Lately i have been getting into ground attackers and i have found a pretty big problem: the spotting system. I don’t understand exactly how this system works, from what i’ve gathered if an ally spots an enemy you also spot it and depending on some variables sometimes enemy outright become invisible.
The issue i have is that how it stands now returning to base with a ground attacker requires quite a bit of luck since the scenario’s that play out are usually:
1. Nobody cares about you (enemies) and you can do your job in a pretty chill way
2. Someone spots you and suddenly you find 3 fighters trying to kill you
while its understandable that ground attackers can do great damage by bleeding tickets i also think that in the present situation you can’t do anything but rush a point at the start of the game and then pray that no one sees you, added to this there is also the issue that fighters arrive a bit late because of how they spawn and they really have no incentive in helping you.
For what i see the spotting system needs to be re-modulated, one suggestion that comes to my mind is: since we got the new Air Alert! function, make it so that to communicate a spotted enemy to allies you need to use this instead of the automatic system we have and also make it a static enemy report on the map instead of a diamond that follows the enemy constantly.
I would also suggest that the spotting system should also be based on the degrees the pilot can look at (don’t know if this phrase makes sense sorry) from his cockpit, It’s kind of unreasonable that i am under someone and i still get spotted by him, how is seeing me in the first place?
let me know if this is unreasonable or not and especially why so.
The spotting / strike aircraft discussions pops up very often.
Based on your text you are mainly referring to props, but “borg spotting” (aka shared spotting) is present in Air RB at all BRs.
Without going out into details, you might get some support by people not realizing that markers in Air RB (as a result of spotting) are just a convenient addition to contrails, reading and understanding the battle log, watching your own ground units disappear and sound (u can hear enemies up to 3.5 km).
Others (mainly heavy bomber fans, trying to survive with slow nightbombers in bright daylight) will question why attackers “steal” their marked bases, etc…
I personally see the swarms of ai planes spotting enemies or friendlies as main problem, but i accept that a lot of pilots need those ai planes as easy target to get their planes spaded. In addition the are extremely useful for tasks requiring, crits, assists, total score or battle activity.
Regarding realism (angle for spotting) and overall issues with spotting and strike aircraft - i recommend to read this thread (3 months old):
Its the NPC planes shared spotting, which kill most attacker planes. The whole NPC area is swarmed by NPC planes, which unfortnately uncover every enemy player plane and share its position with the enemy team. Ofc alot players go for you, which makes groundpounding impossible. Often you strafe one single pillbox and get already swarmed by half the enemy team thx to NPC detection.
yeah i’m referring to all br’s but i’ve been mostly playing props as of late
i see that but the real problem that i have with it is that the enemies know my position in real time sometimes even at unreasonable distances
I actually wasn’t aware that ai planes could also spot enemies for the entire team, in which case that sounds pretty unreasonable and indeed a problem.
I’ll look into the thread you’ve sent, unfortunately i don’t seem to have a way to change the tags (and the forum only allowed me to put 2 tags), but the topic already has the realistic battle topic and air tag so that should suffice i think(?)
This was always a problem some years ago when there were just a few maps with ai planes in place - now maps without ai planes were the exception.
The only positive thing with them (besides the already mentioned) is that ai planes always appear on the same spots - and their spotting range is lower than a lew 75 crew with an ace in your plane. In other words - if you play long enough the same maps you can either focus on them when needed (like on Tunisia - u have to kill them fast to avoid ticket defeat) or you can fly around them.
Your problem is even bigger as a lot of guys play special tasks (Kill 8 strike aircraft) and it is much easier to dive on low attackers than to kill 26 fighters to get the same 5 Battle Pass progress points…
Usually a maxed out ace crew can spot u up to 10 km horizontally and up to 6km vertically if you are low and they are high; the values get smaller if you are bellow them and in some weather conditions you see tracer fire flying around your cockpit from behind without any marker…
Actually more experienced players in attackers can decide some maps in less than 4 minutes (Tunisia) and use undertiered and overpowered planes like Wyverns to farm incoming ai planes, bombers or TT strike aircraft.
I had today a match with 4 bombers and 7 Wyverns in my team - and the enemy had 2 bombers and 14 fighters…15 seconds before the 25 minutes limit we came into ticket lead…
Pretty sure ground units detect you for the enemy players too
Anyone know what stand off range is needed from NPC ground and air units to avoid detection?