Destruction

Destruction is a feature in the Battlefield series debuting with Battlefield Vietnam, but appearing to a much greater extent in the games utilizing the Frostbite Engine. It allows the player to break down cover, fell trees, and destroy buildings. From Destruction 2.0 onwards, entire buildings will collapse after a certain amount of damage is executed.

Overview
Destruction is a feature which allows items of all kinds to be destroyed. Several selected items will be able to sustain damage to ensure stability and balance for every match.

Pre-Frostbite Engine
Before the Frostbite engine was developed for Battlefield: Bad Company, there existed a far more limited amount of destruction found throughout Battlefield Vietnam and Battlefield 2. Certain obstacles and objects such as bridges can be destroyed by explosions.

Destruction 1.0
Destruction 1.0 debuted with Battlefield: Bad Company utilizing Frostbite 1.0. With it, segments of buildings could be obliterated, bits of vehicles could be chipped away, trees could be felled, and the ground could be reshaped.

Destruction 2.0
"A building is a group of entities linked together. The entities are a bunch of wall and roof segments. Destroy a part, the wall disappears behind a smoke particle and is replaced by a hole. When a percentage of the walls are destroyed, the building plays its collapse animation. There's little else to it. For example, the building behind the first MCOM on Port Valdez. Break about 26 of those parts, and the thing goes down."

- Den Kirson

An updated version of Destruction arrived with the release of Battlefield 1943. The mechanism gained the sole improvement of being capable of destroying entire buildings, though lacking any form of collapsing. With

Battlefield: Bad Company 2, an even further enhanced version of Destruction was developed. When enough segments (walls and roof) are destroyed, the entire building will collapse, crushing everything inside. This allows Destruction to kill opponents and destroy enemy objectives. Once a building has been destroyed, players are able to navigate the rubble by crouching or jumping through small paths.

Additionally, Destruction 2.0 allowed pieces of the environment such as concrete barricades, walls, and wooden fences, to be destroyed in pieces, rather than entire entities.

Despite all of the new aspects, Destruction 2.0 retains the same features from the original Destruction; one can chip away cover and parts of vehicles, fell trees, and reshape the terrain.

Destruction 3.0
Destruction 3.0 is an upcoming feature in Battlefield 3. While many of the mechanics are still unknown, Destruction 3.0 allows players to destroy objects with explosives like before, although, regular firearms such as the M4A1 can demolish on a much smaller scale. This new form of destruction is known as "microdestruction". Also, damage to buildings caused by explosions ripple out across the entirety of a wall, causing widespread damage and deformation, instead of affecting a limited 'segment' of a building. Falling pieces of rubble can potientially kill a player.

Trivia

 * On the map Isla Inocentes while playing the "Rush" game mode, there used to be an exploit in which you could destroy M-COM Station A by breaking a wooden fence. Once the small brown fence was destroyed, the entire building would collapse, destroying A and crushing everybody inside. This has since been patched.
 * If a player has deployed C4 in a building while it is collasping, it may explode while the walls cave-in, creating a shower of debris that can be an effective smokescreen for the attackers.
 * Several lightweight objects, such as corrugated iron and boxes, will not be destroyed by explosives, and will merely be pushed away by the detonation.
 * If a player is crushed in a collapsing building, the kill feed will state their death was caused by "Destruction 2.0".
 * The player responsible for causing the building to collapse will have points deducted for killing teammates and destroying their own team's objective. Destruction 2.0 is the only way to teamkill in a non-hardcore match.
 * Players will be killed even if they are on the roof of a collapsing building. In addition, players can be crushed even if no visible debris has fallen on them.
 * Laguna Presa is the only map in which a player cannot kill with Destruction 2.0. The map lacks any structures that can be collapsed using Destruction 2.0. Valparaiso has nearly the same problem, however, there is a large building near the end of the Last Stand which can be destroyed.
 * Battlefield: Bad Company 2: Vietnam is devoid of the enhanced Destruction 2.0 as seen in Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Instead, it uses the same kind of destruction as Battlefield 1943.
 * In all Frostbite-powered games, furniture can be destroyed by pushing it into other objects.