Helicopter miniguns issues

[pharoah 65]

Actually, they are VERY accurate (Obviously not as accurate as a sniper rifle... but for it being a minigun and used to just annihilate and suppress the hell out of targets). You just need practice and a rudder pedal. Once you get the side slip and funnel going over a target, you just need to counter the side slip with your rudder pedals (or flight stick with yaw movement which I am terrible at).

To make it easier to understand, use the X and C keys while shooting so you will be spraying left and right on the targets. I mentioned the X and C keys to give you the idea of what I am trying to say, if you use the keyboard for yaw you are going to have a bad time... Rudders and trackir makes flying night and day, for the better.

I use the X52 HOTAS plus CH Pro pedals combined with Track IR 4....so thats not an issue. I've also used the rudder pedals to spray left/right however the moment the heli starts moving, you automatically start losing the ability to yaw.

The issue is not accuracy as I've flown in quite close and I've seen the rounds hit the inf, just that they're not dying.

---------- Post added at 23:16 ---------- Previous post was at 23:06 ----------

I believe the problem is the damage, not the accuracy of the weapon. I have had many instances where I witnessed enemy soldiers being hit multiple times without going down by the M134s on the AH-9, although I haven't tried this out for awhile (since maybe 10 dev builds ago). I would recommend just plopping down some OPFOR in the editor, give them some HOLD waypoints with "never fire" and "careless" parameters, and light them up with the M134s. If you feel its an issue, you could report it on the feedback tracker.

Thanks, I've put this up as a ticket --> http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=13147 using your suggestions how to reproduce.

Hopefully something gets done on this.

[blackjacktom 10]

While the damage is low and the (lack of) dispersion is annoying i think the main problem is that the miniguns should shoot 8 times faster.

[das attorney 857]

Thanks, I've put this up as a ticket --> http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=13147 using your suggestions how to reproduce

Hey man,

I totally agree with what you're saying and appreciate you making a ticket. If you want the devs to take you seriously though, you need to give them a repro mission to check it out with. They probably won't bother with your ticket if you just point them to a forum post and expect them to get on with it.

[pharoah 65]

yeah fair enough...I'm a work so hard to do, but I'll try and do something eg. video capture to show them. The link to the post (this post) was to show the discussion.

[das attorney 857]

It wasn't a criticism, just some friendly advice.

I've had various interactions with the devs during Arma 2. In my experience, they always responded better to tickets if they get a repro mission to work from.

Not bashing you - we've all got to work man :)

[pharoah 65]

lol I didn't take it as such (I obviously didn't type my response correctly) - I agree, I should actually put in a video for them to see so that they don't have to worry about trying to reproduce it themselves. I just can't do it at the moment because I'm at work. So don't worry mate - just hope something is done about it by BIS. I was/am planning to do chopper raids with the AH-9 on Altis however with only 21 or so rockets, there's not much damage I can do, esp if the miniguns are useless.

I'm also wondering whether we can somehow outfit the AH-9 with different armaments eg. say 4 pods of unguided rockets instead of 2, or 4 miniguns instead of 2 (double the ammo??? maybe not but more devastating). At the moment we can't customise it at all.

[MVP7 10]

Currently fixed forward firing miniguns on helicopters (AH-9 Pawnee and PO-30 Orca) are quite useless as taking down even a single stationary man, standing in the open, is next to impossible. I usually just go reload after firing the rockets even if there is still infantry and other soft targets around.

I believe that the biggest problem is the extremely tight grouping of the miniguns: even at the range of 800m the groups of the two separate miniguns of Pawnee are not mixing with each other. Because of this, shooting at practical helicopter combat ranges in ARMA (300-500m) is very ineffective due to the bullets landing on two exact spots on both sides of the crosshair. I would suggest increasing the spread to something like 1,2 meter spread per 200 meters of range, this way the bullets would cover the center of the crosshair at the most common helicopter combat ranges.

Another issue that bogs the power of fixed miniguns is their low rate of fire. Rof of the fixed miniguns in ARMA3 (in both AH-9 and PO-30) is 1800 rounds per minute per gun, it's a low setting for any M134 and extremely low for an aircraft mounted one. Even if you manage to walk the tight minigun group over the target, no bullets often hit due to this. I'd suggest increasing the rate of fire of Pawnee miniguns to something like 3000 rpm per gun and for PO-30's single gatling gun 4000 rpm.

I believe these two changes together would make using fixed helicopter miniguns a real option rather than a theoretical possibility, without making these choppas overpowered or unrealistic.

[roberthammer 582]

I agree with you - i wish they worked same as in arma 2 , they were stronger because of multiplier and they had two ROF options

In arma 3 even the AH99 20mm cannon is weak against infantry which is nonsense - it should be deadly even one shot

[CaptainObvious 95]

I remember the AH-9 miniguns used to have more spread in the beginning of the Alpha, I agree the current spread is too tight.

[clydefrog 3]

It bothers me more that the barrel on the UH-80 miniguns doesn't need to start rotating to a certain rpm before it can fire like it should do. It just fires instantly when you click, I think that's really poor and hope they will change it. Even battlefield 2 has that.

[blackjacktom 10]

There was another thread about this in General. The dispersion has changed since the alpha and the miniguns really need higher hit damage and some indirect damage to compensate for the low rate of fire.

[roberthammer 582]

It bothers me more that the barrel on the UH-80 miniguns doesn't need to start rotating to a certain rpm before it can fire like it should do. It just fires instantly when you click, I think that's really poor and hope they will change it. Even battlefield 2 has that.

M134 and other miniguns spin under 1 sec in real life - you dont notice it

like armapirx said

For a M134 to spin up to its originally designed 6000 shots per minute, it takes 0.25s. Slowdown after shooting takes 0.4s. For a comparison, blink of an eye takes on average 0.3s. So it is almost instantaneous action after trigger press, even more if we consider current limited settings of 2000 and 4000 shots per minute.

[clydefrog 3]

M134 and other miniguns spin under 1 sec in real life - you dont notice it

like armapirx said

fair enough

[dm 9]

It bothers me more that the barrel on the UH-80 miniguns doesn't need to start rotating to a certain rpm before it can fire like it should do. It just fires instantly when you click, I think that's really poor and hope they will change it. Even battlefield 2 has that.

This is such hollywood bullshit and I hate when it ends up in games.

The mechanical gatling system (as employed by the M134 minigun, and its A3 future derivative, and most all other rotary-barrel guns out there) means that AS SOON AS the barrels start turning, bullets start firing.

So for the first ~0.5 seconds (as the motor gets up to speed) your rate of fire will be slower, but you WILL be firing.

Note this warning, which was common on the AH-1G Cobras in Vietnam:

[clydefrog 3]

I've seen videos where sometimes it's instant and other times it can take a second.

e.g. 13 seconds into this video

Edited August 30, 2013 by clydefrog

[dm 9]

I cant say for sure, because I was not there and the video doesnt specify the details, but it looks like there is a long lead in on the ammo feed in that video. If you watch the ammo feed chute, you can see movement in it from the point the barrels start moving. I can only assume they have these long lead ins at knob creek to make it easier to say "thats your 10 seconds... NEXT!"

I can't find the higher res version of this gif, but it shows how the firing mechanism inside the minigun works: http://static.fjcdn.com/gifs/How_7ef791_1989037.gif

Its all mechanically driven, so as soon as the barrels rotate, the breech blocks are moving back/fourth and the firign pins are tapping away -> i.e. the gun is firing.

[MVP7 10]

It would appear that it rolls about 2 full rounds before starting to fire . That's probably the time it takes to get the cartridges into the system from fresh belt since you can see the belt moving right from the start.

Still, I wouldn't call that fraction of second more bothersome than fixed miniguns being almost completely useless in ARMA3.

[clydefrog 3]

It would appear that it rolls about 2 full rounds before starting to fire . That's probably the time it takes to get the cartridges into the system from fresh belt since you can see the belt moving right from the start.

Still, I wouldn't call that fraction of second more bothersome than fixed miniguns being almost completely useless in ARMA3.

Yeah it isn't.

[MVP7 10]

Oops double post

[instagoat 133]

The dispersion is frustratingly low.

All guns on helos have this problem now, the AH-9 and Orca were the only ones who were correct, and they were nerfed.

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=9805

I have updated this ticket with the relevant information, please vote on it so it gets noticed.

[MVP7 10]

The dispersion is frustratingly low.

All guns on helos have this problem now, the AH-9 and Orca were the only ones who were correct, and they were nerfed.

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=9805

I have updated this ticket with the relevant information, please vote on it so it gets noticed.

Up-voted. Could you also possibly add as a side note that rate of fire for both AH-9 and Orca is way too low from both gameplay and realism point of view?

[instagoat 133]

Up-voted. Could you also possibly add as a side note that rate of fire for both AH-9 and Orca is way too low from both gameplay and realism point of view?

It's an engine limitation. Arma, much like COD, is limited by the framerate in how fast a gun can fire. Previous titles used a multiplier to simulate very high rates of fire, I think. So when you hit the fire button, instead of spawning one bullet, it spawned five simultaneously.

[xendance 3]

It's an engine limitation. Arma, much like COD, is limited by the framerate in how fast a gun can fire. Previous titles used a multiplier to simulate very high rates of fire, I think. So when you hit the fire button, instead of spawning one bullet, it spawned five simultaneously.

That is the way it should be done now. Just spawn more bullet per frame if the framerate gets lower.

[pharoah 65]

I think I've found why the miniguns on the AH-9 are useless....there's no convergence. I fired upon a single inf soldier last night from distances of about 500m up to about 50m (almost crashed into him) and I realised not a single round touched him....they were hitting on both sides which actually got worse the closer I got.

Is there a way to get the guns converged to say 300m? I'm sure that would increase lethality a heck of a lot.

[Gabe_XXIII 10]

I have had a lot of trouble hitting targets flying that, ended up just spraying the general area of targets with loads of rounds until I was low on ammo. Maybe I'm just a crap attack pilot but I thought I'd have done better than I did.