Aircraft Too Weak, or AI Over Powered...

[kocrachon 2]

I find it almost impossible to put helicopters in to combat situations these days. I keep making missions and it seems like the helicopters get shot down with in seconds of the enemies opening fire. If I have just 1 Machinegunner in a squad it will shoot the helicopters down, and it will hit them with great accuracy, even at high speeds.

Anyone else think that something here needs to be tweaked, because I know a helicopter is suppose to be low and fast, but the AI shouldn't be able to take them down that easy. With their ability to whip a 180 and hit it instantly with about a 95% hit success.

[-CS-SOBR-1st-I-R- 0]

Yeah that is known already. I remember having read it in a few other topics aswell. Probably this will be fixed with all the other wrong armour values but more probably we have to wait for a decent mod to fix this.

to arma

[kingnl 0]

The ai gunner is also mostly blind. They dont immediately fire back when eg a static machinegunner attacks him.

[vilas 477]

you cannot kill pilot of KA50 or AH1

but other choppers have soft glass, helpicopter is shot if pilot get bullet

if you want chopers attacking land targets with zuni/ffar launchers and guns - use my selfstanding addon of rearmed BIS chopers :]

but armor value and vehicles structure (just as no armor sheets of hard steel) work is bad but...

... but in OFP it was not realistic, that you shoot and shoot to Mi17 and you cannot kill pilot

Mi17, AH6 glass is not super powerfull glass

such choppers operate as transpoter, it is not fighting choper as Hind, AH1, Apach, other with thick glass and 1 cm of steel under cabine

so of course it is problem, but for me not so much with chopers, but mostly with AI man knowledge and skills

AI is stupid as crew, but super as shooters , normaly after 1 shot signal they should change way

[LoFFeN 0]

This bugs me a bit aswell.

I have messed around in the Editor a bit and made some Convoy Missions etc. The AH-1 Cobra can't do much against an Armored Convoy (T-72's and BMP's).

The Cobra engages way too close and low (View Distance: 3.5 km), that results to that the whole convoy opens fire and bye bye Cobra....

[-CS-SOBR-1st-I-R- 0]

Cobra has no bulletproof glass at all. The Apache and Hind have though. Not sure about the Mi17.

[LoFFeN 0]

^Okay.

Anyway I hope there will be a fix on the Engage "issue".

It would have been neat to see a whole Convoy getting shot to pieces without seing the chooper = Long Range Engagment.

[Winters1807 0]

in all fairness, aircraft are quite fragile, so i think its acceptable to see a .50 cal machine gun down a cobra, but i agree with the view distance, but that will be changed soon enuf

[vilas 477]

as i said before, AH6, UH60, Mi17 were not using its weapons, so addon with redefined weapons is needed

[Shadow NX 1]

such choppers operate as transpoter, it is not fighting choper as Hind, AH1, Apach, other with thick glass and 1 cm of steel under cabine

The Mi-8/17s can be quite combat capable and the Hind is also more or less a heavily upgraded Mi-8 or at least evolved from it.

But to stay ontopic, yes the helicopters and planes in arma are going down far to fast, few hits and you either explode or have to bail out because you loose fuel extremely fast.

Somehow have my doubts this will ever be fixed though.

[FWF.Osteo 0]

Quick observation and I've only had the game for about 2-3 weeks. Before I broke down and bought the TrackIR system, I was falling out of the air on the choppers or planes very quickly as I had to fly quite high where I was an easy target. Now with the TrackIR system I can complete the chopper missions much more easily as I can stay at 30 meters altitude consistantly (by being able to look around and judge altitude and roll / pitch / yaw better I think). Staying low is the key to air survival... I'm not yet convinced the TrackIR system has helped my infantry game any but it sure helps in the planes and vehicles...

For those getting shot down quickly, do you fly high to target or do you stay at tree top levels on the way in?...

[whisper 0]

The problem is more how the AI handles the choppers.

Piloting them and being effective is not a problem, it's rather easy (at least far from impossible)

But AI don't know how to engage properly, keeping its distance and staying low. They rush right over the target and get killed. Any real life helicopter would get toasted if behaving this way.

[l mandrake 9]

Also, as somebody pointed out in a recent thread, AI machinegunners always aim at the pilot, instead of at the chopper's centre-mass as they would in reality.

This partly explains the unusually (freakishly) high incidence of pilots being sniped out of their cockpits while travelling at 200km/h - the other factor being the ease with with AI infantry leads moving targets.

[Maddmatt 1]

as i said before, AH6, UH60, Mi17 were not using its weapons, so addon with redefined weapons is needed

Seems to be fixed in the 1.07 beta patch. Even the AH6 attacks enemy aircraft with it's miniguns It seems to be pretty good at it too, and brings down Mi17s pretty well.

[imustkill 0]

in all fairness, aircraft are quite fragile, so i think its acceptable to see a .50 cal machine gun down a cobra, but i agree with the view distance, but that will be changed soon enuf

For me, it's not so much that. Honestly I agree with you. The AI don't tend to destroy my aircraft when I am flying, but rather, they always shoot me out of it.

[memnoch 0]

I'm not yet convinced the TrackIR system has helped my infantry game any but it sure helps in the planes and vehicles...

Totally agree with this. Great fun to use when airborne but I tend to find my view drifting away too much from looking down throughh the ironsights. Only way I found to stop this was to toggle the sensitivity and have a large dead spot in the centre. That works pretty well.

[kocrachon 2]

Just seems like the Opfor AI has too great of accuracy and the Bluefor has terrible accuracy. I can tell you now I was enlisted as an 11B for 6 years, served, and I can tell you now that not only do American soldiers have that great of ability to aim a M249 saw that accurately, but even int he prone position it would make it harder than hell to make a constant hit leading a targeting going 200-300 MPH.

Also the AH-1 and almost all helicopters have a reinforced class that can sustain multiple hits from a 7.62mm round before shattering

And as a previous poster said, the being sniped out of a cockpit by MGs i extremely unreal. Yes thats what you would aim for, but you mean to tell me that those PKMs have a sniper scope on them and that the AI has the ability to track my head at 300 MPH from 600 meters away with exact precision hitting me with all 3 rounds?

And helicopters are fragile, but not THAT fragile. I road in 2 UH-60s that had taken shots, the worst we ever suffered was a little bit of black smoke coming out of the main rotor, and a loss of RPMs, although the Blackhawk was still able to RTB.

Helicopters like the UH-60 and other close air support aircraft that get near enemy fire suffer small arms fire in Iraq, and its rare to hear of them go down to it. The only time it happens is from a lucky round from 50 guys spraying at it actually hitting something Vital. And even then, you know how rare it is to ever see a pilot get shot out of a cockpit. Between the shape of the cockpit, the altitude they fly, and the new flight maneuvers helicopters fly these days (blackhawks are no longer suppose to hover in a town except at drop off, and no longer fly in straight lines in fear of RPGs), you hardly ever hear of them going down to fire. Like that CH-47 that went down recently, it wasn't taken down by small arms fire, its usually some mechanical error.

All I want is a tune down of the Enemy AI's accuracy. If my Black hawk pilot gets sniped out 10 miles away by a Machine gunner standing again, I am going to toss this game into the garbage, because no one is that accurate.

Or increase the armor of aircraft an give them all bulletproof glass. Because I no longer use attack helicopters in my missions anymore because they will just get shot down right after take off basically.

[mr reality 0]

I find it almost impossible to put helicopters in to combat situations these days. I keep making missions and it seems like the helicopters get shot down with in seconds of the enemies opening fire. If I have just 1 Machinegunner in a squad it will shoot the helicopters down, and it will hit them with great accuracy, even at high speeds.

Anyone else think that something here needs to be tweaked, because I know a helicopter is suppose to be low and fast, but the AI shouldn't be able to take them down that easy. With their ability to whip a 180 and hit it instantly with about a 95% hit success.

To answer your query, the AI is shit..I'm finding out the hard way that ArmA is primarily a MP game. If you want realistic pilots or door gunners then they have to be manned by a human.

[kocrachon 2]

Yeah but even when I fly, I find myself getting sniped out of the cockpit by MGs. For example, when I first did the game I tried the map Seize the Town with my friends, with in seconds of taking off in the blackhawk, I was sniped out of it by a MG. I was flying east of the town trying to flank the back, and bam, shot out.

[Sand Flea 0]

so i think its acceptable to see a .50 cal machine gun down a cobra

Hooray for winning today's pull-it-out-of-your-ass award. Think bigger on the calibre, like a 20mm (probably bigger) cannon if it is relatively close and firing repeatedly. Maybe if you had a battery of .50 cals and they hit all their shots, then maybe. The US military wouldn't develop an aircraft for a close-support role that would be able to be easily downed by such a small calibre and super-abundant weapon, especially in a war where the enemy has an entire branch of its armed services dedicated to anti-aircraft.

[kocrachon 2]

Actually flea a cobra could be taken down by a .50. You have to remember most .50 weapons, specifically mounted or static, will often times be equiped with AP rounds. For example, look at the US Military's .50 cal snipers. Its made to pierce lightly armored vehicles, and can easily do a damn on a helicopter if hit in the engines. A static .50 would rip through a AH-1s armor in a heart beat. However, that said, it would still take more than 6 rounds to blow it up.. unlike this game where 6 rounds and the thing blows up in flight.