Those amazing men

[waffenbaum]

...and their flying machines!

A lot of talk has been going about making pilots a class, and that's possibly one of the ideas I support the most. And it's no secret that pilots have some of the coolest looking uniforms in the whole army. (Not hard considering how everybody has to look the same) So anyway, I wanted to put up a few reference pitures, just to give you an idea of what they might be like on the ground.

This guy obviously knows where it's at. And how could you not cheer when seeing him hoofing it back to base? He has all the style in the world, but no one would ever give him a lift.


Nice detailed closeup of the chest section


Here, notice the nose air intake? That adds a little bizarro toutch to it. And question is, should the visir/sunglass be up in this posistion when the pilot isn't flying?


Not the best of shots, but it does give an idea of the tight space these guys have, and how difficult it can be to eject when crashing. (Sadly, with no ejector seat)


This picture is puzzling. On one hand, his helmet seems like a different type, and I can't recognize his shoulder patch either. So I wouldn't take him for an American. But the markings on his machine is in english. Can anyone clear this up?
Big old piccie

If there's three things that would make the pilot class work, it would be:
1: First off, actually having the pilot class, as a pickup kit (I have probably mentioned this some 700 times now, but indulge me )
2: Ejector seats. seems 97% impossible, but it would be a VAST improvement over the current enter/exit routine.
3: Vehicle entering animation. Adding these to all vehicles would slow down the n00bery a lot. No dodging in and out of jeeps, no superjumping from planes. A good long "crawling into the cockpit" animation would really make the whole thing come together.
(For those who played Half Life 2, you know how it looked when entering vehicles, sssmooth and easy)

[Eddie Baker]

This picture is puzzling. On one hand, his helmet seems like a different type, and I can't recognize his shoulder patch either. So I wouldn't take him for an American. But the markings on his machine is in english. Can anyone clear this up?
Big old piccie

He is a USAF pilot; note the subdued blue USAF Captain's bars on his shoulder.

But yes, the helmet is of a different type. Not sure if it is newer, older or branch/aircraft specific.

[Tactical Advantage]

Cant wait for the pilot class either, no more base hogging, and then having a single sniper grab a blackhawk fly over a mountain and bail and waist the chopper, pilots should prove to be a good use in PR.

[little_dster]

im all for a pilot class i think it would be awsome.

what would they carry?

[waffenbaum]

Standart millitary sidearm. M1911A1? Damn my feeble memory. other than that, they usually have a flare, a whistle, and some light sticks. (Maybe a small air supply for landing in water, I think I saw that when finding the pictures)

[Eddie Baker]

Standart millitary sidearm. M1911A1? Damn my feeble memory. other than that, they usually have a flare, a whistle, and some light sticks. (Maybe a small air supply for landing in water, I think I saw that when finding the pictures)

The standard US sidearm is the M9. Aviators at one time were issued .38 revolvers. They tend to have a pen flare signal kit (red flares) in their survival vest, cyalume lightsticks, a survival knife and smoke flares. Also, after landing from an ejection, the aviator's helmet is ditched; they usually have a reversible boonie hat (olive drab/"day-glow" orange) for SERE.

The air supply you're thinking of is called a HEED (Helicopter Emergency Egress Device). USAF Pararescuemen and US Secret Service agents go through HEED "dunker" training in addition to helo pilots/aircrew.



The site where you found those photos has multiple angles of the different helmet/mask type, but doesn't give a full designation for it.

[waffenbaum]

Eddie, you're our own private Wikipedia. I salute you

Oh, and that above helmet dosn't have the nose clip. It looks a bit more like the one on my mystery picture. But here the glass is tinted green. A whole third variation! Not to mention chopper hemets.

[keyser Soeze.KIA.]

3: Vehicle entering animation. Adding these to all vehicles would slow down the n00bery a lot. No dodging in and out of jeeps, no superjumping from planes. A good long "crawling into the cockpit" animation would really make the whole thing come together.

Yes, i have said this befor on other forums. Someone said it would slow up the game with so many new animations. Bull**** i say...

[Figisaacnewton]

1) We need a pilot class, no question, no argument
2) We would really like ejector seats
3) We would really like entering/exiting animations

1)Definetely possible in BF2 engine
2)...maybe possible in BF2 engine
3)...probably not possible, but there is always that tiny little chance...

[waffenbaum]

2)...maybe possible in BF2 engine
3)...probably not possible, but there is always that tiny little chance...

I think these needs to be reversed though. it shouldn't be hard adding a entering animation, in which the game would temporarily take control of your guy, and only resume once you're inside the vehicle. Same goes for exiting.

Ejector seats seems nigh impossible, as it's hard to make something break off intact from an existing model. I have never seen a vehicle in any game where parts could be removed and used otherwise, be it turrents, spare parts, whatever.

[Kozuka]

Well, it all depends on how the game handles these certain things and we can't really do anything but speculate intill we get the mod tools. Unfortunitly it could be sometime before they are released.

But merly on speculation you could have the ejection seat as a seperate enity within the game and a *eject* animation when you bail out wile in the air. Once thats done you deploy a parashoot just like you do now.

But for an exact way to do it we need to know the capabilitys of the mod tools first.

Peace
Kozuka

[waffenbaum]

well, nothing much has changed besides the graphics and the ragdoll effects. It's mostly a suped-up BF1942 we're looking at, and we shouldn't expect to do anything we couldn't back then. Bu they would have to redo all jets in order to add a removable section, and then THAT section would have to function as a vehicle on it's own (It would be awesome if the ejected on it's own after the jet catches fire).But as awesome as this is, it would probably cause a lot of trouble for the people unable to afford supercomputers.

[Super62]

Eddie Baker]

Standart millitary sidearm. M1911A1? Damn my feeble memory. other than that, they usually have a flare, a whistle, and some light sticks. (Maybe a small air supply for landing in water, I think I saw that when finding the pictures)

The standard US sidearm is the M9. Aviators at one time were issued .38 revolvers. They tend to have a pen flare signal kit (red flares) in their survival vest, cyalume lightsticks, a survival knife and smoke flares. Also, after landing from an ejection, the aviator's helmet is ditched; they usually have a reversible boonie hat (olive drab/"day-glow" orange) for SERE.

The air supply you're thinking of is called a HEED (Helicopter Emergency Egress Device). USAF Pararescuemen and US Secret Service agents go through HEED "dunker" training in addition to helo pilots/aircrew.



The site where you found those photos has multiple angles of the different helmet/mask type, but doesn't give a full designation for it.

That mast is called the MBU-20P and is being issued to all F16 and F15 pilots according to the website
http://www.gentexcorp.com/West/mbu20p.htm

[Michael M.]

I think the pilot class should be earnable, after a certain amount of aviator/chopper pilot points are awarded. That way, players can be sure that when they see someone with the pilot class, they know they're in the right hands. Also, a player with the pilot class has more options when flying a vehicle (I'm not sure what that could be).

[Figisaacnewton]

Not sure how you'd make that work, I think a pilot class (with a limitation %!) would just be simpler and work just as well.

youd be able to tell a crappy pilot by the score...

ejector seat = vehicle your guy is sitting in. this vehicle is stuck inside another vehicle, the jet. The jet is controlled semi remotley, like the droids in galatic conquest, so you have to left click to start the sequence of you controlling the jet (you are firing yourself into the jet) but since you are in something that is in the thing you are controlling, you move with it. you want to bail out, you hit e, and the jet goes to free fall, and then you push whateve is the boost button, and the seat you are in (using bf2's amazing new physics) fires a rocket (there is an explosion under the seat, but does no damage, only has force) and this pushes you out, clear from the jet, then you right click and open the parachute.

there, thats my idea. no idea if that'd work or not.

[waffenbaum]

Maybe the ejector seat could be the third seat in a plane. F3 in other words, and when you got in, the only option you have would be to press the down arrow and thereby ejecting said seat.

[Medicoris]

Hmm. I think the enter and exiting animations won't work considering Battlefields lack of ability to create new animations in the first place. I remember in Desert Combat loading the M16 was really the BAR animation. It was fairly funny too.

I don't know if custom animations can be made. Galatic Conquest were able to make some very simple animations that showed the AT-ST's walking. Other than that, I never remember seeing any custom animations whatsoever.

As for the ejector seats, I think it's possible. I believe theres a single player mod for Battlefield Vietnam that adds ejector seats. I never tried it, but I thought I remember seeing it on PlanetBattlefield.

[Ryland]

what about this for a idea, if you could make a animation for enter and exit, why not just make the eject a animation too? you could make a new key set for it (i've seen it done in UT2004 and in HL:2 mods) you could have "Eject" in the airplane control list. Or, you could make it just a "third weapon" since you can choose differnt weapons in the vehicles.

I'm not much for coding or animations, so i dunno if its possible with the BF2 engine, but in UT2004 it is, there is a "Death From Above 2k4" for UT2004 that had eject seats for the planes.

anyhow, just a thought ^_^

[Figisaacnewton]

The "animation " for gc's atst legs was simply the leg models rotating back and forth, no true animation, just sort of simple thing like on the jeep 'wheels turn when jeep goes', 'at st legs go back and forth when at st goes'

But, the BF2 MDK is going to have an animation editor, so we will be saved.

my other idea for ejector seat, but its choppier and doesnt work as well:

you enter the jet, fly around as usual. when you get high enough that your landing gear goes up, it also changes (rotates) your exit point on the vehicle to inside the jet, where there is a vehicle (the seat) inside of it. If you hold E, then you get out of the jet and get into the ejector seat. then you have to left click for the boost to seperate from the jet, and then rightclick to deploy the parachute.

but that idea is a bit more ugly, cause if you exit the jet while the exit point isn't all the way rotated to the right point, you just die...

both of my ideas revolve around the fact that somehow you have to be able to make a vehicle stick inside another vehicle. hopefully its possible in bf2, with its much better physics. infact, it was possible in 42, with such vehicles as the betty that carried the jap suicide torpedo jet thing in FH.

It can't be as simple as an animation though, because it invovles vehicles moving around and such. halflife 2 and ut2004 are WAAAAY more modable than BF games, because BF games don't release SDK's and allow you to strip the game down to basic engine level and build up, all we can do is essentially replace things that are already there with other things. Most new things are really complicated to code, but, again, the MDK may change this.. and it cant be position 3, because that is still the same vehicle, not seperate from the jet...

But, on the topic of enter/exit animations... you never know. It pretty much all depends on how good the MDK is, see what kind of animations it lets you make, and see where and in what circumstances it lets you use them.

[Super62]

If we have a fixed wing pilot class, we need a avaitor (chopper) class. Even better would be a army (hint 160 SOAR) and a Marines (or navy) class. Bdus or flight suits or both could be used.
Army

Marines

The biggest difference between the Army and the Marines is the helmet,
The current army helmet is the HGU-56P

The current naval helmet is the HGU-84P


Also as for weapons, it looks to me like currently a M4 is standard with all heliocopter crews.