Cant move while reloading

[MeNeZ 0]

Hi,

I know that running while reloading is not exactly the best idea. I try find cover before reloading usually but sometimes I'd get shot at after I started reloading and then Im screwed...

Is there any way of maybe blurring your peripheral so you can only see your gun while reloading so that it still encourages you to stop while reloading but you at least have the option to run if need??

Also, any chance of making a cancel command to stop an action and return to your previous state? - instead of waiting for the current animation to finish?

What I mean is in the middle of changing to your AT4 you see a nearby target and you need to change back to your rifle...But you have to wait for the action to fully finish and then only you can change. But you need to stop immediately, as you would in real life.

[frederf 0]

I second this. Half way through a mag change you should be able to move (with an empty rifle) and finish reloading some other time.

Also I wouldn't mind realistic loading times. 1.5 seconds is superhuman!

[MBot 0]

I agree, reloading while walking ( but not running ) wouldn't be unreasonable. At least for smaller weapons. But I have the impression that the rigid animation system doesn't allows this. Would be great though.

Also the ability to reverse animations without having to wait for the current one to finish would be great. As when you take out your binocculars and immediatly want to put them away, you should be able to press 'B' and imediatly reverse the process, without having to wait for the binos to be completly brought out first. The same applies to changing weapons or stances.

As it is right know it is extremly cumbersome and not very user friendly. Since OFP I have felt that controlling your character is not very well designed ( try going prone with your binocculars brought out and enjoy the show... ).

[MeNeZ 0]

LoL, yeah. You guys feel my pain.

The binoculars thing happens all the bloody time to me!

But worst, recently I was prone behind a rock. I saw an APC so I changed to AT4. But half way up I saw that it was a bad idea and wanted to hit the dirt again. But I had to wait for him to finish shouldering the AT4 and then put it away and take out the M4 again by which time I had been shot (And killed like 5 seconds before) but it still carries on doing the anim...

A problem from OFP that is um...still a problem

[Dark_vityaz 0]

Agree, it's good for small weapons,but what about e.g. PK,M60 or smth else it would be so unrealistic.It's better to play Stalker.

[EDcase 87]

I think we should be able to walk while reloading.

The ability to cancel would be great but I doubt it can be implemented because of the animation joins.

Being able to halt the reload to run for cover with an empty weapon would be a good solution and realistic too.

[Wakner 0]

I think that the duration of reload should vary with what you are doing at the time (running, walking, etc).

E.g. : if you are standing still and reload then it takes 'x'; walking takes 'x * 1.5'; prone - you cannot move while reloading and takes 'x * 1.5'; running takes 'x * 3'; etc

[Col. Faulkner 0]

As was mentioned earlier, it'd also be important to make

it "weapon specific" too. As an extreme example, reloading

a little 8rnd Makarov pistol magazine is a quite different

proposition from reloading a 100rnd M240 belt.

[xnodunitx 0]

Indeed, some weapons should be unreloadable unless not moving, although having a walking and reloading for smaller arms isn't such a bad idea as long as there would be a longer loading time penalty. Or even more amusing..add an off chance where the reload fails and you have to try again.

[Duffers 0]

I hear what you say MeNez. I too got shot and killed whilst switching to an M136. My colleagues even shouted out, "Oh No! 2 is down!" but I happily continued to shoulder the M136, with bullets still ripping into me, dropping lifeless to the floor as soon only as the animation ended.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

Any type of movement while reloading would require complex animations, and in order for it to be done realistically it would have to take a lot longer to reload if you're moving (although I guess that's still tied to the animations).

[Bingo 0]

One could at least make the soldier look at what he was doing (first-person). So you'd look down at the gun and the animation whilst you run (potentially down a manhole/into a stream of bullets, etc)....

[Col. Faulkner 0]

When this issue was raised recently it was decided that the

main problem with it is that a whole new set of anims would

need to be produced; all of the current moving anims plus all

the hand waving "reloading" anims.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

One could at least make the soldier look at what he was doing (first-person).  So you'd look down at the gun and the animation whilst you run (potentially down a manhole/into a stream of bullets, etc)....

Having to look at what you're doing isn't the only reason it's hard, it's also the fact that you're moving. When you move you have less coordination, plus the faster you move the less stable your body becomes. Thus to be able to reload you usually have to compensate by slowing down, add the loss of momentum from doing stuff with your arms and you're pretty much forced to slow down. I don't think anyone IRL can reload a rifle while running at full speed just because you instinctively slow down while trying to do those things (partially because you tend to look at what you're doing and not at where you're going). Then trying to speed up again will only distract you from the task of reloading, making that harder, so you again instinctively slow down so it's easier. The fastest I'd say that's practical is a slow jog.

[Bingo 0]

The fastest I'd say that's practical is a slow jog.

That's not an issue, it could be speed limited. I'm not suggesting we could sprint and reload... Now, I am no soldier, but surely these things become second nature? I knew a guy who could roll a smoke without even looking at what he was doing... granted, it's completely different, but he was so accustomed to those hand-actions, he barely even noticed he was doing it... The "at a jog thing" works here too, because if he ran and did it, I'm sure the tobacco would end up everywhere....

[Big Dawg KS 6]

When this issue was raised recently it was decided that the

main problem with it is that a whole new set of anims would

need to be produced; all of the current moving anims plus all

the hand waving "reloading" anims.

The the game's current animation system, there'd have to be animations for each direction of motion for each speed for (if crouch moves were included) each stance. You might be able to limit it though, allowing only forward movement and at the slower speeds, but it's still quite a bit... and since they're not looped transitions would be weird (if any at all, you might be forced to play out the entire reloading animation before being able to change your movement and that'd only cause more problems than it'd solve).

[sluggCDN 0]

MeNeZ

I agree with you 101%. A player has to be able to snap out of a reloading animation whenever he needs to. If you reload and you have to move all of a sudden because u are exposed or a new threat has appeared, u got to be able to do it. No transitionary animations are needed if it's that difficult to do. The reloding animation should just be terminated, the reloading won't be complete, but at least a player now can move, change position and then resume reloading.

As far as the reloading while on the move is concerned I believe it's implemented correctly in ArmA. It's in the same category of questions as why can't we jump in ArmA. Well, are soldiers loaded with at least 40lbs of ammo/equip. really capable of jumping? I can't boast with my own combat experience or memories of military service, but I played airsoft quite a bit. Those who did/does will agree with me, it's almost impossible to place a mag into a rifle mag well while running. U stop, take cover, release the empty mag, get the new mag out of a pouch and jam it into the well; also extra seconds are spent on placing the empty mag back into the pouch/pocket. With an MG/LMG it's even harder.

This issue isn't only about reloading. Many times you start hitting an AI just before lets say they go prone. U unload a half a mag into them, but the death animation starts only after 3-4sec when the "go-to-prone" animation is finished. This can be misleading since you can't really tell you got them and you waist a mag as opposed to just a few rounds. Never mind the situation when you got only one second to dispose a threat and switch to another target that got you in its sights already. In my opinion this issue has to be addressed in the next patch along with the sniper rifle tracers issue.

[dslyecxi 23]

Quote[/b] ]As far as the reloading while on the move is concerned I believe it's implemented correctly in ArmA.

I disagree. I hate that it's a limitation of the animation system that we cannot have proper moving reloads. I know that personally I can move at a decent speed and do a competent reload of an M4/M16-style weapon. Hell, it was one of the things we trained - walking back and forth out in a field, doing reloads while moving at a tactical walk until our arms were about to fall off. It's completely possible.

However, with that being said, I think this is one of those areas where if it was possible to fix it, they already would have.

That's about all that needs to be said, really. It's a technical limitation, there is apparently no practical way to fix it, and it looks like it's going to be something we just have to live with in ArmA. While it would be great if we had a reload system similar to that found in Infiltration (with dry and tactical reloads, animations specific to each weapon, ability to move while reloading with appropriate stamina penalties, etc), it does not appear to be in the cards for ArmA. Ah well.

[jump artist 0]

I agree, the anim system, while cool looking in a staged environment, does not work in a combat in game environment, I believe thats why alot of other FPS's went to a ragdoll system (on e of the many reasons anyway).

I have had to jog and reload an m4, it was cumbersome and I'd have to slow down to do it, but its possible. Anything is possible when Bullets are cracking!

But really the anims in ArmA, look cool in movies and cut scenes but the engine is lacking in this dept. IMHO this is what gives ArmA that "not so fresh feeling" and more of a POST GEN shooter. Like say Joint Operations TR. Further more I don't think the Engine is going to be moddable to a Ragdoll system so its almost a moot point. sad but true.

[Bingo 0]

You don't even need rag-doll physics to separate what the hands/arms are doing to what the legs/feet are doing... you just need better animators.

[dslyecxi 23]

You don't even need rag-doll physics to separate what the hands/arms are doing to what the legs/feet are doing... you just need better animators.

You're making a massive assumption as to what the ArmA animation system consists of and is capable of, as well as insulting BIS in the same sentence.

Good job, buddy.

[Bingo 0]

You don't even need rag-doll physics to separate what the hands/arms are doing to what the legs/feet are doing...  you just need better animators.

You're making a massive assumption as to what the ArmA animation system consists of and is capable of, as well as insulting BIS in the same sentence.

Good job, buddy.  

Please excuse me whilst I finish going prone/reloading before I die...

Thanks in advance!

[Big Dawg KS 6]

You don't even need rag-doll physics to separate what the hands/arms are doing to what the legs/feet are doing...  you just need better animators.

Just for the record, most games that do this really disregard some key things. Walking for example (or even running) has no effect on the arms, so the weapon remains visibly stable. That's partly why they need to up the weapon's dispersion to compensate for it, but it's not very realistic. It also doesn't take into account different postures (for the legs) for different weapons, etc... and it usually looks just downright unrealistic/unnatural, as if the character's legs are completely independent from the rest of their body. I don't know if it's strictly caused by seperating the arms and legs, but I really don't care for them. In ArmA the animations really do look nice and natural, far better than anything else I've ever seen.

[max power 21]

The animators have nothing to do with it. I think that what the above poster meant by ragdoll was real-time skeletal animations. With those you have the ability to mix and match movements and blend one animation into the other. Ragdoll, which is a physics operation and an example of procedural content, is only possible with a skeletal animation system, not the other way around.

[Bingo 0]

Apologies for my comments that had the encompassing word "animators", I think I probably misconstrued myself.

As is mentioned above, and I am well aware, it is not JUST about making the top half of the body move independently from the bottom half, everything still has to fit together and the animations themselves in ArmA, rigid as they may be, are excellent.

The distinction to be drawn here is between ragdoll and ragdoll physics... that one part of the skeleton can operate independently of the other. The physics part is still un-necessary and I'm still not sure ragdoll is the correct way of expressing it... perhaps skeletal.