Today was a pretty busy day. I think I’m actually finished with the prototype. I’ve checked off all the items I had on my list.
I fixed the drag (it was too strong), and updated the navigation to correctly handle gliding missiles. It made long range missile shots possible. The first several screenshots are of a 15 mile shot from 10k feet at mach 1 with a Sparrow. Combination of speed and altitude allowed it to glide into the target at 550 knots. That’s super neat.
So neat that I spent a lot of time just tweaking settings and playing around with the missiles. It’s really cool seeing how dramatically different the flight profiles of each missile are, as well how your relative speed and altitude to the target make a massive difference in how likely you are to hit the target.
Trying to fire a Sidewinder while chasing a supersonic target is probably not going to work. Its motor burns out very quickly. However, a longer ranged missile like an AMRAAM, or especially the Sparrow with its super long sustain motor, can keep its speed up long enough to hit.
I started to reference DCS for missile motors, and realized I didn’t have two stage motors, so I added them. In the 4th screenshot, the break in the trail is the missile switching from its boost motor to its sustain motor. This gave a very different flight profile to the Sparrow, making it a very long range missile.
Finally, I started added a ship and the Harpoon missile. The Harpoon is more like a cruise missile than a missile, and it was the point where I started to realize that I’m just messing around because I accomplished my goal. It has me wondering on what’s next.
