IFF - Why so important?
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Just thought I would put this out there for a little lively discussion!!..so many people ask for it for so long, I don’t really see the reason. OK, its a RL feature and we all want the sim to be as real as it gets…but: I think it would detract from the sim, its nerve racking waiting for the ID to come back from AWACS, until you can engage, all the while the blip on the radar gets nearer etc…if we knew what everything was, all the time, I think it would just make things too easy…kinda like a cheat almost.
What say you?
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Just thought I would put this out there for a little lively discussion!!..so many people ask for it for so long, I don’t really see the reason. OK, its a RL feature and we all want the sim to be as real as it gets…but: I think it would detract from the sim, its nerve racking waiting for the ID to come back from AWACS, until you can engage, all the while the blip on the radar gets nearer etc…if we knew what everything was, all the time, I think it would just make things too easy…kinda like a cheat almost.
What say you?
In RL, it is a basic principle to cheat as much as you can to win the war, don’t you agree?
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Hmm not that much. It’s radiowaves and they have limitations like range, transmitter position, terrain (if u r behind a mountain), weather conditions, and maybe others… Also correct setup.
So not that much of a cheat. With BMS and large +20 ppl flights blue on blue are to consider more often if u r not cautious. So IFF would help cause data link ain’t enough. Sure as a hard core vpilot u should be able to cope with such conditions, but having one more confirmation parameter available would be better. The bad thing is that in my squad I will not be able to use it as Greeks don’t have IFF (yea we fly manly, not gay) but will be great for FOF flights. -
I think that IFF is just one of the “aids,” but it isn’t a be-all and end-all of ID-ing targets as anyone can tell you that IFF codes can be copied… or what if the approaching “bogey” is simply a friendly with a non-functional IFF? Besides, if you were the bad guy, will you be broadcasting “I’m a bad guy! Shoot me!!” or would you rather turn IFF off and keep them guessing?
So it’s one of the features that would be “cool to have,” but I don’t think it would really make anything “easier.”
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IFF is a great aids not for knowing who is hostile, it’s for knowing who is friendly and avoid comms saturation especially in campaigns like Battle for Sinai.
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Not suggesting IFF ever could be the reliable defacto means to identify. It can’t be for many technical reasons.
HOWEVER, if in multiplay you have managed to get bounced big time and have been killed or committed a frat because your calls for confirmation were repeatedly drowned out by same desperate calls by other pilots then another aid would be welcomed. (yes my/our SA sucks ) -
Hmm not that much. It’s radiowaves and they have limitations like range, transmitter position, terrain (if u r behind a mountain), weather conditions, and maybe others… Also correct setup.
So not that much of a cheat. With BMS and large +20 ppl flights blue on blue are to consider more often if u r not cautious. So IFF would help cause data link ain’t enough. Sure as a hard core vpilot u should be able to cope with such conditions, but having one more confirmation parameter available would be better. The bad thing is that in my squad I will not be able to use it as Greeks don’t have IFF (yea we fly manly, not gay) but will be great for FOF flights.Reading posts written as if they were cell phone texts is really difficult.
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So it’s one of the features that would be “cool to have,” but I don’t think it would really make anything “easier.”
I wish you had the chance to see “something”, then you would understand the “difference” of this invention.
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IFF in Falcon is basically useless.
In RL all it can do is identify friendlies, not tell you if an aircraft is enemy. And there are times and conditions that IFF cannot even tell you if a friendly is a friendly.
As usual, lots of ppl misunderstand the difference between IFF an NCTR, as proven by some of the posts in this thread.
The only true IFF you’ll ever get in Falcon is to ask your wingie to attack something, now that’s IFF!!!
RAM22
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My two cent of knowledge in this matter :
IFF will only let you know that a contact is friendly or unknown. It can’t tell you a contact is definately enemy, it could be a friendly with no IFF, broken IFF, IFF set up wrong or civilian.
Very basically how it works is exactly the same as a transponder on a commercial aircraft, except encrypted and it responds to specific interigators.NCTR ( (non cooperative target response) needs to get a head on aspect on the target to get a read on the intakes, it uses the compressor blade signature to ID the target, it’s of course not going to be an exact science.
Hope this helps,
Brgrds,
Frederic
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We haven’t had IFF for the last 14 years in F4 and so I ACK to RAM: no need for it even it would add some more reality into the sim.
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@RAM22:
IFF in Falcon is basically useless
You should add the letters “IMO” then…
@RAM22:
In RL all it can do is identify friendlies, not tell you if an aircraft is enemy.
True, but you seem not to know or not to mention the full potential of what it is and what it can do. There are ROE’s in every campaign or incident, IFF is a vital system (among many other systems/aspects like radar, flight profile plus more) for everyone, from the simple rookie pilot up to the HQ-ATO manager to categorize and decide if the opponent (= the one not responding at all to the interrogation or transiting wrong codes), is a civilian, a fool forgot to change his codes, a bird with multifunctioning IFF, or indeed a bandit to be fired upon.
So, if it can within a TMS-Left and couple of seconds improve my SA in every aspect, from knowing where i should put my cursors to quickly re-aquire a lost radar contact up to find my team either withing IFR or with damaged radar or datalink, IMHO is more than necessary to have onboard.
Answer #9 also applies.
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We haven’t had IFF for the last 14 years in F4
TBH there was sometime in SP2/3 or FF2/3 era, cannot remember exact setup… It was removed in afterward setups because it was not ready/accurate back then with the available coding skills or knowledge.
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TBH there was sometime in SP2/3 or FF2/3 era, cannot remember exact setup… It was removed in afterward setups because it was not ready/accurate back then with the available coding skills or knowledge.
Must have been FF-Branch.
I cannot remember having seen IFF in SP2-4.
Anyway: Interesting that there had been an attempt to implement it. Thx for the info! -
You should add the letters “IMO” then…
True, but you seem not to know or not to mention the full potential of what it is and what it can do. There are ROE’s in every campaign or incident, IFF is a vital system (among many other systems/aspects like radar, flight profile plus more) for everyone, from the simple rookie pilot up to the HQ-ATO manager to categorize and decide if the opponent (= the one not responding at all to the interrogation or transiting wrong codes), is a civilian, a fool forgot to change his codes, a bird with multifunctioning IFF, or indeed a bandit to be fired upon.
So, if it can within a TMS-Left and couple of seconds improve my SA in every aspect, from knowing where i should put my cursors to quickly re-aquire a lost radar contact up to find my team either withing IFR or with damaged radar or datalink, IMHO is more than necessary to have onboard.
Answer #9 also applies.
I appreciate the point, but in all the recent conflicts, a positive vid has always been required above all, so not much is going to change there. It will either quickly build up your SA or confuse you even more. Besides, not a lot of information is available with regards to IFF usage during times of conflict (;
Red Dog, I wouldn’t mind having it implemented, I think the reason that some people don’t like the idea of having it is because they are “afraid” of big changes as it is human nature to do so, maybe thinking it is going to make the sim feel more “arcade” or something along those lines.
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If it flies in front of you, SHOOT!
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IFF is very useful in real life, I suppose, and I’d like to see it implemented someday, but before that happens, I think the AI in general needs to be changed drastically.
When I started flying BMS, I thought taking on SU-30, MiG-29S, … would result in getting the jet shot from under my *** in at least 7/10 encounters, but I find it’s actually quite easy to pick them off, without much training or coordination. Adding extra tools of the trade on blue side alone would shift the advantage further towards the player, possibly taking away the challenge even more.
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but in all the recent conflicts, a positive vid has always been required above all
Not true. Not in Gulf (only after the incident in which 2 Eagles downed 2 army Blackhawks, and by then US had the full air dominance while enemy not even a couple of cargo jets on the ground…), not in Bosnia (documentation is extensive about all incidents and downed afts), not by Israel conflicts, not in Lybia.
It is not weird that NATO requires some (very high) minimum standards and requirements for any jet that will participate in a conflict, or even been accepted in NATO Deployment Force. Not either that some countries payed some millions $ to upgrade their IFF source codes to include latest modes S L2 etc.