How to overcome laser burnout?

[Lennoxonnell]

Every time I deploy in the Ka-50, I can get about one good hour on station with the laser until it burns out and my vihkrs stop tracking. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if it was easier to fix, but the game doesn't seem to recognize the laser burnout as damage and therefor repairing at an airfield will not fix the issue, unless you've sustained battle damage. For good pilots, this is sometimes an issue

 

I've got the laser switch bound on my Warthog, so I can make sure I don't overuse it while I scan for targets. But, I still simply cannot avoid laser burnout during long sorties.

 

Is there a sure way to safely induce some sort of damage onto the aircraft so I can get a proper repair?

[Yurgon]

Going from memory here, as I haven't flown the Black Shark in ages.

 

As far as I recall, laser ranging actually takes a lot more power than laser guidance. So whenever you lock something up or try to get a range, the laser will accumulate a lot of heat. That means you should keep ranging to an absolute minimum.

 

Sometimes the Shkval doesn't have sufficient contrast and fails to lock an object, even though that object is dead center in the middle of your screen. So it's best to keep the laser off, lock whatever peeks your interest, and only if you actually intend to shoot it, switch laser to standby and lock it up again.

 

Always, and I mean ALWAYS wait for the countdown in the HUD to reach zero before you do anything with the laser, whether it's ranging or guiding.

 

If you have targets grouped closely together, it's possible to fire off 2 Vikhrs with 1 laser guidance - I believe laser guidance will usually be provided for the calculated time of flight of the missile plus 7 seconds. So if you launch a second missile within 7 seconds after the first, AND you manage to slew the Shkval onto the new target after the first one has been hit, you might get 2 hits out of 1 laser guidance.

 

Setting manual firing control may also help with rifling missiles without any ranging at all.

 

I believe with good use of the laser, you should be able to get off about 18 Vikhrs, or halfway through a re-arm, before the laser will invariably fail.

 

After that, I think it takes a 30 minute cooldown or a repair.

 

In order to get the option to repair, you could always try and damage your landing gear with a hard landing, or scratch the ground with the gear up and do some damage to the underbelly or the Shkval assembly. Or find an enemy soldier. As you probably know, the very first rifle round is pretty much guaranteed to destroy both hydraulic systems. Or, if you get really lucky, it'll only take out the Shkval camera. In any case, that qualifies for repair. :D

[HC_Official]

I fly the ka-50 a lot lately, I only have the laser on when needed, rest of the time it is off, aint had a burn out ... in years maybe

Edited July 29, 2019 by HC_Official

[ajax]

The key to getting the laser repaired without having any other damage is to simply use the engine fire extinguisher before asking for repair. (I didn't come up with that -- I read it here on the forum some time ago -- don't remember who came up with that solution, but thanks!)

[Lennoxonnell]

Thanks for all the help guys. I will make sure to take in this advice and employ it during my training.

[JefCostello]

Hi Lennoxonnell!

You can also reduce the probability of malfunction of the laser in the mission editor!

Regards

Jef

[salsantana]

On 7/31/2019 at 3:23 AM, JefCostello said:

Hi Lennoxonnell!

You can also reduce the probability of malfunction of the laser in the mission editor!

Regards

Jef

Jef, if you happen upon this request, can you indicate where/how in the mission editor to tune the laser reliability? I'll be scoping for it momentarily; if I discover it I'll certainly post.

Thanks for any pointers.

[xjiks]

On 7/28/2019 at 6:53 PM, ajax said:

The key to getting the laser repaired without having any other damage is to simply use the engine fire extinguisher before asking for repair. (I didn't come up with that -- I read it here on the forum some time ago -- don't remember who came up with that solution, but thanks!)

 

Do you mean this ?  we're getting old, it was 2016 !