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hello devs,

is it true, that naval warfare in battlefield 1942 style is NOT possible in battlefield 2? i am talking about:
- walking on ships and aircraft carriers
- starting, landing and parking aircrafts & helicopters on moving carriers/ships (or if they just stay, but are not static object like the vbf2 carrier)
- AI usage of the ships (in bf1942, they use them very well)
- proper physics for ships & carriers in bf1942 level

even if its involving tweaking and coding and stuff, if it possible to create bf1942 like naval combat for bf2? or is it hardcoded and EA/DICE screwed the physics so much, that some or all of above isnt possible ?

i know the mod "lions roar" for battlefield 2 (Lions Roar mod for Battlefield 2 - Mod DB)
but the AI doesnt use them very well and alot of stuff i mentioned above are missing. so idk if the dev tried to reach that level to get the bf1942 and failed or if he didnt even tried to tweak & code it etc and devs arent active on moddb anymore, so no way to contact him. thats why i am asking professional guys like you.

sgtsev3n wrote:is it true, that naval warfare in battlefield 1942 style is NOT possible in battlefield 2?

Its more of a yes and no answer tbh. It is somewhat possible but as BF2 was never built from the ground up to do all the areas of Naval Combat like 1942 was, there are some things it simply dose not do very well, as you probably know.

There have been some BF2 mods that have large elements of naval combat in them, these mainly being the Battleship Mod (BSS) and the Battlefield Pirates 2 mod: https://youtu.be/l1jsI2-tngw?t=156




Best videos I can find since unfortunately they where kinda before the whole youtube revolution and most videos that where up have been deleted since


I have also been looking into this quite a bit for our new Type 21 Frigate we are making for PR: Falklands so hopefully I can answer some of your questions

As for your points:

sgtsev3n wrote:

1. walking on ships and aircraft carriers
2. starting, landing and parking aircrafts & helicopters on moving carriers/ships (or if they just stay, but are not static object like the vbf2 carrier)
3. AI usage of the ships (in bf1942, they use them very well)
4. proper physics for ships & carriers in bf1942 level

1. Yes its somewhat possible but it is quite buggy and even with making special ship deck materials that do not hurt players, players still do sometimes get killed on the decks of the ship and its simply advisable not to walk on them when they are moving



2. That is really three questions there so:

2a. Starting aircraft on carriers isn't actually to hard since you can make aircraft spawn on the deck of a ship using a "hold object", so that the aircraft will be locked to the deck and will follow it w/e it goes. However this "hold state" will be broken as soon as anyone gets in it, or any explosion happens near the chopper, or another vehicle rams it, then it will be free to slide around the deck and will probably fall off...
Quick POC Test I did on this ages ago, code has changed since then mind you:

And in this testing video, you can see at 30secs how the Tigercat Cat Missile impacting on the side of the ship broke the "hold state" of the chopper on the back then it starts sliding around the deck as I move...


2b. Landing is another issue, which is really split into two types. Landing Choppers and Landing Fixed Winged Aircraft.
2b-1: Landing Choppers on a PCO Ship isn't really a problem, although when its moving it will take a good pilot to land on it, and stay on the deck once landed as it will take subtle adjustments to stay on the deck, especially during a hard turn. Screen of our testers landing choppers on moving Frigate:

2b-2: Landing Fixed Wing Aircraft on a PCO aircraft carrier is something I haven't tried tbh but should be possible with special materials. One thing really required to do this thou would be proper CATOBAR code, a bit like so:

However are testers couldn't resit the challenge of landing a STOVL Sea Harrier on the deck of the Frigate, although only tested when stationary but really, same story as choppers


2c: Parking aircraft on a moving ship is a big issue, since as you've seen in 2b-1, without the "hold state", or a player in to keep it stationary manually, the aircraft just slides around the deck... Things can be done to cut down on this, mainly with adding a little col mesh round the edges of the flight deck to ensure it can fall all the way off the side but this dose not guarantee anything and can create issues of its own. As such the best course of action is, not to park anything on a PCO ship
The Battleships Mod got around this problem by using Sea Planes that the Carriers dropped into the water and they would take them off from here, but here is a video of what they are like on the deck of a ship without a hold object etc:



3. AI is not my area tbh but I don't see why AI can't be made to use ships correctly with coding up the AI code properly, isn't really that much different from driving a RHIB or gunning in a tank, other than its size


4. With a lot of Trial and Error, physics can be done pretty well, especially if you control the export scene of the ship your tweaking to change its centre of mass etc but I've managed to get some pretty good physics for my Frigate
Note that video above showing its speed / physic is an old method I've ditched for a new one.

sgtsev3n wrote:even if its involving tweaking and coding and stuff, if it possible to create bf1942 like naval combat for bf2? or is it hardcoded and EA/DICE screwed the physics so much, that some or all of above isnt possible ?

Yes apart from I wouldn't recommend movable aircraft carriers myself, that is probably a bit of a bridge too far, but not impossible just has some issues, mainly with parking jets on the deck

sgtsev3n wrote:i know the mod "lions roar" for battlefield 2 (Lions Roar mod for Battlefield 2 - Mod DB)
but the AI doesnt use them very well and alot of stuff i mentioned above are missing. so idk if the dev tried to reach that level to get the bf1942 and failed or if he didnt even tried to tweak & code it etc and devs arent active on moddb anymore, so no way to contact him. thats why i am asking professional guys like you.

You should note the "Lions Roar" mod has stolen its ships from other games such as DCS etc, but if you where just to use them for SP purposes and not redistribute them it would be ok but I wouldn't do anything more than that myself, although its unlikely Eagle Dynamics is going to press a lawsuit on you or the guys at Lions Roar since you aren't making money and are too small to really worry about, its still not a good idea.

[R-DEV]Rhino wrote:detailed answer

wow, thanks for your detailed answer. the videos and the pictures are looking good. Naval warfare in BF2 isnt THAT bad (but in bf1942, its still more "proper" if you know what i mean).

for the last part: i didnt plan to take the ships from lions roar mod and use it anywhere else. that was the only mod i know for bf2, which includes naval battle (now thank you i know battleship mod too ). first i wanted to contact the devs from lions roar mod to ask them the same questions but they are all inactive. i didnt knew that they stole the ships from other games (but i know that they stole content from other bf2 mods, i recognized some of the contents from other mods).

another question: is the BF2142 physics system 100% the same as the BF2 once, or is there some physics upgrade which would improve naval combat in 2142?

sgtsev3n wrote:another question: is the BF2142 physics system 100% the same as the BF2 once, or is there some physics upgrade which would improve naval combat in 2142?

The BF2142 is the same engine as BF2, with a few tweaks. The core physics engine is still the same.

The main advantage BF2142 would have over BF2 for naval combat, is it has destroyable children, so you can destroy guns etc on a ship, without destroying the ship itself.

Also it probably has some tweaks to allow for better walking on, and landing vehicles etc on, moving vehicles, since it has the whole Titan thing but then again, the Titan moves very slowly and doesn't lean etc when it turns like a ship dose, so vehicles sliding around the deck of a ship may still happen on the 2142 engine.

Also it has the ability for automated weapons so the ships AA weapons wouldn't have to be manned for them to engage an aircraft

[R-DEV]Rhino wrote:The BF2142 is the same engine as BF2, with a few tweaks. The core physics engine is still the same.

The main advantage BF2142 would have over BF2 for naval combat, is it has destroyable children, so you can destroy guns etc on a ship, without destroying the ship itself.

Also it probably has some tweaks to allow for better walking on, and landing vehicles etc on, moving vehicles, since it has the whole Titan thing but then again, the Titan moves very slowly and doesn't lean etc when it turns like a ship dose, so vehicles sliding around the deck of a ship may still happen on the 2142 engine.

Also it has the ability for automated weapons so the ships AA weapons wouldn't have to be manned for them to engage an aircraft

thank you