[Official Statement] Why some assets have been removed from some maps

[[R-DEV]Rhino]

Hey all.

Many of you seem to think that the choppers where removed from Qwai, Al Basrah etc just for a change of gameplay or w/e.

This is not true, the main reason for them being removed was in fact because of the annoying "Sound Bug" problems experienced in previous releases.

[R-DEV]Jaymz did lots of work on finding the cause of the sound bug and eventually found out that it was caused by the maps view distance (VD) being lower than the vehicles engine sound distance. As such, when the vehicle hit the edge of the players VD at the time, the sound would simply stick on the edge of that VD until that aircraft came back into the players view or the vehicle was destroyed.

As such, the choices we had where to either increase the maps VD (which for most maps is not an option due to performance reasons) or to remove the vehicle off the map, or to lower the vehicles sound distance.

For Qwai and Al Basrah, the VD could not be increased without huge performance impact, as such, the vehicles where removed off of them. On Qwai the VD was soo low that even the Type 98 (Chinese Tank) was even triggering the sound bug thou it was a rare occurrence compared to the choppers, and as such that also went.


Here is the detailed info on this for any mappers that need to keep this in mind etc.

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Jaymz

This is a template for mappers to reference when deciding upon the view distance of a map.


Jets

If your map doesn't have a view distance of at least 1km, you will have the sound bug with jets. Hence, players will hear invisible jets all over the map. British and Chinese jets currently have a 800m distance thou as Qinling couldn't have its VD increased but still advised to have a 1km or above VD even if you only have British and or Chinese jets on your map.

Helicopters

If your map doesn't have a view distance of at least 800m, you will have the sound bug with helicopters. Hence, players will hear invisible helicopters all over the map.

Tanks and all large tracked vehicles

If your map doesn't have a view distance of at least 600m, you will have the sound bug with tanks and other large tracked vehicles. Hence, players will hear invisible tracked vehicles all over the map.

Other vehicles

Granted the maps view distance is over 300m, no issues will be had with any other vehicle type in PR.


Deciding between view distance and assets on a new map for PR

Simple, if you are going to make a map with helicopters on it, make sure the view distance is 800m minimum. If it's less, people are going to be hearing invisible helicopters all over the map (examples in 0.85 being Jabal, Barracuda and Qwai).

Deciding between view distance and assets on a current map in PR already

Qwai river is a prime example. Right now, the sound bug gets triggered several times for all players in a round due to the scout choppers flying around. It's also triggered occasionally by the PLA tank. To avoid the sound bug, this map either needs these assets removed, or needs to have it's view distance completely overhauled. The latter being unlikely because it was designed for it's current (short) view distance.

I hope that clears some things up for thous of you with questions as to why the Choppers where removed from Al Basrah and Qwai etc.


Cheers.

[black-wolf]

Thanks for clearing this up.

[supahpingi]

Ty for the heads up mate

[Noobofthenight]

In my opinion, the sound bug was never that game-breaking to justify this, but I'm not a developer

[Smuke]

Glad to hear you found the cause for the bug.

[FuzzySquirrel]

I haven't heard the sound bug since .75 tho...

I'd rather have a Strategic asset that can change the game and put up with a Small Annoyance then Have no Slight Irritation and No Exciting Assets...

[Zrix]

Interesting.

[Brummy]

Is it possible to optimise Qwai and Basrah for the according VD?

[[R-DEV]Rhino]

Originally Posted by Brummy

Is it possible to optimise Qwai and Basrah for the according VD?

its possible yes, Qwai has the potential to have a lot of optimization work done to it as there are loads of settings that are off but fixing these would take a huge amount of rework of the map etc.

Al Basrah, dunno how much more you can get out of that tbh, the LMs are already on medium settings and I spent ages in the past getting it to the point it is now from the extra laggy v0.5 version if any of you remember that.

[Oddsodz]

Don't do any more work on the old maps. they seem fine really. Just get to work on the 12KM maps I read about somewhere. Then we can have all the toys we could ever want. Right now we are limited to Kashen and Battle for Q. The Ground pounders have got there maps. Time for the Whores to get some love