Testing results & observations

[StuB]

I have been doing a lot of single player testing with FSCAI over the past month and FSCAI has been working pretty well for me so far.
I have an FSX@War theater I'm working on that has about 140 active AAA sites so far (using mostly ZU-23's with a few KS-12, S-60's and ZPU-2's mixed in as well).


One thing I like....and I don't know if it's intentional or not... is that when you fly by some of the gun positions,  they don't necessarily fire at you, even though they are tracking you. Then, when you fly past them again they open up and all hell breaks loose. From what I have learned, this was actually a tactic used by the more experienced gun crews in Laos.
 The Tchepone area is especially brutal now....as it was in reality.

Graphically, there are three things hope will be improved upon though.

1. the tracer effect needs to be improved.
2. The "vapor trails" made by the rounds need to be toned down.
3. the gun positions need to emit smoke when they are firing that lasts for a minute or so.


My father flew 2 SEA combat tours and he says that during day missions escorting Ranch Hand C-123's they would see tracers rise up from the jungle towards the spray planes and by the time he rolled in on the area, the firing usually had stopped..... but they could still see the smoke wafting up from the jungle canopy.

During night missions escorting gunships and flareships along the Ho Chi Minh trail, they would see "flaming golf balls" floating up from the jungle and if the firing stopped he would just have to guess where to drop his ordinance.

Operationally, I think things are working pretty well. That being said, I would like to be able to increase the accuracy beyond the current difficulty level of 4....maybe have it go up to 5 or 6? (jeez, I think I'm having a Spinal Tap moment.... "why not just make 10 louder" ).

I'll be trying to test in multi-player next week, so I'll post the results of that here too.

Stu

[StuB]

One additional thing.....or two...

Regarding the FSCAI window....is there a way it can be expanded so that it shows more entries without needing to scroll?
During testing, I sometimes can't see which gun is shooting at me and I can't scroll because I'm busy flying.
if i try to drag a corner to expand the window it doesn't expand the information pane. 

Also, how are the various buttons supposed to function (i.e. connect, pause, active, vehicles, weapons, exit)?
The Connect button is obvious.....after I start P3Dv3 and FSX@War I hit the connect button and about 10 seconds or so later I see the vehicle list populate.
The Pause button is also obvious and it pauses and un-pause the gun site activities.
The Active button does not appear to do anything.
The Vehicle and Weapons buttons both remain greyed out.
The Exit button appears to be active but doesn't seem to do anything when I click it. 

Stu

[Dutch Owen]

Hi Stu,

Thanks for your observations. As you know FSCAI is a work in progress and there's still much to be done and your input is super welcome.

The way the guns crews react is carefully thought out to be as realistic as possible. What you're seeing in them letting you pass then opening up is a side effect of the 'reaction time' variables working. If you're targeting the guns themselves this will work in your favor. I like to start up high in a jet, above 20,000 then swoop down on them out of the clouds or with the sun at my back - all things that slow reaction time and degrade visual aim. I then loose a salvo or spread of 750 pounders (from the F-100D which is my favorite era appropriate jet - I haven't learned to love the F-4 yet and I long for a good F-105) then zoom back up before they get a bead on me. I know if I go in again they'll not only be ready but mad (those I didn't hit) so I rarely make two passes on one target in one mission. If I have any ordinance left I go to a secondary.

Yeah, the FSX@War Tchepone is loaded with baddies, like the real one was. Scary place. In the FSCaptain missions we add a few more guns, but we also place some undefended truck parks and supply dumps hidden up and down the road away from any guns. Low hanging fruit - if you can find it. I think FSX@War has some of those too.

I agree about the graphics and effects, the tracers are something I cobbled together a couple of years ago. They need a re-work now that I have more knowledge - probably an invisible tiny object with an effect attached rather than the long spear object I came up with back then. I would like to see different colored tracers used with the different types of guns too. The annoying 'contrails' are added by the sim on its own and if I knew how to tell it not to put them there I would - needs more research.

I would love to implement night missions with working flares! That's definitely on the list to figure out how to do. Likely not in FSX but V4 with its dynamic lighting would work well I think.

Agreed about the smoke effect too. And that needs to be done whenever a larger gun fires even artillery. I'm not happy with the muzzle flash effect either. It's hardly visible unless you are close.

Multiplayer still definitely needs work. I have had reports of it working "flawlessly" to others where it seems only hosts can be damaged not guests.

The user interface will be overhauled here in good time.

Dutch

[Dutch Owen]

Here's a question for you, Stu, or anyone to answer.

Even though I have read dozens of USAF studies and some books about it, I'm still perplexed as to how those little slow Cessna O-1s the FACs flew in could survive any mission at all. The FSCAI gunners will take them down just about every time, and quickly. Yet in the real world even though they did suffer serious losses they were able to do their work with "acceptable" loss rates. (Acceptable to higher command I'm not sure the pilots would've agreed!) With FSCAI they can't stay up long enough to direct any strikes.

How did that happen, in reality? Were the gunners just reluctant to shoot at FACs knowing that if they missed the FAC would know where they were and put bombs on them?

I need to figure this out because now that gunners will target AI they are taking out my airborne FACs at an alarming rate.

Dutch

[StuB]

With the exception of the "fast FAC's", who were flying F-100's and F-4's, the FAC pilots  flew "down in the weeds", very close to the ground and so they were able to use the terrain to mask their approaches and exit. They aircraft were very maneuverable and the pilots would be constantly changing their flight paths to make it harder to hit them.
Also, the gunners knew that the FAC's were going to call in attack aircraft once they found a target, so they would hold their fire and wait for the fighters to show up, since they were a more valuable target.

I'm sure it's much more complicated than I imagine, but I think if you were to assign a target value based on each airplane type, perhaps the more experienced/disciplined gunners could let the FAC's pass by and only fire on them after a certain number of passes within a certain length of time within a certain range.

So, for example, say a O-1D bird Dog has a value of 10 and a F-4B has a value of 80.
An aircraft with a value of 10 has to make 3 passes within 5 minutes and within 50% of maximum range of an "expert" gunner before it gets fired upon.
An aircraft with a value of 80 has to make 1 pass within 1 minute and within 80% of maximum range of an "expert" gunner before before it gets fired upon.

Stu 

Nov 25, 2017 18:13:49 GMT -5 Dutch Owen said:

Here's a question for you, Stu, or anyone to answer.

Even though I have read dozens of USAF studies and some books about it, I'm still perplexed as to how those little slow Cessna O-1s the FACs flew in could survive any mission at all. The FSCAI gunners will take them down just about every time, and quickly. Yet in the real world even though they did suffer serious losses they were able to do their work with "acceptable" loss rates. (Acceptable to higher command I'm not sure the pilots would've agreed!) With FSCAI they can't stay up long enough to direct any strikes.

How did that happen, in reality? Were the gunners just reluctant to shoot at FACs knowing that if they missed the FAC would know where they were and put bombs on them?

I need to figure this out because now that gunners will target AI they are taking out my airborne FACs at an alarming rate.

Dutch

[xpel]

The FAC's, spawn 'em close to gunners so that they're considered friendly maybe ?...

The wake_fx of tracers, can't be altered with an "invisible" effect for FS to use instead ?... Though for
places with high air moisture (like Pacific or even 'nam) this can be realistic...

[Dutch Owen]

Sound issues in the 0.8.37 version have been fixed and a re-download and re-install of the standalone version will restore sounds.

fscaptain.proboards.com/thread/3218/get-latest-version-fscai

The current version is 0.8.39 and fixes and couple of other minor issues, details in the README. Including the contrails are gone from the tracers.

Dutch

[xpel]

latest FSCAI standalone release, feels less "stable" than previous.
I haven't tested extensively for sure, but when I first enable FSCAI,
ground explosions occur, while simobjects are so far away that "shells"
couldn't be able to reach me dew to distance (and landscape also).

I also believe that shell contrails still exist (my Laos LS20A video was shot
with latest version).

More testing during the weekend...

[Dutch Owen]

The current version is now 0.8.44.

The new version should be very noticeable with the new tracers that look very different. I had "contrails" consistently following my old-style tracers in version 0.37, but with 0.44 (be sure it says 0.8.44 in the header) they are completely gone. That was a change to the aircraft.cfg that defines them.

I'll test this to see. If this persists, especially the explosions on the ground you are seeing when you start, we'll need to try and reproduce your setup.

Dutch

[StuB]

Version 0.8.44 is definitely an improvement. 
It seems like it is not picking up guns that are as far away as before. I think this is a big help. Frame rates seemed to stay in the 20~30 FPS range for the most part.

In this latest test, within a period of two and a half minutes, I made three passes over the village of Ban Phanop (Site of the "Boxer 21" SAR mission, just south of the Mu Gia Pass).

The first pass was uneventful. The second pass was a little more exciting. The third pass very quickly ended with me being shot down.

Settings were:

DIFFICULTY=2
RESUPPLY=20
FriendlyIP=5
KillBubble=15

Here is a 2 1/2 minute video of the test: drive.google.com/file/d/1GGo7RKcmk2--Y6BnOwGcBIUn_ZaAfwJ7/view?usp=sharing

Here is a screenshot of the FSCAI and FSX@War screens right after I was shot down:
(don't mind the patrol boat icon.....it's just the last icon I had clicked on previously)

[xpel]

Nice Stub... AA got you well... I see the red & green tracers in video, but
can't see'em on my system... I hear'em fly passing me, I see action in the log,
but no visuals for me from inside cockpit (as also outside).
I tested day and dawn but very hard to see (if there...). Flaks ok. And also, I stll don't get
sound when my plane is hit (and was hit several times by flak - minor damage).

Personally, I think I prefer the contrail effect. More dramatic, easier for my awareness and
easier to track the direction of the source that shoots them...

FSX, 32bit, Standalone FSCAI.

[StuB]

Well, I do notice that you are using FSX where I am using P3Dv3....so maybe that is making the difference?

I still have FSXA installed, so I'll try to install FSCAI into it and run a test to see if I get the same result as you.

I do notice sounds of the airplane getting hit, but they are not very loud. Also, because the sounds are not "stereoscopic", it's not possible to get a sense of where the hit occurred (i.e. tail, nose, left or right side, etc...). This, combined with the airplanes not having any damage modeling, makes it hard to figure out what is wrong with your airplane after it's been hit.
Really, the only thing you can go by....if your airplane has them... are the warning panel lights.
If you are in an airplane that has no indicatore, you'd have to go my what you hear, feel and see....which are mostly missing from FSX.

In the case of major damage, like anything related to missing control surfaces, I think it would be beneficial if a message popped up letting you know generally where your airplane was damaged...maybe in the form of flashing red text in the left or right corner of the screen.

Dec 4, 2017 7:46:06 GMT -5 xpel said:

Nice Stub... AA got you well... I see the red & green tracers in video, but
can't see'em on my system... I hear'em fly passing me, I see action in the log,
but no visuals for me from inside cockpit (as also outside).
I tested day and dawn but very hard to see (if there...). Flaks ok. And also, I stll don't get
sound when my plane is hit (and was hit several times by flak - minor damage).

Personally, I think I prefer the contrail effect. More dramatic, easier for my awareness and
easier to track the direction of the source that shoots them...

FSX, 32bit, Standalone FSCAI.