Carry two weapons ?

[Maddmatt 1]

-bullet amounts shown in the inventory (not sure if this is feasible)

But that's just unrealistic, and the whole point of this discussion is to have a more realistic inventory. Not knowing how much ammo you have is part of the experience.

As far as I know you can look inside a magazine to see how many bullets are in it, it's not unrealistic to check how full a mag is.

ArmA shows you the number of bullets in your current mag in the HUD by the way, which isn't realistic.

Edit: Kid beat me to it.

[Big Dawg KS 6]

yes, but in RL you could check to see which mag has bullets, it would just take time.

To be clear, I'm talking about a scenario where (for example) you pick up an RPG from a fallen OPFOR. Which M4 mag do you part with? You know that 2 of them have fewer rounds, and one has far fewer, but which is it? As far as I know, there's no way to tell, is there?

Well, currently you actually can tell which mags have the least number of rounds... if your observant you can pick up on it. The game seems to automatically (re)arrange the magazines in your inventory from highest to lowest ammo count (and this only applies to like magazine types), the reason that's obvious to me is because when you reload, you'll notice that you're always inserting the magazine with the highest count available. The slots fill in order from left to right. So, when in your inventory, look among each group of like magazine types, and the one furthest to the right + furthest down (there's only 2 rows with the default number of slots anyway) will be the least full (unless there's more with the exact same amount of course). Just don't get confused with the different magazine classes there are, since sometimes two different types use the same picture, so check the names (ex: regular and SD mags-ones with "SD" at the end of their name-are different classnames so they are not like magazines).

[frederf 0]

Quote[/b] ]Do they even need a special slot? Since they don't compete with anything for space I don't see a need for a special slot. Just an icon somewhere that shows that you have NVGoggles.

Unless you want them to compete with space where they shouldn't, NVGoggles should either have a "ready to access" slot that's separate from the harness slots or they should maybe directly accessible from the backpack? Hmm that second idea is no good because sometimes you wouldn't have a backpack. An icon on/off would be identical to a special slot functionally. And remember that they aren't competing for space with anything yet. There's always the mod scene to imagine.

Quote[/b] ]I think that a special slot would be more flexible than a head slot.

I want to keep flexibility high but there's a price to pay in terms of conflict. A special slot that accepts NVGoggles and something else means you might have a conflict where taking one item prevents you from taking the other. One has to examine this conflict and ask "Is this a realistic conflict?" In real life a pair of NVGoggles clipped to your helmet wouldn't prevent you from taking that extra magazine, right?

Now I'm not entirely sure where a soldier keeps his NVGs when they're not on his helmet... in a large pouch on his hip maybe? In his backpack? If it's on his hip then that would be space you could put mags or smoke grenades or something. That would argue that a stored NVGs would go in the body harness slots or the backpack slot. There's nothing really wrong about using up body harness slots. You're quite used to OFP or such where you had 5 body harness slots (exaggeration) and it was a big worry about space. If we had a lot of slots, than 1or2 going to hold your NVGs shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe you could have a helmet clip/head slot anyway and have to drag the NVGs up there before you use them. Why not keep them there all the time you ask (freeing up some harness slots)? Well perhaps having a pound or two on your head instead of on your harness might make your encumbrance figure go up. Who knows.

Quote[/b] ]The "special" slots should (as in vanilla) be apart from the rest, in my opinion. It just doesn't seem right that they replace magazine slots. It's already strange enough that high-tech military units use old, clunky roof binoculars instead of prism or hybrid binoculars or even prism monoculars.

I'm not sure they should be separate. Couldn't you/ wouldn't you put binoculars and grenades/magazines in the same place? My philosophy is to break down storage areas on the body into sensible categories, namely:

Slung over each shoulder, back, back2, backpack, and pouches.

I like to avoid special slots when I can because that's not exactly how real life works. A place on your body where you can only put any of three things? Why can't I put X there? What sorcery is this!? And if it becomes a generic "Oh, I guess you can put anything here but you really should put Binoculars" then why not increase the body harness pouches by that much space and let the soldier decide?

What one could do is make the body harness pouches of varying size. Maybe 10x "Size 1" pouches, 5x "Size 2 pouches", and 1x "Size 3" pouch for a typical rifleman. That way bulky items can go in large pouches but not in small ones? You could fit 2 M16 mags in one "Size 2" pouch but you couldn't fit 1 M249 mag in two "Size 1" pouches. The MG soldier would obviously have a different pouch distribution with more "Size 2"s and less "Size 1"s. Then again maybe that's a stupid idea because it would provide extra restriction unless you decided to mod the game a little.

Quote[/b] ]-half slots.

a pistol mag or a 30mm grenade doesn't take as much space as an M4 mag.

I love the idea of half slots. You could probably get two pistol mags in one "Size 1" pouch, maybe not two M433 HEDP 40mm grenade rounds though, they're kinda big. Although in real life folks wear vests to carry 30 or more 40mm grenades so I'd agree with the idea of making 40mm half-slot.

Quote[/b] ]-maybe a tripod OR a backpack.

I've never tried, it must be said, but I don't see where one would find space for a weapon on the right shoulder, a weapon on the left shoulder, a packpack... and... something alongside the backpack? or maybe the tripod can be a secondary weapon, slung over the left shoulder permanently.

The point of having slots A, B, C, and D isn't that they would all be full at any one time but rather that any combination is feasible. And a M4 left shoulder, AT4 right shoulder, rucksack back, and 60mm mortar tube back2 is NOT unreasonable. People carry rucksacks and some extra piece of equipment all the time.

Notice how in the current game if you take a M249 or a PKM that you cannot have a launcher? But if you drop the M249 you can have a launcher? The launcher slot is still there it's just restricted because of the contents of another slot.

That is exactly the kind of thing I am suggesting. If someone had both back slots full maybe you don't want them to have a launcher as well, similar code as the current in-game example. Keep many slots but just code the restrictions properly.

Personally I wouldn't mind someone attempting LeftShoulder, RightShoulder, Back, Back2 all loaded with gear. Why? Because the weight/load/encumbrance figure will probably make that load out impossible. I don't care if you are allowed to strap the QEII to your back in game since the load meter will take care of that.

Quote[/b] ]-no "levelled" encumbrance

I hate the idea of "green, yelow, red" as if someone could run at speed X with 10kg but would break down and snap a shin bone with 10.01kg. Speed should not be pre set, but calculated according to load.

I understand your dislike of leveled load. I too wanted to avoid arbitrary jumps in penalty due to load. My primary concern and reason for going "leveled" was to make playing easier. If your character's running pace is 10kmph and your friend's is 9.7kmph, you two are going to have an annoying time marching together in formation.

One could ditch the leveled load in favor of a continuous load penalty and still have equal running speeds by having load not affect running speed but simply how fast you tire out. For example you can run all day without getting winded in ArmA, maybe with 100lbs on your back if you ran for 2 minutes you'd be just as tired as if you sprinted 2 minutes with 0 pounds on your back.

The load system is something I am suggesting only in broad terms as the concept that "carrying something should affect how you move" the details like what effects happen, what variables affect load figure, etc I haven't even formed an opinion on myself.

Quote[/b] ]bullet amounts shown in the inventory (not sure if this is feasible)

Agree 100%. This should have been in the original game. When you click on an item in the gear screen it has some long winded description "The STANAG magazine was invented by NATO to.." blah blah blah... there should be a little line at the end that says "Oh, by the way, this 30rnd mag has 21 bullets left in it."

Quote[/b] ]as would a function to rearrange the bullets in all the mags to fill up the unused ones.

It could also be implemented as "loose bullets" in the backpack or a special slot. Each mag would have an "empty" function and a "replenish" function. This would also be a cheaper way to carry more ammo, in bullets instead of extra mags. I do realise this is somewhat beyond the scope of this discussion

Loose bullets is a very realistic way to carry ammo (ok not loose, but in a box and not in mags). A script that "rejiggers" all your bullets into the least number of magazines is already possible in game and would be the easiest to implement. Having 10 mags with 2 bullets in each is a lot less useful than 1 mag with 20 bullets in it.

Having Loose bullets would be a fun and realistic feature. You could have ammo by the box or individual bullet in your backpack. The game would have to keep track of your empty mags instead of discarding them to fill back up (or assume you had an infinite supply of empty mags somewhere). You drag the box of ammo into your hand weapon and then "use" it to top off a magazine with rounds.

It just occurred to me that I suggested before a "Drag and Drop" method of moving items around on gear pages. Obviously if you had individual rounds then dragging round by round for 400 rounds might get somewhat tiresome. If you want to drag more than 1 thing at a time I suggest that if you drag while holding down shift then it pops up a box where you can type how many you want to move. Pretty much every fantasy RPG computer game inventory since 1990 has used approximately this method because it's easy and it works.

Quote[/b] ]-more rigid weight criteria

I know the thousands of bullets in the backpack are not meant to be factual to the "yellow" phase, but in general I think people are expecting soldiers to carry too much. We can't expect the engine to represent muscle fatigue and mental weariness, so in effect we'd have people carrying 30kg of gear, sprinting across the landscape and after a 30 second stop be as refreshed as a newborn babe. That's just not right.

Perhaps an idea would be to allow only limited movement with a backpack, and expect the soldier to drop it and the tripod/special item before entering combat.

Soldier's load is one of the biggest issues in the United States military today. People have gotten used to video game characters that don't get tired. Notice how you can hold the M240 at the high ready until the cows come home? Anyway I do like the idea of load becoming just enough of an issue that people will think seriously before kitting their person out like an entire platoon. Maybe dropping their backpack so they can sprint longer than 5 seconds without dying from exhaustion.

I don't care what the values are as long as they're THERE. The vanilla BIS version can be unrealistic I don't care as long as someone comes along and makes a realism mod for the 5% of us that would eat MREs in game if we could then I can play that. The mod ain't coming until the foundation in code is there though.

Quote[/b] ]-no secondary sniper rifle

I know it does happen in RL, but I hate the idea of being able to run around with a sniper rifle, an anti tank and an automatic pistol. Faaaar too rambo. I say let the secondary slot be launcher only. This would also mean no rewriting of animation code to expect a normal weapon in slot 2.

That's something that can easily be coded in a mission or a mod. If the secondary slot is launcher only than M24 / MP5 combos are not possible. Mods and mission scripts are how you prevent rambo'ism, not hamstringing the base game engine. Don't try to build gameplay directly into the game engine.

What is someone makes a Samurai mod and wants a musket and a sword as primary/secondary?

[kid 0]

Excellent points. Quoting your responses would probably clog up the forums, so I'll just use headings

-"special" slots: tricky... You've got me on the binocs, as you say everyone would take one if they could. NVG on the other hand... that's trickier. If you use a "headslot", the same problem arises. No reason not to take them. The RL considerations of field of view and, ya know, a large clunky blob protruding from your forehead, don't seem to be modelled, oddly enough but if it takes up 2 normal slots, it's hardly a big deal, is it? Everything's a trade-off.

I think different pouch sizes are a bad idea. Better to keep things general

-tripod or backpack: good point.

-levelled load: yes, I see the problems, but I think jumps in the load would break immersion more than the alternatives. Can any 4 people really run in perfect time? I'd have more fun trying to match my leader (although, as head of a clan, I can just jog and leave the mortals behind me to worry about that ) through judicious timing of when to sprint/run/walk to match rough speeds.

This would be in addition to getting tired more rapidly as one moves, and eventually omitting certain movements entirely. 40kg load = no sprinting... ever.

-bullets: now that sounds awesome. besides the problem of what to do with the empty mags (but hey, so long as we're rewriting the whole system, why not keep empty mags? )

I can just imagine an embattled group of soldiers huddling in an enclosure where the backpacks have been dropped, replenishing their empty magazines in preparation for the battle to come as the enemy surrounds them... no backup, lads, LZ is hot...

-weight: agree completely. Currently there seems to be no point at all in only taking a rifle, except very rare cases like space limitations or stealth (launchers do thankfully stick out)

-no secondary sniper rifle: another good point.

@KyleSarnik: thanks for that, I had no idea. I don't think it's a permanent solution, but it really (REALLY) helps.

[max power 21]

Quote[/b] ]I think that a special slot would be more flexible than a head slot.

I want to keep flexibility high but there's a price to pay in terms of conflict. A special slot that accepts NVGoggles and something else means you might have a conflict where taking one item prevents you from taking the other. One has to examine this conflict and ask "Is this a realistic conflict?" In real life a pair of NVGoggles clipped to your helmet wouldn't prevent you from taking that extra magazine, right?

Now I'm not entirely sure where a soldier keeps his NVGs when they're not on his helmet... in a large pouch on his hip maybe? In his backpack? If it's on his hip then that would be space you could put mags or smoke grenades or something. That would argue that a stored NVGs would go in the body harness slots or the backpack slot. There's nothing really wrong about using up body harness slots. You're quite used to OFP or such where you had 5 body harness slots (exaggeration) and it was a big worry about space. If we had a lot of slots, than 1or2 going to hold your NVGs shouldn't be a problem.

Maybe you could have a helmet clip/head slot anyway and have to drag the NVGs up there before you use them. Why not keep them there all the time you ask (freeing up some harness slots)? Well perhaps having a pound or two on your head instead of on your harness might make your encumbrance figure go up. Who knows.

Well, what else gets stored on the helmet? Nothing. So, you may as well just have a night vision goggles slot. Though, I'm not sure that even if some soldiers have night vision during the day that they run around with it on their helmets. I'm think they would store it somewhere where it was less likely to get messed up. Even if you have night vision on your head you should have room in your kit to take it off and store it.

Any serviceman may correct me if I'm wrong for making those assumptions.

[Rustman 0]

yes, but in RL you could check to see which mag has bullets, it would just take time.

To be clear, I'm talking about a scenario where (for example) you pick up an RPG from a fallen OPFOR. Which M4 mag do you part with? You know that 2 of them have fewer rounds, and one has far fewer, but which is it? As far as I know, there's no way to tell, is there?

It's easy..first the one with less ammo weighs less...and yes, it is a noticeable difference. If that isn't convincing you just push the rounds into the mag with a finger and see which one has more play in the spring...that one has less ammo.

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

The "general inventory system" should support several storages even on a soldier. The storage "helmet" can only store "helmet class". Inside "helmet class" you could have several "equipment storages" where you could put special equipment like NVG, combat radio (small very short range), maybe rabbit ears if you like for camouflage. There must be a fifference between storages like backpacks where items disappear and virtually stored inside and storages more like "slots" where only special equipment stored and even shown (NVG at helmet shown, NVG in backpack not).

So a soldier might have following storages:

- backpack (all items "solid", max 0.3 cubemeter, not shown)

- pistol slot left (only small arms class)

- pistol slot right (only small arms class)

- arms slot rear (assault rifles/LMG/Sniper/AT/AA)

- helmet (only helmet & hat class)

- helmet-front (NVG,...)

- helmet-left (only small equipment)

- helmet-right (only small equipment)

- chest (armor vests)

....

It should be open to define the classes to be stored at the different storages.

I dunno how to implement, a soldier-common inventory and only for storages where the equipment is shown and animated there are other parameter defined for visual appearance.

[frederf 0]

I like the idea of putting equipment on your helmet as a means of camouflage. Might be able to don a guile suit in a similar way.

[max power 21]

But to you want to make a gillies suit and NVGs mutually exclusive?

[4 IN 1 0]

most of the time i would stick with the weapon of choose as long as possible, if it ever run out of ammo i wouldnt want to simply drop it(which IRL is how you get yourself being yell at by NCOs), this is how i think a secound rifle came in handy

BUT it should be able to disable by a mission designer

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

If you ever had the chance to play WGL you would love good inventory management.

Usually I loaded into a HMMV or BRDM a TOW or Kornet launcher with some rockets and I packed some assault rifles and LMGs an 1-2 sniper rifles and some standard AT s like LAW/RPG into the car. With that setup I tried to get deep behind the enemy lines and was setting up ambushes. After setting up the AT laucher I was hiding the car far away. So even if you had to give up the TOW/Kornet, I could run to the hidden car and grab some gear for self defense or if to many tanks rolling at me I could simply run away by car. You could also pack some rucksacks ready to go/run with assault rifle + ammo and 1 LAW or so.

So if you spend some time initially in the mission you had always nice fireworks available close where you are.

[Second 0]

EDIT: Naah... Forget it.

[frederf 0]

Basically I want WGL but better built-in-ness instead of the awkward (but brilliant) work around that it was.

[INNOCENT&CLUELESS 0]

Sure, as I said, WGL was not perfect, but several times better then nothing. But the general approach I meant. It is anyway a strange discussion since almost every game like this comes since years with a similar system and a GUI for managing. BI somehow made this slot thing to rigid.