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SAM Turret

DESCRIPTION:

This is a dedicated turret that can launch two medium range, variable speed, automatically guided logic Surface to Air Missiles (anti air missiles) with 25 degrees off boresight of maximum detection arch. This is the result of a contest that was held in which contestants had to make air to air guided missiles, which sparked my interest in making logic missiles, and, after many redesigns and tests, this is the resulting missile.
It's actual effectiveness currently sits on top of the line between gimmicky and useful, however, I never made it to be effective in combat, I made it to see how good I could get a logic guided missile to be. Don't expect it to be a superweapon to solve all your problems, its not. It has its flaws.

CONTROLS:

Arrow Keys: Control turret

Right Ctrl: Deploy (must be pressed before elevating and firing)

E: Launch left missile

R/F: Left missile manual boost override / Left missile manual brake override (respectively)

Y: Launch right missile

T/G: Right missile manual boost override / Right missile manual brake override (respectively)

Left click: Aiming camera

USER MANUAL:

(READ IF YOU WANT HIGHER CHANCES OF HITTING ♥♥♥♥)

The missile is in an ideal situation when at close range, on rear aspect and tracking a minimally moving medium-large sized target. These are the conditions in which hit probability is nearly (if not completely) 100%, if the missile is found in any other situation, hit probabilities will, even if marginally, decrease. You can, however, increase your chances by doing a few things.

The smaller the target is, the harder time the missile has tracking it, and the better shot you have to get for it to properly guide. Keep that in mind when picking targets. Don't be fooled by workshop planes, many of them have their bodywork made out of braces, which ARE NOT SOLID, that means the sensors on the missile's tracker head cannot detect them. Of course, every plane needs solid blocks to fly, but many times the cross section of the blocks the sensors can actually detect is much smaller than what the plane's size seems to be. What you see isnt the same as what the sensors see.

The missile has a maximum detection distance, it wont start tracking a long range target straight out of launch, the target needs to find itself inside the missile's detection cone for tracking to begin. The further away a target is, the weaker the tracking is, the closer, the stronger, what does that mean? That means that at medium/long ranges, you have to lead the target when launching a missile, to give the missile time and space to get to a good range and position on the target. That also means you have to aim well and not just mindlessly fire away

The missile is all-aspect, but front and side aspects have limited effectiveness, especially front. Given a well aimed launch, the missile will stil track at front and side aspects, but due to the very fast closure rates, it may have a hard time hitting the target. For those reasons, firing at front aspects is only recommended against large/medium-large sized targets (does that mean I cant fire front aspect on a small target? No, but your hit probabilities will be lower and will require a well aimed launch). Firing at side aspect isn't recommended for anything smaller than medium sized targets WITH PROPER LEAD

You should not be worried about how many Gs the missile can pull, or how hard it can turn, those will almost never be an issue, as the missile can literally do a 180 on a target. You should be worried about how well it tracks and guides. Given that tracking is best at close ranges, and following the target isnt the issue, we can conclude that the missile is in it's maximum effectiveness when launched at close ranges. Keep that in mind.

The manual overrides are there for a reason, and are a vital part of the missile's usage, depending on the situation you find yourself in. They are more like throttle settings, so you can control how fast the missile is going. Altough its variable speed is also automatically controlled, manually overriding it can mean the difference between a hit and a miss. When launching at a target at medium/long range (especially long range), the boost manual override is very important, given that the target will be outside the detection cone and the automation wont be able to do it. It's so useful because getting a good lead on a long range target is very difficult, so the boost comes into play, making the missile faster and shortening the necessary lead distance, but make sure to slow it down with the manual brake override when getting close to the target, otherwise it wont have enough time to turn and will miss.
When launching at small (and sometimes medium, depending on the closure rate) targets, front (and sometimes side) aspect, or just when you generally see the missile is gonna miss and overshoot the target/wont have enough time to turn, is when you should use the brake manual override, so you can slow down the missile and give it more time to track and turn towards the target, thus reducing the closure rate.

\/ IMPORTANT, READ \/

The missile has a tendency to lag just behind targets when it has succesfully guided towards them. It literally will stay centimeters away from the targets tail, refusing to go forwards. This happens because it is so close, the automation gets overwhelmed with signals and doesnt know what to do, to fix this, when it happens, just make sure it is lined up and hold down the boost manual override button, to forcefully ram the target with the missile.

To get the best effectiveness in terms of camera angles, focus the camera (middle mouse button click) on one of the blocks on the missile you intend to fire, then, switch to aiming camera (left click). Aim and launch the missile, then exit the aiming camera and your camera will be tracking the missile you just launched, thus making it much easier to confirm a kill, see planes blowing up and to know when to use the overrides. When the missile has already blown up or missed, just press F1 and re-focus (middle mouse button) on the turret. Repeat the process for the other missile.