is a 3rd party mortar calculator a hack ?

[Moonlight]

Is it part of the game? No. Do you have an advantage by using it? Yes. Is it in use by the majority of the players, so that there is no unfair advantage, since everybody has it? No!

Sounds the same as the definition of Mumble. Available to everyone? yes! Useful? Yes! Used by majority? No.
Yet, we do not whine at ppl using Mumble while it clearly gives them the advantage.

Above all of this, the calc won't magically show you the positions of enemy troops, you still have to depend on the spotter/accuracy of firemissions requested by the rest of the team. When you have an accurate marker - sure, you'll hit it, but that's just it.
And it usually takes more time to get the formula than when using the built-in mortar calc.

[Spec]

Available to everyone? yes! Useful? Yes! Used by majority? No.

The difference is that mumble is encouraged by server admins and developers AND everybody knows about it. This program however is used only by a few people because the others never knew it existed, as opposed to mumble, teamspeak or the use of a calculator.

[CallousDisregard]

And to get the mapheights you need to take the game apart, which seems a little more than a calculator.

[Hitperson]

And to get the mapheights you need to take the game apart, which seems a little more than a calculator.

no you don't, they would come from the editor.

[Bartholomäus]

In my opinion a Mortar Calculator doesn't affect the game in any way, so it's no cheat (definition of cheat). And a hack isn't it for sure. The height maps are easy to get if you look into the PR files. Btw, if this would be cheating... i think somewhere in the forums are the weakpoints of tanks, or the formula for weapon deviation, wouldn't this be cheating, too? Just my two cents.

[ytman]

Soooo the nice person who made topographical maps way back when was hacking?

Everything you want to know is in the code of the game; they can be accessed by the BF2 editor or even a simple unzipping of a map file. The data is there, and unlike in real-life where you have surveying equipment, its the only option to learn the geography of the map.

People really need to calm down about this. This tool is nothing more than a firecontrol system that effects the game client in no way. It just does a better job than the #4 weapon on the mortar system. Its representative or a real life tool and it seems that people can't stand the fact that indirect fire needs to be aided by math to be effective!

[tntkid22]

ok...so Im still failing to see how having the height map is an "unfair advantage"....in fact its more preparation on the part of the mortar team....

IF ITS REALLY OMG SO SERIOUS that like 50 people have this...or 100 ....or 200... what are the odds your gonna get hit by mortars from these guys, first time, out of the blue....

I so rarely get killed by mortars this is not a problem.....and to be killed by mortars you have to be spotted which deepening on your role is bad.


And in some peoples definition of unfair advantage....does that make pilots who use joysticks...cheaters, or tankers with joysticks...or drivers with steering wheel (I know of one...hes very bad lol) have unfair advantage?


I seriously just think its an extra step taken by mortar crews or mortar men to be prepared and be more effective.....

I might use just the height maps more often so i know exactly the height so I can be more effective.....

[Hitperson]

;1563880']Its silly that we are discussing something that almost no one saw or tried to use...

thats exactly what i'm thinking. we have people screaming "IT'S A HACK!!" and they have not even tried it or looked at it, the admin team was asked to look at the program to allow it's use in the tournament and what we saw was some fantastic work by someone whom is obviously very dedicated and skilled.

[Bringerof_D]

there is no "being smarter" with this system, the person who programmed it is smart, but using it ingame is simply retardedly unfair.

allow to to clarify, EVERYTHING up the the point where it pinpoints altitude is fair. It is the fact that it USES the game's height map which makes it unfair. Even a real life topographical map is not accurate to the meter, Nor will firing said mortars with those numbers give you pin point accurate shots due to wind, temperature, humidity, etc. In game mortars are already 100% accurate to your sights, using this program to pin point fire without the need of a spotter to correct is simply retarded.

i would not care if PR gave every player a topographical map and you used a calculator program and entered the variables yourself, but in this case it's just click on the map position and it tells you.

[Spec]

Height maps are not available to the average player. If the download would come with seperate heightmaps visible to everyone without the use of any editor or anything (not everyone has/knows how to use that stuff, or even knows what heightmaps are!), then this program would only speed up the process and wouldn't be as much of a problem. But right now it makes a process possible that is, for the normal average player without modding knowledge, impossible.

This also cannot be compared to finding out tank weakspots or weapon settle times. Those can be figured out directly from within the games without messing with any files. I can just shoot a tank for a while and will know where I can destroy it, then. That's normal gaming experience.

I will not, no matter how long I play, be able to say how high or low exactly E4kp2 on Kashan Desert is, for example.


Maybe the solution would be simple; let's make heightmaps available to the public by translating them into something that is easily understandable by everyone and can be included with the next version of PR?

[Chase Armitage]

I think its a perfectly legit application since it is not accessing any of the game data during the game's runtime nor is it altering any data. Also you usually see only negligibly small changes in mils when compensating for heights. Most of the time its something around +/-10 mils and that is well within or at least rather close too the margin of random error you get from the resolution of the mortar scale (ruler is what Americans call it?) itself.
In addition it seems there is no way of preventing the usage of this application anyway for the simple reason that it does not need to be executed on the machine that is actually running the game.
So just take it down a notch and see in what way the future development is going to turn out.

Maybe the solution would be simple; let's make heightmaps available to the public by translating them into something that is easily understandable by everyone and can be included with the next version of PR?

Well assume you are issuing height sketches that utilize different colors for different absolute heights you still would only get rough approximations for a certain target location. Probably better than nothing if you want to implement it as part of the game in some sort of a second map perhaps. Everything else would require to have some sort of application running in the background were you can check heights by pointing and clicking. That you can already do with SkyJumpies tool.
Also consider an absolute height is pretty much useless since you need to know your home location height as well and calculate the difference to the desired target location height.
So there you are doing manual calculations again.

[_casualtyUR]

The software is private property but it would cool to see the mortar calculator integrated into PR's programing.

[Sgt. Mahi]

I often find that the height isn't that important since the mortars come down from a fairly vertical angle in the first place... I.e. If I want to hit the castle in Operation Archer from an altitude of zero I don't even bother typing in the height for calculation.. (well no entirely true since I know the castle is located in a fairly high altitude I usually add 20-30 meters).. My point is that guessing the height of the target is almost just as good as any other alternative...

Let the kids play with their spreadsheets. I personally can't be bothered with it.