One of my favorite things about FH2 is one of the things I loved about FH1 - the variety offered by pickup kits. It may even be my favorite thing about the mod at all now I come to think about it. I love the fact that regardless of what I spawn as, I can pretty much do whatever I want to on the battlefield if I'm willing to put in the time to hunt down a kit I'm after, and this goes hand in hand with my other FH passion - exploring the maps. I probably spend an hour of the 3-4 hours I play per day just out exploring the countryside, and finding a pick-up kit with some neat shit in it is one of the rewards.

So here's a thread to discuss all things non-spawn kits in FH2. As I say, these kinds of things are my favorite part of the mod. I like being able to choose between the Boys rifle + sticky bomb and the Boys rifle + thermos grenade on maps like Mount Olympus, and the two different Geballte Ladungs offered for the Germans. I like that if I'm in a gangster sort of mood on Tobruk but all the Thompson assault kits are taken, I can go get the Thompson with the 20-round clip instead, and enjoy some fancy grenades, shiny new binoculars and a Webley for my trouble. The M1917 is fast becoming my favorite rifle in the mod, and even though I hate those kinds of sights on other rifles when I'm a Yank on Cobra and I pick up the ammo kit you better watch the fuck out. I got my first heaven clip in FH2 with it not long ago, where ever shot of the five on my third clip sent one German to infinity and beyond.

I love the variety pick-up kits offer, and even if it doesn't matter to a lot of people I notice and appreciate being able to enjoy different kinds of weapons. If I could make my own mod, I'd go to extra lengths to offer these kinds of goodies to adventurous and curious players. Can't hit shit with the grease gun? Maybe you'll learn to use it if you find a grease gun kit with a Colt and some composition B to boot. Want to blow up some tanks and sick of the Webley as a sidearm? Go hunt down a PIAT kit with a Browning Hi-Power instead. That's the kind of shit I'd do and that's the kind of shit I really enjoy in FH2. Even insignificant shit, like the same kit you can spawn with normally being found somewhere, but it has binocs or smoke grenades or satchel charges, or different grenades from usual, or a different sidearm or a different knife. I know it's something some of you might scoff at but preference can really help you on the battlefield. I know that I definitely perform better and remain enthusiastic playing the game a lot longer when I've got a kit on that I vastly prefer to the one I had to spawn with.

So discuss away! Maybe we'll all learn something. I haven't gotten even 5% of my map exploring done but I'm looking forward to all the rest of it. Do you have any pick-up kits you run to as soon as you can? What ones do you enjoy? Any you hope to see in future releases and patches?

P.S.: As I do like finding treats in maps all on my own and I know some of you do as well, I would kindly encourage people to talk about these things a little more vague than they might otherwise have done. 'The Thompson kit on Tobruk' as opposed to 'The Thompson kit on Tobruk in E4 on the map giving you the bedroom eyes from the fourth table on the left in the second tent next to the fire pit at the third flag twenty paces east from the static truck' etc etc. Some of you guys have been playing for years and I'm still in week two so while I know a ton of what can be discussed in here is common knowledge for many of us I'm sure there's a couple people that would appreciate more coy responses.

I know this shit is a bit irritating to read so I'll cut to the chase:

The problem - FH2 crashes to the desktop (or, more rarely, freezes) 5-10 minutes into a map. If it makes a difference, I've only played single player since my new BF2 DVD came in the mail this morning.

What it looks like - the crashes are mainly what you'd expect, the game randomly crashing to the desktop. Occasionally, when I hit Esc (to go to the main menu) it ctd's then as well. Sometimes instead of crashing, the game will freeze and parts of the screen become black (like the weapon and parts of the landscape) while other things on screen, such as vehicles and other bushes and trees, look normal.

My computer - 3.21ghz AMD Phenom II X4 955, Windows XP SP3, 3.00gb of RAM. The video card is an ATI Radeon HD 5450.

What I've tried - I played the BF2 demo for about a week before the full game came in the mail, and encountered zero problems running every video option on high, as well as 4x anti-aliasing. I played BF2 for a short while before installing FH2 and likewise ran into no problems. I installed FH2 and it looked 99% as expected, though on the main menu the bottom right button (that I believe should say 'Start Singleplayer') was just a white box. When selecting a map, the map graphics for about half the maps were blank (such as for Ramelle-Neuville) whilst they showed up for other maps (like Operation Totalize).

I began SP on about ten different maps (with the same all-high+4x a-a settings as I had on BF2, as well as changing the audio quality to high), and on every map I tried I crashed to the desktop or froze around 5-10 minutes into a map. I would say it ctd'd:froze at a ratio of about 4:1. I turned off anti-aliasing and it made no difference. During this first install, I encountered no obvious visual glitches while playing the game, it just played as normal and then crashed. There was no stuttering or jittering, but the game did feel oddly 'heavy', just walking around and driving vehicles, but this may just be me being unfamiliar with FH2 and only ever having played BF1942 before.

As the crashes continued, I tried disabling anti-aliasing in-game and instead unchecking 'use application settings' in the ATI Catalyst Control Centre and setting it to 4x there. I then scaled the audio quality back to medium, and then disabled anti-aliasing in both the game and the CCC, and nothing changed the crashing issue.

I uninstalled everything and deleted all leftover folders and reinstalled BF2, the 1.41 patch, the 1.5 patch, and then FH2 2.4. This time, using the same settings as before, there were noticeable visual glitches while playing. I played Totalize as an NCO (again SP) and all my weapons looked normal as I cycled through them until I got to my knife, which was all black. I jumped into a Sherman and cycled through the main gun ammo types, and saw black boxes instead of 75mm HE, 75mm AP, etc. I played for 10 minutes until another crash. I turned anti-aliasing back on in the game, and the knife was back to normal, but the Sherman ammo options (while the top two were readable) the bottom (smoke shells I think) was just gibberish, little white ticks all over a green box.

Anyone have any idea what may be causing these issues and how I can fix them? This computer is brand new, I've only had it for two weeks. I did a virus scan and found nothing, I turned off non-essential processes and did everything I can think of, but I am no great shakes at computers so that is probably not saying much. I'm dying to play FH2 so I would appreciate any help anyone can give me. If you need more info about my computer let me know how to find what I need to post and I'll get on it double time.

A second problem - when I try to join a server online it says I have an invalid CD key. I have an EA Classics DVD version of BF2, a physical disc (not Steam or whatever that is) and reinstalling has not helped, and nor has the trick of opening up a registry file in regedit and entering x9392+cd key, unless I've done that wrong somehow.