Aircraft Balancing/Realism
Posted: 2006-05-19 06:13
Hi, just got done playing PR for about 4 hours. It was mostly fun but there were some things that somewhat befuddled me.
Mainly it was helicopters that were the problem. Essentially I felt they were still the "arcade-style" helicopters of vanilla BF2, except extremely limited because of the lack of being able to change views. For the pilot that meant the gunner's head blocked his LOS so aiming rockets is incredibly hard. For the gunner it means the dashboard is blocking his LOS so his gun is completely useless (atleast on the AH-1).
There are several ways to fix this but I thought up a more complex idea which involves drastically restyling how aircraft are balanced.
Essentially i'd like to see more realistic weapons on the choppers. For instance, unguided rockets seem to me to be utterly unrealistic. IRL they are used as medium to long-ranged barrage weapons capable of levelling small villages, but in BF2 they are utterly impotent weapons with less strength and capability than an Eryx rocket, without the guided capacity. So what I think would work best is if the unguided rockets became more medium/long-range bombardment weapons as opposed to close-up "assault" weapons. Since the gunner's head makes it very, very difficult to use the unguided rockets close up, only longer-ranged less-accurate hits are possible. Other methods could be used to gear the rockets more towards longer-ranged barrages.
I also found attack helicopter miniguns to be quite ineffective. For instance, during play-time I was gunning for a friend of mine who was flying an AH-1. We came upon a lone enemy infantryman wandering in the middle of nowhere, in flat open terrain. So we decided to kill him and my friend went into a circle around him as I blasted lead at him. Even though I could clearly see puffs of dirt springing up right under his feet, the guy didn't seem to take a scratch and after about 10 seconds of this we crashed into a hill, and the enemy soldier survived. Another instance, we circled a flag for roughly 30 seconds as one infantryman tried to cap it and again I filled the place full of lead the entire time and didn't scratch him. This is not behaviour I'd expect from a 20mm minigun. Also, the dashboard prevents accurate aiming of the minigun, particularly up-close, which is the only time it gets to be used as an infantry-killer. Lastly, the gunner's anti-tank rockets need help. BF2's standard viewrange and the scale of maps makes using TV-guided rockets much, much harder than it should be. They need change! One idea is to change them to Hellfires where you click on an enemy vehicle, it locks on, and you fire and auto-guiding takes over. Another is turn them into TOW missiles that will follow wherever you look, but your viewpoint stays in the cockpit.
I think both would work, and both would have strengths and weaknesses (hell you could make both versions!). Personally I think the gunner should have two views -- standard, in which he's looking out the cockpit normally, and weapon system view where he looks through his fancy gun and missile targetting thingamabob. He can switch between gun and missile with #1 and #2 buttons. Changing weapons wouldn't change his view -- he should be able to swivel his viewpoint around accordingly, not be stuck staring straight forward when using the missiles (though the missiles should still come out forward and have a limited turning radius so firing at a tank 90 degrees to the right wouldn't work).
As for the minigun, I think it should be made much stronger. 20mm shells, even without direct hits, send up enough molten shrapnel to shred men to pieces if they land within a few feet of him. The ROF should also be increased. Lastly, I think maybe the turning speed of the gun should be lowered so that it's harder to use close-up but easier to use a big longer-ranged.
So that's my long-winded idea. The hope is that helicopters would be drastically changed from little arcade-style close assaulty things to more long-ranged, stealthy weapons platform capable of dishing out damage in multiple forms, just like they are made to IRL. Of course I'd have to suggest such changes are coupled with improvements and tweaks to anti-aircraft balancing so that helicopters do have the same weaknesses they have IRL, such as medium-caliber AA guns, man-portable SAMs, and of course enemy jet aircraft.
Ouch, big read.
Mainly it was helicopters that were the problem. Essentially I felt they were still the "arcade-style" helicopters of vanilla BF2, except extremely limited because of the lack of being able to change views. For the pilot that meant the gunner's head blocked his LOS so aiming rockets is incredibly hard. For the gunner it means the dashboard is blocking his LOS so his gun is completely useless (atleast on the AH-1).
There are several ways to fix this but I thought up a more complex idea which involves drastically restyling how aircraft are balanced.
Essentially i'd like to see more realistic weapons on the choppers. For instance, unguided rockets seem to me to be utterly unrealistic. IRL they are used as medium to long-ranged barrage weapons capable of levelling small villages, but in BF2 they are utterly impotent weapons with less strength and capability than an Eryx rocket, without the guided capacity. So what I think would work best is if the unguided rockets became more medium/long-range bombardment weapons as opposed to close-up "assault" weapons. Since the gunner's head makes it very, very difficult to use the unguided rockets close up, only longer-ranged less-accurate hits are possible. Other methods could be used to gear the rockets more towards longer-ranged barrages.
I also found attack helicopter miniguns to be quite ineffective. For instance, during play-time I was gunning for a friend of mine who was flying an AH-1. We came upon a lone enemy infantryman wandering in the middle of nowhere, in flat open terrain. So we decided to kill him and my friend went into a circle around him as I blasted lead at him. Even though I could clearly see puffs of dirt springing up right under his feet, the guy didn't seem to take a scratch and after about 10 seconds of this we crashed into a hill, and the enemy soldier survived. Another instance, we circled a flag for roughly 30 seconds as one infantryman tried to cap it and again I filled the place full of lead the entire time and didn't scratch him. This is not behaviour I'd expect from a 20mm minigun. Also, the dashboard prevents accurate aiming of the minigun, particularly up-close, which is the only time it gets to be used as an infantry-killer. Lastly, the gunner's anti-tank rockets need help. BF2's standard viewrange and the scale of maps makes using TV-guided rockets much, much harder than it should be. They need change! One idea is to change them to Hellfires where you click on an enemy vehicle, it locks on, and you fire and auto-guiding takes over. Another is turn them into TOW missiles that will follow wherever you look, but your viewpoint stays in the cockpit.
I think both would work, and both would have strengths and weaknesses (hell you could make both versions!). Personally I think the gunner should have two views -- standard, in which he's looking out the cockpit normally, and weapon system view where he looks through his fancy gun and missile targetting thingamabob. He can switch between gun and missile with #1 and #2 buttons. Changing weapons wouldn't change his view -- he should be able to swivel his viewpoint around accordingly, not be stuck staring straight forward when using the missiles (though the missiles should still come out forward and have a limited turning radius so firing at a tank 90 degrees to the right wouldn't work).
As for the minigun, I think it should be made much stronger. 20mm shells, even without direct hits, send up enough molten shrapnel to shred men to pieces if they land within a few feet of him. The ROF should also be increased. Lastly, I think maybe the turning speed of the gun should be lowered so that it's harder to use close-up but easier to use a big longer-ranged.
So that's my long-winded idea. The hope is that helicopters would be drastically changed from little arcade-style close assaulty things to more long-ranged, stealthy weapons platform capable of dishing out damage in multiple forms, just like they are made to IRL. Of course I'd have to suggest such changes are coupled with improvements and tweaks to anti-aircraft balancing so that helicopters do have the same weaknesses they have IRL, such as medium-caliber AA guns, man-portable SAMs, and of course enemy jet aircraft.
Ouch, big read.
