This bug isn't very well known I can imagine, but it can give an unintended and unfair advantage to a commander. When the commander satellite zoom was "removed", I assume all you did was place a image over where the video feed is supposed to be. Unfortunately, what was overlooked was removing the ability to hear what is going on at that camera location when the CO zooms down to that level. In vanilla BF2, if you are commander and you zoom down to the live battle feed, you can not only see what is going on, but you can also hear it. You can still hear it now.
By exploiting this, a commander can do a number of things to get unfair intel. They can zoom down over the enemy main base and tell the team when vehicles are moving out. They can fly around blind until they hear a tank rolling around. The commander can even hear assets being shoveled up, or infantry sprinting, or a sniper firing, and pin-point them to some degree of accuracy.
Steps to Reproduce:
Go on any map with a buddy, go commander, and tell that buddy to drive his truck somewhere. Zoom all three levels down onto his location, and you can hear the engine.
Screenshots / Video:
None. It can be tested easily the next time any of you mighty Devs play PR; just hop in the CO seat for a minute.
Tested On:
Numerous maps. It will work anywhere.
I do not think many people know about this, and I do not think it is a serious problem. If it can be fixed quickly, then I think it should be done. If it cannot be done, I certainly understand why.
While I know very little of the BF2 engine, the ways I think that this can be solved are by either
- Disabling audio and video output in the third magnification of zoom
- Disabling the ability to zoom down to the third layer
- Replacing/redirecting the audio with something else, like an empty sound file.


