Vehicle disabling

[Stardouser]

A lot of stuff from BF3 has been discussed but I haven't seen this being talked about. Battlefield 3 has a "feature" wherein a vehicle, let's use a tank as an example, when it hits 50% health, it is "disabled". This means that its speed is crippled and it then begins to slowly burn (lose a few health percentage points per second).

This applies to jeeps as well, and aircraft too.

I do not believe this is something that PS2 should have, and I haven't seen it discussed yet.

What say you?

Edit: NB: I am against disabling. This is not an idea suggestion, but a prevention thread.

[PredatorFour]

As a dedicated mag driver i resoundingly said no. If you played PS in tanks you would know what i mean when i say some of the best times were `getting away` when you had pretty much no health at all. Managing to escape/blow up the prey stalking you then find a nice place to repair was awesome and a big factor of why driving tanks was so fun.

You also knew when you had half health to gtfo outta hostile situations knowing you could at least take some damage on your way to repair.

[Gandhi]

I don't think it has a place in this game. It makes sense in BF3, where you have a limited number of people and tanks on the map, and might want to make an effort to save a disabled one. But in Planetside's scale if a tank is going to be disabled at 50%, you might as well just have it explode at 50%. Getting out to repair it would be a non-option in any kind of busy fight and nobody from your team is going to run into the melee to do it for the same reason. With the sheer number of people playing I don't think limping to safety at a crippling pace is going to be all that practical in most cases.

But I have nothing against, say, losing your main cannon either as a dice roll as a result of severe damage or by targeted attacks. Or even crippling your speed in the same fashion, as long as it's not too easy to do.

[Xyntech]

I think that as long as a vehicle has health, it should keep going. Yet at the same time, I like some of the ideas behind disabling.

I would propose this:

All vehicles are fully functional until they reach 0% health. Once they reach zero health, they become either disabled or destroyed.

If a vehicle has 1% health and is hit by a tank round, it is ALWAYS instantly destroyed. If a vehicle loses the last of it's health to small arms fire, it will ALWAYS be merely disabled. How powerful the final blow was, how low the vehicles health when that final blow was delivered, and the base quantity of armor that the vehicle has would all determine how likely it was to just be disabled or instantly destroyed.

Disabled vehicles would then be given a secondary health bar, with burning damage slowly eating away at it until the vehicle finally blew up. Additional enemy shots could hasten it's final destruction.

The crew inside would have to get out to avoid taking burn damage, but assuming they were able to survive outside the vehicle, they could then attempt to repair the disabled vehicle.

I just don't think it's right for a vehicle to claim to have health and yet not be able to function, or for every vehicle to be disabled before being destroyed. I don't see any problem with having a system in place that allows for the potential to 'revive' a dead vehicle, provided it was merely disabled and not destroyed.

[FastAndFree]

Most definitely no, except for aircraft at the very bottom few percents of their armor bar (replacing blowing up with crashing and then blowing up)

[Coreldan]

Lol. What did BF3s vehicle disabling even do? It never stopped moving, it never stopped shooting. But hey, free points for "disabling" vehicle despite it being fully functional.

[Fenrod]

At less than 10%, aircrafts should be slowed down.

[Stardouser]

I think that as long as a vehicle has health, it should keep going. Yet at the same time, I like some of the ideas behind disabling.

I would propose this:

All vehicles are fully functional until they reach 0% health. Once they reach zero health, they become either disabled or destroyed.

If a vehicle has 1% health and is hit by a tank round, it is ALWAYS instantly destroyed. If a vehicle loses the last of it's health to small arms fire, it will ALWAYS be merely disabled. How powerful the final blow was, how low the vehicles health when that final blow was delivered, and the base quantity of armor that the vehicle has would all determine how likely it was to just be disabled or instantly destroyed.

Disabled vehicles would then be given a secondary health bar, with burning damage slowly eating away at it until the vehicle finally blew up. Additional enemy shots could hasten it's final destruction.

The crew inside would have to get out to avoid taking burn damage, but assuming they were able to survive outside the vehicle, they could then attempt to repair the disabled vehicle.

I just don't think it's right for a vehicle to claim to have health and yet not be able to function, or for every vehicle to be disabled before being destroyed. I don't see any problem with having a system in place that allows for the potential to 'revive' a dead vehicle, provided it was merely disabled and not destroyed.

Actually, that's not a bad idea, because the disabling occurs AFTER it would have been dead in any other shooter game.

And for the immersion lovers, here's a thought. It seems like the tanks have a top mounted machine gun on them...what if a destroyed tank persisted for a few minutes where all the systems are broken and destroyed but people can jump into the top spot of the turret and use the machine gun? Those machine guns might be remote controlled, I couldn't tell.

Lol. What did BF3s vehicle disabling even do? It never stopped moving, it never stopped shooting. But hey, free points for "disabling" vehicle despite it being fully functional.

They still move, but at about 1/5 speed.

[Malorn]

In the GDC video I'm quite sure I saw a Prowler go disabled just before it was destroyed.

[Stardouser]

In the GDC video I'm quite sure I saw a Prowler go disabled just before it was destroyed.

If disabling occurs just before destruction it's not a huge deal. HOWEVER, I should mention that with BF3's system, you have to repair all the way to 100% before the disabling stops. If disabling occurred at 10%, it should stop when repaired past 20%.

[Malorn]

I would propose this:

All vehicles are fully functional until they reach 0% health. Once they reach zero health, they become either disabled or destroyed.

Disabled vehicles would then be given a secondary health bar, with burning damage slowly eating away at it until the vehicle finally blew up. Additional enemy shots could hasten it's final destruction.

The crew inside would have to get out to avoid taking burn damage, but assuming they were able to survive outside the vehicle, they could then attempt to repair the disabled vehicle.

What you describe could be achieved with a single health bar. Its just bigger and at a certain point the vehicle becomes disabled and starts on fire. When that happens depends on how big the 'disabled' health bar is vs the normal health bar. Just stitch them together.

You seem to dislike having a false sense of health where you see a health bar and it's not really the health you have because some of it will mean you are disabled.

That seems reasonable to me to show players exactly how much health before their vehicle will be useless rather than hiding it inside a health bar.

But on the other side of things, its also important to show hostile players exactly how much health is required to blow something up. I assume there will be an advanced targeting implant or something similar that shows health of targets. The opposite is true for blowing something up as being in i - you don't care about disable, you just want to know how close something is to being dead and having two health bars is deciving as to what it might really take to destroy the tank.

[IronMole]

Planetside used to have vehicle disabling on aircraft (lost control at certain damage) until they changed it to the bailing mechanism.

[EVILPIG]

I'm all for the ability to damage components that will affect a vehicles performance. I don't want this if it will affect game performance due to excessive hitboxes. I think a happy medium is for random systems to be affected when a vehicle gets under a certain threshold. 25% seems more appropriate to me.

[lolroflroflcake]

I've always found vehicle disabling to be sort of a pointless form of trolling on behalf of the people who make the game, sort of a last, "ha ha you sucked at driving/piloting and now your gonna die for it."

I mean just randomly exploding once you reach a certain damage level is also silly, but I really don't need the game to help me along in dying.

And plus if your a good driver and are constantly escape the fire of the entire enemy empire by the skin of your teeth I feel you should deserve to escape, not end up crippled and barely moving while some jerk picks you off at his leisure. It's a feature to make the game revolve around infantry by making vehicles even more vulnerable, so I don't like it.

[Tamas]

NO.

It's a bad concept to begin with. The only acceptable thing is that when left with <10% HP it may start to "burn" - aka slowly looses it's remaining HP. Even damaging tracks/engine/turret is a far better idea (temporarily disabling or reducing effectiveness).

The way BF3 works is stupid to say the least and I played since BF 1942 (first game). Auto regen if above 50%, if below - disabled and slowly burning - want to fix it? Fix it to 100%.....

If what 10-15% is the mark where disabling should occur and the fix should be at ~20 %.

[ArcIyte]

I'm all for the ability to damage components that will affect a vehicles performance. I don't want this if it will affect game performance due to excessive hitboxes. I think a happy medium is for random systems to be affected when a vehicle gets under a certain threshold. 25% seems more appropriate to me.

I 1-shot ammo racked an IS-3 in my Pershing last night :groovy:

I'm pretty sure it would just be irritating in PS2. I would support hitboxes for knocking out the treads, but that's about it.

[MrBloodworth]

Look, if you want to play BF3, go play BF 3. Around here, we use jammers, and have unique game play. At least we did.

[Xyntech]

What you describe could be achieved with a single health bar. Its just bigger and at a certain point the vehicle becomes disabled and starts on fire. When that happens depends on how big the 'disabled' health bar is vs the normal health bar. Just stitch them together.

You seem to dislike having a false sense of health where you see a health bar and it's not really the health you have because some of it will mean you are disabled.

That seems reasonable to me to show players exactly how much health before their vehicle will be useless rather than hiding it inside a health bar.

But on the other side of things, its also important to show hostile players exactly how much health is required to blow something up. I assume there will be an advanced targeting implant or something similar that shows health of targets. The opposite is true for blowing something up as being in i - you don't care about disable, you just want to know how close something is to being dead and having two health bars is deciving as to what it might really take to destroy the tank.

The point of having the disable being AFTER the health is entirely gone is to have disabling be complete, not just a few systems performing below optimally. For all intents and purposes, the disabled vehicle would be just as immediately unthreatening as a destroyed vehicle, as far as not being able to move or shoot, etc.

A disabled vehicle should be obviously burning and disabled, while a destroyed vehicle should be burnt out with pieces missing and blown off of it. With no advanced targeting type of thing, it should be pretty obvious visually whether you have just destroyed a vehicle, or merely disabled it.

With something like advanced targeting, you would simply see the new disabled status health bar appear once the enemy vehicle became disabled. You would also be able to use advanced targeting to guess how likely your target was going to be destroyed or disabled by your next shot.

The whole idea is that your regular health bar show you how long you have to live, just like your health bar does as a foot soldier. The only reason I even bring up a health bar for after it is disabled is because I think it would be good if you could still attempt to repair a disabled vehicle and, thus, the enemy should also have a chance to finish it off for good.

Obviously you could also do this with a singular health bar. Perhaps if there was a part of the health bar that was marked in a different color, like yellow instead of green, at which point you would know the vehicle would become completely non operational but not instantly blow up yet. I would only support this if it were 5% to 15% of the total health of the vehicle.

---

Another option would be to have two health bars that are always active, sort of like the armor/health of PS1 or the shield/health of PS2.

The first bar would be armor (which would not regenerate), the second bar would be for the internal systems.

The armor would absorb all damage until it got to say 25%. At 25% or below, the armor would start allowing some damage to seep through and damage the internal systems. The more damage those internal systems took, the less effective the tank would function (firing slower, driving slower, etc), until the tank finally become unable to move or shoot at all once the internal systems reached 50%.

Now the internal systems would START taking damage at 25% armor, but I figure that the armor would only let a tiny fraction of the damage through until it started getting a lot lower, like 10%, so even though you would only have to get the internal systems down to 50% to fully disable the tank, it probably wouldn't happen until the armor was significantly compromised.

The vehicle would be fully destroyed and explode when either the armor OR the internal systems reached zero, whichever came first. In this situation, a vehicle with 50% internal systems or lower would take burn damage, but the damage would only eat away at the internal systems health, doing no additional damage to the armor.

Just some thoughts on how to include an interesting system while improving it to not suck quite so bad.

[NewSith]

I want disabling to be tied to locational damage, bfr-style.

[Erendil]

What you describe could be achieved with a single health bar. Its just bigger and at a certain point the vehicle becomes disabled and starts on fire. When that happens depends on how big the 'disabled' health bar is vs the normal health bar. Just stitch them together.

You seem to dislike having a false sense of health where you see a health bar and it's not really the health you have because some of it will mean you are disabled.

That seems reasonable to me to show players exactly how much health before their vehicle will be useless rather than hiding it inside a health bar.

But on the other side of things, its also important to show hostile players exactly how much health is required to blow something up. I assume there will be an advanced targeting implant or something similar that shows health of targets. The opposite is true for blowing something up as being in i - you don't care about disable, you just want to know how close something is to being dead and having two health bars is deciving as to what it might really take to destroy the tank.

I don't think a two-colored health bar would be deceiving. You could have green on one side, red on the other. While in the green you still had control of the vehicle. Once in the red you'd lose control and the vehicle would start to slowly take burn damage, and at 0 it'd explode. Seems pretty straight forward.

EDIT: doh semi-ninja'd by Xyn. Xyn, I'd much rahter have one single two-color bar than have a second one appear once the vehicle got disabled. I think it'd throw ppl off a bit too.

Planetside used to have vehicle disabling on aircraft (lost control at certain damage) until they changed it to the bailing mechanism.

Before late 2005 ground vehicles used to get disabled too once you reached <10% armour. You'd suddenly lose all control of the vehicles movement and you'd slowly roll to a stop. I think you still had control of your weapons/turrets though.

And it sucked for exactly the reason Malorn mentioned. It was hard to tell on the armour bar at what exact point you'd lose control, so often you'd think you still had a little "life" left when suddenly one stray bullet would cause you to lose control. It felt like the game was almost taunting you since if you had just a tiny bit more health you could've escaped. But once you lost control you were as good as dead since in PS1 a stationary vehicle is a dead vehicle. Losing control just prolonged the agony, largely due to the uncertainly of being able to tell at what point you'd actually get disabled.

[RodenyC]

Keep like PS1.Throw a jammer at a Vanguard disable there weapon system.Allow them to move and all but no firing.

[Xyntech]

Keep like PS1.Throw a jammer at a Vanguard disable there weapon system.Allow them to move and all but no firing.

I'm all for that, but that's not really the topic at hand. This is about whether a tank loses some functionality and/or loses all functionality once they have been damaged a certain amount.

There is no reason you couldn't have a PS1 system where jammers disabled weapons but allowed the vehicle to drive away, while additionally having vehicles stop being able to drive once they took a certain amount of damage.

If they do have disabling, I just hope that it is clearly marked in some way (differen't colored part of the health bar, etc), and that it is only when the vehicle has lost the vast majority of it's health already.

[Bittermen]

Shouldn't this be in the idea vault?

[headcrab13]

I like the concept of disabling and realistic vehicle damage, but I LOVE all the narrow escapes that came with Planetside's "unrealistic" damage model -- 1% health left and racing over a hilltop and out of harm's way as tank shells and AV rounds whipped past you.

I say keep it the same as Planetside!

[Xyntech]

I like the concept of disabling and realistic vehicle damage, but I LOVE all the narrow escapes that came with Planetside's "unrealistic" damage model -- 1% health left and racing over a hilltop and out of harm's way as tank shells and AV rounds whipped past you.

I say keep it the same as Planetside!

No reason you couldn't still have that, as long as it was clearly marked on your health bar the exact point at which your vehicle would be compromised.

I'd be fine with it being the same as Planetside though. Either way, just so long as it isn't that you suddenly drive slower at 50% health. That shit is just poorly implemented.

[Bluecewe]

The primary benefit of the disabling system in Battlefield 3 is that it helps to prevent situations where a tank is able to retreat from a battle with extremely low health at an unrealistic speed.

I'd agree though that the percentage at which this effect is applied should be pretty low, otherwise it's too damaging to the concept of retreating.

[Stardouser]

Terrible idea.
They've already made it so that you can gun a tank as a driver, don't feed them more bad Battlefailed-inspired ideas please.

Shouldn't this be in the idea vault?

Isn't that for ideas we want? I started this thread to PREVENT disabling. I am concerned, since we haven't seen enough data to confirm that they are or are not considering this, that they might have it because BF3 does.

And SOE, I can tell you a lot of BF players don't like this disabling and don't want it. DICE is catering excessively to infantry players.

[Destroyeron]

No need for it in PS2.

[DayOne]

I like the idea of your vehicle being disabled at 0% health. It's now useless but can be repaired if you are in the middle of nowhere or don't have the resources for another vehicle.

[Xyntech]

Heh, yeah maybe my parts of the thread should have been in the idea vault. But then again, I generally post ideas that I really think could be good for the game in there, not just speculation about how a mediocre system from another game could be done better in this one.

I just get tired of the knee jerk reactions people have to certain ideas just because they have been done shitty elsewhere. Just because Battlefield fucked and idea up doesn't make the idea bad, just the implementation.

Just because PS1 had something good going doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, to make something even better.

If everyone throughout history went with the whole "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" mentality, we wouldn't have 90% of the technologies that we do today, fewer since almost everything we have is based on prior technological advancements.

If it isn't broken, don't retool it and use the new version without making sure it isn't worse than the old version. Not as catchy, but more accurate.

[Stardouser]

Don't take it personal, I just think it's a terrible idea by itself, regardless the context in which it's proposed or by whom.

It's not the first time I see it and it won't be the last. Many players already whined about the power of vehicles when Planetside had just released. Some even wanted RPG's that could insta-kill Vanguards (not even joking here).

I'm not sure if you're talking to me, but I am not proposing disabling, I am proposing that we NOT have disabling. Disabling IS a terrible idea, indeed.

[Fenrod]

Damn, I think we keep going round in circles there. Like Destroyeron said, there is no need for it.

[Stardouser]

I was. You started a poll, I voted, then explained my vote. Didn't want you to think that I thought you were pro-disabled vehicles, hence the reply. Should have made it more clear initially.

I think it's bad in general (any kind of, even what Xyntech proposes) because all it will do is prevent turning the tables at low health, which can be some of the most fun scenario's. If it's 25% where you get disabled, you will be a sitting duck, and you'll have an even harder time escaping.

Imagine a battle where 2 Magriders try to kill 1 Vanguard. The Vanguard team takes out 1 Magrider and is left with 50% armor. Then it receives 2 lucky shots and is reduced to a crawl at 25%, or even loses control completely. It becomes a sitting duck and the bad Magrider team gets to finish them off easily and drive away alive. It would be a reward for bad driving & shooting where otherwise the Vanguard team could have easily won.

I agree with you, the problem with BF3 is that they are seeking to cater to infantry with disabling. Many of BF3's new target audience players(and some of the old guard from BF2) refuse to take, for example, the tank, and to go try and kill the enemy tank. Often, they simply leave each other alone, and concentrate on raping infantry for points. And so DICE ruins the vehicle vs vehicle combat by making the game to where infantry can stand toe to toe with vehicles. And that philosophy is not one I would like to see repeated...

[Xyntech]

Imagine a battle where 2 Magriders try to kill 1 Vanguard. The Vanguard team takes out 1 Magrider and is left with 50% armor. Then it receives 2 lucky shots and is reduced to a crawl at 25%, or even loses control completely. It becomes a sitting duck and the bad Magrider team gets to finish them off easily and drive away alive. It would be a reward for bad driving & shooting where otherwise the Vanguard team could have easily won.

The only way the idea would work is if everyone, both players and developers, stopped thinking of the sub-optimally functioning or fully disabled portion as part of the standard health bar.

If a tank has 8000 health, it shouldn't lose 4000 and then suck, it should lose 8000 and then, if disabling is included, have 2000 more health (or whatever amount) but be next to useless in a fight.

With infantry, we lose all of our health, then we suddenly keel over. Then a medic can come along and revive us, and we are back in the fight. The idea for vehicles I was talking about would essentially be like being able to revive that vehicle, except that the enemy also has a chance to finish the vehicle off.

That's why my initial idea was that it be a completely different health bar if your vehicle became disabled, but just having a marked spot on the health bar would be fine as long as only the main part of the health bar was considered when talking about how much base health a vehicle had, because once that health was gone the vehicle would at least temporarily be out of the fight.

What I'm essentially saying is that being disabled could be exactly the same as being destroyed, with the caveat that the vehicle can still be repaired, or the enemy can fire another shot or two and finish the job.

Let me rephrase your quote from above with vehicles getting destroyed instead of disabled once their health runs out:

'Imagine a battle where 2 Magriders try to kill 1 Vanguard. The Vanguard team takes out 1 Magrider and is left with 66% armor. Then it receives 2 lucky shots and is destroyed. It becomes dead and the bad Magrider team gets to win and drive away alive. It would be a reward for bad driving & shooting where otherwise the Vanguard team could have easily won.'

Why two Magriders beating a Vanguard is bad, I have no clue.

I totally agree that suddenly reducing effectiveness drastically at 50% health is retarded, but slowly reducing effectiveness once the vehicle gets below 25% health, or suddenly rendering the vehicle inoperable at something like 5% or 10% health wouldn't be that big a deal. All it would do is provide another option for a tank crew to potentially survive and get back in the fight.

As much as people talk about enjoying those PS1 moments where they would get away with 1hp left, only to repair and fight another day, I'm sure that there would be plenty of people in PS2 with great stories of their tank being disabled and their team mates tank finishing off the last enemy just in time so that they could repair and rejoin the fight. Hell, there would still be room for the PS1 style situation, where you had 1hp left before you were disabled.

Again, I think that keeping it PS1 style where you just run out of health and blow up would be fine, but I'm just not seeing where some form of disabling would absolutely be a terrible thing no matter how it was done.

[metziih]

I don't like the idea of losing hitpoints over time just because my tank survived through the battle with 40% health left. Wouldn't it just encourage me to do a suicide run since there is no way I can get my tank fixed quickly enough?

(If I could decide, I would have complicated damage models for tanks. Kinda like in Battleground Europe / WW2 Online. Except for lol-crew/pilot-death which I did not like to be honest.)

[Immigrant]

I'm against "burning" feature (losing HP over time)... but I support idea that either effectiveness of guns gets downgraded and/or some advanced/non-essential options get shut down when HP gets lower than 20-25%. That would make engineer class more valuable and give another reason that would promote repair of the vehicles even more that the others that exist now.

[Xyntech]

If the idea you're proposing includes still being able to fire while disabled, then I agree that it would even be better unless the before mentioned ratio is all skewed.

That could be interesting. Vehicles are no longer able to move at 10% health, but can still fire their gun until they are destroyed. Jammers prevent guns from firing, but still let the vehicle drive away.

Sort of a best of both worlds type of a thing. Still leaves you a sitting duck if you take enough damage, but with an option to defend yourself a little, or perhaps get the killing blow on the final enemy so that you can get out and safely repair your vehicle.

I think we can all agree that it should not follow battlefields example on the matter though.

[TOCS]

No, it's the stupidest addition to vehicle immersion in games I've ever seen.

[SGTalon]

I have thought about this before.

I would love to see this as more of a simulator. Armor already has locational damage. Hit it in the back and it goes down faster and stuff like that.

What if it was something like Mechwarrior or the old Starfleet Battles:

- All Damage goes to locational armor until it penetrates.
- Once armor is penetrated, damage starts going to systems in that area.

With this type of system you could take a hits to the turret that disables just the turret but motion is unaffected. Similarly, damage to the engine reduces power, damage to the tracks reduces turning ability and speed, damage to the front/cockpit area affects targetting and information systems.

On top of this, repairs by mechanics would be locational. You have a damaged engine, you have to work on it from the back. as evidenced by visual damage and smoking/ mechanic hud overlays that show where the damage is.

It seems like it would be a logical extension of the locational damage that is already in the game. And it would add much more to the realism and awesomeness of the game.

Sure in a firefight, this type of thing could be rough but i think it would also help to hone the skills and expertise of the players.

We do want this game to be the most awesome game in the history of PC gaming right?

[PlaceboCyanide]

After thinking about it more - I changed my mind from my initial vote. Vehicles becoming disabled every single time before dying is kind of silly and only promotes the reckless rambo play. At the same time, what always broke immersion for me in previous games was a large tank being taken out by a SMG or other small arms fire. If the vehicle health were to drop to 0hp but it was dealt from a small arms weapon it shouldn't flat out kill it. Feels like a fair compromise to me that adds a bit of flavor to the game.

EDIT:
- All Damage goes to locational armor until it penetrates.
- Once armor is penetrated, damage starts going to systems in that area.

With this type of system you could take a hits to the turret that disables just the turret but motion is unaffected. Similarly, damage to the engine reduces power, damage to the tracks reduces turning ability and speed, damage to the front/cockpit area affects targetting and information systems.


Red Orchestra 2: Heroes of Stalingrad had something similar to this. if you used the Anti-Tank rifle in just the right way you could disable a Panzer IV's ability to: use brakes, use tracks, turn and/or fire their main gun, as well as disable the MG. It was an amazing mechanic, but many problems with the game made the game as a whole pretty terribad. I think as far as immersion and realism goes, having that sort of thing in a game would be incredible -- but it might also discourage and frustrate a lot of people. We don't (well, I don't at least) know how hard this would be to implement or how much it would tax the MMO aspect of PS2.

[headcrab13]

It's kind of silly to have a vehicle become disabled when it gets shot up too much.

The most realistic solution would be once your vehicle takes 5% or more damage, it bursts into flames and quickly burns down from 95%. Upon reaching 0% integrity, it transforms into a mega-BFR and rises from the ashes to crush all of your attackers while you watch from the bushes.

[Noivad]

I voted no because what BF3 does to its tanks is not realistic. But if PS2 took on the properties of World Of Tanks, where the gunner actually needs to use skill to kill another tank as well as tactics then damage to a tank would be acceptable. There are 16 different hit points on a WOT tank, and depending where you hit the tank, it gives different damage types. WOT is FTP so see what you think about it.

I would like to see PS2 have more then one tank type if possible. Light, medium, Heavy, Tank Destroyer, AWSP, Automated Weapon Self propeled, SPG, Self preled gun as in Arty. That would give a more Dynamic feel to the Battle field, would promote even more team work amongest Tanker types and overall be what I like most - realism.

Why should a game as big as PS2 not have the realism of a modern battle field today, in the future of PS2? :evil:

[Ejaz]

It doesn't need ground vehicle disabling, You are constantly on the move to defend or attack a base. Just IMO.

[SGTalon]

Here is another thing to think about.

How realistic is it that a tank can be running around at 1 hp at full capability and the next time it is hit with a little tiny bit of splash damage it explodes, killing everyone in the tank.

I think back to all the awesome vehicle and ship battle stories i have ever seen or read. You are struggling to manage damage on your vehicle, protecting your damaged side, desperately trying to take out your opponent or at least weaken him enough that you can get off some desperately needed repairs. Systems are going down with every hit, and finally you get off that critical turret hit that means that your enemy can't shoot you anymore. Your engineer quickly jumps out and repairs your drive system, you run back into range and blast the bad guy into tiny pieces, saving your entire faction from sure destruction.

[Talek Krell]

I'm pretty much with Xyntech and crew on this one. I don't hate the idea of having a vehicle be disabled, and it would make for some great Planetside moments when you manage to piece your tank back together in the middle of a firefight to finish an opponent that had dismissed you as done. At the same time though the BF3 model sounds stupidly restrictive, and a tank shouldn't start to malfunction until it's almost cooked anyway.

+1 to the idea of locational repairs. I think I like that.

[SGTalon]

Not sure how many of you guys read books on a regular basis, but I think that PS2 has technology similar to what John Ringo has in his book A Hymn Before Battle - here is a link to the free online version of it.

http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/11-UntotheBreachCD/UntotheBreachCD/A%20Hymn%20Before%20Battle/A_Hymn_Before_Battle.htm

I just feel like we can do better than BF3 style or even PS1 style vehicle warfare. We have all this awesome HUD technology. It might be easy to to add something better than just alive or dead.. or damage=disabled.

[Rbstr]

I'd like it, but I'd separate it almost entirely from the tank's HP value.
To take out treads, you've got to hit the treads. And it may have not done much damage to the vehicle as a whole. If you just hit the thing on the turret it shouldn't have problems with treads.
A good example, I think is Valkiria Chronicles. You could blow the treads off but the tank was still pretty well healthy, just immobile, or you could hit the thing in the side and deplete HP, or you could sneak around back and do it in with a shot or two.

But I'll take BF3 style over PS1's perfect-function-until-'splosion mechanic.
I also like the idea that a disabled vehicle is kind of like dead infantry. You disable it and it stops working but the people can get out and repair. Or you can keep shooting until it exploded for good, but are wasting time on something that can't fire back.

[Xyntech]

I'd love to see a simulator like model for PS2 tanks. Obviously it's already headed somewhat in that direction with locational armor.

Just no one shotting tanks, either with another tank or with AV weaponry. Tank battles certainly need to be on the longer side with more room for response and shifting tactics.

Locational repairs is an excellent idea as well. It would obviously look more interesting to be actually fixing the damaged part instead of randomly pointing to any part of the tanks hitbox, but more over than that, it would be another way to prevent things like having a tank sit stationary with an engineer healing it from behind. If you take damage to your rear, good news, you can keep your engi safely behind you as you repair. Take enough damage to the front though, and suddenly it's a lot more risky to repair, either for the engi exposed to enemy fire, or for the tank with it's ass sticking towards the enemy.

[BlazingSun]

BF3's vehicle disabling is pretty lame. 1 hit and you're a sitting duck. Stupid. I'd only agree on disabling, if it happened when you are down to 10% hitpoints or so. Not before that.

[TerminatorUK]

I think that as long as a vehicle has health, it should keep going. Yet at the same time, I like some of the ideas behind disabling.

I would propose this:

All vehicles are fully functional until they reach 0% health. Once they reach zero health, they become either disabled or destroyed.

If a vehicle has 1% health and is hit by a tank round, it is ALWAYS instantly destroyed. If a vehicle loses the last of it's health to small arms fire, it will ALWAYS be merely disabled. How powerful the final blow was, how low the vehicles health when that final blow was delivered, and the base quantity of armor that the vehicle has would all determine how likely it was to just be disabled or instantly destroyed.

Disabled vehicles would then be given a secondary health bar, with burning damage slowly eating away at it until the vehicle finally blew up. Additional enemy shots could hasten it's final destruction.

The crew inside would have to get out to avoid taking burn damage, but assuming they were able to survive outside the vehicle, they could then attempt to repair the disabled vehicle.

I just don't think it's right for a vehicle to claim to have health and yet not be able to function, or for every vehicle to be disabled before being destroyed. I don't see any problem with having a system in place that allows for the potential to 'revive' a dead vehicle, provided it was merely disabled and not destroyed.

This idea is brilliant!

Got my vote :)

[Cosmical]

Just to point out, disabling in BF3 was to address a few issues to do with Battlefields game play. To do with tanks remaining too mobile and deadly while under sustained fire, while also being healed. And to be fair with 10 times as many tanks of the feild, that issue is still quite pressing for PS2.

I like the derelict disabled tank idea. Picture this, your faction is being whittled down and your tank crews are on foot. There are a few of your tanks left that manage to overpower the enemies, what follows is the repair and remanning of the disabled tanks. Rewarding your side for pushing on and defeating, rather than retreating and saving your own tank at the cost of progress.

Now your tanks can engage the enemy tanks in a second battle, presumably closer to their base (which they have spawned new tanks at).

Could even have a system when you scavenge the disabled tanks for extra resources.

[Knocky]

We HAD vehicle disable in PS and it was taken out.

The only "disable vehicle" function I support is a EMP grenade.

[Zulthus]

Oh god no... that was one of the worse mechanics in BF3... one shot in the wrong place from a missile and your tank was basically useless. The good ol' damage meter is fine IMO.

[Blackwolf]

PS1 had disabling in it didn't it? I believe once a vehicle dropped below 10% health it moved at a crippled speed, smoke poured from it, break lights would blink sporadically, and various other things would occur. I'm not sure if they took it out completely or not though. I just remember that it was at one point in the game.

Personally I loved it. It was a badge of honor driving a Magrider that looked more bullet hole then armor.

I voted no, but if it was 10% then it would make more sense then. 50% is stupidly lame though.

[Stardouser]

Just to point out, disabling in BF3 was to address a few issues to do with Battlefields game play. To do with tanks remaining too mobile and deadly while under sustained fire, while also being healed. And to be fair with 10 times as many tanks of the feild, that issue is still quite pressing for PS2.

I like the derelict disabled tank idea. Picture this, your faction is being whittled down and your tank crews are on foot. There are a few of your tanks left that manage to overpower the enemies, what follows is the repair and remanning of the disabled tanks. Rewarding your side for pushing on and defeating, rather than retreating and saving your own tank at the cost of progress.

Now your tanks can engage the enemy tanks in a second battle, presumably closer to their base (which they have spawned new tanks at).

Could even have a system when you scavenge the disabled tanks for extra resources.
No, DICE clearly failed with disabling even for BF3. First of all, they also gave tanks vehicle regeneration. Hits that do not result in a disable, the tank merely needs to flee until regen kicks in. And now they've made Javelins 2 hit kills, they are clearly catering to infantry. And I mean catering, balance and appropriate vehicle play is not what's happening over there. Infantry are not supposed to be able to take vehicles one to one, but DICE's new philosophy is that teamwork isn't to be required. And so now we have a situation where infantry rule unless tanks bring 3 engineers to repair and camp at long range, and they DO do this, so it's a pretty irritating game for it. Both as infantry and as vehicle players.

The only problem that needed solved was vehicles getting away at 5% health. That could have been solved with a 10% disable point and the disable should have ended after being repaired past 10%.

[Xyntech]

Oh god no... that was one of the worse mechanics in BF3... one shot in the wrong place from a missile and your tank was basically useless. The good ol' damage meter is fine IMO.

Well there will be locational damage on tanks in PS2, so one well placed shot in the wrong place will still fuck you up pretty bad. Hopefully that one shot will never ever be enough to kill a tank though, that is just wrong.

In any case, disabling or no, a vehicles health should be balanced as to the time that the vehicle is fully operational, and I believe that all tanks should be able to survive at least two shots no matter where they are hit or by what, many more than two shots in most cases.

Disabling like BF3, no. Some form of disabling that has more to do with an alternative to instantly blowing up when your base hp is extremely low or runs out, fine by me. Damaging systems beneath your locational armor seems like the most interesting of these ideas to me considering we already will have locational damage.

At least the community seems to be pretty universal on the fact that we don't want anything like BF3. The devs seem pretty responsive to overwhelming outcry of that sort, so at least I think it's safe to say that we won't have tanks becoming any kind of disabled at 50% health, or if we do get that, we can damn sure get them to change it with prolonged outcry.

[Tialian]

And SOE, I can tell you a lot of BF players don't like this disabling and don't want it. DICE is catering excessively to infantry players.

Speaking as an infantry player, I don't approve of disabling.

In fact what I would like to see in PS2 is no disable, but for purposes of immersion, rather than a health bar I would want to see a visual indicator of how damaged a vehicle is.

Either by the vehicle looking more banged up, or failing that, at least some different levels of smoke...or both?

I wouldn't mind if they applied the same principle to infantry rather than having health bars. A persons armor could be broken or falling off to make it clear someone was near death.

I definitely don't approve of the automatic health regen of BF3, it should be like PS1 where you have to repair (vehicles) or heal (infantry) either manually or by going to a repair or medical station/terminal.

[Blackwolf]

Well there will be locational damage on tanks in PS2, so one well placed shot in the wrong place will still fuck you up pretty bad. Hopefully that one shot will never ever be enough to kill a tank though, that is just wrong.

In any case, disabling or no, a vehicles health should be balanced as to the time that the vehicle is fully operational, and I believe that all tanks should be able to survive at least two shots no matter where they are hit or by what, many more than two shots in most cases.

Disabling like BF3, no. Some form of disabling that has more to do with an alternative to instantly blowing up when your base hp is extremely low or runs out, fine by me. Damaging systems beneath your locational armor seems like the most interesting of these ideas to me considering we already will have locational damage.

At least the community seems to be pretty universal on the fact that we don't want anything like BF3. The devs seem pretty responsive to overwhelming outcry of that sort, so at least I think it's safe to say that we won't have tanks becoming any kind of disabled at 50% health, or if we do get that, we can damn sure get them to change it with prolonged outcry.

Would be cool if damage done to the tank depended on it's source.

Never made sense to me that small arms fire could eventually destroy a tank, even with AP bullets. And to actually cause it to explode?

I think that location as well as munitions used should factor in. In order for a bullet to cause a tank to explode, it would have to manage to punch through very weakened armor right where the ammo is stored. In order for this to kill the crew, the tank would have to be poorly designed (probably TR, I doubt the TR would care if their immortal soldiers died with their tanks, favoring cheaper tank designs over crew safety).

[CutterJohn]

Its no more fun than disabling infantry is, imo.

[Talek Krell]

I love the idea of letting tanks work like infantry, such that an engineer could "revive" them if they aren't finished off. I wonder what sort of server load it would produce. Probably not too bad though, since you could just have the "corpse" dissapear if the owner pulled a new vehicle. I'm presuming that you wouldn't be able to repair and then take over other people's tanks, much as that could make for some interesting gameplay.

[deltase]

I say NO! It's stupid mechanic that will only make you rage because of this stupid thing!

[Atheosim]

Definitely no. Such a mechanic has no place in a game of such scale and of such varied hard counters.

[Brusi]

I want disabling to be tied to locational damage, bfr-style.

+1! I voted for other, as i think you should be able to disable movement with a few well placed rockets to the tracks.

Not sure about disabling air vehicles, unless it automatically happens when they are really low health.

[sylphaen]

Make it optional ?
:evil:

I voted no. Of course, I would not be against it if the mechanic they add to the game improves gameplay and fun.

[wasdie]

I don't really like the implementation of the mechanic in BF3. I like the idea, but I really don't think it's necessary.

It would be better if you could disable a vehicle by doing specific damage to a key component. Like blowing away a track, or hitting the engine compartment, or knocking the turret out.

That would give infantry a little more strategy in their play when encountering vehicles.

Just throwing that out there. I've seen the system in other games, it works quite well.

[Quovatis]

It was tried and scrapped in PS1...don't think it has any place in PS2 either. Better and more obvious damage indicators (e.g. flames) would be nice though.

[ArmedZealot]

It's make sense if you were able to damage certain parts of the vehicle in detail. Shoot the tracks to slow it down or disable its movement. Shoot the turret to jam it up and make it not turnable. But tanks just have locational damage as a function of total health not part health.

So I'd just rather leave it out based on the devs implementation of damage. And I agree that vehicles should show much more so how damaged they are, so that they are more obvious to both friendly engineers and enemy AV.

[Gelnika]

In a little game called Darkest Hour: Europe '44-'45, there's a pretty involved damage system for armored vehicles. The following things can happen to your tank:


Optics destroyed
Turret traverse disabled
Turret elevation disabled
Main cannon disabled
Tread damaged/destroyed
Engine damaged/destroyed


Having this kind of damage model would not be in the vein of PlanetSide unless of course you could repair your tanks (which you can?). This kind of thing would add a lot of meta-game to armor engagements.

[Stardouser]

It's awesome to see that you guys are mostly against disabling, and overwhelmingly against BF3's extreme version of it.

However, I'm concerned that the devs are nevertheless going to outright cater to infantry because BF3 does. And so we need to get in before that happens, and here is a compromise for PS2 disabling:
1. NO Burning, that's the worst part of BF3 disabling
2. Disable occurs at 20%, and ends when repaired past 30%.
3. For air vehicles with afterburners, disable simply means no afterburners, but they can fly at their normal non-afterburner speed. For any air vehicles without afterburners, a 30% reduction to maximum speed.
4. For land vehicles, IF they have a sprint function like BF3 does, then disable simply means sprint is disabled. If they do not, a 30% maximum speed reduction.
5. If damaged vehicles smoke in this game,they should heavily smoke to indicate their disabled status. If they don't smoke, then a disabled vehicle should have heavy electrical shorting graphics to indicate it. This is on top of any armor plates that migh fall off.

So basically, doesn't happen until 20%, ends when repaired past 30% vehicle health, and means loss of afterburner/sprint or 30% off the top.

I think if we don't support a compromise like this now, they are going to cater to infantry like BF3 and you're going to see disables at 50% AND burning, you have to repair to 100% to end it, and both loss of afterburner/sprint AND a 50% reduction to normal speed. What's more, if it is like that, you're going to find lots of tanks camping at the longest possible range with a team of engineers repairing.

[Raka Maru]

I'm sorry, but I'm not liking any ideas about disabling without actual hit boxes that are mapped to systems.

Damage to system could cause:
Tracks: slowed and/or steering sluggish
Weapons: slowed ROF or increased COF. Can blow up if too damaged
Vents: can cause overheating or fire
Gun slots: should damage the gunner inside.
Cockpit: should damage pilot

Anything else that doesn't involve the small hitbox would damage armour. This would improve tactics for C4 sticky bombs and even very good snipers as well as other vehicle damage. If I run up and chunk a grenade inside the gun slot, the occupants should feel it.

[Stardouser]

Gun slots: should damage the gunner inside.
Cockpit: should damage pilot


Those ideas are better but if one hit disables your guns every time an accurate hit to the turret is made, that's bad.

Also, I agree with there being an ability to hurt the drivers/gunners, especially with aircraft, but are they even going to model infantry inside vehicles so that that's possible? Especially relevant for Galaxies.

[Raka Maru]

Those ideas are better but if one hit disables your guns every time an accurate hit to the turret is made, that's bad.

Also, I agree with there being an ability to hurt the drivers/gunners, especially with aircraft, but are they even going to model infantry inside vehicles so that that's possible? Especially relevant for Galaxies.

They don't really have to model the infantry, just map the hitbox to the player inside. I would add that splash damage should NOT count for these hit boxes, and some more sturdy systems like weapons would require several direct hits.

[DayOne]

They don't really have to model the infantry, just map the hitbox to the player inside. I would add that splash damage should NOT count for these hit boxes, and some more sturdy systems like weapons would require several direct hits.

But you're inside an armoured vehicle! Just have a hit to certain areas of the vehicle shake up the camera a little for the player. The point of being in a vehicle is so you don't get damaged by stuff outside.

[Stardouser]

But you're inside an armoured vehicle! Just have a hit to certain areas of the vehicle shake up the camera a little for the player. The point of being in a vehicle is so you don't get damaged by stuff outside.

Right, but aircraft with cockpits have glass or other transparent material that's less protective than other opaque materials. Especially vehicles with open air windows and such should permit the occupants to be hurt.

[Warborn]

Recreate World of Tanks module system for all vehicles. Hitting a certain area of the tank can damage certain functions, be they optics or treads or engine or gun.