Tracking

[damonxwind 4]

Not sure if this is entirely possible or even interesting to most people, But I'd love idea of tracking players in this game.

Put it this way, wherever you go, you leave something behind. Footprints (Impressions outside, tracking mud inside), Shell Casings, Blood, empty cans of beans and soda.

A player would have to notice these on the ground, and then could inspect them via the context menu. Upon inspection it would tell the player what the sign was (footprint, et cetera), and tell them roughly how long it had been there.If the sign was more than say, a half hour old, it would only say "You cannot tell how long this has been here"

Running, crouched or standing, leaves footprints, whereas walking only leaves footprints if you are standing.Firing a weapon leaves brass, but maybe you can pick it up yourself and not leave evidence of being there.you will leave a trail of blood while bleeding, or if you've recently looted a corpse of any kind.

Whenever you eat or drink, you leave your trash on the ground, or it goes into your inventory, forcing you to drop it eventually to use that space. Empty cans that are freshly emptied would have different models than the trash loot spawn versions, or could replace them entirely.

Upon inspecting a corpse, rather than saying "The cause of death is unknown", or whatever it is, specifically, it would tell you if there was something obvious such as a gunshot, blood loss, or mauled by zombies, and would tell you if their legs were broken.

This might entice bandits to do more hunting, and follow someone around the map for the kill, would perhaps allow friendly players to know that there is another player about, and to give them a chance to find or avoid them. I think the player type who could most benefit from this is the Bandit Hunters, who will be able to track bandits and hunt them down.You could also allow players other ways of avoiding leaving traces behind such as walking on hard surfaces all the time, picking up their own trash and brass, and perhaps even removing bloodstains if they have a tool such as cleaning supplies.

EDIT: I see I posted this ON THE SAME PAGE, as another, extremely similar suggestion. Sorry, I'm lazy and I know it. it won't happen again.

Edited July 11, 2012 by Friendly Mike

[vision1776 42]

I love the idea but good luck to the developers implementing something like it. Too difficult to code that and I dont think it is even possible in the Arma 2 engine.

[brubaker 0]

it would be very interesting to walk through a town and see these indirect indicators that some else was recently there. It sure would have me looking over my shoulder if I saw blood and shell casings everywhere. It would also make groups much more cautious of their actions, but implementing it would very challenging.

[Batfink35 0]

While Tabbing from town to town and nothing else to do than ponder about things that could enhance the game, in my opinion, I've thought about the tracking idea myself and many of the things you've mentioned.

Some of your thought, i would think, could be placed into the game without any real degree on major hardship. e.g.

1. beans/soda cans being replaced in your inventory with empty cans when consumed. A bit like the way canteens and jerry cans change when used.

2. Empty Cans that are dropped maybe after 10/30min, or even a day, turn to rust then after a period of time after that vanish to help with server preformance. as zombie and animal corpses have a time limit before they too vanish.

3. grass being trodden down already exists in the game but maybe give it a longer time period before it pops up again. At the moment i think it reverts back to its standing postion after roughly a minute.

These are 3 of the ideas that i think would be the easiest to implement and maybe the rest could be implemented in a standalone or much later in the development of the mod. The only thing i would disagree with you on is the inspecting of the items and it telling you how long its been there etc via text. I'd rather it be a graphic representation of whats happened or how long its been there, on the object itself. That way the skill of tracking in its self would be more useful and would need to be learnt by trail and error. Sorting the novices from the experts.

[nacrom 82]

I can track the wind across a cliff face by moonlight.