The problems with vehicles in CTF

[Morchaoron 0]

CTF maps with powerful vehicles never seem to work, especially if there are any helis in the map, at the start of the mission players rush to the helis and fly to the enemy base and give it a massive mini-rockets spam and everything is gone  

And since the vehicles dont respawn, the game is pretty much over if the distance you have to walk is more then 1 km.

Even with shilkas and vulcans, those helis have insta kill long range rockets.

Same for tanks, even if only one tank manages to get past the enemy defense then it can wreck the vehicles in their base.

Maps such as the standard CTF map are pretty cool because the distances are relatively small and there are only a few APC's and jeeps so it doesn't matter much anyway.

The answer would be to make it possible for vehicles to respawn after they are destroyed or if they are moved from the original location and no-one has used them anymore, after 5 minutes or so.

Please consider this BIS.

edit: and ofcourse, it is up to the mission creator whether he wants these vehicles in his mission to respawn or not

(Edited by Morchaoron at 6:36 pm on Nov. 4, 2001)

[Bronco 0]

The game needs some better AA defence. Now that manual fire is back the weapon of choice are the helicopers. So if the heli rush is to be stopped some better AA is needed. They must of had SAM missle sites in 1985? Agood heli pilot can wipe out the other team.

[Morchaoron 0]

Yes but as I said before... its not only the helis also the tanks (but the helis are worst)

SAM's are a good idea, helis are very powerful and the shilka or vulcan are easily destroyed by one of its homing missiles.

And you don't need a good pilot to wipe out a team...

A newbie pilot can wipe out the entire enemy + base Just point that crosshair at the ground and keep firing those FFAR

But even if there were SAM's... once a base has been destroyed and you have to walk 2 or 3 km its really boring without any vehicles

[JRMZ 0]

I have a safezone for that.

The bases of both sides are in a safezone. When the enemy gets in the zone he gets killed. All the vehicles remain 100% intact. Except for the ones that come in the opponents safezone

[nightwulf 0]

"safezones"? come on, lets try and keep the game as realistic as possible. there are no "safezones" in combat. mapmakers should provide more anti-aircraft units. the reason one helo can wipe out a base most of the time is because no one wants to stay behind to guard the base. everyone blitzes off in a rush to go attack. good tactics call for a good defense as well as offense. i have jumped in a shilka and managed to shoot down numerous helos trying to wipe out my base. SAMS are a good idea also and would help. please don['t make unrealistic changes to the game because whiners are complaining about their base getting wiped out. defend it!!!!!

[JRMZ 0]

yep oke, but in real life the enemy bases are not as close to each other as in OFP. And in real life the enemy wouldn't dare to go behind enemy lines that far with one chop. In real life you don't have bad ass campers who kill you every time you respawn. Well actualy in real life you dont respawn at all.

You cant compare it with the real thing. If you were in a real war. You would s**t 7 collors in your pants and would cry for your momma.

War is not nice...

[nightwulf 0]

"If you were in a real war. You would s**t 7 collors in your pants and would cry for your momma. "

uh OK..actually in real life i was chasing ragheads around the deserts of Iraq back in 1991 while you were popping zits and worrying about whether stinky Sally would go to the prom with you. Before you open your pie-hole you should know your facts.

[Bronco 0]

Well it's just a game and it would be better with some more air defence. I like to stay at the base and shoot down the heli rush but the only good weapon to do that is the shilka. A few more tools to work with would really help

[rodenka 0]

Again, this little problem can be solved by a suggestion I made several months ago to solve the "camping near the enemy's respawn point" problem.

The solution is to create a CTF mission where some AI Triple-A units are located near the respawn points. These Triple-A are to be "reinforced" or strengthened by some "castle" parts (can be used if you have the Editor Add-On), so that they cannot just be blown away by some TOWs or rockets. The fact that these units are controlled by AI, they can be very effective in making sure the no player-controlled aircraft stray near the area, lest they want to be flying swiss cheese.

Thus, two problems solved--no more camping near respawn areas, and no more heli-blitzkriegs wiping out your vehicles. The latter will only work if your vehicles are safely stashed away in some quite-inaccessible and no-LOS area (i.e. sandwiched between rocks etc.). I've tested this and, although can be quite annoying because you'd really have to properly place the Triple-A to be "fair" to the opposing team (i.e. there should be no LOS between the AI Triple-A and their flag, because how in the world can the enemy approach the flag with a Vulcan waiting to tear them to shreds eh? hehehe), was really a nice and effective way to make the game more "interesting" hehehe.

-RODION

[Morchaoron 0]

Another solution to respawn camping:

Make players respawn instantly but place the "respawn" a little farther away from the "flag base", they can respawn camp as much as they want but the players respawn in such a quick rate they wont even be able to reload (and this prevents the "death cam spying"

And for the "safezones", its not a bad idea but most CTF maps don't have enough vehicles for 20 or 30 minutes, and after they are gone you will have to walk hours, thats why vehicle respawn would also be nice

[Jungle Bob 0]

It would be cool if they made some kind of AA-bunker, from where u can target helicopters!

It's much cooler to fight with guns in MP than with vehicles.

[Morchaoron 0]

Not necessarily, it's the combination of both that makes OFP such a cool multiplayer game... its only that once the vehicles have been destroyed, it will become pretty boring if you will have to walk miles.

Still, the option to make vehicles respawnable would be nice.

And I've played lots of maps with helis, but only a few of them has shilkas or vulcans en even fewer have AA soldiers

[Bronco 0]

SA-2 surface to air missile launcher is what is needed I found some pics here http://www5.big.or.jp/~jinmink/MUZEO/mokei/puramo/02/index.html

This is the Soviet version, US must have one also for the 1985 period.

[Morchaoron 0]

Another thing, I don't know if its already possible, but it would also be cool if it were possible that the teams and vehicles would reset once a flag has been captured, both teams would have limit recources each round (instead of each game) to capture the flag.

Just an idea

(and ofcourse, it would still be possible for players to respawn )

[suchey 0]

There are maps out there which support vehicle respawning...not all do, but some have it built in

[Jungle Bob 0]

The SA-2 Surface to Air Missile looks cool!

It indeed would be a cool idea, because shilka's and vulcans are short-ranged weapons while this rocket can intercept an helicopter.

[Bronco 0]

Leave the Sam on the truck so there is some setup time.That way it would still be possibe to do a helicopter rush but you would have to be quick about it. This might even give the planes a useful purpose, taking out the sam sites. If you could only fly them without crashing.

[Jungle Bob 0]

Can anybody actually fly any of those aircraft?

I can fly the helo's pretty good but I'm never flying the aircraft.

[Morchaoron 0]

Helicopter rush must be prevented!

Helicopter rush = swarming to the helis and spam the entire enemy base before anything can get out...

While this might be for for 1 minute, the other 29 minutes will be pure boredom, and I don't really see it as a tactic, and as you may have noticed, almost everyone leaves the game when that happens.

And planes already have a usefull purpose, they are very fast and their missiles are also very powerful vs tanks and are easy to fly (once your in the sky its no problem )

I think thats a better purpose then taking out ANTI-AIR with an AIR vehicle

However, the problem will remain, once a helicopter gets through the AA all vehicles will be lost.

(Edited by Morchaoron at 10:22 pm on Nov. 6, 2001)

[Vincent Vega 0]

You can make vehicles respawn, look at this tutorial:

http://editing.operation-flashpoint.de/tut/respawn.htm

its in german, but I think you can get the point;)

[KaRRiLLioN 0]

I've created several missions with vehicle respawning. It's done by a script that detects whether the vehicle is dead, and if so it resets it to the original position and regenerates and reloads it. The only problem right now is that the clients each run the script on their individual computers so when this happens that vehicle is reset several times and will sometimes keep exploding depending up on the latency between the server and clients. Another guy and I are working on this problem to see if we can execute the script locally on the server and then set up a Public variable that will give the status of the respawned vehicle. It still works pretty well right now and is better than nothing.

As for Baseraping, I create a couple of tall houses and place a Vulcan or Shilka there that way they only have LOS if an enemy copter gets behind those buildings, and it makes it harder for copters to get a lock on them until they're blasted to the ground. It works well enough right now to keep enemy copters out of the base area and it also maintains a certain "realism". I don't like to use killzones that kill enemy vehicles that enter an area. Also setting up some AI RPG, LAW, AA, etc. soldiers near the Vulcan or Shilka works well.

[RedRogue 0]

Hmm well the SA-2 is a bit too large and a bit to old to be effective against anything other than a C-130 maybe.

Its a medium to long range missile which really isn't the combat enviroment present in OFP. A more suitable mobile SAM would be.

The HMMVW Avenger:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/avenger.htm

And the BRDM-2 SA-9 Gaskin:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/missile/row/sa-9.htm

Since both the vechile chasis are in the game or going to be soon, and both the Stinger and Strela Missles are in the game I wouldn't be a incredably hard addition. And since it can take 1-3 missile hits to down a chopper or plane they wouldn't be too overpowering.

The only flaw is the HMMVW Avenger didn't come into service until 1990. But it wouldn't reallly bother me cause it would balance out the SA-9 Gaskin, and I play Soviet most of the time anyway. If included BIS could work out the 8 missile load vs. 4 missile load imbalance in their own way. I'd just say give the Avenger 4 missiles cause it wouldn't last to long in a OFP combat anway.

[Bronco 0]

I WANT ONE Good pics RedRogue.