Gameplay: Crash Landing

[Toppopia]

I've been wondering this for a while now, when you are in an aircraft and your health reaches 0, do you instantly blow up? Because i would love if you lost control so that if you were in a gal you could still save the crew inside by being an awesomely skilled pilot who can pilot an out of control aircraft, because i think Battlefield Bad Company had this for the black hawk but it only lived for 2 seconds after being hit, so it could bring a whole new set of bragging rights to pilots who can say.
"I was in a gal drop formation, and i saved my crew by skilfully crash landing my gal on a hill."

Or something along those lines, since i hate how in games if you do try to land you instantly blow up instead of being able to land, so this could make being attacked while in an aircraft not a 100% chance of dying. Unless the enemy keeps hitting you then you should blow up with no chance of landing.

[PlaceboCyanide]

I would rather perform crash landings or eject when the vehicle is at 5% health rather than always being able to do it at 0% life. It would make playing Anti-Air very unrewarding IMHO.

[SoNaR]

Maybe add a disable at a certain % of health left and while disabled you loose health slowly while your aircraft becomes much harder to control and/or spins out of control?

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by PlaceboCyanide

I would rather perform crash landings or eject when the vehicle is at 5% health rather than always being able to do it at 0% life. It would make playing Anti-Air very unrewarding IMHO.

Thats why i said 'if' they keep shooting you, you will die, but most people abandon the chase or stop shooting when they see the enemy either explode or catch on fire or whatever signifies a defeated enemy. But also you can't eject or you will die from the height, thats why crash landing would be a better option because that gives you from 0% to 100% survival rate, depending how good of a pilot you are.

[DviddLeff]

Love the idea - you lose altitude control but can still have a bit of attitude control and "glide" down, at which point your troops can get out and keep fighting. Even if this is only for the Gal, and even then only if it is not damaged too badly I would like to see it.

[Zekeen]

I think the idea is GREAT! Back in the day you could eject at any time. Later you could only eject before like, 80% damage to your aircraft or something like that, as a result of all the ejectors. In BF3, they have aircraft go out of control at a certain point, sometimes the pilot can land them, or they eject then.

I agree with having crash landings, have them take damage though, and let aircraft get disabled a bit earlier, so they have a reason to crash land. Also, keep in the idea of malfunctioning the ejection. This can add a LOT of fun to fights.

[Toppopia]

Originally Posted by Zekeen

I think the idea is GREAT! Back in the day you could eject at any time. Later you could only eject before like, 80% damage to your aircraft or something like that, as a result of all the ejectors. In BF3, they have aircraft go out of control at a certain point, sometimes the pilot can land them, or they eject then.

I agree with having crash landings, have them take damage though, and let aircraft get disabled a bit earlier, so they have a reason to crash land. Also, keep in the idea of malfunctioning the ejection. This can add a LOT of fun to fights.

I would always land my jet in BF3 if it got damaged because i was being an engineer, i am not an idiot that goes "oooh a jet, i am a recon though, oh well. screw my team that wants to use it responsibly" then they abandon straight away, but i would always land then repair and take off again much to the enemies suprise, and i hated how i could be chasing a jet and he gets disabled and can still eject instantly to be safe, which is soo stupid, they should have a delay of maybe 5 seconds to eject or some reason that they can't eject immediately. Because i would lose soo many kills from enemies bailing out of blowing up vehicles. almost made dog fights useless.

[Baneblade]

I've pretty much always been of the idea that a vehicle shouldn't just explode at 0. It should be disabled and capture able while disabled. Or it can be destroyed with a 'death blow' either from the enemy or the owner scuttling it.

[Kipper]

Crah landings are a superb idea, much cooler all around than exploding and disappearing - lets see bits come off and wreckage hitting the ground (maybe even damaging people unlucky enough to be hit by it)

You should get a "kill" on the vehicle separately to its occupants, that way you are still rewarded for destroying enemy assets (resources essentially).

If the pilot can set it down within certain angle/speed parameters through skill, he deserves to live. Likewise if he can't, enemy gets his kill anyway.

[Zekeen]

Originally Posted by Toppopia

I would always land my jet in BF3 if it got damaged because i was being an engineer, i am not an idiot that goes "oooh a jet, i am a recon though, oh well. screw my team that wants to use it responsibly" then they abandon straight away, but i would always land then repair and take off again much to the enemies suprise, and i hated how i could be chasing a jet and he gets disabled and can still eject instantly to be safe, which is soo stupid, they should have a delay of maybe 5 seconds to eject or some reason that they can't eject immediately. Because i would lose soo many kills from enemies bailing out of blowing up vehicles. almost made dog fights useless.

Heeeeyyyy! Delayed ejection, good idea there too! That should TOTALLY be a feature. And a slow falling parachute seat, so you can shoot the ejectee hehe.

[IMMentat]

Agreed, instant eject is food for griefers, a delay is a decent idea.
Crash landings could be tough to implement, would mean its own algorithms for momentum, torque, rate of decline, etc thats work taken out of my crystal coated magrider re-skin

[Zekeen]

Originally Posted by IMMentat

Agreed, instant eject is food for griefers, a delay is a decent idea.
Crash landings could be tough to implement, would mean its own algorithms for momentum, torque, rate of decline, etc thats work taken out of my crystal coated magrider re-skin

Actually, all it means is making it so you don't just blow up from hitting the ground and letting physics do the rest to the aircraft. Maybe shutting down systems under 10%, so a crash can be a complete shutdown require repair, and not able to use any turrets or such. It's really NOT that hard to implement.

[Xyntech]

Speaking of aircraft blowing up when they hit the ground, I thought it was interesting that the Reaver Higby blew up in the GDC footage left wreckage, as opposed to PS1 where they just vaporized.

I'd like to see aircraft traveling below a certain speed be able to crash land, while above that speed they would blow apart on impact.

Blowing apart should gib the pieces of the aircraft. That would look so much more awesome than the aircraft disappearing in a fireball or having the entire burnt out wreckage remain in one piece.

Depending on locational damage, maybe aircraft would respond differently depending on which part was attacked. Blow out the engines, you can try to crash land. Blow out the cockpit, the driver dies and the aircraft goes out of control. Destroy any other part of the body and it takes out the fuel or ammo and makes the aircraft bow apart mid air.

If surviving a crash landing depends on what speed you hit the ground, you should still have enough control over the aircraft to be able to try and slow your descent a little.

The reason I think it should be directly tied to how fast you hit the ground is that it would be more realistic, but more importantly more fun and dynamic. Say your cockpit gets blown out, but you were hovering or traveling at slow speeds only a short distance off the ground. If for some reason the enemy aircraft failed to destroy your crash landed aircraft, you could go back and repair the damage and fly it again.

This would be an unlikely scenario though, with most crash landings requiring pilot intervention. I would even tend to want it so that the most skilled pilots would be unable to successfully crash land in certain conditions, although skilled pilots should also be able to consistently crash land under other, better conditions.

This idea sort of fits in with what I would like to see for vehicles in general. I'd like to see all vehicles have a point at which they are almost completely disabled and are entirely useless, but can still be fully repaired. Think of it like an advanced medic reviving a soldier, only with engineers reviving vehicles.

Obviously unlike soldiers, there would also have to be permanent destruction of vehicles so that you didn't just have tank columns that could never be killed.

Crash landings would be a good way to include aircraft in that fun. It may not be the sort of thing that gets constant use, but I think it would get enough use to be worth adding, and would certainly create some epic moments and stories.

[Talek Krell]

Originally Posted by Xyntech

Crash landings would be a good way to include aircraft in that fun. It may not be the sort of thing that gets constant use, but I think it would get enough use to be worth adding, and would certainly create some epic moments and stories.

This idea would be magnificent as a side effect of that disabling/reviving vehicles idea that showed up a while back. We'd get some great war stories out of this thing.

[Kipper]

I always think that shooting something down and watching it go down is more satisfying than it just vaporising.

For a pilot, the objective is to deny the enemy the use of the hardware, rather than kill the occupant - so I wouldn't mind if pilots survived more often but you get xp on the vehicle kill.

Be even better if you had to be a pilot class rather than standard assault - there would be some top "shot down behind enemy lines" stories!