Making enemy lasers less visible

[Mats391]

One thing i hate is that you can see enemy lasers and that you can lock onto them. Well the locking on is harder to change, but making them less visible from GTLD, UAV etc. would be a good start. I do not suggest to change the laser tracking for CAS, just for the spotters.
So here is my idea:
1. Remove the friendly laser (laser that sticks on a friendly vehicle), you cant lock onto it so no need to see it. This could also be done for CAS.
2. Change GTLD and other spotting tools to only see lasers that they are locked on. Idealy this would be your own laser, but anyway you will only see 1 laser at a time.
The only problem with this would be that the automated "i got lock" message needs to be removed to avoid spam. This could be replaced by another sound that is only triggered for CAS similar to how the AA lock on sound works. Also the rangefinder would only work when you have a target, but he is unreliable anyway (would probably be more accurate this way).
Additionally you could change the lock on time for GTLD to be non instant. This would force the spotter to keep his eyes on the target to see if the laser is still active. Popping up behind cover just to lase/check lase would be less effective.
At last there is a nice side effect from locking onto lasers: they are better visible.
Example:

[Rhino]

Good idea Mats, but I think a better and simpler approach would possibly just to decrease the angle at which the GTLD can see laser targets down to a very small FOV, so it will need to be basically looking more or less directly at the target in order to see it. This way you can still see your own laser targets as you do now, providing you are more or less looking at them but the chances of you spotting an enemy one is more or less zero.

[Jacksonez__]

E: Nvm . . .

[Solid Knight]

When I was messing with lasers, it pretty much boiled down to not being able to do anything other than have the HUD display them or not. Rhino's idea is pretty much all you can do.

[Mats391]

Yea limiting the angle for lasers to show would work too
I guess limiting them to the rectangle in the middle would be enough and everyone would know where to look for lasers. But then the size of the laser box should be reduced otherwise you will see a lot of half drawn textures and that is just ugly.

[Spook]

I see one problem there. Sometimes several squads start lasing a vehicle at once. CAS will most likely lock onto one of the "bad ones" and miss the target. Usually you prevent that by telling all squads to stop laser spam the target and let you do the job properly. If you do not see the other lasers you will not be able to warn the pilots and other SQDLeads about the laser spam and therefore cause the CAS to lock onto wrong lases without knowing and people will keep wondering why CAS keeps missing its target.

[Rhino]

I see one problem there. Sometimes several squads start lasing a vehicle at once. CAS will most likely lock onto one of the "bad ones" and miss the target. Usually you prevent that by telling all squads to stop laser spam the target and let you do the job properly. If you do not see the other lasers you will not be able to warn the pilots and other SQDLeads about the laser spam and therefore cause the CAS to lock onto wrong lases without knowing and people will keep wondering why CAS keeps missing its target.

Well with a limited FOV on seeing lock boxes, you would be able to see other lases on the same target your looking at too, only time you might not see them is on another target a few meters away unless you look around at them.

[matty1053]

I really could care less about this.
But irl, laser guided bombs/missiles can be guided by enemy laser designators?


(considering the Chinese and Russians have them)

[Jacksonez__]

I really could care less about this.
But irl, laser guided bombs/missiles can be guided by enemy laser designators?


(considering the Chinese and Russians have them)

I guess others can see them too, trough night vision or similar.

Wikipedia: USAF handheld laser beam as seen under night vision, 2007.

I am not very certain if other conventional armies can have their laser guided missiles guided by the enemy laser. Maybe their laser guided bombs have different recognizing technology or something. Or then you just simply can lock on all lasers.

[Gw3ck]

If I get it right from Wikipedia, in RL the target is not lased continuously.
The laser designator send a series of laser beams onto the target in addition to that the laser beam is coded to a specific frequency and wave length. So the spotter has to tell, for example the aircraft who is about to drop a bomb, the frequency, wave length and whatever more so the pilot can pass the info to the ammunition and the optic sensor can lock onto the specific laser beam.
Depending on this information I would say it is pretty unlikely that the enemy can lase a target and a friendly aicraft drops a bomb on it, because the warhead would never lock onto the enemy laser beam, except the enemy found out the frequency and wave length you use.

[Rhino]

Well this isn't about if you can "lock onto" an enemy lase with your aircraft, there is nothing we can do to stop that. This is about making it harder to see enemy lases though your SOFLAM which in r/l afaik, can't pick up a lazed target, it only can designate one. There would be no point for it to pick up or lock onto a laser target since at the end of the day, its job is just to designate a target, not to fire a weapon at one. The reason we show the laser target ingame is so players get visual feedback that the laser you have fired is active and has "stuck" on the target correctly.

[Hunt3r]

I think the major issue here is that it's possible for enemies to give false lases. Unless PR takes place in a world where every major army has the same encoded signals for laser designation, it's unrealistic.

[Psyrus]

I think the major issue here is that it's possible for enemies to give false lases. Unless PR takes place in a world where every major army has the same encoded signals for laser designation, it's unrealistic.

Engine limits and all that

[kangaroo]

To add to this, would it be possible for other Gtlds to see when somebody starts lasing? Like you could see a small dot being emitted from the end of the lasing Gtld?

[Psyko]

When you think about it....wouldnt it be better to just remove the little box and make the laser instant?

The visual feedback is to make sure the projectile doesnt get stuck on obstructions right? well the squad leader can use the forward back trick on the map to see if his 3dmap marke is stuck so in other words...

inexperienced squad leaders would blow up their squads and experienced ones would make stealthy target acquisitions.

[chrisweb89]

When you think about it....wouldnt it be better to just remove the little box and make the laser instant?

The visual feedback is to make sure the projectile doesnt get stuck on obstructions right? well the squad leader can use the forward back trick on the map to see if his 3dmap marke is stuck so in other words...

inexperienced squad leaders would blow up their squads and experienced ones would make stealthy target acquisitions.

I'm not understanding what your are saying here. Are you saying that if the map lase marker isn't on target, then the actual lase won't be either? Because they are completely independent and the marker on map isn't required.

[Ca6e]

IRL u can see the laser but u cant guide enemy missile. Cause its about GTLD unit, and laser just for the ditance from GTLD to the target. When u paint the target GLTD calculate and then is sanding data to the unit CC and if u want to do this u need to hack the unit ENM is operating

Anyway back to the Thread, I really like idea for invisible or out of focus enm lasers.

Also i would like to know how Guided bombs locking work, is it working the same way as visibility, or it is locking everything in 360 degree angle around the plane, if so, u can also set this visible lock angle to small degree in front and under the plane.

[Inspektura43]

Instead of making the game even more arcade, try and fix the prone lazing when you are behind a ridge.A few days ago some retard "lazed" a tank, my pilot went in and teamkilled all the friendies on the firebase the guy was lazing from.

[Psyko]

I'm not understanding what your are saying here. Are you saying that if the map lase marker isn't on target, then the actual lase won't be either? Because they are completely independent and the marker on map isn't required.

No ,from my experience, they might be independant, but they operate on the same projectile system.

[Rhino]

No ,from my experience, they might be independant, but they operate on the same projectile system.

SOFLAM lasers are projectiles with a "sticky" propriety to them that lets them stick on targets they hit, like C4 charges in vbf2 do.

Map markers are essentially invisible "vehicle/crate para drops" that are dropped up in the air where they are placed on the minimap.