Yep I said it. Minigame. Surely nothing of that sort has ever been attempted (perhaps not even considered [see how humble I am?]) in bf before. Bam!
Right, well I've been thinking about this for awhile. And two things occoured to me. First and formost, why do I think of this stuff? Second, and more pertinnent (today's international big word day) to the topic is that it would be a very neat addition to have, for things like hacking computers (perhaps as an objective on soe map) or control doors, or something of that nature.
I'm sure you've all played at least one game with a small minigame to pick door locks (like in oblivion, or splinter cell, etc.). Thats what I mean by minigame. And I think it's possible in the bf 2142 engine.
Right well this is going to be pretty darned simple. But my explanation will undoutbedly sow confusion and overcomplicate what I'm trying to get across. To overcome this, I'm going to need you all to use your imaginations. I'm going to use an example of a minigame, you control a plug similar to r2's and use it to shoot a port. There are several bars that pass between the gun and teh port, and you have to shoot through wholes in the bars to hit the port.
Picture in game a metal box set into a wall. Now this is a closed HOLLOW box. Hollow. If your inside the hall way by this box (which should look like an electronic computer/lock) you see the outside, with little buttons and one of those ports r2 plucks into. Now picture this box from the top. On the side facing out towards the hallway is a 'vehicle' that infatry can use. This vehicle is shaped like the head of r2's plug (what?), and teh bussiness end protrudes into the hollow part of the box. The camera for this 'vehicle' is inside the boxes hollow part as well, facing straight down, and is not movable.
So basically you now have a 2d 'playing space' that you can use to have your little minigame on. You guys can have it decorated to look all computer-ish. Thats the basics, you can make any sort of minigame inside this space. I describe below with my example how you could do that.
Now I'll continue using my example. The r2 'plug' is the vehicle's weapon, and it shoots an electric shocky thingy (think repair beam). Directly opposite from the r2 plug 'vehicle' the infantry 'gets into' is a series of walls that move side to side quickly. In each of these walls is a small whole (remember your looking down on this, so it appears these walls are 'bars' each with a small gap). There is a quick quick moment when these bars are in a position that all these gaps are all lined up with the plug. In that spot, behind all these layers of bars, is a little port thing. If the r2 beam hits it, it sets off a trigger to do an action (like open a door).
So to review. 2D envirmoent. R2 plug 'gun' faces straight foward. Bars with gaps moving, and target port behind them. Small gap in each bar that lines up for a quick moment due to their natrul back and forth motion. He shoots through gap, and hits port, setting off the trigger to do what ever the games for.
That was only an example to explain the concept. I'm sure you guys could come up with much more difficult, and fun minigames taht make sense for the situation that they could be used for.
I know that sounded real complicated, but I think actually going about setting this up would be real simple (just a themed stationary turret and several moving objects but set up in such a position as to form a minigame). I doubt it would take long at all.
And for such a simple (yet terribley explained) concept, so much could be done! How about in a med station theres a few small operating table with a med droid by each one. These table/droid setups could be vehicles exactly like explained above. The player could play a mini game (as the med droid) where they 'operate' on themselves! 
How about another one where theres a place in the ship's main reactor where a boarder could hack into it and make it go critical! Theres a whole slew of uses, all from a very simple setup.
Rants? Raves? Medals?
. They also have an odd way of activating the things - it seems to be possible only through damaging the vessel.
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