Leave "blue force tracking" for commander only

[LtSoucy]

We have the 3 minutes briefing time in the beginning of each round. Are you saying that it's not enough?

Some people like, me get in with 30 secs then are forced to SL. Not everyone has that.

[Jordanb716]

how about this:
lonewolf: nothing
squad member: rest of the squad
squad leader: rest of the squad, other squad leaders, and commander
commander: all friendlies
if its set up something like that I'm all for it!

[hx.bjoffe]

I was and am still a fan of removing the blue dots from the minimap, with the squadleader icons staying. Maybe even with a delay.
If it's possible...

[waldo_ii]

I think we should have blue markers that appear on the map to show the general region of friendly forces. If four or so are within 50 meters of each other, then a blue circle appears on the map. This would update every thirty seconds or so.

[Tirak]

*Sigh* I'd prefer the map not be changed, but if you do change it, go all the way. Replace the map with a topographical map and then take away all unit markers, even your own position and navigate by landmarks.

[Sadist_Cain]

remove blue mob fr0m map, keep green mob on map

keep nametag popping up when focusing on targets for short time, remove blue mob

This wya you caj check frr friendlies if you "look" hard enough but you still dont have the magic blueness on the map

all good this imo

me had big drinky dotinght me feeling good

[Pariel]

I see much TKing in this idea's future.

That doesn't make it bad; I'm all for it. I just dread the first few weeks with it.

[Tirak]

I see much TKing in this idea's future.

That doesn't make it bad; I'm all for it. I just dread the first few weeks with it.

My advice, learn to tank. Nobody Tks a tank unless they're a smacktard

[PhantomZero]

I think this is a terrible idea, half the time nobody checks their map anyways and ends up shooting you in the back as it is.

Lets keep this a fun mod for everybody and not a game for grognards.

[Tirak]

Grognard?

[Cassius]

I wanted to make that suggestion too, however for a different reason than yours and would have activated blue force tracking within the squad and everything in close proxmity to a squad to facilitate operations.

I also would have left it enabled for armor so the tanks see each other on the map and aircrafts.

That would make a commander a necessity and finally commanders would have to take the decision on which squad does what.

[Caboosehatesbabies]

I always kinda assumed our map was kinda like a Land Warrior System (or whatever they're calling it now). I made up a little explanation in my mind that all the soldiers were implanted with encrypted microchips, which is why we can see them on our maps. The Land Warrior system also explains why the move markers, flags, name pop up, and kit exclusive indicators like a soldier's or vehicle's heath or ammo status show up in the first person view.

As a victim of many friendly fire incidents, normally caused by people not bothering to verify their targets out of laziness, I disagree with removing the blues from the map screen. I think this would up the FF incidents alot.

[Kruder]

It'd be frustrating for aircrafts,among many other things,but especially for all types of armed choppers.It is already too easy to get shot down,now you tell me in 64 pub play you are gonna ask almost every target just before u engage them and people would respond in chat almost in real time?Ppl dont even tell where they wanna be dropped.Or worse get close to target as 50 meters(assuming its not a dark map)and check target just before u shoot?

Armies have knowledge of his troops whereabouts what are they doing how are they doing etc.,and its a big and probably boring thing to relay all this information to the troops at the field and to keep it updated.So why waste our 64 slots or play time with something like that?

Also you can check who is doing what as an admin,f.e how are u gonna know if someone is baseraping before they destroy every asset and kill everybody at enemy base?

You also have a general idea what is needed where and when as a regular grunt just by checking map,so this helps teamwork a lot,remove it and it will be chaos.People TKing each other,squads getting dropped/deplyoing at same flag,squads engaging each other etc,whole team camping only the closest caches while leaving the far ones undefended.

[Zodiaccup]

I just got a Déjà-vu.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the last time we discussed this topic, the devs came to the conclusion that because of the missing situational awareness, information flow etc., which you can't simulate in games especially not with the bf2 engine, we keep the blue guy markers on the map for everyone.

I still fully agree with that and I think there is absolutely no need to remove them, to make PR more realistic, or from my point of view more pseudo realistic.

[Ecko]

I just got a Déjà-vu.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the last time we discussed this topic, the devs came to the conclusion that because of the missing situational awareness, information flow etc., which you can't simulate in games especially not with the bf2 engine, we keep the blue guy markers on the map for everyone.

I still fully agree with that and I think there is absolutely no need to remove them, to make PR more realistic, or from my point of view more pseudo realistic.

But this was before the commander was revamped, due to how the commander has to play now, this will be an easy task.

[Titan]

I support this suggestion... greenies should stay as they are actually... squaldeader show up as little blue squares (like the red one for enemy inf) but with a number ... and maybe vehicles should stay

and for Helis there is no prob if all helis get a Hud with the laser-squares apearing... so you start your gunrun only if they are marked ...

[badmojo420]

I think we should go all the way and give only the commander the current system. Everyone else has no map to go by. The squad leaders would get a map with no friendly icons, just something to place move markers with. And the vehicles would get a map with squad leaders only.

When i first started playing PR, I was disappointed with pulling up a map to check friendlies. It's just such a video game thing to do. If it was up to me, there would be no names above heads. No warnings when you hurt a team mate. No global TK messages. Etc, etc.

People are saying TK'ing is bad enough now, it would only get worse. Well right now people have access to maps with you in bright blue, right in front of their FOV icon. Yet, you still get tk'ed on a regular basis. Obviously a lot of players arn't even checking their maps every time they see a target. So i highly doubt that taking away the map will cause a careless player to team kill any more then they currently are. It will only effect careful players who, insted of tapping capslock and identifying friend or foe in a second or two. Will now have to pop out the binoculars and check, or talk to the marksmen, call it out to the commander, etc ,etc. All of which i think would improve game play.

[Masaq]

Regardless, from my poking around in the system, this can't be done.


The Squad Member "Blue Dot" icon is a .dds file painted onto the map by the engine. Except, it's not blue - it's just a blackoutline.

The game then checks what each dot should appear as (i.e.: Green for your squad mates, blue for everyone else, white for someone you've selected), and fills them in with the appropriate colour.


Which means we can't turn the blue fill and black outline invisible like I'd hoped, because doing that would make EVERY black outline invisible and would make EVERY blue icon see-through.

You'd have the outline of a tank but no blue fill, the icon for another SL but no blue fill.


And of course the code that handles the fill of the icons is part of the engine, can't be tweaked and can't be managed by Python scripting like most of PR's fancier elements (Rallypoints, FOPs, kit system etc).


I could look at making the blue-dot icon much much smaller, and I can almost certainly remove the little arrow for direction-of-movement/heading, so people have to look at the map for longer to identify friendly positions etc - but I can't do that just for squad members - any such change would go right across the board, affecting everyone.


In short, this is a pretty hardcoded issue. Sorry guys, I had high hopes for this

[Oak]

It'd be frustrating for aircrafts,among many other things,but especially for all types of armed choppers.It is already too easy to get shot down,now you tell me in 64 pub play you are gonna ask almost every target just before u engage them and people would respond in chat almost in real time?Ppl dont even tell where they wanna be dropped.Or worse get close to target as 50 meters(assuming its not a dark map)and check target just before u shoot?

If you read the opening post you'd see what I suggesting is to enable this system for commanders AND vehicle operators (as opposed to the title). Two reasons for that - one, that I agree with you, this will make life really hard for them, and two - that it makes sense they'll have access to that system from a realistic point of view.