Project Reality Forums

Since environment in PR are greatly scaled down from real life, it's only realistic to scale down other factors like the distance you can hear a helicopter from.

Let's face it, in real life a tank wouldn't be able to figure out which direction a helicopter is going to appear from judging by the sound. This is because in real life attack helicopter do not appear to close to the tank as they have to in PR, due to the small maps and short draw distance.

Furthermore, PR maps lack ambient sound present in real life that would often mask the sound of helicopters.

Very often the fact that environments are scaled down but gameplay isnt changed to accomodate that, leads to unrealistic battle scenarios like tanks blowing up attack choppers, technicals shooting down choppers and etc.
I can't count how many times I or someone else has used sound to an unrealistic advantage.

Consider Basrah. The city features allow for much unrealistic gameplay. Consider the long line of a sight, consider the lack of ambient sound, consider the flat terrain. Consider that the city is so small it creates a sharp and unrealistic contrast of urban to rural. In real life, it would be physically impossible for a 50 cal machine gun placed on the outskirts of town to shoot a helicopter flying in the city, yet due to small maps in PR, it happens very often.


I realize PR is a game and some changes can't be made but the sound distance of helicopters can be reduced and it would lead to more realistic gameplay. Enemies wouldn't be able to deduce helicopter positions by sound and thus employ unrealistic ways of killing them.

Please dont turn this into "You just need better pilots!" this is a discussion of gameplay mechanics, not skill required.

Yes you can hear a helicopter approaching and the bearing its going to show up, ever tried? i myself think the sound should be even more louder and have greater distance

rampo93(FIN) wrote:Yes you can hear a helicopter approaching and the bearing its going to show up, ever tried? i myself think the sound should be even more louder and have greater distance

Did you even read what I wrote

unrealalex wrote:Did you even read what I wrote

Yes he did, and his response made sense. It's called disagreeing, I'm sure you'll get used to it shortly.

I also disagree with the sentiment of the original post, especially with reference to tanks pinpointing choppers, as being a frequent tanker myself, unless the chopper is <100m from you, you're not hearing it over the hum of the engine.

Furthermore, the assertion that because the scales are smaller, the sound dispersion should be smaller is arguable at best, as I have helicopters frequently fly over my house (news choppers) and yes, I can really hear them from ages away, regardless of visibility issues.

It doesn't make logical sense to me that this would be a point of contention, as the sound will give the assailants a heads-up if anything; it provides no real benefit unless the pilot was planning on 'sneaking around' with his chopper, which afaik doesn't happen particularly frequently.

To be perfectly honest though, this sounds like the grievance of a pilot who has been shot down one too many times.

What I am going to say is, in all the times I have had helicopters fly over or through my valley or a hilly area/the town you could hear them very well, but it was very very difficult at first to tell where they were, especially when they are only a small dot in the sky with the noise all around.

On flat desert it may be different, but it certainly isn´t easy to instantly get the direction of a helicopter by sound.

Yes he did, and his response made sense. It's called disagreeing, I'm sure you'll get used to it shortly.

He ignored my arguments like they weren't there. Nothing to do with disagreeing. This is not about which color we prefer. "Well I like Blue." "WRONG!" Increasing the distance at which you can hear helicopters would only be a step towards vBF2, ie. towards a smaller scale of war.

I also disagree with the sentiment of the original post, especially with reference to tanks pinpointing choppers, as being a frequent tanker myself, unless the chopper is <100m from you, you're not hearing it over the hum of the engine.

As I said its not just about tanks. Reducing the sound distance of helicopters would counter-balance the unrealisticness created by smaller map scales.

Furthermore, the assertion that because the scales are smaller, the sound dispersion should be smaller is arguable at best, as I have helicopters frequently fly over my house (news choppers) and yes, I can really hear them from ages away, regardless of visibility issues.

Way to miss the point.
How is your house and news choppers even relevant? Do attack helicopters fly over tanks in real life? Do you know the range at which attack helicopters engage targets? That was my whole freaking point. That due to smaller scale and the unrealistic visibility of choppers, something must be altered in order to change the unrealistic gameplay situations created.

It doesn't make logical sense to me that this would be a point of contention, as the sound will give the assailants a heads-up if anything; it provides no real benefit unless the pilot was planning on 'sneaking around' with his chopper, which afaik doesn't happen particularly frequently.

On a map like Karbala, I can hear the little bird taking off in the US base while I'm at the mosque. If that doesn't make something in your brain go *click* "wait thats not right...." than I don't know. Furthermore, the way attack helicopters are trained to engage threatning targets in real life IS by "sneaking around". The fact that this is absent from PR only underlines the issue.

To be perfectly honest though, this sounds like the grievance of a pilot who has been shot down one too many times.

Read next time

Please dont turn this into "You just need better pilots!" this is a discussion of gameplay mechanics, not skill required.

Please throw away your fanboy or conservative hats. What I suggest would also increase the necessity of AA, which right now, lets face it, is very low. I'll repeat, this is about gameplay mechanics, and how to achieve more realistic battle scenarios.

the sound heavily depends on your hardware, when i sit in APC/tank/AAV i cant hear anything what happens outside until it somewhere 30-50m around me, not talking about helis and direction to them. But those who has X-fi(i.e.) are like sonar system of submarine, they can tell direction, what happens there, where ots going

so if you reduce heli sound even more lots of people wont hear them until they are 100m far from them

X-fi user here..
KASHAN for example.
I can be in the bunkers and hear when the Helos at MEC MAIN are spooling up.
Handy, but it does effect gameplay.

Thats a client thing, I do not hear them that far at all.

Lol i do hear enemy jets warming up from my own airfield,especially a-10.Btw all sound distances are gonna get reduced with the upcoming patch,so devs think like you do.

By that logic the effective range of weapons should be scaled down too, the effectiveness of body armour scaled up etc etc...

Some sounds are a bit too loud at the moment I agree, but we shouldn't take this too far. The distant sounds add to the ambience for me.

Sounds are being reduced anyway so why is this here?

Th3Exiled wrote:Which they are now, aren't they?

Exiled.

No, they aren´t.

Map sizes and engagement distances is a much bigger issue then the sound distance of helicopters.

I'd rather be able to hear them further away for immersion/experience as choppers sound cool and give the impression there's more going on in the battlefield.

I'am all for lowering vehicle/aircraft sound distance. IRL you can't hear a car two blocks away (unless its my -83 toyota corolla ). I hate the fact that when i SL i usually have to leave the hummvee at our rally just to keep my squad from being heard by the enemy from three blocks away.

Because BF2 engine limits our reality we sould not go "reality when ever possible" as in hearing choppers miles away. Pr is about "scaled realism" where everything is as close to reality as made possible by BF2 engine. (think about the supression effect)