Fully playable Helicopters.

[Marko]

Hi Guy's

Just a speculative suggestion. What if the helicopters in SB were fully playable

I know this has been covered before The issue of the lack air defence vehicles was raised.

Also the huge amount off time and other issues.

But over the weekend i was in the mood for treating my self to a new Sim.

Im not A flight Sim enthusiast but i used to play microprose's Gunship.

So i went looking for a helo Sim. Basically there are None so i did a Google search.

The only new helo Sim is lock on blackshark. But it has not been released yet (looks good). It Then accured to me that That Adding fully playable Gunships to SB would make a lot off sense the AI for ground units is Excellent. Large terrain maps available.Also Esim made its Name in the a niche market.

With the current lack off a decent Helicopter Sim may be it could repeat the success it Had With SB with say a expansion pack compatible with SB.For Example Take Gunship

Microprose was in the process off Integrating gunship with tank platoon 3 the project was Cancelled Before completion.But just look at how popular the battlefield and Flash point Games Have been Mainly Due to having the Choice off air and ground units Although i am not a fan there to arcadish for my taste.

If the same level of Detail and accuracy was model and scripted in to a helo Sim maybe the military's currently using SB would be interested.

[Skybird03]

Can'T answer in Ssnake'S place of course, but I remember what he once said when I asked him something like this in an interview. Asnwering to wether or not they could imagine to ever implement something like the Electronic Battlefield concept another company once planned for, he said that eSim most likely will prefer to stay focussed exclusively on the segment they really feel competent for, and that is tanks.

Also, the sim focusses on small unit mechanized warfare. That's what it is about. Other people want infantry being more realistic - that alone means work already. Since they lack the ressources to support great developement projects that are not linked to heart and core of SBP and thus: their business, I doubt that they plan to turn SBP into a variable multi-genre simulation of all and everything. It is not Flashpoint.

And you just pointed yourself at the long rat-tail of follow up problems that need to be adressed. Plus those unexpected problems that will rise without doubt when implementing something so different and dramatic like a flightsim into the SBP world. since they must live from something and already have limited ressources, I simply doubt that you will get what you want soon. If they do something like that with SB2, is another question, but again I am not optimistic - and at least it would be years away. A chopper part would need to be reasonably accurate in flight model and complex control, else it would more remind of an arcade shooter - colliding head-on with the claim of SBP to be a reasonably realistic simulation. There is a reason why Blackshark is being delayed repeatedly now: flightsims are not so easy to be done.

[Marko]

Hi Skybird

I Am not suggesting Esim drop every thing and start working on a helo Sim.

There's still a lot off work to be done on SB .But at some stage the workload will diminish

i wont pretended to know what would be required to make such an addition but the AI

For the ground units seems pretty good already copters don't survive on the battlefield very long.i think the first step towards my suggestion would be to improve the AI on the currently Modelled Gunships.

As i stated Esim found A niche in the market none off the big companies were interested in the armoured Sim market I think its the same for the military helicopter market.

May be Esim could co operate with a company that has the relevant Knowledge in flight Dynamics.

[Ssnake]

Adding crew stations to the existing helicopters is certainly a possibility. However, making the helicopters behave in a realistic way with all their operational limitations and capabilities is a different matter entirely. I guess that at some point we might see _some_ crew capability for helicopters, but I would neither attempt to market such a capability aggressively nor call us a "helo sim developer".

With SB Pro PE's limitation of map sizes the question remains whether it actually made sense to activate helo crews here, aside from the point of doing it just because we can, and for shit 'n giggles. For a decent simulation of air mobile operations you'd want to have maps of at least 60x80km², better 100x100km², 20x20km² as in PE clearly is insufficient.

Purely from a "fun" aspect we might enable it nevertheless, but only under the caveat that it does not even attempt to be realistic in this area and that you're advised to use it at your own risk. To which extent it might affect the balance of multiplayer games is yet another question (though I have never really believed in the concept of "balance" when you want realism at the same time; we should embrace asymmetry, not avoid it).

[GH_Lieste]

Waaaaay OT, but I recently dug out my old copy of DI's HIND, and had an absolute blast.

Aparently it can be used with a glide wrapper to improve textures (well ok, add some) and resolution.

[dejawolf]

well i doubt balance with helicopters is a problem in any other areas than completely open terrain, where a helo has 4-8 free kills.

you can basically drive into a densely wooden area, and from there, 1 gunship vs 2-3 aslav-PCs is a hopelessly lopsided battle in favor of the aslavs, as the forestry negates the usage of anything in the gunship arsenal but the chingun, due to the green canopy acting as spaced armour, pre-detonating HEAT warheads, at ranges where the 12.7mm can actually hit the helos.

its all about the terrain. tanks in dense forests is a bad idea as well, in reality, due to the traverse limitations of the maingun, which is not present on most IFVs and APCs, due to their shorter barrels, and lack of barrel overhang.

[sabot_ready]

tanks in dense forests is a bad idea as well, in reality, due to the traverse limitations of the maingun, which is not present on most IFVs and APCs, due to their shorter barrels, and lack of barrel overhang.

Maybe the lack of damage of barrels from trees can be modeled by limiting the traverse area to 15 to 30 degrees from the front once they enter forested areas.. or maybe giving them half the rotational speed the normally have.

[Homer]

For a good helo sim, check out Enemy Engaged (the original, not version 2). It's still being modded by the community which has the source code.

Edit:

Real life looks like it can be a lot of fun.

M134_Minigun.zip

[GH_Lieste]

Got that one as well, and LB/LBKorea/LB2... but for some reason I found myself reaching for Hind again...

Just something about the over-the-top mission briefings I guess

[Hedgehog]

Can you model a Minigun on the CH146, Ssnake, pleeeeeeeeeeeeease? :sonic:

[12Alfa]

Can you model a Minigun on the CH146, Ssnake, pleeeeeeeeeeeeease? :sonic:

Last ride in the CH 146 ( Apr/tuesday 22nd) the crew had a C-6 7.62 mg, so the minigun that would be fun:biggrin: is not what we use.:frown:

[Tacbat]

From what I'm hearing, Griffons deploying to Afghanistan may be fitted with a mini-gun to provide fire support. Time will tell...

[Hedgehog]

F**king Canadian Government, Damn Peaceniks,

Don't use proper guns or tanks....

(mumbles incoherently)

[Homer]

From what I'm hearing, Griffons deploying to Afghanistan may be fitted with a mini-gun to provide fire support. Time will tell...

http://www.sfu.ca/casr/mp-ch146kandahar.htm

[12Alfa]

From what I'm hearing, Griffons deploying to Afghanistan may be fitted with a mini-gun to provide fire support. Time will tell...

I was told that due to the height and temp of the country, and the needed added armour anything other than a few troops without their gear:( is a no go for weight.

They are after all just a civi helo painted green, not what one would call a real mil helicopter.:biggrin:

Lets just buy some Black hawks or more EH-101's and be done with it.:redface:

[Tacbat]

I was talking with a few Griffon pilots about the limitations of the height/weight/temperature issues, and from what they told me it isn't as bad as it was made out to be. The initial report was based around the worst-case scenario of all the factors, i.e. warmest temps, highest altitudes and carrying the max load. So, they seem to think it is a feasible option.

I know about the effects on an airframe in that climate, just not that specific one, so I'm not about to say one way or another whether or not it's a good idea. That's for someone who makes more then I do to decide... :cool3:

[Captain_Colossus]

EECH has good flight characterstics for a filight simulator, but isn't so hot as a combat simulator- the blending of both tactical and strategic scope into the campaigns plus the bizarre way the game will ID a willy nilly patchwork of a mixed platoon of tanks, trucks, AA vehicles and IFVs, as for example the '517th Armored Brigade' or some such thing made everything seem disjointed. The ground units themselves simply bunch up at map nodes or at the nexus point of a road junction, and just sit there facing strange directions (such the side of a building or forest edge ).

The game seems to favor the impact on strategic targets- capital ships, refineries and factories, while fighting the helicopters, jets and ground units is pointless attrition- there's no real feel of attacking and destroying a coherent organization at any level above platoons seemingly acting independent of one another. Airbases seem to be the most important anchors of the map, since they spawn all the ground units and seem to be the best indicator of progress based on which side holds more of them. You can wipe out all the opposition at an airbase, while special buildings generate hostile as fast as it takes to re-arm and return to finish the airbase off. Even if you take these out, you have to cope with waves of enemy transports flying in to unload engineers and repair all the damage. Then the 'fun' starts all over again. The only way to succeed is to micromanage the other computer flights and hi-jack the ineffectual and costly computer sorties, sending a massive wave for a single large assault on an airbase- lather, rinse, and repeat. This formula tended to get old after awhile to the point that it felt like too much work for such a generic experience: attacking one airbase entailed the same tedious experience as any other.

I think that Gunship! is the better combat simulator, although apparently weak in its flight handeling. The small map sizes also meant that it seemed as if you were dropped into the middle of an ambush where everyone is in range of everyone else, eliciting a slight edge in the balance towards arcade action.

[ashdivay]

good helo sim i played was "Apache Havoc" it was realistic and fun

u can either play Apache or Russian Havoc

[Homer]

good helo sim i played was "Apache Havoc" it was realistic and fun

u can either play Apache or Russian Havoc

Same game. Enemy Engaged is the generic name for both games in the series: Enemy Engaged Apache Havoc and Enemy Engaged Comanche Hokum.