Slitherine

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1) Enemy aircrafts flying at their loadout profile altitude (not always 40k ft) detect each other;

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2) The one with best BVR weapons/sensors fires at the enemy one or two missiles, decided by the player as a doctrine (not as an always mandatory two per target);

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3) The target detects the incoming missile and the game engine calculates the ETA for the missile from this point. This will be used to determine the "PH adjusted for distance" later (not the distance from the launching platform, but the distance from the missile at the time it was detected. The sooner the target detects the threat, the better for him);

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4) The target begins to maneuver to avoid the missile(s). That means accelerate at the highest by using post-combustion and diving, changing altitude for speed (the game engine would have to consider energy/altitude balance, a fundamental principle in every air-to-air arena. By the way, in that case, it would make sense to patrol at the highest altitude possible. As it is now, high altitude doesn't mean any advantage beyond seeing farther, but also being detected earlier);

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5) The target also tries to change its course to a perpendicular one from the missile trajectory, making it harder for the missile to reach/hit him and forcing the missile to turn continually and bleed energy. At that point, agility and pilot proficiency would be essential: the more agile/proficient an aircraft/pilot is, the faster it would turn and dive to gain speed;

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6) As the missile approaches, the target start to use ECM. Their effectiveness would depend on the ECM system itself and also on the seeker of the missile;

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7) If the ECM doesn't work, the missile get to the impact point and PH is calculated: From the base PH, some amount is deducted based on the distance from the target at the time the missile was detected (as above) and, most important, also from the difference, in knots, from the missile speed and the target speed, as well as the difference, in degrees, between the the missile and target trajectories. The bigger these speed difference is, and the closer the trajectory difference is to 90 degrees, the better for the target;

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4 - I don't agree that high altitude's only advantage is seeing farther in real life. Of course altitude and energy management were much more important in the old dogfight days, but they still are for the same reason: high altitude means that you have a lot of potential energy that can be converted in kinetic energy (speed) at any time, for example, to avoid a missile. I agree that by flying low, one could use the Earth's curvature or the relief to mask himself, but again, my intention was to point my view on a "pure", standard air-to-air engagement. Besides, would the AI be able to take the decision to mask its planes if they were flying low?

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5 - By "notch" you mean to evade or something like that? (English is not my mother tongue...)

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ORIGINAL: Figeac


4) [...] By the way, in that case, it would make sense to patrol at the highest altitude possible. As it is now, high altitude doesn't mean any advantage beyond seeing farther, but also being detected earlier);

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Patrolling at the highest possible is not necessarily the logical thing to do. There are radar scan volume related tactical reasons not to always do so, and additionally, if you CAP at your very max altitude, you most likely have a rather low calibrated airspeed, making you a lot less maneuverable and making your CAP turns very wide or requiring a higher fuel flow than CAPing at medium altitude (depending on aircraft type). The game's current 40K ft CAPs are not necessarily realistic.

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ORIGINAL: Figeac
Another option would be letting the player decide this altitude at the mission window itself. There is already a drop down menu for throttle settings on the patrol missions window, there could be another drop down menu for altitude settings (highest, high. medium, low, etc). Or even better, that standard altitude could be a doctrine that the player could set for the entire scenario, mission, group or unit.

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Request for this has been made in closed beta. Devs are aware of it and have it on their to do list. It's just a big to do list so we will have to be patient and see when they get there :)

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ORIGINAL: Barleyman

Hmh. That would mean there is NO WAY to make AI use weapons only at "optimal" ie under power range? So if you want AMRAAMs to have decent hit chance you have to.. wait for it.. baby sit your fighters and manually open fire at the "last moment"?

My head hurts.