Increase Exocet Damage

[[R-COM]ismaelassassin]

Currently there is only 1 plane in the entire game that can fire the Exocet missile, this one takes 20 minutes to spawn and it takes another 5 minutes to reach the Atlantic Conveyor and another 2 minutes back to Argentina to re-arm. The Atlantic Conveyor takes 2 Exocets to be sunk but so far almost nobody uses the "Super Entendard" Mirage and even less know how to properly fire the Exocet, even then, the window to lock on the conveyor is very small, with the plane having to be too close, but if you are flying too low, you or the missile could hit the water, too high and you wont lock on, and that isnt even accounting for the fact that you need to quickly move out of the way to not crash against the conveyor and have enough time to attack it without being persued by the Harriers. Only for, when you finally hit it with the Exocet, the ship wont be destroyed and you have to repeats this difficult process of firing the missile again all the while you have no guns or missiles to defend yourself.
Its just too much skill and timing required with not enough of a reward compared to the risk for failing, with the possibility that the mirage might not be able to respawn again before match ends.

TL;DR:

Its too risky and too difficult to hit the atlantic conveyor and if you miss your first pass you might not get another chance either bc of too many harriers present or you were destroyed and have to wait 20 mins.

[Rhino]

Originally Posted by ismaelassassin

all the while you have no guns or missiles to defend yourself.

While you are correct the "Anti-Ship Mirage" has no guns (due to the Super Etendard having to have its guns removed in order to fit the avionics needed for the Exocet to be fired), it does have two Matra R.550 Magic Short Range AtA Missiles to defend itself with, and so it can be used as a fighter after its fired the Exocet: https://media.realitymod.com/highlig...6_loadouts.png

But for your main point, technically it doesn't require all of two Exocets to destroy the Atlantic Conveyor Cargo Ship, it's more something like 1.1 or 1.2 Exocets are required (would have to look up the exact number, can't recall off the top of my head). This was done as I assumed more Argentine jets would help out in the bombing of the AC so after one or two bombs had been dropped on it, an Exocet would finish it off in one hit. But I think most players don't realise that you can destroy it or don't feel it is worth bombing as all you do is deny the Brits a Chinook spawn point and forward resupply point etc so better saving those bombs for things that cost tickets.

With the introduction of the Frigate, I can see increasing the damage of the Exocet to the point where it at least puts the AC into at least a bleed after a single Exocet hit would be worth it as then there are multiple targets for both the Exocet and the bombers to go after so using the Exocet on the AC, while it might only slightly hinder the Brits, is more or less a sure kill, unlike the Frigate which has defences aginst the Exocet so will take more skill to sink that (and also skill to defending aginst the Exocet, won't be a simple as popping flares after hearing a tone like in aircraft).

[PBAsydney]

I tried using the Exocet yesterday on Falklands. I came in from the southwest, dipped my Mirage down to skim above the waves at 40 meters and set my sight on the Conveyor. I armed the Exocet and saw the prize on the targeting pod 1km away. As I got closer and closer I started to wonder why I wasn't getting a lock, until the range was down to almost nothing and I had to pull up and just barely missed crashing into the ship.

I came in from the southwest, was that angle too awkward to get a lock? Do I need to approach it from a more perpendicular angle?

[[R-COM]ismaelassassin]

Same, i fly at 20 above the water. but it is possible to get a lock on. its just very hard to do it on time, if you try to get the square lock aligned with the crosshairs and you are too far you are risking crashing against the water, too low and you risk the missile falling into the sea

[Rhino]

Originally Posted by PBAsydney

I tried using the Exocet yesterday on Falklands. I came in from the southwest, dipped my Mirage down to skim above the waves at 40 meters and set my sight on the Conveyor. I armed the Exocet and saw the prize on the targeting pod 1km away. As I got closer and closer I started to wonder why I wasn't getting a lock, until the range was down to almost nothing and I had to pull up and just barely missed crashing into the ship.

I came in from the southwest, was that angle too awkward to get a lock? Do I need to approach it from a more perpendicular angle?

My guess is it might have been a combination of the angle with the different targetobjects confusing the lockon and also you also being very close, 1km isn't much time for you to easily get a lock. In this video the lock happens at 2.5km.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFLhUL3uNaw

In the future, I plan to only have one target object per ship rather than multiple ones which should make the process easier but IIRC we had problems with attaching one directly to the AC so we had to dot them around the outside at different points but hopefully we can fix it in the future, if not we can still probably improve it some more.

[[R-COM]ismaelassassin]

Hey so i gave the exocets another try and apparently its worse than i believed.
https://youtu.be/oNXLhpLU0oE

[PBAsydney]

Originally Posted by Rhino

My guess is it might have been a combination of the angle with the different targetobjects confusing the lockon and also you also being very close, 1km isn't much time for you to easily get a lock. In this video the lock happens at 2.5km.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFLhUL3uNaw

In the future, I plan to only have one target object per ship rather than multiple ones which should make the process easier but IIRC we had problems with attaching one directly to the AC so we had to dot them around the outside at different points but hopefully we can fix it in the future, if not we can still probably improve it some more.

Must be bugged then or something, because you need to be insanely close to even get a lock right now.

[Rhino]

Ye, you were dropping them very, very low to the sea and most were splashing in the sea. TBH that is realistic, the Super Etendards during the war popped up from flying just above the wavetops before releasing their warheads, not only so the missile doesn't splash into the water but also so they can get a decent lock over the horizon. One thing we could change is to increase the "loose lock delay", so after getting a lock on you can pop up and fire but it would have to be a very long delay in order to do that fully and I think it is better players don't release the missile while so low in the first place.

Looking at this again I think we should add an altitude indicator to the Radar HUD, think we just used a generic one for this job. Also, I notice there is no longer a locking symbol on the HUD, just the player shouting out he's got a lock so that is something that needs fixing too.

But I do see that many of the missiles locking onto that front target were going over the ship, will need to fix that.

So quick list of things to change:

1. Altitude Indicator on Radar HUD, maybe with it also being highlighted red when too low to launch if possible?
2. "Target Locked" HUD box/symbols not working.
3. Increase Loose Lock Delay?
   1. Might be worth adding more anyways but look into if it's practical to do a pop-up after locking?
   2. Maybe also increase locking angle?
4. Fix Target Objects on ships, ideally with one target and not many surrounding it
   1. If not possible to fix then need to fix the positioning of many of the target objects so there are fewer and missiles fired from low altitude don't fly over the ship
   2. Also looking into the dummy col above the lockboxes so players diving down from up high can't see them, to simulate the ship being lost in the ground clutter on the radar.
5. Check locking distance for Exocet, should be able to start locking on a 3km, also look BVR locking.
6. With the introduction of the Frigate, increase Exocet damage so that an Excoet will put a ship into bleed at the very least.

Think that covers it.

[[R-COM]ismaelassassin]

Its also missing the number that indicates if there is an Exocet loaded or not.
The increasing locking angle would also be a big one

[[R-DEV]​Arab]

Originally Posted by ismaelassassin

Its also missing the number that indicates if there is an Exocet loaded or not.
The increasing locking angle would also be a big one

Locking angle of 10 is realistic, but fixed the projectile dropping into water after locking and also added the missing ammo counter for next patch.