Damn those Flyboys!! Need an AA with some TEETH!

Major Ursa Norte · Post by **Major Ursa Norte** » 2006-10-18 13:46

Jets in BF2 are a problem. Why? Map size. Plain and simple. Desert Combat had HUGE maps and I NEVER experienced fixed wing domination on the level of BF2 engine/map size on any Desert Combat map. The map size lent to more air to air duels and greater response time for ground based forces to employ AA. If you look back on DC, it was much easier to re-fuel/ re-arm and the spawn times for aircraft was pretty short. The great equalizer in DC was the map size. Plain and simple.

Gecko1969 · Post by **Gecko1969** » 2006-10-18 17:27

Without a decent pilot on your team the air craft will be the trump card. Hand heald AA would really shake things up nicely. The fixed AA are about pointless except for Heli (which all AA are a real threat to) as the flyer just has to go high and start the cannon shooting a moment before they can see the AA site. THe fixed AA will maybe get a lock the split second before the rounds land but will not be effective against the aircraft. Maybe a ten to twenty percent increase in the lock on range would help fixed AA be more useful.

I have seen what looked like to me to be direct hits with AA missles on aircraft where they just keep on flying like nothing happend. Maybe it was lag on my end or something but it seems to be more often the case than to get a kill.

THe points about placing mobile AA are well taken but the lock on time is too long if you have a limited LOS to the airplane (again Heili are dead meat for the most part vs. AA). So what I have seen is the moment I get a lock the flares come out and the plane completes the run then is out of range. They then circle around now knowing where I am and nail me with a high altitude run. So the idea of more armor is good and I would like to move a bit faster so I can seek shelter or get in to a new position faster.

In the game balance (I like the paper, rock analogy) given two players who are excellent (top 90%) with plane and the other with moblie AA the Flyboy will own the mobile AA with far greater ease than the effort the AA gunner will have to go through to kill the planes as moving about to be in a good position is slow and dangerous for AA as there may only be two or so good places on the map for AA to setup in. I know Flyboys love seeing there high kill ratios they can rack up and would hate to see some slow ponderous turtle dig in to that but to balance the game for the sake of the game the AA needs some thing extra, really. Just take the the example I gave of the two elite players for each and think about the outcome and without kidding yourself you know the plane will still kill the AA with great ease.

tezoatlipoca · Post by **tezoatlipoca** » 2006-10-18 17:50

Someone further up the thread suggested infantry hand held AA (Stingers and the like).
While I agree, it would a good (and realistic) addition, please make it so that anti-tank missles are less effective (must be more precise) to take out a helo... Yes its quite common to anti-tank or RPG a helo in real life (like recently in Lebanon)... thats why the AT guys only get 3 of them.
Likewise, AA guy should only be able to carry a sidearm and 2-3 AA missles.

But I digress. The real reason I wanted to chip into this thread was;

For the love of god, and all that is good and right in the world, please, I beg you, make it impossible for a MBT main cannon to hit a moving helicopter or jet. I can suspend my disbelief at the nerfed jets flying at 10 ft off the ground. But getting insta-popped by a MBT round.... gnah! When that happens I get so angry.. not unlike the Angry German Kid.

mdterp1987 · Post by **mdterp1987** » 2006-10-18 18:01

They deserve to get shot by a tank if they fly that low. This never happens in real life since no helicopter sits still base raping and no jets streak in 5 feet above the tank.

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » 2006-10-18 19:10

You know, I really think that the biggest problems with aircraft in Battlefield 2 is the scarcity of them, the fact that you do not need a team of people to take them out of hangars (or below deck on carriers), the fact that you do not need to land and wait a minute or two to reload, and the fact that air fields (including carriers) are not well defended against enermy aircraft.

tezoatlipoca wrote:Someone further up the thread suggested infantry hand held AA (Stingers and the like).
While I agree, it would a good (and realistic) addition, please make it so that anti-tank missles are less effective (must be more precise) to take out a helo... Yes its quite common to anti-tank or RPG a helo in real life (like recently in Lebanon)... thats why the AT guys only get 3 of them.
Likewise, AA guy should only be able to carry a sidearm and 2-3 AA missles.

But I digress. The real reason I wanted to chip into this thread was;

For the love of god, and all that is good and right in the world, please, I beg you, make it impossible for a MBT main cannon to hit a moving helicopter or jet. I can suspend my disbelief at the nerfed jets flying at 10 ft off the ground. But getting insta-popped by a MBT round.... gnah! When that happens I get so angry.. not unlike the Angry German Kid.

If a jet flew 5 feet off the ground towards a tank in the direction of its main battle cannon, chances are that it would get shot down. That is why jets do not do that.

kurtmax_0 · Post by **kurtmax_0** » 2006-10-18 20:18

Well for one, if the jet is going extremely fast.. would the tank crew be able to respond fast enough to shoot it?

I think the AA in PR is fine as it is. I *do* think that whoever commented on the maps being too small is right on the point. Aircraft in DC were perfect, but the maps were 5x the size...

The AA tank is really nice to attack other armor with too (if you have somebody in an apc or tank along with you) The bullets make the enemy tank bounce around like shit and blind him so he can't fire well...

huleboeren · Post by **huleboeren** » 2006-10-18 20:31

Are there even planes in PRMM?

I cant recall seeing one... probably cause I mainly play on iGi?

kurtmax_0 · Post by **kurtmax_0** » 2006-10-18 23:07

IIRC.. the only maps with planes on GH are El2 and the map that was in the BF2 demo (forgot the name)

Post by **NikovK** » 2006-10-18 23:15

To avoid being shot down by tanks...

Jets

1. Fly high and swoop down to attack.
2. If you must come in low, do so from an unexpected angle.
3. Fly away on afterburner doing aerobatic rolls or weaves of some sort, not straight.

Helicopters

1. Fly high and attack from above the tank's maximum main cannon elevation.
2. Have your gunner chew the roof off with his cannon.
3. Fire missiles from beyond draw distance at spotted tanks.
4. Make rocket runs only against infantry or light vehicles.
5. QUIT TRYING TO DOGFIGHT OTHER HELICOPTERS, JUST SCRAPE HIM OFF ON FRIENDLY AA AND GO BACK TO YOUR ACTUAL JOB OF GROUND ATTACK.

huleboeren · Post by **huleboeren** » 2006-10-18 23:18

I remember EOD (I think) implemented an awesome thing where the heli would start to spin uncontrollable if the tail rotor had been shot broke..
This was BF1942 tho

Resjah · Post by **Resjah** » 2006-10-18 23:49

'[R-CON wrote:fuzzhead']agreed md

nice vid there resjah

PR pilots fly within 10 feet of a tank (including yourself), Ive yet to see real life aircraft do that heheh

lol I know I do it

But I only do it because I can and it works much more efficiently.
Give me some other effective weapons and it will come to a stop and there will be no more planes scratching the paint job on tanks.

As I said if planes air-to-ground munition incorporating something like AGM-65s and GBU-12s then planes would be used much more realistically.

On a side note, being shot down by a tank is embarrassing, and It only happened to me once a long long time ago by BrokenArrow, after that I learned my lesson.

TheCaptn · Post by **TheCaptn** » 2006-10-19 01:44

'[R-DEV wrote:NikovK']3. Fire missiles from beyond draw distance at spotted tanks.

This isn't actually the case. I tested it out a week or two ago... With the geometry set to high, the draw distance of a tank zoomed in is longer than the maximum range of a TV guided missile. Even with it set to medium a tank can still see a helicopter before it's in range, although not very clearly.

The difference in draw distance between medium and high settings is about 2/3 of a runway length.

The mistake most chopper pilots make in PRM (myself included) is that when we're just out of range we tend to fly straight at the target to close that distance, which is a perfect setup for the tank to take a shot.
Like Nikovk said, height is the key. It's much more important in PRM than it ever was in vBF2, and I still need plenty of practice in that regard.

Randleman5102 · Post by **Randleman5102** » 2006-10-19 03:06

Planes fly low.

http://www.militaryspot.com/videos/video204.htm