[Weapon] Squad Leader Radio and Comms
Posted: 2010-01-15 11:57
In the Battlefield 2 v1.5 patch, a limitation to the amount of map markers the Commander can place was hardcoded to one per minute, which made our marker system limited and not as useful as we would like.
Since then we worked on alternative systems and came up with the Squad Leader Radio "weapon" (as it takes a weapon slot in the Officer kit inventory). The idea is to use the direction the player is facing and a distance set in the HUD of that weapon as a way to determine where a marker should be placed.
In the pictures bellow you can see the "enemy contact" HUD, with the distance being set by clicking the middle button and the type of enemy contact by clicking the other buttons around it.
We also have a specific "request and deploy" HUD, with the deployable assets the faction can deploy, as well as the requests to other squads like supplies, support, transport, etc.
This system gave us a way to make customizations per faction, for example, Insurgents don't have any deployable asset (yet) besides Hideouts (renamed Forward Outposts). Also they don't have APC and Helicopter transport, or CAS and Armor support, so we replaced these specific items with more realistic ones. Hopefully it will help players understand what each faction can deploy/use.
As you already saw, the communication HUDs received a new "coat of paint" with added icons by [R-DEV]AncientMan and [R-DEV]Chuc, making it much more pleasant and accessible.
I recorded a video of the weapon in use, as well as showcasing the custom HUD for the Ground Laser Target Designator (WIP), which will hopefully help with the communication between the CAS pilots and ground troops.
Hope you all enjoy this new feature
Since then we worked on alternative systems and came up with the Squad Leader Radio "weapon" (as it takes a weapon slot in the Officer kit inventory). The idea is to use the direction the player is facing and a distance set in the HUD of that weapon as a way to determine where a marker should be placed.
In the pictures bellow you can see the "enemy contact" HUD, with the distance being set by clicking the middle button and the type of enemy contact by clicking the other buttons around it.
We also have a specific "request and deploy" HUD, with the deployable assets the faction can deploy, as well as the requests to other squads like supplies, support, transport, etc.
This system gave us a way to make customizations per faction, for example, Insurgents don't have any deployable asset (yet) besides Hideouts (renamed Forward Outposts). Also they don't have APC and Helicopter transport, or CAS and Armor support, so we replaced these specific items with more realistic ones. Hopefully it will help players understand what each faction can deploy/use.
As you already saw, the communication HUDs received a new "coat of paint" with added icons by [R-DEV]AncientMan and [R-DEV]Chuc, making it much more pleasant and accessible.
I recorded a video of the weapon in use, as well as showcasing the custom HUD for the Ground Laser Target Designator (WIP), which will hopefully help with the communication between the CAS pilots and ground troops.
Hope you all enjoy this new feature
nice one guys
Could you explain a bit more about the spotter thing though? I'm kinda curious now. 
