This was posted in the suggestions but not touched by the moderators.
Especially with the addition of the advanced fox 3 missiles, Air is desperate for a new game mode. This mode idea would combine aircraft and helicopters into one mode using RB flight mechanics and Sim respawn mechanics.
The map above is retty simple. Its a longer form Air game mode/mission that combines elements of Sim EC and RB that allows helicopters and aircraft to play on the same map with varying levels of spotting dependent on player location throughout the map.
Friendly players will always remain spotted to other friendly players but enemy player spotting will vary.
If someone wants to mainly do PVE gameplay, they can remain within their 1/3 of the map and if an enemy player comes over to try to do PVP, they will be spotted giving the friendly passive player a major advantage. In the middle 1/3 of the map, there is no enemy spotting (like Ground RB). This area of the map is where PVP players can go and where they’ll be forced to be aware of their surroundings - either via radar, rwr or visuals.
This dynamic spotting can also be used to vary the rewards for hitting AI objectives. More valuable objectives can be located within the areas where you cant spot the enemies.
Maybe even super valuable objectives can be located in areas where the enemy auto-spots you but you cant spot them (i didnt include this on the above map).
It’s a working idea aimed at providing more varied gameplay rather than the current super short form TDM we have now.
I don’t particullary like the variation of spotting mechanics by ‘zone’, but I love the idea of spreading different objectives around huge maps and varying/increasing the rewards based on how far they are into the red guys side of the map. This creates a scenerio, however unlikely that as a team ‘pushes’ deeper into the red side the more rewarded they will be.
To that end, a large rolling lobby for something like this in Air RB would be key. What ARB has become above 9.0 is an embarrasement and travesty to gaming.
The varied spotting idea was just to allow cover for those who want to do more PVE stuff or players that are stock grinding. My thought was almost like a pseudo AWACS system without the actual AWACS aircraft.
But yea the varied rewards based on proximity to the enemy airfields would be fun.
Upper tier Air RB is really rough right now. Good for a few matches but there’s absolutely no longer form gameplay outside of sim.
You could have a model made for that sort of thing, or even have radar stations out that could also be destroyable to stop the rendering of the markers.
They used to have destroyable artillery in ground RB for a while until people complained that they couldn’t understand why they couldn’t put artillery calls out after you’d shot past the field and gone for them.
Nope, nope, nope, not until helicopters can be targeted correctly by advanced IR seekers, radars, and radar guided missiles.
The map concept is cool, but the change in spotting mechanics ruins the appeal. Imagine you’re out of PVP targets and you have to go in the PVE area and get spotted because the other plane decided to stay there. Just doesn’t make much sense. Also, keep helicopters out of air battles until they are fixed.
What part of them is bugged? I’m quite sure the IR lock ranges are decreased purposefully from what I have gathered on the forums. Neither radar type (standard or PD) can pick up and accurately fire guided munitions at helicopters either. Is that the bugged part? I haven’t seen what happens with the mutipathing change, but I doubt anything has massively improved.
The proposal to include helicopters assumes that will be fixed. Its definitely a mess atm. I believe they’ve said they are actively working on this.
The main focus of the mode is to mix PVE and PVP. Pure hardcore PVP gameplay exists already. If a player just wants to PVE then they can remain in their “AWACS” area so that they’d have an advantage if someone tries to fight them however maybe rewards could be adjusted if you take the risk to go into enemy AWACS and PVP or PVE.
Ah, I was unaware they decided to address it futher, thank you.
I get the ground clutter effects on normal radars, but I want to say they were difficult tonlock even higher in the sky. Could be wrong there since it has been a minute since I’ve played a standard radar against a heli. It is my understanding that the rotors give off larged signatures because of their movement for PD systems. I know they recently improved them to where they can be searched and tracked by radars more easily, but the missiles could not achieve a lock even at close range.
The IR signatures are awful, that’s all I can say.
Would this be more of br 10.0+ mode where search radars become more standard? Because if it was it would be interesting to see something like longer ranges emplaced systems defending the friendly spaces. I think that would be more interesting than the spotting markers appearing/disappearing because they could be placed at the airfields and outside of their range would be like an unassisted pvp area while inside would be that safer covered area. I feel that that would also open the possibility of “Wild Weisel” tactics and ARM intoduction while making those emplaced systems a high value PVE target that could help your air to air fighters and airfield bombers to progress to finishing the game via PVE progression. While I think AWACS are cool, I feel like the game isn’t ready for a feature similar to them because of the lack of ECM and such.
I left the BR range ambiguous so that it could be implemented anywhere but definitely 10.0+ is most desperately in need of something different than TDM.
I do like the idea of air defenses and the possibilities of SEAD. An s300 is in the files so i would bet some sort of SEAD is coming. That would be awesome to introduce into a longer form mode.
