Fire extinguishers?

[ubermensche]

I think this would be a cool thing for crewmen to have. When the vehicle is on fire, the crew jump out and extinguish the fire (which will add more "health" to the vehicle) before engineers repair it. May also be used to dazzle the enemy

[Rhino]

humm, think this might have been talked about some time ago but not 100% sure. Did you do a search for any old topics?

If it was talked about it was most likely down to not being possible, in the same way the "spanner/wrench" works but just making it have an amount count. But saying that we could probably repair a vehicle in much the same way a field dressing works, although wouldn't be as cool as squirting white foam all over a tank

Would also like to hear what some other people think on the idea as I can't think of any reason why we haven't done it.

Cheers

[Silly_Savage]

Make it do exactly what it's supposed to do: put out fires.

Have it so it can only repair it enough to stop the vehicle from blowing up; a pseudo-wrench if you will.

[Ninja2dan]

The type of extinguishers used on military equipment is likely going to be a Halon 1211 type. Unlike chemical-agent extinguishers, these leave no residue and have minimal damage risk against sensitive electronic equipment. Although the majority of civilian-grade extinguishers are now Halotron, the military still uses certain classes of Halon that meet federal requirements. I won't discuss legality of Halon due to it not being vital to this topic.

The average range of most Halon hand-held extinguishers is 10-12 feet. The agent is a rapidly-evaporating liquid gas, which is why there is lack of residue. The gas is mildly toxic to those in the immediate release cloud, but in an open area such as outdoors there is not a high chance of injury risk. Attempting to fully discharge an extinguisher at a person within range and in the open environment is likely to have similar effect as popping them with a cloud of CS/CN agent.


As for use of an extinguisher in PR by crewmen, I can see it being practical but only if it could be done properly. I would NOT want to see an extinguisher be capable of "healing/repairing" a vehicle in the same manner as a wrench or combat dressing. The use of an extinguisher should only be capable of bringing a vehicle's health a fart above the "critical/burning" phase and no more. The entire purpose of the extinguisher should be to do just that, extinguish the fire thereby removing the constant health loss associated with the "burning vehicle" effect.

For example, if the Critical phase of a vehicle (the point at which it is burning and gradually continues to lose health) is 15% overall HP, the extinguisher should only be capable of repairing it to 17% or so. If you use the extinguisher when the vehicle is at 2% or 15%, the maximum repair possible will ALWAYS be 17%. This would avoid people exploiting the purpose of the extinguisher and using it to repair a vehicle as if it was some sort of magical fix-me wrench.


You would also need to code in a "charge" or "ammo" capacity for the extinguishers, requiring the crewman to "rearm" if it has been used. The maximum capacity of the extinguisher should probably be 150-200% the amount required to actually repair a vehicle from 1% to 17% (as example, based on above) to account for improper use (standing too far away, not aiming it properly, etc). As a comparison, most real-world extinguishers have a maximum duration of around 10 seconds. From my experience, an average "fully-involved" automotive engine fire can be extinguished by a 2.5lb Halon extinguisher in about 5 seconds.


If someone wants to code up the extinguishing "repair" effect, and it tests out to function as intended, then I don't see why not. The models/animations will take some work, but probably not as challenging as the effect itself.

[Dev1200]

Could you not just spam a fire extinguisher behind your vehicle to give it more health? ^_^

[Spec]

I doubt it would work the way we want it to work, though... As far as I understood the devs who commented to previous threads, there's no way of telling the extinguisher to only heal the vehicle up to X%. So, no matter how little health they give back, they'd still be abusable especially by APC crews who can drop ammo for the guy doing the repairs - he'd just refill his ammo and use the 'field dressing'-like extinguisher/equivalent until the vehicle is fully healed. It's like with the real field dressing for infantry in PR: They were only meant to stop the bleeding, but given enough ammo, you can easily get yourself back to 100% health. And that's not even taking into account several crewmen working on one vehicle, or APC passengers swiftly requesting crewman kits to help out.

[lukeyu2005]

A very good idea but easily abuseable with the limitations of the engine but definetly worth a look at

[Sgt. Mahi]

Pretty sure I've seen this suggestion before. Actually thought it was a revived thread.

Edit: Sorry for being a party pooper: Stopping vehicle burning (although the suggestion was never turned down completely)

[Mikemonster]

I thought that tanks and aircraft have their own internal extinguishers, meaning any out of control fire would not be within the scope of a hand-held fire extinguisher to extinguish.

Which leaves basically just light vehicles. If you're driving your car and it sets on fire, and you manage to put it out, i'd say that even if you do manage to let it cool and restart the engine the fire will start again as soon as it gets up to temp.

So a bit of a pointless idea in my opinion, constructive though.

[Rhino]

[quote=""'[R-DEV"]Ninja2dan;1660554']As for use of an extinguisher in PR by crewmen, I can see it being practical but only if it could be done properly. I would NOT want to see an extinguisher be capable of "healing/repairing" a vehicle in the same manner as a wrench or combat dressing. The use of an extinguisher should only be capable of bringing a vehicle's health a fart above the "critical/burning" phase and no more. The entire purpose of the extinguisher should be to do just that, extinguish the fire thereby removing the constant health loss associated with the "burning vehicle" effect.[/quote]

But that is how a field dressing works, although we would make it so it would require two extinguishers in order to bring it up above critical damage point, as you will most likley have two crewman.

[quote="Dev1200""]Could you not just spam a fire extinguisher behind your vehicle to give it more health? ^_^[/quote]

Well you would only have one in your kit and you would need to be next to an ammo source in order to do that, although might be a problem for APCs where they can drop ammo behind them...

[General Dragosh]

Well since 2 devs gave a comment on it there is no reason that a splendid communitly member like myself wouldnt gave one as well =D

I like the idea, would save lives in certain situations which is always good, if it can be done to fix it up to 17% that wouuld be marvelous, of course theexploing thing should be removed by all means =)

[Psyko]

Ninja2dan;1660554']The type of extinguishers used on military equipment is likely going to be a Halon 1211 type. Unlike chemical-agent extinguishers, these leave no residue and have minimal damage risk against sensitive electronic equipment. Although the majority of civilian-grade extinguishers are now Halotron, the military still uses certain classes of Halon that meet federal requirements. I won't discuss legality of Halon due to it not being vital to this topic.

The average range of most Halon hand-held extinguishers is 10-12 feet. The agent is a rapidly-evaporating liquid gas, which is why there is lack of residue. The gas is mildly toxic to those in the immediate release cloud, but in an open area such as outdoors there is not a high chance of injury risk. Attempting to fully discharge an extinguisher at a person within range and in the open environment is likely to have similar effect as popping them with a cloud of CS/CN agent.


As for use of an extinguisher in PR by crewmen, I can see it being practical but only if it could be done properly. I would NOT want to see an extinguisher be capable of "healing/repairing" a vehicle in the same manner as a wrench or combat dressing. The use of an extinguisher should only be capable of bringing a vehicle's health a fart above the "critical/burning" phase and no more. The entire purpose of the extinguisher should be to do just that, extinguish the fire thereby removing the constant health loss associated with the "burning vehicle" effect.

For example, if the Critical phase of a vehicle (the point at which it is burning and gradually continues to lose health) is 15% overall HP, the extinguisher should only be capable of repairing it to 17% or so. If you use the extinguisher when the vehicle is at 2% or 15%, the maximum repair possible will ALWAYS be 17%. This would avoid people exploiting the purpose of the extinguisher and using it to repair a vehicle as if it was some sort of magical fix-me wrench.


You would also need to code in a "charge" or "ammo" capacity for the extinguishers, requiring the crewman to "rearm" if it has been used. The maximum capacity of the extinguisher should probably be 150-200% the amount required to actually repair a vehicle from 1% to 17% (as example, based on above) to account for improper use (standing too far away, not aiming it properly, etc). As a comparison, most real-world extinguishers have a maximum duration of around 10 seconds. From my experience, an average "fully-involved" automotive engine fire can be extinguished by a 2.5lb Halon extinguisher in about 5 seconds.


If someone wants to code up the extinguishing "repair" effect, and it tests out to function as intended, then I don't see why not. The models/animations will take some work, but probably not as challenging as the effect itself.

Is this the shape and type you are familiar with? How many of these would be carried in an Abrams/stryker/bradley? and are they cumbersome? as in, does it take you a minute to get out of the cupola with it in your arms or can you leave relatively quickly?

It should be an empty slot on crewman kit that they have to load up on from logi crates before embarking.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

Or have it as ammo crates, you can drop one crate with say four on it.

Crewman could hop out grab it or any nearby inf could do the same.

But in my experience the onfire to blowing up is too quick to allow time enough.

[Wakain]

I like the idea,
perhaps to balance it the fire effect should start earlier? as in, instead of e.g. 15% at 20%? and as Ninja2dan stated the extinguishers should only be able to get it's HP at 22% (mind that bump in the road there gentlemen!)

[killonsight95]

Well you would only have one in your kit and you would need to be next to an ammo source in order to do that, although might be a problem for APCs where they can drop ammo behind them...

make the ammo count required extremely high?
such as a whole supply crate, that way to re-arm effectivly you'd need to do so at main.

[Kingy]

Why not have it deployable from the asset itself, similarly to how the repair station is dropped by the Logistics truck, I know it doesn't sound ideal but that way there would be no issues with exploitation as once it's used it's back to main if you want to rearm it

[Spec]

Well you would only have one in your kit and you would need to be next to an ammo source in order to do that, although might be a problem for APCs where they can drop ammo behind them...

And with any other vehicle that you can request a crewman kit from. All you need is some friendly infantry nearby (or inside your vehicle as passengers) to fix it.

Also, the amount of crew members varies. A tank with 3 crewmen could get more health back than a tank with 2 crewmen... It just doesn't seem like it would be possible to avoid exploits unless a way of only healing a certain amount would be found.

How exactly does the bleed threshold work? Is it like this: setBleedThreshold 30% (or something to that effect), or can you modify it with more freedom? If so, this might work:

Have the vehicle completely fine until 40% health is reached. Then, have MASSIVE bleed until 20% is reached. Then, slow bleed down a lot.

The extinguisher repairs faster than the regular bleed, but the MASSIVE bleed between 40% and 20% can only be countered with a repair station. The key: At exactly 20%, bleed is completely stopped. So, while the 40% to 20% bleed is massive, there's a millisecond in which there is no bleeding again at 20%, and if the vehicle gets hit to the point of having, say, 15% health, it can be repaired until exactly 20% and stop bleeding. If the vehicle takes one more hit, it begins bleeding again (the slower type of bleed), however.

[Rudd]

Given the limitations on the engine, a fire extinguisher (i.e. wrench) with either a very limited amount of ammo or a very overblown overheating mechanism would be appropriate.

Spec has a good point regarding infantry...
I can't think of a workaround.

edit...perhaps we could set the rate of repair to be equal to that of bleed - that would mean the crewman has to constantly spray while a logi truck is on the way, yes a 6 man squad could run over and get it out of bleed, but it would be very slow...I dunno.

[Spec]

edit...perhaps we could set the rate of repair to be equal to that of bleed - that would mean the crewman has to constantly spray while a logi truck is on the way, yes a 6 man squad could run over and get it out of bleed, but it would be very slow...I dunno.

Doubt that'd work. If one extinguisher keeps it exactly at the level of the bleed (and no crewman will want to stand there for 15 minutes pressing LMB until a logi arrives), even a second crewman would logically be twice as fast. Let alone a whole squad...

If the bleed code is more flexible like in my example above, something could possibly be done with a more sudden bleed during a very short period that cannot be overcome even by several extinguishers, but can be overcome with stationary repair devices. The important part is that between that massive bleed and the regular bleed there needs to be a point of no bleed at all to which one can 'work' by using the extinguishers.

[TheComedian]

You can still blow it up with a single frag grenade unless its repaired to like 25%