Improved Fatigue System

[Maj D. Schultz 13]

If you are wanting Fatigue to simulate real life, then yes. Add weapon sway in.

You try running in full combat ruck for 200 meters and then try and shoot straight.

If it's something you've trained for, you can steady your weapon after taking a moment to catch your breath.

That's not to say that you still can't point and shoot your weapon, that's the easy part. But if you are wanting to shoot ACCURATELY at targets that are 300m or more away. Well it all depends.

With the radial blur, I'd say do keep it in, but not to the extent as shown in the XMS2 video. I felt dizzy watching that video, I can't image playing the game like that for an extended period of time. Either reduce the blur to not cover as much of the screen, or if it does happen to that full extent, then to only have it last for short periods of time when the player has pushed themselves to the limit.

As always, allowing the user (or group) to set a certain level would be great. Example - None - Low - Medium - High, etc.

More work for you overall yes, but adding flexibility is what will allow more people to enjoy your hard work.

The next update you release I'll be sure to get a group of my guys together for full play testing and feedback for you.

Again the amount of development I've seen is impressive and this will be a great addition to the ARMA community.

[flyinpenguin 30]

If you are wanting Fatigue to simulate real life, then yes. Add weapon sway in.

You try running in full combat ruck for 200 meters and then try and shoot straight.

If it's something you've trained for, you can steady your weapon after taking a moment to catch your breath.

That's not to say that you still can't point and shoot your weapon, that's the easy part. But if you are wanting to shoot ACCURATELY at targets that are 300m or more away. Well it all depends.

With the radial blur, I'd say do keep it in, but not to the extent as shown in the XMS2 video. I felt dizzy watching that video, I can't image playing the game like that for an extended period of time. Either reduce the blur to not cover as much of the screen, or if it does happen to that full extent, then to only have it last for short periods of time when the player has pushed themselves to the limit.

As always, allowing the user (or group) to set a certain level would be great. Example - None - Low - Medium - High, etc.

More work for you overall yes, but adding flexibility is what will allow more people to enjoy your hard work.

The next update you release I'll be sure to get a group of my guys together for full play testing and feedback for you.

Again the amount of development I've seen is impressive and this will be a great addition to the ARMA community.

Cool, thanks for the input! And thank you as well for being willing to help do mass play testing!

And yes, don't worry, the radial blur will be tasteful and unobtrusive ;)

[flyinpenguin 30]

Updated to Version 0.6!

ChangeLog:

V0.6 - Added - recoil changes

Added - radial blur

Added - modular support for blur, recoil, and heartbeat

Removed - Water System Alpha

ReadMe for more in depth changelog

Hello and welcome to version 0.6 Beta of the Improved Fatigue System!

This version is the start of being more modular.
The userconfig file has been updated to be much more useful.

Changes able to be made now include (enable/disable):
-Radial Blur that incurs upon becoming fatigued (starts same time as heartbeat)
-Heartbeat sound that incurs upon becoming fatigued
-Recoil changes while fatigued
-Startup chat messages to tell you what is enabled or disabled

New items:
-Radial Blur 
-It is static at the moment.  
-Later it will be changed to have three different settings for the amount of blur
-Recoil
-Designed to reward a well rested player and punish one that has been on the move
-Note that rested value is better than vanilla Arma3 recoil
-Designed to work well with VTS_weapon resting.  It will allow a well rested player to use it, but disable benefits for fatigued players.

On the more technical side, all variables have been renamed to be more supportive for other mods.  New standard prefixes with 'Flyin', then mod name 'FS',then variable name.
This is to make 100% sure no one ever has the same global variable names and cause conflicts.

Last change, one that may not be liked.  I have removed Water System from this version.
I have been hard at work on the Water System and will continue to make it.
It is still at the point where it is not good enough to be used, only for testing purposes.
Once it is at a point where it is ready for more testing, I will release it as a separate mod.
The plans for it do not really fit inside what I had in mind for this mod, hence the decision to make it its own.

Please think about giving feedback on the forums http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?176677-Improved-Fatigue-System
If you think bohemia forums suck, contact me by email at flyinp3nguin@gmail.com

I have not been able to work on the user key yet and weapon sway kind of changed to recoil until I can make it work better

Main post and download links have been updated

Edited May 21, 2014 by flyinpenguin

[Guest]

Thanks again for informing us about the update :cool:

Release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

Improved Fatigue System v0.6

================================================

We have also "connected" these pages to your account on Armaholic.

This means in the future you will be able to maintain these pages yourself if you wish to do so. Once this new feature is ready we will contact you about it and explain how things work and what options you have.

When you have any questions already feel free to PM or email me!

[phoenix_za 23]

Very nice mod!

My group is enjoying it!

One question about the last update before we go for it: Does the recoil feature also work well with TMR? As we use that instead of VTS for weapon resting\bipods.

[sonsalt6 105]

New update v0.6 available at withSIX. Download now by clicking:

[flyinpenguin 30]

Very nice mod!

My group is enjoying it!

One question about the last update before we go for it: Does the recoil feature also work well with TMR? As we use that instead of VTS for weapon resting\bipods.

I have not tested it with TMR, but it should. What it does is overwrite all changes while the player is fatigued. When the player is not fatigued, it changes it once and then leaves it alone. I reviewed VTS's code to make sure but as I said, I have not looked into TMR. Let me know if it does!

[phoenix_za 23]

will do

[Maj D. Schultz 13]

You can expect at least 20 of my guys play-testing and video evidence of our thoughts and impressions with-in the next week. I'm very excited to play-test this addon.

[flyinpenguin 30]

You can expect at least 20 of my guys play-testing and video evidence of our thoughts and impressions with-in the next week. I'm very excited to play-test this addon.

Cool, a very big thank you!

[alduric 10]

Just me notice problem with map loading time with this mod is way longer?

[flyinpenguin 30]

Just me notice problem with map loading time with this mod is way longer?

hmm, I never thought to test that. I will look into it.

[alduric 10]

Confirmed, over 20 sec's more with ur mod.

[flyinpenguin 30]

Confirmed, over 20 sec's more with ur mod.

Yep, I just confirmed as well. I got about a 15 second difference. This will be fixed in the next version, I already have a sneaking suspicion as to what is causing it. Thank you for letting me know and testing it yourself!

Main post's known issues has been updated.

[alduric 10]

I just found it also, can i fix it for my team by myself? Or can u do fast update?

[flyinpenguin 30]

I just found it also, can i fix it for my team by myself? Or can u do fast update?

Feel free to edit as you please. I will push out an update as soon as I am able, which should be today.

---------- Post added at 18:30 ---------- Previous post was at 18:16 ----------

Well that was a lot sooner than I thought it was going to be. Updated to version 0.6.1!

ChangeLog:

v0.6.1 - Fixed - map loading times

Main post and download links have been updated.

[sonsalt6 105]

New update v0.6.1 available at withSIX. Download now by clicking:

[Maj D. Schultz 13]

thanks for the update! I plan to get those people together tomorrow to test this.

[flyinpenguin 30]

thanks for the update! I plan to get those people together tomorrow to test this.

Again, a big thank you from both me and N_Icomach!

[flyinpenguin 30]

Here is an update for today because I do not intend to push out an update today. I will start work on the next version once I get feedback from Karneck. It would be a bit silly to push out an update right before someone will have feedback from the last patch :P

Some feedback I have already received is to increase the amount of fatigue until the player falls over. Another thing that I have been thinking of adding is to increase the amount of fatigue it takes until you cannot sprint (albeit not by a lot, just a little)

I hope everyone is enjoying the mod as much as I do, especially when I see people in my group falling over because they thought they were clever in bringing all the ammo they could carry XD

Edited May 27, 2014 by flyinpenguin
grammar

[Maj D. Schultz 13]

Flyinpenguin,

Here is my feedback and from those who helped me conduct testing for today.

"Player starts hearing their heartbeat as they get fatigued"

Very cool too hear, however it is currently too soft. I understand you don't want it too loud block all other sounds out. However this could be increased some more as I could barely hear it. Is this due to volume levels set personally? I tend to keep my effects tuned lower than some.

"Player starts blinking as they get extremely fatigued // Player's peripheral vision becomes blurred while fatigued"

The fade's of black along the edges of your screen is a great indicator you've been running for abit. It doesn't get in the way and is the perfect way to let you know you are getting fatigued. The peripheral blur seems perfect to me, also the blinking is handled almost spot on. Maybe a more quick gentler fade in/out than a sudden blank out would be my preference and the suggestions of my testers. I understand this would require more layers and work for you.

Player falls down into prone position after severe fatigue

Brilliant, keep it in. We enjoyed calling each other names as well fell over. While it would be awesome to see a "stumble" animation like from ACE ARMA 2. I know that modeling and animation is a bitch and a half.

Also maybe after you fall prone the 1st time, wonder if it would be possible to "force" your character to walk until you've recovered stamina? So you still don't just keep jogging along like nothing happened.

Player's recoil values affected by fatigue level

Brilliant, keep it in. This is something that will take many hours of fine-tuning, but what you have in so far seems pretty on par. Although it didn't seem like the VTS weapons system was too disabled when using it after just falling right over while prone. But when you are kneeling or standing it is very noticeable. Which is good by me, even after running that far, laying down and resting your weapon, you will always be able to quickly compose yourself and line up a shot compared to kneeling and definitely not standing.

As mentioned before, I don't know where your current "Weight" level is set for what is considered "light", "medium", "heavy", and "extreme".

For us all testing was conducted with our weights roughly at the compass in our inventory screens. At this level we could run/jog 600-700 meters before falling over. This does need to be reduced to more like 300-400 meters.

That would be my suggestion for realism values at this point, is to have it set so that the compass/watch area is "heavy" and anything towards the end of the watch and past that is "extreme".

If possible create multiple userconfiq settings like.

1. Mil-Sim - Very forgiving weight, able to run long distance's.- Such as anything past watch is "heavy"

2. Realism - Not able to carry as much weight before the fatigue sets in. Anything past watch is "extreme"

3. Hardcore - Able to carry even less before fatigue sets in. Anything past Compass is "extreme"

To be fair though, BI's weight "bar" system is completely bonkers. For example, an M240 weighs roughly 25.6 pounds in real life. Yet in the "bar" system it only takes up [ ] that much space.

If you were to tune all weapons, clothes, ammo, and items, to their real world values and carry weight of a common US soldier, the "bar" would only get to MAYBE your radio on your inventory screen.

Oh! And to let you know, as far as I can tell. This mod plays nice with everything else I ran it with.

JSRS, TFAR, Nimitz, LIFTER, ARMA3 Mappack, my unit's clobbered together mod pack, LHM, Shacktack hud, and several other small client side additions.

It even ran great with the new AGM that was released, http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?178253-Authentic-Gameplay-Modification&p=2697700

in fact you might even want to contact them as work together on a fatigue system if you think your interests are aligned.

Anyway I hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions. Please keep this up!

[flyinpenguin 30]

Woke up today to this amazing present, thank you very much Karneck!

Im going to parse out the information and highlight the important information I am addressing and give each one a response.

"Player starts hearing their heartbeat as they get fatigued"

Very cool too hear, however it is currently too soft. I understand you don't want it too loud block all other sounds out. However this could be increased some more as I could barely hear it. Is this due to volume levels set personally? I tend to keep my effects tuned lower than some.

Im honestly not sure where bohemia puts regular sounds. I configured it while having all sounds at the same level, so it is likely that it is in effects. Then again I am using a sound system that amplifies lower ambient noises, so I will take another look with these in mind.

"Player starts blinking as they get extremely fatigued // Player's peripheral vision becomes blurred while fatigued"

The fade's of black along the edges of your screen is a great indicator you've been running for abit. It doesn't get in the way and is the perfect way to let you know you are getting fatigued. The peripheral blur seems perfect to me, also the blinking is handled almost spot on. Maybe a more quick gentler fade in/out than a sudden blank out would be my preference and the suggestions of my testers. I understand this would require more layers and work for you.

I am slightly confused by this. Do you mean, make the blink faster? Or do you mean, make the blink lighter and have less black time? Either way, this is actually easy to adjust.

Player falls down into prone position after severe fatigue

Brilliant, keep it in. We enjoyed calling each other names as well fell over. While it would be awesome to see a "stumble" animation like from ACE ARMA 2. I know that modeling and animation is a bitch and a half.

Also maybe after you fall prone the 1st time, wonder if it would be possible to "force" your character to walk until you've recovered stamina? So you still don't just keep jogging along like nothing happened.

Got something special in the works there ;) Will take some time however.

On the second part I highlighted, I intended for people to still be able to get up and run, IE when they are under fire or have mortars on them, they can still move even if they will stumble. Good suggestion, but I will keep this how it is.

For us all testing was conducted with our weights roughly at the compass in our inventory screens. At this level we could run/jog 600-700 meters before falling over. This does need to be reduced to more like 300-400 meters.

Well this one is awkward. I have received feedback that it should be increased as well. What I will do is make make multiple versions of the fatigue part and have it select-able in the userconfig as you suggested (It will be in terms of integers, IE '0,1,2' because it takes less memory). Since this is designed for realism units, I don't think there will be much issue with people abusing the userconfig to gain an advantage since they are all there to have as realistic experience as possible.

Final notes, I know you focused on the weight a bit, but I actually haven't touched those values yet. The entire system is based off of Bohemia's existing fatigue system which outputs a simple number. All I do is mess with that number. So everything to do with weight is already handled by bohemia. I believe how that is used is the players total weight is put into a formula that affects the players fatigue as they move. So a weight of 50.5 will affect the fatigue differently than a weight of just 50. Albeit not by much.

On the subject of the weight bar not being correct, that is completely up to the modders or bohemia. Any weapon mod you use or item mod is able to set their weight on the item, or weight capacity on the clothing item. Unfortunately, it is up to them to make sure it is accurate in both real life terms and how it is represented in game. So I hate to say there is nothing I can do and throw the ball in other's court, but that is literally the case here.

Again, thank you very much for the feedback! It is good to know that you enjoy the mod as well as the compatibility of it with your mod set! I have looked into AGM's work and am excited by their progress. I believe they still have a ways to go until it will be useful for my group. If they wish to use my mod within theirs or ask me about pointers to make their own, I am all to happy to assist if they ask. Though I believe they will be just fine without my help.

[Greenfist 1863]

For us all testing was conducted with our weights roughly at the compass in our inventory screens. At this level we could run/jog 600-700 meters before falling over. This does need to be reduced to more like 300-400 meters.

That would be my suggestion for realism values at this point, is to have it set so that the compass/watch area is "heavy" and anything towards the end of the watch and past that is "extreme".

The weight around the compass is really light. Like a rifle, sidearm, little ammo, nades, FAK, vest, helmet... Any soldier should be able to jog at least the 600m with that gear.

And the default gear of an AT soldier would be "extreme"?

@flyinpenguin: The mod isn't supposed to alter the actual fatigue level, is it? Only add the effects? Because I just tried jogging with the weight mentioned above and when the fatigue reached 1 after a 1100m run, it suddenly dropped to 0.7. So I was able to run (level ground, upright, gun lowered) 1700m before falling down. Was it just a glitch or intentional?

edit. Well of course you have to manipulate the default fatigue level to simulate the extreme exhaustion, "beyond" the 1 value. Clever. :)

Edited May 27, 2014 by Greenfist

[flyinpenguin 30]

Yup, you nailed it greenfist. That is normal dropping down to 0.7. I did this because I felt just getting to fatigue level 1 was too short. You will also notice that it will continue to do this as it reaches fatigue level 1 over and over again and I actually use it as a timer for each blink or event ;) And of course as you gain all these, what Im going to call "stacks", you have to lose them as well.

[Maj D. Schultz 13]

I am slightly confused by this. Do you mean, make the blink faster? Or do you mean, make the blink lighter and have less black time? Either way, this is actually easy to adjust.

Hmm I will try and put it into better wording. As it is right now, when you get close to blinking, you will see your screen on the edges glow softly into black and then there's a "sudden" black blink.

I guess what I'm saying is have the black edge glow just slowly overcome the whole screen in black and then slowly glows back out to the edges again.

It just my opinion that a "sudden" black blink out is a distraction and doesn't provide eyes with a gentle transition.

On the second part I highlighted, I intended for people to still be able to get up and run, IE when they are under fire or have mortars on them, they can still move even if they will stumble. Good suggestion, but I will keep this how it is.

I can understand your decision. Although if you were to run for so long as to tire yourself out as to fall over exhausted, how long would you be able to keep going at a run? Although I can agree, it is a game and we can only represent so many factors.

Also as you and greenfist pointed out. "weight" is something that is going to be up to BI or to modders. Every group/clan/unit is going to be different. So yeah, having those multiple setting's should help with each group in terms getting that level of fatigue either sooner or later depending on how they like to play.

One more note I just looked up, is that 1 mile = roughly 1600 meters. You can run a mile is 6 - 8 minutes with nothing but the clothes on you. But when you start adding in combat gear, which can get up to 50 or more pounds, the time it takes to "run" that is more. And if you are "combat" sprinting with that gear on, the distance you can go is even shorter.

Regardless, I'm still very happy with what is here and I'm excited to one day get this added to my own unit.