Vehicle disabling

[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/1...ore_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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Stardouser

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]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

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.