• Registered: 2014-02-15
  • Posts: 4

Topic: First Strike/Battlefield 2142 Offline Play Issues

Hey. At the request of Twigs, I am posting this in the bug reports section. There seems to be issue with Battlefield 2142 (and, by extension, this mod) where playing completely offline (or at least not connected to the EA Servers) causes all weapons that are classified as unlocks (in First Strike's case, any weapon beside the first equipped primary weapon of each class at the start of a match) is locked. This makes offline play a little frustrating. The best I could do to alleviate the issue was to modify all of the classes to optimize them for offline play. There seems to be a window where all weapons are unlocked after playing one match. The thing is, all matches have to be consecutive afterwards for the weapons to stay unlocked. Otherwise, they lock again after quitting a match (disconnecting from the offline server). The classes I modified were based around the limitations. Here is a list of changes I made (some are a matter of personal preference. So, be aware of that as you read);

Support: Replaced with a dedicated Sniper (Scout) class, and its weapons and abilities have been redistributed to other classes. The Scout is armed with (in addition to the melee weapon and pistol) the Soldier's Sniper weapon, MicroBinoculars, and Tracking Beacon from the Soldier class (Still a work in progress)

Soldier: Replaced the Sniper weapon with the former primary weapon of the Support Class (Bowcaster and MG-15). Replaced the MicroBinoculars with Thermal Detonators (for some anti-vehicle firepower, and somewhat in honor of Star Wars Battlefront). Removed Tracking Beacon.

Heavy Weapons: Split into two different versions. One for vehicular-based maps, and one for infantry maps (using the existing heavy_weapons and heavy_weapons_sp classes in the mod files). Both replace the Personal Shield Generator with a Fusion Cutter, and gain anti-personnel mines from the former Support Class. The vehicular-based map version starts out with a rocket launcher and the infantry map version starts out with a repeating blaster. Maps are modfied where appropriate to make use of the right class.

Medic: Gains the DEMP2 as a unlockable weapon. Gains an Ammo Box to replace the Support class's E-Web generator (slight reference to the Pilot/Engineer class in Battlefront, in how they can both restore health and resupply ammo).

Well, this is how I set it up, just for ideas. May I suggest if the FSdev team, if they were to use this idea, use special offline versions of each map (or offline gamemodes, at least) and offline classes meant for these maps so the regular maps don't need to be modified. If a player was connected to the EA servers, then they can use the normal maps and classes because everything will be unlocked as intended.

  • Dnamro
  • First Strike Team Leader
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  • Registered: 2007-05-29
  • Posts: 1,167

Re: First Strike/Battlefield 2142 Offline Play Issues

Unlike BF2142, weapon unlocks in First Strike are tied to joining a squad.   So, make sure you are joined to a squad if you want to use all available weapons.   This is from Twigs forum thread on common mod issues:

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First Strike is a very teamplay orientated mod. In order to emphasise this, certain kit items may only become available when in a squad with a set number of players.

The Officer kit found on infantry maps is only available to Squad Leaders, if you are not a Squad Leader and you select this kit you will end up with a spawn in count of 1000, so choose one of the other available kits.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, I  have thought about using custom kits for the singelplayer gamemode to unlock all weapons and have kits for infantry only maps as you suggested.     There is another issue, not mentioned, is that the bots can't select the 5th Officer kit.   Since BF2142 only has 4 kits by default, DICE coded the bots to only use 4 kits, not five.   In the singleplayer mod, the support class gained the officer's deployable automated eweb that bots could drop. 

One concern is that having different kits between multiplayer and singleplayer could cause confusion.    Since Coop is commonly played on servers, we don't want to change kits for that mode.   However,  It's been my experience that there are two types of players, offline and online players, and these different types stay primarily in there own camps.   Online players typically view singleplayer mode as OK to learn a map and for practice, but multiplayer is where they prefer.      Singleplayers appreciate the capability to jump into or out of a game at anytime and not have to deal with smaktards.     I don't think where would be a problem with having custom kits for singleplayer, but leave coop alone.    It's definitely something we can look into for a future release.

3 Reply by austen1000 (edited by austen1000 2014-02-16 12:38:53)

  • Registered: 2014-02-15
  • Posts: 4

Re: First Strike/Battlefield 2142 Offline Play Issues

Dnamro wrote:

Unlike BF2142, weapon unlocks in First Strike are tied to joining a squad.   So, make sure you are joined to a squad if you want to use all available weapons.   This is from Twigs forum thread on common mod issues:

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
First Strike is a very teamplay orientated mod. In order to emphasise this, certain kit items may only become available when in a squad with a set number of players.

The Officer kit found on infantry maps is only available to Squad Leaders, if you are not a Squad Leader and you select this kit you will end up with a spawn in count of 1000, so choose one of the other available kits.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, I  have thought about using custom kits for the singelplayer gamemode to unlock all weapons and have kits for infantry only maps as you suggested.     There is another issue, not mentioned, is that the bots can't select the 5th Officer kit.   Since BF2142 only has 4 kits by default, DICE coded the bots to only use 4 kits, not five.   In the singleplayer mod, the support class gained the officer's deployable automated eweb that bots could drop. 

One concern is that having different kits between multiplayer and singleplayer could cause confusion.    Since Coop is commonly played on servers, we don't want to change kits for that mode.   However,  It's been my experience that there are two types of players, offline and online players, and these different types stay primarily in there own camps.   Online players typically view singleplayer mode as OK to learn a map and for practice, but multiplayer is where they prefer.      Singleplayers appreciate the capability to jump into or out of a game at anytime and not have to deal with smaktards.     I don't think where would be a problem with having custom kits for singleplayer, but leave coop alone.    It's definitely something we can look into for a future release.

After rereading what I posted yesterday, I don't think I explained myself well at all. I'm sorry. I have Asperger's Syndrome, which, among other things, makes explaining things difficult for me to do.

Well, I was referring to 100% offline singlplayer (no internet connection active, and no connection to the EA Login Servers for the game. Like having the WiFi radio turned off and/or all internet cords disconnected from the computer). When I said "online", I mean singleplayer with an internet connection and logged into the EA Login Servers. I know all of those secondary weapons require a squad (and that works fine offline). But, I was referring to the weapons you select at the spawn screen (A280, E-11, MG-15, Bowcaster, Disruptor Rifle, DEMP-2, etc...). Unless you are connected to the EA servers (even if playing solo), all but the first choice in each class is greyed out until the conditions I mentioned earlier are fulfilled (and even then, it is only temporary). For example, a Soldier will only have access to the A280/E-11. The shotgun and sniper weapons are locked.

4 Reply by Dnamro (edited by Dnamro 2014-02-17 12:57:29)

  • Dnamro
  • First Strike Team Leader
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  • Registered: 2007-05-29
  • Posts: 1,167

Re: First Strike/Battlefield 2142 Offline Play Issues

I see now what you are talking about.  So, you are not using the launcher, because it only works online.  Instead you started First Strike manually, either by creating your own shortcut or starting BF2142 and switching to the First Strike mod.   In either case you would start with an offline account.    I never noticed that before, but with an offline account, you can't customize the kits.    The customization menu uses 0 level unlocks,  which should allow anyone to use.  However, it appears that DICE has totally blocked the unlock system from offline accounts.   The only workaround is if we created custom kits for singleplayer that added more weapons to each kit or added pickup kits around the map.    I can look into it, but will want get more feedback that players want to play First Strike with offline accounts before we move forward with implementing a work around.

]

  • From: Canada
  • Registered: 2006-08-27
  • Posts: 1,781

Re: First Strike/Battlefield 2142 Offline Play Issues

Might be something to look into for the inevitable future when EA shuts down the master server

6 Reply by austen1000 (edited by austen1000 2014-02-17 16:15:11)

  • Registered: 2014-02-15
  • Posts: 4

Re: First Strike/Battlefield 2142 Offline Play Issues

I'm glad I finally managed to communicate this properly. I have been having trouble communicating it until now. I came up with one last idea that the team may try if you all decide to go forward with this. Like I mentioned earlier, playing a single match offline will temporarily unlock all of those weapons until disconnected from the server. I thought that maybe the team could create a "fast map" of sorts that plays and finishes (with one team or the other victorious) in a couple of seconds, so when the map(s) the player wants to play come up in the playlist, all of the selectable weapons will be unlocked for the match.

  • Dnamro
  • First Strike Team Leader
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  • Registered: 2007-05-29
  • Posts: 1,167

Re: First Strike/Battlefield 2142 Offline Play Issues

Jay,

I would kill the multiplayer game, but I don't expect that EA will drop Bf2142 from the master server anytime soon.   

Austen,

I tried loading a map and disconnecting, as well as playing a full round and then loading a new map, but I was never able to customize weapons.   What you may be experiencing is when picking up a dropped bot kit, you get access to unlocks, since bots can access unlocked kits.    If you died and were brought back, you may have received a bot kit without realizing it.