make commander view indepentend again

[Dr.Pulp 0]

Hi Folx!

It bugs me that the commander view in arma 2 is linked to the turret it is on. a commander gets really useless, cause he loses sight of all objects, if the gunner rotates the turret.

everytime i try to assaign a target he move the turret 45 degrees....and i loose the enemy :(

even worse when commanding a LAV (he has no HUD for turret orientation), where you don't even have a clue, in what direction the LAV is driving....what direction you are looking to, and where your canon is pointed at.

Why?

Please fix it BIS!

Edited June 8, 2009 by Dr.Pulp

[Helmut_AUT 0]

It might be annoying, but it's realistic. You are standing inside that turrent when it turns, of course your view turns with it. Okay, the Argument could be made that in real life your eyes will "lock" the object, but that's not the perfect stabilized way it has been modelled previously, so the simulated truth would be somewhere in the middle.

OTOH, especially on a fast moving tank or APC, I can guarantee you in reality it would be a damn lot harder to keep anything in view than here in the game.

[Dr.Pulp 0]

okay...if BIS keeps it this way for realism....how about unreal motion blur, bloom, no analog throttle, etc. ? ;-)

[neofit 65]

I don't want to start a new thread about this, but I totally agree with the OP.

All modern MBT have a stabilized turret, which means that when the driver moves or rotates the hull, the turret itself rotates to compensate and keep its current heading or target, thanks to onboard computers. But then we have a third element, the commander viewport, I'm talking the view from inside that allows the commander to designate targets, not the unbuttoned view from that position. I must admit that I've never been inside a real MBT, but IMHO it would have been a big oversight if the commander viewport was not also stabilized, i.e. independent from the turret itself, just as the latter is independent from the hull.

As it is now, I agree with the OP, it's impossible to properly play as a tank commander. Either the commander viewport should be made stabilized, or, when the player himself is at the commander position, the AI gunner should stop actively seeking for targets.

And BTW, for some reason, every time I'm in a tank with AI, it works much worse at finding targets, like tanks or AT APCs, even at 50m, than when there is no player inside. When I have the chance of having 2 tanks in my team, I always let the other one deal with armored threats, it is much better at doing that. My crew can't drive, can report but does not engage armored threats, in the event it does it uses the machinegun instead of the main gun, while I can't even properly designate targets. When I hear a main gun shooting, it's almost always the other tank, not mine. So I don't know what would be easier, fix the AI or stabilize the commander viewport?

[arma2disapointed 10]

Maybe it´s diferent on different tanks, some reserch should be done. Cant be the same everywhere..

Maybe the loader in the abrams can stabilize this for the realism in it.:D

For those that didnt know, it has one.

[-=seany=- 5]

I agree with the op. I'm pretty sure most if not all mbts, even t72, has a stabilized commander view port.

[chaplainDMK 10]

Maybe it´s diferent on different tanks, some reserch should be done. Cant be the same everywhere..

Maybe the loader in the abrams can stabilize this for the realism in it.:D

For those that didnt know, it has one.

Yes it has one and he does what his name implies:

LOADS!!!!

Dunno what kind of pearson likes to watch a repetetive animation of ramming a round and propelant down the gun... And the TUSK variant has a loader witch uses a MG so in all respects you would need tonnes of useless positions in different vehicles.

C-130 copilots and flight engineers, flight controllers, landing crews and loading crews for reloading, UAV control centres with UAV pilots etc.

Do you know how many positions are missing in ArmA?! The command tree goes from Commander directly to squad leaders, there aint no General, Corp Commander, Division Commander, Company Commander, Platoon Commander, Squad Commander and Fireteam leaders and the unknown hundreds of positions inbetwen, radio operators, inteligence officers etc.

But all you want is the pointless loader?

---------- Post added at 03:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:03 PM ----------

okay...if BIS keeps it this way for realism....how about unreal motion blur, bloom, no analog throttle, etc. ? ;-)

In reality you dont have perfect focus when moving your head, try moving your head and tell me how much stuff you can make out?

[Noceur 10]

Actually, some of the vehicles in the game do have stabilized commander view (the m1a2 for example).

edit: Also, the human brain disregards the motion blur we get when we move our eyes and our eyes aren't static when we move our heads. Peripheral motionblur when running is more realistic though.

Edited July 15, 2009 by Noceur

[max power 21]

okay...if BIS keeps it this way for realism....how about unreal motion blur, bloom, no analog throttle, etc. ? ;-)

Is this supposed to be an argument of some kind? Since some things aren't realistic, we should make everything unrealistic or something?

Actually, some of the vehicles in the game do have stabilized commander view (the m1a2 for example).

edit: Also, the human brain disregards the motion blur we get when we move our eyes and our eyes aren't static when we move our heads. Peripheral motionblur when running is more realistic though.

I think you don't perceive it because when you are turning your head, you doing so in support of your eyes, which are 'stabilized' independent of your head. For example, when you turn your head to look at something to the side, your eyes don't remain fixed on the spot in your head. They 'dart' to a point to the side, then your neck catches up while your eyes remain fixed. If you try to move your head without moving your eyes independently at all you will notice quite a bit of blurring.

Edited July 15, 2009 by Max Power

[bricks 6]

The M1A2 Tusk in game is accurate to the real life equivalent, it has a stabilized independent RWS turret with commander's sight and a .50 cal. The M1A1 (realistically speaking) has a CITV, Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer. The CITV is fully stabilized and has the ability to cue targets to the gunner. However the CITV is separate from the commander's pintle mounted .50 cal, which is not stabilized and is only power assisted on 1 axis (manual on the second axis). In arma2, it seems like the M1A1 commander has some hacked together combination of the pintle mount .50 and the CITV.

I can't comment on the Russian tanks (T-72/T-90) but I suspect it is un-stabilized commander position on the T-72.

The LAV 25 does not have a stabilized commander sight, in fact it shouldn't even have a independent commander sight. Aside from the periscopes a LAV commander is looking at the same sights (day, image intensified and thermal) as the gunner.

Without knowing the capabilities of Warsaw pact vehicles Arma 2 does an ample job simulating the stabilization or lack thereof in the vehicle commander's sights.

[.kju 3245]

Thanks to Noceur for the tip. :bounce3:

KeepCommanderViewOnTarget_Gameplay_C_PROPER.pbo

Should sort it for all tanks, Wheeled_APC and Tracked_APC with commander.

Feedback welcome at PROPER projects.

Full release with key and sign file in the coming days. :)

PS: Recommended to unpack with Eliteness, study and tweak to your preference.

Edited July 16, 2009 by kju

[kremator 1065]

Thanks kju ! Gonna give it a try now !

EDIT : PERFECT !

Edited July 15, 2009 by Kremator

[nkenny 1057]

Eagerly awaiting PROPER!

-K

[neofit 65]

Without knowing the capabilities of Warsaw pact vehicles Arma 2 does an ample job simulating the stabilization or lack thereof in the vehicle commander's sights.

I'm not a native English speaker, but if by "ample job" you imply a "good job", I'm not so sure. To me it looks more like an oversight in some vehicles and not others, along with the zoom issues in the unbuttoned position that some vehicles have and others don't, proper sights for some weapons and wrong sights for some others like the G36 in Arma1, I mean it can happen when you have a lot of equipment to model with limited time and resources. At least I hope it's oversight on their part.

It's also a doctrine issue. From what I have read, up until the middle of WWII (not sure about the end and after), as per the recollections of German officers, Soviet doctrine dictated than when engaged the gunner took control of the tank which in fact greatly reduced their effectiveness. In Arma2, with non-stabilized commander sights and the AI the way it is, this is exactly what happens. The AI gunner takes control of the turret and the human commander is out of the loop. If the vehicle models are accurate and we won't ever have stabilized commander sights in the vehicles that don't have them IRL, then BIS should make the AI gunners stop scanning for targets when a human is in command.

Some of the best recollections I have are from playing Panzer Elite as a tank commander, using voice commands with Game Commander and only touching the keyboard to look around. The AI back in 1999 was much better at allowing me to dot that than it is in 2009 in Arma2.

[Noceur 10]

I think you don't perceive it because when you are turning your head, you doing so in support of your eyes, which are 'stabilized' independent of your head. For example, when you turn your head to look at something to the side, your eyes don't remain fixed on the spot in your head. They 'dart' to a point to the side, then your neck catches up while your eyes remain fixed. If you try to move your head without moving your eyes independently at all you will notice quite a bit of blurring.

Yeah, you "lead" with your eyes... unless you're daydreaming or such, your eyes are always focused on something. If you look around 360 degrees, your eyes won't do the motion linear, they'll skip between details.

The thing with motionblur in games (the camera movement dependant one) is that you forget the fact that the player's eyes are already focusing on different areas of the screen... when you look around quickly in the game, you're already missing details, just like in real life. I.e, the motion blur is simulating something that is already taking place. Unless they're aiming for pure eye candy, of course. ;)

Anyway, back on topic. I agree that it's really frustrating playing the commander in an M1A1 or LAV-25, but if it's done like that because those vehicles doesn't have a stabilized independent viewport for the commander then so be it in my opinion.

I'd be more interested in being able to tell the (AI) gunner to look in directions relative to the tank or something like that. There's already the Alt key Look At command, of course, but it'd be nice to get the gunner to relax a bit.

It took me a while to figure what key switched to the "periscope" for the LAV-25, btw.

[Dja 10]

Speaking of turrets, does anybody else have this problem (if it is a problem) or is it just me?

When "turned in" in the lav-25 (haven't tried it for other vehicles) the commander's view is zoomed in to an extent, it is possible to zoom in further but not zoom out. This makes it virtually impossible to use the viewport because unless you are engaging enemies in the distance, they are lost as you cannot view soldiers nearby because you lose them under your FOV.

Anybody else with this?

[xclusiv8 10]

Speaking of turrets, does anybody else have this problem (if it is a problem) or is it just me?

When "turned in" in the lav-25 (haven't tried it for other vehicles) the commander's view is zoomed in to an extent, it is possible to zoom in further but not zoom out. This makes it virtually impossible to use the viewport because unless you are engaging enemies in the distance, they are lost as you cannot view soldiers nearby because you lose them under your FOV.

Anybody else with this?

Yepp. I think its a bug.