Sorry to bump, but a bunch of us guys all the way in Australia by the name of FLY -=HIGH=- (Oh so far away) saw your ideas for the Roflcopter a while back.
We basically took the idea and ran with it. Then eventually flew with it and we've managed to get our ROFL-ing up to what we deem a fairly high standard.
We set out with our basic 6-man squad on a Titan map (Because it's Australia, there aren't that many servers down here and a large vehicle CQ map is a rare occurence).
Pilot as Support.
5 Engineers
We've managed to have a counter to everything Australian servers have managed to pit against us in the months of fine-tuning the Roflcopter. In the last couple of weeks we've done a couple of pub-server raids and managed to bring an entire CQ map to a standstill as the enemy pitted 8 (Yes, eight) SAAWs against us and we still managed to rain hell upon them.
Our Roflcopter takes out:
Infantry - With the standard miniguns, we do circular slow sweeps around a point, or a quick one-time straight sweep "strafing run" style.
FAVs - Barely get a mention. Once spotted they CAN be destroyed easily by gunners if we go into a chase. However most times we don't bother as there are higher priority targets elsewhere.
Tanks - This one is a bit harder but we usually try to manouver behind it by flying at a great height above it. We then use a guided rocket with the pilot keeping the transport still to destroy the tank, or at least set it on fire. In the event of a no-kill, gunners stand by to kill the occupants of the tank. If the tank is moving we fly at a medium height at the pace of the tank and Motion Mine bomb it, usually to great sucess.
APCs - This involves the same deal as a tank, except we use two rockets in quick sucession with gunners on standby. The mortars seem the most deadly to the occupants of the Roflcopter, but if we come across any heavy APC resistance we solve it by going for longer range, guerilla style shots.
Walkers - We usually do a quick Motion Mine sweep over Walkers to prevent them from moving and then keep gunners on standby. A circular sweep at high altitudes followed by barrages of rockets and the occasionaly re-sweep of motion mines means a quick and timely death for these things.
Gunships - I know everyone thinks they're the natural born enemy of a roflcopter. Let me assure you. They're not. No matter how good the pilot is, provided our roflcopter sees the gunship before it sees us... It's dead. Every single time. We usually start off by tracking it with a SAAW. If the first shot hits most pilots will start flying to get rid of the 2nd one. We aim to hit seconds before the first shot hits the gunship with the two miniguns. We use the height of flight and the transport's kinetic energy to gain enough speed to keep on the gunships tail for long enough. Usually any encounter is over in less than 5 seconds.
What happens if the gunship sees us? Well generally if a TV missile hits us we're dead. We've managed to get around that by having the members of the transport on watch on all sides waiting for the signs of a TV missile launch (Ie the gunship trails us). Using our new RoTel system the time it takes from seeing that tell-tale sign to getting shields up and going into a defensive mode is less than a second (More on RoTel later). Provided the gunship isn't using a gunner (It's a pub server ok) with our full time repairers and extras we can survive up to 6 or 7 missile barrages of 10 hits in a row whilst still having both guns able to fire on the gunship.
Roschs - We take these out by flying away at a distance and using the Rosch shots to trace back to the location of the rosch and hit it with rockets or the miniguns.
Titan AA - Same deal as the Rosch, and yes, we have take down the Titan AA pretty easily in the past (Whilst it was manned).
Once we hit our stride with 5 to 6 man crews for the Rofl, up from the old world idea of 3 we realised we needed a more effective way of communication. The Roflcopter couldn't undergo any more physical improvements in accuracy or methods. To improve the efficiency of such a flying beast, us guys down at FLY -=HIGH=- invented what we like to call RoTel or Roflcopter Telecommunications.
Essentially it's a 6 to 7 page comms standard that we've developed that lifts the overall responsiveness and efficiency of the roflcopter. All our members have learnt this and RoTel is changing every day to become better and faster.
The positions work like so:
Pilot - Support with IDS and whatever else he wants.
Can go squadleader to guarantee a spawn into the Roflcopter in case of death.
The Crew - Engineers.
The crew rotates between positions depending on targets and level of difficulty. Obviously we have some really decent gunners and some really good Rocketeers. There are usually 2 designated SAAWers who will be ready to take on a gunship should the need arise. The other 2 will generally pack a Sudnik/Mitchell. Both will switch between guns (2&3) and repairs (5&7) depending on target. One member will sit in the weapons seats (4&6) for Motion Mine bombings or general on-the-move SAAWing or Rocketeering.
After reading about your way of dealing with Rosch Kz-27s (The move order) we're thinking about adopting that into RoTel and making one of our possible choices for Anti-Anti-Air...
Basically, we got the idea off you guys here at
TG and as far as I know we decided to take it further than
TG has so far. What we're asking for is any suggestions on how you would take down this roflcopter or anything you think that could make it better, after all if anyone could take us down, they're probably here at
TG.
One major problem we have is the lack of the ability to communicate with other squads on the ground. Yes our SL could relay to the CO and then let him disperse info but it's too slow when compared to things like RoTel. Most people on the ground near a silo don't understand that we're covering them and so just hide for extended periods of time as the enemy roams around.
Our Roflcopter team is always improving and are always out trying out new methods of enemy disposal. A couple of weeks ago we attempted to factor in a friendly gunship into our plan which worked pretty well. The gunship would fly beside the rofl for brief moments for air to air resupplying and repairing.
Anyone who wants to know more about the antics of FLY -=HIGH=- feel free to message me. Yeah we sound epicly serious with our RoTel and all that but deep down we're just a bunch of fun-loving Battlefielders.
