Balancing short range fixed wing UAVs

[Sebastiaan]

Short Range fixed wing UAV are currenly not very usefull.

Several reasons con be identified which limit their effectiveness:

- Limited range, makes them only usable very close to airstrips/airports
- Low altitude, the can be shot down by any ground unit that can defend itself versus helipters. To keep them from harm is possible but requires a lot of micromangement
- Recon ability in inferior campared to AWACS which can see everything at super long range.

To balance this problem we could do the following to improve the effectiveness of short range fixed wing UAVs:

- Allow UAV to dock on short decks (like helicopters)
- Allow F.A.R.P. units able to dock and refuel UAVs (which they already should be able to do)
- Set UAV operation height to medium (to allow them to fly over hostile ground unit and funtion as the eye in the sky)
- Set UAV ground to air defense to a very low value (to make them venerable versus missile AA units)
- Give some Low altitude missile AA units and Large barrel gun AA units a small medium air attack (to allow them to engage UAV effectively)
- Slightly improve Air to Ground defense of all Fixed fing airccrafts (except UAV ) to compensate for increase in Medium height capable AA units
- Slinghtly increase Medium Air Atack value of all Medium/High altitude AA units (to compensate for increse ground to air defense
- Drastically Lower Spotting strength of units using long range radar (to limit effectives of long range recognisance to air targets)
- Increase Stealth rating of all ground units (to make Close range recognisance, Like UAVs valuable)

Although fixed wing UAV are not true medium height aircraft, they do try to fly at maximum height to remain out of range from small arms fire. By giving them a very low ground defence, they become sitting ducks for any AA unit capable of shooting at medium height aircraft units.

[Balthagor]

I agree that UAVs in the game never really added much, there was a constent debate about whether or not to even keep them for a while. I'll go over your suggestions

- Allow UAV to dock on short decks (like helicopters)
I think they already can. Haven't tested it but all the abilities are the same, should work just fine.

- Allow F.A.R.P. units able to dock and refuel UAVs (which they already should be able to do)
This is still a wishlist item. We would like Harriers to also be able to do this. Currenlty the code cannot support this.

- Set UAV operation height to medium (to allow them to fly over hostile ground unit and funtion as the eye in the sky)
They fly at whatever level they fly. Some fly close, some fly mid. If they can fly above 30,000ft they are mid. If they cannot, they cannot.

- Set UAV ground to air defense to a very low value (to make them venerable versus missile AA units)
This would also make them vulnerable to all units that can fire at them. If they stay "close air" (because that is what they are) even infantry would shoot them down easier.

- Give some Low altitude missile AA units and Large barrel gun AA units a small medium air attack (to allow them to engage UAV effectively)
Sorry, but I do not like this suggestion at all. If the unit cannot hit mid air, it cannot hit mid air. If it cannot fire above 8,000ft why should it be able to touch something at 30,000ft?

- Slightly improve Air to Ground defense of all Fixed fing airccrafts (except UAV ) to compensate for increase in Medium height capable AA units
I don't think you realise how many combinations would be affected by changes like these...

- Slinghtly increase Medium Air Atack value of all Medium/High altitude AA units (to compensate for increse ground to air defense
Since the above cannot work, this is not applicable.

- Drastically Lower Spotting strength of unit using long range radar (to limit effectives of long range recognisance to air targets)
This would mean units like the P-3C could no longer spot submarines.

- Increase Stealth rating of all ground units (to make Close range recognisance, Like UAVs valuable)
This is unrealistic. UAVs have lower spotting that AWACs because they have lower spotting than AWACs. AFAIK, this is accurate.

Although fixed wing UAV are not true medium height aircraft, they do try to fly at sufficient height to remain out of range from small arms fire.

If they are not true mid air, we cannot make them mid air without completly destroying the current relations. Helicopters would not be able to shoot at them unless we gave them a mid air, but doing that would allow helicopters to fire on B-52s cruising by. Most UAVs DO NO fly at sufficient height to remain out of range;

Cecerelle; ceiling maximum 9,840 ft
Dragoneye; Ceiling maximum 500 ft (152 m)
Mirach 20; ceiling 11,485 ft (3,500 m)
BQM-147a Exdrone; Ceiling 10,000 ft (3,048 m)

Those that do are the ones which are mid air.

You've also suggested changing a dozen parameters on hundreds of units. Changes like that would take weeks of testing for balance errors. Each change should be one at a time and based on a proven example. If you are concerned with the spotting of AWACS, do a controlled test with various land units in place and fly different AWACS units around to see if their spotting is realistic. We aren't going to look at decreasing their spotting strength without checking the current balance and verifying afterwards so we need controlled cases.

[Sebastiaan]

You keep refering to controlled tests, which is perfect for identifying small inblance issues and errors. I understand your reservation about my ideas which might seem too Radical in your eyes. A designer look at creating balance is by small evolutionary steps, thats because that what he can control.

However that is not what I'm aiming at, I'm aiming to improving my overal feeling I get durrung play. Which is overal better than anything I have seen so far, but it still feels is has too much arcade gameplay to it. That's because I have this funny idea that gameplay should be closer to reality. I only wish the developers to see that their is another (more realistic) way at improving game balance

To come back at the Awacs isssue. Although I agree Awacs airplaines has superior Radar range and scanning strenght, Why would every military commander still want a set of UAV at their desposal? THat because nothings beats the ability to have a set of eyes in the air giving the Commander a view of what his own forces, and possibly enemy forces in the area or doing at real time. AWacs are used to give Radar coverage, it simply can't provide the visual information a UAV vcan give you. From a game point of view, we should stimulate the player from using similar Tactics. This can be acomplished, I believe, by balancing the scanning strength of units. The basic Phylosopy which could be applied is that the Longer range a unit can detect, the generaly less detailed (in formation rich) the information becomes. This effectivly means that Long range unit should have low detection versus short range units should have Strong detection. THat way, the unit is motivated to use more advanced tactics amd therefore get a more realistic experience of a real Millitairy War.

THe Orion Sub detection problem you refered to, can be solved by rebalancing the stealth rating and scanning strength of units. Because Orions have a Medium radar range (compared to Awacs) their detection strength could therefore also be stronger. Because Surface ships have their scanning strength also reduced (because of their long range), The stealth rating of subs can effectively be reduced also and still remain equaly hard to detect. I know this all sound like crazy, but I convinced it is possible.

[acolorado]

Just a quick thought here Seb. I admire the amount of thought you put into the UAV issue. One thing to consider is the real world nature of many of the units in SR2010. This is one of the things I love about this game. Many UAV's aren't very useful in alot of situations. Of course neither are Submarine's if you're Mongolia or Utah. The low MARS class Infantry units are pretty much a joke if you're playing as USA or Germany, but anywhere in Africa it's cutting edge technology which gives you a big advantage. Short range UAV's are much more useful in European scenario's where you can hear your neighbor sneeze but you don't want to waste a Eurofighter to find out how many friends he has. I mean the units are very close in many scenario's and scouting is a big problem before attacks. Keep thinking though - you sure are keeping BG on their toes here

[Balthagor]

You know you’re making me work on the weekend!

You keep refering to controlled tests, which is perfect for identifying small inblance issues and errors...

But the reason I keep referring to the controlled tests is that with a product like ours we cannot make radical changes, we must work in small steps to avoid the errors you refer too. We have both the blessing and the curse of been extremely complex. However, there will always be issues that if you change a dozen things at once and something gets broken you have no idea which of the dozen things is the cause. During development we did make some radical changes as you suggest but that is not how it works with a finished product. I saw your other post about a 4th air level and was not at all surprised, I had expected that to be your next suggestion because I’ve thought the same thing before. However, we got too far into the development when the idea came up, adding another stat would add further complexity, not to mention that I’ve got no more room in the bloody popup. I’m mentioning this here and not in that thread because I don’t want to “taint” the idea. It can stay in wishlist so that when we look at what to include in future versions it will get the same consideration as the other ideas. We’ll see if others expand on the idea or express support for it.

…because I have this funny idea that gameplay should be closer to reality…

I know that you are looking to help make the game feel more realistic, it is why I take the time to reply in detail to your ideas. While some of them may be radical and I may disagree on what model is realistic, your suggestions are always constructive… even if they take me a while to go through

Why would every military commander still want a set of UAV at their desposal?

Here I think the issue is scale. One of the ideas that was discussed late in development (too late to fully explore, really) was of having “UAV” as simply a technology entry that when researched would enhance the capabilities of infantry battalions. Another idea was to make it function like training where you “attach” a UAV to a battalion for stat bonuses. In some ways these seemed much more realistic solutions than what we do know because of two key problems I see with UAVs.
1. The UAV can move around but its “control vehicle” is stuck at the airbase/airstrip
2. UAVs are used in one or two attached to a squad, they are not generally flown as stand-alone battalions which is how we present them.
I think one of our biggest problems there is that UAVs don’t fit well into a battalion level scale.

This can be acomplished, I believe, by balancing the scanning strength of units.

But there are problems in that thread that we have not resolved… more on that in a moment.

This effectivly means that Long range unit should have low detection versus short range units should have Strong detection.

While this is a nice idea, it does not work with the way the game engine runs. In game, high spotting strength means you see a unit, low means you do not. The distinction between an AWACS and a UAV is not as much that you will or wont spot a battalion of land units, it is that the AWACs would report “tanks” and with the UAV they would know that they are facing Leopard 2A3s with green camo. We have no differentiation on the quality of spotting only if it is or is not seen.

THe Orion Sub detection problem you refered to, can be solved by rebalancing the stealth rating and scanning strength of units. Because Orions have a Medium radar range (compared to Awacs) their detection strength could therefore also be stronger.

Actually, this does not work. I know we’ve been somewhat vague about how spotting and stealth works, but it’s not that we’re trying to “hide the formulas”, it is that George is about the only one that knows precisely how it all works. I’ll try and use this example to explain somewhat.

The spotting strength of the P-3 is one of the best examples because I spent a bunch of time balancing that unit. I did controlled tests with it . The P-3 has a spotting range in game of 145km based on the APS-137 it carries (real world stats say 222km but we have clipped the range of all the long range radars, but that’s another discussion…) However, the APS-137 could not find a sub unless it jumped out of the water like a whale. For sub detection it uses the APS-116, which can only find a sub within 48km. So, we gave a spotting range of 145, but a spotting strength of 270. Because subs have a stealth of at least 180, at 145km the Orion sees ships, aircraft and land units, but not until it is within ~50km does it spot any subs. Slightly farther if the sub is moving/shooting. Try it out, you’ll see what I mean. There would also be an affect on air spotting, stealth craft like the SR-71 or F-22 would be seen much later if we decrease the spotting strength of the AWACS units unless we decrease the stealth of those aircraft which would mean they would get spotted be land units and perhaps even by empty hexes, something already being debated elsewhere. Same problem if we decrease the spotting strength of the ships, they would be unable to see subs at the appropriate range or incoming aircraft.

Because Surface ships have their scanning strength also reduced (because of their long range), The stealth rating of subs can effectively be reduced also and still remain equaly hard to detect.

But we can’t do this, if we decrease the stealth strength of subs, recon units on land would start to see submarines. That was one of our tests used to determine the “ranges” for the values given to the units. The ranges we picked where not just pulled out of a hat, George did put them through the calculations to figure out where about they needed to be.

I agree that it is possible to make changes to the stealth strength/spotting strength/spotting range of some of the units to get a better balance, but I still say it can only be done one at a time with controlled testing. If you change one variable you have to try every possible combination in game where that variable will be used to see if you’ve damaged another area of the game model.

[Sebastiaan]

Thanx for your very long reply, I realy appreciate you actual too the time to read and answer my ideas.

The reason I started a seperate tread about the 4th air level in the Wish forum is because, I consider this forum for "Changing what we have" and not the Wish forum I use for "What we should have in the future". The 4th air level idea is the best solution I could come up with after thinking about this subject (UAVs) and other game balance issues like the weakness of cruise missiles and over/under effectiveness of AA in general. To bad, I wasn't here when I could have made the difference

Your explanation of detection and stealth basicly confirms what I was presuming all allong. THis is what I believe one of the best feastures of this game engine, which in my opinion isn't fully used to the max. But allow be to explain what I ment by "Lowering all Stealth and Detection strength". Lets assume the P3 detection is 100 and a sub stealth is 200, I then figure the P3 should get the same detection performance when the P3 detection strength is reduced to 50 (= 100/2) and sub stealth is reduced to 100 (= 200/2). Assuming that only units with the "detect subs"ability are able to detect subs, Land units should not be able to detect subs all of a sudden. please tell me if any of my assumptions is wrong.

Either how, I planning on profing my theory/ideas by creating a tech mod demo called "Fog of War". As the name of the Mod suggest, I will try to increase the fog of war by minimising the ability to detect the enemy (realisticly) and maximise the ability to stay hidden (realisticly). This should make it a lot easier to make effective sneak attacks or lay ambushes realisticly.

[Balthagor]

No problem, happy to make the replies. They may take a while but they help keep all of this stuff fresh in my mind while I'm working

Your fog of war mod sounds very interesting and I think is an excellent idea. Since we have given out the equipement file there is indeed nothing preventing you from trying some of the values you suggest for yourself. I think it will also give you a much better understanding of how all the values relate to each other and what they can affect to try it yourself.

Lets assume the P3 detection is 100 and a sub stealth is 200, I then figure the P3 should get the same detection performance when the P3 detection strength is reduced to 50 (= 100/2) and sub stealth is reduced to 100 (= 200/2). Assuming that only units with the "detect subs"ability are able to detect subs, Land units should not be able to detect subs all of a sudden...

But the land units would detect them. If the P-3 can detect a sub at strength 50, any other unit wil the same spotting range and strength 50 would also see the sub. Even if it was a bunch of walking guys.

And if you're talking about changing the values but keeping the same relation, I don't know what that will do. If you decrease all the sub stealths by half and all the ship spotting strengths by half, then that relation would be exactly the same. Why change the stats of 300 units then?

[tkobo]

Problem is there is no "spot sub" ability.

It was talked about a long while back as a possible fix to this issue, which was of course spotted way back also.

Its one of those places where we all on the forum should raise our voice for improvement in the next engine/updated engine/etc.. they should make for the next game.

The failure of the game to have different "types" of spotting and different spotting strengths for each type is the crux of the problem.

Instead of having units that can only spot aircraft, or subs,etc.. The spotting strength of a unit covers ALL types of units currently.


In the next engine,updated engine,game,etc...
We should ask loudly (but nicely) for spotting to be handled by unit type (air, sea,land,sub sea,etc..)
This way that infrantry will never be able to spot that sub.

So that a specific unit can see some types of other units wonderfully,but be next to completely blind to other types of units.


In case anyones not sure what i mean , heres an example.

Light infrantry :Spotting strengths

-------Spotting strength--/-spotting range
Air :---#-------------------/----#-----------
Sea:---#-------------------/----#-----------
Land:--#-------------------/----#-----------
Sub:--none----------------/----none-----------

# would be the apropriate number for the unit in EACH classification.

So by this system,the light infrantry would be able to spot Air, land and sea at the appropriate ability,but be unable to spot a sub.

I hate the right margin setting here

[Balthagor]

Ya, trying to get any table to line up in these forums is hopeless

However I do not see the "type X can't see subs" as the one stop solution. In truth, the best solution would be to implement three different spotting models; submerged, surface/ground, air. Problem is that would require 3 layers of fog of war. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

While our model may simplify things by using one spotting layer, I'm still looking for cases where our spotting model fails. So far I have found only one case (have a savegame where I think an F-15 spotted a sub) and I have sent that one to George for analasys, but it would be useful for him to have a few cases to look at simultaneously.

I still don't see how adjusting the values makes a difference if their relationships are maintained...

[Balthagor]

[EDIT] Discussion on modding for various spotting levels moved : http://www.bgforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=36154#36154

[Sebastiaan]

- Allow UAV to dock on short decks (like helicopters)
I think they already can. Haven't tested it but all the abilities are the same, should work just fine.

I believe you are incorerrect. I looked in the equipment xml file and notised that not a single UAV can land on short deck (as a harrier). If we allowed them to be able to land on short decks, their operational use would be much improved because then they will be able to refuel at Resuply depos, Seaport, at short deck carriers and at F.A.R.P supply trucks. Especialy the last one is intresting since it could essentialy function as a mobile airstrip en supply truck in one.

[Balthagor]

Okay, I can live with making them capable to land on ships, but George and I discussed and agreed that most would only be long deck capable. Some could be marked as short deck capable but things like Global Hawk need a runway longer than most short decks I believe (if I'm wrong, please provide supporting evidence) Obviously the ones that get sling shotted off of a platfrom woudl be the ones that should get marked short deck.

However, this will not make them capable to resupply from supply deposts, FARPs or seaports. Harriers cannot do this. It was suggested as an idea but never implemented. They will only gain the ability to land on carriers.

I looked at the spreadsheet and some are marked as long/short deck or both but not all I will mark them all as long deck for now and as I get a chance to check them will update the ones which should be short deck capable also.

[Sebastiaan]

However, this will not make them capable to resupply from supply deposts, FARPs or seaports. Harriers cannot do this. It was suggested as an idea but never implemented. They will only gain the ability to land on carriers.

I'm wondering, why was this never implemented, was is because it time issues or because of balance issues?

[Balthagor]

More time than balance, and some limitations with the engine. An attempt to make this possible was looked at but did not work properly when tested.

[Sebastiaan]

Meabee allow the IOWA to cary 1 helicopter regiment. That way they can launch UAV just like in reality

http://www.battleship.org/html/Articles ... rcraft.htm