Pilots worth the tickets, not helicopter?

[Sidewinder Zulu]

So, like most pilots, I am fairly efficient at landing a severely damaged or burning helicopter in PR, usally in an area clear and safe enough that the passangers escape alive.

This is in large part due to the excellent change the DEVs made back in .86 by giving the helicopters 200% more health but engine failure at 70%. (this makes crash landings more common.)
Nice job on that DEVs, it increases the depth of the gameplay significantly.

However, I have yet to see a helicopter be able to take off again after a crash landing, meaning that the only gain is that the passangers survive and you lose 20 tickets instead of 27 or 28.

This being said, I think another new improvement to the helicopters could be to have the pilots, rather than the vehicles themselves, be worth the 20 tickets.

This way, pilots who are talented enough to make a successful emergency landing will suffer little penalty from it.
The way it is now, there's really not too much point in rescuing downed pilots.
One extra ticket saved is really just a drop in the bucket on maps like Kashan that have 500+ tickets.

So, I would suggest that all the helicopters in the game be made worth 1-5 tickets, and all the pilots be made worth 20 tickets.
Most often, the pilot dies with his helicopter, so the change wouldn't effect gameplay that much.

But in the occurance when a pilot can survive the crash, his team would be rewarded for his skill by not losing as many tickets, and serious efforts would be made by his teammates to conduct CSAR and get him back to base, further increasing the realism of the game.

What are your thoughts?

(and I personally thank all the people in the past who have rescued me and my crew after our helicopter went down. )

[War-Saw-M249]

that could be risky. if you accidently die before even getting into the helicopter, maybe getting teamkilled, you lose those 20 tickets and the helicopter remains fine.

[Sidewinder Zulu]

Originally Posted by War-Saw-M249

that could be risky. if you accidently die before even getting into the helicopter, maybe getting teamkilled, you lose those 20 tickets and the helicopter remains fine.

True, and I've been thinking of possible ways to work around that.

Perhaps the pilot would only be worth the 20 tickets after he has gotten into the helicopter?
But I think that could be hard to implement.

But perhaps people will think twice about intentionally teamkilling a pilot if they know their whole team will suffer.

[|}(äbG){|ParaMedic|Ger]

Yes, really good idea. Sounds like epic rescue missions and insurgent runs for downed helos. It would change gameplay quite a bit.
Don't know if it's possible, but it would be great.

But perhaps people will think twice about intentionally teamkilling a pilot if they know their whole team will suffer.

And whit that in mind I can see no catch in this thing.

[bloodthirsty_viking]

it could be the pilot kit is worth one ticket untill 10 minutes of use or something?

[Rudd]

The vehicle needs to be worth something. But I'd be happy to split the current ticket losses half and half between vehicle and kit.

Would be nice if APCs etc got the same treatment.

[PLODDITHANLEY]

Nice idea,

What about repair station in the transport helis, then we have more of a chance to repair a downed chopper too.
The truck repair stations are rarely used.
So a BH drops off a squad to protect the heli and a station to mend it whilst the medic patches up the pilot.

[Brummy]

It's annoying that they burn down when you crash land, but that's all tbh. Making pilots worth tickets = lots of tickets lost if you get an annoying teamkiller, or you disconnect from the server, etc.

[Sabre_tooth_tigger]

Ive not managed to land a damaged heli yet, they just explode mid air for me. Does it apply to all helis or is there a special way to land like auto rotation with flare on landing

The obvious thing is repair a downed heli with the log truck, its quite rare to see a team actually work together like that though. Surely that could work and the heli would take off?


The idea about 20 tickets for a player doesnt sound possible but I definitely wish players would lose more score for losing vehicles, it just doesnt sink in enough that an attack chopper lost in 5 minutes means you suck big time.
Worse still when the same player just sets his watch to arrive back for the respawn and does the same thing again


We could have zero score with negative teamwork for those indivuals and if they brought back awards just for the worst players it could be the walk of shame to have the players whose lost the team most tickets shown on the loading screens.
3 or 4 tanks lost in a game is team sabotage pretty much, Ive done it once or twice myself I think but usually I'll just go infantry after the first

[Rissien]

Ive seen several instances where the pilot was shot out but the chopper was retreived. That would be 20 tickets for him dieing and thats it. Then you have to take into account the asshat behaviour, someone could grab a pilot kit and go get killed or tked over and over just wasting teams tickets.