Laser and missile issue

Greetings

Let me share a story and see if someone has a similar experience.

I enter a reasonably populated server and take off in the M at a FARP heading for a SAM site. Since it's a hot zone I turn the TV on and arm the HOT and IR so I can scan for targets on the way. It's a 15-20 minute flight to the target and I have the nadir set for the site. At 8km left on the nadir I sneak behind a house to get a view of the SAM site, it's got tons of short range defenses. When I try to laze one of the Tunguskas the laser doesn't even give a reading, cover is off and key is on day, I see the laser button move. Very well, I find a good route to get closer and at a small hill the nadir says 3,8km to waypoint. I pop up behind the hill and get a great view of the site with defenses and all, still no laser reading but from the TV zoom I estimate I'm well within range. One defense SAM has me locked, I point my 342 at it and fire. The missile blows up after a few seconds. Damn, I see the SA10 radar, even better view, fire at it and Boom, missile blows up. Same thing with the SA10 missile launcher. I then pop out too much and the short range gets me.

Frustration! Another server SA342M, start up, hover, TEST laser, seems to work, 6700 to some hill, 4800 to some tree line. Proceed to target. Laser a building en-route, get 67, laser a hill further away, get 67 again. Get shot down by Mirage.

What is going on here? Is it some super-realistic "thing" I'm missing here? Is there some laser malfunction being accurately modeled and I'm unwittingly causing it to break? Or, dare I say, is this a programmatic error?

Navigating to target is part of the experience, I know, but as I have a limited amount of computer time I expect after 20 minutes of grinding at the very least the weapon systems to work when I arrive on target.

Regards

Fredrik

Could you provide a track please?

What is going on here?

Without a track, it is impossible to check.

Some suggestions though...

1. Make a quick test mission yourself and use that until you've figured it out and trained. Don't learn on a live server, as flight times, enemy, etc. will be very frustrating.

2. On your test mission, leave icons, map labels, etc. on and keep the distances short to reduce flight time.

3. Check you are definitely at or inside 4.3km range to target

4. Check the laser distance is visible (the text is white by default, check it is not being obscured on a light background or something).

5. Make sure there are no obstacles (trees, etc.). The missile "snakes" vertically to target, so you need some clearance along the path.

6. "Lase the tracks"... meaning point the cross-hair at the base of the target to get an accurate range. For an armoured air-defence unit, that means pointing at the tracks of the vehicle, not the radar antenna.

7. Make sure the cross-hairs are not at the sky or something, which often happens if you try to lase through the antenna, instead of the tracks.

8. On firing the missile, do not change pylon or move the helicopter. That will cut the guidance wire. Instead just watch it fly all the way to target.

9. Use the F10 map (on your test mission) to watch the path of the missile. Check it is not hitting something early.

I just built a quick test mission to try it (attached), and it worked fine for me. The SA342 starts engines on, so gently take off and put it immediately into auto hover. Switch on the TV, VCB, lase button cover, missile button cover, etc.. Set the weapon to Jour (day) and select pylon 1. Slave the helicopter to the Vivanne, and rotate it around to point at the Tunguska. Raise the helicopter enough to see the Tunguska and "lase the tracks" (approx. 4300m). Raise a bit further to clear the building, and fire. Do NOT move, touch anything or click any buttons during missile flight.

Try that out, and see if that helps.

But, without a track it is impossible to actually diagnose the problem.

SA342-HOT3-Test-v1.miz

Without a track, it is impossible to check.

 

 

Some suggestions though...

 

1. Make a quick test mission yourself and use that until you've figured it out and trained. Don't learn on a live server, as flight times, enemy, etc. will be very frustrating.

 

2. On your test mission, leave icons, map labels, etc. on and keep the distances short to reduce flight time.

 

3. Check you are definitely at or inside 4.3km range to target

 

4. Check the laser distance is visible (the text is white by default, check it is not being obscured on a light background or something).

 

5. Make sure there are no obstacles (trees, etc.). The missile "snakes" vertically to target, so you need some clearance along the path.

 

6. "Lase the tracks"... meaning point the cross-hair at the base of the target to get an accurate range. For an armoured air-defence unit, that means pointing at the tracks of the vehicle, not the radar antenna.

 

7. Make sure the cross-hairs are not at the sky or something, which often happens if you try to lase through the antenna, instead of the tracks.

 

8. On firing the missile, do not change pylon or move the helicopter. That will cut the guidance wire. Instead just watch it fly all the way to target.

 

9. Use the F10 map (on your test mission) to watch the path of the missile. Check it is not hitting something early.

 

 

 

I just built a quick test mission to try it (attached), and it worked fine for me. The SA342 starts engines on, so gently take off and put it immediately into auto hover. Switch on the TV, VCB, lase button cover, missile button cover, etc.. Set the weapon to Jour (day) and select pylon 1. Slave the helicopter to the Vivanne, and rotate it around to point at the Tunguska. Raise the helicopter enough to see the Tunguska and "lase the tracks" (approx. 4300m). Raise a bit further to clear the building, and fire. Do NOT move, touch anything or click any buttons during missile flight.

 

 

Try that out, and see if that helps.

 

 

But, without a track it is impossible to actually diagnose the problem.

He also can try to do autostart, maybe is missing something on startup.

Thank you guys for for the input. I'll will try to gather some more detailed information, tracks isn't something I've dealt with before so I'll look into it. Of course I didn't enter a server until I felt I was absolutely at home with all the controls of the SA342 which includes the startup sequence which Isn't that complicated in my opinion.

#5 got me thinking though, as you said, I should have had a track file to analyze but the clearance to ground might have been the issue with the missile. I WAS nearly touching ground with the heli while I was firing and the missiles had to pass over a road with a bridge on the way.

Since posting I've set me up with a SAM single player mission and after a few flights I've yet been unable to replicate the laser problem. I've also run a few server missions, it's not my server by the way but a public one, and at both engagements I took off with the Vivane system on standby (V) but TV, key and master arm on. Once I got close enough to engage I turned everything on and had no problem lasing my targets. Four HOT = four hits.

/Fredrik

Then keep flying like that, if you find it again then come and post the track,

Thank you for posting that now is alright.