DummyWar stopped being infantry-only a couple of versions ago. Vehicles, drones and the support classes around them now form the outer ring of the sandbox: they move faster than a squad, they carry more people, and they break in ways that create the best moments in the game.
Four vehicles, four jobs
- Quad bike — a driver and a passenger. Fast, light, and the one you can also find on EasternBattle.
- Buggy — a driver, a gunner, two passengers in the back, and a machine gunner on a turret-mounted PKM.
- M113 — a tracked armoured personnel carrier with a .50 cal machine gun and room for six troops.
- BTR — an 8 × 8 with a KPVT in the turret and six troops.
The two light vehicles are about positioning and speed. The two tracked vehicles are about surviving an approach: armour stops rifle and machine gun rounds, which makes them the right answer to an infantry push and the wrong answer to an RPG.
Passengers are physical bodies
Everyone in a vehicle is still a ragdoll. Passengers get jolted over bumps, a wounded passenger can lose their grip and fall out of the moving vehicle, and a driver who takes a hit might accidentally jerk the wheel. Nothing about being in an armoured carrier makes you safe from physics.
How a vehicle dies
Damage is a visible sequence. First smoke pours from the engine, then the flames come, and then it goes up. Armoured vehicles can cook off their ammunition, which makes a doomed APC dangerous in a way an ordinary one is not. The RPG is the real threat to armour — that is the whole point of putting an RPG gunner on every team.
The AI drives too
Vehicles are not toys you have to drive yourself. The AI ferries infantry from the base to the capture points, drops them off out of the enemy's sight and provides covering fire on the way. Bots steer around obstacles, work themselves free when they get stuck, and will even flip an overturned vehicle back onto its wheels. On the open Dead Ground map this is the difference between a squad that reaches the fight and a squad that arrives piecemeal.
Gunner sights
Vehicle gunners do not use the same view as infantry. The buggy's PKM has an electronic zoom sight with a black-and-white mode, and the BTR's KPVT has an optical periscope sight. Both are built for long shots across open ground, which is exactly what Dead Ground gives you.
FPV drones
The FPV drone operator is a soldier class in his own right. He carries three drones, goggles and a controller. The AI operator hides in cover and hunts: he circles above the enemy and dives on anyone caught in the open. Kill the operator and his drone goes down with him.
Each drone carries an RPG warhead, has a four-minute battery, and its signal weakens with distance and drops out behind buildings. When you play as the operator, press X to switch to the drone feed: analog video with noise and interference, telemetry, and after the explosion, static and a SIGNAL LOST message.
Shooting a drone down
Drones can be shot down, but it is not easy. The soldiers aim without any aimbot assistance, and in practice a group manages to bring down about one drone in five. Bots that spot a diving drone try to get out of its path, fire from the hip, or crouch down and cover their heads — which means a drone attack is most effective against soldiers who keep moving in the open and worst against soldiers who take cover.
The bomber drone
The newest class does not ram. The bomber drone hovers over the trenches, picks a target and drops different types of grenade on it, and you can play the operator yourself. Because it drops explosives instead of a warhead, it works on positions that are otherwise hard to reach — a dugout line, a convoy wreck, a point that is holding nicely behind sandbags.