Tanks - Missile flight profiles and weapon improvements

[SuicideKing 233]

On 4/16/2018 at 5:19 PM, scavenjer said:

Scalpels are CSAT though

Dynamic loadout! Pawnee, Hellcat can carry Scalpels too.

[Cenwulf 40]

I've nailed down the issue I was having with playing as the commander of the Rhino MGS and trying to laser designating for the gunner's ATGMs. If you don't have data link send and receive enable for the vehicle, the laser marker doesn't show up on the commander's sensor panel and the square targeting reticle doesn't show up when the laser spot is targeted. It's still possible to target it but it's very difficult to tell if you've targeted the spot or the thing you're pointing it at and at long range the gunner tends to preferentially target vehicles rather than the laser spot.

Edit: For the ATGMs this means the gunner simply zeros the current distance and since the missile lacks LOAL capability it just flies in a fixed arc based on the zeroing and doesn’t home in on the laser spot. Also because the zeroing of the flight path doesn’t appear take elevation into account, it may not even hit a stationary target.

 

I feel like for consistency the targeting information of a unit's own laser designator and the reticle showing you've selected it as a target should be independent of the unit's data link settings.

 

Also for laser spots in general the AI isn't too quick on the uptake and very rarely recognises it as a laser spot meaning that the gunner will often independently report the laser spot as an unknown vehicle as soon as it's switched on (slightly annoying) and the commander will often refer to it as "unknown" or very occasionally "laser target" (less annoying but still a bit goofy). I think full knowledge of the laser spot should really be instantaneous for the "owner", if not for the owner's entire group as well.

[DennyMala 10]

12 hours ago, Cenwulf said:

I've nailed down the issue I was having with playing as the commander of the Rhino MGS and trying to laser designating for the gunner's ATGMs. If you don't have data link send and receive enable for the vehicle, the laser marker doesn't show up on the commander's sensor panel and the square targeting reticle doesn't show up when the laser spot is targeted. It's still possible to target it but it's very difficult to tell if you've targeted the spot or the thing you're pointing it at and at long range the gunner tends to preferentially target vehicles rather than the laser spot.

 

I feel like for consistency the targeting information of a unit's own laser designator and the reticle showing you've selected it as a target should be independent of the unit's data link settings.

 

Also for laser spots in general the AI isn't too quick on the uptake and very rarely recognises it as a laser spot meaning that the gunner will often independently report the laser spot as an unknown vehicle as soon as it's switched on (slightly annoying) and the commander will often refer to it as "unknown" or very occasionally "laser target" (less annoying but still a bit goofy). I think full knowledge of the laser spot should really be instantaneous for the "owner", if not for the owner's entire group as well.

 

How do you switch the datalink on and off in a vehicle with that sensor suite? (I need to verify a couple of things on my previous observations)

 

Oh and beside, nice catch and nice post. I completely agree about that.

[Cenwulf 40]

2 hours ago, DennyMala said:

 

How do you switch the datalink on and off in a vehicle with that sensor suite? (I need to verify a couple of things on my previous observations)

 

Oh and beside, nice catch and nice post. I completely agree about that.

 

You can do it via script commands or through the vehicles attributes in the editor (right click > attributes...), it’s near the bottom.

[DennyMala 10]

10 minutes ago, Cenwulf said:

 

You can do it via script commands or through the vehicles attributes in the editor (right click > attributes...), it’s near the bottom.

 

Oh, got it. I thought it was a game feature for a moment.

 

Not so game savvy to meddle with scripts but thanks anyway.

[Cenwulf 40]

15 minutes ago, DennyMala said:

 

Oh, got it. I thought it was a game feature for a moment.

 

Not so game savvy to meddle with scripts but thanks anyway.

 

If you wanted to play around with it in the editor it’s really easy to do, just a vehicle down and then fiddle with it’s attributes. No scripting required :)

[snoops_213 74]

On 4/18/2018 at 3:46 AM, oukej said:

It's missing from the changelog, but since around these dev. updates any vehicle or person with laser designator "knows" about its own laser. Moreover he's able to share it via datalink. And yes, soldiers can now be connected to DL too, report their lasers and their own positions.

Can you enlighten me a bit more in how this works? Is the laser auto detected by the engine not the laser designator being a sensor enabled weapon? Would it be possible to have data link enabled hand devices that can share data? I've been trying but with no success 

[DennyMala 10]

I guess Officers and infantry leaders should have access to those infos. Possibly if not the usual GPS you can have the UAV interface be a point of access to the data link network so that even infantry could be in the loop.

 

Actually there are things like this developed or maybe already issued to troops in USA and possibly some other nations.

[oukej 2910]

added flight profiles documentation https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Missile_flight_profiles

&
updated https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/A3_Targeting_config_reference

 

[DennyMala 10]

Thanks for the links, still I can't find what kind of profiles are related to what missile. I managed to guess some but I still fail to find a missile that have the cruise mode.

 

Beside, something is still wrong with the accuracy since they're missing stationary target pretty consistently as the previously linked bug reports are saying. Bot the top attack of the TITAN AC and the overfly of the PCML.

[Yoshi_E 178]

7 minutes ago, DennyMala said:

I managed to guess some but I still fail to find a missile that have the cruise mode.

 

A good example of it is  Rhino's ATGM LG, it will get over mountains with it. There are probably more, but on most you can only directly lock that target which is making the cruise mode on them not noticeable.

 

Quote

Beside, something is still wrong with the accuracy since they're missing stationary target pretty consistently as the previously linked bug reports are saying. Bot the top attack of the TITAN AC and the overfly of the PCML.

 

Agreed, they missiles are having a hard time hitting stuff that is side on. Ticket is already opened and "reviewed", ill hope it gets into the next update.

[DennyMala 10]

From what I could see, and I think it's pretty evident from the missile camera in the showcase mission, the Rhino missile is a top down attack one, not a cruise one. The missile rises right after the shot to a safe altitude and then drops down on the target. Basically it's a cannon launched Titan in all aspect of the flight.

 

I would expect a cruise missile to more closely follow the terrain and then to go for a direct hit or gain altitude for a top attack on the very last leg of its flight.

 

That would make for a formidable weapon, less detectable and avoidable.

 

it would be neat to be able to tell the gunner what flight profile to use as a commander, I find it pretty odd that he does his own will.

[oukej 2910]

Currently the cruise and LOAL distance modes are not utilized by any vanilla weapon.

[DennyMala 10]

30 minutes ago, oukej said:

Currently the cruise and LOAL distance modes are not utilized by any vanilla weapon.

 

Now it makes sense, but the GBU of planes have the LOAL mode showed in the hud, so it's not active in missiles but it's active in laser guided bombs?

 

And it's strange that we're unable to change the mode if we want to only follow the laser we marked... that's something that doesn't add up too.

[scavenjer 112]

15 minutes ago, DennyMala said:

 

Now it makes sense, but the GBU of planes have the LOAL mode showed in the hud, so it's not active in missiles but it's active in laser guided bombs?

 

And it's strange that we're unable to change the mode if we want to only follow the laser we marked... that's something that doesn't add up too.

He's specifically talking about the distance modes I think, not the LOAL itself.

Bombs and scalpels use LOAL AFAIK

[DennyMala 10]

Sorry for the confusion but with all that is in this game, it's easy to get carried away between weapon systems and other specs.

[scavenjer 112]

3 minutes ago, DennyMala said:

Sorry for the confusion but with all that is in this game, it's easy to get carried away between weapon systems and other specs.

Yeah, tell me about it.... I'm still discovering new things and new attributes on old weapons

[the_one_and_only_Venator 162]

2 hours ago, scavenjer said:

He's specifically talking about the distance modes I think, not the LOAL itself.

Bombs and scalpels use LOAL AFAIK

Only bombs use LOAL altitude at the moment. Scalpel uses just top attack.

[scavenjer 112]

1 minute ago, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

Only bombs use LOAL altitude at the moment. Scalpel uses just top attack.

They do, but I've seen scalpels lock on after launch and the crosshair wasn't close to the target, so it couldn't have been SACLOS.

[the_one_and_only_Venator 162]

5 minutes ago, scavenjer said:

They do, but I've seen scalpels lock on after launch and the crosshair wasn't close to the target, so it couldn't have been SACLOS.

That sounds weird. They must have had a lock before.

[heavygunner 179]

The Titan AT and I assume also the AP variants should have a fuze distance of a few meter to prevent blowing yourself up when hitting the window you are shooting through or other fun suicides.

[Yoshi_E 178]

40 minutes ago, heavygunner said:

The Titan AT and I assume also the AP variants should have a fuze distance of a few meter to prevent blowing yourself up when hitting the window you are shooting through or other fun suicides.

 

It kinda is there ( at least the configs), but sadly It is not planned to be put into the game.

 

[the_one_and_only_Venator 162]

The proximity fuse of AA missiles seems to not work. I had missiles pass right next to a plane without exploding. It is basically impossible to shoot down aircraft with missiles right now.

[scavenjer 112]

1 hour ago, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

The proximity fuse of AA missiles seems to not work. I had missiles pass right next to a plane without exploding. It is basically impossible to shoot down aircraft with missiles right now.

Yup, known bug, should've been fixed with Tanks DLC, I'm pretty sure the devs know it though.

[oukej 2910]

12 hours ago, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

The proximity fuse of AA missiles seems to not work. I had missiles pass right next to a plane without exploding. It is basically impossible to shoot down aircraft with missiles right now.

Can you please verify that you're using the dev-branch?
It's been broken by the 1.82 update, however on dev-branch it should be ok. The upcoming hotfix should be solving it on main branch.