a-10 feels weird

[wolfbite 8]

The flight model's not so bad that aircraft are unusable. im using keyboard .. a cheap logitech one... and i can fly the a-10 through that canyon pass without too much trouble. so i cant understand why some people are screaming that aircraft should be removed. I feel the aircraft seem a little underpowered.. and id prefer a throttle for them but otherwise flyings pretty good i feel

[Dallas 9]

I've got no problems at all flying rotary or fixedwing in ArmA. I crash on occation, but I think you're exaggerating to demand a patch.

Whoever drives the hog in AirCavOnslaught is always the scoreboard leader. If you know how to fly it you can mop up enemy armour faster than the Cobra. 5 kills with the mavericks and +20 bursts with the gun(~10 kills). It's correct you need to close in on your target to get a kill with the guns, but if you line of your run, mask your approach and maintain a speed exceeding 400 you should be able to throw off any shilkas targeting you.

Speed and altitude are your friends. Take time to build up both, line up your runs. Don't get greedy, take it easy and wide and maintain speed and you'll do just fine.

Like a brick? C'mon on now...

[hailstorm 4]

I've got no problems at all flying rotary or fixedwing in ArmA. I crash on occation, but I think you're exaggerating to demand a patch.

nope. it's as simple as this: real life fixed-wing jets do not degrade in speed at the slightest change in attitude - in the lower half of the speed band they could easily accelerate in a turn with maximum power. Fuselage direction should dictate the flightpath at speed, not the other way around. All jet aircraft need a 2x or 3x boost in available thrust. maybe if these are changed then we'll see a realistic reflection of how RL military jets operate.

As a note, just because some can fly the ArmA planes well, dosen't mean that the flight model isn't bugged.

[wamingo 1]

From a gameplay perspective, making the A10 more powerful than it already is is not clever. A decent pilot, yes, it takes some training, what did you expect, can easily level the whole opposing force in the A10 with super-overpowered Maverics, the ability to turn 180 degrees in under 300m without stall, can sustain 3-5 stinger/strela hits, can aquire hot vehicles on radar from 3km away, well beyond the visibility of the plane itself from ground-to-air defenses perspective and has ~30 FFAR that are so explosive they could level an area the size of paraiso.

The maverics are just ridiculous though.

I'm all for realism, yep the thrust is too low, but before you do anything about it, I say the above issues are far, FAR more problematic.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

I'm all for realism, yep the thrust is too low, but before you do anything about it, I say the above issues are far, FAR more problematic.

I must say I disagree 100%. The values with which any given addon does and receive damage in ArmA can be edited by the community. But the flight model of planes is something hard-coded into the game which the community cannot (or at the very least, isn't allowed to) change according to it's wishes. You're talking about one plane. We're mostly complaining about something that affects ALL planes, it just happens to be that of all planes I bet the A-10 is the most flown one. So, fixing the FLIGHT MODEL for ALL PLANES should have MAXIMUM PRIORITY over any points you've listed.

[Messiah 2]

mavericks are designed to knock out tanks... and you're complaining that they do this in Arma?

thats a new one to me

[ShrubMiK 0]

I'm not sure there is a particular problem with fixed wing aircraft myself.

I base this comment only on about 10 minutes of flying both A10 and Harrier last night, with joystick, it's quite possible it's harder with keyboard.

The Harrier seems quite powerful enough and responsive, I'm not saying it's totally realistic but I am saying it didn't seem particularly obviously unrealistic. (I haven't flown a real one, but I did used to work on Harriers and had access to fly a BAe Harrier GR5 simulator on a daily basis...sitting in a full reproduction of the real cockpit...but which had one or two interesting bugs of its own in the flight model like the ability to hover upside down if you went through the right sequence of events...but I digress...)

The A10 is definitely harder to fly safely, much less margin for error and although I only crashed it once there were a few close shaves.

Now is that unrealistic? I don't know.

What I do know is that an A10 is not a supersonic, high-performance jet...forgive the approximations which follow, exact nuimbers are debatable...it is something like 50% heavier than a Harrier under typical combat loads with slightly less engine power,  has something like a third of the rate of climb of the Harrier, and two thirds of the top speed.

I've no idea what the typical stall speed of the A10 is, 120mph (as quoted by one previouis poster) sounds quite low for comfort. Maybe somebody knows more about this.

In response to various comments:

Pulling the nose up too sharply may initiate a stall, depending on various factors.

If you pull the nose up without increasing throttle you should expect to lose speed. If you bank and turn sharply without increasing the throttle or diving you should expect to lose speed.

Bottom line: I managed to fly the A10 safely as long as I gave it a certain amount of respect. And that didn't seem unreasonable - I certainly wasn't expecting it to be suitable for acrobatics!

The biggest issue for me was the lack of all the usual information I would expect to see provided to the pilot in a modern cockpit.

[evil koala 6]

I to, am I flight sim fanatic.. From MS FS 2.0 to Falcon 4:AF and LOMAC:FC.. But I dont see what the big deal is.. The aircraft in ArmA arent realistic, but they certainly are functional. Flying them is about as easy as you can make it, and desroying targets is just point and shoot. So if all of you aret expecting a full blown flight sim, then whats the problem?

EDIT: And as for the lack of power.. I think what many of you are doing in a attack attack run, is diving in on a target, and reducing power all the way. This deploys a set of speed brakes and drastically reduces speed even in a dive.. At the bottom of the dive you're probably down below 130kts or less and are unable to recover.. So just watch your speed in your dive and keep it above 150kts (left side of HUD).

[Daniel 0]

Not sure if this'll help, and I havn't really got anything to add that hasn't already been said. But I also feel there is a fatal lack of thrust available in the A10. You simply dont get the feeling that full throttle is pushing your aircaft forwards in-line with the engines.

[wamingo 1]

Buzzard - Much of it can be applied to many planes, but this thread is about the A10 so I talk about the A10.

Why heat seeking missiles like the maveric in ArmA are ridiculously overpowered: Easy Radar + Tab Spam.

How: Multiple red squares shows on radar, press tab, fire, tab, fire, tab, fire, tab, fire. Takes about 10 seconds to level a whole convoy like this. Cobra and Su34 and others with seeking missiles are exactly the same.

Try flying without labels in lockon to get just a fraction of how hard it ought to be. I realise making a FLIR TV and whatever is difficult and maybe out of the scope of ArmA, but then something else to prevent the overpowered missile spam like a minimum lock-time or so.

Rockets (eg FFAR's) are crazy too. They take virtually 0 skill to spam and their damage range is huge. They even do lots of damage to vehicles when missing utterly... Oh how I wish rockets and missiles cost points in Evolution...

The game also suffers hugely from the how big the vehicle explosions are. Air to ground makes things explode like none other. Hit a vulcan or shilka in someone's base and it's not just the vulcan that's gonna go, it's everything in ~30-40 meter radius. Try walking 30 meters, it's pretty far.

In game the A10 can turn 180 in under 300m. With no other penalties than loss of airspeed that's quite good. No airframe damage, no G force effects, stalling practically impossible. If you simply increased thrust this could get even worse.

Anyone complaining about thrust using a keyboard needs to realise that the plane applies 100% force on the airlons when you press a key. Doing so will quickly decelerate you for obvious reasons. Using the mouse to turn the plane to avoid loss of speed is painful.

On top of this, the terrain is not flat and exaggeratedly so, it's more like flying in Austria than anything else. Ascending is a real issue if you persist on flying low and slow...

So, with some things explained, my issue with your complaint is simply, if you make the planes more powerful than they already are by increasing thrust and such then you have to fix a lot of other issues along with it.

To throw in a bit of an analogy, if you increase the plane's power, then we need better AA like SAM's, but we get that we first need proper missile flight dynamics, then we need flares/chaff and a flightmodel that allows out-maneuvering. Of course we need to take out the easy radar. And if we get all that then we're not even half way through the overhaul needed. Soon the island is not big enough and the game is a whole other.

Go online and watch A10's and Su34's dominate. Or youtube and watch how entire batalions of opponents are being destroy in the blink of a rocket spam'o'rama.

The kill to death ratio may be alright and realistic, probably even too low, but the time it takes to achieve that score is anything but real.

There are way too many things that are not a factor in ArmA, so you need to suspend your disbelief a little. Like money (missiles cost tens of thousands of $ ). Easy radar. Missing G force effects. Requires ground troop navigation. Civilians. Destruction of property. War crimes... And the list is long.

I know this is a long schmeer for just increasing a bit of thrust and I wouldn't mind either if it was increased by a small % but the 2-3x as someone suggested was my tipover. It needs to be thought through.

[-ZG-BUZZARD 0]

The main problem for me resides in the "hanging on the "ball" feeling" that is consistent with the more accurate helicopter flight model which should not at all be present when flying the A-10, as it is very unnatural in yawing. But, once again, I fear that you've missed the point of my statement, wamingo. Your concerns over the planes being too powerful weaponswise can be addressed by custom addons provided by the community. The game's plane flight model, on the other hand, can NOT be fixed by the community. Hence, you should be redressing the issue of too powerful weaponry to those addonmakers who make improved versions of the A-10, Su-34 etc, which will end up being used, if history repeats itself as with OFP. But in order to make even those third-party planes bearable, an acceptable plane flight model is an imperative premise, and that premise can only be fulfilled by BIS. A plane flight model like OFP's managed to be functional for gaming's purpouses, so all that would be needed is to have that plane flight model reimplemented.

[Daniel 0]

Good points Wamingo, espeically about the tab spamming of mavericks and the real world consequences of blatting everything in sight with expensive weapons.

Although it shouldn't be too hard for BIS to add a little more thrust to the A10, along with the other innacurate aspects of the flight model, and a revised lock-on system.

The rest, such as the power of FFARs, the consequences of their use (ie limited resources, cost, and civilian considerations), and the amount and type of anti aircraft defences can be left to the community and mission makers.

So I guess this should be reviewed in the next patch. Fingers crossed.

[stobbsy 0]

Maverick Missiles are supposed to be very powerful. "The AGM-65 Maverick is a tactical, air-to-surface guided missile designed for close air support, interdiction and defense suppression mission. It provides stand-off capability and high probability of strike against a wide range of tactical targets, including armor, air defenses, ships, transportation equipment and fuel storage facilities." is a small quote from various websites.

Ive also heard they are able to take out bridges. According to Maverick Wiki It contains up to 300 pounds of explosive which would make a mess.

Maybe its not the A10 thats overpowered but maybe that theres a distinct lack of AntiAircraft Units that are capable of taking them down ingame and poor balance between ground attack planes and AntiAircraft weapons. Maybe there should be an introduction of SAM type armour weapons and give the planes also Decoys and Flares as countermeasure with the SAM units having a greater range than the current Shilkas/Vulcans. There were countermeasures that seemed to work in Ofp plane addons but maybe somone could varify this.

I think that the A-10 is a little short on thrust and may need a little fine tuning. However I dont think it should be the same sort of thrust or agility of a Harrier.

I know what Warmingo is saying, I can lock on and destroy Shilkas from 3000m away if my viewdistance is high enough, well out of range of the shilkas. But I can do this in an A10, AIM Harrier or Su, so I dont think its a plane problem but more of a balance problem.

The Armour issue I would say is to balance the fact that planes have no defence ingame via countermeasures vs Air to Air planes or vs Air to Air missiles from troops.

[bobby budnick 0]

Why heat seeking missiles like the maveric in ArmA are ridiculously overpowered: Easy Radar + Tab Spam.

How: Multiple red squares shows on radar, press tab, fire, tab, fire, tab, fire, tab, fire. Takes about 10 seconds to level a whole convoy like this. Cobra and Su34 and others with seeking missiles are exactly the same.

Try flying without labels in lockon to get just a fraction of how hard it ought to be. I realise making a FLIR TV and whatever is difficult and maybe out of the scope of ArmA, but then something else to prevent the overpowered missile spam like a minimum lock-time or so.

Rockets (eg FFAR's) are crazy too. They take virtually 0 skill to spam and their damage range is huge. They even do lots of damage to vehicles when missing utterly... Oh how I wish rockets and missiles cost points in Evolution...

I know this is a little OT, but I have to agree and was hoping someone would mention it. While the flight model is very difficult and "bricklike" the missiles and rockets on these aircraft are overpowered. They hit with 100% accuracy, fly at mach 10, and make HUGE explosions when they hit. Worst of all, all you have to do is tab, click, tab, click, this is way too easy.

For now, they can fix things by making kills in these type of aircraft (cobra included) not count. Tell me, who has been working harder and is more deserving of points? The noob flying around spamming missiles from 3K+ or the infantry guy holed out in a city checking his flanks constantly. Seriously, missile targeting and shooting in this game feels like starfox or something. Not deserving of a military simulator.

[andersson 285]

One of the biggest issues for me is that the thrust isnt directly connected to the throttle.

Explained here.

[Daniel 0]

Quote[/b] ]I know what Warmingo is saying, I can lock on and destroy Shilkas from 3000m away if my viewdistance is high enough, well out of range of the shilkas. But I can do this in an A10, AIM Harrier or Su, so I dont think its a plane problem but more of a balance problem.

The Armour issue I would say is to balance the fact that planes have no defence ingame via countermeasures vs Air to Air planes or vs Air to Air missiles from troops.

It's not just the lethality of the missile, that's undisputed. If it can kill a tank with one shot in real life, that's fine with me. Whats weird is that a totally unskilled/unexperienced player can take one look at the controls and TAB his way to victory within seconds.

A revised locking system built into all Guided missiles that meant players had to actually work a little to lock and kill targets would make skilled pilots a little more valuable on the field, and would remove the unrealistic monopoly planes such as the A10 and MAPFact Harrier currently have.

Bit tired, hope that's legible. :P

[Dallas 9]

You'd have to reinvent the whole targeting system then. I predict this could be interesting from an ArmA flight sim mod, but not realistic in a patch.

Maybe it can do with some tweaking, but the A10 is already superior in ArmA.

[Maciver 0]

Why heat seeking missiles like the maveric in ArmA are ridiculously overpowered: Easy Radar + Tab Spam.

How: Multiple red squares shows on radar, press tab, fire, tab, fire, tab, fire, tab, fire. Takes about 10 seconds to level a whole convoy like this. Cobra and Su34 and others with seeking missiles are exactly the same.

Try flying without labels in lockon to get just a fraction of how hard it ought to be. I realise making a FLIR TV and whatever is difficult and maybe out of the scope of ArmA, but then something else to prevent the overpowered missile spam like a minimum lock-time or so.

Rockets (eg FFAR's) are crazy too. They take virtually 0 skill to spam and their damage range is huge. They even do lots of damage to vehicles when missing utterly... Oh how I wish rockets and missiles cost points in Evolution...

I know this is a little OT, but I have to agree and was hoping someone would mention it.  While the flight model is very difficult and "bricklike" the missiles and rockets on these aircraft are overpowered.  They hit with 100% accuracy, fly at mach 10, and make HUGE explosions when they hit.  Worst of all, all you have to do is tab, click, tab, click, this is way too easy.  

For now, they can fix things by making kills in these type of aircraft (cobra included) not count.  Tell me, who has been working harder and is more deserving of points?  The noob flying around spamming missiles from 3K+ or the infantry guy holed out in a city checking his flanks constantly.  Seriously, missile targeting and shooting in this game feels like starfox or something.  Not deserving of a military simulator.

I think it would be easier if it was modeled like the real thing.  Give me a seeker head to look through.  lol

You really don't want it to be realistic, because a good pilot would pretty much descimate everything.  

You lock on pilots know what im talking about.

You think the unrealistic version is overpowered, then you REALLY don't want a fully functional hog roaming around.  You'd have to add some more anti aircraft units into the game that arn't modeled, because the current units arnt much of a real challenge for the A-10.  You would need long range sam systems.  

Wamingo, your right about having to change alot of stuff to change one thing, so becarefull what you ask for. lol

[ArmaVidz 0]

The problem here about the "overpowering" of the fixed wing aircraft is moot. This is a PEBKAC issue that is plaguing the conversation with thoughts of balance and angst at its firepower.

The lack of counter-measures built in for ground assets, and lack of SAM capability should immediately make a mission designer, whether it is multi or SP, restrict the number of air-assets to a minimum, or only one.

If you're running a convoy, stay off the road, move slow, be covered miles behind you with the AA soldiers, be covered in the center with AA soldiers, shilkas etc.

We may not have the ability to defend our ground assets with powerful SAM systems or even basic counter-measures for armor, so that in my mind, means the mission needs to be designed around the flaws. It's just the way it is...

Who wants to play a mission with 30 tanks, and 10 enemy A-10's? I sure wouldn't. We create the "imbalance" in the mission design.

The last thing I'd ever want to see in ArmA is balance. Next thing you know, we'll have nerfed weapons. What next? Lower damage points?  

[wamingo 1]

The easy radar and tab spam makes REALISM moot! There is nothing realistic about those two "features" in fact they make the planes utterly unrealistic and overpowered. Do you see the connection yet?

And keep modding out of it. I, like the majority of arma players, is not interested in being forced to download mods. The majority of OFP's public servers are unmodded even today - should be a hint for you.

The fact that armor is obsolete when just 1 A10 or Su34 is flying about should be plenty indication of how silly it already is.

You want 2-3x more thrust and CCIP? Fine. But you have to remove easy radar and tab targetting first. Fair?

But that isn't going to happen so forget about it.

[Maddmatt 1]

...You want 2-3x more thrust and CCIP? Fine. But you have to remove easy radar and tab targetting first. Fair?

But that isn't going to happen so forget about it.

After playing a bit of Lock-On, I think that is a very good idea

Would probably not happen for ArmA though even though it would be cool.

But for Game2 I think it should be done, although there is Queens Gambit, the ArmA expansion...

[hailstorm 4]

Why heat seeking missiles like the maveric in ArmA are ridiculously overpowered: Easy Radar + Tab Spam.

How: Multiple red squares shows on radar, press tab, fire, tab, fire, tab, fire, tab, fire. Takes about 10 seconds to level a whole convoy like this. Cobra and Su34 and others with seeking missiles are exactly the same.

Try flying without labels in lockon to get just a fraction of how hard it ought to be. I realise making a FLIR TV and whatever is difficult and maybe out of the scope of ArmA, but then something else to prevent the overpowered missile spam like a minimum lock-time or so.

Rockets (eg FFAR's) are crazy too. They take virtually 0 skill to spam and their damage range is huge. They even do lots of damage to vehicles when missing utterly... Oh how I wish rockets and missiles cost points in Evolution...

I know this is a little OT, but I have to agree and was hoping someone would mention it.  While the flight model is very difficult and "bricklike" the missiles and rockets on these aircraft are overpowered.  They hit with 100% accuracy, fly at mach 10, and make HUGE explosions when they hit.  Worst of all, all you have to do is tab, click, tab, click, this is way too easy.  

For now, they can fix things by making kills in these type of aircraft (cobra included) not count.  Tell me, who has been working harder and is more deserving of points?  The noob flying around spamming missiles from 3K+ or the infantry guy holed out in a city checking his flanks constantly.  Seriously, missile targeting and shooting in this game feels like starfox or something.  Not deserving of a military simulator.

ok guys, let's get a few things straight. arguing against better aircraft physics because of how BI coded their weapons is just not on. that's like arguing that a machine gun should be reduced down to one shot a minute, because for some reason BI coded that a single MG shot killed everyone within visual range - stupid and damn nowhere near realistic properties.

do this for me, will you? fire up the editor, stick in any jet you want in 'flying' status, put it into a 60 degree angle of bank at full throttle, and tell me how far you have to pull back on the stick before you see the speed start to drop. didn't take that long, did it? my guess is that you'll see it start to happen within less than 10 degrees pulling the stick back - maybe a tenth or so from full backpressure.

in a real plane, for example's sake, a low-powered cessna (which probably has flying qualities closer to that of ArmA's model than say, an A-10 or Harrier), you try the same conditions, you'll find you'll be able to maintain your airspeed with about 2/3rds or more of the control columns' full deflection, at full throttle. mind you this is in a non-aerobatic cessna, much less a high-tech military jet with excessive amounts of extra thrust. true, a jet with engines on 'idle' will lose speed fairly soon and at a decent rate during a turn, but never on FULL THROTTLE. in-game, if i'm to even contemplate flying a jet well i have to keep my throttle set to 'fast' at all times except for when i'm coming in to land - and most of the time i never get near maximum speed. you tell me that happens in real life?

it was me who mentioned the thrust increase by 2-3x, but i never said anything about max speed. thrust is acceleration, and all ArmA's aircraft are sorely lacking in it. i mean, fair enough, the A-10 is slower than the Harrier, and the Harrier is slower than the Su-34, there is no problem in that,  i never disputed it. but what i do have a problem with is that these jets, built with over-powered engines from the start (not forgetting the Su-34's afterburner ability), bleed speed so easily during low-speed manuvering. in ArmA, if you lose too much airspeed, and you're low to the ground (say within 150 or so metres) you're pretty much screwed, because your engines won't do what the real ones do - accelerate.

You want 2-3x more thrust and CCIP? Fine. But you have to remove easy radar and tab targetting first. Fair?

mate, that is absolutely fine by me. take the radar off the jets and give me back mouse targetting instead. hell, i don't care if i'm given dumbfire ammunition to be honest, as long as there is a flight model that is at least somewhat based on real fixed-wing physics.

[Maciver 0]

This really comes down to one thing though.  Strategy.

Tab targeting or TVM / Hud targeting, the A-10 brings the hurt.

If you have A-10's in the air you HAVE to be ready to defend your self against them.  Set up shilkas and strellas in your convoy.  Have Scouts watching mountain tops with Javs.  Get the Su's in the air.  A good Su pilot will keep him at bay.  Thats why you need the harrier, ect ect.  You need to PLAN accordingly.

This isnt BF2, you cant take your tank and go on your merry way. Tanks need support too. Think about that next time you hop in and go flying out of base over the fence and a few trees.

Because one thing is for certain, as it stands now, or made more realistic, its going to still be the king of the battlefield left alone to cruise the island.

[an_enlarged_stomach 1]

This is kinda off topic now.

I originally said that the gau-8 only needs to be more accraute, and nothing much else.

The flight modeling is rather fine.

[Dallas 9]

This is kinda off topic now.

I originally said that the gau-8 only needs to be more accraute, and nothing much else.

The flight modeling is rather fine.

The gun is already pretty accurate and it already has 21 bursts with the Gau-8, add the 5 sure kill Mavericks, the 30 something FFARs and you'll have an moster larger than the monster it already is.