Thread: Cameras

Nice Idea

Yesterday I thought of letting the scout classes have a camera on themselves, which they could place anywhere, and then watch what happens on a small monitor (Propably something like the PDA in crysis).

Then I realized that it wouldnt fit inn the game. People are flying airships and old planes, and then some1 comes up with a digital camera which can be viewed on a screen? lol.

Originally Posted by Naga

Viewing on a PDA would be out of the question, but maybe allow scouts to set up cameras which are then viewable in say the HQ building of that team.

Cameras would be useful for spotting for artillery and mortars, it won't be easy to get a precise hit unless you have a spotter calling the corrections. Most of the time you won't even be able to see the target your aiming at. Cameras would allow all artillery to get all the information from one person sitting on HQ looking at the deployed cameras.

If you want to make it more fun you could have cables automatically connecting the camera with the HQ, if its cut it will stop working and a engineer will have to repair the cut (if they can find it). Enemy scouts could carry wire cutters and a nearby artillery hit would also cut the line.

My bad - poor use of the "split topic" button

imo, cameras of any kind are out of the question - simply don't fit with the tech of the story. At any point in the traction wars books do they mention that kind of tech? I'm pretty sure they don't (correct me if I'm wrong - my knowledge of the books isn't terribly good).

Force people to rely on *communication* (a theme I've been pushing since forever) - make the artillery squad talk to their mates in the behind-enemy-lines scout squad. Give the scouts something more useful to do than just blow up objectives; allow them to work with their team.

The technology was available to some, namely the lost boys and uncle (you really need to read the books to understand that) - the background allows us to choose if other people apart from the lost boys* have camera technology, its never mentioned but as others have it, so it is around. The readouts would be on small, round, fuzzy B&W monitors, so using a proper spotter would be a more efficient method.

N.B Just before the war wireless cameras were devised that could walk around (crab-cams) - that is the sort of potential camera technology we have. Personally I prefer static cameras which have to have a cable connecting them to the HQ.

i forgot about crab cams...

London had televisions for broadcasting propaganda. I'm pretty sure about that. ref: "goggleboxes"

I think that command bunkers might have cameras.
These cameras would naturally be destructible...

Command bunkers would have had, and it would be a nice feature to be able to see the enemy running down the corridors towards you on the screens.

Should we have cameras in the field though? I think it would work if we could get the cameras to connect by cable to the command bunker automatically, it would be both fun and balanced. - that's unique code though so not something for first release.

I'm not sure cameras erected in the field make sense to be honest.

It would be a lot of work for a very small result, so I tend to agree with you. Cameras in command bunkers would be good though.

I'm not even sure deployable ones are used today with miniaturisation and powerful batteries...

Command bunkers with CCTV cameras is good though, I agree.