My concern about the hind....

[SparxOne]

Anyone waiting for the ground vehicles damage model to be done is on a long wait until it happens. From what i remember hearing, they are only just implementing the beginning of it to WWII airplanes, so that is still very much a WIP feature. And from what i heard, their plan is to fully implement it to WWII stuff than only move to modern airplanes and probably helicopters than lastly ground stuff... So yeah, if i were to guesstimate it, i'd be pretty confident to say the ground damage model ain't coming before AT LEAST end of 2022 and i feel i'd still be very optimistic with that

Edited April 6, 2021 by SparxOne

[tusler]

From what I've read the Hind and the KA50 have the same top speed. I would think the KA50 is more maneuverable. I am really trying to find a reason to buy the Hind as a solo pilot but it seems the biggest reason maybe multi-crew in multiplayer might be the Hind's niche market. I could see it being a bunch of fun if the AI pilot is good, I would like being the gunner...Time will tell.

I will probably have to buy it just to support the module builders anyway!

 

[3WA]

On 4/3/2021 at 2:45 PM, flo57100 said:

within an engagement distance of 4km

Well, the Mi-24 is more of a troop transport than a tank killer.  It's weapons should really be for defense.  At most, it should be used offensively in COIN style situations, where you aren't facing major anti-air threats.  That's more for the Ka-50 and the Su-25.

[malcheus]

I may be wrong, but from my limited experience playing with the mi8 in unfriendly environments I have a hunch that the AI doesn't care about trees.

If you drop to almost ground level, they will happily keep shooting you. But it may be just bad luck on my part.

 

[malcheus]

So I figured to just test it in the mission editor:

 

This bradley has no problem shooting the (parked) Mi-8 through two lines of trees (and some loose trees in the way as well).

I consider this a big problem when playing with attack helicopters, because trees like that are in many cases your only cover when trying to get close enough to hit armor. 

[Mad_Shell]

5 minutes ago, malcheus said:

This bradley has no problem shooting the (parked) Mi-8 through two lines of trees (and some loose trees in the way as well).

 

I consider this a big problem when playing with attack helicopters, because trees like that are in many cases your only cover when trying to get close enough to hit armor. 

mmmh, in my experience trees block AI los. I believe it may be explained by 2 things:

1) you gave the task "attack unit" to the Bradley, and in this case the AI is omniscient about the unit it has to attack, and always knows exactly where it is

2) the helo is on the ground, so it's atually not masked by the foliage

[malcheus]

I didn't give the bradley any assignment, that's for sure.

with more dense forest, it shoots.

 

If I try with a lot of forest in between, it doesn't shoot the helo though. 

 

 

[Mad_Shell]

yeah imo the problem is that in your example the helo is on the ground, so only the trunks hide it, and you need lots of them between the helo and the bradley to cut the LOS. pretty sure that if you make the helo hover at foliage level it won't be spotted.

 

Edit: did some tests, Bradley 20 meters east of a forest, low level flying helicopter coming toward it from the west, the Bradley didn't spot the helo until it was just above it. Foliage do block AI LOS (tested with radar, trees block it too)

Edited April 6, 2021 by Mad_Shell

[malcheus]

Flying low does work, indeed, but only until you pass a slightly lower tree. 

 

The two trees with the black arrows block line of sight, but the small tree in between doesn't.

 

 

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by malcheus

[malcheus]

I tried some manual flying, to keep trees in-between me and the bradley. Something really dodgy is happening: 

This is what he sees:

And this is what I see:

No way this shot didn't pass through a tree....

 

 

I think it somehow got my location and heading when I hopped over the line of trees behind me, and then opened fire while I was dropping back to ground level or something?

[StevanJ]

On 4/3/2021 at 8:45 PM, flo57100 said:

...is not the hind itself, I am sure we will have an outstanding module.

No, my concern is hind vs AI. What I mean is we will have at release Shturm, which must guided within an engagement distance of 4km, which means we will have to fly straight on the target we want to kill. And 4km being within engagement of vehicle lanched ATGMs, and DCS AI being what it is (dumb as hell to do certain tasks, but have an eagle eye and sharpshooter skills), engagement may not have a happy end for the hind.

What do you think guys ?

I wouldnt worry about it.

[Mars Exulte]

@malcheus

 

The AI pretty much instantly spots you anytime it gets LoS, even if just for a moment. We know it's flakey ) You'll need to adapt to it for now

 

The addition of trees blocking LoS is relatively new, it's still pretty spotty.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Mars Exulte

[3WA]

13 hours ago, malcheus said:

the AI doesn't care about trees.

Nah.  The AI looks right through the trees.  They used to look through Mountains in the old days, though I haven't played any particular scenarios like that in a long while, so I don't know if that is still a thing or not.

 

4 hours ago, malcheus said:

No way this shot didn't pass through a tree....

 

Lol, I've seen TOW missiles pass through a thick line of trees.  The trees don't seem to stop anything.  Maybe the main branch does.

 

5 hours ago, malcheus said:

I didn't give the bradley any assignment, that's for sure.

with more dense forest, it shoots.

Actually, If you look at the line of site in your pic, it is clear if the AI is ignoring the actual foilage of the tree, and only recognizing the trunk as an obstacle.  There is only the edge of two trees masking the LOS, and further down only the edge of one tree.  No trunks are masking the LOS.  I'm guessing this is the case.

Edited April 6, 2021 by 3WA

[Lurker]

I think the invisible "hitboxes", for lack of a better word, on trees need to be a made a little larger so that they block lines of sight more consistently. LOS in DCS is not the same as in Real Life. In real life LOS would make the enemy units unaware you were there, in DCS this simply means that the enemy AI knows you are there it just won't fire at you until it has a clear sight. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the AI In DCS seem to be pretty omniscient of enemy units in a certain radius. 

Edited April 7, 2021 by Lurker

[ftmch]

The trees on Syria can stop a Maverick. They should probably start strapping them to tanks.

[Hiob]

Pretty sure that if a rl maveric would hit a tree (tree! not twig), it would be out. Not sure is it would detonate its warhead, but probably....

Edited April 7, 2021 by Hiob

[ftmch]

8 minutes ago, Hiob said:

Pretty sure that if a rl maveric would hit a tree (tree! not twig), it would be out. Not sure is it would detonate its warhead, but probably....

 

Yeah but in rl the tree would be out too.

[Gierasimov]

On 4/3/2021 at 10:12 PM, Sarge55 said:

Nothing wrong with plinking... However, sounds like high speed rocket attacks maybe the go to for Hind.

Yes. Against trucks and cannon fodder.

Tanks and APCs will still snipe us out.

[malcheus]

54 minutes ago, Lurker said:

I think the invisible "hitboxes", for lack of a better word, on trees need to be a made a little larger so that they block lines of sight more consistently. LOS in DCS is not the same as in Real Life. In real life LOS would make the enemy units unaware you were there, in DCS this simply means that the enemy AI knows you are there it just won't fire at you until it has a clear sight. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but the AI In DCS seem to be pretty omniscient of enemy units in a certain radius. 

 

 

I noticed that the bradley only starts turning its turret if it is able to fire, but this is probably part of the "fire at the chopper" trigger. 

 

The thing that worries me is that the Hind will be similar in size to the Mi8, and that with this AI, it's nearly impossible to get close enough to an enemy vehicle without at some point allowing the LOS rule to trigger. This will mean that the AI is already aiming (or even shooting) at you before you are able to properly see them, let alone aim for them; unless you use labels that allow you to see through trees.

 

[Hiob]

23 minutes ago, ftmch said:

Yeah but in rl the tree would be out too.

that, I would assume....

[Mars Exulte]

5 hours ago, ftmch said:

The trees on Syria can stop a Maverick. They should probably start strapping them to tanks.

 

[Rick50]

12 hours ago, Hiob said:

Pretty sure that if a rl maveric would hit a tree (tree! not twig), it would be out. Not sure is it would detonate its warhead, but probably....

 

 

If it hit the trunk, or a large branch sure... but 80% (rough guess) or more of a tree is very light and flexible leaves and such. If we were talking about a proximity fuse, that might set it off, like say a sidewinder. But a Maveric has either a contact fuze, or delayed action fuze, neither of which would be bothered by light branches and leaves, and the Mav would go right through, I'd expect. Hit the trunk or a major branch, yea probably detonate.

[Hiob]

Imagine - being hit by an average sized branch with a speed of mach 1.... just saying

[Fri13]

On 4/6/2021 at 4:40 AM, SparxOne said:

Anyone waiting for the ground vehicles damage model to be done is on a long wait until it happens. From what i remember hearing, they are only just implementing the beginning of it to WWII airplanes, so that is still very much a WIP feature. And from what i heard, their plan is to fully implement it to WWII stuff than only move to modern airplanes and probably helicopters than lastly ground stuff...

 

Last time I read about it, the plan was WW2 -> Ground Vehicles -> Modern aircraft (inc. helicopters). 

 

The ground vehicles are 70-80% of the game. It would be unwise to leave it last one. As any aircraft that does any kind ground attack, is affected by it. Be it a WW2 bomber or fighter-bomber or just fighter using its cannons and HMG to engage ground units, or a multirole fighter using rockets and smart bombs, they are all very dependent for the proper ground units damages. 

 

What comes to damage modeling, the WW2 aircraft is critical because there is no missiles. The fight is based to HMG or cannons. So the experience to shoot down someone is critical to be properly done in small details as there are still plenty of wires and pipes or construction parts but not too many. The ground units has different case, as there it can be done more easily as not all possible pipes and wires need to be modeled at same level. And there is a lot more vehicles to be modeled so they can be kept fairly simple. 

 

The other critical part for the ground units is the AI logic and damage+moral system. All about how to move, defend, attack, react etc is about it. Even if someone would place a unit on ground in editor, it shouldn't be just moving position by 50 meters for 600 seconds (default) after first damage received, and then just be there. There should be a lot of more logic and intelligence to begin with. And that is the major single work to be done. Compared to it the damage modeling should be easier, and needs to be done first so that AI can be programmed to change their behavior based damages. 

[Fri13]

On 4/6/2021 at 7:30 AM, tusler said:

From what I've read the Hind and the KA50 have the same top speed. I would think the KA50 is more maneuverable. I am really trying to find a reason to buy the Hind as a solo pilot but it seems the biggest reason maybe multi-crew in multiplayer might be the Hind's niche market.

 

The KA-50 was selected as successor to Mi-24 in first place. It was meant to be built in hundreds, each flight to be lead by a single KA-52. And then transport cargo, troops and vehicles with the Mi-8 as already done almost exclusively. So the Mi-24 cargo space was to be abandoned and idea of "Flying IFV" to be left behind. And, Mi-28 did that all. 

By every means the KA-50 is superior to Mi-24 except acting as "Flying IFV". That is where the primary difference should come that we can carry own squad inside and drop them somewhere and support them, or have them support us with MANPADS. Or we can carry extra load of rockets and missiles in the cargo for one (or two) rearming. 

Like think about flying to safe spot and rearm all 8 ATGM once or twice and get back to fight. But does ED model this is a another question (doubt it).

 

So many ways the Mi-24 is more of a experience and just fitting helicopter for many places.