AI Temporary Supply (Armory) Helicopters: May be the Answer?

So helicopters have been missing. Yes missing. This game has it all, and the cross over from all ground to air needs a bit of a bridge. Something. To help bring it home a bit as far as even more epic action. And at least a regular cameo on the helicopter's part.

Some have asked for helis, myself included, and I know you guys said something about trying it, or it is somewhat possible? But the issue was elevation? Buildings? And some other mechanics? Anyway, NO need to go over that all again. This is a different way to have them.

A AI driven/animated Supply Helicopter. Basically a temporary Armory. Maybe 5 minutes? It's Ai driven, so no need to set up flying controls or anything. If need be have it come straight down. Although it would look a bit better to be animated to come in and pitch back a bit and land. Call it in with a Green Flare. And MUCH cheaper than the Para Flare. (Honestly, the flares are cool, and few more flare uses could be awesome.)

The one thing I see as an issue really, is making sure that the Landing Zone is big enough and/or oriented the right way to avoid clipping and trees in a tight space. But also be used in a way like you would expect Helicopters to be used, such as landing on roof tops with enough space. Although you do have space-restrictions on Sandbags, MGs and Mortar placement. Perhaps just make it so you can't throw the flare, and the character says: "Hmmmm, I'm going to need more space for the Chopper." if the selected LZ isn't big enough.

The Armory Truck is great! The STASH will ALWAYS be used. And yes, the limitation on available locations for resupply is good. This Supply Chopper doesn't have to last, just fly in, give a sell, buy, resupply point on the field for a little bit and then take off. Maybe also the Enemy AI could use it (rarely) and killing it rewards some bonus. You guys can use the Helicopter model that was floating around on the Maps for a while (Although a Chinook would be cool, but huge, and then it might as well drop AI troops for a bit too out the back) Maybe if one lands 4 Ai troops get out to guard it, but don't move off?

Seriously, as far as the warfare and everything goes, you've got pretty much all of it. But there is a little gap in the Air plus Ground feel. Yes it is a ground battle game. But, let's say "theatrically" there is something missing. Also, tactically this really could add a lot of dynamic fun to the game. Again, it doesn't have to fly around, just come in, land (make sure some dust and stuff flies up), and be a temporary Armory. Let's say, 100RP a flare for 2-5 minutes? Or 50rp a flare for 2 minutes? And it can be blown up just like anything else.

There are a lot of times it'd be nice to hit up an armory with out having to spawn way back near one for some special stuff. Again, I understand the desire for limitations and agree. This doesn't have to last forever. Just a minute or two. AND WE ALL WANT HELICOPTERS IN SOME WAY. We could see them, say "Damn that's cool!" and talk about them in reviews. Put updates in guides about them. People would be like: "There are even helicopters in the game that can come in an resupply you!" Sorry, you know I don't get forceful, but seriously, for totally seriousliness. But for serious. This has got to be possible without unbalancing the game right?



[PS: Also need some parachute animations on the Humvee and Tank Drop, maybe a Crate with a 'chute for the sandbags, that breaks on landing. Love the drops, but they look kind of weak. Sorry, I rarely criticize. But they just sort of Pop up. Or appears. It's one of the only major aesthetic weaknesses I've really seen for a while.]

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Being AI driven doesn't remove the need for controls. The steering of the vehicle needs to be synced across online so some form of control input needs to happen.

If it's made with just up and down motion on a straight path, it will look pretty sloppy and won't really achieve the target of anyone saying "wow that's cool"

Some keyframe animations could be potentially used, Ogre3D for sure supports it, but we haven't used that stuff for anything so far, so we lack the logical area where that stuff would be controlled. Also it would need to mix with the vehicle physics in some form so that hit detection would work and so on -> sounds like it takes a similar effort to get it working well this way as just making it properly from ground up.

So if air vehicles were to be made, they'd need to be made properly and that's the problem. We've got 1.0 coming up in matter of months so controllable helis are just beyond reach at this point.


Exactly. As you can see, having a movable chopper can end up introducing plenty of new obstacles to workaround to make the feature work well. I don't think there's an easy way out here.


I wholeheartedly agree with you that it would be awesome to have every conceivable thing in RWR, but it's just not a very practical approach Even small things end up becoming a lot of work with tweaking to get things work the right way together, and I'm not even saying the (simplest) helicopter would be a small thing to add.

On a side note, we were considering to add an air-drop armory at some point but opted for inclusion of the armory truck instead.

Once we are off the release panic mode, we will take a fresh look at things that we could consider implementing for 1.5. There's lots of different kind of things on the table and it won't be easy to pick the right ones to work on. Some things could end up too big game changers, others could end up having very poor impact/effort ratio and so on. Or who knows, maybe we should just start working on the medieval RWR instead

My Series of Responses:

Thanks for considering, or reading through.
Ah Bummer.
Glad to know you'ld also feel it should be animated upon landing if it did exist.
That's too bad.
Here's hoping for possibly in the future.

Yeah 1.0 on it way!

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Flamethrower is more important than helicopter...

^Flamethrower? Hmmmm. I like the idea. it'd be epic. But we seem to lack enough fortifications and bunkers to really use them on. Plus, it's RWR, they'd have to make the tank explode if you're hit. I mean... it'd be cool. But I'd be afraid we'd rarely get to use it.

Anyway: Another option for Helicopters.
What if it was fully animated, nothing under player controls. The LZ's were pre-designated. Basically substitute some of the Spawn points with Chinooks of Hueys. The same yellow dot's show up on the map, but a little delay as the Heli's fly in and land. Not all command points on all maps mind you. But some major locations on most maps. So like when we are taking the Airport on the Trenches we take it and hold it for a few seconds while the helis fly over and land. Even one of the major Trench locations on the map would be cool. As we are out there fighting to hold it, take it and wait for Reinforcements to land.

If it's retaken then the Heli's can evac. Or be blown up for extra xp. Maybe just animate them to explode fully and not take up space for in common helis.

Okay I know. It's probably not going to happen. But Man... we gotta see some heli's come in and land somewhere. The epic action of this game deserves some of the classic war scenes.

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*shameless plug*
Well, technically my mod does have a flamethrower in my Running with Hedgerows mod. Not that it's any good, but it has all the needed visuals and a nice sound to it. Fuel tank, nozzle, nice animation, and poof, a terrifying weapon of war.

Hey, this is about Helicopters darnit! Now DIO already chased me out of a thread for getting all over the map on another subject.

However I would like to see visuals, got a video or images on another thread?

But helicopters here!

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Opt_0, I haven't chase you from anywhere. Merely alluded that you are messed the threads. Perhaps this is because you wrote in almost any topic a several successive posts.

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"Ad cogitandum et agendum homo natus es"

I work quickly, cheaply and qualitatively. You can choose only two of the three options.

^ I know buddy, just foolin' around.

Now: Back to Helicopters.

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I agree with the difficulty of the Helicopters and their collisions with buildings and other issues but the already designated landing zones would be amazing for this game. Another idea that has been in my mind for some time (Off topic ) is reinforcement zones. In certain areas of every map there could be 1 or 2 zones that drop 8 or 16 reinforcements every 5-10 minutes for the faction that captured it last. This could change the tactics and objectives of maps in either a good or bad way, I'm not exactly sure yet .