Sharing

[Malik]

Is it me or have Egg and Tom Baker already pointed out this is not possible? The system I thought up would be almost impossible to create at the moment, but I'm still determined to make it work when I learn how. As Egg said it'd be similar to the C4 throwing animation, only in the hand would be a magazine. It could be dropped on the spot or thrown a short distance to a comrade. The problem isn't the animation, the problem is getting the different magazines to be treated differently and getting each weapon to be treated as a different weapon. As Egg said, currently BF2 recognises ammo as ammo, not M16 ammo as M16 ammo or AK-47 ammo as AK-47 ammo. To make it do that would be almost impossible as it'd require new variables to be created, something that's not so easy with the limited BF2 engine and the code provided to modders at the moment. Yes, believe me I want to see this work, but as Egg said it'd be a lot of work and at the moment it doesn't seem possible.

What you're proposing is pretty much what I said, but having ammo bags still. It still wouldn't work, and if your system did work then it'd be just as easy to do what I said. Ammo bags restock ammo, they don't discriminate between anything. If they could, why not just replace them with the magazine idea?

[fred450]

Again I agree malik. I see creating different ammo types might be impossible. I know squat about modding, but something tells me creating that wouldn't be necessary. The engine can see how much ammo you got for each weappon, because it apperas on your screen, right? What if it that information could be transmited from one player to another (given they are the same class) so amounts raised for one decrease for the other? That's sharing...

[Malik]

That'd potentially cause some performance hits. All the ammo in a game would be connected to someone elses and all the information exchanges would create some heavy lag I'd imagine. The idea of having ammo dropped from your pool and picked up by someone else and added to theirs would be different as it'd be optional whether you pick it up. Dropping ammo would create a new entity that could optionally be selected by someone else and added to their's, it'd work independently from having them all linked.

Besides, I don't think BF2 would accept that idea either.

[fred450]

No no, the connection would only occur when you are sharing and for that you would be holding your ammo bag (yes, every class would have an ammo bag, which would work only on same class fellows).

Here's an example: You spot a friend with no ammo left. You touch him with your ammo bag and automatically his ammo increases a little. Say he's got now one M-16 clip. Than the engine sees that clip on his screen and substracts one M-16 clip from yours. Would that be possible?

Now your idea of clips as independent items is more sophisticated and would kick in later, say in v1.0

[Malik]

No, because my idea would be just as simple to do. Either way, they're both not possible. The game treats all ammo as ammo. There is no such thing as M16 ammo, there is just ammo. By giving someone an ammo bag you might as well remodel it to a magazine, and that's what my idea had in mind, only instead of touching someone you'd drop it and they'd pick it up. Your idea is like my idea but a little less sophisticated, but equally difficult to implement.

We need a doable idea here.

[00SoldierofFortune00]

I really like that idea of giving the Chinese the full QBZ assault rifle for the assault class. THe AK47 right now as no distance and a lot of kick. Give them that weapon and the MEC could get a new assault rifle also since the other factions have been severly left behind in terms of new weaponry etc. Why should the US always get the next stuff all the time? Same thing happened in the Special Forces expansion with the British.

[fred450]

The game treats all ammo as ammo. There is no such thing as M16 ammo, there is just ammo.

That's not true. When you fire M-16 a lot you run out of M-16 specific ammo, but remains with pistol ammo, grenades, etc. so the engine does some differentiation in ammo types. If there's no differentiation, why can't you use pistol ammo for M-16 when you run out of M-16 clips? It doesn't allow you to throw specific ammo tho, hence why the "comunication" idea.

Let me ask an off topic question, but VERY IMPORTANT: where is everybody? all 1.22 servers are empty! I wanna play PRMM! Is everybody with 1.3 already? But that's buggy I dont want to update!!

[0mikr0n]

He is quite the amazing thinker. In every post he makes, he has very good ideas and displays them in great detail.

I like the idea that the M249 can run off of M16A2 magazines; they can do so in real life, as well, so I don't see why we can't have M16 clips hanging out the side of an M249. However, the official Army Soldier's Handbook (yes, I have one) states that this should only be done so in emergency, because the ammunition is expended very rapidly; the magazine is made for a certain temperature based on how the average soldier fires with an assault rifle in semi automatic or burst fire. Now take the rate of fire from a burst-semi exclusive weapon and then double that, and stick the magazine in there. Therefore, it will not only expend the ammunition very quickly, but there is a very very small chance that the very tip of the magazine might melt, causing a jam.

I do, however, like the idea, very much so. If I could, I would vote yes on this feature (if it was a democracy here )

[Bob_Marley]

He is quite the amazing thinker. In every post he makes, he has very good ideas and displays them in great detail.

I like the idea that the M249 can run off of M16A2 magazines; they can do so in real life, as well, so I don't see why we can't have M16 clips hanging out the side of an M249. However, the official Army Soldier's Handbook (yes, I have one) states that this should only be done so in emergency, because the ammunition is expended very rapidly; the magazine is made for a certain temperature based on how the average soldier fires with an assault rifle in semi automatic or burst fire. Now take the rate of fire from a burst-semi exclusive weapon and then double that, and stick the magazine in there. Therefore, it will not only expend the ammunition very quickly, but there is a very very small chance that the very tip of the magazine might melt, causing a jam.

I do, however, like the idea, very much so. If I could, I would vote yes on this feature (if it was a democracy here )

Yes, feeding from magazines (apparently) boosts the FN Minimi's fireing rate from around 700-750 RPM to 1000+. Which is a bit loony.

[0mikr0n]

That's because there's less friction between the ammunition and the magazine, meaning they can go into the weapon faster.

[Bob_Marley]

That's because there's less friction between the ammunition and the magazine, meaning they can go into the weapon faster.

And because the weapon no longer needs to de-link the belts.

[0mikr0n]

That too. Nice save, Bob.

EDIT: Woah, a dev is watching... heh, something you're not too used to when you've been dealing with EA's bullcrap for the past eight months.

[Dylan]

This is about the greatest idea, and Malik... For gods sake, you are the godsend of good ideas.

[Malik]

Hehe, thanks for the support, that quote just made my signature.

I know what you mean Fred about the ammo as being treated different. In game, the ammo resupply bags are coded to 'resupply ammo', which tells the game that when you pick it up, all your ammo is to be resupplied. I think you're onto something there, I guess it's pretty obvious there is some coding that tells the game to treat different ammo differently, I guess it's just a case of finding out what the game codes each type of ammo as. If the damned bfeditor forums were working I could ask around there to see if anybody else has ever experimented with the ammo codes, but for now I guess it's still a mystery. I'm going to read around there when it gets back up again so I can learn to figure this sort of thing out myself and hopefully take up Egg's offer of being a DEV.

[fred450]

I know what you mean Fred about the ammo as being treated different.

I think the game treats ammo as:

"slot 1 ammo"
"slot 2 ammo"
"slot 3 ammo"
etc.

[Malik]

Probably does, but the exact code that the modders currently know about ammo is the one that tells ammo bags to increase all ammo. You can't write the code until you know the exact terms or it won't do anything. If the modders could find out how to code different ammo to be treated differently and have different magazines to restock different ammo then this system could work.

My only alternative to this method is to take out ammo bags altogether. Sounds a little radical, I know, but if all classes got boosted by 2 or so magazines and the supply crates and vehicles were the only remaining resupply points, I don't think gameplay would suffer. Players would still need to work together as supply drops would be a huge, vital part of gameplay for both teams. As I've said many times, I wish supply crates could be treated as more treasured items to the team rather than just for target practise. I guess if ammo was gone crates would need to be "buffed" a little bit so they're less fragile and they'd need to carry more ammo.

The only concern I see with this is that taking out the role of ammo provider takes out one less team playing role in the squad. Maybe another role could be devised to replace it though...

[fred450]

My only alternative to this method is to take out ammo bags altogether.

I always liked this idea. I never liked ammo bags. And with vehicles beeing able to supply (even when they're wrecked), there's no need for ammo bags. I think ammo should be available only at vehicles and at the main base. I know it sounds radical to you, but that's my opinion.

As for the coding limits for ammo, I honestly have no idea of what to do so I'll just keep my mouth shut about that until I have a clue...