Question on thermals

[Sabre21]

I have a question about the range the game is using for thermals. Why was 500 meters in clear weather used for detecting enemy forces? Was it for game balancing maybe?

Thermals have a far greater range in reality than 500 meters. I've used them in the past. My cav unit in Korea (92-94) actually had thermals on our AH-1's and they had excellent capabilities out to 1000m where I could count roadwheels on vehicles and at 2000m I could easily engage targets which I have done. These thermals were no where near as good as those on the M1A1 or Apache.

The Apaches had digital magnification and could engage targets at night out to 8000m on a good night. They are so good you can make out individual soldiers at those ranges. The M1's might not have been as good but had to be close.

We used to use thermals even in the daytime to scan mountainsides looking for camouflaged emplacements, which for the AH-1 thermal device was good out to about 3 maybe 4 km.

I know the tankers used the same methods in finding targets quickly in the daytime. In AAR's after mock battles tankers would chuckle about how they could spot me several klicks away masking behind trees due to the heat from my engine.

Heck I could see further than 500 meters using my NVG's (Anvis). On a good night I could see several kilometers, but on a bad night it was just plain scary..500m would have been a bad night because you can easily fly faster than you can effectively identify what it is you are looking at.

[cbelva]

I think this is a bug that got thru testing. There is another discussion in another thread on this. We are looking into it. Range on a clear night with thermal is far greater than 500m.

[Sabre21]

ORIGINAL: cbelva

I think this is a bug that got thru testing. There is another discussion in another thread on this. We are looking into it. Range on a clear night with thermal is far greater than 500m.

yep..at 500 meters you could see through walls of houses and watch people walking about....not that I would do that of course.

[CapnDarwin]

We broke something. We will fix it as soon as we practically can.

[mikeCK]

Thank you for the acknowledgment. That is rare among developers

[CapnDarwin]

We are human and make mistakes. With all of the massive rewrites in spotting and weather we just missed a condition for the thermals. And by "we" I mean me. We tested every condition but a clear night, and missed that it was not seeing correctly. We will get it fixed and see about a hot fix soon.

[Lowlaner2012]

Thanks, we appreciate all your hard work

[CapnDarwin]

Sucks to miss something like that though. [:@]

[Lowlaner2012]

The game is awesome, they are just some teething problems with the 2.03 patch

[CapnDarwin]

True. We did a ton of coding and recoding and new code to get the spotting and weather and night ranges to sync up, but as I found to night one variable was not setting right and all night gear was getting bypassed in a spotting routine and I need to correct an issue with the spottable side of the calculations with thermals (again).

[killkess]

While we are at night combat... any plans to include illuminating rounds for artillery units? I always was under the impression that the russians would use "shitloads" of these

[Tazak]

what about increased consumption of carrots for NATO forces to overcome the TI issue

[CapnDarwin]

Hi killkess, yes we plan to do an overhaul of arty systems and mechanics for 2.1. That will include illumination rounds a few other types not currently seen on the battlefield.


@Tazak, I believe that was called operation "Bug Bunny" in the late 80s, but it failed since most young American men hate eating vegetables with any meal save potatoes. [:D]

As for the game I have 1/2 of the issue fixes as of last night and now all the various night vision capable systems see to the correct distance at night. Now I just to get it all linked up with the spottable side of the other guy's units and life will be grand.

[VilleYrjola]

Are you going to release a hotfix or will you add the thermal fix to the 2.04?

[cbelva]

It has been stated several times we are working on a hotfix for the thermals. In fact, it is the thermal problem that we felt necessitated a hotfix in the first place. We will release as soon as possible, but anytime we touch the program to make adjustments or fix bug, we have to make sure we don't break something else.

[VilleYrjola]

Okay thanks for the info. I must've missed the talk about the hotfix [8|]

[CapnDarwin]

Rosmarus, no problem. Threads all over the place make it a challenge for us to track. We will be talking hot fix status in our Monday night Dev call and seeing what bugs we can fix or in a couple cases have fixed over the past 3 days, what we will hotfix and what needs to wait for 2.04. We will keep everyone updated.

[MikeS369]

I'm just wondering what targets you were engaging in Korea in 92-94?

[CapnDarwin]

Noticed last night while coding that thermal sights are not functioning correctly/fully even in daytime. It is being fixed.

[Sabre21]

ORIGINAL: MikeS369

I'm just wondering what targets you were engaging in Korea in 92-94?

We trained constantly while in Korea. Between the regular annual exercises like Team Spirit there were dozens of other exercises or live fire gunnery that we participated in. Army pilots in the States at that time averaged maybe 200 flight hours a year, over in Korea it was not uncommon to log 400 to 500.