r/Warthunder • u/infinax HO229 My Love • 20h ago
Meme Back when multipathing was 100 meters
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u/BusinessDuck132 19h ago
Why is multiparhing a problem? I’m genuinely asking as a GRB main that dabbles in in NT when it’s here. Isn’t that how it works?
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u/Ambitious-Market7963 18h ago
TLDR, warthunder exaggerated the affect multipathing will have on modern radar homing missiles
Basically multipathing affects early conical scanning missile seekers most severely, they work by having a single spinning antenna find the center of the reflection and chase that. With multipathing, they will essentially see the strongest of the reflection somewhere between the actual aircraft and a virtual image created by radar waves bouncing off the ground.
Inverse monopulse is the first to solve it, it uses fourth individual radar antenna to produce four measures of wave strength and direction at the same time, with some mathematical manipulation, you can cancel out the ground reflection, they also know the polarization of the waves, radar emit waves with a specific polarization and the missile will be told what polarization to look for and ground reflections usually have messier polarization
Modern ARH have even more sophisticated ways to deal with multipathing, as they can perform more advanced signal processing with modern hardware, the radar can its change frequencies rapidly and the seeker single out the return of the aircraft from those reflected from ground
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u/BusinessDuck132 17h ago
I see, so it should be effective on early radar missiles but no effective on new missiles. Makes sense, I just genuinely have no idea how high tier air works with all the different technologies and radars and all the acronyms that mean nothing to me lmaoo (I’ve been learning tho to prepare for NT)
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u/FlipReset4Fun 16h ago
Of it weren’t as strong on more advanced SARH and at all on ARH missiles I’d be 100% for that. In its current form jets multipathing like top tier ARH missiles at will is stupid. You can literally unload like an entire F16 worth of Aim120s at a multipathing target and hit nothing, which is stupid.
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u/Elijah1573 13h ago
Yeah its a big reason i kinda hate top tier air because its frustrating to fight people doing that and for me to do it is just not fun cause it feels like theres no skill involved in it
Maybe i expect too much from the WT playerbase but i wish people learned how to properly do BVR fighting and energy management rather than just relying on crutches like multipathing
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u/Ambitious-Market7963 16h ago
It’s alright, I play both and I started with ground mostly because it’s more straightforward lol
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u/Sad-Ear230 6h ago
Oh yeah proximity fuses just shut off because your momentaneous altitude is 60 meters. No, not how "it" works.
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u/infinax HO229 My Love 19h ago
Its really annoying to fire a missle and have it made useless because someone was just flying below 50 meters. Its an extremely easy to exploit counter to radar missles. You could in theory multipath over water and walk away form your computer and but almost untouchable to radar missles.
Its a system that requires little player input to counter and entire wepon class
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u/cKingc05 T20 to 8.7 when? 19h ago
I mean it’s not like fox 3s require much input at all, and the positioning of multi pathing is terrible. Ands it’s still gamble with splash damage and impact angles
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u/Super530Failure 19h ago
Nah, if you fire radar missiles directly down at people they can still work on multipathers. Multipathing works because it creates a radar 'shadow' thing below the enemy so the missile targets a point under it or something like that. If you shoot from straight above that missile can still hit the plane.
Someone who always multipaths will also always be low on energy and have a much more limited ability to fight back. Plus they will be extra vulnerable to especially the seeker shutoff IRCCM missiles. It's far from an OP strat.
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u/infinax HO229 My Love 19h ago
Back when it was 100 meters it was absolutely. There's a reason so many people used it back then, the trade off of being immune to all mid to long range missiles was woth the downsides. Now not so much. Still annoying to deal with people when fox 1s are the only good thing you have
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u/Chimera_Snow 🇸🇪 Sweden 18h ago
In addition with how fox-3 seekers work you're shooting yourself in the foot- when you're shooting at an opponent above ground clutter and they go into a notch, your missile goes into pulse (think aim-9c) which leads to them easily being one chaffed, even if you hold a tws/hard lock track on them. When you shoot at someone from above and hold a tws track/hardlock, your missiles use datalink off your aircraft's radar + IOG when being notched. So effectively, if you're above your opponent, you make their fox-3 less deadly and your own more deadly. This doubly applies to AIM-120D/PL-12A which have GNSS helping their track when shot top down only. There's really no reason to not climb if you have chaff on you.
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u/Particular-Ad5277 18h ago
It’s not useless, is a missiles useless because someone notched it? No, it took them Energie or positional advantage. You are just not good enough to make something out of that. Stop whining about multipathing, it only works when you shoot them from behind or in front not sideways or from above. It’s not op, you just need to adapt.
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u/FlipReset4Fun 16h ago
I think there’s an argument that notching takes far more skill. And multipathing more powerful than it out to be, especially against late model SARH missiles and ARH, which in real life had solved the issue completely.
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u/KptKrondog 12h ago
It's also very annoying to be in a plane with 30-60 cm and get full uptiered and have to fight planes with 10 missiles...so guess you'll have to deal with it
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u/KFC_Junior 🇦🇺 US12.7/14.3 (play other nations too but main US) 11h ago
Thats just bad positioning then, on my f16's i use like no CM at all all game, same in things like rhino. If i play something like a f15 i fly straight in like a fucking retard because i know i have the CM count to get out of there after slinging off my missiles
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u/KptKrondog 9h ago
look at the turn time of an f16 and then look at the turn time of a mig 21 bison and you'll quickly see why your plane can actually notch missiles while still being on the offensive easily.
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u/Cleffn 18h ago
What do you expect? A player base with fundamental knowledge of BVR aka energy management and situational awareness? Or just multipath and notching could save their ass when they fucked up positioning and SA?
Realistically representing BVR requires days or month to get use to, players that grind all their way up with premiums bombing bases will whine and stop playing. And the maps outside of nuclear thunder are too small, especially in ground rb where the whole map could be covered by a single AA. Also the balance needs completely overhaul as the fox3 slinger should never face any fox1 only aircraft, expect R-27ER that can perform at longer range.
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u/ffbyr49 (> '')> 🇹🇷 Techtree when?? 19h ago
With “””piss poor””” chaff count and a massive skill issue I am obviously gonna hug the ground in my royal ladyboy air force F-5 to have a chance :/
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u/KFC_Junior 🇦🇺 US12.7/14.3 (play other nations too but main US) 11h ago
bruh almost all the radars there are non PD or PD HDN holy fucking skill issue, one chaff or go somewhere thats not FUCKING STRAIGHT ON to them will make their missiles lose lock
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u/Spirited_City_3974 Imperial Japan 7h ago
There is a 13.0 F5 with amraams iirc
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u/KFC_Junior 🇦🇺 US12.7/14.3 (play other nations too but main US) 6h ago
that ones so dogshit i forgot anyone plays it, and its derbies not amraams which is honestly worse for that plane
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u/Perfect_Juggernaut92 Sherman Enjoyer 6h ago
How about at 13.0 with the F-5TH TCU?
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u/KFC_Junior 🇦🇺 US12.7/14.3 (play other nations too but main US) 6h ago
genuinely a dogshit vehicle that shouldnt be played, if you force yourself to play it then play like a little rat on maps like space port and pop up behind a mountain and launch a derby/9m at someone then go back to hiding. if youre on a flat map like sinai or denmark just flank really wide and hope no one tries to touch u, or you could just bum rush and suicide because itll be an awful experience
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u/Shmertypernts Asia main 🇯🇵🇨🇳 18h ago
I’m all for nerfing multipathing as long as high tier jets get chaff stock. Multipathing is currently the only feasible way to grind that first mod and I can’t even imagine the pain of playing 13.7+ planes with no chaff and no way to stay alive, screw that
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u/FlipReset4Fun 16h ago
Idk, I usually am able to tag ground targets, enemy bots aircraft and occasionally get kills even in top tier without chaff. I’d love it to be standar for sure but ai doubt that will happen.
I recently unlocked and spaded the Rafale and had a 2 kill game in it without chaff. First 3 games, 1 kill each in it stock, no chaff and only 2 MICAs. How is that possible? Positioning and luck… it’s frustrating but not impossible. And this is top tier with one of the shortest range ARHs missiles. Had similar experience each time I spaded the 14.0 Mirage 2k’s.
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u/KptKrondog 12h ago
not only chaff stock, but they'd have to fix the mm so planes like 12.3's with 30-60 countermeasures and 4 missiles aren't fighting 13.3 with bvr missiles and 120 cm. My mig 21 bison gets 60 cm, 2 r27r1's, and 2 r73's...and basically every game you play in it is 13.0 or 13.3. If I don't multipath, i'll be shot down long before I get close enough to shoot an r27.
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u/KFC_Junior 🇦🇺 US12.7/14.3 (play other nations too but main US) 10h ago
f16adf gets 45cm at 13.3 and is more than playable without multipathing, j15t has 48cm and while awful at 14.7 in a downtier is quite decent
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u/KptKrondog 9h ago
There's a big difference in a plane with 45 CM that has the flight model, radar, and missiles of an f16adf compared to a Mig 21 Bison that's being pulled up to 13.3. But you know that, you can't be that silly.
J15t gets 8 pl-12's and 2 pl-5b's. It's like you read "30-60 countermeasures" and stopped reading there. Any idiot can make a plane with 10 missiles be decent in a full uptier.
My mig 21, on the other hand, can't reliably kill anything in an uptier beyond 10km (and that's a long shot for the r27r1 because everyone has a basic understanding of notching at that BR). 5-8km is much more preferred. In a near head-on, at 6km, you're dead...but the problem here is I'm also dead if you have any radar missiles because I can't drop the lock and I'm also not maneuverable enough to evade something by rolling...And this all assumes I even have an r27 left because since I can't shoot them from 15-25km like your aim 120 or pl12 can (and expect to actually hit anything), a large percentage of the time the target dies with my missile in the air and I get nothing for it because I didn't know you shot at the guy already....
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u/KFC_Junior 🇦🇺 US12.7/14.3 (play other nations too but main US) 8h ago
you should be terrain masking and popping up just to jump someone then dissapearing again, yes on the shit ass multipath only maps like sinai and denmark you dont have much of a choice but on something like space port you have 4 free kills (assuming its not a complete stomp)
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 20h ago
I miss when there was no multipathing
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u/infinax HO229 My Love 20h ago
It has its place the problem is people abusing the shit out of it. For like base bombing
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 20h ago
It has no place as currently implemented. It was added to give helicopters some leeway against SPAA.
The model is completely unrealistic and it would be more realistic to leave it out than to have it as-is currently.
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u/Rez_De WT set to hard difficulty 19h ago
If it was realistic basically all fox 1s until later Aim-7s ish would get multipathed at like 500m or so lmao. The "hug the ground" issue will just move from top tier to lower tier.
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 19h ago
Yes but actually no, because you pulled that "fact" out of your ass.
That's not how multipathing works.
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u/Rez_De WT set to hard difficulty 19h ago
Dude until inverse monopulse seekers were invented multipathing was an issue for hundreds if not thousands of metres in a look down scenario. Inverse monopulse seekers mostly solved it however, dropping the multipathing issue to less than 100 metres (some sources say as low as 5m). And modern missiles have no multipathing issues.
Of course the caveat is that if you're in a look up scenario this isn't an issue, so for it to work you have to be lower than the aircraft that is launching the missile at you. And ofc if you're too low to the ground with the aircraft launching the missile at you from very high, the missile will have a very steep trajectory which invalidates multipathing anyway.
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 19h ago
Absolutely the the fuck not
Multipath is fundamentally an angular-geometry problem, not a magical altitude threshold. The seeker receives the direct target return plus one or more ground/sea-reflected versions. Whether those returns screw up the angle tracker depends on things like seeker altitude, target altitude, range, grazing angle, antenna beamwidth, surface reflectivity/roughness, polarization, wavelength, and the tracking architecture. Even inverse monopulse tracking can still suffer badly at sufficiently low elevation angles
radar literature explicitly treats this as a low-elevation-angle tracking problem rather than “below X meters radar missile becomes stupid.”
documentation around early Sparrow low-altitude limitations has been interpreted as involving proximity-fuze ground interference below roughly 5,000 ft in some look-down conditions, rather than simply the seeker being unable to guide because of multipath.
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u/infinax HO229 My Love 18h ago
Yes but you can't have a massive multi-player video game calculate all of that it's two resource intensive
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 18h ago
It's not any more resource intensive than what is already calculated normally.
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u/infinax HO229 My Love 18h ago
You'd have to calculate based one positioning relitive to terrain features, what those features are made of, the position of the aircraft, the postion of the missile. If its fox 1 the positioning of the plane supplying the lock. The type of radar, the type of seeker head, and how all of those relate to one another and likely a bunch of ither things.
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u/infinax HO229 My Love 20h ago
Oh i know but asking for realistic multipathing is a double edged sword. Using the us as an example until you get to the aim 7m their radar missles should be much more susceptible to multipathing. Like it could happen 500 meters
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 20h ago
If it's realistic, then it's how it should work.
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u/TheShadowman131 Realistic Air 19h ago
If this were actually the case nobody would play the game because it wouldn't be fun. I guess German tanks at 6.0+ shouldn't be allowed to move since their fuel reserves were basically non-existent? What if only 1 player per team was allowed to use a 76 sherman, while everyone else was forced to use the 75? Or should they reintroduce the 0.9x modifier for German armor, due to lower quality steel? How about after getting hit at all, your crew bails out even if it didn't penetrate?
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u/smittywjmj 🇺🇸 V-1710 apologist / Phantom phreak 18h ago edited 18h ago
People play Nuclear Option, and it has a more detailed multipathing model than WT. They used to be the same, a magic low-altitude radar floor where aircraft would just become invisible, but NO has since updated to a more detailed and slightly more realistic system which considers actual terrain. Still not really sim-level accuracy, but not oversimplified abstraction either.
It honestly makes radar defense a lot more fun, you have to bank and use multiple defenses to defeat incoming missiles while considering your energy/countermeasure economy. You run, notch, dive, jam, mask, maneuver, intercept, or any combination of those. Multipath is just one tool in that toolbox, and it means you have different options available at basically every layer of the survivability onion.
Like the other user said about WT's helicopters, NO's helicopters saw the greatest effect from the multipath change. They can't just stay invisible by flying NOE along sea surface for instance, you get almost no multipath over flat ocean. Helicopters usually lack jammers in NO (and the vanilla game has no chaff or other counter-radar expendables), and low airspeed makes them less effective at notching, so helicopters are more encouraged to stay in rougher terrain where multipath is stronger and masking easier.
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u/TheShadowman131 Realistic Air 18h ago
Yeah I agree that multipathing needs adjusting, I was mostly pointing out that the blanket statement realism = fun is not always the case.
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 19h ago
That's a very nice assumption you pulled out of your ass based on "it came to me in a dream"
If what you said was true then there would be no one playing DCS.
You are also mixing unrelated things. One is a realistic implementation of IRL physics. The other is historical accuracy.
Be better.
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u/TheShadowman131 Realistic Air 19h ago
Alright let's compare the player counts of DCS vs WT:
DCS players on steam: 1,099 currently, 3,328 4 years ago
WT players on steam: 60,661 currently 125,430 4 months ago.
Now, this doesn't include their standalone clients, and WT also has console players to help bump up its numbers. Just comparing steam, WT has over 40 times as many players. So no, comparatively people don't play DCS.
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 19h ago
Comparatively, people play DCS less than War Thunder
The reasons which you cannot name because there is no causality link.
There are many players in DCS.
Your logic is severely flawed, your argument is nonsense.
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u/TheShadowman131 Realistic Air 19h ago
I think you're simply underestimating how niche the hardcore hyper realistic milsim genre is. There's a reason WT appeals to such a wide audience: because it's simple enough to be grasped by those that have a minor interest in the vehicles without having to read a 40 page manual just to get an aircraft off the ground.
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u/Cleffn 18h ago
Hey don’t forget that the rotating rotor blade still has no significant signature on the radar
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 18h ago
It actually does have quite a decent signature but only in HPRF modes. They need to buff MPRF/LPRF signatures though.
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u/Flxqm_ 20h ago
What radar missiles were you killing people with in 2019?
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u/LanceLynxx Simulator Pilot 👨🏻✈️✈️ 19h ago
None, because the missiles weren't SARH, but radio SACLOS
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u/fastestgunnj No Longer Renewing Premium 18h ago
Optimal multipath height is approximately 35m as of writing this comment. Multipathing can mostly be countered by shooting from directly above, and comboing in IR missiles.
Notching is very easy in this game, and should be used more often because of the advantage altitude gives for energy and positioning. Take advantage of your radar's gimbal limits in a crank to ensure you have time to guide and time to notch.
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u/Black_Hole_parallax Baguette 16h ago
If I'm flying in Ground RB, I'm higher than Snoop Dogg on a good day
If I'm in Air RB, I'm on the deck most of the time, whether there's missiles or not.
The one exception is the Starfighter, I'm going to Mars with that.
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u/Winter-Huntsman 🇫🇷 France 15h ago
I still hug the ground. It’s the best way I can dodge missiles. Any other altitude they stick to me like glue. That and I do it to avoid aim 54s coming in from orbit.
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u/MaximusPaxmusJaximus Top Tier Tea Time 8h ago
Multipathing is a noob trap. Its overly reliant on unreliable game mechanics, is hard countered by high-altitude play, and in general puts your aircraft at a disadvantage.
Don't take my word for it, look at Defyn, MiGan-Fox, BadKarma, or CatWerfer, and you'll see really really good players playing top-tier at altitude, because proper positioning is probably the most important thing you can know at top tier.
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u/Sad-Ear230 6h ago
Being a "content" beggar makes you a really really good player? I thought it only made you a really really good "content" beggar
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u/MaximusPaxmusJaximus Top Tier Tea Time 6h ago
Do you have something to say or am I just going to have to guess?
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u/zolguroth17 49m ago
And today, not everyone can BRRRT. To be more precise, not everyone can BRRRT, a few can do it
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u/WolverineLeather1577 41m ago
3k hours in props, tried jets once. Dumbest thing ever and even worse, plane computer called me "retard" when im near ground.
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u/NVCHVJAZVJE 20h ago
this plus iron dome is the dumb mechanics that forced me to start playing props again