Mando Missile ArmA for ArmA 2

[mandoble 1]

Got some questions related to playability and stealth planes. Actually they cannot be detected by MMA systems, so they cannot be attacked with missiles, but this might be a bit unfair.

So the question is what do you think it might be better to handle with them? And current the possibilities are (think considering both, realism but also playability):

1 - They can be detected only at ranges closer than "X", but once detected they can be locked on and attacked as any non-stealth target.

2 - You can detect them at any ArmA2 range, but detection will be unestable and the lock will be broken frequently.

3 - You can detect them and lock on them normally, but missiles fired against them will have their accuracly seriously decreased.

4 - A mix of 1 and 3.

5 - Reduce a lot the maneuverability of the missile, so the missile will effectively guide against the target, but it can be easily outmaneouver.

Note about accuracy: Low accuracy doesnt guarantee that the missile cannot hit just on spot. Low accuracy means that the missile needs more time to compute the position of the target and potential interception courses, which means that the missile might behave with somewhat like an erratic course while aproaching the target. Usually low accuracy ends with proximity non-lethal detonations.

Edited September 29, 2009 by Mandoble
Added option 5.

[[aps]gnat 28]

4 (1 and 3) is my vote

Edited September 29, 2009 by [APS]Gnat

[colligpip 0]

vote 4

[Defunkt 431]

vote 1

[vengeance1 50]

vote 1 for Stealth.

But should repeat as long as you are out of range "X" once again. Other than that have "Jammers" that do 3.

[bogdanm 0]

I'll vote for option 1.

I have another idea but this probably involves a lot more work. To my limit knowledge stealth planes are "invisible" only to radars operationg to short wavelengths but at long wavelengths the airplane can be detected but not properly located so missile's accuracy is greatly affected. So if you could perhaps set the radar to have short-wave and long-wave modes, the short-wavelength mode will be good for accurately targeting non-stealth planes and the long-wavelength mode can be used to detect and attack stealth planes with limited success.

I hope you can understand what I wanted to say. :)

[mandoble 1]

Vengeance, you hit another nail in the head ;), because ECM is also included there, and this raises another question: what should be the drawback of activating ECM? And IMO it should be a terrible drawback. So, it should not be possible to activate ECM and then fly happily all around the map more or less safe from enemy fire. I really dont know what to do with it, and current decission is simply to remove/delete/erase the ECM option.

BogdanM, about Swlength, Lwlength the problem is that switching to L might result in the detection of something ahead of you, now you know there is something there, but you cannot effectively lock on it. I do not plan to simulate complex lwl radar arrays that triangulate all their data to conclude with a "positive" detection and then be able to fire a missile. So, while you are right, it is above my current plans.

[vengeance1 50]

Vengeance, you hit another nail in the head ;), because ECM is also included there, and this raises another question: what should be the drawback of activating ECM? And IMO it should be a terrible drawback. So, it should not be possible to activate ECM and then fly happily all around the map more or less safe from enemy fire. I really dont know what to do with it, and current decission is simply to remove/delete/erase the ECM option.

Just one mans view: The drawback for ECM could be you can only use it for X seconds and not again for some delay. Or/and, it is only availible on aircraft with known capability.

[mandoble 1]

... or both, both suggestions seem fair enough gameplay-wise.

Based on that the ECM systems might end like this:

- Your plane might have ECM or not (script parameter). This parameter is a value between 0 and 30 and represents the number of seconds that ECM can be active (0 for no ECM capable).

- ECM will be displayed on hud just below countermeasure counters as number of seconds left.

- When you switch on ECM the number of seconds will start decreasing second by second until reaching 0, then ECM is automatically turned off and the number will be reset to default value after 30 seconds.

- The potential targets displayed on hud will include a leyend (ECM) if they have ECM active.

And now it comes a playability tradeoff, a missile is affected by ECM only if target has ECM already ON when the missile is fired. So, you cannot wait to have a missile warning and then switch on ECM (which might be something like gaming the game). This way you will need to administrate wisely when to switch ON your ECM.

A missile affected by ECM will have both, accuracy and maneuverability decreased.

There might be another kind of dedicated ECM planes (unarmed ones) but with unlimited ECM ON time. If your plane gets close enough to one of these, then your plane gets "covered" by the ECM of the "Prowler" plane.

[vengeance1 50]

WOW, that's why your the programer! and I am the future user! I like it!

[Defunkt 431]

Small possible refinement, how about rather than making ECM ineffective if not on at the time of launch it instead takes maybe 5 seconds to 'power-up/enable' so you can use it in response to a warning provided you can buy yourself enough time through evasion. I'm all for anything that allows people to influence their own fortunes.

[NoRailgunner 0]

There are sensors which are able to recognize ECM and missiles which can ride "home-on-jam" similar to those "anti-radiation" missiles. Thats ECCM ;)

Would say it should be possible to switch ECM on or off without limits. On the other hand there should be missiles which are able to home in directly on sources of radar jamming.

In the end it should be the decision of the player/pilot and his knowledge about enemys sensor/electronic threats.

Would be bad if the player + AI could feel safe & comfortable flying around with ECM and Flares combined as "magic shield".

[Smurf 12]

Nothing to add to the discution, I´ll just leave a "Great Work" here.

Congrats...

[b00ce 160]

I vote 4.

[Lhowon 10]

I vote 1.

I think both 1 and 3 would make it too unlikely for the plane to be hit, especially as it'll probably be flying very high when the missile is fired anyway, meaning its countermeasures have the most chance of working.

My personal preference would be to make the set altitude as high as is possible while still having the plane's equipment work properly with the viewdistance. It wouldn't feel right being able to (at least clearly) see the plane from the ground yet not be able to get a lock.

Fantastic work so far, this is easily one of my most looked-forward to mods :)

[bartkusa 10]

I vote 1+2.

what should be the drawback of activating ECM? And IMO it should be a terrible drawback. So, it should not be possible to activate ECM and then fly happily all around the map more or less safe from enemy fire.

A long time ago, I read a treatise on how to use ECM in some super-realistic flying game, like Falcon 4.0 or somesuch.

I can't remember much (the rest is cut)....

I'll see if I can dig it up. It can be mined for verisimilitude and game design ideas.

EDIT: "Using the Jammer in Falcon 4" by Raptorman, courtesy of Google Cache, because the normal host is down.

EDIT 2: A summary.

Suppose you are flying towards bandits, but neither of you is certain where, or how far away, the other is.

• Turning ECM on early will defeat a lock. However, you risk exposing your existence before they would've seen you with active radar, and you expose yourself to people with their radars set to passive mode!
  
• There's a sweet-spot where the bandits would've discovered you anyway, yet still cannot lock, so ECM is purely a good thing.
  
• As the bandits get closer, their radar will eventually become stronger than your jammer, meaning they can lock. Some missiles (AMRAAM?) have home-on-jamming functionality, making them effectively more accurate.

Realism isn't worth including if it isn't fun. However, I see some good things coming from implementing this kind of ECM:

• Encourage dogfights by making head-on extreme-range missile attacks less likely to succeed. Making air battles last longer = more fun.
  
• Encourage prudence by making close-range missile shots against ECM-active targets more accurate, or require less time to lock. This way, people, don't leave ECM on all the time; once they merge, ECM becomes a big liability.

Edited September 30, 2009 by bartkusa

[mandoble 1]

1 + 3 seems the easiest to implement combo and might be also better option for gameplay.

- Stealth can be detected/locked on only at close range (1 km?) and missiles fired against them will have less accuracy and, might be, greater "boom range". This "boom range" is another factor we might playwith. It determines the range to target for the missile's warhead to detonate. If this range is increased, this will ensure that stealth planes will NEVER be directly hit, but they will receive damage from proximity detonations.

About ECM:

NoRailgunner, with the proposed method you can have a no time limited ECM, just set ECM ON time parameter to 9999 seconds ;) But I disagree about ECCM missiles, yes, they exist, but if we add them then the ECM-ON would become a serious problem for the limited ranges of A2 islands, while it is intended (gameplay wise) to be an advantage. Said that, ECCM missiles might be hard to implement: the firing unit has no lock, but just an ECM source represented by a general bearing, the firing unit doesnt have range/altitude info about the target. Might be you are firing an ECCM missile with an effective range of 30km against an ECM source which is 60Km away. This RL drawback is not present in A2 due limited world sizes, you will always know that the ECM source is in most cases "close enough for sure".

Defunkt: 5 seconds to 'power-up might be an idea to encourage people to activate ECM before being attacked and not just after being attacked. But, if you know that there are long range SAMs in the area, you already know that 5 seconds would be a more than safe time-window to have your ECM effectively affecting to far away incoming missiles. So, again, we open the door for gaming the game. Considering that, I still think best option would be to have the missiles affected by ECM only if target has ECM already on at missiles's launch time.

Bartkusa, one thing that can be easily implemented is to make ECM effective only if firing unit is not closer than N to the target. That would mean that ECM might be the preferred defensive way ONLY for long range engagements.

[Defunkt 431]

...if you know that there are long range SAMs in the area, you already know that 5 seconds would be a more than safe time-window to have your ECM effectively affecting to far away incoming missiles. So, again, we open the door for gaming the game.

Obviously very happy with whatever you decide but I'm not sure I'd agree that exercising judgement based on the intel you have is necessarily "gaming the game".

---------- Post added at 10:55 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:46 PM ----------

Actually, thinking a little more about the real-world pros and cons of ECM I'd like to change my voteto 3 please. Ideally that option would actually be;

3 - You can detect them and lock on them at longer than normal range, but missiles fired against them will have their accuracy seriously decreased.

[NoRailgunner 0]

OK was thinking about of how to increase the pro/cons of ECM in Arma2.

Are you making the radar-blib jitter if ECM is activated or is it fully stealth to radar?

Some extra/special counter-countermeasures eg. switching wave frequencies would be nice to have - at least to know/report that there are aircrafts trying to slip through. :)

[vengeance1 50]

Run with it Mandoble, improvements can always be implemented. :) I just want to get this cool stuff working in my missions.

[mandoble 1]

NoRailgunner, you will have one or two systems there:

- The HUD, as described above (10 Km limit).

- But also the long range interception radar.

In that radar the behaviour of ECM might be a bit different. For example, you see the dot, and you see it marked as ECM emitting. But you cannot lock on it, so you cannot switch to SST mode and you cannot IFF it, neither fire against it. So you will not know even whether it is friend or foe, it is just something there with ECM ON.

[USSRsniper 0]

Nice work Mandoble, are you going to make separate missile locking HUD for the OPFOR ? For example if you lock a target and fire the missile you have to keep the lock on, until the missile doesn't destroy target.

[mandoble 1]

Yes and no USSRsniper. This has no relation with OPFOR/BLUFOR but with SARH mode. And yes, SARH is available too, and affects directly to the AIM7 Sparrows loaded, for example, in the GLT F16C (CAP mode). For this case, the missile is quite resistant to countermeasures, while it is weak to ECM and the firing plane needs to keep the lock all the time.

This might be a big problem if you want to fire a SARH missile against a target at the other side of the island, as you will need to keep focused in this target all the time until impact, even more, you will hardly know if there was an impact at all, or if the missile already missed the target, of if the missile crashed with a mountain 15km away and still far from the target.

[charon productions 10]

Hey mando.

This was just posted.

In case you have not yet seen it and that there might be any variable in the missile config parent classes that (just in case) was not yet totally understood by you : http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Weapons_settings

[mandoble 1]

Thanks Charon, but Mando Missile uses a set of parameters completely independent (and different) of BIS Weapons. This is the list of parameters used by ArmA1 version. These parameters are not part of any config, but an array of values passed to an script.