G.Drunken 24 Posted March 4, 2019 Since I started playing ArmA III quite some time ago, I always wanted to help other players, share the knowledge I gathered and make the game a lot more interesting and entertaining. As soon as I got the game, I installed ACE3. From that point on, I've never touched vanilla ArmA III. ( unless there was some retexturing work being made, right? ) I was always interested in ballistics (in ArmA III, not RL), so I've tried to follow up on some tutorials on how things are done and what I should keep my eyes on. So after hours and hours of testing, taking notes and doing manual calculations with the help of Kestrel and a Rangecard (offered ingame), I've managed to make it work without using ATragMX. Simple, quick and easy at least from my PoV, less time consuming and a bit challenging. Brings enjoyment and fun into the game. I've also had my friends follow up on the guide, to see if they understand what I wrote and what I'm talking about, to check if the things I wrote about setting up the scope are correct and what not… The results were excellent and some have even recommended it to other fellow players. Why am I telling You this? I don't know, maybe because I want to get your attention on what I have to offer and that this is solid, thus the glorious amount of hours smashed into the guide were not wasted. The guide does get updated, but due to the lack of time because of RL, it does get delayed. Without further ado...https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1078577824 Please, do leave comments. I'd like to hear what others have to say about it. The guide has it all explained. Enjoy and good hunting! / / / / / / / / / / / / Small edit: If I missed the section regarding the topic, then do please move it to where it belongs. Thank you in advance. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dedmen 2590 Posted March 4, 2019 13 hours ago, G.Drunken said: in ArmA III, not RL With ACE, you get almost perfect representation of RL ballistics, atleast calculation wise, to the point where RL ballistic calculations translate 1to1 to the game. For example I use a real ballistics calculator app on my phone called "Strelok" to do all my calculations. It also has a nice integrated tool to calculate the maximum point blank range, which is very useful in a marksman role. Looking into the guide Quote you need to place the following modules before starting the mission Modules were removed over a year ago. Quote I am not familiar with the imperial system. Sorry. Nothing I can do about it. Not a problem, most of ACE is metric anyway. The text on the third image in 2.1.0 is confusing. People who look at it will think the text means distance, thus 5 mildots == 5km away, which is not the case. What purpose do the distances on the top left there serve anyway? Quote As you can see on the rangefinder, we guessed the distance. Well you calculated it using geometry. 2.1.1 the Vector can also display angle to target and height difference. 2.1.2 the microDAGR can also connect to the Vector and has a couple more features. Quote Enable Wind Deflection module in-game before testing or playing the mission you have created. Wind Deflection and Advanced Ballistics are separate things. As a Sniper you probably don't care about Wind Deflection because it will be disabled anyway if you have Advanced Ballistics enabled. Quote This is something called Crosswind. A wind blowing across one's direction of travel, in our case, wind messing up our bullet's flight path a.k.a. bullets trajectory. Headwind also messages up the trajectory, just not horizontally. Quote Wind does not blow at the same direction, at the same speed on different locations on different heights, so keep that in mind! It is completely randomized! No it's not random, there is some sense to it. For example between buildings or a bunch of trees all the obstacles obstruct the wind, thus less wind. Also higher up there is more wind than closer to the ground, not "randomized" at all. Quote We have 3, probably even more wind layers when it comes to ArmA III ACE3 modification Wind strength changes with height, so theoretically there are infinitely many "wind layers" (Only in Advanced Ballistics, not in Wind Deflection, as I said they are seperate) Here is the function that calculates the wind speed: https://github.com/acemod/ACE3/blob/master/addons/weather/functions/fnc_calculateWindSpeed.sqf Quote This is how wind works most of the time ingame. If that refers to there being 3 levels of wind, all with definite percentages of wind strength, then no. Not really. It is important to note that if you fire over a valley, the height above the ground will be ALOT greater than from your shooter position, so you have to expect alot higher wind strength over the bullet travel. Quote Again, it can be randomized, meaning, the percentage (%) can change from time to time when ingame, it all depends on the weather. Actually no, it can't. Global wind speed in general can change, but the difference depending on height is pure math without any randomness. Quote Sometimes it can happen, that wind changes the strength layout. Meaning, when you are prone, the wind strength is 30%, when crouching 20%, when standing 70%. Quite strange. No, that shouldn't be possible and if that happens it's a bug. But it could happen that the wind strength changes so rapidly that the wind just changed in the time you changed from prone to crouching. Or maybe the wind direction changed and you are not in the correct orientation anymore to measure it correctly, or the direction changed and the wind now flows around obstacles instead of being blocked by them. Quote As said before, wind doesn't work the same in different places on different heights. It's randomized. As I said multiple times already, not randomized. Quote But it can also be that when the bullet is flying, different wind layouts (that could be different every 100 meters or more) are shifting the bullet left and right, up and down ACE does not simulate "rotating wind" like microbursts or similar, all wind goes into the same direction, just strength changes. All the wind values come from: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/wind Which is just the global wind direction vector that is completely position independent and the same over the whole map. The wind usually stays the same direction while your bullet flies, unless you fire exactly at the moment where the wind direction changes globally. Quote If the terrain is flat, then the wind speed and strength in all layers, depending on the direction, will have the same base speed, with very minor changes in speed. Base wind speed is global over the full terrain, so yes. But the speed can still have major differences depending on height. You can test this by executing [(eyePos ACE_player) vectorAdd [0,0,200], true, true, true] call ace_weather_fnc_calculateWindSpeed; In debug console. The "200" part of the vectorAdd is the height above your head. You can just try out different heights and see how the wind blows in that height. Quote So if you start climbing up the hill, you will obviously see that speed, strength, probably even direction is changing because there are areas where the modules are actually working very well. Which modules? It might be that the hill is blocking the wind. 3.0.2 it might be interesting to you that the color of the Arrow is chosen based on the Beaufort scale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale#Modern_scale The dots also display the Beaufort Number. Quote Here is the table I made: The table is not far off of the Beaufort Scale, but might aswell just link to the real table. Quote Direction of the wind effects the bullets trajectory. Unless the wind is facing 12 o' clock or 6 o' clock. Second sentence is wrong. The wind is either carrying the bullet, or working against it. Meaning the bullet will drop off faster/slower. Also "affects" not "effects" Quote The picture I'm about to show you explains how the wind strength affects the bullet when using the clock system as a wind direction identification Picture is not accurate, wind speed based on direction is multiplied by the cosine of the angle difference. Meaning at 45° the wind strength is 70% not 50. The code for this is here: https://github.com/acemod/ACE3/blob/master/addons/kestrel4500/functions/fnc_measureWindSpeed.sqf#L24 Let's say the player is looking towards east, and the wind is blowing towards north-east (45°) That means wind speed will be (windSpeed * abs(cos(90-45))) -> (windSpeed * 0.707) Whereas your picture shows that the wind speed would be (windSpeed * 0.5). That is probably close enough, but not really accurate. If you want to reference a different ACE Sniping tutorial you can take a look at this one: https://forums.bohemia.net/forums/topic/205880-arma-3-ace3-sniper-tutorial-very-quick-simple-easy-12-steps/ It shows a chart with the correct wind value per direction values (Search for "Here's some trick to estimate Downrange Wind"). Quote I've mentioned how wind is randomized, the same goes for height when it comes to wind. No and no. Quote Well, just like in real life, the wind deflection module ingame works pretty nice and does its job. You are shooting with Advanced Ballistics, that means the wind deflection module is doing nothing at all. Section 4.0 Quote If the wind is blowing at a hill or a mountain, there are 50/50 chances that the wind will either move along the path (sliding up and down the hill or a mountain with random wind speed change) or it will bounce off the hill or a mountain (changing the direction and speed). No, speed changes, but not direction. Here come the images of the Vector while you are talking about height difference, just let the vector tell you the real height difference. https://ace3mod.com/wiki/feature/vector.html#24-horizontal-distance-and-height-difference Quote By looking at the results, we can see that the wind speed is lower around the target with wind direction not being changed. The main cause of this is probably the trees around the unit. They are obstacles that influence the wind strength. Quote It is all random No it's still not random at all. Quote Wind speed: 2.6 MPS or m/s (at 100%) Please just use m/s instead of MPS. MPS is not a official SI Unit Symbol. Quote that the wind is facing your 4 o' clock, so that means the wind strength is 65%. No, 4 o'clock is 86%. Also, why 4 o'clock? Above in the wind summary you wrote that wind direction is 2 o'clock. Section 5.0.MILDOTS Quote Now I'll show you with a minor example You already had a example, you just did the example calculations for that 1293m target, could just reuse that, combined with a scope image so that the user can see it for himself too. Section 5.1 Quote When increasing and decreasing the zeroing on the scope, you will see that the numbers go like this That depends on the scope, there are scopes with more/less fine-grained control over zeroing. Section 6.0 Maybe you should explain how to set up the scope, before you explain how to get the values that need to be configured on the scope. Quote 7.62x51mm rounds, no tracer The exact type of Ammo is important as it defines what Ballistic Coefficient and Muzzle Velocity the bullet will have. You are shooting 7.62x51mm M118LR Quote The gun I'll be using is the Mk.11 a.k.a. SR-25 or M110 That doesn't match your rangecard. The SR-25/mk11 has a 24" barrel, but your range card shows a 20" barrel. You are using the "Mk11 Mod 0 (EC)" which does indeed have a 20" barrel. Quote In order to get the distance, you don't need only range. You need the temperature. distance == range. You need temperature too, but that doesn't have anything to do with the distance. You should also take the slope into account, aka the height difference to your target, you are not doing that in your calculations. The zeroing at 0° slope is 3.93mrad, but let's say the target is 13° downwards, your zeroing changes to 3.79mrad. Section 7.0 You calculate the wind correctly to 0.6 (0.57 would be the correct value if your 4 o'clock is really correct) but in the screenshot below you configure the wind to -0.6 you are compensating for wind coming from the left, but 4 o'clock is to your right, so you should have positive wind correction. If you fix all the mistakes then this will be the best "basic" guide to shooting with ACE Advanced Ballistics. A real sniper would probably want to use a ballistics calculator though, might be worth mentioning some things for people that want to use a calculator. Mainly where to get the data from (ACE Arsenal stats shows most stuff that's needed). Btw where did you find my comment about pre-calculation certain land marks? I remember having said that but I don't remember where. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
G.Drunken 24 Posted March 4, 2019 @Dedmen Thanks for this quite an interesting comment, not going to lie, I do feel a bit... sad. But no worries, nice to have people replying and mentioning/reporting the mistakes. As probably mentioned and can be seen, the sections do need to be updated. I only added minor updates to cover up some of the spelling mistakes and what not, but the guide was created over a year and a half ago, back when things used to work as mentioned, so it does need a complete rework. I have not added any major updates since the release. The comment you posted is still there, in the comments section below the guide, page 4. 🙂 https://imgur.com/a/5yhfWe4 If this is what you were looking for and does match with what is up in the topic. The mildots thing was supposed to represent something and honestly, I've got no clue what I wanted to point out, regarding its importance and what not. I was thinking of removing it anyways or do a bit more Research into it, but I am not sure if it is actually needed. Most of the things I have experienced as a marksman unit was explained and based on what I thought was ok (again, talking from my PoV, but I'll see if there's a need for any drastic changes). My goal was to not include detailed information that even myself, do not understand that much. I am aware it does sound… like I do not wish to be responsible for giving away such information without further knowledge of it, but the idea was to keep it as simple as possible, to make the player understand the very basics of setting up a scope in a simple (or what I think, a more primitive way) and make shots on ranges where a normal rifleman with iron sights is not able to reach. But I have nothing else to say, I'm only trying to show what I think is best for beginners, that's all. I also want to add up that most of the things mentioned and explained will be reworked and cut down. (Not going to lie, it does look like there's just too much text mixing up sentences and things I wanted to explain using these sentences, as I've also seen on what you quoted. The wind sections are a very good example of it.) I will work on that. On the side, college is a bit in the way at the moment, IT sector is a really interesting place. Also finishing up a retexture mod that will be released soon on Steam workshop, so my hands at the moment are a bit busy with these things. I will correct the mistakes in the guide soon. Again, thanks for yet another reply. 🙂 (I am not being sarcastic btw, even though I do sound like I am…) NOTE: Solid and well constructed comments such as the one @Dedmen has posted is yet another reason why I have not given up on the guide. 🙂 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dedmen 2590 Posted March 4, 2019 4 hours ago, G.Drunken said: to cover up some of the spelling mistakes Besides that one affect/effect one I didn't notice any while reading, and I did read every single word of the guide. 4 hours ago, G.Drunken said: The comment you posted is still there, in the comments section below the guide, page 4. Yeah I know, but where did you get that from? Where did I post that originally? Probably on Arma Discord somewhere. I was confused as to how you found it considering I posted that soo long ago, but if you wrote the guide a year ago that explains it. 4 hours ago, G.Drunken said: The mildots thing was supposed to represent something and honestly, I've got no clue what I wanted to point out, regarding its importance and what not. I was thinking of removing it anyways or do a bit more Research into it, but I am not sure if it is actually needed. A player could pre-calculate at what.. uh.. How to say.. Which mildot stands for how much scope zeroing. So that he can quickly just use for example the 3rd mildot on 600m distance, instead of calculating and setting zeroing first. But that stuff will be weapon dependent. But still not a bad idea to prepare, to be able to go directly from rough distance to shooting. After all for a marksman role, quick shooting is more important than for a Sniper. 4 hours ago, G.Drunken said: Not going to lie, it does look like there's just too much text Didn't feel too much text to me while I read it, though some things are explained multiple times (like getting distance from mildots is in there twice I think). Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
G.Drunken 24 Posted June 19, 2019 DrunkeN reporting in. For all those interested in Marksmanship, I've updated the guide. Overhaul, better to say. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1078577824 Note: Section 3.2 - Headwind & Tailwind [ Coming soon! ] , has no content yet, but will be added soon. Good and bad critics on formal level are always welcome, so please, knock yourselves out. 🙂 Thank You all for having interest. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Dedmen 2590 Posted July 4, 2019 Thanks for the update. Even though I know most of this stuff I still love reading such things, because there can always be things you don't know or didn't think of yet! Let's start reading and throwing feedback at you 😄 Quote the caluclator is still WIP. Typo Quote (For an unknown reason, I was not able to find any compat files for RHSSAF, if anyone does find it, link it in the comments and I'll put the link here. Thanks in advance! ) There are none yet. Quote The reason I excluded this specific gadget is because I don't use it. Those who know more about marksmanship than me, might think of this as rediculous Nah not at all. I also can't get used to the AtragMX at all. I never use it. I use the Strelok app, and I even wrote myself a script to easily generate the rifles database based on Arma information https://github.com/dedmen/StrelokRifleGenerator Quote The Vector 21b nite is the best rangefinder Should be "Vector 21B Nite" Quote 3rd - I've got no clue and never used it. I assume that's for when you are trying to shoot at a moving target. It tells you how many mils you need to lead ahead if the object is moving at 1mps Quote I wanted to add this seection because it is also needed. Typo Quote Locking down the numbers Mathematical term would be "Interpolating" 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Von Quest 1161 Posted July 5, 2019 Okay Dedmen, if I ever start a MilSim Gaming Company ....you're hired! LOL Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
G.Drunken 24 Posted July 5, 2019 I am happy to see not so many errors were made on my side. Thanks for spotting the errors, once more. :'D Thanks for checking it out and reporting back. I'll fix these things ASAP. I am very happy as well, due to the fact that I have been receiving positive feedback not just here, but also in the comments section of the guide itself and other websites, thus received support to keep up the good work. I actually... did something good. °° (_) Thank You all. 🙂 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
