#4565483 - 04/21/21 09:01 PM
Re: Losing FLIR acquisition
[Re: Reticuli]
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Joined: Oct 2019
Posts: 16
FouCha
Junior Member
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Junior Member
Joined: Oct 2019
Posts: 16
Lebanon, North Governorate
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Any ideas why FLIR locks are being lost in the last couple updates? I would probably guess you have ground stabilisation off in your EECH.ini file and i'm just taking a wild guess here
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#4565490 - 04/21/21 09:22 PM
Re: Losing FLIR acquisition
[Re: FouCha]
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Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,132
Reticuli
Member
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Member
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,132
Dayton, OH, USA
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Any ideas why FLIR locks are being lost in the last couple updates? I would probably guess you have ground stabilisation off in your EECH.ini file and i'm just taking a wild guess here Nope. And ground stab would only affect when you DON'T have a target locked, and it barely seems to work right, anyway I also don't see any indication this is an issue of background heat signature interference in the coding (which I'm not sure is even in EECH), rain interfering with the FLIR, or using non-NV DTV at night. The EO/DTV/FLIR system just keeps flickering off targets and won't continue to lock until you're right up on them. It's not just drifting a little and relocking on its own, either. Just turns off and loses it frequently and randomly the further you are. For that matter, the radar is sometimes toggling off targets and I have to intentionally lock it, and this is a situation where there's no objects or terrain in the way and an LO aircraft is not the target. Weird stuff going on, but the FLIR having issues seems a much bigger problem. I also notice that on the Kiowa and Blackshark the FLIR/DTV isn't detecting targets at all just in general (flickering off them or not) until you are extremely close. It's as if someone added some goofy random unlock thing for most EO/DTV/FLIR and they made some of the aircraft's much lower range detection than others. These all seems relatively new changes. That's also in addition to the time it takes for the EO/DTV/FLIR to automatically-detect targets in player-piloted aircraft, the time it takes for targets to be detected with radar sweeps in player-piloted aircraft, and yet the oddity of how the AI will immediately detect your LO aircraft and fire upon it the moment you turn on your radar or open your bay doors. Very lopsided even beyond the strange SAM detection envelopes that were supposedly improved but for which I see no evidence for in the sim. And I'm fairly confident the AI are not afflicted with this random unlock thing, either. I'm also left wondering if the sim does any trajectory calculations for moving targets when using the radar based on the last two radar scans, or if it's just sort of omnipotent.
Last edited by Reticuli; 04/21/21 10:07 PM.
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#4565611 - 04/22/21 08:26 PM
Re: Losing FLIR acquisition
[Re: Reticuli]
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,883
messyhead
Member
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Member
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,883
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That's true, the EECH code does seem complicated. However, I'm not a professional coder. I'm actually a tester, but I learned to code through my work, mainly in Java and Python. But I learned C through wanting to mod this game. Or rather, I learned how to mod this game, and learned C along the way. But I don't consider myself a C coder.
The main way I learned was to use the Eclipse IDE. It let's you navigate the code from function to function, and to search for where functions are called from. So that way, you can see how the code dependencies hang together.
I also use the global search all the time to find references, and where else they're used.
When I get time, I'll try and make some sort of a map. Or I'll see if there's a tool that can auto generate one for the codebase.
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#4565621 - 04/22/21 10:48 PM
Re: Losing FLIR acquisition
[Re: Reticuli]
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Joined: May 2001
Posts: 5,462
Polak
Hotshot
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Hotshot
Joined: May 2001
Posts: 5,462
New York, NY
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If we had a sort of "code map" that laid out which files were dependent on which others that might help. If I may suggest something to help the understanding the flow of the code and its subroutines and all dependencies is maybe IDA Pro disassembler. That would be IDAPro, not the latest 64 version but earlier good for 32bit which EECH is. Is not very easy stuff to read and deal with, but all that programming after all it is not so easy in the first place. At least o n the beginning. It is slow and methodic work to match disassembled machine code with the real source code. Perhaps with some time commitment and extensive practice, it can get easier with time. There is another program called Ghidra which is similar to IDA and that wonder tool takes the executable, disassembles it, and from that it writes semi source code (full reverse engineering). Of course, we have here source code for EECH available, so it would be even easier to try to match that semi code "guessed" by Ghidra to the original source code. The advantage of this method is that like IDA Ghidra also gives charts of subroutines showing flow of the entire program and how all this works together. It is all easier said than done though as it takes some programming experience, knowledge, practice, and lots of time.
Last edited by Polak; 04/22/21 10:53 PM.
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#4568464 - 05/14/21 11:10 PM
Re: Losing FLIR acquisition
[Re: Polak]
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Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,883
messyhead
Member
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Member
Joined: Dec 2010
Posts: 1,883
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If we had a sort of "code map" that laid out which files were dependent on which others that might help. If I may suggest something to help the understanding the flow of the code and its subroutines and all dependencies is maybe IDA Pro disassembler. That would be IDAPro, not the latest 64 version but earlier good for 32bit which EECH is. Is not very easy stuff to read and deal with, but all that programming after all it is not so easy in the first place. At least o n the beginning. It is slow and methodic work to match disassembled machine code with the real source code. Perhaps with some time commitment and extensive practice, it can get easier with time. There is another program called Ghidra which is similar to IDA and that wonder tool takes the executable, disassembles it, and from that it writes semi source code (full reverse engineering). Of course, we have here source code for EECH available, so it would be even easier to try to match that semi code "guessed" by Ghidra to the original source code. The advantage of this method is that like IDA Ghidra also gives charts of subroutines showing flow of the entire program and how all this works together. It is all easier said than done though as it takes some programming experience, knowledge, practice, and lots of time. A while ago I had tried doing this with the exe for EE2, as I was hoping to uncover how they updated the DirectX version, and then implement that to EECH. But I didn't get very far with it. I was using a program called Radare. I might try it again at some point with the tools you mention.
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#4570283 - 05/28/21 04:10 PM
Re: Losing FLIR acquisition
[Re: Reticuli]
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Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,132
Reticuli
Member
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Member
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 2,132
Dayton, OH, USA
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The only difference I see is that .2's EO doesn't jump slightly when you engage it like .1 does sometimes. Ground stab for the EO works mostly the same with Ctrl S and no target lock in 1.16.2, 1.16.1, 1.4.1c, and EECH2. All these years and I didn't know about that "S" or I'd forgotten it, but it's not that terrible and is just not perfect like locking to the ground.
The problem with losing EO target locks of something other than the ground frequently when not very close to them is present exactly the same, that I can tell, with 1.16.2, 1.16.1, and EECH2. I don't remember if I checked that with 1.4.1c. The HMD targeting often ends up more effective than the EO system.
It's harder to say on the problem of automatically spotting targets or acquiring them in the first place with the EO, though, which seems worse in some helos, but no helos seem to do a great job.
I also notice what may be some kind of attempt to make EO capability daylight only on certain helos, like on the Blackshark. Can't say I like that.
Maybe the difficulty of automatically spotting targets and keeping a lock was an attempt to make the EO system less capable than the radar system just with random probabilities rather than losing locks based on fast, varied maneuvering, but the problem seems to happen the same on a stationary vehicle as a fighter jet turning and burning.
If the EO stuff can be sufficiently-fixed, I might be in favor of requiring the Longbow Hellfires to have the radar page active and some kind of radar targets listed (at least previously acquired at some point) to use them rather than being able to launch them with just the FLIR, and to have the Comanche without the EFAM wings no longer have a radar. Maybe have the Longbow Hellfires more rare, too. The lamp shade and the diagonal panels on the tail would also be nice touches when you've got the radar EFAM version on. Right now with the state of the EO system, though, obviously it'd be a bad idea.
Last edited by Reticuli; 05/29/21 01:23 AM.
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