How reliable are your lasers and flashlights?

[maturin 12]

So the when I got OA, the feature I was look forward to most was the night-fighting. I loaded up the Boot Camp mission. Press 'L' to turn on your flashlight, said I pop-up.

I pressed 'L.' Nothing happened.

I tapped the key several times. Pounded it in frustration.

When the stupid light still refused to turn on, I exited the mission.

I have since been able to complete that mission, but simply because my hardware suddenly chose to behave. It's a toss of a coin whether lasers and flashlights obey any of the number of keys I have bound them to. There are no conflicts of any kind.

The unreliability seems totally random, with two exceptions.

Flashlights like to turn on and refuse to turn off. Lasers and flashlights often won't work for the first five minutes of a mission, but the key will start responding after some time has past.

I will hit the laser key, and nothing will happen. Then I switch to a flashlight-equipped pistol, and it is already on. So I suppose it is possible that the game is failing to draw the lighting effect rather than not recognizing the key.

Does anyone else have this problem? It predates all the mods I have installed.

[Evil_Echo 11]

...

Does anyone else have this problem? It predates all the mods I have installed.

Don't use any mods when playing those missions, most likely one of them has upsurped the key binding for flashlights/lasers.

[maturin 12]

I said the problem predates the installation of any mods. Which means it occurs without running any.

And ACE does nothing with the L, H and Home keys.

[ArmAriffic 10]

look up and keep pressing L to turn the light on, thats how I do it jut takes a while

[locash72 10]

I was so frustrated with this problem too...no matter how many times I pressed the "L" key, nothing happend. ArmAriffic is correct, I only got it to work when I looked up and pressed the L key

[Tonci87 163]

I sometimes experienced the Problem if i have a rifle equiped with Laser and Grenade Launcher. If the Laser is switched on and I switch to the Grenade Launcher, the Laser switches off and I´m not able to turn it on anymore, or he goes out again immediately

[dm 9]

Must admit, I've never had this problem in multiplayer, and I just tested a lot of the OA weapons in the editor and the lights/lasers came on/went off with every press of the button.

Even in Tonic's case - after switching to the EGLM - the lasers still work fine for me...

So I'm going to have to say 100% reliable...

I am getting a reliably high fps tho, maybe this is your problem? (trying to play on hardware not good enough?)

[rautapalli 10]

Lasers have always worked for me, but sometimes when there are some other people using flashlights, mine refuses to turn on. Probably something to do with the engines dynamic light limit.

[dmarkwick 261]

My guess would be script-lag :)

[Tonci87 163]

My hardware is fine^^

I only get this sometimes

[Nightrain 10]

I find I have to be in third person view and looking up or to the side for them to actually turn on. I use a lot of mods but it was like that before hand. Its rather annoying when you don't have third person view (cause of difficulty settings) so I don't use them that much now.

[avengerzx 10]

Let me ask a stupid question.

Do you ensure that the gun you picked has a AN/PEQ-2 on it?

[maturin 12]

Happy to see that other people have this problem too.

My FPS is never great, but it is certainly playable when I test things. Would anyone mind making a ticket? I don't have an account, and BIS needs to make a reliable trigger for these features.

I can still change the zeroing on my sights no matter what performance is like.

avengerzx: Read the OP. Everything always works eventually, meaning that the guns are correctly equipped.

[demonized 20]

ive NEVER experienced any trouble with laser or flashlight not showing ingame.

But on the other hand im allergic to steam. ;)

No seriously, take off all mods and addons, and run clean arma then test, then add 1 addon, test again etc. also look up your .rpt file incase something is causing an error, you may locate it to a certain addon.

Any addon can be a possible problem for arma2, units or birds can effect flashlights.

Find .rpt file by showing hidden files and folders and search for arma2OA.RPT

[maturin 12]

It's the game's fault. For a series with so many glitches, it shouldn't be so hard to convince people of that.

It's been a problem since day 1, default controls and custom controls, no mods, no DLC, no .rpt, no warning messages, not even CO.

[Mr. Charles 22]

Yea sure, it must be the game, when some are the only ones to have the problem oO

[maturin 12]

Yea sure, it must be the game, when some are the only ones to have the problem oO

What kind of world do you live in where games work the same on all computers and can I please go live there?

Anyone who has read the thread and has input informed by its content, please carry on.

[kklownboy 43]

...

So I'm going to have to say 100% reliable...

I am getting a reliably high fps tho, maybe this is your problem? (trying to play on hardware not good enough?)

Lots of issues for you Maturin?

[jakerod 254]

I normally had to look up at the sky and then hit the button and they would work. It probably has something to do with there is too much being processed/drawn on the screen or something like that.

[maturin 12]

I normally had to look up at the sky and then hit the button and they would work. It probably has something to do with there is too much being processed/drawn on the screen or something like that.

And what's your computer like? I bet you play on an abacus powered by a hampster wheel and don't deserve to play this game.

/satire

Edit: And yes, your method works like a charm. Good thinking.

I put a ticket on devheaven, so hopefully BIS can optimize this in the future.

Edited December 20, 2010 by maturin

[Tonci87 163]

Post the link to the ticket so that we can vote

[maturin 12]

http://dev-heaven.net/issues/16105

ticket there

[Hedo 10]

There was a ticket about it months ago (sometime when OA was released). I don't have the problem though.

OK, i found it - http://dev-heaven.net/issues/11722 - it didn't get much support as you can see.