Pilot Kit Timers (to protect assets from inexperienced pilots)

[DammitDan]

I searched through the forums and didn't find anything regarding this suggestion (besides pilot kit limiting, but this isn't what I'm aiming for). I had written something similar in the Pilot ROE post, but I wanted to get some more exposure and see what other people thought of the idea. I mainly fly helicopters, so this is geared toward that (though it could easily be adapted to other types of vehicles).

One of the most annoying problems I've noticed has been inexperienced players taking air vehicles, crashing them 2 minutes later by making a simple mistake (e.g. full-throttling it at takeoff), then coming back and standing on the landing pad to grab the vehicle when it respawns to do it all over again. Of course we want to give everyone at least an equial chance to fly and prove they can do so safely, but how can we prevent inexperienced pilots from wasting valuable team assets over and over again?

How about placing a player-specific timer on the kit? As soon as the player selects the pilot kit and picks it up, a countdown timer starts which prevents him/her from selecting that kit again for several minutes. If the pilot keeps himself alive long enough to run the timer down (assuming they are flying during this time), it shows they are competent enough to actually fly safely. This means that if an experienced pilot who goes down he will be able to simply respawn, grab another pilot kit (because his timer has run down from last selection) and wait at the pad for a new vehicle. If an inexperienced pilot goes down (usually in the first minute or two), they will have to wait until their timer runs out to get a new kit, giving someone else the opportunity to take the vehicle.

The only problem I foresee would be in implementing a universal minute timer which starts as soon as the player selects the pilot kit. With transport helicopters this wouldn't be a problem, as the timer could be set at 8-10 minutes (which would mean the helicopter would respawn before the inexperienced pilot could get a new kit). But with the longer-spawn time vehicles, an inexperienced pilot's timer would run down before the vehicle repspawns, allowing him to grab the kit and simply sit and wait.

This could be solved by making the kit timer slightly longer than the longest-respawning air vehicle on the map, but that would be a pain for the pilots flying vehicles with much quicker respawn times.

The best way to handle the issue would be to start the timer when the pilot actually enters the vehicle, and limit the kit timer to the respawn time of that specific vehicle +2 minutes. I'm not sure if this would create an issue which conflicts with the hardcoding, though. I figure if you can force people to use specific kits while sitting in certain vehicle positions, it shouldn't be too difficult to associate a timer with it as well.

Would this suggestion be a possibility?

[[T]waylay00]

What if you happened to get teamkilled at your base?

(and hello fellow Tennessee PR player)

[[T]waylay00]

Double Post

[DammitDan]

TKing in the base would be an issue if there was a universal timer implemented, but if the timer only started once a pilot got into the vehicle, it wouldn't be a problem.

[Durandal]

TKing in the base would be an issue if there was a universal timer implemented, but if the timer only started once a pilot got into the vehicle, it wouldn't be a problem.

It would still be a problem. Whenever I get TKed, its usually when I'm sitting in the pilot seat about to take off.

[DammitDan]

I can't speak from experience about being TK'd at the base, because it's never actually happened to me. Then again, I'm also pretty laid back about that kinda stuff. If someone wants to be an *** a bogart a chopper out from under me, meh. Not a biggie. It's their loss for being a selfish ***.

I must say I hadn't considered this as being a major problem, but maybe it goes on more frequently than I realize. There are ways around the TK issue, but it makes the coding much more complicated (if at all possible in the first place). One solution would be to make the pilot kit a limited kit, which has been discussed and turned down in the past.

The good thing is, the new pilot kit being completely unarmed makes the likelihood of a TK much lower. Maybe make a restriction on selecting ANY kits if a person TKs a fellow player in the last minute? Only problem is, people could get around this restriction by selecting a pilot kit and leaving it on the ground, TKing the current pilot in the vehicle, and then grabbing the pilot kit and jumping in the vehicle.

It's late and I'm fresh out of ideas... Anyone else want to chime in with some constructive criticism?

[Jedimushroom]

On a similar topic I was playing Muttrah the other day and whilst there were about three decent pilots (including myself) a whole bunch of idiots kept grabbing choppers and flying around near squads dropping off crates where they weren't needed and giving away their position, usually crashing or getting shot down within a few minutes.

The insanely large amount of tickets they wasted really angered me, but there was nothing I could do. I think there are far too many choppers on that map, perhaps it would be better if they all spawned but only two or three respawned, that way the pilots who keep their choppers longest get rewarded and the noobs can be filtered out.

Although I like your idea as well.

[cyberzomby]

yea know with the choppers losing tickets its actually really bad if people who cant fly grab the choppers...

Wouldnt want to see it any other way though. But we will need to find something for the newbs.

[gazzthompson]

The insanely large amount of tickets they wasted really angered me
.

QFT i played a round on muttrah and our team (USMC) had near tripple the MEC teams , and we nearly full capped... but we lost cause of noobs crashing choppers.

[PR.IT Stek_WAR]

nice idea but it is probably a "hardcodec"

[DammitDan]

That's what I'm trying to figure out... If it's a hardcoded issue.

I had some hope that it is not, as PR can require people to have a specific kit before getting into a particular position in a vehicle (gunner/driver/pilot/etc). I imagine it's just a short jump to assign a countdown timer to a kit as well.

Then again I know virtually nothing about the magic of coding