JAM3 - Beta testers

[Commando84 0]

yeah one thing i found out was that the new wepons don't lag down the game as much when you have 2-3 a.i's firing on you like the old jam2

I love the new textures but i have only one complaint why there isn't a ak-47 that looks more woodish

I would like to see John rambos mid east resistance ak-47 textures on one ak-47 weapon

other than that haven't found anything bad,

i loved the ballistics and tracers n so on in jam2 and the new version

[cornhelium 0]

Hi folks,

I'm sorry - we've decided not to include any new weapons models in JAM3. They overcomplicate things, bloat the filesize and distract from JAM's real purpose, which is to provide common magazines for balanced MP and inter-usability between weapons by different authors.

Still, let's look on the bright side. We've still got an expanded set of sounds, some extra features, and the chance to add and balance any ammo we need.

I will update the beta tonight, then sadly I have to leave any more development the capable hands of the beta team. I've reached the limits of my ability in OFP editing, and gone way over the limits of my available time already.  

Cheers friends  

Cornhelium

[king homer 1]

With tracers and ballistics I mean, take one of the new tracer scripts either Wolfbanes or BN880's. Also, most Assault Rifle don't use tracer ammunition. Most times they're used for machineguns, but most time only every 5th or 4th round.

For the ballistics, M4 and M16 don't have the same ballistics, M4 has a range of around 350m and M16A2 200m more, also there's a difference between M2 HB .50BMG and M82A1 .50BMG...

[miles teg 1]

With tracers and ballistics I mean, take one of the new tracer scripts either Wolfbanes or BN880's. Also, most Assault Rifle don't use tracer ammunition. Most times they're used for machineguns, but most time only every 5th or 4th round.

For the ballistics, M4 and M16 don't have the same ballistics, M4 has a range of around 350m and M16A2 200m more, also there's a difference between M2 HB .50BMG and M82A1 .50BMG...

Actually tracers are used in assault rifles during nightfire, but it depends on the Army and the type of unit.  Most US Army infantry units use IR laser targetting systems along with their NVG's, however support units, Reserve, and National Guard units may not have the fancy equipment and may still depend on the usage of tracers rounds in their rifles for night firing.

Plus other countries that use rifles that fire 5.56mm ammo may also use tracer ammo if they don't have the fancy IR laser targetting stuff on their rifles.

With most Armies that use AK's, tracer rounds are commonly used for night firing.  

However its a moot point.  The problem is that if you force mission makers to use a certain type of tracers they will NOT use the JAM3 pack.  At least I certainly wouldn't because I like to customize my tracers to fit what I think looks more realistic.  Even if you included BN880's or Wolfbane's tracer script in the pack as an option, it's not much different the a mission maker simply just downloading one of those two tracer addons and using it in the mission editor.  

The main reason why many players want tracers to be automatically put in the ammo is because they don't know how to type in a script in the mission editor's unit init box and how to change the variables.  Its extremely easy to do and takes usually just a few minutes to figure out as both tracer addons come with good readme files that explain stuff fairly clearly.  

As for the M4-vs.-M16A2 ballistics, yeah they are a little different, but out to 300 meters there isn't a whole lot of difference in bullet drop so I doubt people would notice the difference in OFP.   But I guess thats up to the JAM3 team as whether or not they want to make a seperate ammo type for 5.56mm carbine type weapons.  They would also need to do the same for the AK-74SU (or whatever its called...something like that) and other short barreled 5.45mm or 7.62x39mm weapons.  Similarly, the RPK-47/74's both have longer range then standard AK's even though they use the same ammo.  But its debatable whether the average OFP player would notice much of a difference.

Same with the .50 cal BMG ballistics in the M2 vs M82A1.

Both are very accurate out to 600 meters with a fairly flat trajectory out to that range.  So unless you got your video options set to a really long range of view and you're one heck of a shot with an M2 .50 cal HMG, most people wouldn't notice any difference.

That reminds me.... is there m2 ammo in JAM2?  I forgot.  If not, it would be nice to have some 12.7mm and 14.5mm HMG ammo for the M2 and DShK/NSV/Kord, ect... HMG's.  

In my mod, we use high dispersion ammo on our HMG's so that they're not quite so deadly and provide a more intense (and longer lasting) experience when you come under fire from HMG positions. Plus with Wolfbane's or BN880's tracers on them you get a lovely light show.

Chris G.

aka-Miles teg<GD>

[feersum.endjinn 6]

*Full backwards compatibility with all existing addons and missions that use JAM

BAS have given us a great opportunity here to get JAM just the way we want it, so now's the time to speak up. All you great addonmakers - FDF...

Well, main problem FDF as a team has with JAM is due to way OFP works - changing a mag changes all properties of weapon too. It is something you can't fix without sacrificing magazine compatibility and breaking backwards compatibility.

Problem is that because all same caliber weapons accept same magazines, it does not allow any kind of differentation in cases like 7.62 AKSU and Knight's SR-47 - they both are 7.62x39 weapons but due to way JAM works, they both will have same dispersion values and same sound effects even though they are two very different weapons from each other.

Other way to do it would be to have one magazine class per weapon type, so M16 and M4 would both have their own magazine classes and wouldn't accept each other's mags. It would destroy one of the basic ideas behind JAM that you couldn't just pick up ammo from battlefield (not that many people dare to do that in real life - like during Vietnam war at least US used leave special faulty AK ammo around that would destroy weapon and probably kill shooter when used), but at least it would help having compatibility between different addons.

The Right thing would be to have more classes in core game engine than just cfgAmmo and cfgWeapons, adding cfgMagazines would allow doing all above mentioned things right, and it would allow some other nifty things like each mag type having their own models (weapon model would just have magazine proxy)...

Summa summarum: maybe we'll switch to JAM in OFP2/FDFMod2, changing everything at this stage would be too much work... And weapons from era FDF team is concentrating on now didn't usually accept any mags but their own anyway...

[@cero 0]

A quik note to add on the read me please.

Can the amo slots be inclouded in the weapon and amunition information so scripting loadouts will be much easyer.

Its one thing that I got a bit fed up with, is to try to find how many slots in the inventory a grenade vest take, so if you incloude them all even in the ovious ones like rifle amunition that we all know takes 1 slot, it would make things a lot easyer.

Thanks.

Regards.

@CERO.

[ruff 102]

also

can the read me be in a txt format rather than acrobat?

it's just a hassle waiting for it to load and finding classnames takes too long

i know it's not much but i think the suggestion is worth it due to countless amounts of classnames

[Commando84 0]

i think the acrobat reader files was hard to find things in even though i think they had tried to make it better this time than the old jam 2 acrobat file

[cornhelium 0]

Thanks for the comments guys, some really interesting stuff here.

The JAM3 Beta Readme is currently a Word document, just like the MAAM readme. Is that OK?

Cheers,

CH

[jotte 0]

If it is in .rtf and not .doc . Not everyone have MS Word.

[theavonlady 2]

If it is in .rtf and not .doc .

I absolutely agree.

[Freshman 0]

Hi @ all

My first post in here.

I suggest to include a 4.6x30 (H&K MP7 PDW) in the new JAM

[ag_smith 0]

If it is in .rtf and not .doc .

I absolutely agree.

PDF would be the best option.

PDF995 - PDF virtual printer - this will let you convert .doc to .pdf easily.

[jotte 0]

Hard to copy and past from pdf for the end user ag_smith ......

[AgentFox2 0]

Awesome initiative, I can't wait!

As far as suggestions for new ammo types, etc., all I want is a couple more types of grenade vests. I really like the 24 round vests we have now, but one drawback is that it takes up 5 whole ammo slots, only leaving room for 5 magazines for the ballistic component of the weapon. Would it be possible to have a larger variety, with different number of rounds, and corresponding slot space?

For example, perhaps something like this for the M203:

24 round vest - 5 spaces

12 round vest - 3 spaces

and of course the single round taking up 1 space

What do ya'll think?

[ZiRo 0]

Look, JAM will not take off until universal decisions are made on Unarmoured and Armoured values of Soldiers, ASWELL as vehicles.

The sounds sucked in the JAM's i've tested and i could complain about the tracers aswell.

I've seen about 3 'Joint Ammo and Magazines' or 'Mutually Agreed Ammo and Magazines'

A good piece of PR work by the avon.

[Commando84 0]

The sounds in the latest version ( 3 ) rulez!!!

I thought the old sounds in jam 2 where okay but now they are exellent , i got the community sound pack installed on top too

[cornhelium 0]

The sounds in the Private JAM3 beta are the same as the sounds for MAAM1.3.

Both MAAM soundpacks, in both repeater and non-repeater format, are planned to be released for JAM. It will just be a matter of the user swapping which JAM_Sounds.pbo is used.

So, if you want to hear how the new JAM will sound, check out MAAM

Cheers,

CH

[@cero 0]

Awesome initiative, I can't wait!

As far as suggestions for new ammo types, etc., all I want is a couple more types of grenade vests. I really like the 24 round vests we have now, but one drawback is that it takes up 5 whole ammo slots, only leaving room for 5 magazines for the ballistic component of the weapon. Would it be possible to have a larger variety, with different number of rounds, and corresponding slot space?

For example, perhaps something like this for the M203:

24 round vest - 5 spaces

12 round vest - 3 spaces

and of course the single round taking up 1 space

What do ya'll think?

That sounds good, good thinking.

That would make you have more flexibility when it comes to choosing what is the grenadier reall going to be doing in a mission.

BTW,do the grenade vest take 5 slots, cos I really got confused yesterday doing a weapons loadout script,lol.

I was thinking if the back packs could be added into jam, one for East, one for West and one for Resistance. I know that it is not a weapon and that it requieres models, textures and scripting that would make the file size much bigger, and a hole new section on the readme/s, but if someone came with a script/s that can make the AI use this bag packs proply then the introduction of them in JAM would certanly make it more interesting.

But thinking about it, you would need a lot of ressearch, and so on, and it would give a bunch of new buggs, etc, so forget it.

I won't delete what I just writed because that may give somebody some ideas lol.

Regards.

@CERO

[ruff 102]

word or txt format

i'd rather keep it in the computer rather than print it out.

pdf u have to manually search for the pages while txt docutments u can use the "find" function.

[cornhelium 0]

Hi all,

Just to let you know that MAAM has been updated to version 1.31.

This brings it exactly into line with the JAM3 Beta2 that the team are currently working on, so you can base your comments and criticisms on that.

If you want to check it out, please visit the thread HERE.

Thanks

CH

[@cero 0]

Why no do it on HTML and on wordpad so everybody can get both?

Regards.

@CERO.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Now someone has to convert all of the really good weapon packs out there in to MAAM, or JAM 3. I would do it with permission from the creators.

Anyways, hey yea so I sent both cornhelium and theavonlady a PM about beta testing, just wondering if you received it?

[cornhelium 0]

Heya Kyle,

This would be Avon's decision now mate. I know she's busy with RL so hang tight

Cheers,

CH

[theavonlady 2]

I'm sorry folks. I am oh so busy that I do not have much time for anything now that isn't family or work related.

Listen up!

- The handful of people who PM'd me about beta testing should be allowed in.

- REMINDER: JAM is not a mod. It is an addon - major difference! That means that JAM is not forced on everyone or on everything that happens in OFP. It is extremely important to keep this in mind. The goal here is to create ballistics and magazine standards that soldier/weapon addon makers can use as standardization. Even that can be optional, as we've seen examples in the past of solider/weapon addons issued without reference to JAM as well as with a separate addon file that makes them JAM compatible.

- REMINDER: JAM is not a weapons replacement addon. JAM does not force anyone's weapon model into OFP. On the contrary! Anyone's weapon model can be made JAM compatible with relative ease.

If you want a weapons replacement mod, look elsewhere, like the EECP, Y2K3 and FlashFX mods or create your own overriding mod and compete with them. But don't look at JAM. Wrong place. Wrong idea.

I already mentioned way back when I introduced MAAM as the future continuation of JAM that I have neither the time to manage this nor the technical expertise to configurate the addon nor the military knowledge of what ballistic attributes are best for OFP's weapons.

Cornhelium took up the batton and did a great job of improving MAAM tremendously, as well as getting the help of many OFP'ers in compiling the new sounds that are being offered.

Now Cornhelium, too, must get back to real life. Someone else must pick up the batton. That someone should be minimally addon-savvy and be willing to push the beta testers into completing their tests so that JAM3 can be released to everyone ASAP.

It won't end there. You already brought up new ideas and ammo suggestions that are in line with JAM's purpose. These should be addressed in a later release of JAM3.

Finally, let's not forget to thank Digital Grenade and BAS for JAM, which is all their original doing. Also a big thanks to BAS for letting us revert back to JAM tags to retain complete upward compatibility with existing JAM2 addons and missions.

Let's roll!