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Potential Combined Arms development


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First off, I want to say bravo for your team's efforts in expanding the CA arsenal, in terms of ground and naval assets. Having a controllable ship is amazing, and brand new experience with so much potential.

 

Having said that, I'd love to discuss the implications that the Type 52B Destroyer has on the current and future efforts to expand CAs. This particular unit contains several elements that can lay the groundwork for some long-awaited CA features.

 

1. Medium range SAMs. So this was probably one of the most immediately exciting things to me. The 9M317 missile immediately outclasses every controllable SAM in DCS by a wide margin and immediately opens the door to having medium-range SAMs like the SA-11 being controllable within DCS. Having successfully modded the SA-11 (well almost) to be controllable, it would not take a lot of effort to make the SA-11 controllable by users. This would add a huge dimension to user-controlled SAMs. Your work on the HQ-7 has already laid the groundwork for having a central command vehicle equipped with a TAR, with individual launchers equipped with TERs. Taking this framework, ED should be able to make a controllable SA-11 with very little work. The next step would be to find a way to assign targets to unmanned launchers through a player-controlled command vehicle, which engage an assigned target. From my understanding, when I was trying to mod a controllable SA-3, is that there is currently no way to transfer target data between vehicles like that. However, overcoming that hurdle would allow for controllable SA-2, SA-3, SA-5, SA-6, SA-10, HQ-16, and Patriot SAMs.

 

2. Multi-position CA vehicles In the current Type 52B it's a pretty rudimentary implementation of the various weapon systems, though it's still effective. You can control a wide range of weapon systems, but they are all pretty rudimentary. The YJ-83 is so powerful and is a very easy weapon to use. This truly adds a whole new dimension to the DCS experience. Obviously there are some liberties taken with the targeting of ships, I'm assuming due to the fact that DCS was probably never designed to use this type of weapon. The biggest limitation though is that while you are controlling one weapon system none of the others can work. I'm sure this is just an EA type bug, but there is potential to have each weapon system manned by an individual player. Not sure if that's the plan, but having players man each weapon system on a ship would be very potent. This would also have implications by creating a framework to have individuals control individual stations of a SAM system, such as commander, radar operator, and gunner. So a group of players can control a large strategic SAM to a decent level of realism.

 

3. Multi-target tracking One of the features currently missing in general from DCS controlled SAMs is the ability to track multiple targets at once, from an engagement standpoint. You can obviously track multiple targets in a TWS mode from the systems TAR. For systems with a single TER, this single target engagement isn't a problem. For a ship like the Type 52, or a SAM like the SA-10, the system can track and engage multiple targets at once. For AI controlled systems they can currently do this. So some structure is in place to do that currently, just not with player-controlled units. Incorporating a multi-target engagement capability for the Type 52 could lay down a framework for inclusion in other systems. This would be crucial for replicating strategic systems with advanced radars.

 

I have a great interest in CA and would love to see the module improved. Unfortunately, Deka seems to be the only group interested in making meaningful improvements to the module with your own unique view. I hope that you guys keep up the good work.

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Hm, thats funny, I own CA. But I have never even tried doing any of what you mentioned. Sounds fairly cool though I'll have to check it out.

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Hm, that's funny, I own CA. But I have never even tried doing any of what you mentioned. Sounds fairly cool though I'll have to check it out.

 

Well, unfortunately, most of what I talked about isn't currently implemented in DCS. You can fire the 9M317 SAM from the Type 52, which has an in-game range of 50 km. It's very interesting engaging targets that you can't visually see and having to rely on the PPI scope. I would love to see a scope for the TER incorporated eventually. One that requires you to maintain track instead of the system handling it automatically.

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This is a really exciting development! I love SAM systems.

 

Playing with SAMs in multiplayer is the entire reason I bought Combined Arms. Slingloading out a SAM system in crates and then using it to defend a base is a ton of fun.

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Wait wut?? You can take manual control of the destroyer in CA?

Can you actually drive it also, or just control the SAM?

 

 

I have to try this ASAP!

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