This is in large part due to the excellent change the DEVs made back in .86 by giving the helicopters 200% more health but engine failure at 70%. (this makes crash landings more common.)
Nice job on that DEVs, it increases the depth of the gameplay significantly.
However, I have yet to see a helicopter be able to take off again after a crash landing, meaning that the only gain is that the passangers survive and you lose 20 tickets instead of 27 or 28.
This being said, I think another new improvement to the helicopters could be to have the pilots, rather than the vehicles themselves, be worth the 20 tickets.
This way, pilots who are talented enough to make a successful emergency landing will suffer little penalty from it.
The way it is now, there's really not too much point in rescuing downed pilots.
One extra ticket saved is really just a drop in the bucket on maps like Kashan that have 500+ tickets.
So, I would suggest that all the helicopters in the game be made worth 1-5 tickets, and all the pilots be made worth 20 tickets.
Most often, the pilot dies with his helicopter, so the change wouldn't effect gameplay that much.
But in the occurance when a pilot can survive the crash, his team would be rewarded for his skill by not losing as many tickets, and serious efforts would be made by his teammates to conduct CSAR and get him back to base, further increasing the realism of the game.
What are your thoughts?
(and I personally thank all the people in the past who have rescued me and my crew after our helicopter went down.
)
