Attack helicopters

[TVR]

... Anyone here want to try balancing helicopters? ...

Allow all direct-fire weapons to target rotary-wing gunships.

Mount regular ground turrets, not the VTOL variant, as those are designed for a single air strike, not air support.

All-in-all, they should be balanced as a flying tank, and although more costly and with less HP, they would be capable of landing on cliffs near choke-points, and then activating in order to hit an armoured column from the side flank.

[Rman Virgil]

... Anyone here want to try balancing helicopters? ...

Allow all direct-fire weapons to target rotary-wing gunships.

Mount regular ground turrets, not the VTOL variant, as those are designed for a single air strike, not air support.

All-in-all, they should be balanced as a flying tank, and although more costly and with less HP, they would be capable of landing on cliffs near choke-points, and then activating in order to hit an armoured column from the side flank.

If I recall correctly from my work with them in my WZ Map-Mod "WS 2113", I believe those are along the lines in which Black Project's Scav Helicopters are constructed. I will be using them in "Aqua Co-op: Elite Edition" so I'm very interested in what you guys come up with here as I am not at all set in just how to complete their balancing.

- RV

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[Tenoh]

I would limit helicopters to light body and give them anti personal weapons with minipods or lancers,nothing else.

[Roux Le Corps]

nah dont limit the designs, or equipment, just have them as versatile as every other unit design ^_^

[Tenoh]

Dont be silly, putting heavy weapon on them would only make them sitting ducks.

[MetalWarrior95]

He probavly wants to make something similar to "Flying Fortress", a russian hunting chooper,forgot the number but its probavly...
...Mi-???.



EDIT - Its MI-24 Hind!

[JDW]

A video on the top ten attack helicopters in the world (You may need to pause to catch the stats)

Some more videos broken down into separate models,

MI-24 (Soviet Union/Russia)
Longer Airshow Video

AH-1W SUPERCOBRA (USA)
Longer Airshow Video

DENEL AH-2 ROOIVALK(South Africa)

A-129/T-129 (Italy/Turkey)

AH-1Z VIPER (USA)

EUROCOPTER TIGER (France/Germany)
Longer Airshow Video

MI-28N (Russia)

KA-50 BLACK SHARK / KA-52 ALLIGATOR (Soviet Union/Russia)

AH-64D APACHE LONGBOW (USA)
Longer Detailed Video (Must see)

Balancing is going to be extremely tricky...

[Roux Le Corps]

true true, be worth trying though, if only to say we did it ^_^

[Zarel]

I think it should have really, really low HP, lower cost then VTOLs and max speed not much more then Hovers...

VTOLs already have the lowest armor properties in the game; I don't want to make them even weaker.

Lowering the max speed is a good idea, though.

mine was just a quick shot at a balance idea, KukY and yours seems much better, but i think production should be faster then VTOL being that it is lower tier and probably less complex then VTOL

Right now, we're trying to balance the advantage of "doesn't need to rearm", so we're mainly looking for disadvantages here. Can you elaborate on "lower tier and probably less complex"?

Allow all direct-fire weapons to target rotary-wing gunships.

A good idea, and what I'm probably going to do for jump cyborgs, but I think it would take away one of the major advantages of aircraft in the first place. I'm hoping I'll be able to find a less intrusive solution.

Mount regular ground turrets, not the VTOL variant, as those are designed for a single air strike, not air support.

Good idea; I'll do that. Probably needs a few restrictions: No indirect weapons (to exclude Ripples), maximum weight 4000 (to exclude Plasma Cannon), range must be at least 5 (to exclude flamers).



So let's see, the only disadvantage I've accepted is decreased speed. I guess I could also put them higher up in the tech tree, and make them more expensive. I'm not sure that's enough. The main problem I'm afraid of is that AA isn't a major part of the game, and I can imagine someone building a bunch of these and storming an enemy base. Current VTOLs give players a bit of time to build AA before they come back for a second time; choppers wouldn't allow that.

TVR's idea of making them targetable by ground weapons is a possibility, but I'm afraid that would remove all their advantages...

[TVR]

TVR's idea of making them targetable by ground weapons is a possibility, but I'm afraid that would remove all their advantages...

Gunships are suppose to be used for ambush and flanking, their survivability comes from attacking in directions that the enemy turrets are not pointing, ie using pincers and creating salients, not using them like an ultimate tank, one that is completely invulnerable to other tanks.

In fact, gunships are mostly useless when attacking from the front, their loud rotors and height over the horizon would easily give away their presence, and unlike a hover tank, their complete lack of a turret does not allow them to skirmish.

[Roux Le Corps]

by lower teir i mean in between hover and VTOL and by less complex that was just like, a few blades spinning is easier to build then directed vents to use jets like VTOLs.