Lock-on Missiles (AA & Jets)

[rampo]

disagree. I think its pretty easy to evade AA as u know roughly the AA positions to stay outta those areas, then use the terrain, hills and houses for cover and then ofcourse the missile evade prosegure it self, just when u get the lock, pop flares and immediately change direction or follow the flares falling to the ground and use the ground for cover when escaping.

[Nemus]

Maps in PR are too small to have a comparison with jets IRL.
I mean 4 km maps? IRL they are not enough even for a normal landing approach.

A jet IRL doesnt strafe for hours over an area with AAs. And doesnt make "epic doghfights" when its EWS is full of threats. It makes its bombing run fast and disapears faster.

PR is not a simulator in every part of it. Infantry, tanks, jets etc. Many features are (and must be) simplified. Many assets are just "too big" for the maps. If we want them we must accept and their capability (or incapability) to do some things they appear unrealistic, easy, hard etc.
Otherwise we can play a specific simulator. You want rewarding accuracy? Try to shoot down a P-51 at IL-2. First time i did it i felt like Red Baron.

[IAJTHOMAS]

How often do you see BMPs downing jets on Kashan at the moment? How often in previous versions did tunguska's down jets that weren't carelessly flying down the AA's throat? Same with the CWIS when they were still on the Essex.

To be honest its relatively easy to avoid AA missiles at the moment by popping some flares and getting the hell out of dodge. You can even deliberately fly in to an AA envelope to engage the AAVs if you dropping flares on the run and know where they are an have a reasonable chance of survival.

Sure the AA will get you via the law of probabilites, but a good pilot taking precautions is tough to shoot down.

The main problems I see are that the attack choppers are particularly vulnerable as they are often required to operate at highish alttitude and a low speed to engage targets effectively. In an ideal world you'd engage lased targets, dropping flares on the pass and breaking off early, but often this doesn't happen and you have to hunt for yourself and your at a greater risk doing that.

[Oddsodz]

Now. You are forgetting the balance from the jets side of things. When a jet drops a bomb on target (meaning it's lazed and all that jazz). It's a one shot/bomb kill. So the AA also I believe needs to be a 1 shot kill of sorts. That is the way it is right now.

The reason why jets get killed by AA is because players are to greedy or just don't have the patients to wait for marked targets. And if you can't learn to take your time and work with a spotter on the ground. Then the jet deserves to get it's ass handed to it.

Jets are the most deadly thing in game. And so a good counter is needed for them. The AA as it is right now is just about right. Although I think the MEC Gaskin needs to be replaced with something has a .50 or something to counter the AAv Avenger.

Now for choppers. They do need more flare packs. A set of 5 is not enough.

[Engineer]

What is missing from portable AA-missiles in PR is the 'fuel' of the seeker.

You can't keep the seeker spinning 24/7, as it depletes the coolant quickly... You'll only activate it when you've spotted an aircraft or know one is coming.

If you can simulate this coolant feed with PR, that'd be nice... This would disable the possibility for continuous lookout.

Same goes for deployed AA-placements, but they usually have a better source for this coolant due logistics...



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Yea well, it lacks the computer calculating and displaying the best possible vector for missile to intercept as well... but that's probably something you can't code.

[CAS_117]

As the guy who designed the AA in PR, and has used the AA missiles from 0.5 till now, I can tell you that yes, without them it is quite impossible to shoot down an aircraft that does even the slightest evasion. But not because hitting it is particularly hard, especially at the ranges we are usually at.

Is it really that hard to lead an aircraft with guns? No not at all. The problem is that "If I hit it, will it die?".

Let me elaborate. Have you ever hit a guy in the head and he not die? Shoot a humvee with a tank shell and have it not die? Or use an anti air missile that detonates beside a helicopter and of course it not take any damage.

Think of it this way, an aircraft that is moving very quickly has less and less surface area on it that is vulnerable to damage:



Here's the problem. BF2 has very poor hit detection. Basically, the faster a target goes, the less damage it will sustain. Note that in the Scenario 2 the aircraft has practically ZERO killable surface area. This is why I am quite loathe to increase the armor of aircraft or pretty much anything in general because the hitboxes in effect double the required number of hits on average.

*So in effect, the more you hit an aircraft, the worse a shot you are, and the more you miss the better a shot you are.

How to get around this limitation? You see the yellow box in the diagram? That is the heat object. This is what the missile tracks. Moving these to the nose of an aircraft means that instead of trying to hit the air 12m or so behind the plane, the missile will "overcompensate" for the hitboxes position; the missiles automatically attack the point where most of the aircraft is "killable".

The other solution is to add proximity fuses to the missiles. The problem is simply getting them to do enough damage while getting them to detonate at all. In short: The bigger the proximity fuse, the less damage the explosion does. Give a missile a 100m proximity fuse and a 50m blast radius and the missile will practically never do anything. Give a missile a 50m proximity fuse and a 100m blast radius and it just might, except now its got the blast radius of a bloody 500lb bomb! Great work.

So by removing the heat object from the aircraft, you are no longer tracking a 14.5m long airframe, you are trying to hit a point in space that is about 0.5m high and 2m long. By any stretch this is impossible, especially since you have practically zero idea where this is located (unless you use hitfixer and know the targets ping).

Hitting an aircraft with guns? Easy. Doing any damage? Very hard.

[Naruto-kun]

good explanation CAS_117

After my experiences with VBF2 1.50 its actually easier to shoot planes down with only guns, since the hitreg is a lot better there.

[Rhino]

ye v1.5 is meant to fix the hitboxes a bit but I've yet to see a diffidence in the short time I tried it out.

[Naruto-kun]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Rhino

ye v1.5 is meant to fix the hitboxes a bit but I've yet to see a diffidence in the short time I tried it out.

Well try it as long you don't do the same mistake as me(installing 1.50 over 1.41)

but believe me you will like the Hitreg

Play some 1.41 first and try 1.50 after

[fuzzhead]

One thing I would add: actually I think BF2 has one of the best hit detections for combined arms games with 64 players.

No other games really attempt to have that many players with infantry, ground vehicles and air vehicles all moving around large maps.

ArmA2 does it but we wont talk on its hit detection as it desyncs to all hell with 60 players on at the same time and its very sketchy with alot of vehicles in the air, vehicles warping around and everything else its kind of a turkey shoot in pub servers.

So maybe there is another game that Im not aware of but I think BF2's hit detection aint half bad, but of course would be nice to be better.