Soldiers and their Environment

[M.Warren]

Now, we're all familiar with how the game plays out. Infantry has always been rather easy to find. If infantry is not inside of a building of some sort they are not hard to identify. Heck, anyone who's familiar with the game can easily spot a sniper 700 meters away if they can determine the direction of the incoming shot. Besides the guille suit does not render upon the soldier himself after a certain distance.

As time goes on it's becoming increasingly noticeable to myself that there is a general lack of valuable flora in game. Now this may seem as a very minor detail but it may change the way infantry plays out in certain maps. But in all honesty, we have everything but what we need the most in game. To me, all the flora in game seems like they were spaced out properly. Like someone had taken out a tape measure and started sticking seeds in the ground every 10 meters. This has a large and negative impact on infantry combat as we know it.

We're all familiar on how much we hate tall grass while laying prone. It's also clear that laying down at the base of a treetrunk makes you stick out like a sore thumb. Besides, grass completely disappears and trees render differently at distance, but bushes remain rather simple and our only option for concealment at long distances.

What could we do to fix this? It's quite simple, massed amounts of bushes. And I don't mean just one bush in the middle of nowhere as a filler. I mean dense clusters of concealment. Like 1-4 bushes in tight spacing around each other. This will help facilitate hiding Rally Points, being able to hide your squad if you decide to advance through enemy territory...

I myself have played the Sniper kit on occasion to the best of my abilities, but I have played a Forward Observer to call in air strikes alot more. One of the forgotten aspects of Project Reality is the whole aspect of concealment. I can assure you by my own personal experience, if you spend some time to actually hide in a bush you'll find that it helps alot.

I can recall countless times where I was inside enemy territory designating targets and had snipers, spec ops, and whole squads of troops just run right past me. Just absolutely clueless and had no idea that I was nearby. I don't mean within 50 meters either, more like 10 meters away and being able to actually see the emblem on thier Beret. Not to mention that slight "rush" you get while sit there biting your lip anticipating your discovery... Only to find out that they just walk on by and keep going.

Besides, when was the last time you were actually worried about a sniper? Of all classes snipers should be much more frightening. To this day I cannot say that I have found a single sniper that really helped turn a fight around. It's not thier fault though, it's just that one of thier main environmental resources has never been looked at in-depth. I've tried my damndest to use a sniper rifle, crawled for countless yards to get in position, waited for enemy movements to report on, attempted to identify enemy officers... No matter what for some reason it doesn't work out that well.

Then I suppose you must be asking yourself "What bushes could he be talking about? Most of them are flimsy" you are correct. There are very few bushes that are capable of properly concealing an entire player. These kind of bushes are easily found on "The Battle of Qinling" that offer the kind of concealment we're looking for.

Bushes you do not want to use for concealment.

Flimsy Foliage


Flimsy Concealment


Flimsy Aiming


Bushes you do want to use for concealment.

Dense Foliage


Dense Concealment


Dense Aiming


I'm sure theres a number of people out there saying "What's the big deal? Flimsy bushes offer alot more visibility." That's true as it works two ways, you can see them and they can see you. Then some people may be thinking "Well when you're in dense foliage you can't see anything." That's true aswell, but you'll have to get used to that claustrophobic feeling. But it also helps you out, you can see them and they most likely won't see you at all.

Now as the image is painted clearer. Hopefully we can begin to convince our mapmakers to spend alittle more time in the placement of bushes. Maybe even begin to cluster them together in tight spacing and having 3 or so to simlulate large foliage. It's no wonder why infantry has such a hard time on armor maps... Sure that tanks are tanks, but even infantry needs to be resourceful and make use of thier surroundings. Because right now, the grass doesn't render at long range and trees are barely an acceptable alternative.

Remember, granted that the foliage in some areas may have 1 or 2 bushes around. But there should also be dense patches at times with 3 or more bushes to help bring our infantry combat to a new level. Imagine a sniper overlooking a flag area without getting shot off the side of a mountain. Imagine Heavy Anti-Tank utilizing the concealment of bushes to hide from enemy armor in the area. Imagine being able to effectively inform your squad to follow rules of engagement to "Not fire until fired upon." as you begin flanking the enemy with furtive guile.

Looks like Project Reality still has potential to get even better. I'd love to see this aspect of gameplay perfected.

[arjan]

And again a amazing suggestion by M.Warren
I like it dude.

[vilhelm123]

Brilliant idea Warren I'd love to see it realised.

Also props to you for such an indepth and well balanced argument in favour of your idea =D

[pvt.nouri]

Good post. We NEED this!

[Scot]

I agree

[Valtasar]

I like the idea.
But wouldn't to many bushes couse lag?

[Drav]

Sorry Warren, think you're onto a losing battle here mate. Good concealment with a long view distance is something battlefield will never do well

However, I think the best we could do would be to model more different types of bush that render at long range, trees with foliage (grass etc) that renders at distance at the bottom, and larger bushes that could hold a few men at a time. I do think that anyone in a bush should let off a large rustling sound whenever they move tho....

[Gore]

I'm never a sniper, but a sniper isn't the only one who needs concealment. It's a good idea.
Maybe create a bush that's a bit larger, or as Warrens says, put a few of them together.

I see alot of people who has this problem, not only in a bush but with grass and other things
http://i285.photobucket.com/albums/ll47 ... Aiming.jpg

People complain about being shot when having a tidy space to hide. Hide like on the picture, don't crawl out for a better view while in grass.

I looked at some pictures of a map that's gonna be implemented in a release
http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/D ... F22008-03-

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/D ... F22008-02-

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h29/D ... F22008-03-

Here there are really places to hide, and the colors are nice.

Map is called Sangin, here's the thread.
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f225-m ... n-wip.html

Edit: links doesn't work, check out the thread link.

[Rhino]

really all this is is for players to change the way they plan and really not something we can do in the mod... I always use the big bushes in the same way you do, hence why I put them on the map, they are very good for concealment, maybe in some cases too good, thou in a realistic way.

As for bushes / trees being spaced evenly out, they aint exact, but there is a "min distance" that a tree can be from anouther object that you set. Too close and it looks all funky with trees growing though each other etc, as well as the huge problems of lag when the trees are too dance.

That first small bush is a vBF2 bush. the 2nd bush is a new PR bush, hence as you can see we are moving towards these kind of overgrowth for concealment as you have suggested. But at the end of the day its not about how PR uses them, cos we are more or less with in the limitations of the engines using them as best we can. Its more down to the players to use them in the correct way at the end of the day which really at the end, is just a player skill factor. A trained sniper in r/l would use his surroundings to the best of his ability, like above, in PR, the same thing goes.

So unless if I'm understanding this post wrong, thou there dont seem to be any direct suggestion at the end of it that I can see more of how things work, your suggestion is really not a suggestion...

[Alex6714]

Well the thing with the bushes is, if I see one or 2 bushes on the hill and I think there is a sniper up there, where am I going to fire?

[Scot]

Just use jungle maps - try lying down on OGT or Bi Ming in dense forest, they will never see you!

[M.Warren]

So unless if I'm understanding this post wrong, thou there dont seem to be any direct suggestion at the end of it that I can see more of how things work, your suggestion is really not a suggestion...

I think I may have not explained it as clearly as I should have.

What I'm trying to emphasize is the implementation of larger scale versions of "Dense Foliage". Like actual clusters of bushes/foliage/hedges/shrubs etc. to offer greater concealment over the current versions of singular random bushes as featured in the photos.

I have already consulted the BF2 Editor for Project Reality. And yes, I have noticed that there are newer forms of vegitation over the standard BF2 models specifically made for PR.

As featured in the BF2 Editor for both PR models and standard BF2 models there has always been clusters of trees and clusters of grass formations. However there are no forms of clustered bushes/foliage/hedges/shrubs etc. That's exactly what I'm trying to point out though.

Of course, this would all be easier if I could actually work the BF2 editor properly. All I'm trying to get out of this is to toss a couple of bush models together, such as:

deciduous_bush_1 (x2) and deciduous_bush_v1 (x3) together to make a deciduous_bush cluster for example.

Well the thing with the bushes is, if I see one or 2 bushes on the hill and I think there is a sniper up there, where am I going to fire?

That's entirely possible. But then again, are you going to shoot at every single bit of foliage on a hill? If you have suspicions that an enemy is in that location, then feel free to open fire on it.

Offering better concealment will create more guesswork for trying to locate snipers and enemy squads that are actually attempting to hide.

[Rhino]

the only way to make "clusters" easily with the overgrowth tool is just to model set bush clusters which would be 1 bush, which aint a bad idea, may consider it later on.

[tanky]

I definitely agree there should be better means of concealment. ATM people stick out like sore thumbs for the most part..once a hidden sniper has taken their first shot its only a matter of seconds before you find his location just by scanning the few bushes etc with your scope.

I wish the gilly(spelling?) suite actually worked...at any distance!

are people saying that there should be more bushes or bigger bushes or both?

[Zimmer]

more bushes and bigger ones.

[M.Warren]

[quote=""'[R-DEV"]Rhino;728007']the only way to make "clusters" easily with the overgrowth tool is just to model set bush clusters which would be 1 bush, which aint a bad idea, may consider it later on.[/quote]

Splendid, and thank you for hearing me out.

[quote="tanky""]I wish the gilly(spelling?) suite actually worked...at any distance!

are people saying that there should be more bushes or bigger bushes or both?[/quote]

I belive it's spelled Guille Suit.

But yes, any form of bushes in a mix of vegitation types and various sizes is what we'd be looking for. It'll certainly make environments more natural and aid infantry combat by putting a nice new spin on maps. This will enable players to hide more often for a stealthier new approach.

Most of the stock BF2 vegitation models are far too small to effectively hide behind. Which is not suprising as BF2 made almost all of the aspects of infantry combat just as deadly as they are vulnerable. People weren't meant to live long enough to have a kill to death ratio of 36 to 0 even if you had the skill.

[General_J0k3r]

Well the thing with the bushes is, if I see one or 2 bushes on the hill and I think there is a sniper up there, where am I going to fire?

I agree with you that if you have one bush, you'll fire there. but that's why warren called for more bushes (if i understood him correctly). if you have a s***load of bushes in a certain area, how would you know on which to fire exactly unless you see barrel smoke or sth?

[Shotgun]

i totally support this idea

[Lynx]

ya bushy patches also It would be nice to see some old abandoned tractors for hard cover in a map

[Bringerof_D]

ghillie suit rendered or not it does next to nothing to keep you hidden.

and yes i've spent countless hours crawling around large maps with my entire squad for ambushes or insertions, generaly they work fine but if there are people you need to sneak around close to it's pointless to even try. there just isnt enough foliage to keep you hidden in the forests