VIRSS smoke

[Weasel]

Playing a game and my VIRSS fired and blocked an incoming Milan. However, there was a second milan sitting beside the first that fired as soon as the first missed. This missile had to travel through the same VIRSS smoke, and it did so with no percentile reduction.

Why doesn't VIRSS block LOS for all TI during that turn? Can this be fixed?

[Mobhack]

There is no such thing as "TI blocking smoke" in the Sp engine. VIRSS is a test for the particular missile, and the smoke animation is a graphical part of the response only.

So, to block a second incoming missile, assumin the firer has TI, you would need to have another dose of VIRSS on the target vehicle.

Cheers
Andy

[Weasel]

That is news to me indeed. I thought the VIRSS was the TI blocking smoke that is now used; and I know a bunch of others at the Blitz thought that too.

So what exactly is the VIRSS doing then that will cause the missile to take a check? If it isn't TI blocking smoke then what is it?

Will pass your response along so others are not confused.

[Weasel]

Ok, did a check on the web and VIRSS and visual and infared blocking smoke. So what you are saying Andy is it doesn't block TI because TI picks up heat signatures; correct?

Still wondering then what exactly it is doing, and why it is in the game if it only, in real life, blocks infared which is vision 30 and less in game terms. Why does it fire for a TI missile?

[Marek_Tucan]

In real life it blocks even some TI AFAIK. However, the game doesn't know how to "TI blocking smoke", so the smoke is "normal", except that it is tied to different byte in unit stats window and is interconnected with trigger that says "if ATGM comes, fire this smoke, not that ordinary smoke, and try confusing the missile accuracy rating by 1D100 percent".

Atleast that's how I view it.

[Mobhack]

It is doing what I said before - if a vehicle has a VIRSS round available then it can check on an incoming missile, and if successful it blocks that missile. Success or failure, it still fires the smoke animation as part of the VIRSS routine, just like the explosion animation occurs for CIWS. The protection comes from the successful test, and has zip-zero to do with the smoke animation whatsoever.

All smoke in the SP games is "smoke", and can be seen through by TI, so the smoke so discharged has absolutely no effect on any subsequent missiles if fired by firers who themselves have TI.

Cheers
Andy

[Weasel]

Sorry to be a pain, but I want to understand this in game terms as I was passing along to the boots I was teaching that VIRSS is TI blocking smoke. Ok, so it is not a smoke round firing according to the game, that is just an animation so one knows that VIRSS has fired.

So what exactly is winSPMBT modeling VIRSS as then? What it the vehicle "firing" to try and block a missile?

[Marek_Tucan]

The "VIRSS" in game terms attempts to model all various kinds of soft-kill defensive devices, like real VIRSS or Shtora jammer etc.

CIWS represents hard-kill devices like Arena or Drozd.

[DRG]

Weasel said:

So what exactly is winSPMBT modeling VIRSS as then? What it the vehicle "firing" to try and block a missile?

If a vehicle has VIRSS and a ATGM is fired the game runs a routine to determine if the VIRSS was sucessful in diverting the missle or not for that , and only that, missle. The "smoke" is, as you noted, just an animation so you know that VIRSS has fired. So "VIRSS" in the game is a code routine the game runs when a vehicle equiped with VIRSS detects a ATGM launch.

Don

[Weasel]

Ok, understood now. The smoke is strictly telling you that VIRSS was used and thus one less VIRSS.

In real life it is a smoke round, but in game terms you cannot model the two different smokes, so the game runs a VIRSS test and pops generic smoke just so you know it did conduct a VIRSS vs missile test.