making Radar more balanced

Sebastiaan · Post by **Sebastiaan** » Sep 11 2005

Ground unit with (long range) radar, are unbalanced and unrealistic in my opinioun. Currently, a single radar system is capapable to see almost all enemy active at a very long range. This is totaly unrealisitic since ground radar units can only see airborne units, no entrenched ground units!!!. As a result special specialist scout unit units like UAV are pointless since they only have a very limited scouting range, operational range, and can be shot down easaly.

To solve this problem, I propose the following sollution that might balance the current unbalanced isuue.

- surface radar (both floating, mobile and stationary) should have their detecting strength be lowered by 50%
- airborn radar should have their detection strength lowered by 25% ( so they are ralativly batter in detecting ground unit, but wont make ground recon unit redundant.
- Air units should have their stealth rating reduced by 50% (so they can be detected by radar as normal)
- Civilian detection strength should be lowered by 50% (this way surface and air reconnaisance units become more important to defend the player borders or frontline)
- Ground units should increase their stealth by 25% (this way, they become much harder to be detected by surface radar units)
- Scouting units should have their detecting strength increased by 25% (this will improve their tactical value on the battle field)

As a result players will have to rely on scouting unit and air recon unit to detect enemy position instead of a single radar unit.

hawk55732 · Post by **hawk55732** » Sep 11 2005

While im not an expert in all radar forms, i do work on the KC-130J radar. When it is on the ground and the radar is turned on you can clearly see all the ground targets in the area. Im not saying that you could see targets entrenched, hidden underground but targets above ground you could.

Sebastiaan · Post by **Sebastiaan** » Sep 11 2005

Can a KC-130J radar see through hils, mountains, woods, jungles? I don't think so. Unless it is located a the top op a mountain, an there is a direct line of sight beween radar and target, the radar system will not be able to detect it.

I agree however that airborne radar systems can detect enemy unit because of the simple fact that there is (often) a line of sigh betheen airplane and land unit but this doesn't apply to radar system located at the ground.

hawk55732 · Post by **hawk55732** » Sep 11 2005

This is totaly unrealisitic since ground radar units can only see airborne units, no entrenched ground units!!!.

You siad that they couldnt see units on the ground. I was just saying that they could.

Post by **George Geczy** » Sep 11 2005

Some very good points, and to be sure we have spent a lot of time discussing spotting and radar capabilities (land, sea and air).

There is one technical limitation in the game that we must work around regardless of what we do - there is only one 'fog of war' layer. This means that we must assume that radar installations all have multi-use (the ability to spot both land and air units, for instance).

In many cases we can get away with this realistically because most units have multiple types of radar or spotting equipment, designed for multiple target types.

The ground-based radar/recon units provide one of the most difficult situations, because they are meant to have a relatively long air-spotting range, which then gives them a long ground range. While we can assume that this unit has more than just air-scanning radar in its equipment, you are still correct that they tend to see a bit farther than they should in certain terrain conditions.

The one thing about the spotting/stealth model is that if you start fiddling with one piece, the whole deck of cards may come apart. Your suggestions make sense and I've printed them out to study further. I myself have always felt the radar spotting ranges have been a bit too long in many cases, but then there are other scenarios where the system works out perfectly. And we certainly have a much more sophisticated spotting system than any other game of this type; only the most serious hardcore war games would have anything close to this.

Thanks for the comments, we'll take a look at possible improvements for future updates.

-- George.

Cerber · Post by **Cerber** » Sep 12 2005

I have a question - what about infantry ?
Is possible to detect single infantryman by radar ?

Stealth is very important for units like Special Forces.

Sebastiaan · Post by **Sebastiaan** » Sep 12 2005

Cerber wrote:I have a question - what about infantry ?
Is possible to detect single infantryman by radar ?

Stealth is very important for units like Special Forces.

I agree. Staying hidden is often the most important tactic used durring confics. Although Special forces has a relative high stealth rating, they will unfontunaltly will not be able to tresspass into enmy territory without becomming detected except if it is in the middle of nowhere (desert) and their is no radar cover. THat's why all land units should have their stealth increased and radar have their spotting stength reduced so they will mainly be usefull for detcting aircraft, an not every single enemy unit in their radar range.

Sebastiaan · Post by **Sebastiaan** » Sep 19 2005

I have though this problem in more detailed and think units could be divided into the following classes of detection

Very low detection:
- long range ground unit (ground radar)
- long range surface ship (AA surface vesels)

Low detection:
- long range patrol aircraft (using primairaly radar)
- submarines (using pasive sonar)
- medium range surface ship
- transport helicopters

Medium detection:
- medium detection range patrol aircraft (allowing planes like Orions to detect submarines)
- short range surface ships (patrol ships using active sonar)
- Hard target ground units
- attack helicopters

High detection:
- short detection range recon aircraft
- Soft target Infantry (Many eyes, result in high detection)
- Recon helicopter (to allow reconesance support to attack helicopters)
- Anti sub helicopters (allowing subhunters to activly hunt for subs)
- long range UAV

Very high detection
- short range UAV
- Special forces (night googles)

The unit stealth rating could be divided also in 5 diferent classes:

Very low stealth:
- non stealth airplaines
- transport helicopters
- ground radar unit (Radar signal is spoted at long range)
- large surface ships (Large radar signature)

Low stealth:
- aircraft with stealth features or ECM
- UAVs
- attack helicopters (tiger, apatchi, hind etc)
- patrol ship (smaler radar signature than large ship)
- high altitude rockets (harder to detect than airplaines due to shape and altitude)
- long range AA units (due to their active radar exposure)

Medium stealth
- submarine (invisable by normal units, detecteble at close range)
- stealth ship (minimises radar signature)
- stealth aircraft (detectable at close range)
- recon/attack helicopters (will use surface for cover)
- hard targets (vehicals are detected relativly easy)
- low altitude rockets (relativly small unit trying to stay under radar height)
- low range AA units (due to their short range radar /IR exposure)

High stealth
- light mounted infantry ( units transports can still be detected)

Very high stealth
- dismounted soft infantry (garizon, marines, paratroopers, etc)

Note that because dismounted infantry in this clasification has the highest stealth rating, they should be close to be impossible be detected by long range radar units. As a concequence UAVs are now one of the most effective means of detecting entrenched infantry.