A few gameplay questions

[the_duality 10]

Hello all,

I really enjoyed the first ArmA and am currently loving ArmA2! I do have a few questions regarding gameplay however.

Firstly, if I call in a CAS strike in one of those "Combat" scenarios that you can make - will the ordinance impact right at the point I call the airstrike in, or will the aircraft look for a suitable enemy target in the area first? With no laser designator in your kit there is no way for me to give the strike a target that is moving.

The reason I ask is that I tend to come across a few APCs in these missions - and the squad that you start with has no AT capability at all. I can evade some and take a different route to the objective - but there have been a couple of times where I have been engaged by the APC and as such I need to get rid of it - especially if it is near the SecOp objective.

Secondly, I am starting to think that I am an awful tactician. If I require to assault a position, I try and approach it in a way that I can see the enemy and they can't see me. I start to open up, but sometimes my team-mates (still talking combat scenarios, not campaign) just don't open fire along with me - even after I "spot" the enemy.

Every time I try to move position - my team ends up getting killed, 90% of the time, me first. Am I missing a fundamental rule of combat here? I guess what I am asking for is some advice on how to effectively command my team and take a position with minimal losses. Telling a team member to "attack" a unit specifically usually results in them running out of cover and getting killed, so I am not really sure how to go about completing objectives well rather than by the skin of my teeth and after several "first aid" actions.

Lastly, when flying a Cobra - I am having trouble commanding the gunner. Sometimes he will refuse to switch weapon, no matter what I do. To give an example - I target another enemy chopper, and the gunner starts popping away with the cannon. Fair enough, but I need to kill it slightly faster than that. I press F repeatedly to select sidewinders, and my character repeatedly shouts "missiles". Yet the selected weapon only flickers to hellfires for a split second before going back to the cannon. Meanwhile the enemy aircraft has fired missiles of its own and I'm dead. Am I doing something wrong?

Sorry for the wall of text - I love this game, and I would like to learn to play it properly rather than just using guesswork all the time. Sure I could lose my entire squad getting the objective completed and then go pick up reinforcements - but that's not playing the game right imo ;)

I am also very glad to see that ArmA2 has stopped the AT-soldier stupidity of ArmA - where they used to fire AT rockets at infantry, leaving me with no AT capability at all :D

Cheers BIS for an awesome game :)

[dvolk 10]

The AI in this game has no sense of self-preservation. The other things you mention might be bugs.