Better AA barrage fire

[Dragonaut]

Sorry if this has been posted or asked before, but it would be cool if there was some level of randomness added to AA and AAA guns. Currently, even when set to a large area, the fire at point command locks the guns in place, and every round goes through the same piece of sky, volley after volley. It would be cool if the guns would swivel a bit and give more of an ark of fire instead of a line, like they seem to do in all the videos showing IRL barrage AA fire.

 

[twistking]

True, but that's an insufficient solution to the problem imho.
The purely scripted nature of the command is another problem. There should also be some new AI logic (with options in ME) to allow AAA barrages to occur dynamically under certain conditions...
 

[upyr1]

yes

[Exorcet]

This can be done in a few ways currently. I think I did it by making multiple fire at point tasks and then swapping between them. Of course, this is far less convenient than just baking the behavior into the AI so this suggestion is still very valid.

The ability to fire AAA at will was a great addition and a case of ED listening to player requests, but the implementation was lacking. It's unfortunately a bit of a common theme and why I tend to be long winded in my requests. We need to not only discuss what DCS needs, but how these new features should work.

The current fire at point can stay for compatibility reasons and the small niche cases where it's all you need. In addition is might be nice to have a new version of it that picks a random fire point within a radius, or an option to add this to the current trigger. However this still limits its use on a per group basis, meaning it requires the mission editor to potentially spend large amounts of time adding repetitive triggers. To solve this problem the trigger could perhaps be applied by zone, allowing it to influence many units at once, or we could have dummy units that would trigger AAA or other designated units to engage. These dummy units would be invisible and invulnerable and could be scripted to follow a path in the mission or move randomly within a zone. They would allow for more complex scenarios than just a random trigger and could be expanded for other purposes, like creating a radar return that even players could see.

[twistking]

1 hour ago, Exorcet said:

This can be done in a few ways currently. I think I did it by making multiple fire at point tasks and then swapping between them. Of course, this is far less convenient than just baking the behavior into the AI so this suggestion is still very valid.

The ability to fire AAA at will was a great addition and a case of ED listening to player requests, but the implementation was lacking. It's unfortunately a bit of a common theme and why I tend to be long winded in my requests. We need to not only discuss what DCS needs, but how these new features should work.

The current fire at point can stay for compatibility reasons and the small niche cases where it's all you need. In addition is might be nice to have a new version of it that picks a random fire point within a radius, or an option to add this to the current trigger. However this still limits its use on a per group basis, meaning it requires the mission editor to potentially spend large amounts of time adding repetitive triggers. To solve this problem the trigger could perhaps be applied by zone, allowing it to influence many units at once, or we could have dummy units that would trigger AAA or other designated units to engage. These dummy units would be invisible and invulnerable and could be scripted to follow a path in the mission or move randomly within a zone. They would allow for more complex scenarios than just a random trigger and could be expanded for other purposes, like creating a radar return that even players could see.

I believe you're overthinking. I would imagine a new barrage feature that could have two main mode of operations.

1. Semi-Scripted. Like the old one, but AAA fires in random directions and intervals with some additional parameters perhaps...
2. Dynamic. AAA unit get position of actual aircraft in vicinity by "cheating". When aircraft in vicinity, but unit cannot spot it by itself, it just shoots in general direction of aircraft. If AC is picked up by own sensors barrage mode pauses and unit engages in default mode. ME can configure certain parameters, like 
   1. 2d position error (how close need AC to be in order to trigger barrage)
   2. 3d position error (same, but including altitude. could be used optionally to ignore high flyers)
   3. aiming error  (how precise the aiming is. high error would just fire in all directions randomly, very low error would shoot in general direction of AC)
   4. timeout start (how long after AC is close the barrage begins. would need to accept random min-max values)
   5. timeout end (how long the barrage keeps going on when no AC within vicinity. would need to accept random min-max values)

[Exorcet]

1 hour ago, twistking said:

I believe you're overthinking.

Some of my proposal goes a little beyond the scope of what was requested here definitely. Though if we can have some additional functionality for, ideally, little work, I think that's a gain. My dummy target idea fits there. It's more than you need to get AAA to shoot into the sky, but it also provides some additional benefits for other situations.

1 hour ago, twistking said:

I would imagine a new barrage feature that could have two main mode of operations.

1. Semi-Scripted. Like the old one, but AAA fires in random directions and intervals with some additional parameters perhaps...
2. Dynamic. AAA unit get position of actual aircraft in vicinity by "cheating". When aircraft in vicinity, but unit cannot spot it by itself, it just shoots in general direction of aircraft. If AC is picked up by own sensors barrage mode pauses and unit engages in default mode. ME can configure certain parameters, like 
   1. 2d position error (how close need AC to be in order to trigger barrage)
   2. 3d position error (same, but including altitude. could be used optionally to ignore high flyers)
   3. aiming error  (how precise the aiming is. high error would just fire in all directions randomly, very low error would shoot in general direction of AC)
   4. timeout start (how long after AC is close the barrage begins. would need to accept random min-max values)
   5. timeout end (how long the barrage keeps going on when no AC within vicinity. would need to accept random min-max values)

All good ideas.