There should be multiple jets in the release version

[byku 13]

That list is NOT FINAL. One of the devs said so. Hard to find his post now(and don't have time for it now)

[jiggyjoe 10]

Overreact much? First, there are 3 fixed wing aircrafts: 1 jet fighter and 2 UAV drones

There are plenty of static weapons confirmed for the release, static AA,AT and HMG/GMG with 3 variants(including autonomous which sounds interesting), I'm sure that there will be military structures such as radars, tents, camo-nets etc.. in the full game

And I highly doubt that BIS has lost half of their fans

Go play FS:X/HAWX/ACE COMBAT if only one jet fighter is such a dealbreaker for you, ArmA 3 is not a flight simulator.

I couldn't say it better myself !!!

Yes, this is my first post but i know any opinions should be respected... Dissapointing to see that there will be only 1 plane, but on the other end, this ain't the end of the world !! Just because there will be one plane on the official launch it doesn't mean that they will never come up with more throughout the patches ! If the demand is there im' sure they won't just snob it...

[Minoza 11]

That list is NOT FINAL. One of the devs said so. Hard to find his post now(and don't have time for it now)

Actually here's a dev post confirming it is final:

Click me

[metalcraze 290]

As for the rest, who knows. Perhaps they wanted a fully clean slate for Arma 3 as opposed to Arma 2 which used a few rare OFP assets, many Arma 1 and some VBS 1.

Yeah that's why ACR DLC assets are re-used.

There's still cockpit, flight model, weapon systems, ... to be done besides the model. At least one of those things doesn't live up to BIS' quality standards at the moment, that's why it won't be in for release.

There was F-35 in ArmA2, it had perfectly working TAB-Lock (which you call "weapon systems" for some reason) and Jay Crowe was flying it at one of previous E3s in ArmA3 already. Flight model also hasn't changed a single bit in ArmA3 for choppers, why would it be different for planes? The only thing that needed prettying-up was the cockpit perhaps.

You are just giving BIS a green light to do stuff like this again. A game will have less content than ArmA2 (excluding OA), and that's an OK thing, yes BIS you did a great job, please do it again and again.

Edited August 7, 2013 by metalcraze

[-ghost-tf 12]

The creative director's also been pretty clear that there was a design decision to have an infantry focus

Well infantry has not been done properly either, and I probably dont even have to tell you why.

[f27sharps 1]

It is true that it will be easy to insert a group of paratroopers with just a training aircraft. I say that with all the proposals made by the community, no messages have actually been taken into account. I have the impression that the political editors of some major video game, a bad finished game it will buy DLC to finally have content.

[Fergal 10]

Strange how balance was a keyword used on every Alpha / Beta update in relation to new weapons or vehicles. In videos and posts they said that each time they added something for one faction, they had to add a similar weapon / vehicle to the other factions to balance things out.

Looks like balance is thrown out the window when it comes to jets. Or should I say jet.

[dmarkwick 261]

^^ You might be misremembering who said what on the topic of balance :)

[Fergal 10]

I don't know what you mean?

I remember Jay Crowe saying it multiple times in an E3 video.

[dmarkwick 261]

I don't know what you mean?

I remember Jay Crowe saying it multiple times in an E3 video.

In that case I haven't seen that video. The topic of balance as far as this forum goes was defined as changing asset configuration so AI can utilise it more effectively.

[Rolling 1]

It'll be really disappointing if they don't have some kind of fixed wing transport plane (or even just the Osprey!). If they can't make all of the content up to their new standards, then why not make an official patch to allow people to play with A2/OA content in the meantime, so at least we have something to work with other than a new island and a couple of new vehicles :P

[zimms 22]

@metalcraze

I'm not too happy with this too, but I just gave the reason why the F-35 won't be in the game for release. Wether I like it or not.

Of course BI could have finished the F-35 if they had been working on it for the last two years. Yet obviously that's not the case.

[comp_uter15776 1]

If they managed to plug some more jets in and/or a mod autodownloader I think I'd be happy for a release haha

*Carries on dreaming*

EDIT: Another Lincs lad :o

[Champy_UK 1]

I think theres alot of people being very harsh on the OP, merely stating the lack of planes in the release. Be the future lead by drones or real piloted planes, i cannot believe that any of you will not be requiring supplies to be dropped to your infantry squads? Whats going to happen, your going to carry out an ammo box in a drone? or better still wedge a artillery piece in your back pack? The OP has every right to be dismayed at the lack of planes, fighter or transport. Because however war turns out to be in the future there are many things you cannot do with out some form of transport or fighter bomber aircraft.

i am +1 and im disappointed the emphasis has swung round to wow we have drones and who needs planes...:p

When your having your arse handed to you by the AI and you need bailing out of the mire, just remember the we don't need planes attitude... because you will be wishing different:p

[Tankbuster 1746]

I'm not going to let the quality of the OP detract from the message here. Don't let his subtext about subscribers side track the issue.

The fact remains, in terms of playable content, this game is going to release with way less that A2 or A1 did.

The real lack of proper fixed wing is disturbing. I've read all the bollcoks about how we've got drones and don't need manned aircraft and although I'm only an armchair expert, I think we can all see that this simply doesn't stack up. No army, particularly one with current or near future western military doctrine is going to war without air superiority. It's inconceivable.

Apart from the essential control of the skies over our troops, both these arenas are islands. So that means every piece of kit arrived by ship or plane and given that the story is of a drawdown, they are all going out in the same manner. Yet we have none of these assets.

I appreciate that the chaps have come clean, and it's refreshing that Jay doesn't use some of the hideous marketing speak I've read from some of the others, but this is still a bad let down, that good given reasons can only assuage so much. This game will be released considerably unfinished. Gorgeous, but unfinished. And that's a real shame.

I have noticed the phrase 'combined arms' seems to have been replaced by 'infantry focussed'. That, for me isn't ArmA. If I wanted infantry focussed, there's a billion other games that do that pretty well. Not as well, granted as A3 or even A2/OA, but with the same limited scope we're going get next month. That's a shame too.

I find it distressing that some users here are attacking the OP because his threat to stop spending is clearly a spent one. He's already paid. We get that. Everything else he says is top drawer and I really hope there's more people about to say "YES! Damnit he right". There's too much arse kissing going on here.

[maffa 29]

Hello. This is my first post here, and i hope to receive a better and warmer welcome than the OP even though i am 10 post his junior. I share with him the disillusionment about this sci-fi tom clancy-esque scenario and place all my hopes in AiA, but I beg to differ about air power (as in "fixed wing fighter/attack planes") usage in Arma. I am no English native so you will have to be extra nice with me for my funny ways.

So, back in topic.

Making a long story short: planes have always been the smelliest turd in the game and they have always been out of context, so so long and thanks for all the laughs.

Making a long story average: a war theatre live on the balance of three elements: aerial dominance, sea dominance, ground dominance. Its common knowledge that aerial dominance gives you the initiative, enabling the winning side to score by up high and jumping beyond (or hitting hard) the fronline. This aerial war is fought by air superiority fighters, in the number of tens and hundreds, together with C3/AEW&C planes, AG planes and such, on a front line much wider than the ground's. Behind these planes there's a whole supply chain to keep them nominal once their mission is over and come back to base. Now: whats the use of a single, lost F35 in a base on aspeck of an island in the middle of the Aegean Sea? It's a laughable idea, really. A single military jet on an island is a nonsense. The only value they may have is to play the role of precious, stationary targets to blow up on a incursion mission.

This doesnt mean that there shouldnt be fixed wing jets at all in the game, only they should be AI controlled: transportation, ground attack, air defence, whatever strikes your fancy: they take off hundreds of miles away, climb to their assigned flight level, do the thing they need to do from up high, be it to drop a GBU or some dumb bombs, turn their tail and go back to play golf with their colleagues and friends at their air base, far away, secured and protected from all evil. This is the way you fight air warfare in an all-out war. Kosovo, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan: all modern wars where jet fighters were employed they never fought from the very place they took off from. Its simply absurd having a multimillion dollar/euro worth piece of technology in a hostile place. Anyone in his right mind would take it elsewhere safe, and if there's no anywhere else safe to stash your precious plane, it means you just lost. Whatever the map BIS may come up with it wont ever be large enough to accomodate objects that fly to the speed of sound ten thousand miles above the ground -unless someone want to make something as big as the Korean insula, 200.000 square kilometers give or take, but if your Ifrit breaks along the way its gonna be a long walk home...

Moreover, anything flying in A2 was so ludicrously ugly to see and fly that i personally wont shed a tear for missing the chance to fly a shiny piece of tech with the flight model of a baloon. There's a single excpetion, that is the Super Tucano, a turbprop COIN plane, which is sturdy, slow, dumb and cheap enough to fit in the scale of Arma. Also his flight model is almost as basic as a cessna 172 so it could be well represented with A2 flight model.

Helicopters are a completely different game. They can and must stay near the front line, they are sturdier and more expendable, in a scenario where aerial dominance hasnt been set yet and geernal balance is not s straightforward, they gain a great weight and importance. It was theorized during the cold war that WWIII would have been a helicopter war -maybe someone older here will remember Amerika, the 90's miniseries, that was the idea. Besides, its no easy to move helicopters in and out an island, so i must confess i dont know the surrounding area of Stratis but it may even be that they were been stranded there sooo... they are there to stay (until relief). In short they are more in context with the infantry focus Arma has.

Bottom line: an infantry sim and a fighter jet sim are two different things. They move in different worlds, have different times, different priorities, different concept and shapes of frontlines and battles, and they shouldnt be mixed. I am sorry to say this, but even if you (generic you) are fond of your memories of when you epically flew your A10 to relieve your team from a tough situation, such actions are just plain dumb. The very idea that maybe, somewhere, sometimes, in some server, someone took a F35 down with an RPG and that made his day, makes me wanna hurt a kitten. All these things were a nonsense and still are. Maybe this someone took his time to write in a forum that the animation of the bolt coming out of his L115A3 is not just right, who knows.

In order to have a good simulation of a ground war, what happens up above should be of no concern to the grunts. Everyone do their job, and if the bomb fall on you, it means that your airforce is on the losing side or its a blue on blue, and either case you cant do nothing about it.

I say all this out of love for the experience i enjoy playing a rifleman in Arma, a fighter pilot in F16 BMS, and reading about military strategies and doctrines.

Nice to meet you. :o

Edited August 7, 2013 by Maffa

[progamer 14]

With respect to your opinion, one of my favorite parts of Arma games is the jets and fixed wing aircraft. This isn't battlefield 4, you don't simply take down a jet with a RPG.

Also do you know that the full game will contain another map called Altis? http://i.imgur.com/fUROR26.png

Not all the devs call Arma 3 a infantry focused game. Other devs call it a Combined Arms game or a Combined Arms Showcase.

---------- Post added at 21:08 ---------- Previous post was at 21:05 ----------

But I would rather they take there time with jets before implementing them post release.

Edited August 8, 2013 by PurePassion
You don't need to quote so much text if you post right below ;)

[maffa 29]

i respect your opinion, and more your tastes, but fixed wing stuff in A2 is an insult to anyone that know how military jets are and work. They are subpar, less than sketched and out of context for the reason i wrote. The presence of Altis doesnt move an inch the situation.

This is not what planes are, this is not what planes are for, this is not the place where planes should be. For a game that aspires to be a simulation it would be better that they are took away altogether from players and kept as indirect support for bombing or paradropping.

You cannot do all and well, so no matter what some dev aspirations may be, you can do only so much with one engine and budget. I would focus on putting some more effort on land vehicles, that stink almost as much as planes, before messing with aerial warfare, which, as i already said, is a world apart. A "simulation" that requires a single key one soldier and 2 seconds to start a Tusk and have it fire at will has a long way to go before "combining" stuff. I would piss in my pants with joy for having a map as large as the korean insula for a huge permanent campaign with plenty of soldiers tanks planes cruisers carriers and so on, but i have a home pc and Arma (arma 3 neither) will not be that sim.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Maffa

[comp_uter15776 1]

...

Of course it's not a sim. It'll never be a fully on sim. Ever. There is a compromise always between gameplay, fun, and realism. I've worked closely with a good number of aircraft and seen how they work, modern and old, and I can tell you that they are no less fun to fly here than they would be in the flesh. Also, if you wanted a deep sim that does stuff like that, you're best looking at a simulator such as VBS, Falcon BMS, one of the DCS sims, or something else. You can't get all the simulations in a combined package so you have to reduce the complexibility to be compatible enough. One example is the Falcon aforementioned, it contains a 716 page manual just for starters. Imagine trying to have one of those for vehicles, naval units, infantry combat...

If I wanted all that I may as well join the Army/RAF/Navy :x

[maffa 29]

Comp_uter15776, thank you for taking your time to read all i wrote expect the part were i wrote that i AM a Falcon simmer, which is the last line but one to be honest, and the part where i explained (quite lenghty) that anyone thinking an F35 place should be at 1 km from enemy forces should be better playing Farmville, which is the wall of text over the last line.

Also, this excuse "if i wanted a good military sim id join service" is silly. I like playing in front of my pc a some hours a week without making a life decision and risk my skin. Please dont ever use it any more.

Having jets on Arma is a nonsense. Why not having a battleship on the top of a mountain? Only with wheels or tracks, because since this is not a simulation and people want just have some fun, i mean, who am i to prevent someone having some fun?

I also play (or used to, really, before discovering A2) microsoft FSX. Its cycle of life should be taught as an important marketing lesson not only for the videogames market. They decided that hardcore customers were a lot of pain. Modders sold their work based on FSX, and MS didnt get a dime. So they thought to make a very shiny new flying game, only not simulator, no, you fly around the Hawaii, and everything is detailed to the petal of the rose in the porch of the old lady. And no one bothered to buy this detailed jewel of inconsistent activity of fying around in a cage because that would identify you as someone mentally disordered. So, at the end, every FSX customer kept their copy dear, and new people wishing to have civil flying simulations buy XPlane because their producer develops it only for hardcore simmers.

So whats the morale? If your customers are simmers, you better not screw up doing arcade stuff or it will go commercially FUBAR.

Lastly, i also know something about real life planes, and i tell you that you dont know what you are talking about. They cannot be compared, not as a simulation, not as a representation, not as a placeholder. Planes dont float nor strutter nor glide ascending the way all planes in A2 do. And i dont even want to go into avionics. But even if they were a PMDG or F16 BMS quality planes, it would be of no use nonetheless because you dont keep your planes on the front, period. This may make some casual less caring player happy, but "hardcore" players know, and get pissed. Once you lose your fame of being a "sim" you become a "FPS for fun" like all the others, only without the marketing the others have.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Maffa
typos and other minor stuff, really

[pharoah 65]

What ARMA3 really needs is proper CAS support a/c ie. an A10C and/or SU25T atleast. An F35 is great but isn't it more an air superiority a/c? I know what the wiki says about the F35, but thats why the A10C is so good at its role....its geared towards CAS with rockets, guided and unguided munitions (incl AGMs), not to mention that whopping big gatling. BIS needs to focus on this ie. something that gets released officially because a lot of MP servers will not allow modded a/c, etc.

[Scoggs 1]

Personally not a deal breaker to me. Every time i fly a jet in arma it bothers me. Flight model is poor. Weapon employment is poor. Low visibility(12km if you can manage it is less than a Aim-9X's effective range)

Also CAS and CAP aircraft have to be majorly gimped in order to make the game playable/fun for other units. I mean what would be the fun in driving your tank column for 35 minutes being extra cautious only for the whole column being destroyed by 2 a-10C's 7.5 miles a way in less than 10 seconds. With no warning.

Although I wish there were transport aircraft at least.

But oh well.

[EuroSlave 1]

Also CAS and CAP aircraft have to be majorly gimped in order to make the game playable/fun for other units. I mean what would be the fun in driving your tank column for 35 minutes being extra cautious only for the whole column being destroyed by 2 a-10C's 7.5 miles a way in less than 10 seconds. With no warning.

Exactly what I like about ARMA

[progamer 14]

Exactly what I like about ARMA

Yea, you get to see them before you get destroyed, which is one of the huge reasons I like Arma because Aircraft are powerful! They are the top predator on the battlefield!

[Tankbuster 1746]

but fixed wing stuff in A2 is an insult to anyone that know how military jets are and work. They are subpar, less than sketched and out of context for the reason i wrote.

You're offtopic and you shouldn't derail what is an important topic with this.

---------- Post added at 07:53 ---------- Previous post was at 07:46 ----------

CHaving jets on Arma is a nonsense. Why not having a battleship on the top of a mountain? Only with wheels or tracks, because since this is not a simulation and people want just have some fun, i mean, who am i to prevent someone having some fun?

You're still offtopic. Stop it. And identifying something that in your opinion is nonsense with your elitist attitude to flight GAMES doesn't give you carte blanche to make illogical and frankly stupid "why not" comparisons.

This is too important for a combined arms game to be belittled by a flight simmer. If you don't like it, you can push off back to your switch flicking, massive manuals, grind and rivet counting. And if you stay offtopic, I'm going to report you.

Edited August 8, 2013 by Tankbuster