[Suggestion] A pair of binoculars would be nice...

A pair of binoculars would be nice for an optic that's not attached to a gun to call in air strikes and to direct friendly forces.

What's wrong with using the optics attached to your weapon and calling out map coordinates (that's why they're there) over whatever group channel is available to you?

What if I just want to run a 1x or 2x optic on my main gun for close in enemies but I want to be able to see farther away?

The NS-44L Blackhand revolver comes with a build-in 4x scope.

I think the main question is what you actually want to accomplish with the binoculars. Dynamic rendering within the maximum Infantry 300m hard limits the binoculars potential effectiveness; better visual accruity actually doesn't matter that much because discerning movement at those distances typically isn't actually an issue; moreover, the spotting mechanics removes IFF requirements.

It feels like an appropriate time to reintroduce the concept of the Range Magnifier implant, in any case.

I don't care how big the fights are, the horridly low render ranges kill this game for me, especially for how open the terrain is.

It's not like I'm asking for something that's completely game breaking here guys. This is something very easy for DBG to implement they already have the ability to zoom in.

I'm not disputing that. What I am suggesting is that it should serve a purpose.

binoculars with the old thermal sights would be a great thing to have
spot the enemy's with you're binoculars and switch to your rifle to get the kill

Would be ok, as long as everything is renderred.
Problem is, PS2 renders stuff based on distance and amount of players in an area, (and also loadout but lets ignore that).
So there could be an instance where you grab your binocs, look over towards that mountain, think o ye its safe, then proceed to enter the area below the mountain. Only then do you see the 30 troops and 3 tanks that all render at only 50m out from you.
In this situation your binoculars are not only useless, but have actualy gotten you into trouble as you thought i was all clear.

Perhaps using the binocs could cause the rendering to prioritise whats in your FOV, and therefore allow you to see further away things, but i dont know if this is possible even...

Good idea, and often asked for, but i dont think the game engine would allow them to function correctly unfortunately.

Now that's a great idea if it could be implemented stalkish. Allow a pair of binoculars to see much farther but since it's not attached to a weapon it's not allowing firing from beyond render range. The best you could do is move closer exposing yourself to return fire or tell your allies what awaits them on that hill.

Great idea breeje! No more infantry getting slaughtered by vehicles equipped with the old thermal sights. You now need a spotter to tell you where the bad guys are at. This would force infantry to work closely with vehicles creating that combined arms feel this game is sorely missing.

See the 2 replies above this FateJH. Those are some great ideas.

I don't mind Binocs, and you can actually overrule render range with them.

For example: Equip binocs, look at target. Hold left-mouse and you get a radial menu (or you "switch" the designator type by pressing B or whatever).
This will spot the target/area, and give you a range of options. For example you get an "AI vehicle" option, meaning "attack this with AI-oriented tanks".
Once done, all AI-oriented vehicles in the area (say 1000m) will get a waypoint on their screen, visible even if it's out of their vision atm. The waypoint guides players with the right kit to their target even if it's not yet rendered.

Add other options, like airstrikes, infantry AV attacks, general AV, Destroy Spawn objectives etc etc. Players could get extra XP for accomplishing such goals. There can easily be made limitations to how many you can place at a time, how many are visible at a time and to who so you can prevent the HUD from cluttering.

that'll be 750 Daybreak cash/1000 certs please...
*Ka-ching!*

This is actually a great idea.
But what slot would they go in? Sidearm? Or a new one?

The NS Crossbow sidearm has access to sniper-tier scopes, with the added benefit of being a functional weapon.
Might not be exactly what you want, but it's something.

i think it needs a new slot, binoculars are completely new to this game and are not really interfering with the game play nor would it be overpowered, or no slot at all just a key binding to bring it up
if binoculars become in some way overpowered for some reasons we can't see now it could be nerfed to a weapons slot

Don't see why people wouldn't want this as an option. After all not every rifle has decent optics and unless you're an infiltrator (non-stalker) anything over x6 is out. At the same time I've lost count of how many times I've seen SOMETHING moving at max render distance but due to most weapons having a x4 magnification trying to identify what it is is pretty much impossible.And no its not always hostile - there are times I've run over 1 km out thinking some sneaker was setting up a stealth sundy only to find out it was a friendly but that their IFF indicator didn't render due to range.

Heck to get really fancy could add options for different types of optics (ex. old thermal, NV, threat-detection, etc) and abilities (range finding, target designation, etc) that could be added on as extra (obviously with a limit). As for slot, make it utility perhaps?

One thing binoculars have in the real world is the ability to CHANGE their zoom power ON DEMAND and are not a fixed zoom power... This would allow players to select the zoom power on the fly w/o having to switch load outs. All classes (except Max) should have a pair of binoc's by default since it is a VERY common tool used by nearly all soldiers in the real world. It could even have various options a player can cert into such as increasing the max range or old school thermals etc. etc...

Lets face it, the short render distance in PS2 is a lame but necessary evil considering the large numbers of soldiers, enemy and ally, that would crush most systems if forced to render farther out. Also it prevents those with higher end systems from parking outside average draw range and farming the lower end folks. Unfortunately this short range can cause you to miss important elements of battles that are taking place around your current combat theater.

Binoculars that allowed direction specific rendering would allow you to see farther than most weapon optics but wouldn't allow you to take advantage of it directly. However you would be able to place a waypoint and direct tank and air cover to fire on that area even if they couldn't see what was there yet. At these increased ranges It would be best to not allow orbital strike targeting to prevent them from being placed from an untouchable distance.

The Orbital Strike dart has a range of like 65m anyways so no big deal there.