Sniper rifles

[Jacobite 0]

I've always had a keen interest into Sniper rifles.

How will Snipers and their rifles operate in ARMA2?

Thinking along the lines of...

Deep lung

Bullet Drop

Wind correction

Stance modifiers

Grade of bullets

Grade of wepon being used.

Scopes and Binocs

I have read that bushes and other objects have another invisible layer that prevents ai directly pinpointing past them.

In correlation to this..

If the Sniper takes a shot from a far away distance and the AI is prevented from seeing the Sniper.

Does the AI see the bullet stream? And from that point able to "guess" the position of the Sniper?

Deployment of the sniper.

How is this handled? Or rather what are the best choices

Do i grab a jeep from base camp which is off to the front line , jump off a few miles beforehand and run up a hillside...?

Any info on these things would be greatly appreciated.

Jacobite

[Second 0]

How is this handled? Or rather what are the best choices

Do i grab a jeep from base camp which is off to the front line , jump off a few miles beforehand and run up a hillside...?

You might wish to crawl all the way from camp to sniping spot. You never know where counter-snipers are

How AI sees/hears snipers? Hard to say when ArmA2 haven't been even released. In ArmA they were pretty good at pinpointing sniper's area and if sniper remained in his position he might receive 5.56/5.45mm welcoming present to his neck/face/ear. That might have been fixed in ArmA2, i guess i've heard something about it.

[celery 8]

Sniper rifles are treated like any other weapon in the game.

[cm 0]

Sniper rifles are treated like any other weapon in the game.

That sounds about right..  

[Alex72 1]

Hope though the AI have a hard time knowing where you are if you snipe from long range. See them run around and dont knowing where to take cover as they dont know where it came from. At least until you shoot one too many shots from the same spot.

It was made better after some patch prior to 1.08 where they knew no matter what you did. Even lay a mine 400 meters away and then 10 minutes later an AI drover over it and instantly knew where you were lol.

Alex

[Provac 0]

Make taking out valued targets lower morale of troops. Lets say you kill an officer of squad, although someone takes over command it should lower their resolve.

1st shot enemy find cover when their leader dies

2nd shot sniper fire is spotted

3rd shot is the most dangerous one and a sniper needs to decide if he wants to take that chance or find a new position and start over again.

edit!

Of course if the sniper is backing up or being backed up by a firing squad then enemies would most likely engage the firing squad before the sniper considering the confusion.

[evilnate 0]

I think it would be pretty cool if the AI had alert states.

If the Ai aren't alerted you can get away with one shot from the appropriate distance or the appropriate silencer. Once the Ai is alerted, they will spot your location if fired again.

If the Ai don't find anything after being on alert for a few min, they go back to "safe" state and give the sniper another free-bee shot.

It would also be cool if BIS included a fancy windage and elevation adjustments similar to NWD, but with graphical representation of actual MOA adjustments.

Oh and please.... please bring back the civilian Hunting Rifle from OFP:R!

[JVJ 0]

I think it would be pretty cool if the AI had alert states.

If the Ai aren't alerted you can get away with one shot from the appropriate distance or the appropriate silencer. Once the Ai is alerted, they will spot your location if fired again.

If the Ai don't find anything after being on alert for a few min, they go back to "safe" state and give the sniper another free-bee shot.

Thats a pretty good idea... A little like the Enemy alert status in commandos 2...

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I've always had a keen interest into Sniper rifles.

How will Snipers and their rifles operate in ARMA2?

Thinking along the lines of...

Deep lung

Bullet Drop

Wind correction

Stance modifiers

Grade of bullets

Grade of wepon being used.

Scopes and Binocs

I have read that bushes and other objects have another invisible layer that prevents ai directly pinpointing past them.

In correlation to this..

If the Sniper takes a shot from a far away distance and the AI is prevented from seeing the Sniper.

Does the AI see the bullet stream? And from that point able to "guess" the position of the Sniper?

Deployment of the sniper.

How is this handled? Or rather what are the best choices

Do i grab a jeep from base camp which is off to the front line , jump off a few miles beforehand and run up a hillside...?

Any info on these things would be greatly appreciated.

Jacobite

As Celery said, sniper rifles are handled like any other weapon in the game, but this just means that the marksmanship skills that are modelled by ArmA are for assault rifles as well as sniper rifles. The engagement distances and magnification of optics on sniper rifles just make these skills more important for snipers than riflemen.

These are the features as they stand in ArmA. I'm sure ArmA2 will handle them exactly the same, if not more in-depth.

Deep lung? I assume that's holding your breath or something?

ArmA already features a method of 'holding your breath' that stabilises the weapon sway allowing you to take a more precise shot, but overall breath control in sharpshooting not that in-depth. Basically, if you've been running lots you're breathing is heavier and it's more difficult to aim until you're breathing reaches a normal rate. Other physically exerting movements such as duck-walking and rolling prone also make you breath heavier.

Bullet drop is modelled on all weapons and AFAIK the wind affects bullets too now. Correction for these is currently done by Kentucky windage in default ArmA, but there have been a number of mods that allow mil adjustments of the scope to correct the shots. Whether ArmA2 will have a sight-adjustment feature built-in I don't know, but I dare say someone will make another mod for it, if it does not.

Stances are just standing, crouched and prone in ArmA. Your stance affects the recovery time from physical exertion and overall stability of your weapon. Dunno if ArmA 2 will change anything in this respect.

I'm not really sure how grade of bullets works in the military. I'd assume they just issued better, match-grade ammo to snipers? The ballistics of rounds in Arma are defined by the magazine class. So far, sniper weapons in ArmA generally have unique magazine classes that can't be loaded into other weapons. The result is that a 7.62 sniper magazine is more precise than a 7.62 machine-gun magazine even though they have the same calibre, but you can't load a machine-gun round into a sniper rifle of vice-versa.

The accuracy of a magazine is normally modelled as a compound of the characteristic accuracy of the rifle it is intended to be used with, as well as the grade of the round that weapon would uses. One problem is that if you have a series of weapons that take the same magazines, where the real weapons would have different characteristic accuracy (due to having different quality/length barrels, or different bolt/gas actions etc) the weapons in game have the exact same ballistic characteristics. For example the G36 series in ArmA are just as accurate whether you're using a G36A or a G36C.

Weapons can accept more than one type of magazine, so I suppose it's possible to have a selection of grades of ammo for each weapon if you made a mod. This would make resupplying your weapon from an ammo-crate a complicated task though.

Binoculars have always been in the game, I've not seen spotting telescopes made yet. AFAIK they're only useful in giving you a magnified view of a target, rather than helping to calculate range etc. I normally guestimate distances using the map of the terrain, then utilise a bit of Kentucky windage to hit the target. People have modded laser-range finders though which are fantastically helpful. Not sure if they'll be in ArmA2 by default. Sniper-Spotter interaction is only really applicable in multiplayer though.

Bushes do block the AI's line of sight, however they have VERY good hearing (too good IMO) which allows them to locate you quite easily if you're nearby and fire your weapon, or move, producing noise. They will fire on you if they reckon you're behind a bush, but can't actually see you. This is often confused for them being able to see you behind objects, because like I said, their sound location ends up very precise (the more you shoot, the smaller arc they investigate), so they can normally line up shots as though they can see you. I think BIS should put a finite limit how small the hearing arc of the AI can get, so that they can only locate you to within a few meters at intermediate ranges, unless they have eyes on you, but suppress those few meters regardless.

Distance is a factor in how easily they can locate you by sight, or from the sound of a gunshot though.

Sniper deployment depends on the mission editor and the player. You may find you're inserted by car, boat, parachute, helicopter... how close you're drop-off is to your target is up to the mission editor, and how you proceed from the drop-off to the target is completely up to you.

[4 IN 1 0]

As Celery said, sniper rifles are handled like any other weapon in the game, but this just means that the marksmanship skills that are modelled by ArmA are for assault rifles as well as sniper rifles. The engagement distances and magnification of optics on sniper rifles just make these skills more important for snipers than riflemen.

These are the features as they stand in ArmA. I'm sure ArmA2 will handle them exactly the same, if not more in-depth.

Deep lung? I assume that's holding your breath or something?

ArmA already features a method of 'holding your breath' that stabilises the weapon sway allowing you to take a more precise shot, but overall breath control in sharpshooting not that in-depth. Basically, if you've been running lots you're breathing is heavier and it's more difficult to aim until you're breathing reaches a normal rate. Other physically exerting movements such as duck-walking and rolling prone also make you breath heavier.

Bullet drop is modelled on all weapons and AFAIK the wind affects bullets too now. Correction for these is currently done by Kentucky windage in default ArmA, but there have been a number of mods that allow mil adjustments of the scope to correct the shots. Whether ArmA2 will have a sight-adjustment feature built-in I don't know, but I dare say someone will make another mod for it, if it does not.

Stances are just standing, crouched and prone in ArmA. Your stance affects the recovery time from physical exertion and overall stability of your weapon. Dunno if ArmA 2 will change anything in this respect.

I'm not really sure how grade of bullets works in the military. I'd assume they just issued better, match-grade ammo to snipers? The ballistics of rounds in Arma are defined by the magazine class. So far, sniper weapons in ArmA generally have unique magazine classes that can't be loaded into other weapons. The result is that a 7.62 sniper magazine is more precise than a 7.62 machine-gun magazine even though they have the same calibre, but you can't load a machine-gun round into a sniper rifle of vice-versa.

The accuracy of a magazine is normally modelled as a compound of the characteristic accuracy of the rifle it is intended to be used with, as well as the grade of the round that weapon would uses. One problem is that if you have a series of weapons that take the same magazines, where the real weapons would have different characteristic accuracy (due to having different quality/length barrels, or different bolt/gas actions etc) the weapons in game have the exact same ballistic characteristics. For example the G36 series in ArmA are just as accurate whether you're using a G36A or a G36C.

Weapons can accept more than one type of magazine, so I suppose it's possible to have a selection of grades of ammo for each weapon if you made a mod. This would make resupplying your weapon from an ammo-crate a complicated task though.

Binoculars have always been in the game, I've not seen spotting telescopes made yet. AFAIK they're only useful in giving you a magnified view of a target, rather than helping to calculate range etc. I normally guestimate distances using the map of the terrain, then utilise a bit of Kentucky windage to hit the target. People have modded laser-range finders though which are fantastically helpful. Not sure if they'll be in ArmA2 by default. Sniper-Spotter interaction is only really applicable in multiplayer though.

Bushes do block the AI's line of sight, however they have VERY good hearing (too good IMO) which allows them to locate you quite easily if you're nearby and fire your weapon, or move, producing noise. They will fire on you if they reckon you're behind a bush, but can't actually see you. This is often confused for them being able to see you behind objects, because like I said, their sound location ends up very precise (the more you shoot, the smaller arc they investigate), so they can normally line up shots as though they can see you. I think BIS should put a finite limit how small the hearing arc of the AI can get, so that they can only locate you to within a few meters at intermediate ranges, unless they have eyes on you, but suppress those few meters regardless.

Distance is a factor in how easily they can locate you by sight, or from the sound of a gunshot though.

Sniper deployment depends on the mission editor and the player. You may find you're inserted by car, boat, parachute, helicopter... how close you're drop-off is to your target is up to the mission editor, and how you proceed from the drop-off to the target is completely up to you.

yes, having same ballistic characteristics for different weapon is a thing that i woule like BI to correct, i just wish that they could add extra value(s) in weapon config so that it adds variety to the final ballistic behaivor

[Alex72 1]

Good post about the hearing etc da12thMonkey. very good.

That area needs to be looked over a bit. AI has definatelly too good hearing. The feeling of being far away as a sniper hiding on a hill under a bush is lost when the AI pin point you so easy. It feels like the maps are smaller than they are in a sense.

Some tweaking needed BIS. And im sure youll get it right.

Alex

[Second 0]

In fact it's not hearing so much as it is engine feature, which makes AI able to pinpoint aggressors location from distances over 500 meters.

If someone gets killed from group killer gets somehow highlighted to rest of group. Good example of this is that i can fire belts and magazines from long distances at AI without hitting them (or firing very close to them) and they don't react to it and don't know my location... But when i fire just one round which kills or wounds one of them, AI becomes well aware of me. This is limitation/flaw in ArmA as it was in OFP... Stealthy stationary sniper style won't work after first hit has been scored. AI will land on him like ton of bricks.

That if sniper is alone. If sniper has like squad supporting him this is pretty good tactic to take out AI's which have holed to some place which is hard to take over. Shoot them from distance and cover all directions by few own guys. Then enemy AI just sends his men to "slaughter house"... If enemy AI is able to send his men to engage that sniper (defined by mission editor). Will be interesting to see how enemy mortars will be able alert uses of this tactic