Air Assets in Arma 2

[winchesterdelta1]

Cassius.. that guy had no AI or human player in the gunners position. So he could not use FLIR. In Arrowhead they tried to make Locking On to targets more easy by making them lockable just liek you can Lock a Maverick or hellfire on a tank. So he can just keep patroling a large area and press TAB the whole time.
If he is looking in the general direction of the enemy the infantry gets a Lock Box around him. (even if you yourself never spotted him visual with or without FLIR). At that moment there is no escape.. no hiding behind a bush no hiding behind a rock cause the lock box will alway's stay on you. FLIR you can counter if that was the case. You can even lock onto infantry with your rockets... Offcourse not guided but the box will follow the inf wherever they go.

If you like we can test it... You run around a empty (big ass) map from A to B. I fly in a aircraft (Apache,AH-6, Hind, MI17 with rockets or even A-10) around the map. And i will find you within 2 minutes. Unless you hide inside a building for the whole time.

[TKMR]

Too tired to read everything in here atm, and I know I'll forget to later, so just going to post this right away and will edit it later after I read the rest of the thread.

I'd actually be fine if there weren't any Combat Planes (A-10C, F-16, F/A-18, AC-130, etc). It would still be nice to include helos, they have so many inherent disabilities anyways (low speed, low altitude, rotors are very vulnerable) a well placed RPG or competent AAA can take one down (as they do in PR now). Artillery can easily fill the role of heavy support. And if you desperately need CAS, say for a convoy mission or something, the helos (AH-1x/AH-64D) are there.

Again, ignore this if it has no bearing on current conversation.

[Royce]

you guys are trying to make it realistic, by doing this makes it VERY unrealistic.... And boring. who wants to run outta a BIG map without transport or having to fight with ground units only? if you guys are doing this. Im not downloading it thats for sure

[dominator200]

Originally Posted by cm.

Well the thing about that is that in RL, air assets have an overwhelming superiority over ground forces... The air assets in arma 2 have actually been nerfed with a loss of counter-measures.

I think they should stay as they are. The mission designer will just have to severly limit thier use to 1 or 2 per game (planes that is).

I think that they should stay as they are because the scale of the game dnt know if anyone else has noticed this but I have trouble locating anything on the ground oher than viehcles infantry are a no show for me I just cant see them and with the possiable dense terrian that we will see this would encourage very good agameplay to utilise the assets to there full potential

[TomDackery]

Originally Posted by winchesterdelta1

Cassius.. that guy had no AI or human player in the gunners position. So he could not use FLIR. In Arrowhead they tried to make Locking On to targets more easy by making them lockable just liek you can Lock a Maverick or hellfire on a tank. So he can just keep patroling a large area and press TAB the whole time.
If he is looking in the general direction of the enemy the infantry gets a Lock Box around him. (even if you yourself never spotted him visual with or without FLIR). At that moment there is no escape.. no hiding behind a bush no hiding behind a rock cause the lock box will alway's stay on you. FLIR you can counter if that was the case. You can even lock onto infantry with your rockets... Offcourse not guided but the box will follow the inf wherever they go.

If you like we can test it... You run around a empty (big ass) map from A to B. I fly in a aircraft (Apache,AH-6, Hind, MI17 with rockets or even A-10) around the map. And i will find you within 2 minutes. Unless you hide inside a building for the whole time.

Good luck trying to lock on to infantry with TAB...

If PR runs lock ons anything like ACE, you won't even see the box most of the time, and most of the time, the only target you're going to get is the one you visually see, or the one being lased by your FAC.

[XXLpeanuts]

lasing should be the only effective way to bomb targets in PR, it encourages team work cross coms and general gameplay enhancement, blanket bombing should only be a last resort and the A-10 may do straffing cus that looks soooooooooo cool lol

[galzohar]

The problem is IRL ground-based laser designation is very rarely used. Pilots IRL can easily lase their own targets and even drop unguided bombs with quite reasonable accuracy (at least compared to Arma 2 where freefall bombs are very hard to use and require insane amounts of practice compared to RL where there are effective tools that actually work properly to help you aim it).

The main "we need ground forces" should come from the "where the hell do I drop the bomb?" perspective, not from the "sorry I can't hit jack without a laser designator from the ground because this is an unrealistic game" perspective. Arma 2 allows for large enough combat zones that just dropping bombs randomly is not very effective anyway, especially when there are civilians or other penalties for destroying buildings for no good reason (say, if you destroy a building without killing an enemy in the process you get a penalty).

Balance should come from the availability of assests and the need for intelligence in order to use them properly, not from implementing their weapons in a way that forces you to use them in ways you would rarely see used IRL.