Known issues in Battlezone which cause problems:
Aircraft:
If flying in a bomber, or Biplane when world resets, it bugs, and you cannot choose another vehicle unless client exits, and re-logs.
if in a low fps system, it is possible to make your bomber/biplane immune to missile attacks. Not divulging how, in a public forum for obvious reasons, but it is doable.
Helicopters: see above notes.
Nasty bug with bombs - fly low to a base, and drop just before the safe zone, will blow up people in 'safe' territory. Intermittent, but does happen.
Stalling over a building - tilting the plane's nose up, and applying excessive throttle manages an 'ouroborus stall' - a stall without end. I am not 100% sure - my experience piloting planes in RL is dire - once total, but I believe that if you try to do this, your lift would disappear, and you would start to plummet, no matter how much thrust you give your propellers. Instead, you can hover like a helicopter, or even gain altitude. Since so much of the rest of plane physics is accurate, this seems a real shame - and I have seen experienced players use this, to bomb buildings to fragments in a single run.
(tried it myself, to see just what would happen, and used my own base for an extended test - don't laugh
)
Team Switching
Enough with aircraft, moving on to the real evils.
Five minutes before the end of a game, there are evenly spaced teams: 1 on alpha, 1 on beta, 3 on delta, 2 on gamma. Gamma is in the lead by far, having co-ordinated two-pronged attacks (bomber and tank in team) as opposed to everybody for themselves of the other teams.
60 seconds before game ends, there are 7 on gamma. Team switching is a really good idea, as it allows for mutanies throughout the game, however, there is a severe problem, which I will explain after the next point.
Second point: Have observed, in the middle of the night, when few people are on, one player playing - often me, practicing, thou not always - on a team other than beta, and bombing beta, to practice their plane skills / gain easy kudos. Then, suddenly, someone logs in, joins your team, and immediately logs out. This can happen a dozen times with different players throughout the cause of a game. Why?
The answer to both points is <i>everyone</i> on a team at the end of a game session gains kudos whether they did anything or not. This means a lot of people 'playing' by doiung nothing, but simply joining a team, doing nothing for it, and creaming the glory. I suggest two separate solutions:
A. Only include in the kudos, players who spent 10 minutes or longer logged in, and part of that team.
B. Award a points system, to the players, internally to the team, I suggest something like this:
Building a building: 1 pt.
Building 2nd building: 5pts
killing a person in vehicle 1: 1pt
killing any other ground vehicle: 3pts
killing any flying vehicle: 5pts
getting blown up: 1 pt
The system would work, such as only people who earnt 5 points or more would get kudos with the team. This would guarantee they were participating:
Building a building is possible with starting steel reserves. Building a second building would require getting steel from a factory or town - they are obviously playing.
Killing a person on foot (vehicle 1) is easy to do, and is what spawn-killing does. It helps the team, so is reqwarded, but by the smallest amount possible - to discourage spawn-killing.
Being killed by a spawn-killer also generates points - if you are around long enough to get killed 5 times, you were trying to contribute.
killing ground vehicles is of help to the team, the person means to participate. Usually results in getting blown up one or more times yourself.
blowing up a bombing aircraft is of immense benefit to the team, deserves the possibility of reward for even taking out one.
Thas enough for this post. I tend ta get carried away ^.^
