are these type of tank battles now possible in the mission editor or online maps ?

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by zapatista

but is it still available within the current game build, or has it been removed ? and which aspects are still present ?

ground battles between moving tank formations ?
frontline stationary artillery exchanges ?
stationary (or moving ?) front lines with friendly/enemy equipment on either side of the line ?

Absolutely possible and present in Repka#1 mission right now.
Briefing http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=125
Screenshots (landing party arrives and advances to enemy positions). http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...&postcount=128
Batteries of AT artillery are present on defending side.
There is no videos because external views are off on the server.

This is also implemented in naryv's sample missions in this archive http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...07&postcount=1 which you can try and in many others posted here http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/forumdisplay.php?f=203
41Sqn_Banks is working on a dynamic campaign generator that will include ground war http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...0&postcount=71

One thing to remember when watching tank battles with external views if that there is a distance limit beyond which you can not see tanks (20 or 40 km from the player). This is done to reduce hardware load. Therefore if you want to watch a nice tank battle you have to fly to the area, land there and only then use external views to see the tanks.

Regarding performance we tested about 30 vs. 30 tank battles online without any problems for server. Biggest performance hit is smoke from dozens of killed tanks. It is a problem for clients (not for server) if clients have effects settings higher than LOW not having a top video card. You can try making such a mission in FMB. It is fun

friendly AI ground activity at airfields, like fire engines, ambulances, equipment-fuel-maintenance vehicles ?

I do not recommend doing this online as it does not add any functionality to gameplay imho and reduces framerate. But it is easily implemented if this script is included in an online (or offline) mission http://forum.1cpublishing.eu/showpos...14&postcount=8