Inventory improvements confirmed....

[P226 0]

I understand your system better I think. But I prefer a "direct contact" rather than "proximity trade".

[Perun 0]

The best thing they could do is to do something like this: Character wear just uniform and player can add to him tactical vest which have some places for magazines, some places for grenades etc. I don't know whatever is on tactical vest. character could also take a bag which will not be limited by weight but by space (try to put in bag 1 Kg of lead and 1 Kg of feather ... both will have identical weights .. but the feather will be harder to get into) etc. etc. And the last thing they would programme is the running speed computed by the whole weight of character (maybe characters weight could affect it too ) (and also the running speed could be affected by surface and orther things, like if he is running in a water, or if he is running over ploughed field etc.) Because imagine a fat american who is runned in kit-bag running over ploughed filed - it have to be most targetable target of all targets

[CarlGustaffa 4]

I'll have to go quite a bit further than these suggestions. First of all, you shouldn't have to *select* a base unit (soldier, medic, sniper etc), you should instead *build* him. Select camoflage texture, face texture, and glasses. Give him voice and identity. Set "class" which defines limitations and behavioural FSM. A set of "skills and abilities" should be displayed as sliders and colored bars. Sliders set the desired level, while the colored bars show the effect that various equipment has on these "skills and abilities". These include stability, speed, strenght, agility, accuracy, weight, and so on. Attachments may increase weight and decrease stability, while a handgrip adds a little weight but gives far better stability. More on this later. The point is, avoid having to use description.ext, make it editor based.

Now start *equipping* this unit with placeholder and equipment.

I.e. headware is a placeholder for some types, but for others it is only an equipment, such as this:

Nothing is nothing obviously

Scarf, berets, and hats are only equipment as they can't be expanded.

Helmets are placeholders since they can carry additional equipment, such as "glowing in the dark" backmarkers (to mark friendlies to squadmembers), and a frontal mount where you can equip i.e. night vision goggles.

Caps however is a placeholder since it can be further expanded with a lucky card. But this is of course going extreme.

As I mentioned, "class" defines a rule on what kind of placeholder that can be used. Today, only the medic has limited carrying capabilities. Expand this so that class makes limits on what kinds of vests can be used. I.e. a medic can only choose between a couple of medic vests. A rifleman can use most except the specialities types, which can give him high carrying amounts. I.e. a riflemans vest might consist of 6 magazine holders and 4 grenade holders. You could also equip the rifleman with the squad leaders vest, with less magazine holders and more for other equipment. A rifleman might be limited by his class unabling him to be equipped with a pistol holster (and ammo).

Also a detachable sack could be configured in this way.

Now that the basic unit and setup has been done, it's time to place weapons on him. Drag i.e. an M4 into his hands. The M4 is a two handed weapons and should be used dual wield. Dual Mp5's though could be quite fun although the accuracy would be terrible Certain points on this weapon is placeholders, describing logical attachment points compatible with that weapon. A SOPMOD M4 has a hell of a lot more attachment options than an Mp5 i.e.

Attach the mounting rails to the placeholders, which themselves are placeholders, by clicking on the mouseover highlighted position on the gun. A descriptive field about the placeholder show update. Hold it an various mounting rails show up to choose from. Attach the full sight rail. Two new attachment positions show up. Now you can attach the red dot sight as well as a magnifyer.

Similar to the underbarrel attachment point. Attach either a rail for certain types of equipment, grenade launcher, or a shotgun. Similarly, choose between different types of supressors, flame arrestors, and recoil dampeners appropriate for a given type of weapon. Here you would also choose buttstock type. Configurability gone mad, but I think most will love it.

As for weaponry, I suggest two slots on the hands (one twohanded gun or two singlehanded guns, or two mines or grenades), one on the back. However, not limited to tube based weapons. Handguns would require a holster setup, even if placed in hands. Heavy weapons might still be only a one main weapon though, such as an M240/M249 could not carry an additional personal weapon. Maybe sacks shouldn't be able to carry guns, maybe exceptionally handguns?

However, as each item is configured madly and things placed into the characters inventory, the weight starts to build. Stability, speed, and endurance is affected negatively by weight encouraging smart use of character setup. You can then add a handgrip to counter the stability, but since it adds weight it still affects speed and endurance.

I talked about getting back to skills and abilities, so here goes.

Every single item should have all values defined as "in hand", "in inventory", "when used", "when fired". I.e. having a supressor mounted on a gun, should have a small "in inventory" weight penalty which in turn affects other skills that make use of this attributte. It should have a small stability penalty "in hand", and affect the bullets fired with a decrease in muzzle velocity and accuracy "when fired". Similarly, using a ghillie suit should affect the character with a high stealth bonus "when used". There could be motion detectors with added reveal bonus "when used".

Suggested "skills", but 1 should always mean a better value.

aimingAccuracy - how accurate your aim is

aimingShake --> aimingStability (not shake, let 1 be a *good* value)

aimingSpeed - how quick you readjust aim

endurance - how quickly weight adds penalties

spotDistance - how far you can spot enemies and mark them

spotTime - how long you must see them to positively identify

courage - used mostly by AI, determining fleeing i.e.

reloadSpeed - can also be used by players, acting as assistants or loaders.

commanding - AI's ability to give useful orders. Or their ability to follow yours based on your value.

general - not sure what this is supposed to become.

But also, here are some of my own "skills and abilities"

strenght - defining the maximum encumbrance values

runningspeed - how quick you can run

agility - how quick you can change stance, change weapons etc

encumbrance - mostly an indicator

stealth - how easy you are to see and spot

friendlyness/charisma - would be nice against neutrals

This stealth factor should be automatically handled ingame though. Using a snow camo while in a tree area at daytime spring would actually give you a penalty in stealth.

And finally, ammunition configurability. Select the magazine type, such as 20 or 30 rounds, taped or not. Taped magazines should not be possible with over-under belts, but would help on reload times. Click on a magazine to "open it". You have to unload it from the weapon so that it can be opened. While opened you have access to the excact number of rounds in the magazine and how it is configured if using mixed ammunition types (tracers, armor-piercing, incendiary, multipurpose etc). Ammunition comes in "boxes", not ready to use magazines. While "opened", you can select to reload the magazine into several preset configurations (for ease of use), and it will load the magazine based on how many rounds are available in boxes. That leaves us with two ingame r-key commands:

r = reload; does what it does today, and

R = refill; brings up the magazine config, where round availability is based on your closeness to nearby ammo crates or vehicle storage. I think 1 meter should suffice.

The model of the sack should be dynamic depending on the configuration and fillings. A three room sack with two additional sidepockets should "deflate naturally" while the player is using from the backpack.

To summarize.

1. Editor where you create the whole character from scratch.

2. Skills and abilities on parts, weapons, and accessories.

3. Skills and abilities cross-affect one-another.

4. Weight as a very serious consideration.

5. High configurability on loadout, weapon, and even ammunition.

6. Combined use of modifiable size/slots, and weight.

Many games have tried and only with limited success handled loadout very good. Stalker was pretty good where it combined slots with weight causing penalties. But it failed in configuring how space was used. Crysis was pretty good as far as weapon attachments is considered, but failed in having weight an issue.

But all of this has been issuing the single unit. It MUST also be possible to define proper squads without having to use any initialization lines in the editor. That is, given a pregenerated squad setup, go in and setup the initial waypoint giving it a speed, behaviour, formation type and all that. You should be able to generate your own formation types which you can call and use both via scripts and as a leader (should show up in the formation menu, and ALL menus of this kind should have scripted equivialents).

I.e. if it was not already defined, you could define a left and right stack formation to be used later. Each unit in the formation should be able to be given a "default angle" compared to the formation direction, and draw in his scanning sector. I.e. the rifleman in a team sized left stack would look backwards and to his right, while scanning a slightly greater area. In a defensive ring formation (i.e. while exiting from a chopper), scan area per soldier is set to be bigger). If a soldier dies, his neighbouring units adds his scanning sector.

It should be possible to set a formation spread, both while setting it up and while ingame. Furthermore it should be possible to set formation on a per team basis (color) or even hierarcically, as you can with the combat mode. I.e. have blue team in a line formation as defence holding position, while red team is split up into a fire and movement team using right and left echelon formation.

Having this kind of hierachy flexibility would allow for commanding info-sharing bigger units than a squad. Today, I would say the leading abilities is limited to controlling a team at best. It requires too much scripting to have units perform "tasks" such as going to a position and defending it. It should be possible to describe this behaviour within the waypoints themselves.

With a hierarchy system, it could be possible for a leader to control whole platoons or maybe even companies if done right. With a hierachy system, you would as a leader only directly command the commanders directly below you. I.e. as a Sergeant 1st class or 2nd lieutenant, you might control a platoon sized infantry unit, and control where each squad would move to, as well as any attachments on that level. It would then be up to AI how this was performed. Think about the possibilities missions would have if combined with an improved teamswitch feature. A new command would be required here on the battlefield; cancel and resume various AI states for the leaders.

And these were only my "place unit" editor and group/formation options, as well as some ingame thoughts about how the system should work in this respect.

Hey, one can dream, no?

[SunDragonx10 0]

As mentioned in first post, I really would like to see a realistic simulation of body armor in Arma 2. By mentioning inventory improvements I hope that they wold implement armor such as ceramic plates, weights of different equipment etc. and not just an overall improvement of the gear window.

Rainbow Six Raven Shield had some sort of simulation with body armor. Wouldn't it be realistic if when you get hit, you suffer trauma effects and lose aim, that is if the plates manage to defeat the round. Alternatively, you could suffer injury after being shot, such as broken ribs and such, or even death.

I can see how this would be a problem when facing other players who also have rifle plating, such as they'll never die, but even plates aren't infinitely durable.

[SunDragonx10 0]

I talked about getting back to skills and abilities, so here goes.

Every single item should have all values defined as "in hand", "in inventory", "when used", "when fired". I.e. having a supressor mounted on a gun, should have a small "in inventory" weight penalty which in turn affects other skills that make use of this attributte. It should have a small stability penalty "in hand", and affect the bullets fired with a decrease in muzzle velocity and accuracy "when fired". Similarly, using a ghillie suit should affect the character with a high stealth bonus "when used". There could be motion detectors with added reveal bonus "when used".

That would certainly be an interesting implement to the game. Didn't BIS mention something about RPG elements?

[mr.g-c 6]

Sooooooooooo, to continue the talk about Inventory, now what you think, will we see a improved inventory or not in Arma2.....

ACE-Mod showed that its possible to use and carry a rucksack and packing stuff into it.

[NoRailgunner 0]

You must be very bored diggin out a thread after 1 year of silence!!

Didnt one of BIS devs say/wrote sth of usable backpacks in Arma2? Would be great if AI could use the additional gear on their own - imho ACE have only (stupid-AI) carriers.

[mr.g-c 6]

Quote[/b] ]Didnt one of BIS devs say/wrote sth of usable backpacks in Arma2?

Dunno, i just remember the statement from 2007 as they said that "there is a possibility" to have Inventory improvements. It was mentioned alongside with "bird swarms react on palyers" and other stuff....

Quote[/b] ]Would be great if AI could use the additional gear on their own - imho ACE have only (stupid-AI) carriers.

Actually you can be sure that in ACE sooner or later this functionality will be included. The corresponding suggestion-ticket was already some months ago set to "accepted" and devs assigned.

[stgn 39]

A suppressor actualy increases the muzzel velocity and accuracy in some cases also it lowers recoile and removes muzzel flash, the negative is that the rifle becomes more fornt heavy and less balanced-unstable, if you atach it to a unsuppressed zeroed weapon then the point of impact is gonna change and you need to rezero to hit on point of aim, also it drasticaly increases the need for maintenens/lubrication to avoid malfunctions.

A vertical forgrip is a matter of taste but for som it can help control recoile especialy on full auto and the ability to drive the gun- faster on target, how ever if handled incorrect(which is common) it will decrease accuracy of the soldier due to being more unstable, the grip is futher from the barrel than a normal handguard and a rong pull on it will decrease follow up speed.

STGN

[Michael_Wittman 0]

One problem coming to mind regarding the use of weight value to determine character speed is that you will need a wide range of running aniimations...because if you dont do that heavier characters would run slow motion like an astronaut. So a system like that would be flexible only to a certain point....I mean...I dont see how the animation could be weight dependant (self generated) opposite to motion capture.

[CarlGustaffa 4]

If ArmA2 contained builtin support for ACE rucksack and stamina system, it would prevent newcomers to getting into ArmA2 'the wrong way'. Some people don't like ACE stamina system because 'they are used to' being able to run like mad forever with a ton of gear. If they could never get used to it, it wouldn't be an issue and everyone would accept it since it IS more realistic anyways.

Also I think I've read that ArmA2 would have realistic ballistics. If this is the case, you can't have sniper weapons without being able to compensate for this drop, by means of adjusteable sights. I played sometimes using NWD_Scopefix and ballistics without adjusteable sight, the M24 became unuseable. Also with the M107 I had to aim well into the 'bold' part of the reticle, completely off.

ArmA2 should seriously consider builtin support for many things ACE brings to us: Backpacks, stamina system, adjustable sights (different for grenade launchers, AT launchers, handgrenades, sniper weapons, and cqb backup sights precicely as done in ACE), ballistics (incl rocket ballistics), adjustable gain on the NVGs, backblast and overpressure effects, dispersion (included overheating based), crew served weapons, and magazines system. Weapon resting if high sway is done, but should be made better by default (not sure how though ). As for roundcount I don't mind going into gear menu and examine each magazine separately, even colorcoded. But no to excact round count as is shown on the videos today.

[POTS 0]

If ArmA2 contained builtin support for ACE rucksack and stamina system, it would prevent newcomers to getting into ArmA2 'the wrong way'. Some people don't like ACE stamina system because 'they are used to' being able to run like mad forever with a ton of gear. If they could never get used to it, it wouldn't be an issue and everyone would accept it since it IS more realistic anyways.

Also I think I've read that ArmA2 would have realistic ballistics. If this is the case, you can't have sniper weapons without being able to compensate for this drop, by means of adjusteable sights. I played sometimes using NWD_Scopefix and ballistics without adjusteable sight, the M24 became unuseable. Also with the M107 I had to aim well into the 'bold' part of the reticle, completely off.

ArmA2 should seriously consider builtin support for many things ACE brings to us: Backpacks, stamina system, adjustable sights (different for grenade launchers, AT launchers, handgrenades, sniper weapons, and cqb backup sights precicely as done in ACE), ballistics (incl rocket ballistics), adjustable gain on the NVGs, backblast and overpressure effects, dispersion (included overheating based), crew served weapons, and magazines system. Weapon resting if high sway is done, but should be made better by default (not sure how though ). As for roundcount I don't mind going into gear menu and examine each magazine separately, even colorcoded. But no to excact round count as is shown on the videos today.

They did have stamina, it just wasn't very good stamina simulation. You couldn't run like mad forever, you'd slow to a jog.

[celery 8]

If ArmA2 contained builtin support for ACE rucksack and stamina system, it would prevent newcomers to getting into ArmA2 'the wrong way'. Some people don't like ACE stamina system because 'they are used to' being able to run like mad forever with a ton of gear. If they could never get used to it, it wouldn't be an issue and everyone would accept it since it IS more realistic anyways.

Also I think I've read that ArmA2 would have realistic ballistics. If this is the case, you can't have sniper weapons without being able to compensate for this drop, by means of adjusteable sights. I played sometimes using NWD_Scopefix and ballistics without adjusteable sight, the M24 became unuseable. Also with the M107 I had to aim well into the 'bold' part of the reticle, completely off.

ArmA2 should seriously consider builtin support for many things ACE brings to us: Backpacks, stamina system, adjustable sights (different for grenade launchers, AT launchers, handgrenades, sniper weapons, and cqb backup sights precicely as done in ACE), ballistics (incl rocket ballistics), adjustable gain on the NVGs, backblast and overpressure effects, dispersion (included overheating based), crew served weapons, and magazines system. Weapon resting if high sway is done, but should be made better by default (not sure how though ). As for roundcount I don't mind going into gear menu and examine each magazine separately, even colorcoded. But no to excact round count as is shown on the videos today.

They did have stamina, it just wasn't very good stamina simulation. You couldn't run like mad forever, you'd slow to a jog.

You can run full speed forever by sprinting diagonally.

[ricnunes 0]

One kind of improvement that I would like to see in ArmA2 is that certain weapons/equipment shouldn't be carried by certain soldier classes or at least equiped from the begining (or in the friendly/home base).

For example a Pilot shouldn't be able to be equiped with a sniper rifle (unless and perhaps when captured from a dead soldier). This would greatly improve realism gameplay in ArmA, since we no longer would see pilots getting M-107s from cases, getting into aircraft and in a "rambo" atitude (when tired of flying or shot down) getting out of the aircraft and start sniping. Limiting the number of weapons (and weight if modeled in ArmA2) for pilots would also make things much more realistic (like currently happens with the medic soldier) even because pilots with their uniforms (flight suits) don't have nearly as many available slots as an infantry soldier for example has.

Certain "special" weapons should be limited to certain soldier classes, like for example the M-107 heavy sniper rifle (and even a M-24) should be limited to sniper soldiers only.

Pilots should only be "equipable" with smaller weapons like pistols (or at best with SMGs or Carbines). Same thing should apply for vehicle crewmen.

Again, I'm not saying that in a case of emergency (for example when a pilot is shot down) that a pilot (or crewman) shoudn't be allowed to pick any weapon from a dead soldier (or even enemy cases), but from the begining (in friendly/home bases) this shouldn't IMO happen.

[Spokesperson 0]

I think that this ammo-indicator should be removed (from most weapons). It would be much better if people are forced to count or estimate the amount of shots left. Mags should be countable still though. And when you reload the whole mag should be thrown away (or at least changed for a full one, and refilled later).

[Pyronick 21]

I think that this ammo-indicator should be removed (from most weapons). It would be much better if people are forced to count or estimate the amount of shots left. Mags should be countable still though. And when you reload the whole mag should be thrown away (or at least changed for a full one, and refilled later).

This is what made Vietcong and Trespasser so win.

[SASrecon 0]

I think that this ammo-indicator should be removed (from most weapons). It would be much better if people are forced to count or estimate the amount of shots left. Mags should be countable still though. And when you reload the whole mag should be thrown away (or at least changed for a full one, and refilled later).

i've thought of an idea for counting ammo etc.

instead of adding to the scroll menu clutter, to count just press r once and if you're desperate to reload press r twice (if out of ammo there is only need to press r once) This will reduce HUD to some extent and give enthusiasts what they want and regulars what they want to some extent, maybe this could also be turned on and off in the difficulty?!?

[Pyronick 21]

I think that this ammo-indicator should be removed (from most weapons). It would be much better if people are forced to count or estimate the amount of shots left. Mags should be countable still though. And when you reload the whole mag should be thrown away (or at least changed for a full one, and refilled later).

i've thought of an idea for counting ammo etc.

instead of adding to the scroll menu clutter, to count just press r once and if you're desperate to reload press r twice (if out of ammo there is only need to press r once) This will reduce HUD to some extent and give enthusiasts what they want and regulars what they want to some extent, maybe this could also be turned on and off in the difficulty?!?

Red Orchestra and Trespasser have something similar which your in-game character says if the mag feels empty, half-full or full.

[mr.g-c 6]

ACE Mod has this aswell

[Pyronick 21]

ACE Mod has this aswell      

Oh, whoops.

[mr.g-c 6]

So, can anyone now name what is improved in the inventory over Arma1?

I noticed that things like maps, compass and stuff are now objects which is very welcome, but anything else?