in game.

Another issue I have with automatic switching is the priority order. As it was listed in the changelog for “Alpha Strike” the order is as follows.

Ignoring IRST for a moment this still make no sense. HPRF (head-on) has a higher range and overall offers a stronger return than MPRF (all-aspect). In situations where it works best it should be used. Pulse technically has the highest range but because of lack of Doppler filtering it makes sense to keep it as a lowest priority fallback.

An order would makes more sense would be:

I will say that I have no idea how this would affect radar performance since it was never tried in game. It would certainly need testing, same as the other change I propose next.

Now for automatic switching to and from IRST. I have 3 ideas on how the system can be improved.


First method:

Disable automatic switching between IRST and Radar. Remove mprfToIrst and similar actions from radars. Make it so that the only way to switch between them is with a “Switch between Radar and IRST” keybind.
This is how it was before “Alpha Strike”

Second method:

Make automatic switching behavior depends on the currently selected weapon. If the selected weapon cannot be guided/fired in IRST don’t switch to it. This means that for IR missiles it would still work as it is right now but for radar missiles it would be as it was before. If/when you make ARH missiles guidable (via DL) with an IRST lock then make switching to IRST permissible.

Third method:

Add a toggle to switch between behaviors described in methods 1 and 2. And to be clear I mean a KEYBIND toggle, not a toggle in the options menu you need 5 seconds to change in the middle of the match. Add a new indicator to the HUD to display in what mode the RADAR/IRST unit is in. “AUTO” and “MANUAL” would be good. Add a dropdown in the options menu or in the loadout screen that selects the default behavior.

Any one of these solutions would be miles better than what we have in game right now.

[Should HPRF have higher priority than MPRF?]
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
[Would you like to see Radar to IRST automatic switching behavior changed ?]
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
[Which method would you like to see implemented?]
  • 1st method
  • 2nd method
  • 3rd method
  • I voted no in the previous poll
0 voters
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Btw I tried posting this a suggestion but it got denied and I am not going to do that again. If anyone wants to try getting this posted as a suggestion they are free to use any or all content of my post.

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