How to improve situational awareness in ArmA II - Especially in Multiplayer sessions

[helo 10]

This article is one of many regarding "Key techniques in Player vs Player situations in ArmA2" posted in the previous 13 months in forums dedicated to organized PvP. However, I decided to also post these things here, so that the entire community can prosper from that, and not only 10 interested choosen individuals, active in the same forums as I.

Previously, you may also find my post about "tossing handgrenades into buildings in OA" interesting: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=109708

ArmA 2 is a very complex game refering the simulation mechanics and also in the way how the envirnment is simulated and rendered. Unlike in any other game, the environment is so filled up with complex objects and vegetation that one can easily can loose the overview. Who don´t know the situation where one get shot at from some hundred meters ahead and the question arises in your mind "from where the heck is he shooting".

Wouldn´t it be easier if you detect the enemy before he detects you so that you can plan how to engage him instead the other way around ?

What we are talking here now is about situtational awareness, which can be increased drastically by just increasing your detection sensetivity. What does this mean in plain words ?

To illustrate the point we got here 2 pictures of a typical situation in ArmA 2: The difference between these two is obvious: The second one is taken while the palyer zoomed in.

(Picture One and Two are attached to this post).

We see in the second picture the head of the soldier, who is lying on the ground and which we would have overlooked if we hadn´t zoomed in. We realize, that we can detect most of the threats around us or in our fire/watch sector by zooming in and verify what is vegeation and what is a living being.

Picture 1: http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/6959/arma2oa2010120300585869.jpg

Picture 2:http://img526.imageshack.us/img526/8687/arma2oa2010120300590068.jpg

However in ArmA 2 there are 2 given ways to zoom in and get insight on the environment:

* Hold the right mouse button

* Holding the "+" key on the Num Pad

But these two aforementioned methods have some particular side effects: Holding the right mouse button also holds your breath with the ArmA2 control settings, so that after some seconds your aim becomes very shacky until you have recovered your stamina. Not very healthy when a firefight breaks loose in the next second.

The "+" key at the Numpad is far away from your left hand with which you normally control the game. Everytime you press it to zoom in, and in order to keep the view zoom in you must hold the key, you can´t do anything else, but standing there and scaning for targets. That´s also not very healthy.

The ideal solution for your left hand and a zoomed in view on your demand is the key between "Left Shift" and your "Y" or "Z" key on your keyboard (depending whether you have an British or Euro keybord - note that some keyboards aren´t equipped with that special key and instead they have a large "Left Shift" key: http://www.bengalinux.org/images/probhat_layout.png ). It is unassigned in ArmA2 and you can reach it everytime with your left ring finger (the second finger from the left on your hand) and at the same time while you zoom in, you can change your stance or press "W","A","S","D" to move your avatar (or however you call your person in ArmA2).

In order to assign this key to zoom in, go to the options, controls, and assign the mentioned key to "Zoom in" where also the "+" key of the numpad is assigned to.

A picture of a keyboard layout can be found here : http://wiki.genunix.org/wiki/images/d/d7/United_Kingdom_Solaris_Keyboard_Layout.png

So, what can we do with that new key?

We can zoom in as long as we want when we look for targets or try to identify them and what is also an important addition, when we are at the ironsights, we can also zoom in and the ironsights/weapons optics will stay at max zoom. That enables us to perfectly allign your ironsights at our target without pressing the "Right Mouse Button" as long as we want and we are not limited by the breath holding ability of that Mouse button.

Now some may ask, why don´t we simply assign the Right Mouse button to zoom in ? With the new Recoil system, implemented 3 patches ago, the shooter has a natural trembel while aiming standing or crouched, so that in order to perfectly allign the sights with your target, breath-holding will temporaly negate that effect as long as you press a button for holding your breath.

Furthermore, when you are wounded or sufferung under the supression effect, the breath-holding Right Mouse button is very handy to increase your accuracy in a tough firefight. Without it, your aim is shakey like the earthquakes on the Jupiter moon Io.

The backside of using this is that zooming in may create tunnel vision, so effectively one may use the follwoing scanning pattern:

* Amidst dense vegetation areas like forests with a lots of Xmas trees, it is recommended not to zoom in to much, since targets could popup 30m ahead of you and zooming in will reduce your field of view from 100° to 40° and you may overlook it.

* When you re supposed to cover an open field as your fire sector you may constanbtly zoom in and scan the area for targets in the distance. Especially moving objects can be detected easily in the distance

In general, zoom in when it is neccessary and fits to the demands of the surroundings.

Consequently, a video where this presented method is used alot to scan for targets and used while having the ironsights up to perfectly allign them with the target.

fZhWfsO5WP4#ws

Edited February 6, 2011 by Franze
2x 100kb+ images

[Taxman 10]

U can if you wish.. remove the "hold breath" option from your > mouse button and have it only to zoom in.. which is the way I have it set up... Nice post buddy.

[Chill xl 10]

i have reassigned rmb to hold breath only and i use left control key for the same zoom function as the + key. Holding down the rmb to zoom puts stress on the aiming, using left control takes this away.

[Taxman 10]

I dont find it puts stress on my aiming buddy but each to their own...

[celery 8]

I have zoom+reveal on RMB, normal zoom on F and hold breath on mouse 4. For long term zooming I press F all the way when aiming and then it stays that way.

[Militant1006 11]

yeah, I went similar to these methods, just swapped hold breath over to left ctrl, but Chill xl you're setup is a good idea, might have to try it someday.