Commander's Satellite view.

[doop-de-doo]

I couldn't find any old articles where the devs explained why the CO's sat cam was removed.

Would any patient dev/knowledgable person hit this up?

[Mineral]

You mean UAV? It is removed on certain maps cause of viewdistance and height issues but other then that it's still in the game.

[Outlawz7]

No, he means this.

[AlonTavor]

.....Are you serious?
Current UAV is already too much.

[Rhino]

I don't believe that the military truly has satellites that can give them live HD coverage of a battlefield, at least not constantly. Some of even the very intel satellite images you see released from the CIA of North Korea's weapon testing sites etc are pretty low rez, and they are just still photos, let alone a live feed. Not to mention if satellites are truly this good, what would be the need for UAVs?

[Jabil_One]

Its called/named satelite.

How it would look when the name is drone? Can the drone make such highrez pics?

[bahiakof]

The satellite of the BF2 engine is unreal. The PR UAV is also not real when used against a modern army, because modern army has a modern radar system.

[Jabil_One]

I asked this for the coop part.
The current PR UAV has a player inside. This player is able to capture active StrategicAreas instantly and lock the bots down in that SA because they want to recapture it. Also the bots looking in air because they know that a player is there and rarely a bot shoot at the UAV but in generally they looking up and do nothing.
Breaks coop gameplay.

The Satelite view could replace it for coop because it hasn't the same effect like the UAV with the player inside. Paradox UAV - i thought the U stands for unmanned.

[Rhino]

The PR UAV is also not real when used against a modern army, because modern army has a modern radar system.

Actually, they would still send in and sacrifice UAVs for any possible intel they might be able to collect since they cost relativity little in comparison to what they can reveal. Hell before UAVs they sent in manned reconnaissance planes in with high chances of getting shot down to gather any possible intel. Even during Vietnam they sent over prop planes into areas with known air defences to try and gather intel, and during the Falklands war, Harriers were sent back over Stanley which has heavy AA defences including radar guided AAA and missiles, to assess the bomb damage of the Vulcans and their previous strikes gathering these pictures:


Manned reconnaissance flights are still a big part of many aircraft roles today even with UAVs doing most of that work now and even with drones where starting to appear during the Gulf War, they were specifically sacrificed to fool the Iraqi air defences to reveal their locations, so don't think that UAVs wouldn't be used during a conventional war, if anything they would be used far more in any future conventional war than in COIN/guerilla war, where the risk of getting shot down is far lower.


While yes, we would like a team to be able to shoot down the enemies drones ingame, unfortunately, it isn't possible, at least not without drastically changing how the UAVs work and then you wouldn't get many of the features the UAVs currently have and it still probably wouldn't be able to be shot down.

[bahiakof]

Actually, they would still send in and sacrifice UAVs for any possible intel they might be able to collect since they cost relativity little in comparison to what they can reveal

I believe that a UAV would not last 10 minutes in the airspace monitored by Russians or Americans. And the little information he collected would not cover the cost of drone loss. Besides the risk of having the drone captured and having its technology studied by the enemy.

I believe a spy satellite can do the same work of this "suicidal" UAV, but without losses.

In the game the PR UAV is Invisible and indestructible due to the BF2 engine limitation, would make more sense only in the insurgency game mode.

[PatrickLA_CA]

They wouldn't necessarily send it into a suicidal mission but the decision to send it would be a lot easier when it is unmanned. Also, a satellite would need to be in the correct position in the correct time and that might not always be plausible.

[Jacksonez__]

You could shoot the UAV/drone thingy down in BF2 though

Its called/named satelite.

How it would look when the name is drone? Can the drone make such highrez pics?

yes it can, even civilian (/professional) geodrones can do orthoimaging with high-res. Of course, it wouldn't be live-feed most likely.

[Jabil_One]

About drones but its offtopic:

My company thinking about this.



That's nice LeanSixSigma

[doop-de-doo]

.....Are you serious?
Current UAV is already too much.

KK. Thanks!

[Rhino]

I believe that a UAV would not last 10 minutes in the airspace monitored by Russians or Americans. And the little information he collected would not cover the cost of drone loss. Besides the risk of having the drone captured and having its technology studied by the enemy.

They wouldn't necessarily send it into a suicidal mission but the decision to send it would be a lot easier when it is unmanned.

Indeed. Like I said, recon planes have been used for years in areas where the enemy had heavy air defence / air superiority and had a high chance of getting shot down (France/Germany/Italy WW2, Brits sending recon spitfires over all the time for just one more example on top of the ones I gave before). The fact that they are unmanned just makes them even more likely to be used and the technology in a basic recon drone isn't of any real concern to another modern army.

EDIT: a little documentary on the matter, not the one I was trying to find about this crazy British recon pilot who kept on going back and forth super low over the Italian naval dockyards with flack bursting all around him the entire time just to get the perfect shots but still goes into the same thing:

You could shoot the UAV/drone thingy down in BF2 though

Ye but that was easy since that was basically a destroyable object with a vBF2 "UAV Radar" attached to it. When you have a player actually looking through it is when all the problems of making it destroyable, without killing the player looking through it begin

[bahiakof]

Ye but that was easy since that was basically a destroyable object with a vBF2 "UAV Radar" attached to it. When you have a player actually looking through it is when all the problems of making it destroyable, without killing the player looking through it begin

Out of curiosity, the encoding used in PR UAV uses the code Battlefield 2 Hellfire TV camera? If the answer is yes, is not there a way to create a destructive "flying camera" with the skin of a drone where any player can operate it? Or the problem is when this object is destroyed, the operator also dies even outside it?

[Rhino]

Out of curiosity, the encoding used in PR UAV uses the code Battlefield 2 Hellfire TV camera? If the answer is yes, is not there a way to create a destructive "flying camera" with the skin of a drone where any player can operate it? Or the problem is when this object is destroyed, the operator also dies even outside it?

na, that's not the way it is done currently and the main problem with that method, if your main aim is to make it destroyable, is that you can't destroy projectiles in the latest version of BF2. You use to be able to in some of the old versions of BF2 but DICE hardcoded it out of the engine after players were using C4 to destroy mines and mixing mines and C4 to make mega traps in vBF2

The only way projectiles can be destroyed now is if the projectile is either triggered to detonate by flying close to an aircraft or w/e, or if it hits a hard surface.

[bahiakof]

na, that's not the way it is done currently and the main problem with that method, if your main aim is to make it destroyable, is that you can't destroy projectiles in the latest version of BF2. You use to be able to in some of the old versions of BF2 but DICE hardcoded it out of the engine after players were using C4 to destroy mines and mixing mines and C4 to make mega traps in vBF2

The only way projectiles can be destroyed now is if the projectile is either triggered to detonate by flying close to an aircraft or w/e, or if it hits a hard surface.

Now I understand why the mines are indestructible, the fault is the limited BF2 engine.

OFFTOPIC: Did you consider replacing the UAV with light reconnaissance aircraft equipped with: thermal camera, zoom and laser marker? This would improve teamwork, and the CAS squad would have the function of recognizing the battlefield as well as balance because it would be an object that could be toppled.

Thanks Rhino.

[Lugi]

You mean UAV? It is removed on certain maps cause of viewdistance and height issues but other then that it's still in the game.

Actually you can dynamically adjust fog and viewdistance in game. Just need to find the right memory spot where the variables are stored. Could be made that the higher you are the bigger viewdistance you have. That would be a serious buff to air reconnaisance.

[AlonTavor]

We have the SOKO and the panther which both make great scout vehicles.
I always tell outlawz we need more scout helicopters like in burning sands. The SOKO is a huge intel device for MEC.
And if you ask me SOKO belongs to armour/tank squad, not transport.