AT/ M136 / RPG7

[Col. Faulkner 0]

so are we waiting on a toolset to be able to do it?

Well certainly that, and presumably you'll also need to wait

for people to have the time and inclination to do it.

[Novusordo 0]

well they know i want it now so i hope they get a move on.

[Nemesis_wales 0]

they could of put javelin in there? this relativly new weapon(for uk army anyway) is intened for taking out tanks, as well as pretty much anything esle vehicle wise, theres clips flying round everywhere with us soldiers using them 2 even take out buildings, u lock onto the target u want to hit, once thats done u fire the rocket which heads skywards b 4 coming down on top of the target (1 of weakest part of tank) not quite sur eif its re-usable as i aint had chance 2 see/use it, but the info will b on net somewhere if u want it, but it is a 1 man useable weapon, so they should use that instead

[Novusordo 0]

the javalin is sweet but I prefer using the more "rustic" weapons traditional infantry use but yeah the jav is a sweet ass thing.

The latest americas army version has it in and you gotta aim it, lock it and then fire it. the animation and sound is absolutely fantastic.

basically its s use and throw away weapon but the sighting system can be clicked off the launch tube as soon as the weapon has been fired and so u can re-use the sighting system (its v expensive) as much as u like.

[Peanut 0]

they could of put javelin in there?

The Javelin is "Ingame" but sadly it has no model or optics afaik

this addmagazine "Javelin"; this addweapon "Javelin";

[Novusordo 0]

they even have the sounds for it. It's used for the AT4 instead. I know this cos the sound a jav makes is a bang then a whooosh as the rocket flies off and thats the sound being used for the AT4 in this game.

[Col. Faulkner 0]

they could of put javelin in there?

The Javelin is "Ingame" but sadly it has no model or optics afaik

this addmagazine "Javelin"; this addweapon "Javelin";

It probably can't simulate the "vertical attack" feature of

Javelin anyway (or BIS's developers ran out of time before

they could get onto that) - in game it'd probably end up

as a standard direct fire ATGM, I bet.

[max power 21]

WGL mod does it with the hellfire, I think.

[Col. Faulkner 0]

It would be really nice to get such a thing working in the

game. I'd bet my nuts that some addon maker pounces on it,

don't worry

[450R 1]

WGL mod does it with the hellfire, I think.

WGL actually does both direct and indirect (top-down) modes on the Javelin via the action menu ... works great.

[Speedy15 0]

irl M136 cant be reloaded at all so in that matter it´s totally unrealistic...

M136 (aka AT4) is a 1 shot disposable AT weapon wich fires a grenade (not a rocket, the grenade does NOT have rocket propulsion!

if you wonder how that works... well... simply by using 50% of the propellant to sent the grenade at the target and the other 50% to reduce the recoil to 0...

workd the same way in most recoilles AT guns and in the Carl Gustaf recoilles rifle

so the sound of the M136 is way of too....

should just be a loud BANG when fireing, not a swoooosh (do i need to link to a movie wich shows the M136/AT4 being fired?)

The AT-4 is a Rocket, not a grenade and yes it has a type of rocket propulsion, or a solid rocket motor. When it is fired the high-powered burst ignites sending the rocket out of the tube. You do not need 'half' of the explosion keeping it from recoiling because the gases are able to escape through the tube and there for do not put against the tube as with a rifle. Yes the gases do technically cause friction in the tube, but it is negligible in comparison to the force at which the rocket is propelled.

[Placebo 29]

Here's a nice video showing Carl Gustav reloading.

Be careful what you link to, that video is ok but it's close to the border line

[icebreakr 3157]

Reload time is yes.... too fast. Last time our humvee got ambush at the exit of the small town and 3 grenades barely missed up in matter of few seconds. When we backed up and exited badly damaged humvee and secured a position nearby... we soon noticed that we were attacked by a single infantry unit... we we though we at least have 3 shooters

[desertfox 2]

In regards to the Javelin and all the other superb addons we could make use of in OFP: I think sooner or later they can easily be ported to ArmA. The 3D models are mostly sufficient, all it needs are some polished up hi-res textures, some value tweaking, and maybe a tool or two from BIS to make porting easier ^.^

[Col. Faulkner 0]

Quote[/b] ]The AT-4 is a Rocket, not a grenade and yes it has a type of rocket propulsion, or a solid rocket motor. When it is fired the high-powered burst ignites sending the rocket out of the tube. You do not need 'half' of the explosion keeping it from recoiling because the gases are able to escape through the tube and there for do not put against the tube as with a rifle. Yes the gases do technically cause friction in the tube, but it is negligible in comparison to the force at which the rocket is propelled.

Where do you get that from!? It is not a rocket! I think

the US Army Field Manual bears a lot of blame for this

confusion because it calls it a "rocket-type cartridge"!

It is a fin stabilized shell, initiated by a propellant explosion

in a cartridge case held within the launch tube, not by a

solid rocket motor. They do have a considerable kick when

fired, similar to the Carl Gustaf 84mm recoiless rifle.

In any case this is not quite so important as the fact that

the ArmA portrayal of it as a big whooshing rocket with a huge

smoke trail is incorrect. If anyone still doubts this take a look

at one of the Swedish manufacturer's promotional films here

(all participants fully clothed  ) :

mms://qstream-31.qbrick.com/01580/01580_1344_1_wis_s.wmv

No whoosing sounds, no rushing white smoke trails. This

film also clearly shows how hard the HEAT rounds kick and

demos how they are practically applied in battle against

AFVs (in volleys).

I'd love to see an ArmA soldier animated so he let fly with

one of those then threw it away and hit the dirt like the

demonstrators in that film!

edit: Anyway a whooshing rocket that left a lingering finger

of white smoke pointing directly at the firer's location would

be tantamount to a suicide weapon on a modern

battlefield!

edit2: I think you might be mixing up the 66mm M72 LAW and

the 84mm M136 AT4 in your mind. The former is indeed a

bona fide rocket, the latter is a recoilless gun.

M72

AT4

The US and allied troops in ArmA carry the AT4, not the M72 LAW.

In fact since they are supposed to be US Marines the SMAW

would been a better and more authentic choice to balance

up the RPG-7s carried by the enemy! If  they had then the

ATk gunners could have been animated with the same broadly

correct hand positions (the RPG gunner in ArmA actually holds

it like a LAW!    )

[StepanK 1]

just to let you know why reloading looks as it does: we designed it as you see after some internal discussion a while ago:

1/ though real RPGs are typically just for one use (mentioned above), we, because of the engine configuration and abilities _do_ allow reloading. Actual rpgs often are prepared for fire quite complicated way, which would mean long complex move specific to each RPG type. And they are normally stored in backpacks. Too complicated for actual gameplay, we worry.

2/ reloading speed: because the reloading is unrealistic at all (because of above), it is hard to estimate how it should look like. Yes, as AI fires RPG quite fast now, group of AT specialists ambushing tanks can really be very deadly..

3/ It is uneasy to decide what helps the gameplay and what is too much arcade like:

* None of you actually would be happy reloading for 20 secs without chance to move or go prone at all, I'd expect.

* on the other hand some people advise arcade like things - e.g. throwing grenades in full sprint, but in reality that might be one of last stupid things one could do - grenades ARE deadly explosives and nothing more funny than to stumble at that moment with others around you.

And from practical point of view - imagine animation designer: what to do, if you are reloading and suddenly player decides to go prone - in reality reloading would somehow continue prone, but for game, it is impossible at all to continue as that'd be different move and if one allows to go prone at any moment, then it might result in virtually infinite variations of the moves.. Perhaps we could give up in that case and return RPG rocket back to man's ammo stock and let RPG empty or so.. what'd be better? 10 people = 10 different opinions, you know.

often there are things that look straigthforward, but once one thinks of consequencecs, they may find it would have some bad impacts elsewhere, it is about compromises.

Regards,

Stepan

[desertfox 2]

Thanks alot for the reply from a devs point of view. I know the last thing you got is the thing called 'time' so .. appreciated. ^.^

There will be - as you have correctly stated - a hundred opinions about just about any setting in the game. Tastes vary.

How about this: Why not allow for a lot of variables which regard the realism factor of the game ( Reloading times, damage, etc. ) to be customized through a simple GUI in one of the future server versions ?

So Arcade players can play their Arcade games, and realism freaks can set it to what they deem realistic.

I don't think this is a high priority issue right now, but sooner or later when more important things are fixed, I think that would be a neat idea.

[yarex 0]

I think that most of the people that play Arma wants it to be as real warfare emulator as possible .

I personally would like to have commands like "clean weapon", "reload weapon"... in correct order, so it would take 3-4 hits in the command list to reload weapon like rpg.

Also every command would show different animation (and therefore would take certain amount of time)

When player would decide to do another move, then animation would be cancelled and continued with that "other" move as normally. (so soldier would go prone for example)

Reloading would have to be started again from the beginning.

But i know that there are many ways and opinions on how to do things , however, sligtly more realistic times would be appropriate.

[ryankaplan 1]

The simple fact is, you advertise the game as realistic, or authentic, or whatever else you may wish to call it. There maybe some aspects included to make better gameplay, but the situation of the AT weapons in ArmA is funny at best.

Rifles are implmented in a realistic fashion, so why did you stop there and make the AT weapons completly and utterly unlike their counterparts in real life?

Balance? Balance should never be the job of the Programmer. Balance is the job of the mission maker. Infact, IMHO asymetric forces are much more fun to play with than warring sides with exactly the same strengths and weaknesses.

Animations? I thought animations within animations were present and possible in the improved ArmA engine. Even if not so, this is a irrelavent excuse to why a single RPG7 gunner is a match for a 4 Million Dollar Tank. A group of RPG soldiers, shouldnt be able to take out a Modern Tank Platoon.

You could make a rifle bullet travel at only 30miles an hour, and you could make them glow blue and you could make them only as damaging as rubber bullets. This would be great for gameplay. However you would perceive this as unacceptable. So why is an AT weapon, falsely simulated to the death, acceptable for balancing reasons or engine limitations?

My rant isnt just about the Hand Held Launchers, but about pretty much every AT weapon in game. Hellfires missing for every 1 shot out of 2, TOWs being utterly wrong in every possible way possible, to say the least. The funny thing is, if these things were simulated correctly, it would make the game much more fun and skilltaking, as i have exprienced with WGL5.

[frederf 0]

just to let you know why reloading looks as it does: we designed it as you see after some internal discussion a while ago:

1/ though real RPGs are typically just for one use (mentioned above), we, because of the engine configuration and abilities _do_ allow reloading. Actual rpgs often are prepared for fire quite complicated way, which would mean long complex move specific to each RPG type. And they are normally stored in backpacks. Too complicated for actual gameplay, we worry.

2/ reloading speed: because the reloading is unrealistic at all (because of above), it is hard to estimate how it should look like. Yes, as AI fires RPG quite fast now, group of AT specialists ambushing tanks can really be very deadly..

3/ It is uneasy to decide what helps the gameplay and what is too much arcade like:

* None of you actually would be happy reloading for 20 secs without chance to move or go prone at all, I'd expect.

* on the other hand some people advise arcade like things - e.g. throwing grenades in full sprint, but in reality that might be one of last stupid things one could do - grenades ARE deadly explosives and nothing more funny than to stumble at that moment with others around you.

And from practical point of view - imagine animation designer: what to do, if you are reloading and suddenly player decides to go prone - in reality reloading would somehow continue prone, but for game, it is impossible at all to continue as that'd be different move and if one allows to go prone at any moment, then it might result in virtually infinite variations of the moves.. Perhaps we could give up in that case and return RPG rocket back to man's ammo stock and let RPG empty or so.. what'd be better? 10 people = 10 different opinions, you know.

often there are things that look straigthforward, but once one thinks of consequencecs, they may find it would have some bad impacts elsewhere, it is about compromises.

Regards,

Stepan

The looks of reloading are far from my primary concern, and really apart from what the main discussion is here.

1. I don't think anyone here suggested that RPGs should be one-shot only. If real RPGs takes a while to reload, then go ahead and make them take a while to reload. Any complaints that they reload too slow is easily countered with "In real life they take even longer, so don't complain!" and their complaint will gain exactly 0 traction.

As far as very specific, remove x arming pin and twist 44 deg and blah blah blah RPG-specific reloading animations go; just say "it is too much work to model all the reload animations separate so we made a generic RPG reload animation." You'd get some grumbles from the people who want everything but we would understand. This includes where the rounds would come from in the reload animation. As proof of how little the quality of the animation matters, I myself have never bothered to check where the RPG reload round comes from.

2. This argument I don't buy. So you can't make 100% realistic RPG reload animations, beyond the scope of the game, fine. But the length of the generic animation and the coded reload time value can still be whatever you like. You say "group of AT specialists ambushing tanks can really be very deadly" as if it's a good thing. Four RPG shooters ambushing six tanks should not be such a large threat as it is. If you want to make a dangerous ambush that is for the mission designer to add the appropriate amount of assets to the ambushing side.

We all understand the balance of arcade vs strict simulation when it comes to releasing a product to a gamers' market, but what I cannot understand is how it was decided that 3 seconds (or whatever it is) per RPG shot by AI was considered OK?

*We likely wouldn't be too keen on reloading rock steady for 20 seconds, although a good portion of us would not complain about it. This is where necessity is the mother of invention. This is a good chance to invent (yes, make new, as game developers you're allowed to do this and not just mod your old game) interruptible reloads.

The question arises of how to deal with the visual animations and the mechanics of an interrupted reload. This, I understand is a hard thing to do, especially without blended animation support. My suggestion is that the bare minimum for an interrupted reload (broken visual animation and have no saved reload progress) would be acceptable compared with no interruptible reloads at all.

The better options: Saved reload progress, smooth transition of animations while interrupting, and being able to continue reloading while changing stances are all difficult to pull off. I do not know how flexible the animation design is, like if you could have an animation play that moved the key points from a dynamical start location (e.g. while in mid RPG reload) to a pre-defined location (e.g. end of interrupt-RPG-reload-ready-for-motion).

On another note, no one would be able to complain about all their reload progress being lost, since the theoretical new reload system would have 100% of the features of the old (current) reload system and have extra features on top of that. Improving something doesn't make you obligated to make you perfect it.

*Well, you cannot throw a frag grenade at full sprint in ArmA, as you cannot use any weapon in sprint. But at normal forward speed (faster than walk, slower than sprint) yes you can throw a grenade and yes that may be arcade. But if you made it a random chance to fumble a grenade while doing this, or made it not possible to do this, then you can always fall back on reality for a defense. Reality always makes a wonderful defense for any military game developer.

I seem to have gotten slightly off topic. Yes, interrupting animations might cause so much trouble for the animation team that it is not possible or wise to attempt. But AI firing 3 RPGs in 5 seconds? What kinda compromise is that?

[desertfox 2]

Concerning the reloading animations / interruptable reloading: Why not have a looped animation, which can be stopped as soon as I interrupt the reload process. Personally I couldn't bother less about the animation since I play strictly 1st person view, as do many OFP vets I know.

Concerning the reloading time, I think 5-6 seconds are really the minimum. It's been that way in OFP. And why not have disposable launchers like the Javelin, single-shot but with increased damage capabilities.

[funnyguy1 0]

And from practical point of view - imagine animation designer: what to do, if you are reloading and suddenly player decides to go prone - in reality reloading would somehow continue prone, but for game, it is impossible at all to continue as that'd be different move and if one allows to go prone at any moment, then it might result in virtually infinite variations of the moves.. Perhaps we could give up in that case and return RPG rocket back to man's ammo stock and let RPG empty or so.. what'd be better? 10 people = 10 different opinions, you know.

often there are things that look straigthforward, but once one thinks of consequencecs, they may find it would have some bad impacts elsewhere, it is about compromises.

Regards,

Stepan

where to start... first of all, thanks for your post

You said that you had an internal discussion, what about discussing it once again, with your customers?

1/ In my opinion the people who want rpgs to be more realistic in ArmA wouldn't complain about the anims if the reloading time was good. So more complicated way - yes = more realism, anims and stuff - not necessary = eye candy.

I agree however that actual gameplay needs to be "complicated" a bit to suit some of our suggestions...

2/AT weapons reloading times shouldn't be less realistic than assault rifle's reloading times. I understand what you're saing, but again, I explained In in point 1

3/I agree that It's uneasy to decide what helps the gameplay and what is too much arcade however:

*reloading ~15 secs while standing would be a bug (it is now, with the rifles)

*I think that such stupid things like throwing granades while sprinting should be allowed, in order to teach some cs idiots that It's not the safest and most tactical use of them

When It comes to anims: I'm in the group that prefers the realism over nice anims so... let's vote?

I have to agree with ryankaplan who wrote that the balance thingy is mission-dependant. If there are no "destroy 7 tanks with your AT4 super-silent-spec-op-like" missions there is no problem with AT weapons vs tanks...

I can't belive that a guy who's responsible for the development of one of the hardest and most realistic pc games says that...

You can't just think about what people will say when you give them realistic reload times on RPGs, because you have already forced people to use their brains more extensively while giving them ofp! Who knows, maybe such thing would attract even more players? For those who don't want It, there's a cadet mode...Just change the missions, they're the main problem imho.

keep up the good work Stepan

[yarex 0]

Don't try to parsuade me, that sucha good programmers, that can code fancy things as emulated mushrooms growing in the woods, or karate animations, can't include sligthly more realistic rpg reloading .

I just know that it's not impossible (am a programmer for some years too, so i can imagine what is involved to code this...), imho it's about wanting to bring more quality at the first place . (or being motivated better heheh)

But am sure that it will be much better with patches, we are here to discuss and point basic things that could be improved.

[cain2001 0]

They cant be that bad. I hope its not like in OFP when you hit the reload button after shooting a tank and it starts lighting you up. Your stuck for 10s with the same reload animation. No time to get behind cover so i guess it could be a good thing the times are faster in ArmA.

[funnyguy1 0]

They cant be that bad. I hope its not like in OFP when you hit the reload button after shooting a tank and it starts lighting you up. Your stuck for 10s with the same reload animation. No time to get behind cover so i guess it could be a good thing the times are faster in ArmA.

Well, you see, that's wrong thinking m8...Who in real life would do that? I mean, who the hell would shot RPG against MBT, moreover who would try to reload in front of It?

You are either doing this kamikaze style (with RPG), or not finding cover before reloading. It's not about "wow the reloads are now faster, I can pwn more tanks", It's "why they're giving us such stupid missions" or "why do ppl still try to destroy tanks that way"...

If you decide to atack a MBT with RPG, plz don't complain that you are dead after the first shot. Waiting till the reload anim ends, has nothing to do with It.