Move Heli pads much further away

Dev Server "Eagle's Shadow" General Discussion - Dev Server
1

This has been a long-standing issue but MITL is only going to reinforce this problem greatly. Helis can spawn, fire, get kills and rearm without really moving an inch. Not only does this give them effectively infinite ammo, and allow them to overwhelm any SPAA with ease, but by not moving, they are also effectively immune to aircraft radars and any ARH weapon. And any damage they take can be repaired easily, a kill shot, might not be a kill shot, if they can land and repair.

So what needs to be fixed.

Move the heli pads MUCH further away. On an extreme end, this could be as much as 40km away based upon maximum effective ranges for something like the Spike-NLOS at around 32km. This way there is still at least some travel too and from a heli pad before they can fire or rearm. This prevents the tactic of just spamming MITL weapons from the heli pad and rearming instantly.

On a lower end, this could be 20-25km, but this doesnt entirely mitigate the tactic on these very long range weapons.

The increased ranges though should be proportional to the BR. It should be greater than the average weapon range for that BR. Only top tier MITL helis should have helis pads that are extremely far away. It would be unreasoanble for a 10.X heli with 8km Hellfires to spawn even 20km away, though I do think the current 4-6km is too close, and so that should be increased to around 10-15km

Quite frankly. Ive felt this has been needed for a loooooong time, with heli weapons exceeding the closest pad for years, and the short distance allowing a lot of helis to limp back to a base with ease and repair damage that quite frankly, should have killed them.

Adding travel time and forcing them to move also makes them more vulnerable to fixed wing CAP, as they will appear on radars and be engagable with ARH missiles.

An example from Sun City (given its being overhauled this major)

Spoiler

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The closest heli pad is 4.5km away from the objective and about 6km away from the enemy spawn
The rear heli pad is 7km away from the objective and about 8km away from the enemy spawn.

Both are well within range of most, if not all FnF ATGMs, let alone the much longer ranged MITL weapons, that on the low end are around 16ish km iirc. (Heck, they are in range for most SAL Weapons too)

Should Heli pads be moved much further away from the battlefield?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
2

That’s probably the funniest thing I’ve seen on the forum in the last year. Pure comedy. At least 40km lol.

2 Likes
3

Why?

4

40km may be a bit too much (not even planes spawn so far away) but I think we can all agree that both the helipads and especially the airfield should be put farther away (and I’d even remove the airspawn for planes at high br)

3 Likes
5

The core idea is that ALL helis have to move at least a bit before being able to fire. Spike-NLOS have a theoretical range of 32km. So 40km came from that. 32 + a bit.

I was originally thinking 20-25km, and for something like LMUR, that is more than enough, but then that still means a AH-64E could still sit on the spawn point and spam Spike NLOS infinitely and it defeats the point. Sure, they are really slow, but they still have MITL and you can still spam 12 of them, Even if all 12 get intercepted, you’ll eventually bleed the number of available missiles to intercept them and one will get through, all whilst you’ve only moved vertically like 2m

(Now that is based upon an assumption the 32km range doesnt require any alt, ive not used them, and basing that just of statcards)

Now of course, for BRs where you have Hellfires and Vikhrs, then 12-15km is more than enough, should be BR specific (Though that is something Gaijin cannot do )

Spoiler

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Ever since the Pantsir S1, I think planes should spawn further away, annoying to have ot start defending the milisecond you spawn in, and on a few maps, you can be shot whilst landing and taking off from an AF, so AFs should also be further away as well

6

I think it should depend on your loadout. So if you bring rockets or bombs you spawn at the closer helipad, and if you bring atgms or whatever you spawn at the farther one

2 Likes
7

Yeah, Id be fine with that.

1 Like
8

Completely out of touch with reality. At the very least, calculate how long it takes for the helicopter to fly 10 km, and then for the Spike to fly 30 km, and remember how long an average match lasts.

4 Likes
9

We’d need to basically have a different pad for every weapon of meaningfully different range to keep things fair, so there would be five helipads per side simultaneously in the 12.3+ BR range. Would end up having more when new weaponry comes in. You’d also need to prevent helis from further pads from rearming on nearer pads.

And the time argument above is also valid. Launching from 32 km, Spike NLOS needs to be guided to at least within 20 km of the target for lock. So 12 km of human guided flight per missile, which takes about 1.5 minutes. Multiply that by 12 and you get almost 18 minutes to finish firing the whole load of missiles, almost all of which will certainly be intercepted by enemy AA.

If the aim is just to stop helis from hovering above their pads, why not just impose a no firing zone of 1~2 km (or whatever distance seems fit) around the helipad, like how we can’t fire weapons while sitting on the airfield? Could exempt guns and AAMs for self defence against aircraft if necessary.

10

Not really. you spam 12 at one target. The first 11 just decoy, Only one needs to get through.

You land, get 12 more, and then spam 12 more.

That is another solution, but the heli pads are still too close even with that.

11

a true core idea, should be to expand battlefield,… Gaijin always wanted to put players in corridors and base capping objective,… that should change to expand the gameplay, and when we’re gonna see it expand, helipads are going to move.

but right now? with the current sorry state of tank battlefields, there is no interest in moving anything out.

12

You need to consider helis using hellfires and such, having them spawn far back wouldnt be great

1 Like
13

did cover that, I didnt clarify originally, but added a disclaimer to hte bottom. I wrote the original point specifically for top tier with MITL

1 Like
14

40+km away helipads are unreasonable though, that’s 2x the distance of the plane airspawn

Also you severely overestimate the effectiveness of MITL

A better change would be a way to infinitely replenish SPAA munitions (infinite ammo boxes that you can only use after you run out of ammo maybe)

1 Like
15

Tbh. Ive felt aircraft have spawned way too close for years. Ever since you could be spawn killed by a Pantsir S1.

The math purely comes from max weapon range + a few km so people have to move a bit. Max range for any MITL I think is the Spike-NLOS at 32km. Sure, that might be too high, but if its 20km, then nothing stops you from sitting on the heli pad, spamming missiles, which defeats the entire point of moving them, Except now you have the soviet mains complaing that they cant do the same anymore.

What about fixed wing? If SPAA and Helis have infinite ammo, how do you give fixed wing infinite ammo?

16

40 km is a very long distance it’s double the range of the aircraft, and the ammunition is generally subsonic.

But of course they could increase to something around 20 or 18 km.

17

I don’t really think that spawning at a distance where your missiles take 5 and you take 7 minutes to reach the battlefield is a great idea

1 Like
18

They already have them
It’s called the airfield

19

Yep, 40 km is way too far. until youre in engagement range to launch spikes, of which you can hope to maybe get 2 kills from 8 fired, the match is over. The spawn points required for helis atm are already too high (not as in they should be lowered) but for the average k/d and k/s 600 sp is barely worth it.

BUT

Helis are too strong with the 10 second reload mechanic, get back in position in 30 sec and keep spamming while theres lots of spaa that struggle to intercept even one of the agms.

20

So SPAA and helis can re-arm without having to move, but fixed wing have to go and land?