Altis Black Wasp II Stealth (x2)

General Discussions Pilot Discussions
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Well, this topic has been closed down earlier initially opened up by @X865 Topic Link.

I do not really mind the change of the Black Wasp II being removed as I do understand the issues which were brought up with excessive Close Air Support to the point where the players would have nothing to do but to spectated how the AO’s are all run down by tons up on tons of CAS, but the situation now is changed, and not necessarily to the better.

While the CAS is not that much of an issue now, our CAP fighters are inferior, to say the least. We’ve got access to a single To-201 Shikra, which has a decent respawn timer and despite being an extremely useful aircraft sadly is not enough to hold up it’s own against several enemy CAP/CAS fighters (At times it does, depending of the skill of the pilot, but still).

It becomes even more difficult now with the change in how the AA Sites operate ,which is a whole another topic, but a short opinion which I have on it is that it’s a good feature that keeps our CAS quite more busy and at bay.

So once again as it’s been brought up way earlier in the original topic, (By me), and I think was mostly ignored was that instead of having two F/A-181 Black Wasp II (Stealth) having just one To-201 Shikra (Stealth) and one F/A-181 Black Wasp II (Stealth), even if the To-201 Shikra (Stealth) is not able to land back, it should have the power to take off efortlessly from the carrier and then can be rearmed regularly at the Main Airfield. I’m pretty sure that this would greatly increase our CAP efficiency, and would possibly positively impact the transport role as they could get better CAP.

I fail to see any harm that could be caused with such a change, as techincally we’re exchanging a “decently bad” CAP with a “Relatively good” CAP while still offering choice to those who prefer the old option.

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And a small curious fact which I stumbled upon while doing the research on how many pilons the To-201 Shikra Stealth is able to use.

At its top speed, the Shikra actually flies faster than the bullets fired by every pistol and SMG in ArmA 3.

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I disagree for three reasons, although I do think that something should be done about the black wasp heat seeker capacity.
First, many time, pilots like to fly formation in cap, it is a fun, entertaining pastime, and only possible if we keep the two identical black wasps on the carrier.
Second, the black wasp is perfectly fine as a cap plane, one must simply be more careful when firing amraams.
Third, the fact that it cannot land back at the carrier, would very much break immersion.

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I appreciate the feedback, though I will have to say that I’ll gladly debate on the topic, breaking your post in three general parts.

I have seen these formation flights,but I never took into consideration that for a formation flight two identical planes were required.

I have to say that this is completely against the reality which the plane shows on the Altis server. It is significantly inferior to it’s counterpart which it will often encounter To-201 Shikra Stealth, which despite being detectable at a superior range, has better sensors.
Quote from the website, linked above.

The To-201’s IRST sensor has an operating range of 5 km against aerial targets and 3 km against ground targets. Azimuth coverage is a full 360 degrees, but is restricted to an elevation of 120 degrees only. The IRST sensor is able to track targets moving at speeds of up to 1,800 km/h.

Its visual sensor is limited to only 4 km for aerial targets and 3 km for ground targets. Azimuth coverage is limited to 26 degrees, while for elevation it is 20 degrees. Targets can only be tracked if they are moving at speeds of 360 km/h or less.

Speed - To-201 Shikra: Around 1,505 km/h (418 m/s) making it the fastest vehicle in Arma 3.
Agility - To-201 Shikra: Primarily designed with supermanoeuvrability in mind, it incorporates all-moving horizontal and vertical stabilisers.
Quote from F/A-181 Black Wasp II

Drawbacks
However, its flight model is slightly more sluggish and is unable to match the To-201’s agility in close-range dogfights. Arming the Black Wasp for CAS also means that most of its BVR advantages will have to be sacrificed, since it will need to utilise all of its (already limited) number of pylons for ground attack weapons instead of AAMs.

Armament Main cannon: By default, the To-201 is armed with a 30 mm cannon that is loaded with 180 rounds of high-explosive (HE) ammunition.
Armament Main cannon: By default, the Black Wasp is armed with a 20 mm minigun that is loaded with 450 rounds of high-explosive (HE) ammunition.
The last point which I will touch, will also be a quote from the previously mentioned web.

Having the outermost weapon stations reserved for air-to-air missiles ensures that even when outfitted for close air support, the To-201 is still deadly in a dogfight.

Although it’s slightly inferior avionics-wise, the To-201 can make up for it by closing the distance gap between it and a Black Wasp by simply flying faster, nullifying the latter’s radar advantage.

I believe I could be going on and on displaying the CAP superiority when compared to the F/A-181 Black Wasp II, I’ll skip it, re-focusing on your initial post, and replying to your last, and third argument.

While I agree on the immersion regard, I believe that very few would consider it being an issue, simply due to the fact that not very often you see pilots flying back to the USS Freedom to simply rearm. Usually you will see pilots landing at the carrier whenever they decide to stop flying, and only the more experienced ones. I believe that the overall Combat Air Patrol advantage over the small drawbacks which it has makes it more then enough reasoning to set it as one of the CAP fighters, replacing one of the two inferior planes.

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By the way, for a full comparison, reference this post, which goes much more in detail, with actual tests performed.

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In your opinion, if the pilots are experienced enough, are the existing 2 Black Wasps, the Shikra and the multirole Gryphon enough to handle CAP duties? In my opinion, they are more than enough. If that is the case why change? I do not see a value add, other than making it easier, which is not the goal. It is supposed to be difficult. Transport pilots are not supposed to have a free ride to the AO. If a game is too easy it becomes boring. I have been watching the CAP issue for some time now and gathering statistics (which we try to do after making a change), and for the most part, the pilots were easily handling any enemy planes, in some cases, they were even asking for more enemy air.

To make the change I would need a compelling reason and the Shikra being a better plane is not a compelling reason.

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In my opinion regarding this topic, I think that we’re under a relatively important dissatvantage, which more experienced pilots will handle better then the less experienced ones. The main reason why this topic was opened in the first place is not to offer a chance to the transport for an easy way onto the AO, but rather for them to get there, not getting a friendly Fox 3 (AMRAAM) sent by a less experienced pilot, who either lacks the knowledge, or simply is too secure in himself.

Being limited to only two BIM-9X is an extreme disadvantage whenever the server is crowded, and as a recurring V-44X Blackfish pilot I can’t tell you how frustrated I get after getting hit unwillingly by friendlies, just because I’m flying in a huge aluminum can which will attract every single signal in a range of 14 km’s.

When flying the Black Wasp II myself I many times got downed, as I had to hold untill Fox 2 range, which begins within 4 km from the enemy fastmover, which at that time has four to five rockets flying to you.

I enjoy a challenge, I really do, but what I would hate is ruining the fun for someone else as I’ve got 6 AMRAAMS, and only two BIM-9X’s.

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I guess I am confused. So to avoid any more confusion can you make a list/chart, of what we are trying to fix or improve with your change and how the change you are suggesting would achieve that.

**Proposed Change - Remove 1 BlackWasp Stealth and replace with To-201 Shikra.**colors options avaliable with Black Wasp are limitedShikra has more color options Improve 1How suggested change will achieve Improve 1Fix 2How suggested change will achieve Fix 2*Ridiculous example, but I hope you get what I am looking for.

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Will be done.

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I disagree plain and simple, i dont really understand how you need identical planes to fly in formation…i often saw many jets flying in formation together before there even were 2 stealth BW’s… You can fly in formation just as well with a shikra and a BW as with 2 BW’s, not to mention that argument alone isnt really a good defense of why to keep it as it doesnt affect the actual gameplay really. In fact flying together as CAP is pretty detrimental to the server as a whole, because if an enemy jet spawns across the map from you both and you are the only CAP then you have to fly that much further to engage but if you werent in formation you couldve had at least one of you fairly close to the spawn location if you spread out correctly.

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**Proposed Change - Replacing ONE of the two F/A-181 Black Wasp II (Stealth) stationed on the USS Freedom for a To-201 Shikra (Stealth)**Overall performance (Including all the advantages and drawbacks)When it comes to CAP, the To-201 Shikra (Stealth) is way superior in all possible scenarios.Better locationGiven the current location of the To-201 Shikra it will not always be able to scramble and engage enemy air above the main airfield.SurvivabilityCurrently it will require quite some talent of an experienced pilot to stay alive, specially in days when there are lots of friendly air up as he’ll have to engage the enemy fast movers from a closer range. The To-201 Shikra (Stealth) will allow not only enclosing the distance thanks to it’s characteristics but also will make it easier to avoid enemy Fox Three’s.Friendly FireDue to the lack of BIM-9X within the F/A-181 Black Wasp II (Stealth) variant, it will offer more Short Range munitions preventing some of the Blue on Blue unintentional incidents.Efficiency increaseWhile we have at our disposal three types of potential CAP (A-149 Gryphon, To-201 Shikra, and F/A-181 Black Wasp II (Stealth)) only one type is a stealthy one, allowing it to operate and intercept enemy fast movers within a fresh AO with a relatively high chance of success. With the introduction of To-201 Shikra (Stealth) the CAP Efficiency would increase significantly, allowing the rather support focused roles to operate. (It being Fixed Wing CAS, Vortex CAS, or even various Transport operations.) Disadvantages caused by this changeIt will most likely allow a quite well defended air space, maybe keeping the pilots too safe, as with two CAP focused To-201 Shikra’s our CAS would be more effective, but you have to remember that the CAP pilots are not too common, and mostly everyone will prefer to be CAS, at all times.

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For some reason this topic always takes strange twist and quickly gets off topic. The auguments of flying in formation or even immersion to the extent that was mentioned, are not relevent to the question at hand, and would not convince me one way or another to make a change. I have posted a very specific question to the original author of the topic asking for clairification. We should hold comments untill that clairification comes in.

Anytime someone want to suggest a change to the server it is always going to get more attention from the administration, if you recomend a change and explain why the change is needed and how your suggested change will meet those needs. It is also helpful to state how we can measure if/when the change has been sucessful.

Many times the suggestions we get are, I would like this or that, even though I read those suggestion, they how very little weight. For every person that whats one thing I can find another person that wants something else. For us to spend any time on a change, there must be a compelling reason, some benefit to the community to make the change.

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I agree on this topic, it is true and it can be spotted in every rather significant debate that has been ongoing on the forums. I still consider that even those small and offputting comments are good, as in that way you will get some more feedback and general idea of what people can think about an idea which might be great to you, as the author of it.

However while I do respond to them, I tend to focus on the initial topic, and even here as can be seen, I gave a brief response and explanation, but kept my focus on the initial ideas, defending the initial post with facts.

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William if you would like to talk about this more we can offline, but none of the reasons you mentioned are clear black and white benefits (other than the Fox 3 - but that is a communication and experience issue), they are all subject to personal opinions, preferences or skill. At this time from all of my observations and reviewing the logs, the average life of an enemy AI plane is under 1 minute (48.3 sec). I see no reason to change the friendly plane configuration. I do not want to make a change that has a negative effect. Right now the configuration is working well. Maybe we need to remove another CAS to encourage more CAP use. Anecdotally, when I was on this afternoon watching enemy planes, I asked the pilots in TS and no one said that this change was needed, most said it was too easy.

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Well, not all the suggestions get accepted.

I’m quite impressed on this, as I can’t say I’ve had that same feedback to my questions, about the response, it is true, I don’t think there’s an argument which gives a 100% NEEDED tag to this.

Thanks for your time, and your response!

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If my opinion is off any value, here it is:

My only desire for the Black Wasp would be to have the option for a 4xSR & 4xMR AA loadout instead of only 2xSR & 6xMR. I do enjoy the option to carry SDB, CBU, & GBU.

My only enemy air complaint is when they circle the main airfield, making friendly jet takeoff frustrating. To me, the main problem is trying to takeoff & quickly engage them only to have the “no goofing off at base” message pop-up. This results in an expended missile and temporarily having no joystick control until I click “ok” with my mouse. I find myself distracted by needing to be outside the glass walls of the airfield when I’d rather focus solely on the enemy air asset.

Is there a way to allow friendly units the ability to engage over the airfield with an altitude parameter/limitation?

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