[Logged] Lack of BOL capability for GPS guided weapons

[Tookatee]

All the weapons that use GPS/INS guidance such as the JDAM, Tomahawk, and SDB weapons lack the ability to use the BOL feature to manually fire the weapons at a specific set of coordinates. This is a major missing functionality of these weapons as this is how they normally operate (by the weapon operator inputting the target's GPS coordinates.)

[BDukes]

ORIGINAL: Tookatee

All the weapons that use GPS/INS guidance such as the JDAM, Tomahawk, and SDB weapons lack the ability to use the BOL feature to manually fire the weapons at a specific set of coordinates. This is a major missing functionality of these weapons as this is how they normally operate (by the weapon operator inputting the target's GPS coordinates.)

They also don't have abilities to skip weapons like Dambusters or shoot proton torpedoes using force. Boo hoo.

Enjoy game, that is why you bought.

Bill

[Tookatee]

Wow, so much for maintaining a respectful tone on the forum. Literally dismissing a legitimate missing feature by comparing it to obscure or absurd examples rather than offering a productive comment on the topic.

[VFA41_Lion]

What you are describing is not BOL functionality though.

Manually inputting GPS coordinates is not "bearing only launch"

[Tookatee]

I know, but in-game that's what it's called when you manually fire a weapon in a given direction/set of coordinates rather than at a target. The hotkey for it is ctl-f1; you're able to properly use it for things like ballistic missiles, but not INS or GPS/GLONASS guided weapons.

[RoryAndersonCDT]

For using weapons that are GPS/INS/etc guided, with the coordinates for the strike known ahead of time (eg, a Ammo Bunker or static SAM site that is visible in satellite photos) Command models this via the autodetectable flag in the scenario editor.

[Tookatee]

What? Here's an image of what I'm talking about. I selected a point on the map (the BOL point) for the weapon to impact at (in this case a SCUD), you aren't able to do this with the weapons I specified in the original post, despite them receiving guidance purely based on GPS coordinates or specific INS information that guides them to a set of coordinates.

[VFA41_Lion]

Huh, i wonder if the Scuds being able to be BOL'd like that is technically a bug since that property isn't listed in the DB entry for Scuds.

[Tookatee]

No, that's exactly how the weapon is supposed to operate. It uses INS information to guide itself to a specific set of coordinates, it doesn't matter if something is there or not. And that's what I mean, the ability to launch these weapons isn't dependent on whether or not there is a known target there, it's dependent on whether or not you can enter a set of coordinates (which optimally would be the matching coordinates for a known target.)

[Whicker]

I think it would be nice to do that type of thing for other things as well - you might know that there are units in a certain area but you cannot see them. IRL you could carpet bomb the area with regular bombs, or a ship could target the area with guns.
As it is you can't target an area, only a detected unit.

[Tookatee]

Yes, thank you for mentioning that. All artillery should have the ability to manually fire at a specific set of coordinates. And even further beyond that, a system that uses reference points as targets for custom land strike missions could be an amazing way to automate custom fire-missions across a wide variety of units.

[Dimitris]

This looks like a bug, since I know for a fact that aimpoint-strike used to work. We'll take a look.

[Tookatee]

While this issue seems to have been fixed for ship based weapons, it still persists for air-launched GPS/INS-guided munitions and (something I failed to notice when I originally posted the issue) ARH air-to-air missiles (otherwise know as having the missile go active at a predetermined point in flight, or immediately at launch.)