Tank Smoke as Flares?

Post by **NikovK** » 2006-01-20 11:04

I've been giving some thought to the smoke dispenser on tanks. The smoke is currently useful only for wire-guided missile evasion, assuming you sucessfuly dodge and your opponent doesn't outguess you. However, when facing fire-and-forget guided bombs or missiles, the smoke is completely useless. Could the smoke dispenser also spawn an aircraft flare or the flare effect? Modern smoke systems for tanks are often designed to disrupt lasers or heat signatures, and this really would be a step towards realism in armor. This also provides a counter to fire-and-forget man-portable ATGM like the Javelin which may enter the game later.

Tom#13 · Post by **Tom#13** » 2006-01-20 11:28

good idea, its realistic and its alot more uselfull

Post by **BrokenArrow** » 2006-01-20 16:59

I would like to see the smoke have flare like qualities, as far as disrupting the missiles. Good idea.

F.N.G. · Post by **F.N.G.** » 2006-01-20 20:21

I thought it already did that. In vanilla BF2, I get a lock on me from a bomber coming straight at me and pop smoke and the 'lock on' missile/bomb cant hit me. unless they let lose before I popped smoke. It does work. Try it.

Speaking of smoke. Why is the smoke using the same buttons as the main gun? I mean, why do you have to switch from main gun rounds to smoke in order to use it? Isn't it a separate trigger system on tanks? I know they don't use the same barrel. What's up with that. Then is takes that eternity to load up another shell that should be in there already. It sucks. Sorry to deviate from the subject.

Post by **BrokenArrow** » 2006-01-20 20:32

Paladin could give you a better answer but from what I understand it is because we use the current smoke button to zoom in. It was either the smoke becomes a second function or the coax MG went into the 3 spot for main weapon. I'm not exactly sure of the details, not being a coder.

Post by **fuzzhead** » 2006-01-20 22:15

Good idea nikov, I would also like the smoke to last much longer! I dont know if its a performance problem, but if its easy to do, make the smoke stay 15-30 seconds or longer! Would be much better than 5 seconds like it is right now, and much more realistic too.

(If this can be done, also change the smoke grenades for Assault as well)

Post by **Happy** » 2006-01-20 22:32

F.N.G. wrote: Speaking of smoke. Why is the smoke using the same buttons as the main gun? I mean, why do you have to switch from main gun rounds to smoke in order to use it? Isn't it a separate trigger system on tanks? I know they don't use the same barrel. What's up with that. Then is takes that eternity to load up another shell that should be in there already. It sucks. Sorry to deviate from the subject.

You can't add controls so it was the easiest way of doing it. (speculation of course)

Ugly Duck · Post by **Ugly Duck** » 2006-01-21 00:28

'[R-PUB wrote:BrokenArrow']Paladin could give you a better answer but from what I understand it is because we use the current smoke button to zoom in. It was either the smoke becomes a second function or the coax MG went into the 3 spot for main weapon. I'm not exactly sure of the details, not being a coder.

Actualy... that would make morse sense as the gunner can't operate the coax MG and the main gun at the same time, can he?

F.N.G. · Post by **F.N.G.** » 2006-01-21 00:57

I really don't know much about tanks, but I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have to reload a tank shell every time you switched from smoke or coax. It probably is the code limitation that you guys said. That sucks that they limit it to just what they needed. They should have contingencies for expansions like this.

I guess PR did what they could. GJ with what you were limited to.

Why?! · Post by **Why?!** » 2006-01-21 01:02

Back to the original post, it is very possible to have smoke act as flares. AT rockets are guided using a uniqueTarget object type. There are ways to get the smoke to have that. I would have to try it myself, but I am not sure if that would really cause the missile to go ballistic. Also you have to remember that the smoke is not that big, even if the missile did veer off a little to the right or left it would still likely hit the tank.

lonelyjew · Post by **lonelyjew** » 2006-01-21 08:40

NikovK wrote:I've been giving some thought to the smoke dispenser on tanks. The smoke is currently useful only for wire-guided missile evasion, assuming you sucessfuly dodge and your opponent doesn't outguess you. However, when facing fire-and-forget guided bombs or missiles, the smoke is completely useless. Could the smoke dispenser also spawn an aircraft flare or the flare effect? Modern smoke systems for tanks are often designed to disrupt lasers or heat signatures, and this really would be a step towards realism in armor. This also provides a counter to fire-and-forget man-portable ATGM like the Javelin which may enter the game later.

From what I see, it fulfills it's purpose with what you said, it disrupts laser guided missles. All the other missles launchers(other than tv) are wire guided and therefor won't be affected by smoke. I like you idea, and maybe it'll be good if we start using heat seaking anti tank missles or more laser missles, but at the moment the smoke is fine.

F.N.G. · Post by **F.N.G.** » 2006-01-21 09:06

Now that I think of it, it doesnt act like flares. But It will screw up their lock if you pop smoke, but if they fire before you pop smoke, your dead. Yeah, I think thats how it works.

Zepheris Casull · Post by **Zepheris Casull** » 2006-01-21 11:49

i am still not certain that the smoke actually do indeed disrupt laser targetted missile like the bomber launched ones, i've not seen it successfully stop a bomber from fragging it. but another thing i think u should consider is that, if the smoke is indeed effective on the locking process and ineffective after launch, then that gives the tanker a good 1 second to launch smoke considering how fast the lock on for thoose missiles on the bombers are and factoring the common 40 - 50 ping lag or he is dead...

that's kinda... short.. if you ask me, not to mention that there's no laser designator warning system like in real tanks so you can't tell if your being lased or if someone just fired a wire guided missile at you. speaking of which, since the missile warning system that warns tanks against infantry AT missiles works by detecting airborne missiles that are launched and are heading to their direction, then it should work against the TV guided missiles, but i've not yet confirmed if it indeed works against thoose hellfires. Most of the time, i just blew up in a tank and only realize that there's a gunship loiterring around after i am a corpse.

lonelyjew · Post by **lonelyjew** » 2006-01-22 00:05

In real life there would be no warning siren going off in the tank if someone pointed a wire guided missle at it. It doesn't release a signal outside the wire iteself so the tank wouldn't be able to know about it. TV missles and AT missles shouldn't be affected by smoke, only laser targeting or infra red targeting should take an effect. Jets also wouldn't hear a warning siren going off for the heat seaking missles that are launched against them as they also use passive guidance and don't emit a radio signal.

Zepheris Casull · Post by **Zepheris Casull** » 2006-01-22 02:13

but the thing is as far as i know we do have warning systems that detects the presence of missiles in the air, in case of the planes the system detects the presence of the missile, and if there's no radar waves hitting the plane then you can conclude that the missile is IR type and the system would fire off the flare (this is a very general simplification btw, the system itself is wayyy more complex and rely on a lot more factors in discerning and identifying wether it is IR or radar guided missile coming at them)

as far as i know, the tank has a similar system that detects the presence of a missile going airborne in their immediate vicinity, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if there's a missile airborne nearby, and it's heading in ur direction then u can conclude that SOMEONE is guiding a missile at you. if it is laser guided then the system can even tell that it is being targetted before the missile goes off.

if i am not mistaken, the russian active missile defense system that they installed on some of their tanks works in the same way for detection phase, wether the defensive rocket grenade it fires off to destroy the incoming missile is actually effective against things like hellfires or not, we probably won't know till someone with it actually get shot by one of our infantry or gunship.