General Discussion (dev branch)

[snoops_213 74]

11 hours ago, oukej said:

Fixed in the next dev-branch update. Thanks everyone for the feedback and notes!

What was the solution? Does the  vehicles side now get distinguished at longer ranges?If so, will enemies now be shown red on the tactical display? And is it possible to look at increasing locking distance beyond the 16km mark please?

 

[pils 49]

15 hours ago, heavygunner said:

Obviously it's not that easy, since the idea is not new and BIS decided against  it.

 

The ship also wasn't done by BIS and people making 3D models are probably not the ones working on such features anyway.

 

Yes, I know about that, too.

But after all, it's the responsibility of BIS to utilize their investments and manpower in a way so that they can come up with a great product. 

A product the customers love - especially the long term customers.

For me it seems they didn't utilize their manpower in an optimal way. Because again, form follows function and that really great looking ship is sadly of little use for the overall gameplay as long as the assets aren't able to protect it.

Which really is a pity. This could have lead to one more paid DLC, a Navy DLC. It bet it would sell well, but only if the assets are actually useful and not just pretty.

[SuicideKing 233]

9 hours ago, snoops_213 said:

And is it possible to look at increasing locking distance beyond the 16km mark please?

already possible via config mod. none of the vanilla maps are that big to justify that by default, imo.

 

3 hours ago, pils said:

For me it seems they didn't utilize their manpower in an optimal way. Because again, form follows function and that really great looking ship is sadly of little use for the overall gameplay as long as the assets aren't able to protect it.

I think you're exaggerating the situation to be honest. It can't sink anyway. It's perfectly usable without full C-RAM functionality. Design your scenarios accordingly.

[zukov 483]

please fix this textures just the magazine area. i saw that you already fix the assasin helmet    please please

[snoops_213 74]

5 hours ago, SuicideKing said:

already possible via config mod. none of the vanilla maps are that big to justify that by default, imo.

 

 

It is possible but it doesn't work. I have test missiles set up and beyond 16km the AI won't engage and the missiles won't lock. The arty pieces have up to 50km range set up (vanilla config) yet won't engage beyond 16km(without user input). The vanilla maps are not really a problem but there is a bunch of user maps that are truly big enough. 

[NikkoJT 58]

So the Mk41 VLS has been updated to fire terrain-following Venator Cruise Missiles, instead of 230mm rockets. That's awesome!

 

I've just noticed, though, that the Mk41 has access to a missile camera panel. However, this panel doesn't seem to actually do anything. It stays blank ("no connection") when you fire a missile. It would be super nice if it worked.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Fatal Game Freeze after Alt+Tab. Not sure why, usually after joining servers, in session. No mods.

 

Join Game > Play Game> Alt+Tab > Click Some Things > Alt+Tab Back > Doesn't Respond but you can hear the ambient sounds. Every single time for me.

[scavenjer 112]

@oukej
My friends also noticed that the Blackfish armed has it's FOV/zoom on the cannons changed, previously it had three levels of zoom, a zoomed out one great for target acquisition, a medium level one and a high level one.
This seems to have changed with Tanks DLC so it only has two zoom levels now, the medium zoom one and the high zoom one, this makes it incredibly hard to acquire targets even for very experienced players.

 

However, if you spam the zoom out key, you can actually see that it zooms out for just a milisecond, after checking the 105mm VTOL weapon config, it seems it uses the exact same zoom levels as other big cannons, opticsZoomInit=0.75   opticsZoomMin=0.25 and opticsZoomMax=1.25.
This would indicate that it has the same zoomlevels as those other cannons, but it somehow doesn't.
 

So, is this a bug or intended?

If it is intended, I have to point out how difficult it is to have any sort of situational awareness/fast acquisition with these zoom levels, the guns have a very large arc of travel and to cover it all searching for targets is very tedious and difficult without external assistance of a tactical ping or such things (disabled on many servers).

[SuicideKing 233]

2 hours ago, CaptainAzimuth said:

Fatal Game Freeze after Alt+Tab. Not sure why, usually after joining servers, in session. No mods.

 

Join Game > Play Game> Alt+Tab > Click Some Things > Alt+Tab Back > Doesn't Respond but you can hear the ambient sounds. Every single time for me.

If it creates a crash dump, I assume Dwarden would be interested.

[Lbbde 28]

Is there a reason I can not use the Artillery Computer with the VLS anymore, or is my game just broken?
Btw it's really cool that the VLS now has real cruise missiles and you can choose between HE and Cluster. :O

[nmdanny 22]

48 minutes ago, Lbbde said:

Is there a reason I can not use the Artillery Computer with the VLS anymore, or is my game just broken?
Btw it's really cool that the VLS now has real cruise missiles and you can choose between HE and Cluster. :O

Now you can lock onto lasers from far away (IIRC the spotting unit needs to have 'datalink send' in order for the VLS to see the laser),

and the VLS can also lock into vehicles on its own, for some reason.

[petek 62]

1 hour ago, Lbbde said:

Is there a reason I can not use the Artillery Computer with the VLS anymore, or is my game just broken?
Btw it's really cool that the VLS now has real cruise missiles and you can choose between HE and Cluster. :O

Same for me

[the_one_and_only_Venator 162]

6 hours ago, NikkoJT said:

I've just noticed, though, that the Mk41 has access to a missile camera panel. However, this panel doesn't seem to actually do anything. It stays blank ("no connection") when you fire a missile. It would be super nice if it worked.

 

For some reason this doesn't work with the UAV AI in the vehicle and the player controlling it. If you place the VLS empty and put a player inside it works perfectly fine.

For some reason the game currently can't handle this function with UAV AIs.

[the_one_and_only_Venator 162]

2 hours ago, Lbbde said:

Is there a reason I can not use the Artillery Computer with the VLS anymore, or is my game just broken?
Btw it's really cool that the VLS now has real cruise missiles and you can choose between HE and Cluster. :O

You don't need the artillery computer for the new cruise missiles. You lock them onto targets via datalink. For example laser targets.

 

A artillery computer option as kind of a GPS guidance would be awesome though.

 

Also an upgraded model for the missile itself would be very nice since it is basically an upscaled version of the Skyfire missile from the Kajmans rocket pods the model and texture quality is really substandard. For example the new MIM-145 and S-750 models are really a different story.

[snoops_213 74]

17 hours ago, scavenjer said:

@oukej
My friends also noticed that the Blackfish armed has it's FOV/zoom on the cannons changed, previously it had three levels of zoom, a zoomed out one great for target acquisition, a medium level one and a high level one.
This seems to have changed with Tanks DLC so it only has two zoom levels now, the medium zoom one and the high zoom one, this makes it incredibly hard to acquire targets even for very experienced players.

 

However, if you spam the zoom out key, you can actually see that it zooms out for just a milisecond, after checking the 105mm VTOL weapon config, it seems it uses the exact same zoom levels as other big cannons, opticsZoomInit=0.75   opticsZoomMin=0.25 and opticsZoomMax=1.25.
This would indicate that it has the same zoomlevels as those other cannons, but it somehow doesn't.
 

So, is this a bug or intended?

If it is intended, I have to point out how difficult it is to have any sort of situational awareness/fast acquisition with these zoom levels, the guns have a very large arc of travel and to cover it all searching for targets is very tedious and difficult without external assistance of a tactical ping or such things (disabled on many servers).

Yeah if you look at the config one of the zoom levels in the gunners sets had been removed unfortunately. It makes it really hard to use now. Hopefully they will re add it, as well as adding the man type sensor (along the gun axis) which helps the AI no end, and removing the radar which can bork the AI.

 

14 hours ago, Lbbde said:

Is there a reason I can not use the Artillery Computer with the VLS anymore, or is my game just broken?
Btw it's really cool that the VLS now has real cruise missiles and you can choose between HE and Cluster. :O

It's gone because the launcher now uses missiles which I believe don't work with the arty computer. But now ,as someone said, uses datalink to target which is pretty powerful, it can even target men if you use the AR-2 as a spotter.  Now all they need to do is make AI use indirect weapons over terrain and AI artillery will be a real option. Ai have no problem with it over flat terrain out to 16km (engine locking limit?) But put a terrain obstacle in its way and no more with out scripts or user input. 

[scavenjer 112]

1 hour ago, snoops_213 said:

Yeah if you look at the config one of the zoom levels in the gunners sets had been removed unfortunately. It makes it really hard to use now. Hopefully they will re add it, as well as adding the man type sensor (along the gun axis) which helps the AI no end, and removing the radar which can bork the AI.

Wait, where can you see this? I checked the 105mm VTOL cannon and it was still there.

[Lbbde 28]

I have mixed feelings about this change. On the one hand, it has advantages to switch to a laser target illumination (you can also precisely attack people or anything you want), but it also takes away some great features.
The following example: You attack an airfield. One person flies over the target area during a reconnaissance flight and identifies targets (for example: aircraft in front of the hangar, trucks on the runway, artillery here tanks there). The VLS controller has been able to fire a full salvo of missiles at each enlightened position. Although blind and "good luck", but it was possible. Now every target has to be explicitly marked and you have to wait for the impact until you can attack the next target because the missile follows the laser.
In addition, attacks with multiple VLSs are now harder to coordinate because you do not see what laser target you have marked. In a scenario where e.g. If two destroyers attack a target simultaneously, it can quickly come to complications who uses which target marker.
In addition, the missile lands in the blue when the laser target illumination is interrupted.
I'm really not an expert and it may well be that a whole salvo of cruise missiles is not a very profitable, unnecessary, excessive use of firepower, but in a sandbox game like ArmA I'd rather let the players decide for themselves how much you do oriented to the reality.

Incidentally, I noticed that the size of the explosion at the impact does not quite correspond to the actual explosive effect. The explosion is really huge, but in a test only the target was destroyed and vehicles less than 10m away were more or less untouched.

[dragon01 902]

I think that multiple VLS variants with different loadouts would be preferable. For example, singleplayer use might benefit more from an artillery-based launcher (thus allowing operation without UAV access), while some missions would benefit from having heavy SAM missiles in there. Also, do note that, with the exception of the SSM variant (which is radar guided), the real Tomahawk doesn't have any sort of GTT guidance, it's pure GOLIS. It might be possible to update the target mid-course on some variants, but I'm not sure about it.

[ski2060 167]

So it was mentioned that the VLS cruise missile uses Datalink targeting.  Will it lock on to targets that have been found using sensors other than Laser marking?   Like an IR or Visual Sensor that has Datalink on the unit also?
So you could use a sensor mast with visual to pass target info to the VLS?

[snoops_213 74]

3 hours ago, scavenjer said:

Wait, where can you see this? I checked the 105mm VTOL cannon and it was still there.

In the VTOL config not the weapons config.

 

25 minutes ago, ski2060 said:

So it was mentioned that the VLS cruise missile uses Datalink targeting.  Will it lock on to targets that have been found using sensors other than Laser marking?   Like an IR or Visual Sensor that has Datalink on the unit also?
So you could use a sensor mast with visual to pass target info to the VLS?

Yes it will. You can even target men when using the ar-2 darter which has the man sensor. If it has/is a sensor  it can transmit enough data for data linked weapons/vehicles to target it. Native AI artillery is so close its not funny. In VR world with data link I can get AI to engage up to 16km against all types of targets using data linked enabled vehicles/weapons including the new cruise missiles. But in normal islands AI won't engage over terrain without scripts or user input.

 

[Lbbde 28]

38 minutes ago, ski2060 said:

So it was mentioned that the VLS cruise missile uses Datalink targeting.  Will it lock on to targets that have been found using sensors other than Laser marking?   Like an IR or Visual Sensor that has Datalink on the unit also?
So you could use a sensor mast with visual to pass target info to the VLS?

I have just tested it and it is also possible to target radar targets, which makes my above-mentioned problem with multiple VLS systems less of a problem than expected :O

 

The Venator Cruise Missile has also got a new, detailed model, which looks like a real cruise missile.

[the_one_and_only_Venator 162]

1 hour ago, ski2060 said:

So it was mentioned that the VLS cruise missile uses Datalink targeting.  Will it lock on to targets that have been found using sensors other than Laser marking?   Like an IR or Visual Sensor that has Datalink on the unit also?
So you could use a sensor mast with visual to pass target info to the VLS?

 

Targets from every sensor should work.

[dragon01 902]

Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Visuals are spot-on, but using it in SP is kind of a chore, not to mention guidance is weird. The warhead is kind of underpowered as well (oddly enough, the explosion is too large, if anything). As I mentioned of the previous page, the real Tomahawk does not track targets in any way. 

 

@oukej, would that be possible to make artillery missiles that follow terrain? Ideally, the Venator would be that, with (optional, for moving targets/extra precision) terminal laser guidance.

[stburr91 995]

4 hours ago, ski2060 said:

So it was mentioned that the VLS cruise missile uses Datalink targeting.  Will it lock on to targets that have been found using sensors other than Laser marking?   Like an IR or Visual Sensor that has Datalink on the unit also?
So you could use a sensor mast with visual to pass target info to the VLS?

 

 

So if I'm reading this right, ground units can no longer use the VLS for a support unit .

 

If so, they broke my mission before it could even be published. 

 

ETA, I seems I missed that you can now use the MK 45 as a support unit.

 

I'm off to edit my mission. 

[petek 62]

See that the ship cannon now has artillary computer rather than direct....... can we not just ever keep both options so players have options? Seems odd that the mortar has more options than the VLS or the Hammer.

Also has anything changed regarding identifying empty vehicles? Was messing about in the editor testing the new missiles etc.. and spotters only call out occupied vehicles so cannot be targeted....

 

Oh ....and thanks for the free Encore stuff..... not here just to moan ;-)