Suggestion for additional helo - Please Read

[furiocity 10]

I want to start by thanking the ArmA kru for making such a great game, for taking the extra steps to make such an immersive game with huge environments, and also for providing these forums for their fanbase to make suggestions.

My suggestion is that of an addition helicopter. This helicopter being the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior. I love this helicopter, but the biggest issue i find when playing military simulators is that none feature this particular helicopter, its usually always about the blackhawk or the apache. Not even the MS simulators feature this helo standard. If this happened, this would be the first official game that featured an OH-58.

Here is a pic-> http://i40.tinypic.com/36hh.jpg

Here is a quick rundown of the OH-58D Kiowa Warrior:

General characteristics

Crew: 2 pilots

Length: 42 ft 2 in (12.85 m)

Main rotor diameter: 35 ft 0 in (10.67 m)

Height: 12 ft 105â„8 in (3.93 m)

Main rotor area: 14.83 ft² (1.38 m²)

Gross weight: 5,500 lb (2,495 kg)

Powerplant: 1 × Rolls-Royce T703-AD-700A or 250-C30R/3 turboshaft, 650 hp (485 kW) each

Performance

Maximum speed: 149 mph (241 km/h)

Cruise speed: 127 mph (204 km/h)

Service ceiling: 15,000 ft (4,575 m)

Armament

AGM-114 Hellfire anti-tank missiles

Hydra 70 rockets

M296 .50 cal (12.7 mm) machine gun (a modified M2 Browning machine gun)

AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missiles

Basically if you took a Jetranger and put a machine gun and a rocket pod on it, this is what you would get.

The helo also features a camera pod, mounted on top of the rotor blades, that the pilots use to perform reconaissance missions. It is a common technique for the pilot to hover the bird a few feet above the ground behind a hill, so that it can let the camera pod peak over the hill to record enemy movements and such.

I love this chopper so greatly, that one day I aim to fly it myself in the US Army, and if you put this chopper into the game it would be a godsend, although it is already a godsend because you are letting us fly the Huey.

Even if the chopper doesn't ever appear in the main story line, I would be greatful if it was at least placed on a few multiplayer maps.

No game to this date has shown this bird any love, and I think that the folks at Bohemia Interactive Studio are the right people for the job. Thank you.

[Andi 10]

It's used by the Army, not by the Marines.

Case closed.

[Redkid Joker 0]

If this happened, this would be the first official game that featured an OH-58.

It was in OFP.

[S!fkaIaC 10]

@furiosity: maybe you wait until a good modding team is interested in this bird.

Maybe some teams that made stunning addons for OFP will be reborn with ArmA 2.

Check what was, and will be again possible:

http://www.opflashpoint.org/addons.php?t=1

[celery 8]

What bothers me more is that I don't see the Little Bird in the vehicle list. Kiowa would be quite useless in terms of functions available in the game because in OFP it was pretty much just a big Little Bird with 2 seats and less maneuverability. I'd be surprised if the AI could use it for recon.

[PuFu 4600]

...

at this stage of the development, such a request is useless, since modeling, texturing it, testing and implementing it takes quite a bit of time....so there will be no kiowa in AA2, but i am sure one mod or the other will get this chopper in at some point

[sidhellfire 0]

I don't want to spoil anything planned by developers, but I believe that avoiding of the implemention current ArmA models (like T80) is the result of idea of converting them later on. Rember, that addons form OFP werent a big part in arma cause the model and texture quality difference between two ages was massive. Now instead, the most of graphics improvement is done by shaders blurs etc. thus models remain in similar quality. Can't imagine for now how hard is to convert ArmA addon to ArmA2, but defining some materials, maybe additional LOD's, rewritten config and we're off.

Edited May 7, 2009 by sidhellfire