I believe so yes. but please do what I ask please tell me what you think that means and what you see.
because there's always a possibility of a bug or a misunderstanding.
HiTech
Just wanted to make sure my expectations are what they should be.
What I noticed specifically.
Within the radar rings. Enemy aircraft are being pinged in the 20 second radar interval whether the radar is up or down. When up. Dots show but icons as well and fade back into a dot. This seems to happen when there is a friendly aircraft in icon distance or not. I was on/near the runway with the radar down and bombers were being painted as they crossed the radar ring. There were no other aircraft on that side of the ring.
Also, I was within an enemy’s airspace and the enemy aircraft were showing up with the 20 second delay where no one was within visual range. Specifically I was with my team and all friendly aircraft were well south of the airfield. About 1/2 a radar rings distance north of that airfield I could see a lone contact pinging every 20 seconds traveling to the NW. The distance to the closest friend from that target was about one ring radius away (10ish miles). No one could’ve possibly been in icon range of that aircraft let alone “seen” them.
Later I was relatively close to an enemy base, not looking at the runway at all. And a friendly M3 alerted me to an airplane on the runway. Brought up the clipboard and I could see the radar icon while that plane was on the ground. The friendly M3 couldn’t “see” them as they were on the opposite side of the town from the field. When I looked, I saw the plane spawned but not moving on the runway over my left shoulder. To be clear. I never saw the aircraft until I looked over my shoulder (7 o’clock after rolling my wing) and my plane was facing in a direction where my field of view would’ve never inadvertently caught them. I was the only aircraft in the sky within 4 sectors.
Outside any radar ring, the radar seems to act as you described but I can’t be positive. Inside any ring (friendly or enemy) radar seems to pick up all contacts with icons regardless of whether it’s a friendly ring or an enemy ring.
I’m not positive but, based on the observed behavior of the icons and the distances they’re showing up, I would guess that radar rings themselves are painting all aircraft within them at twenty second intervals and they’re doing so whenever any aircraft (friend or foe) is within the ring. But it only seems to happen when you’re within the radar ring. This is just a guess. My other guess would be that the “radar bubble” around aircraft/GV are painting icons on the clipboard well beyond visual range and having nothing to do with anyone actually picking them up visually.
