F-14B's Weapon System

[Jetman.]

In the cockpit view, on the joystick's weapon-modes, you will find: Off, GUN, SW (Sidewinder [AIM-9]), and SP-PH (Sparrow [AIM-7] - Phoenix [AIM-54]). I was wondering if someone made an attempt to get the Sparrow and Phoenix to work in the same way the AIM-9 works. (Ignoring the fact that AIM-9 is a heat seeker and the AIM-7 and 54 are semi-active and radar guided, respectively.)

I am not an expert, but I would think one would just have to use the the model of the missile and code it so that the AIM-7 and AIM-54 can fire when the target is many miles away. (AIM-9 is short range, AIM-7 medium, and AIM-54 long range.) And in the multiplayer chat, AIM-7 would be FOX1, AIM-9 FOX2, and AIM-54 FOX3. It doesn't seem like a difficult feat, but I am not a coder/modeler.

Would be cool if those two missiles were implemented into the Weapons System.

P.S. I can't remember if the F-14 had AIM-120s in the Fuel and Payload menu.

[Thorsten]

A Phoenix isn't just a Sidewinder with a different range and callsign - it has a completely different guidance system, a different acceleration, different aerodynamics, is targeted in a different way,...

The maintainer of the F-14b knows these things (and cares for them) and so far no attempt at a realistic modelling of the other missiles has been made - an unrealistic attempt has no real chance of being committed.

[Bomber]

Well I'm sure he said that one was heat seaking and the others radar and semi guiding....

So why not let the maintainer answer ?

As for being committed.... He never asked that question.. and frankly who cares with all the private hangers out there.. all he's asked is has anyone had a go at it ?

Simon

[Thorsten]

Well I'm sure he said that one was heat seaking and the others radar and semi guiding....

He suggested to just change range and callsign - weren't you supposedly after realism?

So why not let the maintainer answer ?

Because he has in a thread a while ago, which is why I know the answer. Also, I think my answer in no way prevents anyone else from commenting as well... but not everyone is frequently around.

As for being committed.... He never asked that question.. and frankly who cares with all the private hangers out there.. all he's asked is has anyone had a go at it ?

If you read carefully, I answered that one as well with a negative.

[Bomber]

Increased realism is something you work towards..

I don't think clouds spin round as its not realistic, but you think its acceptable given the present restrictions... So how about you cut the same about of slack with combat capability ?

Simon.

[Thorsten]

I don't think clouds spin round as its not realistic, but you think its acceptable given the present restrictions... So how about you cut the same about of slack with combat capability ?

Simon, please look up the old thread.

You want to have clouds rendered the 'proper' way? I know how to do that. No problem. But I have the suspicion you want more than two frames per minute (or did you want to do your air combat in slow motion? I didn't think so...). It's clear that you don't have a clue what you're talking about here, so why don't you just... don't talk about rendering?

In other matters - please read what I write: I'm not expressing my own opinion, I am relaying the answer given by the F-14b maintainer in a different thread. So your jibes against my work are completely pointless here, it's not my opinion that matters.

[Jetman.]

FlightGear is not a combat simulator. Thus, I would not mind if there were shortcuts in the weapon-system. Though the AIM 7 and AIM 54 use radar, they could be modeled/coded exactly as the AIM 9, the only difference is range and callsign. Missile aerodynamics in my opinion, is not that important in FlightGear---perhaps something to be worked to in the long, long run.

[Hooray]

I am not an expert, but I would think one would just have to use the the model of the missile and code it so that the AIM-7 and AIM-54 can fire when the target is many miles away.

xiii is the developer of the F14b's fox2 implementation, the original thread was: Subject: Missiles with seeking capabilities.

To find related threads, see:
search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=fox2.nas

Subject: Custom dialog, nasal console etc. to fire a missile?

Hi neyim123

You can check $FGDATA/Aircraft/f-14b/Nasal/fox2.nas (in Git) which models a tiny part of a complex weapons system.
- It checks for available weapons with respect of the pylon position.
- checks for missile readiness (all switchs on right position and time to temperature of the IR seeker).
- activates one missile search function.
- search for a possible target.
- locks on the target and check if any lock out condition. Calculate HUD symbology (diamond displayed over the target position in the HUD)
- checks for fire order
- calculates exact position/orientation/velocity when fire order so we can spawn a new AI object in the proper place.
- releases the missile and guides it with a crude FDM
- if available activates a new searching missile and drives both fired and searching objects (we can guide several fired missile (flying and tracking) and have an additional one in searching state (on its pylon and searching or tracking). Each object can have its own target.
- checks for (near) impact or lock out condition
- if impact, creates the properties used by bombable.nas so the target is actually damaged, and some other properties for the explosion graphical animation. Also it displays the distance from the target on the player screen when the missile explode.
There is a menu item in "Tomcat Controls" with a switch which allows those informations to be displayed as messages over MP.

The script works with Git version. If you are interested in how the impact handled on the target side, you'll have to checkout a modified version of bombable.nas available here
The weapons system manual is available on the wiki

Sorry, it's all but a simple script but if it can help...

Alexis

If you are interested in doing related work, see the full discussion at:

Subject: Is there interest in a Nasal introduction?

I am certainly interested in learning nasal. I know a bit of nasal, enough where I've made a livery select menu and a weapons reload nasal. What I'm really interested in, is nasal controlled ai objects, something that seems to be increasing in popularity. I'd like to use nasal to construct working Aim-54 Phoenix's and Aim-7 Sparrow Air-to-Air missiles, and maybe one day, AI anti aircraft...this would consist of nasal controlled SAM or FLAK batteries that would fire at aircraft within a certain range and field of view. A better understanding of nasal could definitely help my development and efficiency.

Well, we already talked about this in the "AI guided missiles" thread a couple of weks ago: Basically, xiii has illustrated that this is perfectly possible, and there are plans in place to generalize the existing code to turn it into a reusable Nasal module for the $FG_ROOT/Nasal directory eventually, so that all users can easily create new AI objects that can be controlled from Nasal, just by subclassing an existing Nasal class: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7791&start=45#p84834

This will all depend on solid background knowledge of Nasal, and the AI system (its properties) however - so the best thing you can do right now, is reading more about Nasal to see how it works. Even if the approach had already been fully documented, and if the module would be available right now - you would still need to know Nasal.

[Jetman.]

Thanks for the information, Hooray. That is something worth looking into.

[Bomber]

Here we go again with the.....

'you don't know what you're talking about'

What I'm talking about is you being a hypocrite when it comes to unrealistic clouds being acceptable but unrealistic weapons not.

This is a systems thread in a systems forum... There are basically 2 forums I've taken an interest in, this one and the FDM.. My suggestion as you don't do either of these two things is to go back to your weather forum and leave those that wish to explore the possibilities of these two disciplines to do so without being dictated too as to what will and won't be acceptable....

Another suggestion would be to let people answer for themselves. Even if it's the same opinion, I'd rather hear it from the organ grinder and not the monkey.

Simon.

[Gijs]

Guys, altough we're dealing with weapons here, let's try to keep/get back to the friendly atmosphere. May I remind you that we have a nice PM function for discussing things with certain individuals.

Thanks!
Gijs

[Bomber]

Gijs, I agree with you up to a point...

When a person or persons are continually telling people who read this forum that I've no idea what I'm talking about or doing, and in the most politest way that I should shut up......

I'm gonna respond.

A development forum requires that people can put forward ideas, brainstorm, consider different anveues of approach......

We're starting to see this working in this and the FDM forum.....

Being told what is and isn't acceptable or will or will not be committed, by someone who doesn't do either of these two disciplines needs to be responded too...

We should be more concerned as to what we can do and not what won't be accepted, and by whome ?

[Hooray]

Being told what is and isn't acceptable or will or will not be committed, by someone who doesn't do either of these two disciplines needs to be responded too...

Sorry Bomber, but that's just plain wrong and extremely short-sighted: Thorsten belongs to a very small of group of people here that would actually be able to create what you are asking for, not just "theoretically", but realistically - exactly due to this other contributions, that are heavily related from a skillset standpoint.
And it is obvious that it would probably take Thorsten much less time to develop such a thing than most of us here, because of his background. Just do a little research and try to be a little more informed - Thorsten even expressed interest in developing such a system:

Subject: Missiles with seeking capabilities

Ah, if I had a bit more time, I would so love to get into this... I had made plans for a SAM with seeking capabilities once, although I never started coding anything.

(do sidewinders always hit directly ??)

As far as I know, they don't. Sidewinders usually carry a blast fragmentary warhead, that's useful for proximity detonation, but not so much for direct hits where you'd rather use a high explosive warhead.

So, there's clearly a reason why Thorsten is partcipating in such discussions - and you'd be well advised not to just disregard his feedback.

[Thorsten]

What I'm talking about is you being a hypocrite when it comes to unrealistic clouds being acceptable but unrealistic weapons not.

For starters, there's a world of difference here. Quite realistic missiles have been demonstrated in FG in terms of the Sidewinder - which means all it takes to do it is research and dedication, there is no conceptual problem.

Detailed volumetric clouds (= what you'd call realistic clouds) on a large scale rendering in real time haven't really been demonstrated in FG or any other Flightsim. To hardware to render that simply doesn't exist.

It's a bit like comparing a car that takes a liter of fuel per 100 km with a superluminal starship. Neither currently exists, but to say because I can't built a superluminal starship I shouldn't urge anyone to build the car is ridiculous. Obviously the challenges are very different. We have the best clouds we can have given what the hardware can deliver, but a Sidewinder with different range and callsign is clearly not the best missile the hardware (or software) can deliver.

As I said, you don't know what you're talking about, otherwise you wouldn't come up with such a funny comparison. To wish for something possible is different from wishing for the impossible.

Being told what is and isn't acceptable or will or will not be committed, by someone who doesn't do either of these two disciplines needs to be responded too...

Look, it's completely meaningless what I do for posting here - what's relevant is what I know. I do know aerodynamics pretty well, and (I would guess quite in contrast to you) I work with computational fluid dynamics codes - so I am entirely qualified to talk about aerodynamics and FDMs - as past discussions have shown, more than you in any case - I don't need to write my own aircraft to prove anything (enough people are doing that anyway) and you may disregard my expertise at your own peril.

I also have a fairly good idea what gets committed and what not - both in general and in the particular case. You don't. Your approach if confronted with inconvenient facts is to shoot the messenger apparently - but that doesn't change the facts.

A development forum requires that people can put forward ideas, brainstorm, consider different anveues of approach......

And it needs reality checks early on. Don't you think the information that X has little chance of ever being committed is something people would want to know early on? Or would you prefer we let people spend half a year with a feature and then tell them it won't ever go to GIT, sorry? You may not want that info, but my answer wasn't given to you...

[Hooray]

So why not let the maintainer answer ?

Because he has in a thread a while ago, which is why I know the answer.

Right on spot: Subject: Missiles with seeking capabilities

Ok, so in theory, the Sidewinder seeking could be implemented with the Sparrow, Phoenix, etc. right? For the Sparrow, you'd just have to change the range to 21nm, and make the seeking cone a little smaller. And for the Phoenix, just make the smoke thicker, the explosion bigger, and so on.

if this were so easy, it wouldn't be fun. In the case of the sidewinder, the real thing use a proportional navigation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proportional_navigation algorythm and the thing you have now in FG does the same. Do you know what trajectory algos use the the Sparrow or the Phoenix ? I don't know yet. There are also differences in the way they get the target, active semi-active and such. Also propulsion, acceleration, speed, boost duration, turn rate may change.

So be patient, in a year or two, we may begin to speak about the sparrow

Another suggestion would be to let people answer for themselves. Even if it's the same opinion, I'd rather hear it from the organ grinder and not the monkey

I don't know if you have actually followed Thorsten's advice and looked up the thread - but personally, I would feel kinda foolish calling Thorsten a "monkey" just because he re-iterated xiii's points, while at the same time noticing how xiii used the term "monkey", in a rather humbling fashion:

Subject: Missiles with seeking capabilities

Alexis, you are a GOD!

Well, that's kind of you, but you might have exaggerated a bit. I'd rather describe myself as a wise monkey... although I also match the grumpy crow status.
Alexis