How do door gunners actually work?

[Malidictus]

In my group of friends, there's something of a "door gunner rivalry," usually between the Chinook .50 cals and the Super Jolly Green Bus' 7.62 miniguns. Sadly, any discussions on the subject tend to begin and end with the title question, because we genuinely don't know how they work. From experience, I can make a few assertions, but I'd like to pose the question to the community (and hopefully - the developers) - how do door gunners actually work?

For ease of use, I want to break the main question down into individual points:

What determines initial shot delay? It's pretty obvious that door gunners don't immediately open fire against targets within their range and cone of fire. There's a delay there, but that delay seems WILDLY inconsistent. It's been my experience that my door gunners suffer a significant delay before they open fire against the first target, but will then switch targets with a much smaller (but still present) delay. What determines this?

What determines target priority? Intuitively, I'd expect my door gunners to pick the closest target, but they don't seem to do so. Very often they'll pick a target seemingly at random, with no pattern that I can deduce. In almost every instance, they appear to fire on Heavy Machineguns last, which increases the danger to my Helicopter significantly. What's the logic behind target selection and do I have any influence over it?

What determines accuracy? Sometimes my door gunners will fire against the same one soldier for 30 seconds and "hit nothing but air." Sometimes they'll gun down three people within three seconds with quarter-second bursts. Is their weapon spread truly random, or can I influence it? Over time, my friends have speculated that flying slowly or not turning sharply increases door gunner hit rate, but I'm not entirely sure wither is the case. It does seem like distance affects their accuracy, though that may just be the nature of bullet drop and shot spread. What - if anything - can I do to improve my door gunners' ability to kill a target they're already shooting at?

What determines range? Door gunners have better sight range than my pilot, that much is obvious. They'll almost always fire on enemies that I don't "see," in the sense of having blue markers over them. In fact, the range at which they'll shoot seems fairly large, but is it static? What's the maximum range a door gunner will shoot at, and does anything affect it?

What determines burst size? Unlike all other guns in the game, door gunners don't and can't fire continously. Every so often, a short pause interrupts the stream of bullets. This also happens when I control the door gunners manually. This pause doesn't seem to happen consistently - sometimes they'll fire for several seconds before pausing, sometimes they'll pause a couple of times per second. What determines this and what is its game design purpose?

Do friendly scouts spotting infantry affect anything? Currently, it seems like if a scout spots infantry on the ground, my door gunners will immediately open fire on them even if they weren't previously. It seems like spotted infantry will either be fired at more frequently, shot at from a greater range or shot at with a shorter delay... Sometimes. The inconsistency of this theory suggests it might be just confirmation bias, so does spotting affect anything?

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I realise these are somewhat technical questions that I don't necessarily need to know the answer to in order to play the game. Like spotting being an AoE instead of a cone, however, knowing the mechanics would help me better learn the game. If anyone has knowledge on the matter they wish to share, please help me understand this.

[DeviousDave]

What I can tell, (and this comes from my observations so don't quote me on this)

What determines initial shot delay?
It seems to be how long it takes for the gunner to 'spot' the target, same way as a scout helo spots infantry at certain ranges, closer you are the faster the gunners see them.

What determines target priority?
Outside of who the gunner sees first, no idea - although my gunners do seem to have a thing against Man-PADS and RPG's as they tend to die first.

What determines accuracy?
Your distance to the target, orientation (how clear a shot the gunner has) and flight speed as well as maneuvering all seem to contribute to hit rate with door gunners - I tend to maintain a constant speed and gently circle the target zone to get best results.

What determines range?
I believe it's static and based on the gun in the gunners slot (so a more powerful gun has a greater range)

What determines burst size?
Again I think it's based on the weapon but beyond that I have no idea, might be RNG or could be a hidden ammo count on gunners or temp gauge

Do friendly scouts spotting infantry affect anything?
Yes (as far as I can tell) every time someone spots hostile infantry my gunners tend to open up on them immediately and seem to hit more often (+ ground units tend to fire on spotted targets rather than just sitting there and taking it like chumps)

A dev could probably answer better.

[Malidictus]

See the thing is that while I've noticed those factors, they only seem to apply sometimes. You'd think that being closer to an enemy would make door gunners fire on it faster... Except I've had instances of hovering next to an enemy on a cliff for a good 5 seconds before he pumps an RPG into my side, while my Door Gunners do nothing the entire time. I've had my door gunners spend 10-15 seconds missing an enemy 10 meters from the door while I hover still, and at the same time I've had a single door gunner wipe out 15 people in 15 seconds while I fly at 200 kph in steep rollercoaster circles, banked at 45 degrees sideways.

It feels like any intuitive observation I've made, there's one completely counter-intuitive one. The only way I've been able to get consistent behaviour out of my door gunners was to fly high, fly fast and bank hard to the side. While that approach still has a long initial delay, my door gunners seem to swap from target to target pretty quickly once they get going, an their accuracy appears entirely random. I don't know if that means anything or if it's just more confirmation biast, but it's making me suspect the system is either entirely or mostly random and we're seeing patterns where none exist.

[FatherSarge]

I've actually spoken with iTold about this before and here are the basics:

It's all a random number generator, basically given buffs and debuffs for certain factors.

The further away you are, the longer the delay for your gunners to fire and the less accurate they are. A random number is chosen within a range of numbers for:
1. Will the gunner fire?
2. How accurate is that fire?

This sequence continues which determines length of burst (the will gunner fire? is buffed to keep him firing)

Another "buff" is if the enemy has been spotted by the pilot, this usually completely removes the will the gunner fire? roll and the gunner will open fire immediately and fire until the target is killed or sight is lost (roll for accuracy still happens)

I hope this helps you out!

[Malidictus]

OK, so distance determines the fire delay and the accuracy, burst size is entirely random and the enemy being spotted (you say "by the pilot," I assume scout spots count the same) will eliminate fire delay entirely.

That all makes sense. What about my experience of door gunners having a fire delay for only the first enemy they see and being able to switch targets with no delay? Is that intentional behaviour, do you think, or is it a quirk of the system? I can imagine switching targets is treated the same as shooting at the same target...

[FatherSarge]

My understanding is that it is all run off the same random number generator, including the target, so your gunner rolls for a target, delays, fires, rolls on the other target, no delay, switches targets, fires, etc.

I spent a few hours with Itold talking about tweaks to it (gunners becoming "minispotters" for just the pilot that affect the roll and firing, etc) but I don't think it's high on the priority list.

[Malidictus]

To be honest, I'd rather Door Gunners didn't actually spot targets with markers on them. Scouts have their own unique mechanic and are if not necessary then very, very useful to have on the team. As such, I'd rather not let non-scout helicopters spot for themselves. As the Door Gunners currently are, they still tell you where enemies are by tracking their tracers, but you still have to be paying attention.

[FatherSarge]

True, I was also toying with the idea of removing the delay if the enemy is seen by the gunner firing (door gunner instantly returns fire)

[Malidictus]

Returning fire is actually not a bad idea. That's how human players typically detect soldiers in the absence of a scout - fire at the muzzle flashes :) Maybe consider doing this only if the soldier fires at the player helicopter, however. This should cut down on multiple doorgunner-equipped helis firing on the same target at the same time (which would look janky) and we can argue it's because the muzzle flash is only really visible if the gun's pointed at you. That's not realistic, but I feel it's necessary to limit door gunners acting as mini-scouts.

[mightyconan]

I like the extended spot range of door gunners, it seems reasonable the way it is now. There's some advantage for sure as you'd expect for having extra eyes on the field, but they're not designating targets, just performing their gunner role.