Radar(beyond visual range for aircraft)

[Kipper]

I'm not sure about flying under radar being some arbitrary thing defined by altitude. Radar can detect anything it's pointed at, regardless of height - its just that radars tend to point slightly upwards to remove ground noise - and to see over terrain.

It balances itself, if you put radar in the open, it can detect more but it's more vulnerable. If you hide it behind stuff, it's blinded in those directions in which there are obstacles, but also shielded by them.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by Whalenator

Guys, it's okay to dream.
But keep in mind the average forward base with air capabilities will be no more than 3km from the frontlines.

Going about 100 m/s, which is less than the cruise speed of some of the new aircraft, it would take thirty seconds to arrive at the frontlines. In fact, on the 8km x 8km map mentioned it would take one minute and thirty seconds to go from corner to corner.

The air game will be quick and punctual. Organization, long-range missiles, radar... Will not be present. Based on what we've seen expect pulse cannons and semi-guided short-range rockets.

The bigger things get, the smaller they become

Originally Posted by Kipper

I'm not sure about flying under radar being some arbitrary thing defined by altitude. Radar can detect anything it's pointed at, regardless of height - its just that radars tend to point slightly upwards to remove ground noise - and to see over terrain.

It balances itself, if you put radar in the open, it can detect more but it's more vulnerable. If you hide it behind stuff, it's blinded in those directions in which there are obstacles, but also shielded by them.

Well, that's being too true to realism I think. If there's nothing you can do to avoid it, it's overpowered, regardless of whether that's how it works in real life. So I think flying under 25m off the ground ought to take you off the radar; or at the very least, if flying >25m lets you be seen up to 1.5km away, flying at <25m should cause you to only be visible to things that are 750m away.

[kaffis]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

Edit: There's an argument that current continents are too small for this. That's why I bumped the range down to 1.5km. Anyway, I forgot to mention that Alduron was talking about this on IRC, so wanted to throw that out there too.

Even at 1.5 km, that's still 7 square kilometers out of 64 square kilometers in the map... That's a full eighth of the land mass.

[Stardouser]

Just wanted to link a video of F22 Raptor by Novalogic from 1997 which includes BVR combat. The HUD is extremely informative, tells you range to targets, etc. BTW, skip to 11:55 and you'll see a night map.


And if you watch carefully at the bottom of the HUD sometimes FLARE will pop up in red text, that means a heatseeking missile is coming, and sometimes REFLET will pop up, that actually means chaff(this video is of a Brazilian version, so it's short for REFLETIVO, which means just what it sounds like). And anyway, the scaling is different, F22's maps were huge compared to PS2 continents(whoever thought you would hear THAT said?) but I thought it was worth a link.

[Whalenator]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

F22's maps were huge compared to PS2 continents(whoever thought you would hear THAT said?)

Planetside's maps are tiny.
Unless you compare them to COD/BF3 Drivel.

[Kipper]

I loved F22 Raptor, it had a good balance between flight sim and flight fun, whereas falcon 4 was too simmy. I wanted to love it but blegh.

[StraitDumpinSMF]

if there is some benefit it shouldn't be 2x (750m -> 1.5km)
something less like. normal: 750m specced: 850m
and sight only, engagement ranges should stay EQUAL.

i wouldn't mind a noob spotting me first, just the whole pew pew from 1.5km seems really cheesy. easymode much?

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by StraitDumpinSMF

if there is some benefit it shouldn't be 2x (750m -> 1.5km)
something less like. normal: 750m specced: 850m
and sight only, engagement ranges should stay EQUAL.

i wouldn't mind a noob spotting me first, just the whole pew pew from 1.5km seems really cheesy. easymode much?

pew pew? missiles and countermeasures aren't pew pew. Nor is it easy mode...

[sylphaen]

I am surprised that no one has mentioned PS wasps yet. I always felt they received the most hate (after BFRs) because of their lock-on missiles mechanic.

Some ideas sound great on paper but the key part is how to put them in the game without breaking other parts of the game.

Maybe radars and lock on missiles with flare mechanics could work in PS ? Would it improve the game for most ? Would lock-ons leave dogfighting possible (I assume that's what aircav players like the most) ? Will it be easy to maintain and balance as devs try to add more ideas and mechanics into the game ?

As a matter of fact, acknowledging that there was the wasp in PS, I'm pretty sure devs have thought about the idea already. We will know soon enough if they think it should be in their game or not.

My personal feeling on the issue is about all the beeping usually associated with lock-on weapons. If you ever fought the TR, you may understand me when I say that all the beeping from strikers was driving me crazy; and I was not even using Aircav ! Repeated strident beeps and red alerts saying a missile is coming get make me mad. Now imagine a blinking screen and hearing those again and again and again and again... My ears would bleed.

So hopefully, if there are lock-on weapons in PS2, there will either be an option to limit the beeping or it won't be as irritating as it usually is.

[StumpyTheOzzie]

If we're going down the shooting stuff beyond visual range route, how long before REMEs like me want artillery, cruise missiles and naval battleships?

[Alduron]

The biggest limiter here is the map sizes. I believe that having fixed/deployable towers would be be the best option if BVR missiles were introduced. You could only fire that far if you owned the radar tower that owned that air-space. You could also get through enemy airspace by flying low. You would still need to watch the tower to make sure no one took it, and you'd have a slight advantage in the region around that tower.

I only say "slight" because they can still duck out of radar, and you would have ways to break off missile engagements. Radar locking shouldn't mean instant win.

Originally Posted by StumpyTheOzzie

If we're going down the shooting stuff beyond visual range route, how long before REMEs like me want artillery, cruise missiles and naval battleships?

As long as they have their drawbacks, I'm for all three. I think we should still have artillery.

[Stardouser]

Originally Posted by elfailo

Radar is a replacement for situational awareness. It removes the necessity for playing smart in terms of approach. If you've played Planetside 1 you know how much radar camping did to ruin the game.

Giving aircraft ridiculous radar ranges will do the same thing to air vs. air and will ruin the element of stealth and surprise.

No, it's not. The radar I am talking about has nothing to do with the minimap radar. It would be active ranging and detection just like real jets have, and you'd only be able to see targets that are in front of you within whatever cone the radar works. If you have it turned on, enemies whom you see with it would know that this happening because they can detect it.

The point of it would be to allow beyond visual range engagements, and since you cannot see beyond visual range, it's not replacing anything, it's allowing it to happen in the first place.

Stealth would be continued by flying low and slow through valleys at 25m or less in height to stay away from it. In fact, it would facilitate true stealth to exist, because enemies, confident that their combat air patrols are working, would be extremely surprised when you sneak past them at low altitude/on the other side of a mountain and bomb whatever they were guarding.

[Stardouser]

Fun gameplay for me is strategic, and radar would allow aircraft to be more of a strategic asset. You have to defeat the enemy aircraft before you can provide air support. Provides focus.

Without such a system, aircraft will sometimes spend all day bombing ground troops with impunity simply because they can't find each other; there is no need to take out the enemy aircraft first.

[Fafnir]

This may be a bit off track of this topic, but how about adding current UAV recon functionality to ES aircrafts as an cert? Mossie, Reaver and Scythe with this cert would detect all enemies within relatively short range.

To add more variety this cert could be divided into three specialized ones:

- Air-to-air specialized pilot would pick radar detecting enemy aircrafts, allowing him to detect enemies hidden in clouds or to see enemies on his tail, before they get close.
- Pilot specialized in close air support would pick radar detecting enemy ground vehicles and (optionally) infantry.
- Dedicated scout would pick all three certs, so he wouldn't be as good in combat as other pilots.

Of course every pilot would sacrifice or limit their utility slot in order to get this radar.

"Scanned" enemies would appear as red dots (not moving and lasting for about two seconds, just to give a warning) on each player minimap - good scouts could save people from ambushes by patrolling area around them. Players specialized in commanding could acces a map of whole continent with all these dots, so they would know which places are heavily defended and which are not. Without scouts or remote UAV (accessible as commander cert) they couldn't plan successful attack. Well, their outfit members could tell them, but a map accesible only by commanders sounds better

There could be stealth implants/certs preventing from being detected.

Also I should mention, that any enemies would appear as red dots. This way air-to-air fighter couldn't fly with ground detecting radar and vice versa.