Vehicle armour replenishes in Battlefield 3

By Fred Dutton Published 2 September, 2011

DICE details new customisation options.

Vehicle armour in Battlefield 3 will replenish if kept out of the line of enemy fire, DICE has revealed.

However, according to a new post on the official Battleblog, the vehicle will be disabled once it passes a certain damage threshold, with fire and smoke indicating that it's about to explode.

Unlike in previous Battlefield games, you'll still be able to fire a vehicles' weapons while it's disabled, allowing you to lay down covering fire while engineers attempt to patch up the damage.

A range of new vehicle customisation options are also incoming. There are over 80 unlockable specialisation upgrades spread over the 12 different vehicle classes, with each class offering three unlock slots: one secondary weapon slot, one gadget slot and one upgrade slot.

As with the weapon upgrade system detailed last week, the new set-up lets you tailor each vehicle to suit your way of playing.

For example, a fighter jet can be kitted out with anti-air missiles for dogfighting or laser-guided air-to-ground missiles to blitz enemy tanks.

Similarly, you'll be able to equip IR flares to dodge missiles, or instead take your chances with a fire extinguisher in the event that you get hit.

"I think the ability to kit out your favorite vehicle depending on the situation combined with the new dynamics we've added to vehicle damage and repairs makes for a lot of interesting choices for players," explained lead vehicle designer Patrick O'Shaughnessy.

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About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 9 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Samirnasirov #1 9 months ago

    Is this a good thing?

  • DUFFKING #2 9 months ago

    It's a strange choice, buy hey, benefit of the doubt and everything. As long as it's not too fast. I remember having an engineer in a vehicle used to have it auto repair and that never seemed to be too much of a problem.

    It does sound a bit of cheap fix for vehicles being a bit weak at times, though.

  • OxWearingSocks #3 9 months ago

    HOLY SHIT, fire extinguishers?!

  • X3Entente #4 9 months ago

    maybe every vehicle has its own engineer that repairs it from inside

  • Ron_Justice #5 9 months ago

    Not too sure about this TBH. As long as a couple of engineers can reduce a vehicle to it's disabled state, relatively quickly, then it shouldn't be a problem. If however it takes an entire squad then it's a bit to much IMO.

  • fletch7100 #6 9 months ago

    think the regen only comes into effect when you take light damage, then you have to hide away from enemy fire for a few seconds before it kicks in. Believe once you take enough damage the vehicle health starts to bleed out (maybe the fire extinguishers perk helps against that) until you are disabled, giving people a chance to bail out or teammates a chance to repair it. If a vehicle is getting enough rpgs/tank shells fired at it that disabled mode wont last very long

    Saw some footage from the alpha trial, bloke placed some C4 down and destoryed the LAV there was no disabled mode. Guess you do enough damage it bypasses the disabled mode
    Edited by fletch7100 at 02/09/11 @ 18:39

  • cheeky_BILLY #7 9 months ago

    is their an RAC perk. I could just sit by the side of the road until a little orange van turns up.

  • revan8 #8 9 months ago

    Sounds bad but sure it will be fine, dice generally know what they are doing. Assault with health kit n defib is more worrying.

  • fletch7100 #9 9 months ago

    From some of The latest podcasts of people playing the game at PaX they are saying it feels pretty balanced. As long as the support class can't spam claymores everywhere I will be happy

  • Golgo #10 9 months ago

    Yep that headline was reported a few days ago, and explained.

  • wtc0771 #11 9 months ago

    It was EXCEEDINGLY annoying in the Alpha to have the health regen, and was one of the features that was most talked about to be removed.
    But the disabling feature was cool at the time, hit the wheels with C4 or a rocket, and the LAV stopped dead.

  • fletch7100 #12 9 months ago

    Be good to see if it has been tweaked for the beta. Being able to place C4 on the EOD robot in the beta will be interesting. Army of suicide wall es driving across the map

  • Lexx87 #13 9 months ago

    EA seem to have taken to strategy of 'noob'ifying everything.

  • Bravestinsane #14 9 months ago

    Well ill see, hopefully its disabled in hardcore mode I only play that mode

    24/60

  • spunkythefunkymunkey #15 9 months ago

    It was pretty bad in the alpha, the vehicle in that was just an LAV and it took at least 6 rockets to destroy it. The vehicle health regen pretty renders engineers pointless and will just encourage vehicle camping.
    I don't think it's a good idea at all.
    Edited by spunkythefunkymunkey at 02/09/11 @ 21:30

  • UkHardcore23 #16 9 months ago

    Vehicles damage replenishes?

    That is bullshit!!!!!
    Edited by UkHardcore23 at 03/09/11 @ 12:25

  • BillMurray #17 9 months ago

    Doesn't really need a whole article does it?

  • geeza2020 #18 9 months ago

    nobody cares but you, nipsen

  • Collymilad #19 9 months ago

    Yeah it's a good thing.

    The amount of damage the Tanks take in BC2 was waaay too little. Obviously the game has to be balanced but when these tanks are taking dozens of hits sometimes in reality and still going, it's a bit of a joke that 3 can take them out in a game. If tanks in reality were as effective as in BC2, I doubt anyone would even bother using them as you'd be losing guys left right and center.

    Not that I expect total realism or anything, but maybe a little bit less of a gap. Hopefully this will go some way to rectifying it.
    Edited by Collymilad at 04/09/11 @ 18:44

  • Xboxfanuk #20 9 months ago

    I need to understand something? Isn't servers and shit what we pay Xbox Live Gold for? Shouldn't Microsoft and EA be able to provide proper UK servers for this stuff?

  • geeza2020 #21 9 months ago

    Ahh yes, that bastion of fair and balanced debate, the EA forums :p

    Personally, I've never had any game breaking problems with BC2 servers, just maybe the odd time where your own stats wont load for the first couple of minutes so you cant customize your loadout. I'd still rather that, than the shitty system used in CoD games.

  • obiadekanobi #22 9 months ago

    this sounds like good news but as nipsen pointed out they need to start giving us dedicated servers for games like mw3 and bf3 as what i like to call the "USA advantage" is begining to piss me off the lag between me and my US mates is very very poor BBc 2 is a good one, the time diffrence between firing the gun and the moment the bullet hits the player is getting out of hand and these fukkers running around with a huge network advantage is taking the piss.

    i will buy bf3 and enjoy it but im not going to support it if day 1 we cant get a good match due to the lag

    and i hope the vehicles do take a bit more to destroy because two rpgs with explosive mk2 equipped is just taking the piss the m1a1 american MBT can withstand a tomahawk hit and still drive off its been done when it arrived in the late 80's with its first version then later the m1a2 variant was retrofitted with the IR/nightscope we see in the thunder run trailer and the tank can fire at a target 1/12 miles away while travling at 40 mph and hit it smack on. DICE need to get the vehicles smack on or they just seem too far fetched, and as for the balancing issues.... make the c4 the weapon to take them out in real life footage of the first iraq war there is vids of the iraq army shooting one m1a1 5 times with rpg 7s and all it done was dent the armour and give the crew a headache for a few days.....

    cant wait for this though!!!!

    check out gunsforhire.co.uk for joining a bf3 clan ready in waiting for release

    please EA sort it out just for once....please....

    also dont we pay for our servers already when u buy the disk isnt that what the argument is for online passes so theres no excuse for the online being slow....
    Edited by obiadekanobi at 05/09/11 @ 16:36

  • Phishfood #23 9 months ago

    I wanted to say this is rediculous but regenerating human flesh is just as rediculous.

  • username84 #24 9 months ago

    Nipsin,

    Go away with your exhaustive lists of tedium.