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What always bothered me about using Tanks/Armored vehicles in PR has been the fact that I have to drive all the way back to main base to rearm my tank shells, which could be easily carried by trucks in real life, and yet, my tank can be repaired to brand-new conditions by a magical blue oxy-welding tank dropped by the truck. In real life, only minor repairs can be conducted in the field, such as replacing a part of a track or perhaps a tire, but not a hole in the turret blown by a tank shell.

---Part 1 Repairs

In my opinion, vehicle repairs in future PR versions should work like how the medic system works for infantry. If you are hurt, you can drop a patch to stop the bleeding a little and seek a medic if you want to be fully healed, unless you have enough patches. In game, logi trucks should drop a object that looks like spare tank wheels and treads perhaps, and it would work like a field dressing or ammo bag for vehicles. Vehicles would consume it and regain some health. If they want to be fully repaired, they would have to bring multiple trucks or return to main base. Now, how many of these vehicle patches 1 logi can carry will depend on how much health they provide. I would recommend 2-3 per logi healing 20-25% health of a tank per "patch."

Whether they repair aircraft would be up to the DEVs to balance. I think they shouldn't. In order to prevent exploit and glitches, I think the repair process should work like ammo bags and shouldn't be consumed instantly like field dressings as that could lead to exploitation like having logis close behind tanks to constantly drop them repairs, making them invincible. Also, if the logi is damaged, how do we make sure that all of the repairs get to the tank rather than the logi. The situation is sort of like how ammo carriers have to throw bags away from themselves.


---Part 2 Rearm

Since it would be tedious enough to have to go back to main to repair fully, rearming should take place in the field as it is also more realistic anyway. Ammunition and fuel are usually carried by logistics trucks. We can allow vehicles to rearm off the current crates, but consume them at a pretty fast rate, like 10 tank rounds per crate, or we can have a new separate crate for rearming vehicles. How much will it rearm will of course be based on how much ammo can trucks actually carry along with the other stuff in real life and game play balance?

This is a pretty simple and logical suggestion. Comments welcomed.

What about the ability for a FOB to build a small repair/re arm station. Maybe need like... 4 crates to build, and it rearms a bit slower than main base?

1. I'm sorry but you've just described the current system more or less... The repair drop dose just that, its a "field dressing" for vehicles, that takes quite a lot of time to do its repairs, and only gives out limited repairs. Also the logi truck has to drive away from it to ensure that any damage it has isn't repaired by the repair drop. The idea behind it is for use when the vehicle has its tracks, wheels, engine or w/e disabled, and the repair drop can get it back up onto its feet, and then head home for the rest of its repairs which repair the vehicle far faster than the repair drop, and don't have limited repairs.

While I agree its far from a perfect system that doesn't work very well, its more or less the best we can do with the BF2 engine.


2. Forward rearming of vehicles while yes, is done on the "front lines" in r/l, it actually isn't done directly on the front line. It is done a few kms back from the front line to ensure the vehicle and its supplies are not attacked during its venerable, reloading process. This distance is generally well over the distance main bases are away on 4km maps in r/l.

Giving the ability to be able to rearm vehicles in the field would essentially just be exploitable. Supply Trucks would be able to rearm themselves (assuming they are the ones carrying these supplies, or if another vehicle, which we don't really have much of the luxury of adding another vehicle into the game which would take another player off the front line, could rearm the logi trucks), making logistics super easy and effectively doubling what the logi trucks could spit out, as well as being able to rearm vehicles while they are camping and firing, so a vehicle which has low ammo, but a mega powerful weapon, would be able to rearm at the same time its firing, and effectively double its effectiveness without that much effort...

Having vehicles go back to base to rearm not only is the most realistic thing in terms of scale, but it also gives the other team who where being raped by that vehicle since if it ran out of ammo, it was most likely doing one hell of a good job, it gives the opposite team a chance to breath, regroup and essentially gives them a chance to take it out when it comes back, and generally get back on their feet.

In all, can't see any gameplay reason, nor much reason for realism either, to add this.

[R-DEV]Rhino wrote:1. I'm sorry but you've just described the current system more or less... The repair drop dose just that, its a "field dressing" for vehicles, that takes quite a lot of time to do its repairs, and only gives out limited repairs. Also the logi truck has to drive away from it to ensure that any damage it has isn't repaired by the repair drop. The idea behind it is for use when the vehicle has its tracks, wheels, engine or w/e disabled, and the repair drop can get it back up onto its feet, and then head home for the rest of its repairs which repair the vehicle far faster than the repair drop, and don't have limited repairs.

While I agree its far from a perfect system that doesn't work very well, its more or less the best we can do with the BF2 engine.

He hasn't described the current repair system. The current repair system is a slow repair that sits on the ground for 5 minutes(not sure on exact time), and you don't have to rtb to rearm it. It from my experience brings a white smoke vehicle to full health in 2-3 min(just a guess). One logistics truck can keep three tanks repaired, and it never has to RTB, no matter how much it repairs.

There isn't any issue that I know of why you would only want one and not more vehicles repairing off the crate as it is now other than spacing, it isn't used up quicker, and it still repairs as quickly.

If I have a truck nearby I never rtb, unless I need ammo, and it will repair you to full health if you wait, which is usually shorter than driving back to main.

Ye, I've never much liked the fact the repair drop auto-recharged too, but think that was possibly done for a coding reason, but can't 100% remember now.

I also think that the repair drop couldn't have "repair ammo" as such, like a supply crate has, but might be wrong there too.

The problem with repair speed is that it needs to be more than that of the speed the the vehicle bleeds in, in order to be able to repair a vehicle in a bleed, but slow enough so it can't be easily and drastically exploited (ie, if the tank takes a hit from another tank, and it has a repair drop behind it, it doesn't repair the damage from that hit significantly to drastically change the outcome of the fight) and have enough ammo in it to get the vehicle out of a bleed if its in one, at its slow repair crate which is much slower if its fighting aginst a bleed, which say if the bleed is taking -5hp off a sec, and the crate is repairing it at +7hp/sec, then your only actually got a +2hp/sec where if the vehicle isn't in a bleed, you've got the full +7hp a sec.


However that said, since we first implemented the repair crate, we have found that we can repair objects though python code, which is how we repair the CSBs with the CSB crate, when its dropped in xxx radius of a CSB foundation, and then the python code is what dose the repairing, not the (invisible) CSB crate.

So with that in mind, it may be possible to do the same thing with repairing vehicles though python, and then it might be possible to repair them only out of critical damage and then limit the repairs not much beyond that. However if even possible, it would take a load of python code work to do...

During the 2003 Iraq invasion, the US army did a tank rush into Baghdad. According to the book Thunder Run (Thunder Run: The Spartan Brigade and the Battle for Baghdad: Amazon.ca: David Zucchino: Books) and others like it depicting this battle, on a few occasions the tanks were almost dry of fuel and ammo when trucks had to come in under-fire in the middle of Baghdad to resupply the armored vehicles. Some of the trucks also got blown up by enemy fire due to this.

1) So to Rhino, it is completely possible that a tank can be rearmed at the front depending on the situation. PR is about open gameplay and I think it should be up to the player whether to risk the supply truck to do a field-rearm. If the tanks are pulling security, then I don't see a reason why not.

2) Also, the current repair crate does not repair a vehicle in bleed. You might need 2 or more to do so. If a tank is on fire, it's going to blow even if there's one repair station on the ground.

3) The logi can't rearm itself anymore than a rifleman can rearm his own ammo bag. So I don't really see how this can be exploited at all.

3) The logi can't rearm itself anymore than a rifleman can rearm his own ammo bag. So I don't really see how this can be exploited at all.

logi trucks repair station rearms it self after like 1-2 minutes.

CanuckCommander wrote:1) So to Rhino, it is completely possible that a tank can be rearmed at the front depending on the situation. PR is about open gameplay and I think it should be up to the player whether to risk the supply truck to do a field-rearm. If the tanks are pulling security, then I don't see a reason why not.

Didn't say it was impossible, said it wasn't common practice but yes, some extreme circumstances may require it, but during the actual reloading I'm guessing they would have fallen back to a safe spot since during the reloading phase, crews must get out, ammo must be manually handed down into the tank etc. But we can't simulate that venerable state in PR, since you can still move and fire while reloading, in r/l, you can't.

Here are some shots I have of a few Scimis being front line resupplied in Afghanistan if this helps you visualise it:

CanuckCommander wrote:3) The logi can't rearm itself anymore than a rifleman can rearm his own ammo bag. So I don't really see how this can be exploited at all.

Providing you made it reload less than 1/2 of a "full mag" yes, it would expire before it was reloaded, unless multiple vehicle supply crates where dropped at the same time, then it would be possible to do in the same way you can if you drop 2 ammo bags. But with that you would be able to only rearm ~10 120mm rounds in a tank from the crate.

Its also not possible to mag link 3 weapons, so you would be able to resupply some infantry or building a CSB, and resupply vehicles in one run instead of just one or the other, like it is now with the infantry resupply or CSB deployment.

ExeTick wrote:logi trucks repair station rearms it self after like 1-2 minutes.

He means resupply the logi's own crates if they could give ammo to vehicles, if what he suggested was implemented.

Where's Prince Harry, Rhino?

To be fair the battles in PR are high-tempo, desparate battles. Everything is 'improvised' .. If you transposed PR to a real life battle, a tank capable of fighting on would not drive 4km back to be repaired, as it's been committed to battle in an 'all out' push. Everything on a PR map is expendable, and assets in PR are on the battlefield in dribs and drabs - not fighting with larger unit structures.

Look how temporary mortar positions are, they don't manage to support a battle for much longer than 30 mins at best in most games.

As such the logi trucks do seem to represent that desperate attempt to get fuel/ammo to a starving tank that's on a salient, or to the TOW unit holding out on a hill.

In the context of this argument, anyway.

Perhaps max field repairs on tanks, etc should be limited to a maximum of 50%, meaning a tank can fight on but has to accept it is making a compromise in doing so (versus going back to main and losing time).

CanuckCommander wrote: 3) The logi can't rearm itself anymore than a rifleman can rearm his own ammo bag. So I don't really see how this can be exploited at all.

Actually a rifleman can rearm himself as long as he only spent a small bit of his ammo.


I've always found it a bit odd that repair-stations reload themselves and it would make sense if they where "fixed" and could only be dropped once.

A vehicle ammo drop from a logi would make sense though I think as long as the "rearm" circle around the crate was very small so that you would have to park almost on-top of it so you can't drive around in circles while waiting for a rearm. to make yourself a hard target

The amount of ammo for the vehicle should be very limited though...