A Path Beyond Yaks and Ridge War

[Raptor29aa]

Should Yaks be added to Ridge War?

 

 

Edited July 20, 2017 by Raptor29aa

[Pushwall]

There are plenty of issues with this.

• Too many high-rise cliffs and high-rise trees to make them plausible since they have to divebomb and face their target directly. Compare to Guard Duty where almost the entire map is relatively flat ground, and almost all of its "cliffs" merely separate land from water instead of land from more land, so Allies can't exactly hide behind most of Guard Duty's cliffs.
• They really don't deal with Longbows as well as you think. Especially given the whole "has to face its target" thing and LBs being the most agile unit in the game.
• The flight ceiling - particularly above the Allied base - is way too low to accommodate planes. Remember how many people were complaining about how there was "no room" to fly planes in the first iteration of Yak Duty? Yeah, that flight ceiling was twice as high as the height difference between Ridge War's Allied base and flight ceiling. And now after the update it's three times as high. And if I raise the flight ceiling enough to make Yaks flyable around the Allied base? Then you can have fun with Longbows being able to fly so high over the Soviet base that they can't even be hit by SAMs or Strelas. Giving them more range would break other air maps in the process.
• It means getting rid of Soviet helis unless you want them to be delivered the same way Yaks are, which looks ridiculous. And, well, this is one of the few flying maps where I actually see Soviets use chinooks...
• Why add them without MiGs, which wouldn't suffer the first two problems due to how tracking weapons work?

I'd be all for giving this a try when/if MiGs become a thing but even then we still have the flight ceiling and Soviet heli issues to deal with.

[NoSpoons]

If I'm honest I think we will make more progress if we candidate maps that as Push stated don't already have Hinds, that being said the are almost no maps suitable for this treatment (perhaps pipeline but I doubt it), so I think it is more than likely we will need to do some long waiting for either the MiGs or for someone to make a map more catered to Yak play.

[Isaac The Madd]

The obvious solution is to add Badgers with parachutes for infantry.

I do think we should have more maps with yaks, but that for new maps designed around having planes in the first place not the current maps which can't have they currently.

[des1206]

I suppose there is not directional target range limit for the SAM sites?

[NodGuy]

9 hours ago, Pushwall said:

 

• It means getting rid of Soviet helis unless you want them to be delivered the same way Yaks are, which looks ridiculous. And, well, this is one of the few flying maps where I actually see Soviets use chinooks...

I don't know much about this stuff but would it be possible to make it so the Hinds come from the War Factory? Either by rolling out like ground vehicles (Renegade) or flying to the flare location?

Just throwing ideas out.

[NoSpoons]

OR how about this, they buy the Chinooks from the radar dome then the Chinook is airdropped by another Chinook? : O 

Or make the Chinook invisible so it just looks like only 1 Chinook? 

[KevinLancaster]

20 hours ago, Pushwall said:

• It means getting rid of Soviet helis unless you want them to be delivered the same way Yaks are, which looks ridiculous. And, well, this is one of the few flying maps where I actually see Soviets use chinooks...

Is it that awful?

[Einstein]

25 minutes ago, KevinLancaster said:

Is it that awful?

1. It isn't RA-listic
2. There is always a possibility of strange....side effects

(I'm totally joking, it would just be a little weird IMO)

[ganein14]

3 minutes ago, Einstein said:

1. It isn't RA-listic

Well Yaks/Migs could land on Helipads to rearm. 

[NodGuy]

45 minutes ago, Einstein said:

1. It isn't RA-listic

Neither are the Captains/Kapitans, Sergeants/Starshinas, Snipers, Medics and Mechanics with guns, Technicians and the way they and Engineers repair buildings, Refill Pads (IIRC), the way the Ore Silo works, Flares, etc. etc. Besides, just because we didn't see Hinds fly in and land on an Airstrip doesn't mean it never happened in-universe. What if during battle the Helipad was out of commission and the Hind was forced to land on the Airstrip?

I'm just saying, we should be fine with sacrificing a little 'RA-lism' to improve the game.

[SarahNautili]

That still leaves the problem of yaks taking off from the same runway that both other yaks and helis are landing on. Tight fit.

 

Maybe have a trio of little hangars off to one side of the runway, just big enough for a yak or hind to fit inside, that the planes and helis spawn in? Still, that requires said hangers to be modeled... and a door modeled / animated (unless you could steal the War Factory door?)... and script changes to make it possible for helis and planes to spawn inside said hangars instead of fly in... blegh, sounds like a pain in the ass. 

[KevinLancaster]

Could put refill pads so they don't have to rearm at the Airstrip. Or maybe Yaks can be modified to taxi off to the side, like how Hinds land in different positions at the moment? Though that wouldn't allow them to crush destroy existing planes.

[Raptor29aa]

@Pushwall I will mention Ridgewar no more. Simply because it was not designed for Yaks. A map like Alpine lake would've been a better idea. 

As far as helicopters are concerned, landing and turning off to a side pad(s) would work. (I think all production buildings have that capability.)

[Pushwall]

10 hours ago, Raptor29aa said:

As far as helicopters are concerned, landing and turning off to a side pad(s) would work. (I think all production buildings have that capability.)

No, they don't. Everything that's produced from a single building uses the same waypaths or cinematic. So if we had an airfield (which is a helipad-type building so we can't have both that and the helipad on the same map without causing other issues) helis would fly in at breakneck speeds, tilt like a plane, and land on the airfield.

10 hours ago, Raptor29aa said:

@Pushwall I will mention Ridgewar no more. Simply because it was not designed for Yaks. A map like Alpine lake would've been a better idea. 

Out of the current maps I can really only see 4 maps besides RidgeWar that actually have room to place an airfield or wouldn't take much work to make that room, and even then, most of them have other issues to worry about:

• RA_AS_Seamist - Plenty of free space in the Soviet base... trouble is, Yaks are primarily a defensive tool since they die so easily on the offensive and can't make use of their infantry when they die. And this map is all about Soviets going on the offensive. In most cases, people buying Yaks would be a detriment to the team.
• RA_Pipeline - the out-of-bounds behind the Soviet base can easily be moved back to accommodate this. However, there's a lot of tall features around the map that would inhibit the Yak's ability to function - the oil silos, oil wells, the pipeline, some palm trees, and the central cliffs that got added in Delta. At the very least the cliffs and tall palms can be lowered somewhat and that wouldn't affect anything else since most of them can't be climbed by other units anyway, but I'm not sure what we'd do about the map's main feature...
• RA_Siege - tons of base room for this too (apparently intended by Raap), and tons of flight room, and since both bases are at roughly the same map height unlike RW, we can expand the flight ceiling here without over-advantaging one team's helicopters. (Assuming it even needs expanding in the first place, I haven't bothered to check how tall it is.) But Yaks would have a lot of trouble hitting things in the castle, especially if they're at the "Soviet door" where the only angle of attack Yaks can take to shoot into the castle would involve flying near the Allied base. But the castle walls are probably short enough that this wouldn't be as big an issue as RW's plateaus. Raap would have to say RIP to some of his nice little landing pads too as purchased helis would have to land on the airfield  And since the Airfield is essentially a helipad with an MCT, that puts a bit of a hamper on Tanya assaults and takes a bit of sweat off the Soviet minelayer who normally has to spend a third of the mine limit covering the pad, though I'm not sure if the anti-Tanya bit is good or bad. This is probably the most reasonable map candidate IMO and would be perfect for MiGs as well. Maybe if I decide to open up the area behind the castle to ground units as per previous discussions, that'd also provide an area where Yaks can do their thing with little risk of crashing.
• RA_StormyValley - some room could be made for this I guess. But while the tall mountains are positioned such that they're hard to hide behind, they would instead restrict the Yak's ability to turn back towards its target after a single strafe, heavily limiting its DPS on the defensive unless the enemy is coming from the village side, as that's much more open for aircraft since the barrier to ground movement is water instead of a mountain.

Maybe Yaks in general need a power buff since they're so easily defeated by cover compared to just about any other unit including the MBTs. I was originally taking care not to make them so damaging or tanky that they'd render the more expensive Hind obsolete, but it's kind of hard for them to obsolete the Hind when they can't stop and reverse, which is the Hind's preferred way of defeating Longbows and of course lets them easily skirt around cover to catch people that are trying to hide. Plus Hinds can go on the offensive more easily as they expect to die after expending all their ammo and turn into a good anti-building or anti-tank infantry to wreak more havoc - which Yaks of course can't do as a consequence of how the "landing area" logic works.

[JigglyJie]

Just throwing this out here but... I think HostileWaters would be a great candidate for Yaks. The map is large enough (would be cool to see Yaks engaging the Allied navy), the Hind was sparingly used there, and the Chinook saw next to no use... I think it could be a real possibility, perhaps?

[Pushwall]

6 minutes ago, JigglyJie said:

Just throwing this out here but... I think HostileWaters would be a great candidate for Yaks. The map is large enough (would be cool to see Yaks engaging the Allied navy), the Hind was sparingly used there, and the Chinook saw next to no use... I think it could be a real possibility, perhaps?

Chinooks didn't even exist on HW because Raap felt that detracted from LSTs and would make controlling the centre too easy.

If you're talking about ditching Soviet helis completely while adding the airfield, that makes the centre far less important for Soviets. RPAD/SD are useless for Yaks so if Hinds are removed, the Soviets' only reason to capture these is to prevent the Allies from having them, and Yaks obviously can't be used to suicidally drop Engineers off at the centre, so the capturable structure gimmick would be inherently Allied biased. Soviet island would have to be reworked to fit that gigantic structure on it too. At least there's almost no excuse for crashing a Yak on this map

[Pushwall]

17 minutes ago, JigglyJie said:

 

Another issue is that the "landing area" logic is also used at shorelines for naval units - this enables the LST's ramp animation, prevents people from ejecting a sub when it's near death in open waters to deny the kill, and discourage people from putting a shock/kov into their sub to fire off a bunch of extra shots at enemy boats after death.

What this means is that shorelines would count as "safe zones" for a Yak to slow down and eject. So people would start using them as one-man 3x-speed LSTs to quickly get to the enemy base. I'm still waiting on someone from scripts to give me a way to have separate types of landing areas so they don't interfere with each other; we can't really have airfield+naval maps until then.

[NodGuy]

Honestly, if it comes down to choosing between Yaks and Hinds for these maps then I'll always support Hinds. I find them to be more useful, especially if you're a RPG, Shock, or Volkov. 

[OWA]

I think that before we think about enabling Yaks and Hinds on the same maps, we should find a way to make Yak's function on a different flight ceiling and a way to separate Planes and Helicopters into separate factories. If we can achieve that it might actually make them a bit better at evading Longbows and mute the "helis land like planes" point. Easier said than done though I guess.

[Killing_You]

I'm going to be stubborn about this, fair warning, but I think a hanger would solve a lot of issues regarding having helis and yaks on the same map, as they can just roll out onto the air strip. I suppose there would be an issue with the construction zone, but between the regular helipad, current airstrip, naval structures, and war factory, players should know better than to buy their vehicles from halfway across the base

As for the other maps for Yaks... I think Seamist and Pipeline would work best, but only if MiGs were available as well. I know, I know, we need one modeled/textured/rigged, but on the off-chance that we did get one, those two would be where I'd advocate for their existence.

[NodGuy]

MiGs, on Seamist? The area between the Soviet base and the Allied AA turrets range is pretty small, even for Yaks. Neither would be really useful unless the Soviets take down the AA guns, but then the Allies could just deploy Redeyes to the Barracks side of their hill to shoot down incoming aircraft and have some cover.

Pipeline would work as long as the pilots are aware of their surroundings and what they can effectively do in that kind of terrain.

[Mojoman]

I do like the idea of yaks on pipeline (though migs, if someone ever makes them work on a lark, would be more appropriate I feel).

Like NodGuy said, it's up to the player to have knowledge of the terrain. It would be awesome to see Yaks flying under the pipes in the middle of the map and coming out of the sandstorm supporting a Soviet armour push.

Allies would have a fair amount of cover to shoot down the Yaks from, but the yaks have a speed advantage to hide behind obstacles as well.

[Mojoman]

Also flight ceilings are for chumps

Which is why we need a separate space skybox for when GPS satellites are introduced.

[Pushwall]

I actually gave Yaks on Pipeline a try earlier today. It'd need some terrain work to even be presentable as the out of bounds above the mountain are very bare and on the lower sides of the map they don't go out very far so planes would easily see the edge of the world, but it's surprisingly not that difficult to maneuver. You can even fly under the pipes in some places as @Mojoman suggested. I still wouldn't do it without lowering some of the cliffs and palm trees though and, well, it seems to be a fairly Soviet-sided map already - what would Allies get to even this out?

I think first we need to figure out how to make it a more viable unit period (without it displacing the Hind too much). It's really not as useful on GuardDuty as I'd hoped. Maybe enough damage to take out arties in one strafe again? More range so there's more leeway between lining up and being able to fire? Extra HP since pretty much any strafing run involves going into the danger zone of 3+ redeyes anyway? Or maybe just a special armour type that takes less damage from redeyes but not other weapons, so it's not completely unstoppable if the field isn't full of redeyes and insta-dead if the opposite is true? Maybe another physics overhaul so that they have a more lenient tolerance for what speed counts as instant death, so hopefully people screw up with them less? Obviously can't do all of this though, don't want the pendulum to swing the other way.

[Mojoman]

1 minute ago, Pushwall said:

it seems to be a fairly Soviet-sided map already - what would Allies get to even this out?

Cruisers

 

[FRAYDO]

1 minute ago, Mojoman said:

Cruisers

 

[Mojoman]

Actually though, since you've said Yaks are mainly defensive (besides Allies getting AA guns), maybe move the FT on the right side of the Soviet base (the one with their closest oil pump) to give Allies an easier way to infiltrate / harass the base?

Or make mobile AA guns purchasable on this map, it kinda fits having a technical vehicle on a desert map. (Though I know that purchase menu changes are weird).

[NodGuy]

Put a capturable AA gun on top of the oil silo.  

[Pushwall]

10 minutes ago, Mojoman said:

Actually though, since you've said Yaks are mainly defensive (besides Allies getting AA guns),

To be fair, I didn't have much of an idea how to define them when I originally added them - but defensive seems a good fit with their unparalleled scouting ability (compensated by in-flight communication with the team being difficult), their weapon primarily being a counter to arties/LTs/infantry, and inability to deliver an infantryman of their own to the front lines.

Speaking of which maybe I should move back the Guard Duty AAs. In their current position it's pretty hard for Yaks to deal with enemies on the Allied hill (particularly arties hitting Soviet defenders). They'd be harder to kill as a result but Yaks rarely fly straight over the enemy base anyway, right?