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#2670845 - 02/11/09 05:22 PM Lazer Burn out  
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GeeBee Offline
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Is it me! Am I doing somthing wrong but my lazer keeps on quiting on me after I shoot about 22 targets is this normal. I usually turn it on as I reach the target site. Seems to me that it happens to be more of a problem when I use the manual setting rather than auto! It fails on both guns and rockets.... Ive tried to let it cool down by switching it of for a few mins then back on again but it seems to make it worse.

Any ideas.

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#2670960 - 02/11/09 07:54 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: GeeBee]  
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The laser range-finder (I understand there are two lasers, one is for ranging and the other is a designator) is a limited resource.

And this isn't mentioned in the manual. I remember it coming up early on in the beta and somehow everyone just forgot about it. Something you just take for granted or don't notice unless you spend a lot of time engaging lots of targets.


See Ulrich's response on this... http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=614775&postcount=50

Quote:

Ok. Though some issues are present with laser rangefinder, I may also say that:

laser rangefinder has limitations: 5 series with intervals of 30 minutes; 16 cycles of 10 seconds with intervals of 5 seconds in each serie. You may be not following these rules in your flights (and make more range counts than it is possible) and this will result in not working rangefinder. Not a bug but a feature.


In a nutshell...

- You have 5 series of uses, with a cooldown of 30 mins between them.
- Each series being 16 "lasings" of 10 seconds, with a gap of 5 seconds after each lasing.

Outside of that envelope and it can damage the system. Flying around on long sorties or missions where you do a lot of re-arming will cause a failure of the system eventually.


And this is compounded by a bug in the laser standby switch which can get reversed. Try using the hot key and mouse click the standby switch a few times.


But it is a limited resource.



Last edited by Flexman; 02/12/09 03:11 PM. Reason: Corrected speeeeling mistak

Richard - You Have Control
Tricubic Studios Ltd. (dev blog)
#2671320 - 02/12/09 01:03 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: Flexman]  
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GeeBee Offline
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So if I got this right.
I have 16 or so chances of aquiring/designating a target (more if im lucky) then I have to turn off the laser to cool down for 30 mins and I should be able to do this up to 5 times. Makes me think then what is the point of designating a target to your wingman when you might aswell get the kill yourself because your only going to wareout your own laser. Hum! Im not a happy chappy.

#2671375 - 02/12/09 02:53 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: Flexman]  
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Ulrich Offline
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Originally Posted By: Flexman


Ulrich. Please spell correctly.


ED Team
#2671455 - 02/12/09 04:25 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: Ulrich]  
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Flexman Offline
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Originally Posted By: GeeBee

So if I got this right.
I have 16 or so chances of aquiring/designating a target (more if im lucky) then I have to turn off the laser to cool down for 30 mins and I should be able to do this up to 5 times. Makes me think then what is the point of designating a target to your wingman when you might aswell get the kill yourself because your only going to wareout your own laser. Hum! Im not a happy chappy.


It doesn't quite work out like that, when you range the target it's only for a short duration so it's perfectly fine for you to range the target and hand-off to wingmen. Lasing updates the computed distance from the inertial navigation system. Just avoid excessive range-finding.

It's possible to fly long sorties such as the Battle of Martvili (probably spelt that wrong) for 3 hours straight without failure.

It's also possible that you're experiencing a glitch with the laser standby switch where the mode gets inverted but the laser range-finder won't fire unless the switch is in the up position. At least I think that's what's going on.

Originally Posted By: Ulrich
Ulrich. Please spell correctly.


Corrected. Sorry, if I had a nickel for every time my name was spelt wrong, Howley, Horley, Hally.


Richard - You Have Control
Tricubic Studios Ltd. (dev blog)
#2671531 - 02/12/09 06:04 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: Flexman]  
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Lifer

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I'm always appreciative when ED Team members drop in to improve customer relations. biggrin


The issue is not p*ssy. The issue is monkey.
#2671543 - 02/12/09 06:17 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: letterboy1]  
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Lifer

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Speaking of laser burn-out, I'm on the first mission of the second phase in the campaign. Wow, what a target-rich environment. Until now I haven't really worried about monitoring my laser usage, but when you have armored target after armored target it gets hot quickly! I'm having to rethink my usually cautious approach of remaining at stand-off range . . . I might have to go in close with bore sighting and HE cannon rounds in order to attrit the enemy.


The issue is not p*ssy. The issue is monkey.
#2671628 - 02/12/09 08:02 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: letterboy1]  
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Dart Offline
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Lifer

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Quote:
Makes me think then what is the point of designating a target to your wingman when you might aswell get the kill yourself because your only going to wareout your own laser. Hum! Im not a happy chappy.


Actually, this is exactly why one passes on the target information.

The ED guys have a syntax problem with their quote about the "rangefinder" limitations; while it's the same laser, it's used in different modes of energy use and heat output. The modes are sufficiently different that back in a previous life I worked with a Ground/Vehicular Laser Locater Designator (G/VLLD, or "Glid") that actually had the distinction in the title. And let me tell you, the energy use (and heat) was radically different between simple range finding and target location versus active laser designation for munitions.

I might be a little off in my understanding, but if it's like most laser systems:

The laser in the nose of the aircraft is really used in three ways and at different power settings.

The first is simple range determination. It's very low wattage and is the standard "o" mode of the laser. Since it doesn't take a lot of energy (and the heat generated) to make a small beam that goes out and comes back to a receiver, we can do this all day long. After a bit one can slew the Shkval around and see that the distances are all wrong - because we've not told the laser to range for a long time.

Second is the fixed (locked) laser, or the "TA" laser. It's a constant pinging onto a fixed point; the main difference with the simple range finding laser is the way it's tied to the helicopter's navigation computers.

The sweetness of the whole locking and sending location information isn't really so much in the nose of the aircraft (though there is some sweet gimble setups), it's in knowing the precise location of the helicopter in three dimensions. If one the vertical angle of the laser, the direction, the distance of the laser to target AND the exact location (including altitude) of the helicopter, one can fix the target's location on the big blue ball in space. The error in location of the target is solely a function of the error range of the helicopter's self locating gear.

The Ka-50 uses inertial tracking from a known point, much like the old PADS system in the US Army. Today it's all GPS with inertial backup. Except the Russians aren't in on the military frequencies of our GPS satellites, which is why they're so keen on the system the EU is putting up (and they're partnered in). Further back, us forward observers used a flippin' map, compass and skill gained through experience to manually plug into our bulky digital message devices to determine target location based on laser information.

In Artillery terms, it's a Polar Plot to a target. The geometry is really straight forward. Knowing the precised location of the observer is the part that makes it really skillful. It's often easier to know the eight digit grid of a distant thing than oneself's grid reference, particularly when on the move.

In fact once the location of a thing is determined it doesn't need to be lased any more until it's time to be shot. This is the heart of the whole target ID and storage function. "Based on what I think is was my location at the time, there is Tank Target ID Number One at this place."

Anyhow, this is still low powered laser stuff that doesn't generate a lot of heat.

Third is the designation laser mode. Now we're talking high power, as before we were just looking for a tiny reflection a few times - but this time we're guiding something in, literally "painting" the target in laser light so the seeker can see it.

It's a super fast frequency pulsed laser (the pulses being fast - light is pretty consistent in speed here on Earth) that is keyed to a recepter looking for that exact same frequency pulse. Every helicopter has it's unique frequency, btw, so that your missiles don't follow my laser (and vice versa), the enemy can't spoof it, etc., that is set on the ground by the ammo guys and ground crew (and is part of the mission brief or SOP IRL).

Before we were just slapping a smallish spot (no more than a few inches wide at the target) onto a distant object to get range, but now we're putting a big cone of laser light out there that makes a nice constant circle about three feet in diameter and is as bright as we can possibly make it. That missile is looking for the center (or best reflectiveness) of that circle to follow in, and at the speeds of missiles there can't be any interruption.

This is the laser that threat monitors looks for. If the luminosity of a laser on a recepter is sufficiently high in the designation frequency range (most designators are in one frequency band of light for reasons of resistance to environmental interference), bells and whistles go off - there's only one reason one would be painted with a designation intensity of a laser, and that's for guidance of munitions.

The power required isn't the issue so much as the flippin' heat designation lasers make as a byproduct.

The designation laser isn't fired until the missile is fired, btw. We might be designating targets for our friends on the map with a locater/ranging laser, but it's only using the word in it's synomym form; the designating mode of the laser is reserved solely for our missiles.

So letterboy can "lock" targets all day long (or as long as he has fuel) and see a "TA" on the hud without fear of losing the laser, since it's not actually in designation mode. Rockets and guns are cheap in terms of laser heat - it's those missiles on the outside that are costly.

The Kamov guys had to balance weight for cooling against the requirements of munitions, and made a pretty good compromise. Time of flight for the guided missiles the Ka-50 carries at max range is around nine seconds, so they fudged and made the single designation cycle ten seconds, followed by a five second pause to let the metal, ceramic, and glass bits in the laser head cool down from critical heat.

That's get cooler from max heat, though, not really "cooled down." They're not getting rid of heat so much as letting it move around the targeting/designation head in a generalized way. The whole assembly is heating up with every designation, and is much slower to lose that heat once it's gained.

The Ka-50 carries twelve laser guided missiles (counting in my head, visualizing the bird, so I might be off), so they ensured they built in a little extra in case there's a misfire and a target has to be designated again, for a total of sixteen. If one has to refire four of one's missiles in order to get launched it's time to whup somebody on the ground when we get back.

At sixteen designations the whole thing is ready to have the pack of hotdogs we taped to the outside of the assembly removed and served (nicely cooked), and it needs thirty minutes for the whole mess to come back down to the ambient temperature (give or take, depending on environmental conditions). We can't fault ED for not modelling ambient air temperature against cooling time for the laser locater/designator assembly; I'll bet that half an hour is the median time for 68 degrees at sea level in a hanger as written down in some manual.

It's really not a terrible compromise, and some fine engineering when one thinks about it. By the time the laser locater/designator assembly becomes too hot to designate the pilot has expended all the munitons that require a designator and he'd return to base.

Figure that it takes a minimum of fifteen minutes to get back to a really forwardly placed FARP and another 15 to refuel and re-arm - and yet another fifteen back to the front, and forty five minutes has passed, more than enough time for stuff to cool down. But truthfully, if the front is fifteen minutes away or less by helicopter and requires multiple quick turn arounds in rearming the FARP is going to be either heavily shelled or overrun in the very near future.


The opinions of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

More dumb stuff at http://www.darts-page.com

From Laser:
"The forum is the place where combat (real time) flight simulator fans come to play turn based strategy combat."
#2671677 - 02/12/09 09:12 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: letterboy1]  
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Originally Posted By: letterboy1
I'm always appreciative when ED Team members drop in to improve customer relations. biggrin

Wait till you have a technical problem with the game and he comes to help...........

#2671724 - 02/12/09 10:01 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: LA_Gunz]  
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Actually Dart, the LR/D IS the same laser, and the guidance laser is a different one smile

The LR/D is the more powerful tool, and the one you normally use to get range. It heats up quick.

The guidance laser is much less powerful; it generates a grid inside which the missile flies. It does NOT designate the target. It can afford to be less powerful because you're not looking for its reflection off the target - rather, the missile is looking backwards toward the helicopter to see the grid 'drawn' by this laser.


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#2671738 - 02/12/09 10:12 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: GrayGhost]  
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Dart Offline
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Lifer

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So why is the guidance laser the one with the timers on it?

Granted, it's a cool way of looking at things - guiding the missile from the helicopter onto the back of the missile rather than the Western way of having the missile look forward - but now I'm completely confused. I guess I need to research the missiles, as I don't see how they put a seeker head on the rear of the missile.

I can lase, lock ("TA") and ID multiple targets (far more than 16, and much longer than ten seconds) without any problems; it's the firing of missiles and the designation process that seems to make things overheat.


The opinions of this poster are largely based on facts and portray a possible version of the actual events.

More dumb stuff at http://www.darts-page.com

From Laser:
"The forum is the place where combat (real time) flight simulator fans come to play turn based strategy combat."
#2671770 - 02/12/09 10:47 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: Dart]  
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Well, the grid is drawn inside a virtual cone, if you will. If you draw it out you'll understand ...

You basically want the grid to be of constant size around the missile. As the missile travels away, the cone shrinks to keep the grid size around the missile consistent.

Since we don't know where the missile's position is, we time it from known ballistics, and narrow the cone with time: Thus the timer.

'TA' fires the LR/D for something between 3 and 8 seconds, depending on this or that (I don't recall the conditions), when you press the 'enter' key to lock onto the target - or to range a piece of ground.

I hope that helps a bit.

FYI it's not really a 'seeker' in the tail, just a sensor for grid position.


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#2671795 - 02/12/09 11:02 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: LA_Gunz]  
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Lifer

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Columbus, GA USA
Originally Posted By: LA_Gunz
Originally Posted By: letterboy1
I'm always appreciative when ED Team members drop in to improve customer relations. biggrin

Wait till you have a technical problem with the game and he comes to help...........


Heh heh, he didn't come here to help . . . that's just the point. I can appreciate someone's efforts to help, but if they get a childish attitude about their name being mispelled then they deserve a little joke. smile


The issue is not p*ssy. The issue is monkey.
#2671796 - 02/12/09 11:03 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: letterboy1]  
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Maybe he was joking too smile


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#2671842 - 02/13/09 12:20 AM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: GrayGhost]  
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letterboy1 Offline
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Lifer

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Originally Posted By: GrayGhost
Maybe he was joking too smile


Good point. smile


The issue is not p*ssy. The issue is monkey.
#2672537 - 02/14/09 01:11 AM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: GrayGhost]  
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Well dart that was one of the best reads I have for a long time - thank you sir!

I guess then it makes sense to get as close as possible to your target without making yourself ridiculously vulnerable so to to reduce the flight time of the missile and the time the designator is active. And in the case of heavy tanks which usually require at least 2 missiles, it would make sense to fire both at once to save lasing time?

#2701809 - 04/02/09 04:05 AM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: Jack_57]  
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Skydoc Offline
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So, to summarize:

1. I can fire 16 missiles before the LD craps out for 30 minutes.

2. After 30 minutes, I get a new crop of 16 shots.

3. I can do this 5 times for a total of 80 missiles and then the whole system packs up and I have to go home unless I want to keep working the baddies with guns and bracketing.

4. And tehre is some bug that occasionally leaves the laser on even when the switch is in the on position and then everything gets reversed until you fix it using the keyboard command.

Is that about the gist of it?


Fas est ab hoste docere

...Skydoc...out!
#2701838 - 04/02/09 05:47 AM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: Skydoc]  
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The way the laser craps out is pretty sketchy and I'm not sure it's totally related to modeling.

But what you can do if it happens, is land at a FARP or airfield and stop your blades, wait 3-4 minutes and you have a new helicopter.

I have limped back with blades missing and won in this manner, hehe.

Personally I feel we ought to get a laser reset with rearming---no it's not real, but neither is a 1 minute rearm with blades spinning.


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#2702032 - 04/02/09 05:19 PM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: uhoh6]  
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Skydoc Offline
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Originally Posted By: uhoh6


But what you can do if it happens, is land at a FARP or airfield and stop your blades, wait 3-4 minutes and you have a new helicopter.



That's pretty nifty. Do I need to shut down the whole bird to "cold" start position or just cut off the engines and/or APU? Also is there some indication that you have a new bird? Like all teh switches go to "off" or something?

Cheers,


Fas est ab hoste docere

...Skydoc...out!
#2703460 - 04/06/09 12:45 AM Re: Lazer Burn out [Re: Skydoc]  
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I turn the laser off anytime I'm not using it.

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