Progress Bar for FOB Building

[PLODDITHANLEY]

Yes like a vehicle, well normally FOBs are in one of three states:

1.Built 100%

2.In process of being built

3.Destroyed base still present.

Its rare that they are left in a damaged state, if the defenders won it's rebuilt, if they lost it's destroyed.


I agree it'd look silly the few times they are left damaged but don't FOB's gradually die if they're not at 100%? If so it wouldn't last long.

Just me - I don't like health bars, we have managed to avoid them with blood effects on soldiers and smoke effects on vehicles.

I agree it'd be nice to have some way of showing progress if nothing else to break the boredom when only one or two guys are building. Plus if they smoked more it'd make the sneaky FOB builders job harder which IMHO is good.


Or as Web suggested audio cues with the radio:

under 25% no radio

under 50% radio goes on and off

under 75% on/off quicker

under 100% always on?

Or even simpler no radio under 25% or whatever the HP state that means it's going to blow soon?

[boilerrat]

The realism argument can't apply here, so why not?

[Shovel]

+1
That is all.

[Dev1200]

I dunno how many times I need to say this..

How many times has the dev team said more than 64 players, more than 6 man squads, BUIS, etc were impossible?

[tommytgun]

So simple, yet so helpful...
+1.

[Rhino]

How many times has the dev team said more than 64 players, more than 6 man squads, BUIS, etc were impossible?

All of which are not possible with the BF2 engine and is still true today. It is only with 3rd part .exes have we made that possible so thous statements are still true today, the BF2 engine (on its own) still can not support any of the items mentioned above

[SeanRamey]

Not realistic.. ??:

Umm, why? IRL you would know how close you are to finishing a FOB.
If its just because of the progress bar that you say it's unrealistic then there are other ways to do it. THE POINT IS, MAKE A WAY FOR ME TO KNOW HOW CLOSE I AM TO FINISHING THE FOB!

I am against this idea. The only time building a FOB takes so long that a progress bar would even be valuable is when it is being built by one or two guys. Any more than that, and it is done so quickly that a progress bar is irrelevant.

I think that there are other more pressing issues for the PR Devs to address, such as giving Insurgent factions a wrench, and overhauling the Combat Engineer class.

Uh, that's why I said "it's nice to have but not important." lol

Really people, think more logically.

[SeanRamey]

Put a loading bar.
Everyone in the world speaks a different language. Do we really want to put in text for every single language that the PR player may end up speaking? Or do we want them to learn the handful of languages that may be coded in so they can know how far their Fob has been dug? Honestly, this hud element will be visible for no more than 130 seconds. It really doesn't matter in terms of gameplay. All we're doing here is making sure that this magical pile of dirt doesn't blow up in your face or 45 second after you walk away from it.

So that sprint meter is totally useless as well? It only stays active for about 30 secs yet I use it all the time. Why must so many people be so negative?!? Why can't you at least try it, and if it doesn't work so good then BIG WOOP! it's not like its gonna destroy the way PR plays.

I also really like the idea of audio cues. That would be a good workaround for peeps who don't like progress bars or anything else in the hud, and it would just be more appealing than a health bar. So I really like that idea!

Srry for double post.

[Rhino]

So that sprint meter is totally useless as well?

TBH we should probably remove the stamina/sprint bar and replace it with an audio que. Pretty sure its been talked about in the past (amongst the dev team) thou not sure why it hasn't been implemented.

[SeanRamey]

TBH we should probably remove the stamina/sprint bar and replace it with an audio que. Pretty sure its been talked about in the past thou not sure why it hasn't been implemented.

You know... thats a good idea I think. I would use it just as much! Maybe somebody should suggest it again.
But the sprint meter isn't useless. So the progress bar wouldn't be useless either most likely. But I really don't care what it is, as long as I have some way of knowing how much further till it's done.

[Bringerof_D]

I am against this idea. The only time building a FOB takes so long that a progress bar would even be valuable is when it is being built by one or two guys. Any more than that, and it is done so quickly that a progress bar is irrelevant.

I think that there are other more pressing issues for the PR Devs to address, such as giving Insurgent factions a wrench, and overhauling the Combat Engineer class.

yes and a smart squad would have only 2-3 guys building at a time. just like IRL a few people are going to have to stand sentry while the others work. it might take longer, but it's best not to ignore the possibility of being attacked while digging. Communication is also a huge factor in this. if the squad leader needs to plan his squads next move/s he needs to know how much longer it might take for his squad to finish building.

no one cares about your suggestion here, however if you post your own thread, we will. this is borderline trolling if you ask me.

[goguapsy]

yes and a smart squad would have only 2-3 guys building at a time. just like IRL a few people are going to have to stand sentry while the others work. it might take longer, but it's best not to ignore the possibility of being attacked while digging. Communication is also a huge factor in this. if the squad leader needs to plan his squads next move/s he needs to know how much longer it might take for his squad to finish building.

Hmm.

I never had issues with sentries... I mean, there is the SL and the medic looking around, ready to suppress a nearby enemy if necessary...

I think that safest thing to do is build the FOB AFAP.

[myles]

Nope, wouldn't be realistic (Tongue planted firmly in cheek)

How would it not be realistic if you were bulding somthing you would atleast have some kind of estimate of what stage you are at in the constructince of a bulidng.

[DenvH]

How would it not be realistic if you were bulding somthing you would atleast have some kind of estimate of what stage you are at in the constructince of a bulidng.

We could all start to count the number of digs it takes to build it, with one, two and maybe 4 guys and then you will know how long it takes to finish. Say you got 2 guys building and you know that 20 digs from both will finish it than you can say: I dug 12 times already, only 8 left to go

But seriously, I think the FOB is ok as it is. All we need now is the number of digs it takes and we can estimate the progress. I know from experience that with 8 people it takes 3 digs or something to fully build a FOB so I suggest we all start building FOB's with 2 squads at the same time and we will not have any problems.

How about encouraging more teamwork as well by setting a min. amount of players to start digging? With less than 4 people it will play the animation but it will not go up.. Only for the FOB it self though, would be pretty irritating to have 4 guys working on the same wire because it wouldn't go up with just one guy on it.

In some way it would simulate realism more as well as you would not build a FOB without sufficient support or in small numbers.

[Hjid]

Well you can have different build stages by doing it through python, like this:

FOB build stages - Xfire Video

[Kain888]

Well you can have different build stages by doing it through python, like this:

FOB build stages - Xfire Video

Awesome.

[Hjid]

Well here is another video just to prove that you can have as many build stages as you want:

FOB building stages - Xfire Video

By doing the building through python you can also add rules on minimum players required to build. The stages will also just be done when building the fob, not when it gets damaged.

Not sure how good it will be performance wise, since you're spawning an extra vehicle for each of the build stages.

I find this, combined with the sound/radio changing to be more realistic than a progress bar.

[Rhino]

Well here is another video just to prove that you can have as many build stages as you want:

FOB building stages - Xfire Video

By doing the building through python you can also add rules on minimum players required to build. The stages will also just be done when building the fob, not when it gets damaged.

Not sure how good it will be performance wise, since you're spawning an extra vehicle for each of the build stages.

I find this, combined with the sound/radio changing to be more realistic than a progress bar.

Interesting way of doing it, with spawning basically splitting the firebase into lots of different pieces but I see a few problems with it.

The first problem like you mentioned, performance. For starters having lots of networkable objects just for a single deployable isn't a very good idea, + also having lots of draw calls where normally you would have one, all of which are not very good and with 128 players possibly coming in the future, we need as many networkables as well can get epically when it comes to insurgency where this seems like a big waste of networkables tbh and we wouldn't want to see servers crashing due to the networkable limit being exceeded.

The next big problem I see is that with multiple objects spawned, all having there own armour points, where the base is the only real bit that actually is the firebase, destroying it so all bits of the firebase destroy in one go is going to be a total pain in the *** as you will end up with someone knifing the radio, and only the radio will get destroyed, leaving everything else still there and the firebase's HP still at 100%.

[ebevan91]

Sounds good to me. In the real world, when you're building something, you can tell how far away you are from being done. In PR the thing looks the same the whole time you build.

A progress bar would be nice.

[Bringerof_D]

Hmm.

I never had issues with sentries... I mean, there is the SL and the medic looking around, ready to suppress a nearby enemy if necessary...

I think that safest thing to do is build the FOB AFAP.

usually its not a problem, but sometimes you get those games where one guy just waltzes into the squad leader and medic's blind spot then calls his buddies in.