Jamming Drones
Jamming of drones comes in 2 different forms.
- using the Spectrum Device - against individual drones
- using an area denial jammer - against all drones in a specific radius
Spectrum Device
UGV drones can be jammed with a jammer antenna. By default, all UGV vehicles will broadcast a signal between 434MHz and 440MHz. By activating the antenna on the signal with left-mouse button when there is enough signal strength the drones AI will be disabled. The signal has to be higher than -40 for jamming to be possible. As long as you keep having the jammer activated the drone will just stand still where it is and do nothing. So if you jam it and move past it, and stop the jam, the drone will continue with what it was doing before. However, if the drone already spotted you and went into combat, when you stop jamming it will still be in combat.
When a drone is firing the machine gun it happens in bursts. When you apply the jamming and the AI is halted, it will still finish the round of burst fire before stopping.
Video:
Area denial jammer
Player controlled and autonomous drones can not operate within the effective range of the area denial jammer.
- Autonomous drones will lose their autonomous capabilities (in technical terms disableAI "all" is called)
- and if being jammed for long enough will attempt to land.
- Any player that is currently controlling either the Driver or Gunner position of the drone is getting disconnected from it.
The screenshot below shows
- the default 3D model of the area denial jammer on the left
- and the message a drone pilot will see when getting disconnected on the upper right.
Any object can be made an area denial jammer, not just the one shown above. This can be done in both Zeus and 3den.
Camera effect
When approaching the effective radius of an active area denial drone jammer the controlling player's camera will be incrisingly distorted (see screenshots).
The intensity of this video deterioration is dependent on the distance between drone and jammer.
Spectral behaviour
To jam the drones the area denial jammer is working an all possible drone frequencies.
In the Spectrum Device this is visible as a very distinct spectral behaviour. Such a jammer will show a spectral peak that is "sweeping" from left to right.