An RWR Experiment

[+eburger68]

Folks:

 

It was the perfect mission -- or should have been. I was doing some testing with the SF2V Expansion Pack, and the campaign mission generator gave my F-4Ds the task of escorting eight F-105Ds on a strike against the Hanoi rail yards in June 1967 -- a very typical mission for that stage of the war.

 

What should have been a fun and challenging mission, though, turned into sheer frustration as the F-105D strike package starting breaking down after individual AI pilots left formation to engage individual ground radars that had painted them. In short, those F-105Ds never made it to the target. Instead, I was treated to a gaggle of Thuds spread all over the Hanoi area prosecuting their own private wars against offending radars. Even a few of my own wingmen tried the same stunt, only to return to formation after being repeatedly ordered to do so.

 

After that mission, I decided I'd had enough. I've complained about this ridiculous AI behavior before on the 3W forums and even threatened to rip the RWR out of all friendly aircraft. This time I finally did it. I thought I'd share what I found after setting the HasRWR= statement to FALSE in the DATA.INI for every friendly aircraft in my SF2V install that was previously set to TRUE.

 

1. That obnoxious AI behavior stopped completely -- as expected. Wingmen behaved and kept formation right into downtown Hanoi. AI strike flights got to their targets and hit what they were supposed to. Amazing stuff, really. I hadn't seen this type of AI behavior since flying WOV patched to the 2006 or 2008 patch levels.

 

2. AI aircraft tasked with SEAD missions still attacked enemy radars with AGM-45s and AGM-78s and did so successfully. This was a bit surprising, but it appears the game code doesn't require aircraft to have HasRWR=TRUE in order to use ARMs.

 

3. AI aircraft still took steps to avoid SAMs when they could. Having the RWR turned off had no effect on their SAM avoidance behavior.

 

4. SAM launches were still called out, allowing me to recognize threats to my own flight.

 

5. The RWR warning tones for my aircraft still worked. I'd noticed this bug before. It would appear that as long as an aircraft's AVIONICS.INI has the proper RWR statements included, the game will still provide the expected RWR warning sounds even when HasRWR= in the aircraft's DATA.INI is set to FALSE.

 

There was one downside, though: the RWR warning display did not work on my own aircraft, despite the presence of audio warning tones. This wasn't necessarily a huge problem, as SAM launches were still called out. The lack of an RWR display could be a big problem, though, when flying anti-radar missions. With the testing I did I was unable to determine whether the limited RWR that I retained (audio only) was respecting the frequency parameters specified in the aircraft's DATA.INI. I suspect they were not being respected, but I never set up a test to confirm that.

 

So, there it is. The HasRWR= statement in an aircraft's DATA.INI appears to have only two main effects or functions:

 

1. Controlling the cockpit RWR display (on or off)

 

2. Determining whether AI pilots feel compelled to start private wars against ground-based radars.

 

I suspect that for most players the lack of a working RWR display would be a deal-breaker, but with some mod scenarios - esp. ones that have players flying aircraft in heavy SAM-threat environments with aircraft equipped only with audio RWR -- taking RWR away from AI pilots may be an option you want to consider.

 

In any case, I thought someone here might find the results of this little RWR experiment (conducted on the Jul2012 patch level)  interesting.

 

Eric Howes

[Do335]

woh... seen my AI flight members go way off course coz of mud spikes but didn't know strikers would start hunting radars on their own... this is weird and imo borderline a bug.

Edited August 16, 2014 by Do335

[+streakeagle]

If you read Robin Olds' autobiography, you will find that he didn't like RWRs. He said he normally turned his off since it continuously distracted him from what he was trying to do. He already knew he was surrounded by radars lighting him up and didn't want or need a thousand beeps to tell him this. Of course, he was using early variants crammed into F-4Cs that were not nearly as good as later versions. He also was exceptional at maintaining situational awareness. He was sure he could detect SAM threats well enough visually.

[Do335]

does the ol' phantom have a 2nd rwr in the back for the wso?

 

edit: right... remembered he'd turn off the kid in the back too lol

Edited August 16, 2014 by Do335

[macelena]

I never had the issue you are talking about the strike element breaking formation to engage radars, in fact sometimes they will keep flying straight with mig-17s flying among them guns ablaze.

[Stick]

I think this is great for escort missions. 

[Wrench]

yes, it's definitely a bug, and I've definitely experienced it. Must be something scripted into the AI routines

 

Good catch Eric!

Edited August 18, 2014 by Wrench