Speculations and facts

[meyamoti 0]

This thread is mostly dedicated to getting some things out of the clear,considering OFP:E was on xbox and had more limits than PC,AA will no doubt include the things that were seen on it,I'll go down a small list,feel free to add any of your own. Some may see this as useless but this is info for people that don't have an xbox or OFP:E,this should probably be in the xbox area of the forum however I am merely using these cases as prehaps additions to AA.

Ricochet-hand held-

First,ricocheting bullets...well BIS has confirmed this and everything,I was however curious as if it were in OFP:E. After testing with the M16A2 I didn't see much,or too much,so I decided to grab a higher rate of fire weapon,the M60. I noticed that the bullets ricochet at certain angles,if you have it too close to your foot apparently the bullet drives into the ground,however when I shot at a 65 or so degree angle,I noticed the bullets would ricochet and go back into the air,I unloaded a clip and to my suprise,the bullets when in different directions,I was expecting them to follow a simple line but instead they splashed out.

ricochet-vehicles- First up was the AH-1,it was a bit hard to make out due to the "flare" caused by the chaingun,however I did notice the bullets would ricochet as well,and even have their explosive properties when they would land on their next "Target". I did however notice that you generally get more of this ricocheting when you move the gun,even barely,this would make sense though. The "anti infantry" tanks BMP and Bradley didn't really show much ricochet other than machine gun.

Rain-

Anyone remember OFP with rain? No matter what,the damn rain would be everywhere,so even if you get into a vehicle you had it raining in your vehicle? Well this seems fixed...I first noticed it on the water test run with the BRDM,it was pouring and when I got into the vehicle I noticed the rain was "cut off" from inside the vehicle,meaning the only place I could see the rain was the window. Well I tested this theory with pretty much all vehicles,same thing,no more worrying about getting rain into our vehicle,yay.

Rotor failure?-

The first time I played OFP:E with the blackhawk missions I accidently hit a tree just hard enough..I noticed my blackhawk would them start spinning uncontrollable as if I ruined the tail rotor. Just now I was doing a test to see how deep I could get a CH-47 into water (and if got more than halfway without damage). However I got too deep,and started spinning,when I pulled up and out I was still spinning and noticed that apparently the back rotors were barely spinning,they were spinning but not fast enough for the "spinning animation". I tested this with the blackhawk again and similar,only the rotor was still moving fast.

Shine-

I noticed that the shine on objects heavily relies on the weather,in clear weather you get alot of shine,and at the right angle some vehicles will appear sun reflective,very bright. I noticed also causes the bump maps to show the highest,causing at times,the soldier to look odd. I then tested the "midgrounds' I noticed things looked more real,bump maps weren't as strong and there wasn't as much shine,only on the chinook (but they seem to have that irl too) and windows of vehicles,but the shine wasn't even bright enough there. And then I tested the rainy weather. Well the bump maps were pretty much gone at this one,very little,if any shine on anything really.

Shadows- Shadows are cast on all object,yes,unless in rainy weather,in sunny or cloudy weather you will see shadows reflected on objects and soldiers,a soldiers shadow will appear on a humvee,wall,a tree,anything,I first noticed this on the "Armstrong lone soldier escape only to be captured" mission

-Water- Water is mostly heavily dependent upon the weather.

1. Clear sky- The water will be very calm and still,almost seeming like a large floor of blue,water also does not kill you nearly as quickly as in OFP. Clear weather also seems to get rid of the bump map on the water,it seems more of a mix of two colors up close,but it holds an aqua green appearence.

2. Cloudy- In cloudy weather the water has its waves and some bump maps,although calm,the sea stirs and you can see it,its quite nice to walk onto a dock and put your gun on your back,and just stare at the ocean.

Stormy- In stormy weather the waves will be at their max as well as the bump maps,but don't worry,their not overly done,but they look great. In this "mode" you can see waves as far as you can see until the fog comes in.

The water is semi transparent,this means that if you look at a vehicle outside of the water,take the BRDM for example,you will see its tires and a bit of the sandy ocean floor. Your vehicle,especially the boats,will move differently depending on the weather,if clear,you will move calmly,quickly and easily,in cloudy weather you will have a bump here and there and a slight decrease in speed,you will move up and down a slight bit,in stormy weather the waves will give you a bit of hell and slow you down even more,your boat move and down even more AND your boat will tend to "jump" if it meets a wave just right.

Running over objects-

Do you remember the fences that could easily taken down with just a tap of any vehicle? I tested it recently with the humvee,which was able to do the same,knock em down like paper. However I noticed that after a few knockovers,the vehicle had to gain a certain speed to take down a fence segment,it also stopped me and then I had to regain my speed,there was no breaking it down and simply going to the next unaffected. It had more of a solid feel,even small trees would give you hell,even a tank.

Lights-

Lights are kinda interesting...if you shoot off a flare then the area around the flare generally has the color of that flare,best tested at noon or night. Some of the flashing lights also did the same,this can perhaps mean that we could have lights on a vehicle and they could give a dim hue of the color,helpful is anyone would do indoor enviroments. The lights on the vehicles are also alot smoother,remember in OFP how the light worked,but the area it brightened seemed kind of blocky? In OFP its much smoother and better,oddly enough water does not reflect at all,and those cones are still there.

Sun damage?-

I firstly noticed this in resistance campaign,when I would look at a different direction of some place I noticed my screen would change color...well...I just tested this in the editor,only I stared directly at the sun..when I looked down the enviroment had a orangish hue to it,wich eventually turned green and normal again.

Suspension-

Easily found,simply ride along a road or any path with the external view,the tires of the vehicle will m ove up and down accordingly,and so will the part connected to the tire (axle?) . One of the things I'm curious about..is in AA will you be able to "break" your vehicle by having too much impact on the wheels,riding off a mountain so to speak,in OFP you just gain fast speed,in OFP:E kinda same.

And so I am out of things to post atm,if anyone would like to post some of their speculations or facts then please do so,I know this thread is about OFP:E stuff but its mostly possible and probably so,features that will be in AA,and its to get a bit of general confusion out of the way,now to go back and stare at the beautiful ocean...

[kernriver 4]

Thanks for the info meyamoti, i never really knew what changes were made in OFP: Elite

[meyamoti 0]

Your welcome there are more but other than the more immersive and living enviroments I can't think of any...tree's aren't so scarce,their kind of similar to the ones we have seen in the new pictures.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Hey you're right about the choppers, they even spin faster when you increase torque and slower when you decrease it. It does, however, still rain inside of buildings...

[Guest Ti0n3r]

Some stuff;

Rain

A. It doesn't rain inside buildings (Though I've seen rain in tents)

B. When it's raining you'll see a suitable amount of splashes on the ground.

C. Better sound effects of course.

Sound in general

Soundwave simulation. Sound won't travel through walls, soldiers, vehicles, objects etc.

Better weapon (etc) sound effects.

Command menu

These commands are no longer there;

Wait for me

Take cover

Engage

At ease

Stay alert

Danger

Stealth

Flank left

Flank right

Form stagged column

Form vee

This proves that Elite is dumbed down quite a lot.

Radio

More fluent speech + proper english. Like this; Seven, move to that bush at 10 o'clock.

AI

Soldiers under your command will use the behaviour mode they think suits the situation. This doesn't work very good though. They don't keep formation when moving etc etc. It feels like they were "smarter" in OFP cause of this.

The AI is in general alot better. But there's still some things that are pretty much as bad as in OFP.

Other

Elite looks very good. There's quite alot of effects, and still the FPS is smooth most of the time. Anyone with a P4 class computer should be able to run ArmA without major problems. Maybe not maxed out, but it'll look much better than OFP even if you're using a crappy PIII.

Btw, the close up texturers of the uniform material are the best ones I've seen in any game. One have to see it to belive it.

PS: I will add more later.

[meyamoti 0]

Oh yeah,another thing in sound would be that if you fire enough rockets from a helicopter or something for a quick period of time,your game goes "deaf" momentarily.

I never noticed the splashes in the rain,will have to check this out.

Buildings? Can't say I tried going into one so I wouldn't know...but I can understand why,there might be a layer or something in the vehicle that causes the rain to "not get in" but its not on buildings,I'm not sure.

I'll attempt to get some pictures later,quality wont be best and color may be a bit screwed up.

Very true about the closeup textures,closeup you can see all the scratches on military vehicles and even the threads on infantry clothing.

[codarl 1]

The reason why rain doesn't gets inside of vehicles is because in vehicles, everything that is not part of it, is kept out.

Here comes an easy test for those of you who have FDF: Shoot down one of those enourmous radio masts, and try to get as close to one of those concrete blocks (that connect large steel cables to the ground) as possible. You'll see what I mean.

I haven't noticed wether rain in OFP for PC does this, but I believe it does. The reason why it doesn't works in buildings is because you are not in a "proxy" (driver/gunner/commander/cargo) of a building.

Maybe here's an idea: Go sit in the back of a 5T truck during rain, and look wether the rain falls between you and the opposite couch .

[Randy 0]

Good thread, very handy info thanks.

[Average Joe 0]

Look closely and IT DOES rain inside buildings!

[meyamoti 0]

Helicopters over water kick up more particles that on ground...

[maxqubit 1]

Running over objects-

Do you remember the fences that could easily taken down with just a tap of any vehicle? I tested it recently with the humvee,which was able to do the same,knock em down like paper. However I noticed that after a few knockovers,the vehicle had to gain a certain speed to take down a fence segment,it also stopped me and then I had to regain my speed,there was no breaking it down and simply going to the next unaffected. It had more of a solid feel,even small trees would give you hell,even a tank.

I tried this with an Abrams tank. I placed the tank very gently against a tree. Then i went forward, with more and more power ... the tree didn't gave way! But if i went back some meters and went full speeds at the tree i of course ran it down. ... Quite impressive.

Otoh i found out that a runned down tree doesn't work as a block for bullets/vehicles. You shoot/drive right thru them (at least in my test). So while it works as visual block, it doesn't serve as physical block.

PS: Add the Did you know with more info on specific OFP:E things

[meyamoti 0]

Not sure that I can..anyway..Okay I have gotten the projector set up and all..I don't have a digital camera sadly and I can't really get the webcam too close to the picture (cord length) so the following videos if not just one,will have crappy eh..showing and whatnot..however its to show some things..anyway.

First up,water. with my very crappy eh..video..heres hoping nobody gets eye damage.

The size isn't even in megs,moreso around 300kb,I didn't want to take up much space due to the crappy quality.

Now its kind of hard to tell and once more I apologize.

Also I'm using megaupload until I get a place to upload them that wont take long..I don't know of any

Btw if anyone knows any better methods to get these then please share because I'm new at this..anyway..

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=KK2AEHMD Here is how the water acts when its storming,as you can see there is tide, but waves,none of that up and down stuff.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6MZ5RQVV Here we can see the stormy water moving up and down,but in motioning tides,also messing with the contrast a bit here..due to teh LCD on my projector it varies in weather..luckily I'm using my TV and not the projector to move around..ah damn the water just killed me after alot of waves.

This is the water at the middle of weather bar,not too rough but there are waves there. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=6PCC7NT5

Alright...how about a leaning one? Well heres a video of my camera showing how it cant capture motion well,nor changes between light. As you can see,leaning could be a pretty important part in fighting entirely,not just urban.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2Z7GYN86

You guys might find this a bit interesting,one my strolling into town I came onto a church and noticed a fountain beside,well I took a look at the fountain and heres what I saw.

Now you might be wondering how this could possibly be on any importance,watch the water carefully,its animated,and yet it has no up and down movements,not to mention a nice quiet sloshing sound with it. (sorry no sound in vids)

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=S862XKD8

Unfortunatly my camera couldnt capture the physics of vehicles hitting one another due to speed and such. And unfortunatly there was a really interesting feat I couldn't duplicate,I was playing the race mission (races,with varius civilian vehicles(instant action)) and I chose the T-55,I hit the very first civilian car and somehow the car flipped up and threw the dead guy out..well he landed ontop of my T-55 and solidly STAYED there as I moved,he was flung off as I stopped however,an interesting collision thing there...

This one shows my cameras suckability to capture motion yet again..watch the barrels carefully..

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=RAHCP3RG

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=D6CVJ64I This one may seem a bit confusing,first off all,I havent been controlling the chinooks spinning at all,its doing that by itself,second,if you look at the front you cannot see the main rotor and yet you can the rear,why? Well thats because the rear tandem rotor isn't moving fast enough to move in blur mode,so here I am..spinning and having mainly one rotor...hooray.

The following demonstrates particles,water in this case.

and it also demonstates that if you do a water resue,be careful about it. There is also something else I noticed here,if you look closely at the rotors positions near the end (mostly go by the assembly,not the blades since its easiest to see due to the light) IF you look...you will notice the tandems actually move,moving in hover the rotors are straight,in forward they lean forward and reverse,backwards,depending on pitch of course. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=W9429Q76 I'll see if I can get better visual and test it on other helicopters..

Seems to be a chinook only thing so far.

While testing the hind I noticed landing gear retracts and comes out itself,video demonstration.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=YEXOM2S3

NOTE: gear will not come out over water unless helicopter has stopped and is hovering.

Remeber those barrels that would sit around and do nothing?

A very vague and rather hard to see...video of some physics.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=F4H1TML4

Due to the quality and whatnot I can't really show anymore,such as the flares at their best at night time and all that..all I can say is,if you have OFP:E,feel free to try out some stuff,run over a barrel or two,you might be suprised at how they roll straight and sometimes sideways. All in all,I think OFP:E is OFP 1.5,Armed Assault if OFP1.8

[Blanco 0]

Quote[/b] ]Also I'm using megaupload until I get a place to upload them that wont take long..I don't know of an

http://s2.gimehost.com/ (up to 250Mb, supports split-archives & NO download limits!

http://www.ezshare.de/

I've downloaded your vids, but I can't see a thing

What compression are you using?

...hm Indeo Interactive...

ok, I found the right codec : http://www.codec-download.com/modules....&lid=51

Quote[/b] ]Do you remember the fences that could easily taken down with just a tap of any vehicle? I tested it recently with the humvee,which was able to do the same,knock em down like paper...etc

Yeah, I saw this it in the pressdemo video when that M113 hits a small tree

[meyamoti 0]

Thanks,I'll keep that place bookmarked,all files have been rehosted from there,and the compression? Avi format.

the fountain- http://s2.gimehost.com/v/1480796/Video_12.avi.html

the leaning one,I shoulda included crouching >< -

http://s2.gimehost.com/v/8974001/corner1.avi.html

the crappily motion captured tank running into the barrels

http://s2.gimehost.com/v/275668/Video_18.avi.html

the particle system and the somewhat hard to see demonstration of moving rotor assembly- http://s2.gimehost.com/v/9639270/Video_22.avi.html

One of the water waves demonstrations- http://s2.gimehost.com/v/2044436/watervid1.avi.html

Another water video,showing the water moving up and down but by waves.- http://s2.gimehost.com/v/1690492/watervid2.avi.html

The auto gear- http://s2.gimehost.com/v/2352758/gear.avi.html note,gear will not come out when over water unless helicopter is hovering.

Another wave scene,this one at normal weather- http://s2.gimehost.com/v/7867240/watervid3.avi.html

If these don't work then I'll change the file format to mpeg or wmv.

[Blanco 0]

All vids work fine but quality is poor. The waves look nicely done, tho

Btw, do you see a watersplash when you fire a shell in the water?

[meyamoti 0]

Yeah..I can't do much about the quality sadly,my webcam was several feet from my projector screen and luckily got somethin,the adjusting because of the LCD panel was a bitch to mess around with,if I could find another way to get the videos better without much issue hten I'd use it.

Yaknow..I haven't tried that yet,I'll try it later in the evening and tell you what I find

[bravo 6 0]

just 1 silly question that i missed..

is that OFP Elite? or VBS1?

edit:

Elite.

ok, thx tioner

[Guest Ti0n3r]

is that OFP Elite? or VBS1?

Elite.