[Momar69]

I was playing a single mission where I had to distroy some missle boats that were going to attack my Tico. I go up onto the bridge and look around and see one flying by in my bicnoculars. Now my Radar hasnt picked it up and i couldnt pick it up through all the fishing boats on my sonar but I could see it in my binoculars. Is their any way to mark it what so ever?? I couldnt engage it because I couldnt get a solution on it.

[LuftWolf]

All visual contacts will be marked automatically by the FFG Lookout Autocrew, which is always active.

Check your Nav map for these contacts.

[Momar69]

I did, and they did great picking out the fishing boats, but there was no contact anywhere near the bearing I had my noculars pointed at. This guy was moving fast too and since I had no contact I had nothing to engage. I tried a snapshot but couldnt get it through the shipping traffic.

[LuftWolf]

Depending on the specific conditions, the autocrew may not pick somethings out... the actual operation of the autocrew depends on the math of the sensor engine, as opposed to the actual 3-d display... so more or less, you can think of it as the crew only calling out somethings when they have a certain confidence... usually it works fine.

That mission, with the blue speed boats, is a bit of an unusual situation... the best bet that I have found is to illuminate them with your Surface Search Radar and then assign the CIWS to attack them. The Vulcan makes nice work of the boats when you get close enough for the CIWS radar system to track them, as they are generally too fast for the Mk92 Fire Control Radar (so no SM-2 or 75mm), too close for the Harpoon to be practical, too far for the .50cal, but *just right* for the CIWS.

Try it, it's very satisfying to watch them get eaten up by 20mm on the Helo Spotting Camera.

PS Generally speaking, the torpedoes on the FFG are for ASW, if you have another ship in your sites, the frigate has FAR more effective weapons than its LWTs.

[Wildcat]

I also wish that incoming vampires would be reported immediately when spotted by the lookouts. When I'm manning the bridge I can see any missile launch within about 10 miles just from the smoke trail behind it, the crew should report it automatically so defensive measures can be taken.

At this point if a kilo comes within 7nm of you and fires more than 2 klub ASM missiles are you, you have no chance whatsoever.

[LuftWolf]

Uh, why is that a problem?

[Wildcat]

Well because you don't receive a warning until the missiles are much closer, which reduces the time you have to dedicate anti missile resources.

For example with an additional 5 seconds of warning I could have the autocannon pumping shells toward incoming missiles as well as firing my sm2 and locking up the ciws in that direction. As it stands you don't get a warning until the missiles are about 3 seconds or so away, by then you have no chance at all. The lame part is that you can watch the missiles being launched pretty far away but can't do anything to engage them because the computer pretends not to see them. The radars and computer lookouts spot them at the same time.

There's no way to manually control the guns and missiles, and in high sea states you have virtually 0 chance at ever intercepting klubs because even if the missiles are detected by radar, the computer automatically bounces the contact between a surface and submerged contact making it impossible to fire at.

[LuftWolf]

Well, no one said intercepting supersonic missiles from under 10nm would be easy or even feasible... I'm not sure I have a problem with this from a balance standpoint.

With the AI helo capabilities now, if the FFG player lets a sub get within 10nm, he probably ought to eat it...

In general, I find if the missiles come from some distance away I have plenty of time to intercept them, although the solution has to settle somewhat after the missile has been tracked for a few seconds, which is not unreasonable, almost nothing in DW comes instantly in terms of sensors.

[Wildcat]

Well the main issue is that human eyes can easily see the target (not just realistically but in the game as well) but the computer is completely oblivious. And I agree that letting a kilo that close means you deserve to die, but nonetheless it's an artificial restriction, if a human can see the launch then the computer should too.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

[Wildcat]

I understand that the lookouts are not linked to the FCR, however getting an earlier warning allows you to go on the defensive instead of just waiting for the missiles to innevitably hit.

For example if a kilo launches from 7nm away, if I happen to be on the bridge or at a lookout station I can instantly determine to within 3 degrees where the missile was launched from. After this, I can throw up several countermeasures and begin evasive maneuvering (even though you have only 15 seconds or so to do it, if you're travelling at 29 knots you can turn pretty quickly.)

At the moment the autocrew will not report any vampires until far too late. If the smoke trail is visible, the auto crew should report it. A human player would. I don't think it's really asking too much, the odds are so extremely stacked against the OHP when missiles are involved (mainly because mission designers don't include aegis ships but include lots of akulas or klub kilo's) it's almost not worth trying.

IMO the solution is to either increase the autocrew's visibility and the speed at which they report inbound vampires, or trigger an audible warning the instant it spots a smoke trail from a rocket motor. If this is unreasonable then the smoke trails should be removed from all missiles that do not realisticly have smoke trails. If a human player in multiplayer can spot it, the computer should as well.

The time gained may be only a few seconds, but trust me it makes a big difference.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki II]

[Wildcat]

If you'd like to further question my abilities as a FFG player, we can sort things out over a friendly multiplayer game and decide just how little I know about playing FFG. Otherwise I think I'll refrain from posting in this thread from here on in.