automated vehicles
 

some user-made 1942 maps featured automated planes such as kiev and creetan village for the map pack for FH.. i was wondering if this will be implemented in FH2 and in what ways...

it would be awesome to see JU52's flying overhead in Sfakia.. perhaps with flak puffs appearing and disappearing in the sky.. i'd imagine most of the spawn points on this map for the germans would be from the sky.. but i'm curious if we could jump out from the plane like in crete for FH.. that would be awesome! that was truly an amazing feeling....

what about boats as well? i was thinking, since FH2 won't be able to handle large scale ship combat.. maybe you could have a map similar to the all-naval one where german uboats and american/british destroyers are pitted against each other. except the destroyer escorts need to protect a convoy of automated liberty ships or cargo ships.. i think this would be a great map to add to the mix as well..

well, bump.. maybe this should be put in suggestions.. :(

I like this idea.

I also loved the maps where you spawned out of the plane straight into combat. Great for offence and defence.

Paras didn't land in Sfakia, only on the Northern side of the Island.Gebirsjäger fought in Sfakia.

Automated vehicles are basically bots that control vehicles.

it can also be a "static" object

Personally, I would prefer that these automated vehicles be used marginally. True the planes in Day of Zitadelle were neccesary since planes did take part and we wouldn't have wanted to kill the tank battle by adding complete airwarfare,

but one thing that makes BF games and indeed, FH is the fact that if someone farts, then the bots - or a player did it ... There are few scripted aspects to FH and BF, so inasmuch as vehicles on rails or whatever add some atmosphere, too much of it and you would get another FSP with scripted stuff...only worse, these ones cycle by ever so often

but in some regard this works wonders: Say C47s flying overhead with flak bursts and distant flak tracers in a DDay paratrooper map, or Crete. But if this is the case, then there might be an issue when real vehicles can be controlled alongside them - bots would crash into one of them, players would just find them annoying...

The same goes for the sound effects in trhe background, some is good, too much is bad: too much and you lose that aspect of FH and BF where you can maka decisions based upon distant gunfire and explosion sounds (Why? because thesse sounds would be 'scripted')

A moving train would make a good automated vehicle.

I get what mydjinny is saying here, you don't want to have all the immersion of the game to come from something the players have no control over. Thats taking away the fun. But there are some situations where it would be a good addition. Like say on a D-Day map, adding a planes for the US to use would probably impact the gameplay a lot. But if you put maybe 2 planes on a 3-4 minute rotation that fly over the battle it would just add that little touch and be perfect.

I think this sort of thing should be kept to a absolute minimum. That means they should ONLY be used on certain maps and even then it shouldnt happen too often due to gameplay reasons as stated before.

Just convert the UAVs into WW2 aircraft planes.

then they would fly in tight circles.

And it would use up one of the commander abilities :P

But its the same system, static object on a rotation "pathway" or something.

It seems appropriate to have seagulls, chickens, cows, horses, rats, etc as automated vehicles, anyone agree ?

Why make them automated? Those should be regular vehicles :P

Okay, if you had a stalingrad or more accurately, battle around the Volga river map, a train moving on the tram across the river wouldn't be bad at all... But something like the Stuka - should most defintely be a vehicle that can be used - it just needs to spawn in mid air is all

Another thing to add is dead bodies eg. A map like Tarawa or omaha should have bodies that keep flopping slightly around the edge of the water,

Also if ships were as big as those in BF2 (which would be so cool), then you could have one that can be driven and a few others that cannot, but act as statinoary gun platforms i.e automated arty guns or use-able ones, devs decide

Another automated thing that can be in could be tanks driving out of map range, say 2 or 3 or em, with dust explosions - Obviously these would be in a desert map where a tank charge is most likely...But then it begs the qestion: What happens when the enemy is no longer there? Do the tanks keep moving with the explosions going off

As a rule of thumb, I say, these automated vehicles should be in such cases that their existence would not, in real life, play a strategic role in the outcome of the particular battle...

Eg. JU bombers flying over a stalingrad city map eg. Pavlov's house-ish sub-urban, urban map
C47 in a DDay airdrop map
A ship firing out of map range at another ship out of range (All automated) in a map where there really is no sea aspect
And something could be done with that technology in BF2 that lets birds fly...Maybe a dead body in the desert could have vultures fly away from the corpes as you get closer...

Animals in war should be either or dead - Or completely... not there. otherwise, someoe would ask for destructable children, running and screaming

the idea of gunfire/ effects in the background is a good one, that mixed with unmanned vehicles for decoration and spawning purposes is nice. I can imagine hearing and seeing distant artillery fire on night maps, all the staples of an airborne night insertion (flak, planes, tracers) etc. and perhaps parachute sprites far away to make the players feel like part of a larger operation.

i think that is an attainable goal and one the FH2 should be known for.
atmosphere is going to be VERY important..

Well, we'll be running across the desert for most of it, so it would be nice to hear the occasional artillery bang just to remind you that you that you are in fact still alive. But atmosphere is very important in the desret, if they could code it, possibly flares going up every few minutes in a night map, that would be cool.

Remember a lot of the maps we've already seen seem to be focusing not on the clicheed and largely untrue perception of North Africa as sweeping dunes with nothing going on - busy towns and coastal cities seem to be the order of the day so far. How ambience and atmosphere can be done there will interest me.