DCS 2.7.1 New Flare Type Analysis, How effective are they?

A close look at the new smaller flare type and it's chances to defeat missiles, added to DCS for the Hornet in the recent open beta update!
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[@TrickerDCS]

This video must of cost $1,000,000,000 virtual tax dollars with all the missiles and flares dropped. Money will spent 💎🚀

[@RedKiteRender]

Hah a small fortune indeed! Each Strela missile is $22,700!

[@sam8742]

People who complain about tax dollars actually really annoy me

[@jebb125]

@@sam8742 with 20 years in Navy flight test (EMD, follow on, ect..), if you only knew the waste out of every single project you would be vocal.

[@sam8742]

@@jebb125 It's not like they pay for each thing, the larger the population the less they pay for each thing overall. Furthermore they complain when they kill taliban like what do you want them to do? Throw rock at them?

[@rudelchw]

Love your video .. while so many KZbinrs go for the easy, seat-of-the-pants "impression"; you go for the "actual flight testing" approach ... it is refreshing to see, spreadsheets notwithstanding. Thanks, I learned a lot from your video, glad to be subscribed to your channel 👍

[@RedKiteRender]

Takes a bunch of time to make content like this, so they'd rather chase the easy option for a quick buck, thank youtube for it's active encouragement of such behaviour.

[@MCF2233]

i think its kinda ironic that WarThunder has more realistic Missile seeker and flare behavior than DCS because things are actually set up in the code for it to be based off of how hot something is and what the seeker head is actually seeing rather than DCS's pure range for seeker lock on and distraction chance for flares set up.

[@Solathoan]

the ironic thing is the newer, smaller flares are actually more effective IRL because they're hotter and generate signature in a wider EM band

[@RedKiteRender]

I do hope the new 'kind 2' flares get a buff, it seems a little excessive that 16 flares within a second is probably ending up as my panic button.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

There's another ironic thing. When the discussion popped up back in the day, people tried to explain things, of course. The thing is, the Hornet does have 4 CM racks with 30 buckets each, totalling in 120 buckets. And someone showed pictures of the "new, smaller" flares. They're half size so two of them fit into a single bucket at the same time. I haven't seen a flare type taking up two buckets at once anywhere yet. To me, having understood at least some maths and logic in the past, this would mean we should be able to have (C/F) 60/60 with the old type and 60/120 with the new type actually, so we still only got half of what we should have. They just transported that error over to the Viper now as well.

[@RedKiteRender]

Not heard that one before myself! wonder if those sub-bucket charges can fire independently or only as a pair. DCS has a lot of work to do when it comes to defensive systems, but unfortunately these things can be a legal grey area for sims. Making it a little more complex, and a conflict of interest between security and realism sadly.

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

@@RedKiteRender Not sure about the sub-bucket thing myself.

[@CameTo]

@@RedKiteRender I seriously doubt increasing the realism a bit turns the game into a legal grey area. If the information sourced is publicly available. If someone has to go smuggle top secret documents to achieve this, then yeah history shows that doesn't end well.

[@codyi5232]

Bro they’re going to lock your LUAs hahah

[@SportDCS]

Love it! Great scientific approach to it. Lesson being DROP ALL THE FLARES

[@__Dusty_]

Another fine video and analysis RedKite!

[@AdmiralQuality]

Excellent as always. Thanks!

[@manizaeim]

Well done, i was looking for it

[@archer_dcs]

great video man, thanks for your work

[@OzDeaDMeaT]

Nice analysis mate. Great work.

[@Bushwookie_18]

Love the work you put into this! Thank you RK!

[@Badair91]

Great video dude, really appreciate the testing and evaluation, top notch content as per usual.

[@ilejovcevski79]

Awesome video mate! Spared me the effort of having to fly all the tests myself. Many thanks!

[@aeroRCmodels]

Thank you for the work

[@codecodderson3607]

Well that all makes perfect sense since the Viper uses the same flares as the Hornets so they had the Gimp The Hornet and the vipers at the same time. I used bypass anyway dropping 2 so now I'll get 30 presses rather than 15 at least, great video as always, I was gonna test this myself when I noticed it but you did the work for me and definitely more thorough than I would have done.

[@peterblackburn5793]

Good video, good info!

[@superdude4402]

incredible flying at the end!

[@mactgnr]

The last 90 secs of this video is amazing 😂😂😂 wow but excellent work yet again buddy

[@wilbuzllf5057]

Nice job! And it's very interesting to see the smaller ones are less effective. As far as the Viper goes though it has had the smaller, 60 flares max, since release I believe which would explain why it's not in the change log. If I'm not mistaking. Excellent video as always and thanks for sharing!

[@RedKiteRender]

Its always had the 60 flares / 1 slot usage, but they were actually kind 1 flares, they switched to kind 2 with this update, thus effectively halving it's practical flare count. Hornet had kind 1 flares that used 2 slots for some reason.

[@JoJo-vm8vk]

Piece of advice: use free "Dice" mod to program your decoys. Available for download in "Users files" on ED website 😉

[@RedKiteRender]

Looks like a great little addition. Personally I'm happy to edit the lua files directly, but I'm sure many will find that helpful! Now.. if only ED would get round to adding that data cartridge system they'd teased years ago!

[@CakePrincessCelestia]

Didn't know that tool and have been editing the files myself as well. But I also hope that ED will bring on the "DCS" soon, because altering the programs can break tracks if viewed with different programs set.

[@ziljanvega3879]

Thank you clearing this up! I was wondering why manual flaring was suddenly getting me killed half the time.

[@danybackstone]

The rise of SAMs. Behold!

[@johneckert1690]

I am wondering. Is it possible to go into the software and look at how it is written? If so how would a person do that?

[@jayroo71]

So you get double the flares so that you need to dump double the flares…just kidding. Great work RK! Your hard work is appreciated!

[@Nightwolf323]

That’s classic ED stealth nerfing the viper instead of giving it literally any new feature

[@777coletrain]

I was thinking the same thing

[@RedKiteRender]

I feel they really should of put that in the changelog, will be a nasty surprise for those wondering why their flares are no longer working so well.

[@redbat5084]

@ghostskills82 Greetings, HQ-7 uses Electro-optical guidance, your flare program shouldn't have anything to do with defeating the missile.

[@jimmybob1234]

Can someone help I get black screen when launch game

[@lankypilot778]

Science!

[@BMD8]

Here I was feeling like a shit viper pilot. Thank you! Why can't we have nice things ED? You messed my Amraams, now my flares. 😂

[@tinglydingle]

This still the case for the Viper or have ED reverted it?

[@RedKiteRender]

Still uses Type 2, i don't expect them to change it. Havn't heard anything about the flare effectiveness being changed either, but havn't tested it.

[@noisytwit]

About time ED got around to giving us the long over due data cartridge so we don't have to spend an age programming the dispenser programmes each and every time we start the jet (just one of the many time saving things the data card will bring!)

[@Wolfhound_81]

You can just edit a LUA, you know?

[@noisytwit]

@@Wolfhound_81 I do but every update breaks it and most mod managers done work well either. Plus in the not so distant future they are blocking lua edits

[@romeovictor6223]

RedKite: "...I would seriously consider start making use of programs" My right thumb: _You dare question how fast I can panic mash my dispense button?? I have been practicing panic dumping for YEARS!!_

[@RedKiteRender]

Fastest thumb in the west!

[@mailman282]

Good video. 2 things: The F-16 has had the new flares since release or at least since a really long time. There is a forum post by Wags confirming this. Near misses are not any more likely to hit than far misses. In DCS, if a missile is decoyed by countermeasures, it can not impact, even if it directly flies through the plane. Make more such videos. Ask people from the competitive scene for help if you are not sure about something. There are way too many myths around the mechanics of DCS missiles, systems etc.

[@RedKiteRender]

I'm sorry but that's not true. The F-16 has been using the old flares since release until this update, and my numbers back that up along with the lua changes, Wags is mistaken if he said that. I'm aware of the decoy/fusing issue, which is why I separated those from simply defeated missiles, they 'should' of been hits in my mind, so I treat them as such, favouring a worst case scenario for my calculations. If you repeat the test with manpads, you'll see a lot of missiles pass just as close even without using flares and failing to fuse, so it's a more complex issue than just taking the bait and 'switching off'.

[@mailman282]

@@RedKiteRender Then thats guidance, older missiles like SA-13s can be "dodged" by simply beaming a lot of times. Missile passes outside of the proxy fuse distance and does not hit. The planes position is the pilots head, so that causes some problems with large aircraft and missiles near the tail, where the game thinks theyre too far, when theyre really in range of the 3d model. I wouldve just excluded those cases, you dont really know if they got flared there or not. But overall still very good video.

[@RedKiteRender]

SA-13 uses strela missile, just has radar acquisition, unlike the standard strela launcher, the SA-13 can command them to airburst on target overshoot and you'll see more airbursts near the aircraft, unlike non radar assisted ones which seem to just explode on contact or extreme proximity. I've had manpads pass under the nose of an a-10 within 6 feet and not go off. At any rate I did exclude them, and included them, take a closer look at the tables. That was the point of specifically measuring them separate, I had final survival chances with and without near misses counted, best of both worlds, use which ever you want, I use worst case preferring to over-do something than virtually die.

[@SnowTiger45]

It looks like the Proximity Sensors aren't working on those missiles. I'm sure if a missile (eg: SAM) comes within 10m it should detonate. But then I don't have or know the specific stats. It just appears (from the final flare that tailed your A-10) that it was very close to have not detonated and done "some" damage ?

[@RedKiteRender]

DCS and it's relationship with proximity fuses has always been troublesome, and missile logic can be odd. A lot of these kinds of near misses are caused because the missile took a flare but just happened to fly in close proximity to the aircraft anyway. The net result is the missile 'switched off' when it hit the flare, and then doesn't appear to run it's fuse nor re-acquire afterwards, but I'm not 100% certain on that. Either way, We do seem to get a lot of near misses in dcs that probably should of been proximity detonations, which is why personally I include them as a potential hit in the statistics.

[@jarlevanlandeghem8595]

what are your PC specs?

[@RedKiteRender]

kzbin.infoabout

[@jarlevanlandeghem8595]

@@RedKiteRender thx

[@pspicer777]

Hmm, it seems to be to be irrelevant comparing the different versions (although it is good to know). The real issue is "Do the new versions more closely match what exists in the real world? Do they perform as the real world flares/chaff do?".

[@RedKiteRender]

That one I'm struggling with, naturally such details are fairly well guarded in reality, but it seems awful convenient that halving the flare size gives 50% the effectiveness.

[@pspicer777]

@@RedKiteRender RK, other than, as you mentioned, the inconvenience of most of this information being top secret, I would agree that we should do what we can with what we know or can hypothesize. Rereading my comment perhaps was overly harsh. I do appreciate the amount of time and rigor it took to put your analysis together. No small feat I'm sure. Keep the excellent videos coming. Be safe RK.

[@mailman282]

@@RedKiteRender You do end up with more efficiency if you factor in pre-flaring. Drop a couple pre-flares every few seconds to increase your ability to defeat a sudden launch with spam-flaring. Having more here gives the option to pre-flare longer without having to worry about running out.

[@MrGutral]

Thanks for the video. Nice. Could you share with me your trackir profile please?

[@RedKiteRender]

Uh, that would be pretty pointless, my setup will differ in physical dimensions to yours giving a different result. Main features of my profile are I all but removed the centre deadzones and increased the turn rate on the outer edges of my movement a little, nothing special.

[@MrGutral]

@@RedKiteRender understood friend. Thanks. I will try it

[@akisakis7980]

DATALINK POD for the Hornet too. It's christmas again

[@RedKiteRender]

Hasn't the Datalink pod been present since the Walleye released?

[@CameTo]

Useful to know, thanks. But disappointing to say the least.

[@ghostrider1827]

I literally fell asleep watching this vid...lol

[@RedKiteRender]

Should try flying over the sams level and slow countless times! that's dull haha, watched a movie whilst repeatedly setting up autopilot and holding airspeed to collect the data.

[@ghostrider1827]

@@RedKiteRender LOL!!!! You know what.....I'm willing to help out next time. The only problem is, I dont think I have the power to help create your awesome vids....but I can at least send you my TAC reviews..... :-)