Will we ever have a real "city" in the ArmA Series?

[dmarkwick 261]

So far, no one has even mentioned one very important thing that needs to be considered when talking about big cities. How stupid would a metropolian area feel, without a decent amount of AI civillians, vehicles and so forth?

For mission makers who have used the civillian module and the civillian vehicle module, you know how much this lags the game. Imagine the amount of civillians needed for a whole city.

I don't see how this is relevant for ARMA. ARMA is a battlefield simulator, depicting grand scale warfare. It would of course be cool to have cities, but there is more than enough of other stuff to fix, before even thinking about doing something about urban warfare.

As far as incidental civilian activity goes, I think a localised "bubble" of civilian activity could be a viable solution. I am totally against bubbles when concerned with military elements (DAC excepted :)) but for civilian incidental activity I think it's a solution that could work. Make it a module and everyone's happy :)

I know there's already a civilian module with ArmA, and I expect it will remain in at least its current state, so there will always be something. But IMO it needs more accessibility with regards flexibility, to ramp up traffic in certain areas for example, or ramp up civilians. So it becomes easy to say identify an area with a marker, sync it to a civilian activity module and specify that civilian activity is ramped up in that area, IF there are military units in the same area.

---------- Post added at 10:20 ---------- Previous post was at 10:12 ----------

What I was trying to express was exactly that. Cities and big towns are not the direction ARMA should be taking.

I think if each building is designed with navigation nodes within it, urban fighting becomes MUCH more viable. I know - we hate navigation nodes, but in the case of buildings, I think it makes sense. You have an initial navigation node at the door/entry, and from there the AI can use well established gaming algorithms to either find their way out the other side, or upstairs to find a reported sniper, or to a particular window you have identified for it.

I'm not entirely sure how the AI currently navigates buildings, my guess would be that it already uses nodes given what I occasionally see in OA, but the AI makes no use of buildings unless specifically ordered to or scripted to. Buildings should be part of the AI's natural cover preferences and positioning preferences.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

I really like your idea, except I'd prefer all of the buildings to be enterable and the map boundaries to be either ocean or open desert.

Your absolutely right, personaly I'd go with the ocean on one side and 'Clafgan' sized mountains on the other, sort of like Hong Kong. I think what I was trying to say is that folks too quickly dismiss the idea via some implication that there is no cost worth paying for such a map, where I think that even if some cost is unaviodable, it is still worth doing.

[icebreakr 3159]

Are you guys aware that you would look for a single enemy soldier in such town for hours or maybe even days? :) ... unless you have nukes, since even carpet bombing won't finish the job ;)

[dmarkwick 261]

Are you guys aware that you would look for a single enemy soldier in such town for hours or maybe even days? :) ... unless you have nukes, since even carpet bombing won't finish the job ;)

Hah :D well at least it would represent a realistic scenario :) I don't really dig on those scenarios that are triggered by the death of the last opponent. For me, the scenario is finished when I decide it's finished, no end trigger for me :) but, that might just be me.

[NKato 0]

I just thought of something else. You know what would make this city an even worse nightmare for infantry? Subways. An underground system of sewers and mass transit networks.

That would be an interesting thing for BIS to implement, and it would actually give us a real function for bunker-buster weapon systems.

[Pummel 10]

I think better indoor areas is the best place to start. It would be nice if there could be some big buildings in the Arma world, and players would have to do full blown assaults on a huge building. Like the Iranian Embassy Siege in London by the SAS, or the recent assault on Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. It would be great to have buildings like this which are filled with enemies, some holding hostages in a room, and some patrolling the hallways etc.. You would attract all the old Rainbow 6 and SWAT players to the Arma series :)

[Craig_VG 20]

Take On Helis has an excellent version of Seattle, even at its current state it isn't all that bad. I can't see a huge city for a Vanilla ArmA game, but I can see a community member making something epic, maybe in A3, maybe not. I guess we will see. :D

-Craig

[rye1 21]

You would attract all the old Rainbow 6 and SWAT players to the Arma series :)

Hey, I'm not old... I still play them. :o

[onlyrazor 11]

Hey, I'm not old... I still play them. :o

You're in my way, sir.

[froggyluv 2136]

I think better indoor areas is the best place to start. It would be nice if there could be some big buildings in the Arma world, and players would have to do full blown assaults on a huge building. Like the Iranian Embassy Siege in London by the SAS, or the recent assault on Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. It would be great to have buildings like this which are filled with enemies, some holding hostages in a room, and some patrolling the hallways etc.. You would attract all the old Rainbow 6 and SWAT players to the Arma series :)

Yeah would be awesome except both of those games have 4 man teams. How do they go about keeping AI in tactical reality when the player's got 15+ men in his squad? What happens when Richiespeed uploads his video of 1500 AI in that building suffocating each other :p

[Pummel 10]

Well SWAT was 4 man, although you did have access to a pair of snipers on some missions, and on some missions you had other guys hanging around who you couldn't control. But in the original old rainbow 6 games you had teams of about 12 I think. In the planning phase you often had to split them in to two squads and one would go in the back, one would go in the front. If you did a good job, the two teams would sweep the building and meet in the middle and then breach the final hostage room from two separate doors. Had to use flashbangs or stun or smoke or whatever to stop them killing the hostages.

I loved that game.. I also liked the later game which let you open the doors inch by inch, with your mouse wheel.

[antoineflemming 14]

Yeah would be awesome except both of those games have 4 man teams. How do they go about keeping AI in tactical reality when the player's got 15+ men in his squad? What happens when Richiespeed uploads his video of 1500 AI in that building suffocating each other :p

well, realistically, you wouldn't have 15+ men going in to the same building (15+ men wouldn't be a squad anyway. about 9 or so people would be a squad (squad leader + 2 teams)). So, the way for BIS to do this would be to focus on getting 4 - 6 men to work properly in a building. And add better functionality I guess where you could more easily designate fire teams (Alpha and Bravo, none of this color crap). Being able to determine squad roles would help, too. Like this:

So, something like this could be in the editor, so that teams are designated BEFORE starting the mission. That way, you can have one team trying to move into a building. Then it could possibly work. Because besides getting the AI to work properly in a building, better management of AI period would help a lot I'd think.

[NKato 0]

Let's not forget that it would be good to have overwatch snipers, people who would watch the sides of a building (the windows, to be exact) with guns ready to take out any targets when necessary. This was a feature in SWAT 4, and the concept of having people watch the building externally while a squad goes in, would be very much doable.

[froggyluv 2136]

Well you Gentlemen are certainly my kind of gamers and I hope,no pray, that this gets implemented at least to some extent. Like said, make it work tight for small entry groups and let the player/mission designer beware of getting silly with numbers.

[rye1 21]

Very cool idea. Oh AA3. That would get games running a lot quicker, allowing for quick TvT's and making roles more important than just a status thing.

[Craig_VG 20]

well, realistically, you wouldn't have 15+ men going in to the same building (15+ men wouldn't be a squad anyway. about 9 or so people would be a squad (squad leader + 2 teams)). So, the way for BIS to do this would be to focus on getting 4 - 6 men to work properly in a building. And add better functionality I guess where you could more easily designate fire teams (Alpha and Bravo, none of this color crap). Being able to determine squad roles would help, too. Like this:

So, something like this could be in the editor, so that teams are designated BEFORE starting the mission. That way, you can have one team trying to move into a building. Then it could possibly work. Because besides getting the AI to work properly in a building, better management of AI period would help a lot I'd think.

Ahh, Americas Army 2, I had some good times in that game... *Reminisces* .... Then I got ArmA and things changed.

Anyway, that was a very good method of role choosing for AA2

-Craig

[rye1 21]

So was the training... isolating people to actually do the prior experience before just popping up to go 'I sniporzzz'. AA3 differentiated that with the medical role... you could tell with some of the noobs shoving an OPA down your mouth when you were breathing just fine. :D

[[evo] dan 79]

yeah I remember in AA2 the training, it was a very very good way of limiting roles, Arma could perhaps benefit from this but make it a server option so that you can turn whether training counts on or off if they do add it.

[BobcatBob 10]

That sounds like a great idea! YESS!!!