What happens when a vehicle is “disabled” in Battlefield 3?

Question

In a tank, it seems to slow down and catch on fire which will slowly "bleed" the tank. Is that all?

1. Does this happen right at 50%?
2. Does repairing above 50% relieve the affects?
3. Are the affects the same for all vehicles?

It can definitely be frustrating to disable an air vehicle, yet watch it fly away and recover!

Asked by SkippyFire

Answer

I just investigated your question on my server (standard - not hardcore in case it matters) with a couple of M1 Abrams tanks. I haven't confirmed these numbers for other vehicles, so results might be different for other vehicles.

The magic number

The number for disabling looked like 50%. I would have guessed it was that, but I'd never tested to be sure. A 52% tank was fine, and a 50% tank was on fire.

Bleed effects

Once the tank was disabled, I had a grace period of a few seconds before health started bleeding. It seemed like about a 10 second period.

But 50% was the point where it started bleeding. Once it starts bleeding you have to either get it repaired or, failing that, bail out before it explodes.

Audio cues

1. Down to about 60% damage I heard a slow klaxon-like sound (like an angry little alarm clock).
2. From 50-60% the klaxon got very fast.
3. At 50% and below, once the vehicle was on fire, the "woop-woop" alarm sound was added.

Heal effects

When a you repair a vehicle's health to the point that it's no longer disabled, all adverse effects from disabling are repaired too.

When a vehicle is anywhere above a disabled state, after avoiding additional damage for a few seconds it'll slowly regenerate its health back up to 100%. In my tank testing it took about 12 seconds of non-damage before regeneration started.

Other

Though a disabled vehicle's movement is impaired, its weapons function normally.

Answered by Drew G

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In BF3, how does Reactive Armor work?

Question

Battlelog says that the panels protect you from damage but are destroyed in the process.

Specifically, what do the Reactive Armor vehicle unlocks do?

• How many panels are there?
• What constitutes damage? Up to 50 damage? 50 damage each (cumulative)? Some other algorithm
• Does using the repair tool on an enemy vehicle instantly remove the panels?

Answer

There are three panels, protecting the sides and rear of the tank. No protection is given to the front of the tank. Each one can take one incoming rocket, tank shell or AT Mine before being destroyed. Once the tank's health has been repaired, the panels can be repaired by a friendly engineer. Enemy engineers can't destroy the armour using a repair tool but they can by using their RPG/SMAW or AT MINE.

To repair the Reactive armour the tank must be at 100% health. If you do know what parts of the tank does not have the armour, use the repair tool and repair the side for 3-5 seconds and should be back up.

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What is “Below Radar” and how does it work?

Question

There is a jet (and helicopter) upgrade called "Below Radar" that states:

When flying at low altitudes your heat signature is decreased, hiding you from enemy radar and preventing enemy air-to-air missile systems from locking on to you.

I can't find it anywhere in my loadout screen even though I've unlocked it, and it doesn't seem to be a passive perk that's always on, as I can always be locked onto by enemy aircraft.

Is this a bug or am I just missing something?

Answer

It's altitude based, not terrain based. Just because you're skimming low over a mountain cliff doesn't necessarily mean you're under the radar barrier altitude. Keep the map's geography in mind. When you want to be below radar you must be near sea level.

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How do I unlock helicopters?

Question

How do I get helicopters for my personal use outside of activities? I've bought the hangar, but I don't see any copters lying around the airport. Do I just need to look around more or complete a specific mission/activity, or level up and buy the Helicopter Homie?

And once I've found one, where do I garage them?

Answer

The earliest I have found that you can unlock a helicopter is during the main storyline. Once you complete the mission Trojan Whores, you receive a Vulture helicopter for the mission reward. It's accessible at the Saints HQ pad in Sunset Park. Just go outside next to the pool (after you're inside the HQ, so the outside of the penthouse) and you'll see the floating key indicating a garage, which is where you'll be able to store future helicopters.

I was level 15 when I acquired this, which is 9 levels earlier than you can receive the Heli Homie. I'd also done a bunch of activities on the side to raise my level though, so if you just go straight for the Trojan Whores mission, you'll unlock it earlier.

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In BF3, can you steal a vehicle that has enemy players in it?

Question

A friend told me that he saw a video of someone piloting an enemy transport chopper full of enemies (The enemy pilot had bailed out or something). He then proceeded to crash the chopper, getting kill points for all the enemies inside (and probably a suicide too).

Is this possible, or was my friend watching an older Battlefield game, or the wrong game entirely?

Answer

Yes you can, although it's almost certainly a bug. (The video was meant to disprove an earlier version of the same bug, where anyone who stole a vehicle with an enemy still in the co-pilot seat would be flagged a member of the other team, and therefore invincible unless friendly fire was on.)

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Why do open-world games seem to spawn vehicles based on what the character is driving? [closed]

Question

There are numerous open-world games that all seem to exhibit similar vehicle spawn behavior: namely, whatever vehicle your character is driving noticeably influences the types of vehicles that spawn dynamically around you.

I recall experiencing this phenomenon myself in the GTA series, Crackdown, Just Cause 2, and similar games. It seems like there are enough different titles, technologies, and publishers involved that it wouldn't just be a quirk of a single open-world engine.

This might just be selective perception at work, but I have also seen this mentioned in enough vehicle collecting guides to feel confident there might be something to it.

Is this just a result of a common memory-management/caching game design problem? Or it was, and now developers purposely replicate it out of tradition? Or am I just crazy?

Answer

Both in GTA IV and Just Cause 2 this was related to the fact that consoles (reference platforms for devs) have memory limitations, therefore the number of vehicle models stored memory is also limited.

Gaming PCs nowadays have more memory but in the PC porting developers usually do not care much about it and they implement the same behavior.

I personally don't like it too because it gives me a feeling of "artefact". The only good point is that if you need a certain type of vehicle you know the areas where it spawns.

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Help identify Old Hovertank game

Question

I'm looking for info regarding an old hover tank /vehicular combat game that I played the demo of long ago.

It combined real-time strategy base-building with vehicular combat. The player took direct control of a tank, and assaulted a succession of enemy bases. After taking out the turrets and buildings in the enemy place, you could use your resources to build a new base, harvest resources to fund a new assault, repeat ad infinitum until there are no more bases on the map.

There were multiple weapon types, and though many of the enemy units were tanks, you could also run into infantry and aircraft on the enemy side. I believe it may have been possible to jump into allied tanks as well to switch what you were controlling.

I distinctly remember purchased buildings falling from the sky, thunking solidly into the ground prefabricated.

The game was full 3-d, with several tilesets, a desert oasis tileset, and a snowy conifer forest tileset at least.

The game came out for windows 98, and was definitely part of some demo, which offered only some of the levels and missions.

Bit of a long shot, perhaps, but I figure I may as well toss it out here.

Answer

This sounds somewhat like Uprising: Join or Die.

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BF3: No vehicles in TDM?

Question

Are the vehicles just available in certain game types then? I've never played BF before and it's keeping me busy until 11/8. I only like TDM as I'm not much for objective capturing and I have yet to ever see one. What game types are they included in then?

Answer

Vehicles are availables in the following modes:

• Rush
• Conquest
• Squad Deathmatch

whereas in Squad Deathmatch the only vehicle is the IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle). The other two game modes do not have this limitation.

Team Deathmatch and Squad Rush are infantry only.

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What's the best way to take out enemy jets using the default jet equipment?

Question

I find jet warfare hard in BF3. I have not unlocked any abilities with the jet and would like to know what's the best way to spot and kill enemy jets with the standard gun. I find it hard to spot and to aim at the enemy jet when flying. Any ideas or tricks would be helpful. Thanks.

Answer

The best weapon period for taking out enemy jets is the default machine gun.

Heat-Seekers can be evaded or they can use flares to get rid of them. The only thing that an enemy can do to avoid being shot by a machine gun is be a better pilot than you, and even then, if you get the drop on them, it's pretty hard to avoid being killed.

The machine gun also kills the most quickly of any of the jets weapons. The only downside to it is that you have to learn how far to lead the enemy jet to hit them. This comes from practice, and soon you'll be able to take down an enemy jet no problem.

In regards to spotting and keeping track of the enemy, the first thing you want to do is look at the enemy jet and press Q. Then once you've engaged the enemy, stay in cockpit view whenever you can to help you aim, but the moment that the enemy moves out of your view, switch to chase camera (C) and attempt to keep them in your sites. Switch back and forth between cockpit cam and chase cam whenever you get a chance to fire at them.

If you follow these tips pretty soon you'll be taking out enemy jets like a pro.

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Experience gained from on foot kills vs vehicle kills in Borderlands

Question

I know that killing an enemy on foot will give you more experience than killing an enemy by running them over or shooting them from a vehicle (related question here), but is the amount of experience gained dependent solely on the killing blow?

In other words, could I use the vehicle machine guns/rocket launchers to soften up a tough target, get them down to very little death and then pop out of the vehicle to land the killing blow and get the full on-foot XP? Or does it take into account the percentage of damage done on foot/in vehicle?

Answer

Yes you can. The XP is given by how you kill the target, not by how you damage it. However, I heard that a patch fixed that, but I'm not sure.

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OpenTTD: Mass replacement of aging vehicles

Question

I have a bunch of vehicles in need of replacement due to old age. I am aware of the vehicle autoreplacement feature, but that seems to only allow for the migration of one vehicle to another (instead of just decomissioning an older vechicle and replacing it with an exact duplicate.)

Is it possible to auto-replace aged vehicles with identical (newer) equivalents?

Answer

Go into Advanced Settings, then Vehicles, then Autorenew. Turn on "Autorenew Vehicle when it gets old", then set the other two options in that menu to the values of your choice.

I believe that vehicles will only autorenew when they pass a depot during their normal routes, but I haven't tested this.

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