Implementing RADAR

[CanuckCommander]

Currently, the AA missiles sound the alarm .5 seconds after lock which means most likely they are fired before the aircraft knows the launch. Thereby making air battles albeit Heli vs Heli or Jet vs Jet very short and whoever sees the other person first will win.

Especially with the missile speeds and the short ranges that Stingers (no Aim-120) locks at. In gunship vs gunship battles, the other gunship almost gets not warning and will die 90% of the time.

For example, the other day i was flying the Havok on Kashan. My alarm went off and I popped flares, but at the corner of my eye i saw the apache about 100m away. Since he was very close, the missile already had .5s of flight time before my alarm. That way, I had no chance. If I had radar, there wouldn't have happened and the apache would not get within 100m of me without being detected.

Suggestion

Allow aircrafts to have a new dummy-missile weapon with no ammunition, but call it radar. I don't know how much radar actually covers, so I'll use th apache as an example. Let's say that Apache's radar can cover 360 degrees in a sphere.

The dummy weapon will act just like the AAVs' missiles and give off a beep sound when there is a target in its scanning FOV (field of view). The RADAR will just be like a missile scan except it will have a huge FOV.

This way the Apache will get a warning if there is a nearby aircraft and can turn around to look for it. Having a Havok sneak up to an Apache will sophisticated radar is higly unrealistic, so this will be a great compromise for the new AA delay.


I wrote this fast, excuse some errors.

Anyone else want to say something?

[Hotrod525]

Radar is pretty hard to add in PR whitout having some probleme, if you had more "option" that mean more weapon slot, that mean more complicated flight. Switch from radar to weapon ? useless every one will use the weapons instead of radar.

[Hitperson]

also heat seakers won't trip a threat reciever.

[Alex6714]

also heat seakers won't trip a threat reciever.

Why not? The threat system on the british apache longbow can detect a sam launches heat or otherwise.

I guess you mean before launch?

[CanuckCommander]

Radar is pretty hard to add in PR whitout having some probleme, if you had more "option" that mean more weapon slot, that mean more complicated flight. Switch from radar to weapon ? useless every one will use the weapons instead of radar.

You're getting this all wrong. Right now you have to point the missiles at a general direction to get a lock tone.

With Radar as a weapon, it will scan front and behind you and give you a warning of any aircraft that is in range. Then you can switch to missiles and turn around to engage. I can't think of anyone who wouldn't want to know if another aircraft is sneeking up behind him.

[CanuckCommander]

also heat seakers won't trip a threat reciever.

I know it doesn't until launch because it is passive guided. That is why it is reasonable in PR to have the delay. But all i want is radar so that i can defend myself against aircraft that sneaks up on me when i'm in a helo.

[[T]waylay00]

Or you could just do it like Forgotten Hope does it with their recon plane. They added the vanilla UAV radar sweep to the plane, so you can nearby detect threats on the minimap (as well as by the "beep" they make).

I think that this would be a great addition.

[CanuckCommander]

waylay00;932747']Or you could just do it like Forgotten Hope does it with their recon plane. They added the vanilla UAV radar sweep to the plane, so you can nearby detect threats on the minimap (as well as by the "beep" they make).

I think that this would be a great addition.

Is that possible? If it is, ADD IT ALREADY devs lol! That is exactly what attack helicopters need. But there is one potential problem, there might not be a way to stop it from detecting everything, including INF.

I know most aircraft have ground radar, but its not 360 degrees, so maybe the UAV effect can be limited to foward looking, but have a big FOV (field of view) so that it still scans larger area than AA missiles.

[CAS_117]

YouTube - TRtest

You can see at 1:00 sort of got the radar working. The blips you have there are at about 400m away IIRC. It has a 2.5km range and shows a top down view of the area around you. We had the option of either giving it a 360 degree scan angle like in reality, or having a 100 degree angle except the motion is slaved to the gunners missile/gun camera. After getting completely confused with the gun in one direction and the radar in another, we went with the latter. The good news is that it works entirely on a line of sight basis so if you drive behind a hill, the radar can't see you. Makes the Anti Air war pretty interesting now.

[Masaq]

waylay00;932747']Or you could just do it like Forgotten Hope does it with their recon plane. They added the vanilla UAV radar sweep to the plane, so you can nearby detect threats on the minimap (as well as by the "beep" they make).

I think that this would be a great addition.

Not going to happen. That "radar" allows the entire friendly team to see whatever the radar flags up, and can't dicriminate between air assets, ground vehicles and infantry - ALL of them show up on the minimap radar. It's hideously unrealistic and will not be making a reappearance for the sake of giving aircraft "radar".

[Salah ad Din]

YouTube - TRtest

You can see at 1:00 sort of got the radar working. The blips you have there are at about 400m away IIRC. It has a 2.5km range and shows a top down view of the area around you. We had the option of either giving it a 360 degree scan angle like in reality, or having a 100 degree angle except the motion is slaved to the gunners missile/gun camera. After getting completely confused with the gun in one direction and the radar in another, we went with the latter. The good news is that it works entirely on a line of sight basis so if you drive behind a hill, the radar can't see you. Makes the Anti Air war pretty interesting now.

eh, how did you do that?

[CAS_117]

Idk. Conspiracy?

[PR.IT Stek_WAR]

I think that can not accept because I think it is also unrealistic

[luckyhendrix]

No radar ain't a good solution, IRL very few and only the most advanced helo have air-to-air radar (even no radar at all).Beside that shot range missile like AIM-9,R73,stinger and strela ar IR missiles , they are very few aircraft equiped with device able to spot IR missile effectively!

I think are more realistic thing would be of having no warning at all ( at least on helo , it could be different with airplanes ). But pilots would have more flares (around : 60) if it ain't hardcoded they could launch them 1 at a time (so they could pop little amounts of flares as soon as they enter the danger area, and spam the button if there is a bigger threat ).Also ground fired AA missile should be inefective above certain altitude (IRL:if you're above 1500m you are fairly safe, of course the fastest the plane goes the lower is this safe altitude)

IMHO it would be more realistic that way, pilot would have to learn to pop flare even if they dunno if there is a threat like real helo pilots.

But i think you could keep the lock signal for planes because they tend to fight with radar guidace missile more often. and anyway their speed and altitude should imune them to manpads.

[Alex6714]

Well manpads are way to powerful for what they really are atm, but actually these helicopters do have systems to detect missile launches.

I give the apache as an example, because it is the easiest one to find out about.

In real life british apache longbows are fitted with an air defense suite that will:

- Detect a SAM launch (IR, radar whatever, once the missile is in flight it will be detected)

- Give audio warnings including the direction from which the missile comes

- Dispense automatically (pilot can also) the correct countermeasure, be it flares or chaff etc

- Via audio tell the pilot the maneuvers to take to best evade the missile

Not all helis have it of course, but a whole lot will and at least have similar systems, just you won´t hear about it.

All these videos of Apache gun cams, ever seen a Chinese or Russian one? Who knows how similar their defense systems are.

[luckyhendrix]

I think russian don"t have this kind of system or very few, but it has to be verified.

i agree the apache has good counter-measure system , it must be the same for the cobra.
But i don"t think huey or blackhawk or littlebird does have this kind of device.

Also IRl manpads are uneffective beacause you can fly higher or engage from further , but in BF2 you can't. But for now I think manpads are fairly balanced.

[Alex6714]

Well about the manpads I mean they are too powerful in game.

[CanuckCommander]

So I watched Alex's test videos both of the TR and Apache. I wonder why haven't you guys implemented this stuff. I understand that this would put air assets at a huge advantage over ground because tanks do not have targetting computers yet. But still this would make air assets a lot more realistic since they are quite nerfed right now, totally relying on ground spotters for lasers (except for att helos).

First, the radar was pretty cool, but that was not what I was suggesting because it may be a bit overpowered for PR even though it is realistic. I was suggesting a Air to Air radar instead of a Air to Ground one. It would be simple to implement, just give Aircrafts a dummy missile that can lock-on to targets 360 degrees and give a sound warning tone when enemy aircraft comes into range.

Second, in the Apache Test video, I didn't see anything that SHOULDN"T be implemented right away. For example, the pilot's zoom would be extremely helpful for hydra runs that are extremely CAS. Also, they SALVO fire would be extremely useful too when you need to get off lots of Hydras in a short time to avoid AA missiles.

Lastly, I noticed you guys modeled disco balls onto all (if not most) helicopters. Why not implementing them? Right now, it is almost too easy for insurgents to kill Apaches on Karbala. It is kind of ridiculous. Apaches are usually lost to ground fire not AA missiles.

Btw CAS are you taking a break like rhino?