Close Aerial Presence - aka spawning a Fighter with only Air-to-Air weapons to shoot down CAS and prevent more from approaching.
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Unfortunately this would probably require a new, unique game mode, which Gaijin doesn’t seem to like doing. I do like the sound of it though. Arma Reforger style game mode in War Thunder? I would 100% do supply runs.
Sounds like mechanics we would have had in world war mode which gaijin haven’t touched in 5+ years
War Thunder has most or all of the necessary individual assets to build such a mode, funny enough. Between how AI ground units work in Air RB, Naval EC’s ideas of caps doubling as spawns with AI-controlled defensive guns around and inside them, and WWM’s additions of supply convoys and towed AT gun AI units, we already have most of the necessary pieces. They just need to be put together.
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Now try shooting down ATGM helicopters with your IR AAs.
That stuff requires a full rework of GRB and would take Gaijin years to make it happen.
People want changes now, not years in the future.
All this is under assumption Gaijin wants to build GRB from ground up.
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Then they will start whining about campers, flankers (not jets) or another busted russian thingy. Just like always. Except they wont have any ways to counter some 67 bush gaming keeping them from leaving their spawn.
That’s true, but Gaijin has already said that the “community” seems to like smaller maps (which is absolutely not true for me), and this would require quite a sizeable map.
Got ka50 from 6km with stinger yesterday somehow. Without hydra exploit. I assume devs tuned sensivity up
The difference is, that combined mode won’t suffer because of it
Or they won’t.
They’ll always have a way to counter those players, but now they’ll actually have to try a bit when their flying crutch is taken away. CAS is also very guilty of doing spawn camping themselves.
Until I see patch notes regarding this I’ll just assume it’s a very lucky one-off.
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getting a IR missile lock beyond 2.3km against a heli is 100% luck or this 2 decades old, heavily modified racing game engine throwing you a bone
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That is an issue people have with the air:
1 plane destroyed my tracks while other bombed and killed me as I couldn’t do anything about it.
I have seen plenty of Reddit clips demonstrating this problem - and I plainly agree that IR SAMs should lock onto helicopters painfully easily. Most helicopters use jet engines, which are far hotter than props, and if those IR SAMs lock onto props relatively easy, then helicopters should be swatted far more consistently.
Just because I am against TO does not mean I want CAS to uncontrollably or even partially curbstomp. I have long felt many of the counters are forced to fight with one or both hands tied behind their back, which is completely wrong in every possible description.
There are several changes which could be implemented very, very quickly right now to help remove the irrational anger against CAS.
First and foremost - just delete the kill camera from all non-Arcade modes. At most people should see the final few seconds showing where the enemy shell entered your tank, but NOT show even a snapshot of where the guy was. That way, if you ambush an unaware fool, they won’t easily know where you were even if they spawn a plane next.
Second - force all planes to runway spawn, delete the separated helicopter pads, and have helicopters spawn on the plane runway. This gives tanks considerably more time to relocate between kills so that even if someone figures out where their killer was, they will usually be able to move before angry revenge planes arrive.
Third - give all non-radar SPAAGs, all commander mounted MGs, all Heavy AAs currently classed as TDs (think 29-K or VFW), and SPHs with HE-VT shells an arcade-style lead marker that shows up between 0-1km and 0-1.5km depending on crew skill. This helps SPAAG counter the unrealistic flight behaviors of their targets, teaches average players where to shoot, and most importantly teaches them when to shoot.
First we gotta lower the temperature in the room. What gets people the most angry on average? Being revenge CAS’ed, intended counters not working as they damn well should, other intended counters not being available when they should all come to mind.
THANK YOU! I do not believe for even one second that the current supporters of that will ever truly stop. That is one of the major reasons why I continue to harbor dislike or even disgust for the idea, and at best think it should be considered only after the real problems of CAS’s stupid implementation are all addressed. Because adding a new game mode does not actually solve any of the problems of the existing one - it only acts as a pressure release valve.
This is down to the objectives of the game mode not enabling larger maps. Spawns being separate entities from objectives are the rate-limiting step (to take a bit of jargon from chemistry I do research on).
The ironic thing is that Naval EC has objectives doubling as spawns already, and Naval as a whole was developed from tank map design, just on the water.
We also have multiple Sim-mode-exclusive giant maps perfect to experiment with such ideas on. Ardennes, Mozdok, even full-size White Rock Fortress all come to mind. Hell, even terrible maps like American Desert could work if the full high-resolution map area were opened up for players to use - that one is a full 4x4km yet we use barely over 1.5x1.5km of it!
I thought the devs removed the ability to “rocket-wall” SAMs a long time ago, which is something I very much think was bullshit, and still is if it is somehow still possible to do.
Out of sheer curiosity, how far away should IR missiles be able to reliably lock onto helicopters all-aspect? As I don’t play up in that BR range much, I lack a benchmark mental image of where they are supposed to be as opposed to where they are now.
You can test it in test drive.
Also lets not forget about strela or type 81c with contrast seeker modes.
And modern ir spaa like elde98 or irist or chinese cs sa5 which have chance to see helis without magic force field.
I have long felt that IF snail ever pivoted and gave a TO mode at some unknown future point in time, that they would bring the “doom artillery” from the Battle Royale mode to be used as an anti-camping function instead. Thus you’d still be popped by “something you can’t counter” be it from a plane or from a gun, because the alternative is upending every single map in the game to remove camping spots that planes currently help suppress. And knowing the devs, those same map changes would also get applied to the combined arms mode too.
No one asks for that and no ones need it really, advanced gamemode test proved it.
What exactly causes the huge discrepancy then between test drive observations like this and actual gameplay? I remember seeing a lot of people on various “fail to lock helicopter” Reddit rant posts saying cold weather maps reduce IR missile functionality somewhat, but shouldn’t a colder background make IR missiles more effective due to greater contrast of the aircraft vs the background, akin to finding a light source in a pitch-black room?
Nowadays? you can expect to lock a heli from ~1.5km away with a Ozelot FIM-92K, it used to be around ~2.7-3.4km depending if they had HISS enabled or not, if they turn around you can expect about ~2.1km at best against a hind with HISS modification on
Porting over a short summary of some of the many points in favor of removing free SPAA from the other thread:
- Overabundance of SPAA takes away from the ground aspect of the mode (ground combat).
- Cheap SPAA spam weakens teams by reducing the number of tanks spawned. This accelerates the snowball effect that causes matches to end with camping fests.
- The huge gap in SP costs between SPAA and CAS causes the latter to be outnumbered greatly. Free SPAAs are therefore not only unnecessary, but actually is bad for balance.
- Free SPAA is unfair to those who spent countless hours working for the SPAA. The fact that they are stock is not an excuse, since most stock SPAA are scarcely less effective than the spaded version.
- (from this thread) Free SPAA exacerbates the premium vehicle problem, and doesn’t fix the one death leave epidemic.
In addition, here are just a few of the arguments in favor of CAS in general.
- It takes much time and SP to spawn CAS, so it rarely goes unopposed, and is often too late to do anything in the match. (Increased number of SPAAs only makes this worse)
- People who only play tanks, ignoring aircraft or SPAA, have a conflict of interest. They are predisposed to hate CAS due to their self-interest, causing anti-CAS bias. Anti-CAS players are much more likely than pro-CAS players to lack knowledge about the actual capabilities or weaknesses of CAS, due to many never having played aircraft.
- Most CAS aircraft at relevant tiers are much weaker than top performers. Community anti-CAS sentiment originates mostly from a few overpowered aircraft, fueling illogical hatred towards all CAS.
- Unlike CAS, top-tier SPAA generally don’t vary as widely in their effectiveness. Every nation has a fire-and-forget SPAA, but many lack CAS with effective munitions (such as Kh-38 or LMUR) altogether. Blanket nerfs to CAS, made common by community pressure, further harms balance.
- CAS is an integral part of Ground Battles and improves matches in multiple ways. CAS makes ground gameplay more dynamic, balanced, and fun.