Flares = Useless?

[TripleZer0 10]

So i was very happy to discover that they finally added sounds when you get a missle lock-on.

I was not happy when i discovered that they apparently nerfed flares big time.

A few weeks before when there was no sound the flares did something atleast and if you used them early enough (if you saw the tiny dot on your radar) you had a very good chance of evading missiles.

Now ive been playing on Altis in the editor, spawned a few groups of AA squads over the map and lifted off... I dont even get past the first group...

No matter whether i spam flares immediately as soon as i have a lock-on (which is a horrible waste of flares and leaves you dry in no time) or wait until the rockets start flying, in 8 times out of 10 the rockets will hit me no matter what. If 5 rockets come for me and i spam flares 3-5 of them hit me every time. It also makes no difference whether i fly low or high, or whether i turn my rear to the shooter (which i usually do, i found it the best way to guarantee an evasion, atleast in ArmA 2)

Please restrain yourself on comments like "learn to fly" or similar things, i have no problems whatsoever to evade missiles in ArmA 2.

Compared to Arma 2 the flares a bad joke right now.

I seriously hope this gets balanced properly because it is absolutely 0 fun to fly an helicopter at the moment when all it takes is one douche with an AA launcher.

[clydefrog 3]

Yes flares are useless, they don't work for their intended purpose.

[progamer 14]

We don't need to start arcadic "balancing" of units because when you do it never ends. What we do need are more realistic flares because these are likely just some random hit chance calculated before impact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flare_(countermeasure) We need proper calculations that include how close was the missle fire, missle type, flare location and other factors which realistically determine weather using flares was successful or not.

Edit: lol! "In contrast to radar-guided missiles, IR-guided missiles are very difficult to find RAMBOW DASH YAY as they approach aircraft."

Edited September 3, 2013 by ProGamer

[pharoah 65]

ah yes, I keep forgetting to raise this..thankfully someone else has. I've been shot down about 4 times so far with AA missles AFTER dropping multiple loads of flares. I think the flares are just for show (they certainly look pretty at night) because they have zero effect on incoming missles.

[progamer 14]

ah yes, I keep forgetting to raise this..thankfully someone else has. I've been shot down about 4 times so far with AA missles AFTER dropping multiple loads of flares. I think the flares are just for show (they certainly look pretty at night) because they have zero effect on incoming missles.

Flares don't automatically mean your safe in real life. Many factors play into the effectiveness of the flares but right now in game it's more of a simple calculated chance by the game when multiple factors should affect the effectiveness of flares.

[TripleZer0 10]

Flares don't automatically mean your safe in real life. Many factors play into the effectiveness of the flares but right now in game it's more of a simple calculated chance by the game when multiple factors should affect the effectiveness of flares.

As realistic as arma wants to be it also wants to be a game, not real life. It is simply not fun (and yes a game is about fun) when youre that helpless as a pilot.

You have ACE if you want more realism.

The System in Arma 2 was fun and completely fair. If you used flares immediately after a missile has been launched you were usually safe ( if you were a fair distance away), as it should be in a computer game.

[dayglow 2]

What type of SAM is being launched. Most modern MANPADS have very good flare rejection. Flying the A-10 in DCS if the enemy launches a SA-18 unless you are spamming flares on your run it will usually hit. Even with a full load of 240 flares you have only enough for a few runs before you're empty. You have to spamexpecting your attack run if you want to live. Just don't expect to be able to do multiple runs.

[progamer 14]

Can't you add tons of extra flares to the helicopter via its init?

[lev 21]

As realistic as arma wants to be it also wants to be a game, not real life. It is simply not fun (and yes a game is about fun) when youre that helpless as a pilot.

You have ACE if you want more realism.

The System in Arma 2 was fun and completely fair. If you used flares immediately after a missile has been launched you were usually safe ( if you were a fair distance away), as it should be in a computer game.

No this is Arma, not any other computer game. Why should the devs intentionally mis-simulate something for a mod to fix? Unless you have proof that right now AA missiles are accurate beyond a realistic value then this is not a valid request.

Perhaps as a pilot you should be trying to avoid active AA zones rather than flying through them?

[pharoah 65]

Perhaps as a pilot you should be trying to avoid active AA zones rather than flying through them?

Only once did I get shot down flying over the AO, which was at night with me dropping ALL my flares one after the other (hey, the guys on the ground said it looked pretty) after dropping infantry. I would have had 50 flares in the air I'm sure but the AA missle went straight for me. All other times, I was flying outside the AO but I was shot down from a missle fired from within the AO (domination mode so you know where the active AO is). Each time I dropped flares continuously once I saw I was targeted by AA...but to no avail. Its happened 4 times and I've been shot down 4 times. What does that say?

[progamer 14]

As realistic as arma wants to be it also wants to be a game, not real life. It is simply not fun (and yes a game is about fun) when youre that helpless as a pilot.

You have ACE if you want more realism.

The System in Arma 2 was fun and completely fair. If you used flares immediately after a missile has been launched you were usually safe ( if you were a fair distance away), as it should be in a computer game.

Multiple real life factors detriment the effectiveness of flares and chaffs. We do not need some random or some "balanced in your opinion" calculation to decide weather the flares work or not. We need calculations based on the factories that effect flares like location, distance, position of flares, missile type and amount of flares deployed. There are plenty of other games that do arcadic balance that you can play. Let's try to keep that out of this one. And rather than bandaging the problem why don't we fix the actual system with all the factors that determine the effectiveness of flares and chaffs as a large majority of people prefer realism over balancing any day.

[thx1137 10]

Pilots anywhere near AA arehelpless. Especially if the heli in question doesn't have equipment to or cant detect (eg: laser guided) a weapons lock. Have a look at any real life helicopter defensive tactics and you can see they are pretty much all about either staying away from AA or giving AA the shortest possible lock time. These tactics work generally ok in Arma so have a look. The one issue I do have is I can't seem to popup then dump height quick enough after a popup attack.

The flares work for the AI really well (I haven't tried A3 in PvP yet). They often spoof my missiles if I don't shoot them from behind or from too far away giving counter measure time to work.

There are other games out there that give arcade modes. I'm for increasing realism not taking it away!

[clydefrog 3]

Flares are pretty much broken, they have zero effect from what I've seen, I can't believe some people here are trying to defend this. Or maybe it's because it's the future and the IR missiles now can see what's a flare and what's an aircraft.

Edited September 4, 2013 by clydefrog

[katipo66 94]

Being that it's mostly focused as an infantry based game how much time should be dedicated to making flares realistic based on real life calculations etc, maybe sacrifice some other area of development and commit resources to this? I prefer it was spent on realistic cabins for armour crews instead of the un-realistic window stuck on my screen but I get there's only so many hours in a day and that if they were to program the game to simulate every conceivable situation as close to reality as possible then it might be released around 2035? Full of bugs?

[thx1137 10]

Maybe some people know in what situations they will work and and how to use and counteract them... :rolleyes:

[clydefrog 3]

Being that it's mostly focused as an infantry based game how much time should be dedicated to making flares realistic based on real life calculations etc, maybe sacrifice some other area of development and commit resources to this? I prefer it was spent on realistic cabins for armour crews instead of the un-realistic window stuck on my screen but I get there's only so many hours in a day and that if they were to program the game to simulate every conceivable situation as close to reality as possible then it might be released around 2035? Full of bugs?

Maybe they set the in-game date as 2035 because that's when they thought it would be scheduled for release, by the time they'd fixed most of the bugs and remembered to incorporate all the things they'd forgotten due to "poor decisions" etc., maybe even a new engine!? Arma 3 wasn't meant to be set in the future, it was meant to be present day but came out early.

[comp_uter15776 1]

Only once did I get shot down flying over the AO, which was at night with me dropping ALL my flares one after the other (hey, the guys on the ground said it looked pretty) after dropping infantry. I would have had 50 flares in the air I'm sure but the AA missle went straight for me. All other times, I was flying outside the AO but I was shot down from a missle fired from within the AO (domination mode so you know where the active AO is). Each time I dropped flares continuously once I saw I was targeted by AA...but to no avail. Its happened 4 times and I've been shot down 4 times. What does that say?

That you could be doing it wrong :D

In all seriousness, I do think it should be based on factors such as the ones listed from ProGamer. However, I've not had any issue deploying flares and getting away, daylight or night. This isn't to say there is nothing wrong, but I can get targeted, deploy my countermeasures, perform a couple of evasive maneuvers and live to fight another day.

[Tonci87 163]

Go play blackshark, you will learn to hate those little MANPAD bastards. If you get shot at then you already did something terribly wrong.

[AlecDelorean 10]

1. "...flying over the AO..." - first mistake, think of an attack chopper being a big fat sniper, learn what terrain flight & terrain cover is and keep your distance to the attack zone (2 - 1.5 km) having a high object visibility setting is a must.

2. "I would have had 50 flares in the air..." - every new lock on you doesn't care about the flares you already deployed, deploy a new package and move away from that location as fast as possible.

3. "once I saw I was targeted by AA..." - this means you missed my first point again or just in a bad attack position. if you see you are locked by AA, break away and look for another attack position.

Basically you have to learn how to survive in a chopper, the way you described your flying style is something like "Hello! Here I Am!!! Shoot me!!!"...

[pharoah 65]

Alec...really? And for the record I was flying a transport chopper, not an attack chopper. I always drop off inf near the AO but not too close. Everybody knows to 'drop flares, break left' or they should.

[clydefrog 3]

There is a big problem with hovering 2km away from the AO with an attack helicopter on multiplayer in this game. That is you have to put your object draw distance up very high to actually see anything on the ground and then you get about 10fps.

[xXxatrush1987 10]

There is a big problem with hovering 2km away from the AO with an attack helicopter on multiplayer in this game. That is you have to put your object draw distance up very high to actually see anything on the ground and then you get about 10fps.

get better pc and/ or play on an better hosted server, 10fps on 2km objectviewdistance is pretty low, and with thus pc i would recommend playing this game more on the ground, as the engagement distances are much shorter and suit more your pc/prefered server.

a core i3 3230 can easely push 4km objectviewdistance with object detail on standard for example, and with that you can easely do ground support with your helicopter.

[clydefrog 3]

It's not my pc, it's arma 3 multiplayer. In the editor I would have no problem doing that. Saying that, a couple of those big persistent missions (I won't mention their names as I don't want to insult the people who make them) generally seem to run quite badly, but I don't think that's the only reason for such big drops in gpu usage in multiplayer. Also as you probably know as nearly everybody here does, Arma 3 only uses up to about 65% (in my case with an i5 2500k) of your CPU which is funny since it is said to be such a "CPU intensive" game.

Edited September 4, 2013 by clydefrog

[AlecDelorean 10]

If your chopper got shot down, you did something wrong - period. Every chopper or tank or armed vehicle is a high value target, you have to be extra careful and aware of the situation. There is one mistake i see very often on public servers, a pilot rushes to the AO, tries to stop quickly and the heli shoots up in the air. If you want to keep a low altitude on landing, you have to start decreasing speed within 1 km to 500 m before reaching the LZ.

bah, useless discussion, thread goes elsewhere... in my opinion.

Edited September 4, 2013 by AlecDelorean
useless thread

[byku 13]

Flares should disrupt the locking mechanism a bit :P, that's all i have to say and vote:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=10297