Laser Arm warm-up time?

[Eagle-Eye]

Hey guys,

During buddy lasing practice yesterday, I noticed that after disabling and re-enabling the LASER ARM, it can take some time before I can actually operate the laser. To know how much, I’ve looked through all the manuals that came with BMS, but I found out that none mention a required Laser warm-up at any time. Searched the forum but didn’t find any relevant threads either. If I missed it somehow, I apologise.

After 45 minutes of testing just now, I’ve confirmed the following logic:
Initial Laser Arm: time until laser active equals 30 seconds
Laser Off, Laser Arm after 30 seconds or less: time until laser active equals Laser Off-time. E.g. Laser Off for 14 seconds - set Laser Arm - Laser will become active after 14 seconds
Laser Off, Laser Arm after 30 seconds or more: time until able to use laser always equals 30 seconds. E.g. Laser Off for 30, 54 or 600 seconds - set Laser Arm - Laser will become active after 30 seconds

Special case:
Laser Off, Laser Arm after 30 seconds or more, Laser Off again after less than 30 seconds, Laser Arm after 30 seconds or less: time until able to use laser equals sum of both Laser Off-times, with a max of 60 seconds

Buddy lasing requires the Shooter to set Laser Off, which we do no later than when we have positively identified the target. This is often a minute or more before Paveway already, which makes it impossible to take over whenever the Eyeball is unable to continue guidance, as inability / lack of guidance is only noticed or relevant in the final ~20 seconds in most cases. I asked around a bit and was told that IRL, there is no warm-up time at all (or at least not if the laser had been enabled earlier), which leads me to think this is a bug?

On a sidenote, while I was looking for the information, I was confused by the following screenshots from the BMS Manual (first screenshot) and the BMS -34 (last 2 screenshots).
Both the BMS Manual and -34 list the LGB code range as 1511 - 1788 (picture 1 and 2), while -34 also speaks of range 1111 - 1788. Is the latter a typo, or is that just to indicate the Sniper ATP Laser range, to be read separate from the LGB codes?

Cheers,
Eagle-Eye

[l3crusader]

Why does the shooter has to set Laser OFF ? If you deactivate auto lase and do not use the first trigger you won’t lase either.

As for warm-up time, it probably depends on the pod IRL (e.g. LANTIRN is probably longer than Sniper). I’d need to check what were the docs that were used for that.

[Eagle-Eye]

We do it as per real life Belgian Air Force SOP, where Shooter sets Laser Off as a contingency to avoid double lasing, just in case he forgot to disable auto-lase or accidentally triggers the manual lase. The switch position on your left panel is also a lot more visible and easily accessible than the DED page.

[Raptor]

Laser warmup data are based on some rl videos, at least for LANTIRN.

[Red Dog]

I can tell you that the manual team is not aware of any restriction of laser arm warmup
But it’s the perfect time to correct it if it’s true

[Eagle-Eye]

Regardless of whether warm-up is or isn’t a requirement IRL, though, I’m pretty certain it’s incorrect behaviour that if less than 30 seconds, the “reactivation time” always equals the “off time” to the second?

[Leech]

@Eagle-Eye:

Regardless of whether warm-up is or isn’t a requirement IRL, though, I’m pretty certain it’s incorrect behaviour that if less than 30 seconds, the “reactivation time” always equals the “off time” to the second?

SNIPER
The LASER ARM switch is turned off then on, there may be a 30-second delay before the system will arm the
laser again.
Other manuals state that there will be up to a 30 second delay, so BMS has hit the sweet spot.

In regards to the training scenario, the “deadeye” is simulating a TGP fault and yes, he does turn his laser off. Until he becomes “eyeball” ,he is in no rush to turn his laser on. He has plenty of time .

[I-Hawk]

@Red:

I can tell you that the manual team is not aware of any restriction of laser arm warmup
But it’s the perfect time to correct it if it’s true

Probably my bad, or you can pick on Leech if you like

[Leech]

Bad I-Hawk

[Red Dog]

Bad Bad leech

Nah, i’ll blame it on the fact that we always put that switch to arm much longer before than the last possible moment
even in our deadeye/eyeball training sorties we never quite had the issue

I’ll make sure to correct that in future revision