JSOW is OP

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this thread.

 

As some have rightly pointed out, DCS is about trying to simulate reality as well as is possible (some of which might be because they're not allowed to, some, just because it's hard to do).

So if the real JSOW is this good, then the one in DCS should be too.

 

Balance is frankly irrelevant from the perspective of the overall technical capabilities of in game assets.

If you don't want it in your server, well that's a different matter.

Just remove it from availability at your airfields, problem solved.

yeah basically this

Name me one simulation ( thats available on the consumer market) that does "overall war scenario" better?

Why? As I said, DCS does the aircraft simulations best at this moment.

Maybe That 3 lettered sim that cannot be named ? but thats largely due to Dynamic Campaign system.

That ED is currently started to develop. But it is not just about that, as it is mainly about AI and scripting requirements to get any logic on any ground units other than the basic ones "Shoot what ever you want". kinds.

Up until Dynamic system gets added Its all up to mission designers to make a authentic mission utilizing the assets as they are supposed to be in an authentic manner.

Yes, but AI needs to be added too. Every unit should have a moral, a stress level, a will to live, times to react, lack of information via limited field of view and spotting ranges etc.

That all is far more important than a dynamic campaign really. As one can add units, but to get the scripting part done is the challenge.

Terrible thread. If all the folks in this thread are playing with magic coordinates, magic F10 maps and stationary air defences then you are destined to have miserable times playing this game. Get better servers, better mission writers and more imagination. JSOW is for things that sit still like buildings.

I'd love to see folks actually be a SAM for a day, see how long they stood still for.

Terrible thread. If all the folks in this thread are playing with magic coordinates, magic F10 maps and stationary air defences then you are destined to have miserable times playing this game. Get better servers, better mission writers and more imagination. JSOW is for things that sit still like buildings.

I'd love to see folks actually be a SAM for a day, see how long they stood still for.

Yes. Just don't give away exact positions of all your valuable stuff in the briefing or better yet, put some of it on the move, see how well that JSOW works then.

Terrible thread. If all the folks in this thread are playing with magic coordinates, magic F10 maps and stationary air defences then you are destined to have miserable times playing this game. Get better servers, better mission writers and more imagination. JSOW is for things that sit still like buildings.

I'd love to see folks actually be a SAM for a day, see how long they stood still for.

They really do so.

We don't yet have any networking of the air defence. That is coming later, but until then, you have only group of units that will know what is where. And even then those do not communicate or use strategy.

You simply can not get close to a S-300 to get that 120km launch range, or if you would manage to do that after longer period, the S-300 has defence to destroy those JSOW, even when the original S-300 range was only around 55-70km. In 1981 it got new missile, range was now 75-90km. That is still 17 years earlier than JSOW was ever used first time (end of 1998). First S-300 readiness time was 1 hour to set up, the upgrade brought it down to 30 minutes. In mid 80's it become mobile, reducing even more the time to deploy and move, as well better possibility to scatter the whole SAM site so that any part of the SAM site can exist 40 kilometers from each others.

You would never take a whole S-300 SAM site with single coordinate, you would be there fighting and searching all across a wide 5000 square kilometer area (40km radius). And definitely not all stacked to each others so even one bomb can take all down.

After first Gulf War, improved missile for fast and small targets, site improved mobility.

In 1997 new missile increased its range to 200km.

And if the site is attached with a BIRD E/F radar, you are not going to utilize JSOW anywhere near its max launch range. As the radar can detect even AA missiles from hundreds of kilometers distance, cruise missiles from 300 km range and ballistic missiles from 1000 km that moves that 10000 km/h.

Add a additional TIN SHIELD radar for tracking and it can engage JSOW from 20-200 km distance depending is the target flying at 20m or 10000m.

But we are now talking about 80's radar as well, that has been upgraded in the time our F/A-18C and JSOW would be operational in the fictional missions, we are talking about 300km detection range on all altitudes. So you would not be there dropping JSOW.

And you would not be there to saturate the S-300 site with multipel JSOW, as it is protected as well by multiple TOR, BUK and Tunguska between Hornets and it. And unless you are ready to be wasting 40-60 missiles to get the S-300 site down. And that doesn't even count the fighters and interceptors that you would need to fight past to get there.

And at that massive air attack, the S-300 site is capable to be moved in 5 minutes (under a minute really if only required to be moved a few hundred meters in safe space, as 5 min is time defined for complete movability for long distances).

The JSOW is OP only because it is made to be OP, because DCS doesn't yet support the air defence networks.

We can all pretend that any weapon is OP when we set the scenario so that it is unrealistic.

Question is just that how many of us is ready to spend time to create the semi-realistic scenario, and that is where DCS falls down, way too difficult for a average DCS customer. Way too much scripting required, way little options and intelligence to be done for the units etc.

And then there is as well the common problem, how many can play chess with themselves without cheating?

I don't know whether to laugh or cry about this thread.

 

As some have rightly pointed out, DCS is about trying to simulate reality as well as is possible (some of which might be because they're not allowed to, some, just because it's hard to do).

So if the real JSOW is this good, then the one in DCS should be too.

 

Balance is frankly irrelevant from the perspective of the overall technical capabilities of in game assets.

If you don't want it in your server, well that's a different matter.

Just remove it from availability at your airfields, problem solved.

You guys are really getting all up in arms about the "balance" issue. I'm not arguing at all for any kind of balance. I'm also not saying that you should not use any advantage you can get. I'm simply saying that the overwhelming superiority of one side poses issues to game play and mission building, and its only going to get worse. (viper, strike eagle) if the solution is to just eliminate the advanced weapons from the server, well that's not much of a solution is it. Personally i think a good deal of the solution lies in more advanced modelling of air defense systems since is does not seem likely that we will ever get a redfor study sim. Sam systems in the sim are simulated on a very simplistic level and require user scripts just to be able to turn radar on and off. If the red side is not going to get modern jets then at the very least their sam systems should be modeled with a bit more complexity and closer to the actual performance. If you're all about realism then you shouldn't have any issue with that.

I can't understand why APG-73 can find JSOW at 20 nautical miles and sa-15 at 5 nautical miles. The SAM of DCS needs to be improved urgently.

No question that the air defences could use some work, especially in the networking department. But I don't see how that is supposed to fix anything about 'game balance'.

Why you ask? Simply because you either give that treatment to all the air defence units across DCS, which means stuff like the Patriot will also profit, thus the balancing act is back to square one...

Or you decide to do this one-sided for reasons of balancing, which pretty much means that all western birds have no other choice but to use their advanced long-range guided weapons or be vaporised while the eastern (player) fighters enjoy the scenery going around in circles until their out of fuel.

Bottom line for me is: yes, air defence sites could use an update in their behaviour. Yes, having the latest in Russian-made hardware available in DCS would also be interesting. Think about balancing your game when setting up missions. If any particular unit or piece of equipment is causing you too much trouble with that, just get rid of it in your mission.

It's not fair stating JSOWs are "OP".

F/A-18C, A-10C and F-16C (and Harrier) we have are variants from about year 2005 when all the rest of DCS, modules, AI planes, FC3 planes, SAMs, ships are, at most, late 1980s / early 1990s.

That's why GPS stand off weapons, TWS AMRAAMs, 9X with helmets, datalinks etc. are better than all other things in the game in natural way and "seems" to be too good.

It's like saying i.e. F-86 Sabre is "OP" in WWII enviroment. Yes it is because it's 10 years more modern. And that's "what if" scenario.

(What is more attractive from the virtual pilots point of view - wild ride and dodging SAMs/AAA with cluster bombs in an older Hornet/F-105/F-4 etc. or cruising on autopilot and typing numbers on a keyboard to autorelease GPS guided cruise missiles from miles away and turn back to base without even seeing any enemy in a modern Hornet? That's another question.)

cheers

It's not fair stating JSOWs are "OP".

 

F/A-18C, A-10C and F-16C (and Harrier) we have are variants from about year 2005 when all the rest of DCS, modules, AI planes, FC3 planes, SAMs, ships are, at most, late 1980s / early 1990s.

That's why GPS stand off weapons, TWS AMRAAMs, 9X with helmets, datalinks etc. are better than all other things in the game in natural way and "seems" to be too good.

 

It's like saying i.e. F-86 Sabre is "OP" in WWII enviroment. Yes it is because it's 10 years more modern. And that's "what if" scenario.

 

(What is more attractive from the virtual pilots point of view - wild ride and dodging SAMs/AAA with cluster bombs in an older Hornet/F-105/F-4 etc. or cruising on autopilot and typing numbers on a keyboard to autorelease GPS guided cruise missiles from miles away and turn back to base without even seeing any enemy in a modern Hornet? That's another question.)

cheers

That last is a very good point . I love the Hornet , but have no interest whatsoever in JDAM , JSOW , or any other CCRP-released weapon . Unfortunately , those and the Walleye are the focus of near-term development .

Still , others must find all of these interesting , judging by the forum posts .

I really don’t understand the issue here.

Real warfare is rarely “balanced”.

On a multiplayer server, then it’s simply down to the server owner to ensure things are balanced.

If any particular unit or piece of equipment is causing you too much trouble with that, just get rid of it in your mission.

Why is this so hard for people to grasp? If a mission/server sucks, it means the designer/SysOp sucks. End of story. There is not a single solitary ''balance'' issue in this game that cannot be resolved with minimal effort or creativity.

(What is more attractive from the virtual pilots point of view - wild ride and dodging SAMs/AAA with cluster bombs in an older Hornet/F-105/F-4 etc. or cruising on autopilot and typing numbers on a keyboard to autorelease GPS guided cruise missiles from miles away and turn back to base without even seeing any enemy in a modern Hornet? That's another question.)

cheers

Where does this opinion come from? How do JSOW's make enemy CAP and SAM's disappear?

Hornets are throwing JSOWs from 55-60 miles so SAMs or cap don't have to dissapear :) If some SAM is really annoying Hornets are releasing JSOWs to destroys SAM itself.

Obviously if there would be ~2005 era SAMs or eremy fighters in the DCS it wouldn't be that easy.

Hornets are throwing JSOWs from 55-60 miles so SAMs or cap don't have to dissapear :) If some SAM is really annoying Hornets are releasing JSOWs to destroys SAM itself.

Obviously if there would be ~2005 era SAMs or eremy fighters in the DCS it wouldn't be that easy.

Well if it's a lone SAM sitting by itself in the middle of no where of course, but DCS isn't limited to that one situation. Correct me if I'm wrong, but some SHORAD shoots down JSOW anyway doesn't it? If it does that alone makes it more complicated than just fire off one or two and RTB.

All that needs to be done is taking the capabilities of the Hornet or whatever into account when designing the mission. Layered SAM's that cover more than 50 miles, good CAP placement, and if need be limited F-18 slots and munitions.

All that needs to be done is taking the capabilities of the Hornet or whatever into account when designing the mission. Layered SAM's that cover more than 50 miles, good CAP placement, and if need be limited F-18 slots and munitions.

That is the very point of this topic I suppose - the only realistic way to balance the gameplay is to ban/restrict the number of advanced weapons like JSOW when mission creators can restrict some weapons and systems to imitate i.e. 1990 Hornet variant to equal it's chances against 1985-1990 Su-27s, MiG-29s, S-300PS, 2K12 etc.

If we chose to use full unrestricted 2005 Hornet with all it's toys like i.e. 8x JSOWs it is better than older planes, SAMs and it would be strange for it not to be better.

And the Hornet is still a bit toothless without it's multitarget no warning TWS, smart built in ECM, ground /sea radar etc. Hornet (and F-16) will grow in capabilities even more in following months.

Pretty easy to make JSOW 'not OP'. Move your SAMs.

Warfare is never balanced. Period.

that being said, my JSOWs appear to be nerfed....at least the C models. The A's do explode and kill things like radar units. But they don't appear to damage parked aircraft. I even had a JSC hit an aircraft on a taxiway and no damage to the target either. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

Edit...by the way, what does "OP" stand for and why do folks insist on two letter abbreviations?

Warfare is never balanced. Period.

 

that being said, my JSOWs appear to be nerfed....at least the C models. The A's do explode and kill things like radar units. But they don't appear to damage parked aircraft. I even had a JSC hit an aircraft on a taxiway and no damage to the target either. Maybe I am doing something wrong.

 

Edit...by the way, what does "OP" stand for and why do folks insist on two letter abbreviations?

OP stands for "overpowered", it's been used in tons of different games for ages.

@Zeagle

Nerfing implies a deliberate reduction of capability for balance purposes. Not killing or damaging something at all implies a glitch, as it's highly improbable they would do that.

OP has been a gaming term for probably... 30 years. As for why, because gamer culture, like everything else, has its own lingo and brevity terms.

Zhukov....this is what NERF means

EDIT....I found my problem. Apparently the last update hosed my big Caucasus mission. In this mission the JSOW is apparently ineffective.

I loaded up another scenario I built on the NTTR map and JSOWs work as advertised.

Yeah, if there substantial changes, it can break missions. Usually all you need to do is load it and save, which effectively updates the contents to whatever the current version is. Note: this is dependent on what changed and what your mission involves, but generally should work. This isn't a DCS exclusive issue, ANY game that sees a substantial update often requires such. This frequently applies to mods, and sometimes even textures and skins if something in the core changes that they're relying on.

How can this be "OP" if the bomblets hardly do any damage at all because of DCS being DCS? Oh wait, you're using the bunker buster warhead on tanks, SAMs and other targets that it's not made for?