Now that you have a basic understanding of how complex the real artillery system trully is, you can understand why player-operated units are just not possible (at a realistic level) or feasible (in a Reality mod). But off-map assets WOULD be better suited for this mod and allow a vital form of support to be made available.fubar++ wrote:Ninja2dan, you are speaking the same about complexity of real life artillery as I thought it to be. Our difference is just that you don't want it if it can't be done real enough, I want it there because it isn't there altought it is needed indeed.
ATM it is possible for SL call indirect firesuport only by JDAM, or giving laser targets. Both of those are suitable only for some special situations. In real infantry combat artillery is basic fire support tool and so it should be in PR too.
Because it isn't possible to implement real artillery there has to be some kind of compromise between real life and game play - and whether there is artillery in PR at all or how it will be build is up Devs.
I'm voting for simple player friendly version that still would have some real life charasteristics like demand of spotter and gunner co-operation. What else there should or shouldn't be goes beyond my agenda.
As you acknowledged though, trying to integrate such a system will be tricky. You don't want it to be too complex, if that were so most DEVs would simply say it's not worth it. But if it's too simple, it will have the same effect in that it would be far too unrealistic for PR. In order to come to a fair balance of the two, to both meet the needs of the game as well as fall in line with the reality theme, the DEVs will need to bonk their skulls together to determine first what is actually capable with this "turd of an engine".
Right now we know that mid-round spawning of objects is possible, this is evident with commander/SL deployable objects. Spawning other items shouldn't be a problem either, but testing would be required for lag issues. I bring this up in regards to specialized artillery such as minefields being deployed via simulated artillery. Although this would make for a very interesting use of a limited strike on some maps, it also causes concerns. Can a marker be placed on the map, visible only to the deploying team, that accurately shows (within 25m or so) where the borders of such a minefield are? If not, dropping minefields this way would be a mistake, and therefore taking that munition type off of the list of hopefuls.
Smoke munitions should be possible, although the effect would need to be more like the armor defensive smoke where it is instant pop and not slow like the hand-deployed devices. Unlike the tank smoke though it would need a larger burst radius and longer duration. I think that this would be useful on some current and future maps where GL-deployed smokes are not feasible.
HE is the most common form of artillery used, but can you allow limited cover by infantry and vehicles behind cover? Or will splash damage from arty still go through walls/hills/sandbags/etc? If you can't provide ground units with some form of defenses against it, then that reduces the realism and fun level. JDAM is one thing, but normal HE should have some counter-defense or way to protect yourself from it.
I could go on all week long about all of the munition and fuze types and how they could be integrated into the game. I could discuss hundreds of ways that each round could be modelled or how the visual effect would look. I can provide GB's of data on shell graphics, images and videos of actual artillery round impacts, data tables on ballistics, pretty much you name it. But until someone from the DEV team actually starts asking for this stuff and shows signs that they intend to even consider it; well I'm afraid that these discussions will likely be for little more than just for fun and arguement sake.
, and it doesn't take weeks of work to put in place.