Fire damage

[b00tsy 28]

The one thing I find unrealistic in ArmA are the fires. You can stand in the middle of a large fire and dance around in it and nothing will happen, you do not get injured or killed at all.

I hope that damage enabled fire will be implemented in the future and then also maybe add a flamethrower. With the flame thrower you could burn down opfor occupied houses for example or opium fields on a future map :)

[vilas 474]

you are right, but you know, it is hard to do, cause you would have game redone from scratch - every part of model (wooden house elements, trees etc) had to get special properties etc.

a lot of work, probably Arma3 wish

[maddogx 13]

you are right, but you know, it is hard to do, cause you would have game redone from scratch - every part of model (wooden house elements, trees etc) had to get special properties etc.

a lot of work, probably Arma3 wish

If you wanted to fully simulate fire, sure it's a lot of work. But adding a simple functionality to the engine which causes DOT ("damage over time") in a certain area can't be too hard, can it?

[vilas 474]

but i should destroy only wooden houses and trees , so...

unless it would be "script" with list of objects to destroy (with list of P3D "of wood") than maybe... but it is probably not to be seen in Arma2 :(

[b00tsy 28]

Yeah I have idea how that would have to be coded, i'm not a dev :P

Would it not be possible to get some kind of proximity damage? Any player or AI that gets in a certain radius of fire particles will receive damage?

[Ulanthorn 10]

Yeah I have idea how that would have to be coded, i'm not a dev :P

Would it not be possible to get some kind of proximity damage? Any player or AI that gets in a certain radius of fire particles will receive damage?

depends on the fire. If you step onto a campfire you kill the fire, the fire does not kill you. Flames only injure on contact, not in a radius. You may get burned 2. grade by the heat radiation but not killed in a few minutes as you suppose here. I stood a few times midts in burning houses or beneath burrnign cars and im still alive and healthy.

The proposed featuere sound a bit too much like Role playing game stuff where fire injuries are also badly implemented.

In that case better leave it as it is.

[b00tsy 28]

Well it is just a suggestion of course. Personally i rather have some kind of damage when you walk through a fire then being able to stand in the fire without any injury. Even if the damage system would not be fully realistic it is better then being fire proof.

Although you can make some nice screenshots with a men standing in the fire :)

[sickboy 13]

Tried ACE Mod? http://ace.dev-heaven.net/wagn/Fire_Propagation

Not a very well done fire simulation (will perhaps improve over time), but you'll get your damage from fire and can catch fire too, with a chance to put it off by rolling over the floor (laughing?) :)

[demonized 20]

have you tried JTD fire and smoke mod? it even can createforest fires when something starts burning.

burns you, burns buildings, can be modified to burn what you want.

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=7383

[Ulanthorn 10]

have you tried JTD fire and smoke mod? it even can createforest fires when something starts burning.

burns you, burns buildings, can be modified to burn what you want.

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=7383

be warned...it can be very hardware hungry!

[dmarkwick 261]

JTD FAS will indeed do as you wish :) but, like other addons it's susceptible to script-lag, so your hardware will decide how effective it is.

The fire damage works like this: when you start to get burned, your current health is recorded and you start to take increasing damage over time. If you stay in the fire too long, you will eventually die, but if you make it out in time your health is restored to it's original value. I found this approach to be a workable solution, fires are dangerous but you can gamble with your health if you're nippy :)

[Baff1 0]

As long as you have to stand in thw camp for for a very long time before you take significant damage. You know, like as long as it takes to cook a steak or something.

[b00tsy 28]

JTD FAS will indeed do as you wish :) but, like other addons it's susceptible to script-lag, so your hardware will decide how effective it is.

The fire damage works like this: when you start to get burned, your current health is recorded and you start to take increasing damage over time. If you stay in the fire too long, you will eventually die, but if you make it out in time your health is restored to it's original value. I found this approach to be a workable solution, fires are dangerous but you can gamble with your health if you're nippy :)

Yeah that is indeed what I was looking for. I have a underpowered pc (saving for a new one) at this moment so if it is hardware demanding I hope I will able to use it. If it also can set buildings on fire and vegitation then thats just great :)

[max power 21]

I remember a video of a pre production build of ArmA where the main character got too close to a burning APC and his character noted that it was too hot. I think the main reason they don't have fire damage is that they didn't want to devote CPU cycles to having troops avoid fire. Burning damage open a huge kettle of fish for the AI.

[msy 22]

Do AI know what is fire?

You can avoid of fire, but AIs can't.

[max power 21]

It's a similar thing with back blast danger from shoulder fired launchers, or blast damage from tank cannons. The AI would have to always recognize when they were in peril from such dangers and also when they are putting other units in danger. Imagine being killed over and over by AI squad mates engaging enemy armour, or losing essential squad mates from standing in camp fires. That would get so tiresome.

[dmarkwick 261]

Yeah that is indeed what I was looking for. I have a underpowered pc (saving for a new one) at this moment so if it is hardware demanding I hope I will able to use it. If it also can set buildings on fire and vegitation then thats just great :)

Setting buildings and trees on fires is what it does :) the fire will propagate between trees, and will damage units & vehicles etc, and will set buildings on fire. But buildings don't propagate, I don't mind lots of trees burning down but I got fed up watching entire villages go up every time one building caught fire :D

Your system will be fine for the fire & smoke, the script-lag is unnoticable in the slow nature of fire propagation, it's the real-time fire damage that suffers, each burning tree has it's own damage trigger, and sometimes the game engine just delays the function of these triggers it seems to me. However, you will definately notice a gameplay improvement due to fires and smoke which can block the AI's view.

[maddogx 13]

If a kind of "damage over time area" was implemented to simulate basic fire damage, I'm sure BIS could teach the AI to avoid such areas.

[dmarkwick 261]

If a kind of "damage over time area" was implemented to simulate basic fire damage, I'm sure BIS could teach the AI to avoid such areas.

In a way it can already be done, the AI will walk around buildings, so an invisible building the size of a fire area could be spawned for the AI to walk around. But I suspect some amount of tweaking would be necessary by BIS to introduce the avoidance of a LOD that has no impact on the gameworld i.e. collision etc.

[sickboy 13]

You notice the delaying of script execution and effects because the scripts put the scripting engine on it's knees. Which also influences missions and other addons.

Most of it can be remedied by improving the scripts; optimizing, precompiling, adjusted logic. NearestObject etc calls on this scale can be expensive too.

For some info; http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/6thSense.eu:EG

Perhaps I can take a look at it some time.

Always wanted to give it an optimization run, but never got to it :)

---------- Post added at 09:37 ---------- Previous post was at 08:33 ----------

Okay, i've completed a basic overhaul with the following;

* Removed duplicate function definitions

* Replaced all execVM with preCompiled code in global variables, and spawn or call where appropriate.

* Moved all eventhandlers to all the proper extended eventhandlers

* Moved All killed EH to only LandVehicle and Air (was already checked in the script, but it doesn't need to be attached to all other units)

There's probably more that can be done;

* Code optimizations

* Only use spawn at the last possible moment (once all conditions have been processed, and the actual loops (with sleeps perhaps) need to run)

But i think the current changes will already make a difference.

Let me know if you're interested DM; and i'll send it to you, or can add to the thread as you wish.

[dmarkwick 261]

Sure, upload it somewhere, there are other tweaks that I've made over the months but not released, be good to get a general overhaul. I'm not a natural coder, so any & all help in optimisation is gratefully received :)

In general I think the addon proved quite reliable, the propagation & other logic is only done as rarely as needed, the real work is done by the various drop command loops & variations necessary to achieve realistic smoke shapes.

I was sort of planning a graphics overhaul too, better textures & more animations maybe. The addon is getting on a bit after all :)

Edited December 21, 2010 by DMarkwick

[ArmAriffic 10]

And be able to put it out with water

[sickboy 13]

Here you go, http://www.multiupload.com/N91MMBOZUW

It is untested, cannot test it atm ;-)

The changes are mostly in the eventhandlers and init script (which are then used throughout the rest of the scripts).

Lemme know if it works properly, otherwise I can give it a quick test once home.