Changes to helipad protection and placement

Suggestions Gameplay
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1

Background
Currently helipads have no protection, as the AA has proven to be problematic for airplane pilots and sometimes even ground forces. Problem is, this situation is often heavily abused, mostly on higher tier battles, where enemy team helicopter simply hovers in very close proximity to friendly helipad and simply guns down anything that spawns. This is very unfair strategy leading to effectively locking out one team away from using helicopters while also allowing the player performing spawn killing abuse the system and score multiple kills without effort, rewarding them with high RP and SL for the battle.

Description
This is a two-stage idea, divided between lower BR battles with helicopters (BR7.7 to 8.7) and higher tier helicopters (BR9.0+) as there are significant differences when jumping to higher BR helicopters - missiles.

BR7.7-8.7
Since this at this BR range helicopters are mostly limited to onboard machine guns or cannons without ballistic computers, solution is relatively simple. Helipad nearest to the battlefield should be moved away from it by about one kilometer in addition to what they are now and helipad AA should be replaced with following:
New AA Vehicle: M163 / Hovet with live ammo belts
Amount of AA: two vehicles on two different ends of helipad
Firing range: 1km for start of firing, 1.5km for a target that has already been fired upon but is running (helps to scare off airplanes)
This way helipads will be effectively protected from other helicopters and to certain degree from airplanes camping for newly spawned players. Distance and firing range should not affect the gameplay too much.

BR9.0+
As this BR introduces Air to Air missile armed helicopters, solution for the helipad protection should be approached in another way. I propose following - helipad closest to the battlefield should be moved to the exact mid way between tank battlefield and friendly airfield. Helipad furthest from the battlefield should be either integrated into the airfield or moved next to it, where it could be simply protected by Airfield AA.
Protection proposal for the helipad that’s closer to the battlefield:
New AA vehicle: PGZ04A / Gepard 1A2 / SIDAM 25 (Mistral) / Machbet
Amount of AA: two vehicles on two different ends of helipad
Firing range: 2.3km to start firing at incoming vehicles, 3.5km end of firing of vehicles escaping the protection zone (which entered it beforehand). This includes AA missiles.
Reason for this is that currently most AA missiles lock on helicopters from around 2.3-2.5km away, this way newly spawned helicopters would be protected from campers armed with missiles, but also from incoming jets. The protection zone is small enough to make sure that only players purposefuly targeting freshly spawned helicopters are affected.

Potential issues
While this idea looks good on paper (at least for me) I also see potential problems. Maps like Arctic have 4 helipads placed extremely closely to it. This would require redesign of helipad placement or possibly placing a carrier a bit further away from the battlefield than current helipads and using it as protection. There will be cases where jets fighting other jets will be shot down, but this might be sacrifice worth making in the name of balanced gameplay.
The protection could possibly be abused for safe firing position on ground vehicles, HOWEVER if helipads are placed in right position, this will be avoided and helicopter would be forced to either climb over or near to end of protection zone to gain favourable firing position OR simply fly closer to the battlefield.

Do you agree with the idea of enhancing helipad protection?

  • Helipads should have enhanced protection, as described above
  • Helipads should have enhanced protection, I have a different idea (I’ve added a comment)
  • Helipad AA should be removed completely as it does nothing
  • I don’t like this idea (I’ve added a comment)
0 voters
2 Likes
2

Definitely sounds like its worth a try in beta when the most modern versions of a nations heli enters the game next.

3

I think, at least for the lower br suggestion, that we should have the AA replaced with .50cal defenses, would have a similar range to your suggestion.

1 Like
4

Helicopters are used almost exclusively for spawnkilling and are basically uncounterable with anything other than planes. Making it so you can’t get close enough to kill helis that are just hovering over their airfields would make them even more op than they already are. At higher br’s where AA’s can actually hurt helis this isn’t a horrible idea but there shouldn’t be any aa until at least 11.0. None of the AA’s have enough range to kill helis until that br. In a perfect world gaijin would move helis over to airrb instead of groundrb where they belong.

5

Actually it’s only true in part. In current setup, where near heli spawn is near to the battlefield (usually within 4-5km range) it’s true. I was proposing moving it further, into midway between airfield and tank battlefield, which in most cases would cause most heliborne ATGMs to be out of range, even on high tiers.

AA defenses on helipads are supposed to prevent other helicopters and planes spawncamping on helicopters, nothing above that. My proposed solution should fit both worlds - disable helis from camping above their helipad for protection as well as allow them to safely spawn and take off, without risk of another helicopter hovering literally 15 metres away from the spawn and instakiling anyone who dares to spawn.

It’s also all about helipad placement - if done right, placed in some ravine or somehwere where helicopter can’t just simply climb and shoot, there is no risk of helicopters camping spawns.

BTW you guys must have terrible experience against helicopters… I learned my ways to counter them on ground - that requires moving out of spawn area once you spawn AA and actually researching AA. That all doesn’t even matter… most matches I play end in like 4-5 minutes where in 3rd minute of gameplay enemy team is already camping our spawn. Matchmaker sucks recently.

6

thinking that a aa defense should not be able to kill because plane dogfight and other aircraft encounters but i think if it destroyes the airframe slowly so you have a chance to pull away and survive so aircrafts that come there to spawn camp gets destroyed in about 60-30s its a long tine but it lets aircrafts still fly by and let helis survive spawn camping.