Hello.

could you please provide a video of the issue? It would be very helpful.

This missile is pure junk, I get even shorter lock-on distances than wiki, 1km-500m. Either extend it's lock-on range or scrap it, it's junk in player hands,it's even more junk in AI hands be it UCAV or F\A-181 and so on. Do you know what happens with an AI drone or plane that gets so close to an enemy? It gets blasted to pieces before it manages to lock-on with Macers.
Not to mention it can't lock-on even now on laser designated targets.

• Current Macer's range is up to 6000 m (there's a plan to increase it to 8 km). That is against standard - MRAP sized - targets. Smaller targets will have a shorter detection range.
• Minimum locking range is 350 m.
• Maximum target speed is 200 km/h.
• The missile has an IR guidance. This means it's limited by object view distance. The range can be affected by weather conditions like fog. Also, primarily, the target has to be heated.
• Macer has never been able to lock onto laser targets.
• You have to use "T" and point the cursor (center of the screen, TGP crosshair....) in the target's direction to designate it. (Cycling targets via "R" is limited to only targets known to the vehicle sensors and their ranges)

Oukej, I posted&made two vids here:
https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/200468-jets-custom-panels-gps-camera-feeds/?do=findComment&comment=3295067

Basically AI F-181 will lock in max 3.5 km after a first pass with max view distance, much better than earlier but let's face it that quoted 6000m range I doubt any AI will lock even near that value. My tests were made in perfect conditions with no obstacles, clear weather and max view distance(and objects too), in combat scenarios a target won't stay in plain sight, be alone and not return fire.

I also used "blufor reportRemoteTarget [this, 600];" for the target.

The UCAV Sentinel (in the second vid) is frankly junk with these missiles. It engages in about 500m on a first pass. I hope you don't want to tell me the Sentinel is made only for the GBU-12.

The survivability of your AI flying is already very low considering their old behaviour (like diving) coupled with sniper ground gunners and with these perfect conditions just to get a lock-on makes them bottom of the food chain.
If you can't change the behaviour/extreme diving of an attack chopper\jet\drone at least make them easier (or from farther away) to target ground vehicles with IR missiles.

Right now I'm willing to bet good beers if your AI flying will return to base if let on their own and they meet more than one armored unit.

AI can sometimes be a different issue.

• AI will rarely engage on the first pass - sensors don't provide any information about target allegiance, so most of the time AI has to first confirm its target via eyes or ears. You can try https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/reveal to give the AI a head start :) Or there's also https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/confirmSensorTarget. Slow detection of targets by AI in vehicles is still listed as a bug on our side. I can't however promise we'll be able to fix it :/
• AI should be able to engage targets up to the weapon's lock range, even outside of vehicle sensors' range.
• We acknowledge that the diving into attacks is a bad behavior, sadly we won't be able to change that for Arma 3. We're sorry about that.
• We can restrict the diving behavior for orbiting vehicles (helicopters, drones, Blackfish). But since we've got no other attack behavior for aerial units, it may increase their survivability but also limit their ability to engage targets (get into position for a missile launch)