They would still be useless at these ranges unfortunately. They could increase the range slighty so spamming from the helipad gets less viable. On most maps you can aquire point lock from the further helipad.
Why is that a problem:
On further helipad you are tremendously more safe from saclos spaa, even from the pantsir sm-sv (basically the only thing you can do to not get immediately swept out of the air bc 0 reaction time from 4 km) Ofc your agms also fly longer are more prone to get intercepted or miss because they lost sightline with the target. So its a double edged sword.
BUT as long as you dont die thats no problem because you can just land at 8 km rearm for 10 sec and keep spamming. Dying at 4 km is never worth it to get one volley out.
Problem is:
theres tons of spike helis that basically rely on being closer to the battlefield. Because their agms travel way slower, are way less effective, dont loft as much. Those helis also have the maneuverability to play closer. And are basically useless if they spawn at 8 km (further helipad)
Taking the closer helipad would further invalidate the helis that are already disadvantaged. though it could increase by 2 km to 6 for the closer helipad (but then the strong agm slingers are in perfect attack range spawning there).
It would be optimal if helis HAD to move at least 2 km to get into a good engagement position and couldnt launch straight from the helipad.
Whether or not that could be solved through better map design i cant really wrap my head around atm…lots of the maps are just too flat and designed like a bowl so no matter where the helipads are, you can simply climb straight after rearming and be in a good attack position.
Fixed wings are already the strongest of the three.
They decide when and where to attack and can decide how safe or not they want to play. You can put infinite pressure on the whole ground battlefield, every heli AND fight jets, for as long as youre alive, without ever exposing yourself to real danger in a jet.
In a heli youre in constant threat having to watch out whether a jet is going for you.
In a spaa youre in constant alert having to check if the jet is on an attack run, whether he has sent anti rad missiles at you or agms towards your allies on the ground. None of these decide at what point they have to be on alert or at what point they attack. They are all just reacting to the jet.
Problem is: Helis can infinitely reload, spaas can reload once, and jets take a long time to reload.
13.3 helis are too strong with the 10 second reload mechanic. 13.3 helicopters are the problem. The solution should nerf the 13.3 helicopters, not all helicopters. Moreover, there’s already a chance they’ll become useless in the new patch. Let’s see how ldircm would performs on the live.
make massives hills in front of battlefields, such like Pradesh map, where helos have to move in order to see a tank, and go back after,… but even there, you’ll found that Helos will be too fast to reload and shoot back,…
what you’ve forgot however, is that Gaijin makes the game the most arcady possible, since 2015 and the addition of tanks.
because most players are dum-dums (sorry, but true), and can’t do anything else than Forward, stop and fire.
I see. yeah in a way i can understand that because in a way you need more ammo to be able to deal with lmur, spike and even worse JAGM slingers. while youre not able to do anything to the helis, like half the top tier spaa cant even hope to get half the incoming ordinance. that can just be infinitely reloaded.
Like…IRIS-T…useless vs ordinance…Type 03…useless vs everything…Tans sam? HAHHAHA…CLAWS and NASAMS? fine spaa…but vs ordinance…not enough missiles. SAMP-T…awesome spaa…but missiles not enough to counter even 2 ah64e attacks.
I think that’s a pretty extreme range, but in principle, adding a helipad that’s at least 20-25km away (where the airfield should be at 13.3+ anyway) and making it the only available spawn and reload point for MITL/F&F helo loadouts would be good enough. The problem that needs to be curtailed is that they can sit at close range, just above the treeline and hugging the helipad, spam missiles that have very limited time to be seen or intercepted, and then reload. Forcing those specific loadouts further away would make them either a) climb significantly to see the battlefield, thus being more vulnerable to ARH/SACLOS SAMs, since they couldn’t instantly dip down, and allowing their munitions to be perceived, avoided or intercepted, or b) spend some time getting closer to the battlefield, and thus prevent them from immediately dipping down to reload. I don’t think that anything using laser guided munitions needs to be nerfed, so adding a specific, more distant helipad locked to those loadouts would go a long way toward solving the problem of them having essentially no counterplay.
Would allow for SPAAs to be re-enabled to protect heli spawns. But would like the AFs to move further away, though for the opposite reason. to protect fixed wing from the SPAA a bit. Really bad on some maps
I’m so fucking tired of these degenerates sitting on helipad spamming missiles, every fucking time I tried to play mbt I get killed by these thing, lucky if my LWS works and I can pop smoke, then spawn the IRST and wasting 8-10 missiles and it occasionally hits nothing, like crap can I pay money so I don’t have to play with them?
I support this, but only for F&F helicopters exclusively, I don’t think it’s fair to enforce this on the ‘upper echelon’ of Laser guided/Beam riders like the Ah Mk.1, Z-10A, Ka-52 etc
These will struggle if put, say 8km away, compared to FnF carriers.
I think helipads need a rework though as some are completely unplayable or OP (higher elevation than AA spawns like el almein, or unbalanced with regards to cover like vietnam), more maps should feature heli-oriented terrain like Fulda, which is both balanced and fun, while maps like american desert feel awful since the cover is located at the battlefield rather than towards the helipad