at-defense Counter-measures against AT-Missiles are worthless

[mickeymen 322]

Good Day Devs! despite the sunset of the Arma3 life span, I still hope that the game can be improved in the following patches.

I would like to talk about countermeasures that are useless vs AT-Missiles.

 

I often ask these questions:

 

1.What for in the Arma3 there are vehicles countermeasures ?  

Is this only protection from not Guided rockets (like RPG-7, like RPG-42 etc), while against Guided AT-missiles it should be useless ?

 

2. What for in the Arma3 have a signal of an approaching AT-missile (inside land vehicles) ?

In order for the player to understand that he will die in several seconds? If countermeasures don't work against it, then the signal doesn't make sense

 

Still I have no answers... 

 

When an opponent launches a guided AT-missile into a player's vehicle (APC, Tank), the player hears a shrill warning (beep), but why he hears it is unclear - the player will always be destroyed together with vehicle.

 

AT-Missile approaching -  At this point, the player can only make the following actions:.

 

a) The player can release one smoke (from two available)
b) The player can release smoke (from two available) and change his position (move).
c) A player may release two smoke  (!more his vehicle not have). 
d) The player can release two smoke (!more his vehicle not have) and change his position (move)

 

And this is all that is possible in Arma3 and all 4 options will lead to the inevitable death of the player and his vehicle! 

 

Dear devs! if you read this, please explain  - what is the point in the signal indicating the approaching AT-missile, If a player’s vehicle is not able to resist this threat? 

 

PS: I propose finally to set up counter measures in an adequate way.

If in Arma3 there is no active vehicles protection, then the vehicle must be able to withstand enemy AT-missiles, and the number of smoke screens must be > 2.

Today, armored vehicle survival is very low.

 

 

[Yoshi_E 178]

1. Smoke can help against guided missiles. Similar to flares there is no guarantee that they will though.

2. A missile that lost track of its target will continue on its path. Move in the smoke or it can still hit you. Also don’t launch the smoke too early, rules similar to flares apply.

3. You can easily add additional smoke charges to the vehicles.

4. You can add scripted active protection systems onto your vehicle.

5. You can change how much damage a missile will cause.

6. The warning not only serves as an indication for you to trigger the smoke. It tells you to take cover. Large houses can provide cover even against top down attacks.

7. Most armored ground vehicles can take multiple direct hits of missiles (Air to ground are usually more lethal, but your kinda screwed as soon as you don’t have AA/AAA to defend yourself anyway)

8. Smoke can be used to retreat from enemy fire, not just missiles and is often used as a last resort.

9. The smoke count of 2 sets is realistic. Most tanks carry ~12 rounds and fire 6 to set a smoke screen. This gives them 2 smoke screens they can deploy.

 

Overall armored vehicles in arma 3 are pretty strong, but not too strong. They pack a lot of fire power, have powerful sights, mobility and armor. However they are not heavy tanks and they have their weaknesses. The armor they carry is only enough to give you time to retreat, or to bail the vehicle (that’s why you get the missiles warning). MBTS are not indestructible.

[stanhope 409]

3 hours ago, mickeymen said:

but why he hears it is unclear - the player will always be destroyed together with vehicle.

Not true.  I can't tell you how many times my guided AT missiles have gone dumb simply because someone pops smoke while driving.  From what I've seen I'd say that the popping of the smoke is the thing that breaks the lock but if, like most players, you sit in the same position after doing so the missile will still hit that position even if it no longer has a lock. 

[mickeymen 322]

Just now, stanhope said:

Not true.  I can't tell you how many times my guided AT missiles have gone dumb simply because someone pops smoke while driving.  From what I've seen I'd say that the popping of the smoke is the thing that breaks the lock but if, like most players, you sit in the same position after doing so the missile will still hit that position even if it no longer has a lock. 

 

Ahahaha! For me, It does not work! You mean I'm special?

Is always. No point, all that I wouldn’t do from the four available items:

 

Quote

a) The player can release one smoke (from two available)
b) The player can release smoke (from two available) and change his position (move).
c) A player may release two smoke  (!more his vehicle not have). 
d) The player can release two smoke (!more his vehicle not have) and change his position (move)

I Can do 100 tests - It will ONLY ONE RESULT - you will be killed! The Missile will see my vehicle even in double smoke! Even when I change position!

 

 

2 hours ago, Yoshi_E said:

 

2. A missile that lost track of its target will continue on its path. Move in the smoke or it can still hit you. Also don’t launch the smoke too early, rules similar to flares apply.

 

Sorry guy, but this is nonsense! 

You talk about how this should work ideally, but it is not in gameplay (at least with me) 

 

I suspect that ACE3 affects this. I use this mod only partially. 

Does anyone have results with ACE3?

 

[dragon01 902]

It works, both for players and AI. If ACE3 messes with it, that's a mod problem.

 

It should be noted that the current implementation is unrealistic. Popping smoke only works if done after the missile launch, and seems to work even if you don't move. Also, laser and manually guided missiles are immune unless used by a human player. This is because smokes use code for flares, and AI doesn't seem to account for its effect on vision.

[stanhope 409]

On 5/14/2019 at 6:01 PM, mickeymen said:

I Can do 100 tests - It will ONLY ONE RESULT - you will be killed! The Missile will see my vehicle even in double smoke! Even when I change position!

You don't need to do a 100 tests, just one will do: (skip to the 1 minute 10 second mark for the shooting, the rest is just me starting up arma and setup)

 

Results:

5:07 - hit while vehicle was static

5:45 - miss while driving

5:57 - hit while vehicle was driving

6:24 - miss while vehicle was static

6:38 - hit while vehicle was static

[mickeymen 322]

1 hour ago, stanhope said:

You don't need to do a 100 tests, just one will do: (skip to the 5 minute mark for the shooting, the rest is just me starting up arma and setup)

 

Results:

5:07 - hit while vehicle was static

5:45 - miss while driving

5:57 - hit while vehicle was driving

6:24 - miss while vehicle was static

6:38 - hit while vehicle was static

 

 

Of course, thanks for making a video example for me! I appreciate it.

However, in your example, you are using Static AT, as I recall this weapon does not capture the target. This weapon controls the flight of the missile and directs it to the target. But I have a problem with another AT weapon - which captures the target. System shot / forget. This is all Titan-Launchers in the hands of soldiers and which mounted on the vehicles, else AT-Weapons on the Air Vehicles (Scalpel etc)

 

Try to  make an example where AT-Missile Specialist (Titan Launcher) shot you and you survived with smoke!

Or show me how the smoke saves from the Air / Ground Jets AT missile.

 

PS: Yet perhaps one of the mods that I use creates a problem. I have to check it

However, before I already checked it

 

 

 

 

[mickeymen 322]

32 minutes ago, mickeymen said:

Try to  make an example where AT-Missile Specialist (Titan Launcher) shot you and you survived with smoke!

 

 

This is not required. I checked, in a completely vanilla game, the smoke can helps even if I do not move, but countermeasures is extremely unstable.

Sometimes I still get hit, inside the total smoke and even durring movement, but as if it has less damages for my tank...

 

But when I play with mods everything is completely different. Countermeasure efficiency is zero!

Maybe some kind of mod affects it. Most likely this is ACE3, which has its own AT-Missiles system. 

 

I'm at a loss...

[stanhope 409]

8 minutes ago, mickeymen said:

But when I play with mods everything is completely different.

Doesn't arma come with a big disclaimer when you're playing a modded version of the game that everything might be completely different? 

[mickeymen 322]

Just now, stanhope said:

Doesn't arma come with a big disclaimer when you're playing a modded version of the game that everything might be completely different? 

 

Of course there is, but without mods this game is not playable for me.

When you use mods constantly, you can forget about it. Probably now is this case)

 

Maybe I need to contact the creators of ACE3 and yet the vanilla countermeasure system is far from ideal (but that's already another story)

[R0adki11 3945]

52 minutes ago, mickeymen said:

 

Of course there is, but without mods this game is not playable for me.

When you use mods constantly, you can forget about it. Probably now is this case)

 

Well you have to remember not all mods work well with each other. ACE3 is a total conversion mod so it will certainly alter the behaviour. 

[Dedmen 2590]

Confirmed it is/was ACE's fault, and it was already fixed too. https://github.com/acemod/ACE3/issues/7239

[mechanical 17]

Not trying to resurrect an old thread, but there has been a noticeable difference in AI smoke effectiveness and players effectiveness. 
I note that using a titan AT launcher top down the lock an AI gorgon or mora for example will smoke and so far out of all the thousands of hours of playtime shows a common theme. But ill say in the last 30 days of arma 3 playing. The AI has effectively stopped 100% of all titan top down attacks as an infantry and scalpel and dagr attacks from a blackfoot. 

Now I cant test properly because the AI driver is the only functional tank/APC AI, so in order to not stare at an AT soldier in the middle of the road for 30 seconds and never fire I need to take the gunner position, but the ARMA vanilla (which is mostly all of what I play) restricts you from having control of the smokes/countermeasures in gunner or driver position. This is the part that really really frustrates me, I can find nor consider or think of any value added to the game for it. As since an ai driver cant function well, if the player is a gunnner or commander the WASD keys are basically the driver(that is ok for some reason), and your character more so annoying goes forward,left right, etc ever 1.2 seconds. If your a commander you can tell them to target an enemy 75m from you with a coax selected and well they just gonna sit there sometimes, if a tank comes around a corner forget it. 

To a very limited degree I do understand the premise of "its realistic because the commander always controls the countermeasures IRL". Well if I have an AI as commander in MY vehicle they never pop smoke if im inside said vehicle as driver or gunner, i would suspect passenger as well i may test that. Making player controlled tanks in my opinion near worthless.

Since there is no keybinds for seat switch I would highly recommend allowing drivers and gunners to pop smoke (if there is an AI commander) in any upcoming patch or if people cant handle it so much just a config switch or difficulty switch or something. I cant think of any way that would limit the games function, I cant think of any special advantages it would give to a PVP scenario like warlords for example. Basically a player simply needs to do more for the AI, especially since the AI outright refuses to smoke if they are commander while a player is in the vehicle. Until AI is an entire leap higher I dont see why the players have to deal with no countermeasures.