Project Reality Forums

While I was becoming more familiar with the BF2 editor I stumbled over an option in the "Armor [Component]" tab in the tweaker interface called "CanBeRepairedWhenWreck". This option when checked, will make the object act similarly to a Command Post after it's blown up. As long as the wreck remains active and has not been completely demolished it can be repaired back to operational status.

With that detail in mind and reading another thread about tanks being destroyed or disabled brought forth the thought of vehicle recovery. What can we do to make this seem more realistic?

(Has the sense of a developer glaring at this page already.)

Personally I like to look at things in a more optimistic way as long as reasonable rules and guidelines can be established. Of course, something as important as recovering (reviving) a destroyed vehicle must have strict guidelines.

Anyways, I think it would be intresting to see a team of engineers recover wrecked ground vehicles but not aircraft. But it is an absolute must to have this be done under a large amount of teamwork and coordinated effort. The following criteria is a good way to start.

The introduction of the Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.).
<Note: Derived from the term, Forward Arming and Refueling Point (F.A.R.P.) where helicopters operate out of.>

1. Must have a Command Post deployed and operational to deploy any team asset.

2. In order to recover a wrecked vehicle a Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.) must be constructed.
<Note: Theoretically this is a deployable structure that has the general look of a firebase with slight variations (Radio and Tools strewn about etc.) so players can identify the difference. Also does not have the ability to spawn players or offer ammunition.>

3. Must have a wrecked vehicle within 50 meters to deploy the Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.) field asset.

2. Must also have 1 repair truck and 1 support truck within 50 meters of the wrecked vehicle to deploy a Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.).

4. Must and have a Commander or Squad Leader (Officer kit required.) present and request a build order consent from the commander to deploy the Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.) field asset.

5. Must have the Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.). constructed by the use of a shovel and completed.

6. Must have 3-4 Engineers repairing the vehicle to recover (revive) it back from wrecked status.

7. The Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.) will automatically despawn within 5 minutes after it's been deployed. This includes the amount of time spent unconstructed or incomplete.
<Note: This will help prevent players from keeping armor camped around the F.A.R.S. team asset.>

I also recommend attempting to modify vehicle settings so that as soon as they're destroyed into being wrecks they begin to burn continuously. The purpose of this is that while the vehicle is burning it will require the use of 3-4 Engineers to counteract this effect to bring it back up to operational status.

So basically, 1 Engineer alone will not be capable of repairing the wreck at all. 2 Engineers will be repairing the vehicle wreck at an equal pace to which it is burning. 3 Engineers will begin to recover the vehicle to operational status at a slow pace. 4 or more Engineers will begin to repair the vehicle much quicker.

Personally I think it would be great to be able to recover a vehicle with teamwork. I figure if medics can revive soldiers, then why can't engineers recover vehicles? Engineers would certainly be hardcore then. For those out there that would pick up an Engineer kit over a rifleman anyday... Be proud, you are one of the few.

Of course this is still an idea. Nor do I expect it to really take off, but I figured it's worth mentioning and throwing it out there for evaluation.

Im liking it. Although I am slightly concerned about how many men it takes off of the battlefield. What if you needed a Command Post, a FARP (Modified bunker, 1 per team, anywhere on map. Rearms and repairs all vehicles and aircraft). These spawned repair HMMWVs. Repair HMMWV + 2 Engineers = Wreck can be rescued.

i think this is kinda simulated by vehcles respawning..but its still a good idea

Like the idea with F.A.R.S, but the engineer thing ain't gonna work. As long there is not a locked engineer squad it is impossible to get or find 3-4 engineers together into repairing. Calling out engineers from other squads is not gonna work also.

I also believe the ammount of people it requires is a bit too much. A single squad should be able to secure the area, and repair the vehicle. I.E. one or two engineers should be all it takes to recover the vehicle, while the remaining four provide support. I mean after all, unless they impliment a towing system, you'll have to repair it ON the battlefield. Which would mean whoever just killed that tank, will be trying to kill you.

If that's the case, those 3-4 engineers will also require a large security detail, which takes a good two squads atleast off the battlefield to repair a single vehicle, not worth it.

I also don't like the idea of it randomly blowing up after 5 minutes. Once it's built, it should stay there untill killed. After all in real life if you set up a repair-base, it's gonna be there untill you either take it down, or it's destroyed. And after all, we're going for realism.

As for your camping worries, think about it. Once the tank is destroyed it'd still take a while to recover. If you have a force capable of downing a tank, then you should be able to kill the few soldiers mingling around the repair-base too. And if not, well then call in back-up, or an air strike.

really good idea, just lower manpower and respawn repair vehicles (we have those?) and its golden

[R-PUB]Viper5 wrote:Im liking it. Although I am slightly concerned about how many men it takes off of the battlefield. What if you needed a Command Post, a FARP (Modified bunker, 1 per team, anywhere on map. Rearms and repairs all vehicles and aircraft). These spawned repair HMMWVs. Repair HMMWV + 2 Engineers = Wreck can be rescued.

Ah, good question. I actually spent some time thinking about dispatching vehicles to the wreck to get it operational. Like 2 Repair Trucks and 1 Support Truck, or 1 Repair Truck and 2 Support trucks. But then came the thought of "Repair trucks chasing down tanks constantly" as we saw in the v0.6 patch. I figured if we would require a bunker of some sort to be built within the area in order to recover the wreck, then chances are 1 out of 3 tanks would possibly be salvageable.

On a battlefield I could only assume that a vehicles chances of being recovered is based upon it's location in relation on how close it is to the front lines. If other enemy tanks are in the area within range of a wrecked tank, chances are the likelyhood of a successful recovery is out the door, as it should be.

As for taking resources away...

Engy. squad 1 - Engineer squad consisting of 3 people, 1 SL (With officer kit.) and 2 engineers would suffice.

Tank squad 2 - Tank squad consisting of 3 people, 2 Crewman and 1 Engineer. They respawn with engineer kits to assist in the recovery of the vehicle.

A coordinated team effort would play out as the following:


A. Engy. squad 1 - The squad leader drives support truck. The 2 engineers ride in the repair truck. The 2 engineers park the repair truck within 50 meters of wrecked tank, then dismount and proceed to offer repairs to nearby vehicles if applicable. The SL picks up Tank squad 2 at an available spawn point.

B. Tank squad 2 - All 3 tank crewman respawn with engineer kits and mount up into Engy. squad 1's support truck.

C. Engy. squad 1 - The squad leader drives support truck back to wrecked tank. The squad leader dismounts, parking supply truck within 50 meters of wrecked tank near the repair truck. Squad leader requests F.A.R.S. build order.

D. Commander - Consents F.A.R.S. build order.

E. Engy. squad 1 - The squad leader then proceeds to deploy the Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.) after commander consent.

F. F.A.R.S. Asset - Deployed. Despawn countdown begins. Vehicle recovery unavailable.

G. Engy. squad 1 - The 2 engineers return to build the field asset with shovels.

H. Tank squad 2 - The 3 engineers proceed to build the field asset with shovels.

I. F.A.R.S. Asset - Completed. Despawn countdown continues. Vehicle recovery available.

J. Engy. squad 1 - Completes the F.A.R.S. field asset, then proceeds to recover the tank with wrench.

K. Tank squad 2 - Completes the F.A.R.S. field asset, then proceeds to recover the tank with wrench.

L. Engy. squad 1 - Recovers tank and continues repairs until complete.

M. Tank squad 2 - Recovers tank and proceeds aquire crewman kits and enter the vehicle. They remain on stand-by until engineers complete full repairs.

N. F.A.R.S. Asset - Despawns. Countdown ends. Vehicle recovery unavailable.

O. Engy. squad 1 - Moves out with supply truck and repair truck.

P. Tank squad 2 - Moves out with recovered tank.

Yeah alright good point. Would the opposing side be able to make the wreck unrecoverable?

IE US Armor moving across Kashan. They encounter and destroy a T90. By hitting it with a HEAT shell or something, can they destroy the wreck?

DeltaFart wrote:really good idea, just lower manpower and respawn repair vehicles (we have those?) and its golden

Yes, there are already repair vehicles available to Project Reality as they were implemented in the v0.6 patch (Maybe sooner?).

They removed them in the v0.7 patch because all players did was trail the tanks. Even I thought that was annoying, but not worthy of being removed from gameplay. It should have just been tweaked and refined. Oh well.

[R-PUB]Viper5 wrote:Yeah alright good point. Would the opposing side be able to make the wreck unrecoverable?

IE US Armor moving across Kashan. They encounter and destroy a T90. By hitting it with a HEAT shell or something, can they destroy the wreck?

Yes, in the battlefield editor wrecks have hitpoints the same way as they do before they get destroyed. There is also an optional timer that makes it despawn immediately. There is also another option that prevents the wreckage from being completely destroyed at all. Like the AA Defense guns on the U.S.S. Essex, you can blow them up but not obliterate them so they disappear. Any of these options can theoretically be implemented onto the tanks to the best of my knowledge, but I can't be for sure.

So what needs to be done is to find the "sweet spot" that offers enough time for engineers to recover the vehicle. But at the same time make it so the wreckage can be completely decimated by finishing it off with another shot without it needing to be shot 10 times because of excessive hitpoints.

I still think it simply would take too much to recover, and people would sooner wait for it to respawn then jump through all those hoops. I mean seriously step back and look at what you propose.

In a public game, you'd have to get a tank crew of 3 with an engy (Which I've almost never seen). You'd then have to get three more people, to be engy's aswell. You'd have to drive THREE vehicles out to the tank after it's destroyed. You'd have to ask for a build order. You'd have to build the repair station. And then you'd have to repair the tank.

In the time it took to do all of that, the tank would have respawned and you could have killed several enemies or captured a flag. Tell me, how is that worth it?

Now, if you cut back on things. Like not needing any sort of repair vehicle, and two engy's, tops, can repair the tank to full health. Then it'd be fine. You get a single squad, three engy's in a supply truck and then the tank crew. The tank goes boom and the supply truck goes up and builds a repair base. The two engy's repair the tank and the tank crew goes on the way. Such stream-lining would allow the tank to be up n running in a fraction of the time it'd take to spawn. THAT would make it worth it.

If the entire process requires too many people, and vehicles, and still takes as long as it does for the tank to respawn, it's a waste of time to even implement the feature.

I made a similar post about the same kinda situation

some differences but the same sorta aim.... Like anything that gives people a job to do, problem is when this game starts orientating around flags and getting bodies on them as opposed to stuff like this which should be more fun and important.

Makes making an Engineer Squad all the more appealing.

I agree with some comments however, Forgetting about public games etc (A game is what you wanna make it) The process cant take up too many players, of course irl an engineer platoon would be massive, but we've only 32 players to work with and you have to scale down how many people will be needed (unless you want 1/3 of the team missing everytime armour goes down)

This with much longer vehicle spawn times would rock...

I can picture leading the squad now as the repair post comes under attack... SMOKE OUT NOW GIVE US SUPPORTING FIRE GET THAT F*^%!ING TANK REPAIRED BOYS MOVE IT WE NEED THAT ARMOUR UP!!!

Too mashed to say more without soundin dumber than already...

IDEA GOOD ME LIKE

Even if the only requirements to salvage a wreck are a command post, a Repair Vehicle, and an Engineer with a wrench, the crewmen can't be saved - meaning that somebody has to pick up a crewman kit and either drive back to the former, impatient crew or become the new crew.

gclark03 wrote:Even if the only requirements to salvage a wreck are a command post, a Repair Vehicle, and an Engineer with a wrench, the crewmen can't be saved - meaning that somebody has to pick up a crewman kit and either drive back to the former, impatient crew or become the new crew.

That's where the transport heli's come in!

Like the idea, however I think it should be changed some.
Make the F.A.R.S. a normal structure without the despawn, and instead have it spawn an M88 Heavy Recovery Vehicle M88 Recovery Vehicle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia every 20 minutes with a maximum of one. As long as the M88 is close enough to the vehicle, it can be recovered.

i would really love this but i think that we need to implement this differently.

the F.A.R.S base should be deployable at bunkers or mainbases and should be a platform you would drive onto (or a garage or something) and the platform would repair the tank.
this would make it more realistic since there is no way in hell that engineers can repair a tank to full healt in the field. the engineers should be able to give it basic repairs so that it can make it's way back to the F.A.R.S and get the repairs it needs.
so i propose to put a limit on field repairs to let's say 30% of full healt, this will make it very important for teamwork in that you need F.A.R.S bases to support your armor (supply lines) also if you only need 2 engineers in a repair vericle on the field it won't impact troop movements and the unrealistic tank repairs in the field would not exist.

so 1: F.A.R.S bases are not deployed at wrecks but at bases.
2: F.A.R.S bases do not auto destruct after a certain time.
3: teamwork is needed to set up the supply lines
4: repair trucks can not repair themselves but gives the boost needed to start the repair(maybe it's hardcoded idk)
5: unrealistic field tank repairs are not possible anymore.

i believe that this would be a much better setup of the repairs and it would not require a ton of troops to set it up.
this was in the old bf1942 and it was one of the things i missed a lot in bf2.
idk if people would like this setup but it seems to solve a lot of problems with supply lines and it seems more realistic that quick field repairs are made and the tank goes back to the base for more time consuming repairs that are not critical (armor etc)

just my 2 cents hope that you guys like this better.

I think there is no need for F.A.R.S

Remember what happens when you place a command post next to a firebase or a bunker? The command post will auto repair the asset over and over again. That is why the command post will be placed by the mapper in main base and still have the option of repair and rearm for vehicles. If you would place a F.A.R.S with auto repairing the same would happen.

In my opinion this should only work for armor, it's absurd to repair the wreck of a jeep that is totally blown up or any air asset aswell.

You would need a repair HMMWV that would spawn in main base and that would have the ability to drop a tools box with some spare parts (like the ammo caches). To repair a tank's wreck you would need 2 tool boxes 50 meters away from the wreck and 2 engineers. This way the HMMWV itself wont repair anything and the tool caches will only help on the recovery of the wreck as you would always need 2 engineers to repair it.

This would only work until maybe 20% of health after that the tool caches would disappear so that it makes it possible for the tank to fall back to the command post to be fully repaired. You can still continue the repairing process with the 2 engineers.

This would make so that you need a squad of 2 engineers to constantly drive between the front lines of our armor and the main base or assets to resupply the tool boxes as a repair HMMWV would only carry one. At some point you can have more then one repair HMMWV in game and that will help alot if well coordinated.

What do you guys think?

Personally i think for the average player or squad to even comprehend:-

1: withdrawing a damaged tank for repairs, while its compatriots cover its withdrawl.
2: having an engineer in the turret for quick repairs
3: Any major repairs - i.e. beyond a certain damage state or any specific disabled state requiring "the repair truck" or a "std. command truck and/or two crates, requiring the command trucks to fetch and carry to deliver all "the supplies" needed.

would be plenty of complexity, without the need for complex new commander assets, new models, new vehicles or new rules.

Tanks die very quickly when badly manned, and the reason why is not the absence of repair stations close to the front line, is that people would rather "have fun" and respawn after wasting the assets than they would withdraw and even consider a repair job on their tank.

Very few tanks ever bother withdrawing to reload their ammo, and you know why - because they die too fast and the penalties for the "individual player" manning them isn't high enough.

Stick people who lose major assets on a big spawn timer and people would hesitate before taking anything more complex than a rifle onto the battlefield if they weren't competent at using it.

Keep in mind that the Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.) does not do anything special in particular. It does not spawn infantry, it does not give ammo, it does not repair. What it does do is temporarily offer the ability for a vehicle to be recovered (revived) from a wrecked status.

The key reason why the Forward Armor Recovery Station (F.A.R.S.) must be a temporary deployed structure and not a mobile unit is to prevent any type of vehicle being camped around it. Let's say if the F.A.R.S. did not have a despawn time, people would place the bunker up, then proceed to huddle vehicles around it. When a vehicle get's destroyed all the engineers need to do is wrench it back up from the wrecked state... Which is very bad and will impact gameplay in a negative fashion. It must remain a deployed asset developed and completed with teamwork and proceed to despawn when finished.

If your curious on what methods players may hopefully use to rearm and repair a vehicle, check this other thread of mine. The return of the Engineer Repair Truck (E.R.T.) vehicle. This unit will do the work of rearming and repairing instead of the F.A.R.S. asset as it should be.

Keep in mind that the use of a F.A.R.S. is purely optional. Chances are about 80% of the time you may not even get to use it simply because the area is not secure and is under heavy enemy contact. That will truely hinder any chances of recovering a vehicle.

It's just there as a potential option if under the right circumstances, to save a vehicle. Providing your team is coordinated enough to perform this, you shall reap the benefits of good teamwork. If not... Well, looks like you'll be hurting.

But you can't blame the game for 1 man squads and people running off with assets by choice or impulse. If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. People do it to themselves and I don't understand why. It can only mean they're too lazy to teamwork. If that's the case then you're playing the wrong mod, simple as that.

Once again. The idea of the F.A.R.S. is to offer the ability to recover vehicles you can. Meaning they are in a safe enough location to perform this action. Not deploy a F.A.R.S. every single time one gets blown away.

The best thing to do is this:

1) Allow a wreck to be recovered by 2 engineers and a supply crate, dropped by supply truck or by helicopter. (This prevents a truck from following the tank around all the time, as in 0.6.)

2) Following your other suggestion about the Vehicular Supply Crates, it would be very nice to have transport helicopters with 2 types of crate: one being the standard crate, and the other being the Vehicular Supply Crate. Using this system, a pilot could fly to the site of the downed vehicle, drop a VSC and 2 engineers, and allow the engineers to repair the tank and bring it to the nearest firebase.

3) Firebases should increase the rate of repair for engineers, simulating extra parts and support at the firebase.