Why i can't see enemy tracers? Only friendly tracers visible.

[birddog 0]

Imgine how exspensive led tracer ammo would be ,, its crazy to think everyone would have access to an led equiped tracer round.and yes conventional tracers are visable coming at you ,,, just read ww2 accounts of pilots under aaa fire. look around hard enough you can see this effect for yourself in guncams,esp from the pacific theater as many were in color.They did youse small caliber mg's as AAA during ww2 so its not like its a large caliber effect only,bofors etc

the mod you refer to does nothing to change the invisable effect that happens with incoming tracers,sigh... that was so imersive in ofp with the tracer mods to have tracers coming from a tree line AT YOU!

---------- Post added at 01:17 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:12 AM ----------

i do thank you for the help guys didnt sound the way wanted much appriciated tho ,,, just a little erked these games cant get this right after all these years. OFP2 with tracers from every gun and now armed assault 2 with invisable tracers for whatever reason.

[Golden 10]

The round drops over distance, which means the tail becomes visible. At any angle the tail would become visible. I've read far too many accounts of soldiers saying they saw incoming tracers. We should trust their testimony, since many of those who have been targeted by tracer rounds aren't around to tell us about the experience.

The chance of seeing the tail would increase tremendously with the amplification of light provided by night vision.

Hi,

I recently bought this game and haven't yet played it so haven't seen this tracer effect yet (I'm waiting for some tech support in another forum) and happened to come across this post.

Having been on the receiving end of tracer fire from AK47's and RPD's only very briefly some 20 odd years ago, the description posted above matches my experiences. As you can imagine, its extremely rare to face a projectile exactly straight-on (in fact you could provide a convincing argument that if you did, a millisecond later you would probably be dead), and so typically you view firefights at oblique angles, and tracer paths are most definately visible. An interesting phenomenon is seeing the ricochets as they behave quite bizarely. The projectiles having impacted and become distorted lose their classic flight dynamics and do so very weird aerial acrobatics (I'm not sure if thats modelled in this game), Its quite a sight to see! And quite funny to see someone scrambling to put out a fire in a rucksack started by a rogue tracer - yes, even during a firefight! A sleeping bag and food are the soldiers best friend!

One thing to mention, some 20 odd years ago you didn't typically use night-vision goggles in firefights at night for two main reasons:

1. You lost your three-dimensional perspective very easily (its an odd and nauseating experience) and tended to trip over everything in front of you (try mimic this by wearing an eyepatch over one eye for 30 minutes and then ask someone to pass you an item and see if you can take hold of it first time). Times of course, have changed since then, and possibly the technology too (we used passive night vision goggles back then).

2. More importanty, the flash from the muzzle suppressor tends to blind you and leave "ghosting" on the lenses of the goggles making target acquisition quite difficult. Again, I am referring to goggles used some 20 years ago, so things have probably changed since then.

Usually engagements or contacts with the enemy were completely by suprise, and tended, despite all the training, to be a mass of confusion and parachute flares in every direction. This usually supplied the bulk of the lighting (trip flares were almost always used during laying of ambush), albeit it not nearly suitable for any sort of target acquisition. Typically, it was just lay down suppressive fire and wait for enemy withdrawal.

Having said that, its pretty impressive to watch practices at night time through these goggles. The tracer rounds far outshine anything else around.

Regards,

Golden

[das attorney 858]

BIS have definitely put a 'cone of occlusion' or somesuch around the viewpoint of the player at a 15 - 20 deg angle which renders all incoming tracers as invisible.

It's a bit of a bodge but you can preview what it would be like if you could see incoming tracers by going into 3rd person view and zooming the camera out. You still can't see incoming tracer fire, but when the angle of the camera is oblique to the firing unit, then you can see the tracer fire whoosh over your head.

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I'm sceptical about these LED bullets. There's plenty of modern footage showing armies still using phosphorous tracer rounds. It seems a bit lame to block all incoming indication of your attacker and then explain it away with LED tracers. I don't even know how that would work with something as small as 5.56 or 5.45. Surely putting in an LED to something that small would have consequences for the flight path (compared to the bullets without LED's in them)

[max power 21]

Of course it's not simulating LED bullets. That's preposterous. It's simply simulating the fact that the tracer element is in the rear of the bullet. Considering it's only invisible in the front 15 degrees would lead one to believe that BIS expects that you can see hot gases escaping the rear of the bullet for some distance.

It stands to reason that you would only be able to see a tracer directly from the front (or angles slightly off centre) if the light created by the tracer element was reflecting off of smoke or dust.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Max Power

[das attorney 858]

Oh yes, complete tosh I know about LED bullets, but someone mentioned them earlier in the thread.

If you were looking at a tracer round heading towards you (lets say at night), then I would have thought it was still possible, becase really, you're looking at the light emitted from the blimmet of phosphorous in the rear of the bullet. The light will still project at all angles and would be visible from in front of the bullet. Like being able to see the tail of a comet heading towards you. The comet's in the way but the tail can still be seen.

Regardless, I'd still like them to remove the restriction as from all accounts, tracer fire is visible when incoming.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Das Attorney

[max power 21]

Oh yes, complete tosh I know about LED bullets, but someone mentioned them earlier in the thread.

If you were looking at a tracer round heading towards you (lets say at night), then I would have thought it was still possible, becase really, you're looking at the light emitted from the blimmet of phosphorous in the rear of the bullet. The light will still project at all angles and would be visible from in front of the bullet. Like being able to see the tail of a comet heading towards you. The comet's in the way but the tail can still be seen.

Regardless, I'd still like them to remove the restriction as from all accounts, tracer fire is visible when incoming.

Light travels in rays. The tail of a comet is dust. Any tracing component visible from the forward aspect would be phosphorescent gases escaping from the rear of the bullet in a trail, or light from the burning magnesium reflecting off of that trail. Like, if you shine a flashlight away from yourself into the night sky, you have no indication that it's on unless it hits something on the way (like, maybe some haze or something). Tracers certainly won't be as bright from the front if they are visible.

[das attorney 858]

About light and rays: point taken. I agree that they will not appear as bright from the front but the way Arma is now seems too extreme. I suppose the proof is in the pudding so I might go down my dads gun club and get one of the guys to fire some tracer ammo at (near) my phone while it's taping. I don't really care too much if he 'misses' and destroys it as it's a piece of poo anyway.

I'm not even sure they've got tracer ammo there though, as I'm pretty sure it's restricted here. This would be so much easier to test if I lived in the US. It's quite hard to find footage on the net to look at as I'm sure the person holding the camera is more preoccupied by not getting shot to worry about filming the pretty lights heading towards him/her.

Edited April 29, 2010 by Das Attorney

[CarlGustaffa 4]

Thanks Das Attorney, wasn't aware of that angle thingy. Another argument against 3rd person :)

[johncage 30]

the excuses people come up with to justify a bug/incorrect visual effect is astounding and based only in pseudo science. tracers should show up regardless if it's being fired at you or not. basic physics. the difference is in how it looks. you will never look at a tracer round directly from the front unless it's right on. in that case, you'll be dead. this thread is obviously talking about near miss tracers and enemy tracers in general.

enemy tracers should at least show up if looking at it from behind, but that's not the case either. obvious bug deserve obvious solutions, not a bunch of fanboy defense bs.

[das attorney 858]

Thanks Das Attorney, wasn't aware of that angle thingy. Another argument against 3rd person :)

Lol yeah, 3rd person sucks hard, but it's good for moviemaking stuff i guess. Using it in game feels too much like Gears Of War or GTA for me. :)

[max power 21]

the excuses people come up with to justify a bug/incorrect visual effect is astounding and based only in pseudo science. tracers should show up regardless if it's being fired at you or not. basic physics. the difference is in how it looks. you will never look at a tracer round directly from the front unless it's right on. in that case, you'll be dead. this thread is obviously talking about near miss tracers and enemy tracers in general.

enemy tracers should at least show up if looking at it from behind, but that's not the case either. obvious bug deserve obvious solutions, not a bunch of fanboy defense bs.

And just because something defies your intuition doesn't mean it's incorrect. This is definitely not a bug.

Oh, and what was it that I was saying that you would call pseudoscience? I'd definitely like to hear that.

Here's a video of some incoming tracers. It's difficult to tell if it's withing the 20 degrees that BIS has it at, though. It is the best video of incoming tracers I can find. This means, I guess, they are not often captured on film. This may mean that they are too dim from the front to be seen in the daytime, or people aren't often able to film while actually being shot at, or whatever. I've seen a lot of videos with bullets cracking by, though.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d44_1175686599&o=1

Edited May 4, 2010 by Max Power