#ASW update with S-3 viking

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wide anchor
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1000th message 🗣️

toxic tartan
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damn, 4 digit club

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its an old post to be fair
28th of may

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i’ve edited it a bit since

summer orbit
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yeah it's a boatload of work, especially since you would not only have to modify a lot of core systems but also have backwards compatibility with the workshop missions

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The dude who made the dynamic campaign system for falcon 4.0 was an intern whose (iirc) entire job was to make one from scratch for a whole year

plucky basin
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Sea powers coming out, we can close this thread now 🤪

toxic tartan
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i wanna play that game so bad

toxic tartan
toxic tartan
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we do need chaff for ships

plush sorrel
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Honestly I’d love to see fleet battles become more of a thing.

I feel most if not all of the missions available are land based.

Also I want an intruder so bad.

toxic tartan
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big naval battles can’t work because its features are missing
ASM are short ranged, bluefor ship SAMs are bad
aircraft don’t have surface radars
no chaff
no subs
and of course the AI

wide anchor
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we had wiggle chaffing and not much else before the EW update

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I know you aren't opposing the ideas though

toxic tartan
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typo ?

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i think these would need to be added for naval warfare in VTOL

wide anchor
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woops

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Can*

formal shore
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Imagine (shamelessly stolen from the FlyOut subreddit)

IMG_4395.jpg
toxic tartan
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without the AWACS radar probably

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but yeah

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thats exactly the idea

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i like the low wing rear engine, bizjet style more

but high wing S-3 style is more grounded, i don’t think anyone would mind that

image0.jpg
willow harbor
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For me, playing Sea Power has highlighted how utterly dull ASW is for the aircraft taking part in it.

Their entire life in Sea Power is:
Place sonobuoy.
Listen to sonobuoy.
Go somewhere else, drop another sonobuoy.
Listen.
Repeat previous steps until you run out of bouys or fuel.
Land and rearm and counting repeating.
Hear something from one of the many buoys.
Drop torp in sound contact.
Mission over. Good job.

Your targets are defenceless unless there are enemy anti-air assets around, in which case you are defenceless.
The scenery is water. Even your target is invisible.

Either the target is very easy to find because there is a waypoint next to it, or it's a case of flying long distance looking for something you may never find because it might not be there.

If the gameplay was anything like the ASW flights in Sea Power, I can't imagine how it would continue to be engaging.

summer orbit
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the whole point of ASW irl is to find something that's hiding

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but what's the point of that if the mission maker in vtol would inevitably have to place a waypoint in the rough location of the actual sub

plucky basin
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Well, sea power has some truly atrocious mission design

willow harbor
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Right. The cat and mouse nature of ASW is tedious by nature.
Lots and lots of searching empty water over long periods of time.

Of course, no one wants that in VTOL, but the alternative, putting a waypoint next to, or near, the target is even more tedious because now there is no challenge.

Not that there was really a challenge before, beyond the challenge of holding off boredom before you happen, by luck, to play a bouy in the right place.

summer orbit
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also side note, allegedly for the italian navy helo sub hunters the process has become so automated that they run single pilot ops

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with 1-2 crew in the back

plucky basin
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i do think that once you get a distant contact ping on a sonar buoy, then the workload becomes more than enough to justify a two person crew

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it'll be managing 16+ sonar buoys, triangulating, doing TMA

willow harbor
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Why would you be doing manual triangulation?
We don't manually triangulate our RWRs.

I can't think of a gameplay reason to leave it manual. It's not a super fun thing to do, especially in VR

plucky basin
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thats the dangerous waters gameplay loop for ASW

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you could probably ask the same question about 'why is there no automatic rgpo' for the ef24

willow harbor
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Well, it's a meaningful decision for the 24.
Do I RGPO this contract or are my jammers best used in other ways.
If it was always the right decision to RGPO, then I'd have no issue with it being automatic.

Triangulation of a RWR/ Sound contact isn't a meaningful decision. It's always better to do it and there is only ever one correct way to do it.

Good game design is about giving players meaningful and difficult decisions.

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I can't see what the meaningful and difficult decisions are for airborne ASW

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For example, let's imagine a simple FA-26 mission in which you must bomb a defended target.

The player is presented with many major decisions to make even before takeoff.
What weapons to take?
What route to take?
To go high or low altitude?
To avoid defences or to destroy them?

During the mission, even more difficult choices will arise.
Should I spend time dealing with the new air threats?
Should I risk getting closer to the SAM sites to bomb them?
Should I use my stand off weapons against the target or it's defences?
Should I cancel my attack run because of the missile launch against me?
Should I use afterburner now or will I run out of fuel?
Should I rearm now?
Etc.

All of these decisions are difficult and meaningful. More specifically, they are difficult because although there is always a right answer (or not often many right answers to some degree or another), what that answer is depends on the exact circumstances and unless the player has already won the mission once before, they will not know for sure what the right answers are, but they will have clues from their knowledge of the game.

I could give many, many such examples, even for such a simple mission. There are also the countless micro-decisions that must be made such as how many flares to deploy for this missile?

I can come up with some examples for ASW, but not many. Not nearly enough for me to think it will be engaging.

However, I'm very ready to have my mind changed.

toxic tartan
# willow harbor For me, playing Sea Power has highlighted how utterly dull ASW is for the aircra...

Very fair

I think the key difference between Sea Power and possible ASW in VTOL is the scale of player action.
To make it engaging you’d makes ASW a sort of minigame, just like EW already is. Is it super realistic ? not really, RGPO and what not can be automated IRL, but they’re manual in VTOL to make EWOing fun, even tho the gameplay loop is quite repetitive and not super VR focused.

So things to do as an ASW crew member :

  • monitor your sensors : sonobuoys, radar, MAD
  • listen to the water
  • identify noise contacts : whale, ship, sub, decoy/simulator, noise maker, number of props, nuke, diesel, electric ? Friend or Foe ?
    I think making the noise stuff automatic (like in Sea Power where that level of micro is beyond the scope of gameplay) would indeed make it boring. Maybe the aircraft picks up contacts, but it’s the player’s job to investigate it, ID it, etc

You need to have multiple sub types with different behaviours and characteristics (nuke boat, diesel boat recharging, diesel boat under electric drive…), some subs actually have SAMs for self defense amazingly.

Lastly, as i tried to emphasise in the post, this would mostly update and expand the naval part of the game with new units and interactions.

And whatever ASW aircraft added would be much more.

  • An airplane like an S-3 would/could also be the bigger, less manouverable "heavy plane" that we frankly all want. It could be a heavy attack / light bomber. Be a pseudo AWACS …
  • An ASW helo would be a black hawk and bring all the possibilities that entails
    So even if ASW is the name of the post, and the main idea of any potential DLC aircraft, it would me much more than that, just like the EF-24G is not just the "EW plane"
willow harbor
toxic tartan
willow harbor
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Yeah, that was about all I could think of as well

toxic tartan
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I agree its a flaw, inherently less intense as SEAD for example

toxic tartan
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in ways it reminds of an earlier convo on here about the level of coordination between aircraft in MP

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ended up saying ASW would call for more pilot-TACCO coordination than aircraft to aircraft coordination

plucky basin
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I would probably put ASW more along the lines of aerial refueling or carrier landings

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It's closer to a task that you just do, it's not like there's meaningful gameplay decisions with aerial refueling, you just need to do it if it's required by the mission

toxic tartan
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i wouldn't go that far, it's still combat

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there are stakes, enemy subs are attacking your friendly

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SSBNs could be racing into postion to launch ICBMs

plucky basin
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like the stakes aren't getting shot down, but failing your objective

toxic tartan
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i nthink some subs ca&n be given SAMs for self defense

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it's somewhat realistic, and gives it risk

toxic tartan
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verions of MICA and IRIS-T

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These things are way more suited towards helicopters

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but you could bend the rules a little

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encourage players to keep they're radars off so the subs can't find them easely with the ESM mast. No radar means no mast detection

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But then you don't get any warning if they detect you visually, and you end up with a hidden IR SAM in the middle of the ocean

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that's a good tactical decision for the player to make, radar on or off

willow harbor
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Ok, so, what's a situation in which it would be better to keep it on?
What's a situation in which it would be better to keep it off?

static reef
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There are definitely ways to make ASW work, the problem is it's just going to end up extremely samey

willow harbor
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And always leave if off otherwise?

static reef
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Probably, but it depends on how urgent you feel and how confident you are that you can evade anything fired at you

toxic tartan
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I think the radar would be the most consequential part of that plane overall

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fixed wing surface search, wide FOV.
Can find ships and periscoped subs.

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But also over the ground, rapid GPS target plotting.
AGS role

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And you could even have an air search mode for SA or even pseudo-AEW capability

cedar tapir
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.

rose saffron
sand dome
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Any meaningful comments or discussions

turbid holly
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Modern ASW would be dope, would add a new domain to missions aside from just "SEAD and take this airbase". I think it's something that isn't touched on in most games and would bring in people to this game especially being in VR. Sea Power is good but doesn't offer the same fidelity (being that you are at a fleet commander level in the game, not a crewman) that this would bring. It'd be cool also to have to protect your ASW aircraft as they would likely be targeted by the enemy and don't traditionally have any way to defend themselves

toxic tartan
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What gameplay looks like
I suppose i should present this ; this is what the primary display would be for ASW.

You have a map on the right with all your sonobuoys
On the left there are the data feeds form said sonobuoys.
The charts are frequency in the x axis and time on the y axis with color indicating signal strengh in dB. They are waterfalls of the signal, it's scrolling down over time. So you can see how a signal evolves over time. Here for example there are 2 distinct signals, a constant one on the right at 149.5Hz. The other signal around 140Hz is varying in frequency and strengh.

The first goal of the crewman is to identify the signals (diesel sub, nuke sub, ship, boat, torpedo, decoy, etc) and be able to corelate them (are these two buoys picking up the same signal or are these 2 different tracks).

Once a track is corelated by 2 buoys you can triangulate if by drawing out the 2 azimuth lines and your track is at the intersection.

At this point you need to coordinate with the pilot to go engage it, drop a buoys closer to it or do a MAD flyover etc.

ASW.png
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Before that the TACCO and Pilot need to coordinate **where ** they want to drop their buoys (what pattern, how spread the buoys should be), you also need to consider the depth of the buoys (the SSQ-53 DIFAR has 3 depths : D1=90ft D2=400ft D3=1000ft) which matters most when considering the thermal layer. As well as the buoy type : mostly passive but also active sonobuoys and bathythermobuoy (BT) for measuring where the thermal layer is.

You also can use the MAD which is most useful against shallow depth subs and larger subs.
And the radar which can detect periscope depth subs using their periscope, ESM mast, radar and diesel subs snorkeling (which would make a unique diesel engine sound on sonar)

turbid holly
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Do you happen to know if you can physically listen to audio from the sonobuoys IRL or is it all digitized into that screen

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Like how you can for sonars on ships

rose saffron
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neat!

dreamy geyser
turbid holly
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well you'd probably hear it similarly to how you'd hear sounds from a sonar set on a surface ship

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My thinking though is I wonder how well the quality of the sound could be transfered through the radio connection

dreamy geyser
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Depending on distance and volume of data being transferred at a time per number of buoys and method of transmission it would vary but I suspect there would be a fair amount of distortion

toxic tartan
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you could absolutely listen to the signals.
That's how they id them IRL, if you look at the image above there are headphone buttons

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O/T but EWOs can listen to RWR signals IRL to identify radars

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but it's usually automated anyways

toxic tartan
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for ASW i think it could help to get extra detail maybe, could be easier to listen than watch the feed

limber yacht
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I know this thread hasn't been active in a long time but I think another aircraft that would make good use of an update like that could be an ASW helicopter (based on the seahawk or wildcat for example).

It would have much worse performance but better fuel economy than the AH-94, and it would be a side-by-side two-seater.

It could be capable of deploying a dipping sonar or using a combination of ground mapping radar and an extra-sensitive TGP to search for periscopes or the exhausts of surfaced diesel submarines. If having all of these sensors at once makes ASW too easy, it could have 1 or 2 loadout slots for ASW/ASuW sensors so the crew has to choose a specific mission. It would of course also have the option to take lightweight torpedoes and a variety of anti-surface and air-to-ground weapons.

It would make no attempt at stealth and have no way to defend itself beyond basic countermeasures and maybe a small number of IR air-to-air missiles.

Its cockpit displays could be a medium between the "old" displays of the F/A-26 and AH-94 and the "new" displays of the F-45 and EF-24, using large touchscreens but without the sensor fusion of the F-45 and EF-24, it could create a fun challenge out of correlating the results of different sensors to determine where a submarine might be before marking the suspected location on allies' nav displays and TSDs.

None of these would step on the intended role of the jet so there would be no issue with adding both eventually, and a utility helicopter could be used as a transport or for light CAS too (which would also add an alternative option for transport missions for people who don't like the AV-42), so both the jet and the helicopter would add more to the game than just ASW

vivid bay
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hyping up this ASW update again

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i rly think the ASW update can actually add a lot more fun to naval battles. we only have cruisers/carriers/stol carriers, just a more assortment of naval vessels alone would be a nice update, as well as ofc the new weapons

toxic tartan
vivid bay
vocal nimbus
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Absolutly i agree (plus i learned this from Sea power the s-3 can function as a bomber

turbid holly
cinder silo
turbid holly