DCS VR 4K | F-15E Strike Eagle | IFF Basics

This is a basic overview and demonstration of using IFF in the F-15E Strike Eagle. I've seen many people asking about how this works. I sorted through it and wanted to share what I learned. This is not an in-depth overview of all things IFF but is the basic stuff you need to do in order to enable its features and use it to find and destroy enemies while avoiding harm to friendlies.
If you have questions or if I got something wrong, let me know!
Mods Used:
Better Smoke:
www.digitalcombatsimulator.co...
Echo19 Core Ultimate:
echo19audio.gumroad.com/l/cor...
Main System Specs:
AMD 7950X3D
ASUS ROG Crosshair X670E Hero (WiFi 6E)
PNY RTX 4090 XLR8 Gaming VERTO Overclocked Graphics Card
645 G.Skill Trident Z5 NEO RGB Series SDRAM DDR5 6000
SAMSUNG 980 PRO SSD 2TB PCIe NVMe Gen 4 Gaming M.2
Additional Device List:
Varjo Aero
PointCTRL
ButtKicker Gamer2
JetPad
VPForce Rhino Stick Base
Thrustmaster F/A 18 Grip
VKB STECS Max Throttle
Razer Tartarus v2 Gaming Keypad
SteelSeries Arctis Pro Wireless Gaming Headset

[@NickF08]

This is so useful. I’ve had a miserable time trying to get situational awareness in a multiplayer scenario with this jet. This helps a lot!

[@StrIIker-TV]

Hi! Thank you for letting me know. I completely share in your frustrations! I came from the Hornet with it's exceptional SA to the Strike Eagle and could not get things to click for me in air-to-air. I was forever reluctant to even entertain the notion of engaging enemy fighters on a multi-player server for fear of shooting down a friendly. Now my preferred air-to-air fighter is the Strike Eagle. I have no worries about shooting down a friendly now. The IFF works flawlessly and it all makes sense now. Yesterday I took the Hornet up for a spin after spending so much time in the Strike Eagle and I found myself missing the Strike Eagle's capabilities at BVR engagements and don't forget that massive payload of ordinance! Once the Strike Eagle gets the helmet mounted sight and SA systems (Link-16) it's simply going to be a beast! Keep at it!

[@NickF08]

@@StrIIker-TV love this! Hope to see you in game sometime!

[@StrIIker-TV]

@@NickF08 My latest obsession has been the Burning Skies US Command Center server. Unfortunately it hasn’t been too busy with people flying but the settings on it are perfect for me. Challenge is at a good level and the ability to have the dots over enemy really helps in VR, particularly with very high res displays like the Aero which I use. If you ever see me on feel free to say hi and we can go blow stuff up together. I never have the chat window open so you’d have to use SRS to communicate with me.

[@Nightsd01]

From what I understand modern fighter jet radars do target identification by actually counting the number of blades in the engine, which is really interesting. Thanks for the video!

[@StrIIker-TV]

That is correct! They have a database and check against that to see what the aircraft is. It’s pretty cool to see it happening in DCS.

[@bobt223]

Thanks for another great video. I didn't even know what I didn't know, :) but now I feel a lot more comfortable with prosecuting targets with the Strike Eagle Radar.

[@StrIIker-TV]

Awesome to hear man! I was quite intimidated at first because I only knew the Hornet. Now I am blasting the enemy with ease and am getting spoiled by the Strike Eagle’s radar and far reach!

[@bobt223]

@@StrIIker-TV I got spoiled in the Hornet with Datalinks from AWACS and donors in the missions we fly (knowing that it was a bit of a crutch!) and I always feel the lack of it when I fly other aircraft in Air to Air. Now I feel like I have a little more SA in the Mudhen.

[@StrIIker-TV]

@@bobt223 Agreed 100% with ya there. The good news is that the Strike Eagle will be getting Data Link and JHMCS. Life will be sweet then! Also, once we upgrade the targeting pod to the LITENING 2 or sniper, it’s all gravy. I have a hard time using the LANTIRN in many situations when things don’t have a strong IR contrast. I still feel the need to use the Hornet for many A-G missions, mainly where the target locations are not known.

[@larshedgehog2300]

Your very underrated man!

[@StrIIker-TV]

Well thank you for your kind words! People stumble upon the channel eventually and hopefully they find some of them helpful or entertaining.

[@redtailpilot]

very helpful, thanks!

[@StrIIker-TV]

Thanks! I’m glad it helped out.

[@0Ignition0]

8:50 I believe the IFF antena has its own power so it may not reach such distance

[@StrIIker-TV]

Thanks for pointing this out! Yeah I realized that there is a limitation to the reach of the IFF so it makes sense that it doesn’t immediately show up as friendly. It’s more of an interesting point to demonstrate to others and learning more as I watch.

[@shaw201193]

How are you doing the AAI scan when the friendly/foe bug happens? Just by hovering over the mark with the brackets?

[@StrIIker-TV]

The bug happens during single target track only. So from search mode, I move the cursor using the TDC just below the target, press and release TDC which puts the radar into mini raster and then move onto the target which locks it into Single Target Track. Since I have auto AAI scan enabled (demonstrated near the start how to set this up) it auto interrogates and I see the false friendly result in the top left. If I had not set auto interrogate, I could long coolie left or right and it would interrogate mode 4 IFF.

[@simpitacademy]

do you look at the REPLY light on the RICP panel for interrogation response? If not, is it because that is not modeled yet?

[@StrIIker-TV]

I might not be certain of which light you refer to. What is the RICP panel? I know there’s a light and audible notification on the left which illuminates when you are interrogated by another aircraft which is not yet modeled. I have only been looking at the radar scope. When I lock the target, I look for the presence or absence of the open circle in the top left corner. Ideally I will also get the NCTR response in the bottom of the radar for further assistance in determining the disposition of the contact.

[@simpitacademy]

@@StrIIker-TV On the left console, the REMOTE INTERCOMMUNICATIONS CONTROL PANEL. At the bottom of the panel is the mode 4 switch. Then next to it a toggle to select if you want reply by light or audio. Next to that on the right is a light indicator called the reply light. To its right is the IFF Master switch. I’m testing all panels and switches and many light indicators don’t seem to work yet with dcs bios. Maybe not in dcs itself. You seem very knowledgeable and I’m just picking your brain.

[@StrIIker-TV]

@@simpitacademyThanks for the clarification. Acronyms abound in DCS and 3/4 of the time I don't know what is being referred to. I even tried doing a search for that acronym and came up empty. We were referring to the same thing it would seem as I had made a semi-educated guess. To clarify for myself, that is for when your aircraft responds to an INBOUND mode 4 interrogation from another aircraft. It should beep or light up when the crypto mismatches indicating a possible hostile query. From the discussion in the Razbam discord, it should work but I have never seen / heard it because I may have left it off or maybe it was in light only and I never look down at it. I'm going to play with it I think.

[@simpitacademy]

@@StrIIker-TV So my initial impression was that this lights up when I interrogate others, which was wrong. It lights up when I get interrogated. I suppose you will need to fly MP and get a friend to interrogate you as it'd be hard to fly SP and the AI enemy do so to you, just to find out if the REPLY indicator will light up. I've never tried MP so I can't set up this test.

[@kylegodridge7577]

@str][ker dude thanks for the help last night this video is the best for new users

[@StrIIker-TV]

Hey man! It was great chatting with ya! There are lots of little things to learn and it can take some digging to find them all! IFF in auto mode like this reduces your workload a little bit and helps you ensure that you are targeting an enemy before firing that AMRAAM.

[@Ginuwine-kx2iv]

Haven't been able to get it to work as of yet, another video showed that Mode 4 needs and astrik? My AAI always show 4 interrogated but never shows aircraft type or a circle in the top left. You never mentioned having Mode 4 selected not in the IFF but in the AAI page with an "A". ??? what about AAI Slave ? does that do anything?

[@StrIIker-TV]

A few things.. Mode 4 has generally been on by default whenever I have started the aircraft cold and is always on in hot start aircraft (at least the few multiplayer servers I fly on). You can check the status of which interrogation has mode 4 enabled. There's AAI and EID. On the Up Front Controller you will see A4/E4 by default. Click on that push button (PB8) and you will be taken to the settings for IFF. Here you can configure and turn on the various modes for AAI (Air to Air Interrogation) and EID (Enhanced Identification). You really only need an asterisk next to M4 for both in DCS. In the video, if you go to 1:37 (kzbin.info/www/bejne/n5LWo3uid9p0acUsi=PcmKSxzigI8dncu_&t=97) you will see this sub menu. You will also see that I have an asterisk next to M4 for both AAI and EID. I'm not sure why you are not seeing the circle in the top left if you lock the target in STT (Single Target Track) or Primary Designated Target while in Track While Scan mode assuming the aircraft in question is friendly. To see the aircraft type a few things need to happen. You need the NCTR switch enabled and your aircraft needs to send the interrogation. This is done either automatically (if you followed the steps in the video to enable auto interrogation) or manually via a long press of coolie switch right (inboard) while in command of the radar. Here's a snippet from the manual.. --- --- Manual Interrogation To start interrogating contacts in AAI mode, Coolie Switch should be pressed outboard (left) for more than 1 second in the front cockpit. To interrogate contacts in EID mode, Coolie Switch should be pressed inboard (right) for more than one second. --- --- The Strike Eagle which you should be referring to is the online one as it gets updated regularly. www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/downloads/documentation/dcs-f15e_flight_manual_en/ You can also (and should) run a manual interrogation by using coolie long left (outboard) while in command of the radar. Friendlies will show up as circles. I've also demonstrated this in some of my recent game play videos. Let me know if this helps or if I missed what you are asking. I'm happy to help!

[@Ginuwine-kx2iv]

First I've watched your video like 4 times great work please keep them coming you are a natural. First problem I've found was i was not up to day on DCS updates, once I ran the updater to the latest version of DCS I do now get the circle top left side of MPD when ever I interrogate a friendly all the time. So the opposite must be true I don't get the circle for enemy in training mission or on multiple. But what I still never get is what type of aircraft. I got shot down by a Su-27 at 8 miles head on head just to see if it manual interrogation would work, kept interrogating and no unknown label, no SU-27 just nothing. I flew for 3 hours yesterday and just the circles, squares, and triangles of interrigations. I do see the AAI4 or EID4 when interrogating. I only do Multi Thread I will try just OpenBeta only tomorrow. @@StrIIker-TV

[@StrIIker-TV]

@@Ginuwine-kx2iv Thank you for your great compliment. I appreciate it and your time watching these videos. You definitely need to be on OpenBeta for this all to work. Ditch the stable release because it's always going to be well behind the various fixes which roll out to Open Beta and you will miss out on a LOT of cool stuff. Stable is not any more stable or better than Open Beta and I wish they would change the name. I used to only run on Stable when I first got DCS. My background is in computing and I figured why suffer through bugs needlessly? I eventually moved to Open Beta and have not looked back. I deleted the Stable installation from my hard drive. IF you do this (and you should) you will need to either get the aircraft control mapping files moved or imported or redo the mapping for all of your aircraft controls to your HOTAS and rudder. There are resources out there which explain how but I never did. I just remapped everything since I was really only using the Hornet at the time. Last night I was on the Persian Gulf map and with the NCTR switch on and auto EID enabled, I was seeing the Aircraft type listed in the radar almost all the time (some aircraft are not yet in the EID library which will be added at some point). I even picked up an accurate ID of an SU-27 at around 78 miles and I didn't have to manually try to initiate the scan. I just locked it up in STT or PDT and there it was! Aircraft aspect obviously plays a role so don't expect this if the enemy is flying away from you as I mentioned in the video. Actually, did you mean that you are in Open Beta but are using multi-thread and you are going to try single thread? If so, don't bother switching to single thread as it will make no difference other than slow your game performance. You do need to lock the target up and if close, may need to be at closer altitudes for EID to work. Make sure you switch the NCTR switch on (left side of the console) and enable auto EID as I demonstrated. Are you seeing "Unknown" on the radar when yo lock the target? If not, something is not set right. Perhaps also do a DCS slow/full repair. This often fixes odd issues like this.

[@Ginuwine-kx2iv]

I always fly Open Beta Multi Thread, so on that accord i'm good, it never showed any text where aircraft type should be so I will give slow/full repair a try after backing up my files. The NCTR switch is on and like i mentioned the circle does appear on the the top left side of the screen when a friendly is locked up so I don't know, but will keep trying. I have been having issues with MK82 drops and the ASL not lining up with the designated target, always off to the left even when you fly 360 degrees. Only happens 30% of the time now but still happens for no apparent reason. So maybe that repair will fix everything. I do appreciate you and thanks again. @@StrIIker-TV

[@StrIIker-TV]

@@Ginuwine-kx2iv Mk82's and the ASL have been a known issue I believe. There are also issues dropping them level. First, you want to do a dive delivery. From the Razbam Discord Pinned messages "In the meantime, would suggest to plan for Dive deliveries > 15 deg for Mk-82s. Anything greater than 15 deg and stable in a dive in AUTO seems to work well. Anything less than 15 deg or with G on the jet seems to consistently go long." As for the ASL stuck way off, I ran into this before. I THINK the solution was to undesignate the target (boat switch aft) and then redesignate. It's been a while since I was dropping unguided bombs in auto mode. I'll give it a shot again. If you haven't checked it out yet, definitely worth hopping onto the Razbam Discord server and hanging out in the Strike Eagle Help channel. Also, in that channel there are pinned messages (click the pin to read) with a lot of helpful content. discord.gg/qNzsAGt9Wm