I’d like to start off by saying helicopter gameplay is really… tough? Annoying? Makes me wish I never did it. Which personally sucks, as they’re really the vehicle type, that by far I look forward to playing. I personally hate getting a few kills to fly my favorite vehicle type… just to be immediately killed right on my helipad, by a spawn camping plane.
The modification costs are also WAY too high for vehicles that reward very little to no RP / SL. Spending lots of time in Sim matches to earn nothing as you have to fiercely compete against 7-9 other helicopters for rewards is overly annoying. There simply isn’t enough rewards to make that mode worth it. It should be a reading team effort not a singular demonic player sucking in all the rewards.
Modifications based BR placement would be nice for helicopters as so things such as the Mi-28N, AH-6 and so on aren’t trapped in br’s where they are annihilated immediately by SPAA and have a chance to cause some damage.
Helicopter pads should be covered by Ai Spaa such as the Gepard 1A2 with its stinger aams and 30mm cannons, it can help defend helicopters to a degree, and gives balance and fairness where it is due. Planes get immunity at their airfield, but helicopters don’t at their helicopter pads?
About AA Protection. Wouldn’t it be very annoying fighting with an enemy plane (with you in an aircraft as well),then you get accidentally too close to a heli pad and boom, you’re dead?
Nope. Wouldn’t be. It’s the enemies side anyways, if they have heli bases it doesn’t make sense they’d be undefended.
I also suggest the Gepard 1a2, so you’d have to be fairly close for engagement. It’s not like enemy spaa at runways, where they can smack you 4-5 miles away with flak.
Gepard range is up to 4 miles on an afterburning aircraft I believe. And it could have different aa at different brs. It would make it a bit more fair, plus, they could be destructible for rp and sl.
Stingers can be over g’d and flared. The real danger is getting to close to its 30mms
There was already a defense at the helicopter spawn and it was firing at the planes on the tank map
You can use the distant helicopter spawn, planes fly there less often
I think that nothing needs to be changed because airplanes are the only thing that protects you from an offended helicopter pilot trying to kill you with an anti-tank missile after you killed him
That one of my wishes: rmk-30 (planned) turret for UHT for close combat self-defence. Because with pars and stingers you can’t do anything. Also its only heli in 12.0 without turret
Helicopters are a hit or miss honestly, good players make them look op, bad players make it look terrible. Would love to take a look at statistics.
I personally enjoy helicopters and am forwarding to unlocking my first tech tree top tier helicopter for Japan. I’d agree that it would be very cool if the helipads had some sort of AI SPAA cover to defend against enemy planes just passing through/sniping/camping helipad but I’d then also have to suggest that in the higher battle rating matches the helipad that is closer to the battlefield gets removed simply due to the fact that if it gets SPAA cover then helicopter players can just abuse in some cases, getting off spawn, sending their hellfires, landing and refilling ammo without any concerns, so in order to “balance it” either the forward spawn gets removed or gets no SPAA cover, similar to how the advanced airfield in Air matches works.
I would now describe myself as a semi-experienced helicopter player in the GRB. But only with the German tree. Here you only have access to helicopters up to 9.7 and then make the giant leap to 12.0 with the Tiger UHT.
You have to like it and, if you’re honest, you have to accept that you don’t contribute any more to victory or defeat than you would with a tank. (So far I have earned a cap point twice in 500 games with a BO :-) ).
You usually play cat and mouse with the AA (especially in the high tier) and are at the mercy of opposing aircraft in the middle tiers. On 12.0, however, you are a not to be despised danger for careless jets flying low.
How successful you are as a tank destroyer depends a lot on the helicopter in question.
The few helicopters with FnF rockets had a difficult time when they simply couldn’t destroy anything. Things have now improved. The PARS now needs 2 hits for a tank and now my KD with the Tiger is also moving towards a positive area compared to ground targets. Counting aircraft, this has been positive for a long time. So, even without me being a particularly good player, the Tiger UHT is definitely useful.
The grind is…not great. After all, I started with the fact that you could only explore helicopters with helicopters. That was a bad joke.
Now you can research helicopters with GRB for a long time. But the points for the equipment are hard earned or bought.
thats because you can fire your missiles from your heli pad, sometimes from both, atleast from the closer one
you cant have immunity as long as you can fire missiles from there. stinger protection on helipads would also be annoying for airfights anyway. a jet could just fly over their helipad and have the enemy killed with no skill in proximity of battlefield and wouldnt have to run away all the way to their airbase
pointless. not gonna happen.
This already occurs with things like the Tiger UHT and similar vehicles with F&F capabilities.
And as for abuse, many planes run for their airfield as is already, knowing that aa is guaranteed to kill any aircraft.
What I proposed for an aa system isn’t a guaranteed kill as the Gepard cannot fire flak rounds.
What about the other helis that have to expose themselves as they don’t have thermals or F&F capabilities?
If someone can reliably kill planes but not helis, that’s on them.
They aren’t hard to kill. Fly above them… they only really get iglas, vikhirs are easy to over g now. The 30mm can be dangerous, only if you fly low.
Also, the KA-50 isn’t as dangerous as the Mi-28 or 52 tbh, as a lack of a thermal imager reduces its effectiveness to eliminate tanks on anything that isn’t a very open map. (Most nation’s helis get thermals at 10.3 or 10.7 btw)
There’s usually something blocking you from directly firing at tanks from the heli pad.
And airfights going to airfields happen constantly. It to me, sounds like you love to farm free heli kills.
Counter point : why can things like the z-19e or any helicopter, be able to literally land on the enemy heli pad, wait for them to spawn, and just shoot them?
Like I said already. This occurs when planes fight as is. It’s ground realistic battles last I checked, helicopters were morec akin to being flying tanks than planes. So should spaa around airfields be removed then? Since it’s “offensive”?
One helicopter pad ( far one is over 10KM out, short one is 4-5km out)
It’s 15km+ from main battlefield. Cannot interrupt everything which is on a normal attack-exit course.
So it’s defensive
A helipad 4km from battle field with af defense AAA (4km) /35mm KDA (4km)/ stinger (6km) covers all the way over the tank map and the inevitable course of a plane, so Offensive of course
A ranged 8km helipad covers to 2km back of tank map, covers half the choices of exit routes of whichever attacker who has no intention to spawn camp. Offensive again.