Recon Photos

snow · Post by **snow** » 2008-04-28 00:32

I dunno if this has been raised before (and yes I searched), but what if the commander had access to recon photos at some regular interval, say, every 5 mins?

This would be an actual snapshot of a partial area of the battlefield, rendered in black and white, shot from a high enough altitude where it's slightly difficult to see individual troops but not impossible. Basically, it's the same thing as the real-time scan from vBF2, but only part of the field, doesn't wallhack people using cover (bldgs, trees, bushes, etc), and only the CO can see it. There could be a delay to it (30 to 60 seconds) so it's not pinpoint/RT accurate. And of course, it would have serious limitations on maps like Fool's Road, Bi Ming, etc. In short, less gamey, more realistic.

I dunno how hard that would be to implement, but of course the goal would be to give the CO another tool to be effective...which he desperately needs.

agentscar · Post by **agentscar** » 2008-04-28 01:29

That might be cool...I dunno...

PlatinumA1 · Post by **PlatinumA1** » 2008-04-28 01:31

how about if a spec ops has this idk ,soflam that can send an satellite a signal then the commander can look at that area threw his commander screen

agentscar · Post by **agentscar** » 2008-04-28 01:33

That might be a cool feature PlatnimA1...

zangoo · Post by **zangoo** » 2008-04-28 01:36

PlatinumA1 wrote:how about if a spec ops has this idk ,soflam that can send an satellite a signal then the commander can look at that area threw his commander screen

soflam doesnt take picture only lases nick..

agentscar · Post by **agentscar** » 2008-04-28 01:38

We all know it has a biult in digital camera,geeze zangoo...

haha.

arjan · Post by **arjan** » 2008-04-28 10:29

I didnt ^^

squall6677 · Post by **squall6677** » 2008-04-28 13:01

ok so if you are going to do this, it will have to be used properly, Reconnaissance is used to spot the enemy and relay back to SL and higher units within a certain area,

in the british army they use the Spartan, Snipers and in some cases Special Forces to find the enemy, they then come back to give the Commanding officer the information, he then decides what to do about it.

during this Reconnaissance task, no shots are fired unless the enemy shoots first. then they would not shoot to kill, but rather "bound out" to a safe location.

and who here thinks they could get a team to do this?(photographs would be taken from Spartan and Special Forces if tasked to do so. (UAV and satellite images never go to commanding officer)

squall6677 · Post by **squall6677** » 2008-04-28 14:50

Ghost1800 wrote: If you mean a random group of people in a 6 man squad... god help the person who tries.

Exactly what imean, i have no doubt that any clan or team that plays and practices together often will have any trouble at this, but then if they are playing on a public server together, whats the chances of the Sniper kit, the Special Forces kit and the Spartan being available?

it is always going to be stolen by the UB3R 1337 10N3 W01F. getting rid of these first is the way forward. then maybe once they are gone, we can start to introduce Recon tasks.

zeidmaan · Post by **zeidmaan** » 2008-04-28 21:19

Hmm a very good idea.
Commander could place it in his commander screen like a UAV and than maybe 30 seconds later he gets a picture. This way he wouldnt be able to pinpoint infantry but it would be a great tool for locating bunkers and firebases. Or even ammo cashes in Insurgency.
Very good idea indeed.

DeltaFart · Post by **DeltaFart** » 2008-04-28 21:29

I might have an idea on how to implement this.
IN the commander menu, you can click a button saying Recon Run or whatever. 30 seconds later, a jet flies over straight and level, and at a certain point(say 300 meters from where you clicked) a camera turns on, and it records from there to 300 meters past the click. and flies off the map. THan maybe a minute after that, the portion of the map photographed can be seen in the highest level of zoom in the CO screen for five minutes. This can be done say every 10 to 15 minutes to preven people from just photographing entire map all the time. And after 5 minutes the screen goes staticy like it does now.

Now I know the devs can do this, because USI has done this. I'm not sure if it was in the latest release or if it was just in a beta, but you could call in an airstrike on a position, and 3 A10s would spawn and drop some bombs on that position, and just disappear off screen. Was quite a spectacle to see. The only problem would be the commander screen.

3===SPECTER===3 · Post by **3===SPECTER===3** » 2008-04-28 21:34

I thought a better way to do this (and to make the commander position less boring) we make it so Commander puts up a UAV which flys in circles like BF2 exept he controls a camera on it thats in black in white and can zoom in and everything like a real UAV, and not the all seeing radar from BF2. This privilege would be active for about 1min or 2 and it reloads every 30-45 min.

DeltaFart · Post by **DeltaFart** » 2008-04-28 21:55

Maybe a mix of ^both?

com_kieffer · Post by **com_kieffer** » 2008-04-28 22:15

If we're gooing on a dream game run my wet dream would be to give the spec ops a camera and the ability to send pictures to the commander to give him better situational awarness. He miht then be able to send the relevant pictures to squands engaged by the enmy to help them neatakise the threat or simply give orders more precise orders such at destroy this tank and instead of saying round C4 or D5 simply send a picture of the tank and its surroundings.

Oldirti · Post by **Oldirti** » 2008-04-28 22:21

I support this.

DeltaFart · Post by **DeltaFart** » 2008-04-28 22:26

My biggest problem with whole specop scrrenshot thing is I dont think you can do that wih BF2

snow · Post by **snow** » 2008-04-28 22:48

Just for clarity, part of my initial intent in this idea was for the concept to be as easy to implement as possible. Not to say that aerial still photos would by definition be easier to code in than having a live camera on a UAV, but it seems that way to me. (Frankly, I know how scarce and in-demand the devs' time are is would be just as happy to see the original scan and UAV put back in with some minor limitations/modifications).

The other thing is I think the idea fails on a couple levels if it is uber-powerful and can only be used every 30-60 minutes or so. It shouldn't be spammable, but it should be able to be used every 5-10 mins or so so the commander, in essence, is always the most informed guy on the team and more than just a traffic cop who moves people around based on who's closest to what objective.

Also, personally, I get that it's cool, realistic, and would promote teamwork to be based on sniper/SF players doing the recon, but I'm afraid outside of organized play (clan matches, PRT) it means it would rarely be used/accomplished and hence a waste of dev time. This should be a tool for CO's that just works, and it's up to him to interpret and act on the intel properly...

DeltaFart · Post by **DeltaFart** » 2008-04-28 22:53

Well said well said

3===SPECTER===3 · Post by **3===SPECTER===3** » 2008-04-28 22:55

If the Live camera is an idea that is hardcoded, i think we should go with still photos, but, i think the still photos is kinda (taking a risk saying this) outdated in sense. I mean today there are now soldier portable UAVs with live feeds, and i think a live feed would be more useful than a still shot because with the still shot, a lot can change in the picture than what was viewed with the picture. With a live feed, the squad(s) can request UAV and the commander can relay info to whats in the area and stuff while directly viewing the feed.