Foothill Starbase goes nuclear
Posted: Fri Jul 09, 2004 2:01 pm
An observation from a series of missions I flew last night:
1) After whittling Foothill Starbase down to a low red, I called for the package to form up and RTB. I saved the campaign here and selected a follow up mission using the same profile: 4xF/A33 with 4 Hammers and two rocket pods. Once at the strike waypoint, the rest of the element engaged with the Hammers followed up with rockets, but were too close and all three were destroyed by the blast radius. They didn't seem that close to the blast, so I aborted and tried again.
2) Same profile, but this time at the strike waypoint, I immediately gave the ALT-F command to get them clear of the blast. I then expended my hammers and started on rockets when I got the shoot cue. Once again, Foothill went up, but this time took out the entire flight.
3) Getting curious, I restored the campaign from the save point, and this time loaded up with 6 Hammers. At strike waypoint, I ordered ALT-F and then pickled off all 6 AGMs at Max Standoff Range, then proceeded to turn and climb to stay out of the blast radius. I was 35.5k from the target when it went up, once again taking me out along with the rest of the flight.
In scenarios 2 and 3, the graphic of the blast never came close to the aircraft.
My $50,000 question is: are the starbases supposed to go up like this? If so, how far away do I need to be to stay out of the frag pattern?
1) After whittling Foothill Starbase down to a low red, I called for the package to form up and RTB. I saved the campaign here and selected a follow up mission using the same profile: 4xF/A33 with 4 Hammers and two rocket pods. Once at the strike waypoint, the rest of the element engaged with the Hammers followed up with rockets, but were too close and all three were destroyed by the blast radius. They didn't seem that close to the blast, so I aborted and tried again.
2) Same profile, but this time at the strike waypoint, I immediately gave the ALT-F command to get them clear of the blast. I then expended my hammers and started on rockets when I got the shoot cue. Once again, Foothill went up, but this time took out the entire flight.
3) Getting curious, I restored the campaign from the save point, and this time loaded up with 6 Hammers. At strike waypoint, I ordered ALT-F and then pickled off all 6 AGMs at Max Standoff Range, then proceeded to turn and climb to stay out of the blast radius. I was 35.5k from the target when it went up, once again taking me out along with the rest of the flight.
In scenarios 2 and 3, the graphic of the blast never came close to the aircraft.
My $50,000 question is: are the starbases supposed to go up like this? If so, how far away do I need to be to stay out of the frag pattern?