A better set of instructions than the manual

[Fribble]

Hello BF2ers,

I'm sure some of you have seen me on the battlefield, a few may have delighted in calling me N00b and chuckling as I crashed my fighter jet into my target or as I ran up to your tank mid combat to attempt to repair it only to get stomped by the apparent battle raging all around me...

aaaaanyway..

I'm just beginning to explore the online community for BF2, but I've yet to find a reference for all of the stuff the manual doesn't tell you which is crap IMO... The finer points to the vehicles, what the different tones on the missile lock warning indicator mean (I'm assuming lock and launched), what that red square with the skull and crossbones that will sometimes appear on your HUD means, why teammates names onscreen sometimes flash, how I can get an external view of my character so I can see if I am really hidden as well as I think I am, how to eject from an aircraft or base jump and have a parachute deploy along with many others that I'm sure you had when you first started playing as well (I could go on for a while). Some things are easy to practice and discover in single player, others aren't.

These things make the learning curve on this game take up an extraordinary amount of time when it doesn't have to.

If no such resource exists yet I would like to propose that everyone pitches in and posts a few of the little things they picked up so N00bs like myself don't need to remain as such due to ignorance of the interface. I don't like getting sqashed because I need to learn most things by trial and error without even basic guidance and I'm sure my team dosn't care for it either.

If everyone will share their accumulated knowledge I will volunteer my time to reorganize and present the data for all to reference.

Later

Fribs

[imported_TheDragon]

Re: A better set of instructions than the manual

read every post in this forum on a regular basis
you will learn MUCH
then ask specfic questions
you will get specific answers
every one was NEW when they started

[ptegan]

Re: A better set of instructions than the manual

A lot of the answers to those questions can be found here, the BF2 wiki site.

[Halfpast_Yellow]

Re: A better set of instructions than the manual

Red skull and crossbones are friendly explosives (ie stay away). They come in 3 flavours, claymore (anti infantry), AT mine (anti vehicle) and C4 (manually detonated anti-everything).

I've always assumed the beep-beep is "missles locking on" and the beeeeeeep is for a "locked on" warning. Ie, jump in an AA turret and you'll notice it takes a few seconds to get a lock on enemy air assets. But I could be wrong on this one.

[Fribble]

Re: A better set of instructions than the manual

Thanks Halfpast_Yellow, TopGunGreg and ptegan - that wiki is exactly what I was looking for. I ended up answering some of those questions from playing yesterday. I didn't realize that you could switch to any seat in vehicles (even if it is occupied) in the single player version, this made the vehicles easier to grab and play around with. The only one from the previous list that I have yet to figure out is how to know how well you are hidden and the skull and crossbones. I'm not talking about the little ones that stick to the explosives (But I didn't know about the color codes, so big thanks Halfpast_Yellow) I'm talking about the ~1" red square that I sometimes have 'stuck' to my HUD under the mini-map (Not part of the landscape).

I would also like to note that using a joystick for the air vehicles makes a HUGE difference - I set up my old Cyborg 3D and my heli performance has improved ten-fold. It's much easier to control now.

[FrontAxle]

Re: A better set of instructions than the manual

The red skull and crossbones under the minimap let's you know that you are within a close proximity to friendly explosives(claymore/AT mine/C4). Take a good look around you and you will see them. Just as an example, if a SpecOps that is behind you places C4, you will not see the skull on the C4 because it is not in your view, but the skull will appear below your minimap. It is meant to make you aware of nearby explosives you might not see in your field of view.

[Duck12man.FU]

Re: A better set of instructions than the manual

The red skull and crossbones under the minimap let's you know that you are within a close proximity to friendly explosives(claymore/AT mine/C4). Take a good look around you and you will see them. Just as an example, if a SpecOps that is behind you places C4, you will not see the skull on the C4 because it is not in your view, but the skull will appear below your minimap. It is meant to make you aware of nearby explosives you might not see in your field of view.

I wish people would notice though, *sigh*

[Fribble]

Re: A better set of instructions than the manual

Very nice FrontAxle thank you. I feel silly that I didn't figure that one out myself, it seems so obvious now that I know. This seems like a high quality board, thank you everyone for the help.

Later

Fribs