Can something be done about scout drones vs helis?

Game Discussion Realistic Battle
1

As mainly a GRB helicopter player using rockets, its very frustrating being hard countered by something I can barely hear, barely see if its cloudy, and can’t reliably kill with the manpad type missiles helicopters get or even when you hit them with the helicopters cannon.

Especially at higher tiers, with the prevalence of auto tracking autocannons and spike missiles, there’s already many counters to the close in fire support role that flying rocket helis entail (I’m specifically not referring to rocket rushing, but actually hovering behind cover/terrain, waiting for opportunities to dip out of cover to strike, using your cannon to track enemy tanks for your teammates, guarding flanks for prolonged periods of the match etc.), its very disheartening when you’ve been holding a flank, winning peaks/duels against tanks and autocannons, giving good call outs and recon, then bam rotor disk struck by a drone.

While I understand there’s an argument to be had that sure, this could be considered realistic gameplay or a viable counter–then reward the player who rammed their drone into me the kill. Because what’s more frustrating for me as a player getting countered by this, is the inevitable crew lockout that happens. So not only am I hard countered by something I can’t hear, can’t see, and can rarely kill, I also get locked out of continuing to play.

And while I’ll admit, it isn’t an occurrence every single match, there are days when it is a constant occurrence, and that crew lockout really starts to add up and hurt especially when I’m in the middle of grinding out a specific tree (I mention this because again, as I’m primarily a heli player, I have no tanks for trees like China, so I grinded the entire heli tree only playing with rocket helis, not a single atgm fired).

I propose either a) removing the collision with helicopters all together, b) reward the kill to prevent crew lock timer, or c) make the drones easier to lock/target with helicopter’s aam and sight stabilization tracking, or d) give the scout drones a minimum height above terrain that they’re allowed to fly at, if they hit me cruising at a km fair game.

Thank you for reading <3

edit:
I think there’s a lack of understanding here due to my lack of explanation. This is absolutely not an issue when you’re atgm spamming at 5km. When I say I’m playing close with rockets, I’m playing literally close. Before I got this kill I was hovering with my teammates in the alley when they got into a standoff with the tank I kill in the image. That part when I’m doing elephant walks with my team is when I get rammed by drones. Not when I’m slinging hellfires across the map.

Elephant walk w/ team:

that wreckage to the left is also a kill I got flying in that alley, beat his cannon shooting right at me.

1 Like
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The counterplay is to keep moving because you outspeed scout drones by an order of magnitude.

5 Likes
3

Keep moving to be continuously chased by them? I don’t understand how that’s a counter, because again in the end they’re incredibly difficult to hit with the aams helicopters get, and can often tank rounds from the helicopters cannon. I have many clips recorded of the 20mm on the AH-1Z literally doing no damage to the drone even with hits.

And yes, the helicopters do out speed the drones by an order of magnitude, but not when starting from a hover. The issue I alluded to in the post as well is you can’t see or hear them, at least not until they’re essentially right next to you but by that point the time it takes to gain any lateral speed to effectively jink the incoming ram is nullified by the not only the size of the rotor disk’s hitbox, but also that by the time you can hear them, you have about half a second to a second to react which very often is not enough time to dodge.

4

As in, as long as you are moving somewhat, drifting to the side or something, it will be incredibly hard for the drone to kill you. They cannot move as fast as you can, so if you hover in place, you are easy prey, and vice versa

5

Again I’m going to have to strongly disagree, the size of the rotor disk hitbox isn’t being considered. They do not have to be accurate, just have to be close enough to get the hitbox collision and destroy the rotor blades. And when you’re hovering in tight spots, there are times when I do see them, and start a full pitch backward to start flying away from them, they’re still able to get the collision because of the time it takes to accelerate and the size of the disk. Maintaining a constant side to side motion isn’t a solution either because of the same issue.

6

I’m saying don’t just camp in one spot. Shoot somebody with a missile and then reposition. It will take ages for someone to catch up to you if keep moving around.

7

Even as someone with top tier helicopters, the irony is not lost that these exact same complaints could be made towards helicopters themselves lol.

Honestly, I really don’t mind the scout drone rammers.

Some countries straight up have little to no ground based AA counterplay against helicopters at certain BR ranges, (countries like Israel don’t have a single SPAA in the entire tech tree that can adequately counter them). So on that basis, it’s kind of difficult to begrudge people using what little tools they have at their disposal to defend themselves.

Without sounding insensitive either, I think I can recall literally one singular instance of ever getting my Heli’s prop rammed by a drone, and it wasn’t even a scout drone, rather some mad lad in a strike drone lmao. Never found it hard to simply fly away from the scouts who tried. They’re much slower after all.

1 Like
8

On some maps sure and I do, but on maps like Advance to the Rhine, your options for movement and staying above the height of buildings is very limited. And again I’m not talking about slinging atgms from 5k, I’m playing with rockets flanking caps with my team within .5km. Not only do you have to juggle the sightlines of tanks and ifvs, but aa, other jets and helicopters, but then also the drones of your own team, the enemy’s, which ones are just loitering, and which ones are going to ram you (half the time even your own teammates but that’s a different discussion lmao).

9

Thats fair and I get that, but the whole basis of this post is that I’m not using atgms. I’m flying very close to objectives extremely well within the audible range of the whole map, where tanks and autocannons and mgs can easily score hits. I’m maneuvering and using tiny houses and shipping containers as cover, hovering in little alley ways and apartment squares waiting for advances to pop out and use the rockets. Very very very counter-able through normal aim and press m1 for literally everyone with a machine gun xD. If you’ve ever seen Bruceleeroy94’s gameplay, its very similar to that.

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the fact someone had the dedication to kill a heli with a drone, I think it could give a low reward or something

11

If the opponent actually catches up to you and knocks you out of the sky while you’re darting around and rocketing people at ~500m, then they frankly deserve the kill and it’s honestly a bit of a flex that they managed to intercept you with a drone instead of just shooting at you with their autocannons and machineguns. Especially since depending on the BR at a lot of the scout drone equipped IFVs start having IRST systems that let them track and calculate points of aim against helicopters.

2 Likes
12

Yes, then give them the kill so I don’t get the crew lock. But also give me the ability to do something about them myself. If the aams won’t lock them fine, if the auto irst wont lock them, fine, but please at least let the canon damage it. With the spread on the American helicopter autocannons its hard enough to hit them, but when you do they still just keep trucking into your rotors smh

13

I get where you’re coming from, but like. Mhhmm. How do I best articulate this.

In your own words, you’re putting yourself in positions where you’re vulnerable to ground fire, right ?

Is it not actually better for you, to have some guy in his IFV, with a cannon that could shred you to pieces, not use that cannon because instead he’s trying to do the funny in his more easily evadable drone ? Lol.

Every guy going after you in a scout drone is one less guy throwing actual led at you.

Glass half full mentality haha.

(I do agree with your point about kill crediting to avoid lock though, I wish that were also true for collisions in air battles)

14

lmao actually its honestly better for the autocannon to shoot at me. Not trying to toot my own horn but I’m pretty decent at jinking the autocannons through maneuvering while being able to return fire and if not outright kill, at least track and disable for my teammates to finish off. At least when they fire I can see the tracers, hear the shots and respond accordingly. Its honestly so much more harder dealing with the drones because I can’t hear, see, or do damage to them in enough time to respond. I have lots of clips of me going toe to toe against autocannons and winning because I’m able to maneuver against them efficiently. But again this is at close range, and if I’m not careful and fast enough their teammates will usually get me after.

15

I just don’t think that kamikaze drone tactics are particularly good at defeating helicopters and if anything the overall balance of power between helicopter CAS and tanks/IFVs is still in favor of helicopters.

However I will agree that the kill credit/crew lock complaint is completely valid though. On similar note, I think that crashes in general should be considered maneuver kills. In situations where no enemy has scored any damage against the target, I think that the kill should be awarded to the closest enemy player regardless of range. There is an issue in air RB where players will deliberately lawndart their planes in order to deny kills to opponents that have outmaneuvered them and are close to getting a guns solution. The game already awards kills to nearby opponents if the player deliberately j’s-out of a healthy aircraft. I simply think that the same system should award kills for crashes too. If applied to aircraft in general then this should prevent your crew lock by awarding a kill to an enemy, although that enemy might not necessarily be the player who used the drone.

1 Like
16

I have never been hit by a scout drone after thousands of battles in my helicopter… stay mobile, use the hover action only to pin yourself down at the helipad (for faster rearming). I innately circle around the close helipad as I launch my missiles - that’s how helicopters operate in real life anyway. you maintain speed for quick descent, maneuvers, and emergency situations like fuel starvation. against spikes, I can recommend listening, relying on your gut feeling, and checking what nations you are paired against.

let me know if you’re planning on playing the helicopter with the highest skill ceiling (ka-52)

17

Never thought I would ever see someone complain about something so comical, but here we are. Wanted to say something about skill and issue, but I won’t be a cunt today.

18

already a bad start. a CAS player complaining about ground units combating them

its very frustrating being hard countered by a floating Raketenautomat. because my tank doesn’t have a roof MG and my teams SPAA is mentally challenged

the drone rammer tactic evolved out of necessity to have a way to combat helis that are staying far back and out of harms way because spaa cant touch you from your positioning.

collision should stay on for all vehicle types

A crash doesn’t reward a kill in any other circumstance, and this would make more of us use scout drones to rotor ram.

this is an actual problem ill give you that

unfair to limit operational height to optimise recon vision just because of something else

if you’re not camping behind mountains and treelines and stay moving you’re not going to fall victim to the scout drone rammers.

drone ramming is also funny AF so I’m all for it staying, id like to see more funny unorthodox things in the game

3 Likes
19

Re-read the post. I’m pragmatic and realize that it can be a legit tactic and I’ll adapt to it. Ideally it wouldn’t be an issue but it is what it is. What’s not okay is the crew lock and inability to target and defeat the drones with the helicopters autocannon and aams. It literally cannot be a skill issue, because there’s no skill involved in getting crew locked when rammed with a drone, and there’s no skill involved in helicopters not being able to target and deal damage to drones before a ram occurs. Lets use our heads and a bit of reading comprehension before we start throwing around sass. I know I know its very rare these days.

1 Like
21

I think there’s a lack of understanding here due to my lack of explanation. This is absolutely not an issue when you’re atgm spamming at 5km. When I say I’m playing close with rockets, I’m playing literally close. Before I got this kill I was hovering with my teammates in the alley when they got into a standoff with the tank I kill in the image. That part when I’m doing elephant walks with my team is when I get rammed by drones. Not when I’m slinging hellfires across the map.

Elephant walk w/ team:

that wreckage to the left is also a kill I got flying in that alley, beat his cannon shooting right at me.