Landing aircraft and airfields (and other things)

m0ldym1lk · Post by **m0ldym1lk** » 2005-06-27 23:09

This really pisses me off in BF2. Landing planes is sometimes next to impossible, for various reasons.

First off, map design in general can prevent it. On almost every map, the airfields are very short, and on top of that, theres almost always some kind of obstruction at the end of them -- be it towers, UAV control trailers, cliffs, or some other horendous contraption, making you come in on some hellacious approach. So much for the "Intelligent map design" we heard about in reviews, eh? Airfields need to be longer, making it so that you have enough runway to slow your aircraft (and take off - assuming/hoping PR makes somewhat realistic acceleration and deceleration speeds). And that leads me to this -- When you slow down, your aircraft hardly glides AT ALL. It just stops in mid air and lawn darts. (I've flown Cessnas before, and never has my plane just dropped out of the sky on me when slowing for a landing approach)

Next up, if you land on the runway in the least bit hard, your plane explodes. Again, taking from my Cessna 172 experiecnes, I've landed much harder than that, and only shaken around a bit, not bursting into flames and killing everything up to 20 feet away from you, leaving a big black wad of God knows what for wreckage.

Brining me to my next thing.

When airplanes explode, be it crashing, or shot down by missiles, they don't just explode into totally destroyed and charred wreckage. You can definately tell it's an airplane going down, or rolling on the ground, whichever. For instance, when an airplane gets hit by a SAM, it doesnt explode, leaving only little pieces, Hollywood (and BF) style. Sure, a big part of the plane will probably be blown completely off, but a lot of the plane starts hurtling towards the ground in an impressive, yet violent horde of flames. Note a fuselage can clearly be seen at the front of it. Some what like what you see in Act of War: Direct Action. Would be cool if PR could have effects to simlulate this.

Just some thoughts off the top of my head, I'll be sure to add to it if something else comes to me

Psycho_Sam · Post by **Psycho_Sam** » 2005-06-27 23:21

Yes i have never seen anybody yet that has landed a plane without crashing

m0ldym1lk · Post by **m0ldym1lk** » 2005-06-27 23:25

Psycho_Sam wrote:Yes i have never seen anybody yet that has landed a plane without crashing

I spent an hour today trying to perfect it, and can be quite successful now that I've messed with it for a while -- but seeing this is Battlefield, it shouldn't take that much time to be able to do it properly. You have to constantly readjust your speed from fast to slow to keep from suddenly lawn darting, and you have to have to set the rear wheels down first at a very precise angle. Otherwise it'll bounce off the ground and explode upon contact fort he second time

waffenbaum · Post by **waffenbaum** » 2005-06-27 23:26

Very good points. Neither Airplanes nor choppers should be completly destroyable midair. They should simply stop functioning and start burning instead. (Whereafter the SAM shouldn't really have much use for locking on to it again. And even when they crash into the ground, they shouldn't explode, well, not until after a longer period of time anyway.

Kozuka · Post by **Kozuka** » 2005-06-28 00:56

I know a guy who landed (successfully) on the aircraft carrier on the gulf of oman in the demo, I watch it myself it was pritty magnificent.

Peace
Kozuka

Post by **BrokenArrow** » 2005-06-28 01:23

i dont think landing is that hard, ive done it on gulf of oman, both vertiacally and a conventional landing, i think on carriers there needs to be the wires though, or at least an airbrake, since hitting 's' now initiates the VTOL feature, that button needs to be up arrow or something, while s should be reverse/brake

waffenbaum · Post by **waffenbaum** » 2005-06-28 02:56

While some guys will start by driving the plane backwards, and then taking off on the spot in a nearly vertical angle.

keef_haggerd · Post by **keef_haggerd** » 2005-06-28 03:05

ive landed planes, but its TOUGH maybe 2 times on BF2, and yeahthe runways are WAY too short, and there are always obstacles all over hte place which make it difficult to land... and ive never seen an airstip with trees and other clutter around it.

Figisaacnewton · Post by **Figisaacnewton** » 2005-06-28 04:25

Its possible, eaiser with joystick. You need to fly slow, but not too slow for the approach, and AFTER you hit the ground, pull the thrust all the way down.

BF doesn't understand gliding. BF thinks that the throttle is directly in charge of aircraft speed, no matter the circumstances.

This might be remidied by removing or very much lessening the reverse thrust ability.

Psycho_Sam · Post by **Psycho_Sam** » 2005-06-28 13:14

How do you bring the jets to a hover? I have put full reverse thrust on and held it down while pointing nose slightly up to try and increase my deaccleration. When i do this my jet just nose dives straight down and i die

Can someone help me and tell me if there is a knack or something?

Post by **BrokenArrow** » 2005-06-28 23:40

well the f-35 is the only jet that can hover in bf2, so dont try it with anyothers! but with that you have to take your hand off the throtte for a while, get down to a pretty low speed, and hold 's' to get the hover going, and then what i do is let go and tap it a few times till i get down to the ground, very infrequent taps, this works for me and has worked well every time i try, the hard part is getting over the carrier, which is the only thing ive landed on with the VTOL feature.

hope that helps... the f-35 is the name of the new-age us fighter right? i cant remember

as for short runways yes, they are very short, to land usually i have to circle around one end with no thrust and then try to glide in, to be honest i find the hovering easier... if thats available to my plane.-just remember EA/DICE didnt plan on people landing the planes, not when they can fly by the airstrip and act as ammo/repair magnets.... who needs runways when you have magic? however, in PR, there might be some maps where there should be planes completely without runways, harriers and every other V/STOL equiped aircraft are supposed to be able to operate out of clearings... get used to hovering