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firemane

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Posts posted by firemane

  1. Posted

    On the second mission...

     

    Spoiler

    The tank gunner is supposed to have thermal sights? Not anywhere I can find in my tank! Not on "N" or the scroll-wheel menu. Where is it? How do you activate it?

     

    Overall, I like the DLC. It has that OFP/Team Yankee epic thing going for it. I am loving the map. 

     

    For future creators I'd suggest a military adviser. There are some basic mistakes on that side that a pro would spot. Column formations when expecting contact, or advancing to contact on an obvious approach like a road.  

  2. Posted

    The only time I have had wobble is when doing stress shooting and training with law enforcement (Civilian to U.S. Marshals), my adrenaline is flowing and heart is racing, I wobble a little but not like in Arma.

    I think stress shooting is what ARMA is trying to emulate.

    My guess is that you need to analyze how you are moving and playing the game. Your shooting experience may not relate directly to how you are managing yourself in game. Shooting under high stress after running around with heavy loads... Take a good look at what you are doing in game and try ti replicate it in real life.

    I've done it, and ARMA feels pretty accurate to me in that respect. I remember having a hard time on my first few times out of the wire because my heartbeat was so strong it was pulling my sights off-target on every beat. I also remember being really annoyed when the ARMY changed the weapons qualification, which was already a very stressful event, to include kneeling. My weapon swayed so hard I had to time the trigger pull to compensate for the sway.

  3. Posted

    When you're trimming do you use the trim set/release or do you bind the individual directional trims to hat switches? When trimming with the set/release I guess you get the controls in a steady position and press the switch? For some reason that doesn't work for me and if I re-centre the stick after setting stable it drifts all over.

    I have both types mapped. Hat-trim is not very useful. I use it for minor (micro-tap-tap!) corrections after I've set my manual trim. In other words, fine tuning.

    As Dark side says, some drift is unavoidable, if only due to shifting wind direction and speed. The idea is to trim to the point where...

    - You only need minor corrections to keep in the general area.

    - Releasing the controls will take you to a relatively stable state rather than instantly losing control and performing the maneuver known as "the inverted lawnmower of fiery death".

    - You only have to deal with the "delta" (or difference from) the hover when on final approach and landing, rather than the unruly behavior of your particular platform. Meaning that you can better predict and stay ahead of the helo by canceling some of its natural tendency to try and murder you. Specially the mediums and lights.

    - You seem to be actually performing a graceful air ballet rather than an 8 second Rodeo.

  4. Posted

    I have an X-55 too.

    Lower sensitivity to around 20% on all axis. Do this for the throttle too. Make sure your throttle is mapped ONLY to one of your twin throttles. If you map both they add up, which gives you some trouble managing collective and torque.

    Map your manual trim set and manual trim release to something handy.

    Before starting your mission or taking in troops make sure you come to the closest possible approximation to a hover and set your manual trim. It is okay to have a bit of forward speed, but you should keep it under 20 kmph. Once you trim to a hover you can let go of the controls to test it. It should make things easier for short hops. If you have a stable wind you may want to do this facing the wind direction.

    Look at your third Gauge from the left. There is a cross on the center. The intersection point or center corresponds to the point where your mass is balanced and you are hovering (simplified explanation). If you put the white dot on the center of the cross you'll have a hover. That's your indication for pitch and roll. As for yaw, press your yaw control (pedals? or joystick twist axis) until the "winged V" in your HUD lines up with the wandering flight path indicator.

  5. Posted

    I feel like fatigue is too punishing. As an unfit person who was in reasonably good shape a few years ago, Even now I can run 2 kilometers at a steady pace before I start to feel like im going to die. I haven't trained or exercised in a long time. I think a solider who is in the midst of it all every day should have no problems running with gear and not getting instantly fatigued./

    Again, you guys are thinking about no-loads or light balanced loads on short distances or slow speeds. Try 35 to 100 pounds for a Km full run. That's what people are trying to do in A3.

    A trained infantryman can do 2 miles (not KM) with 35 lbs (15kg) at an 8min/mile pace and then go through a slower paced engagement _in an emergency_. More than that in terms of distance and pace and you'll end up losing momentum and being forced to pause (which gives the enemy the best opportunity for a counterattack). That is pretty much what ARMA will let you do. I am getting the impression that some of you have no conception at all of what this weight and distance means. I'll suggest you look for your nearest athletic track and do 8 laps with a backpack carrying 15 - 45 kg and judge for yourself. See how long it takes you. See if you can even run.

    Civilian life and training environments are stress free. Thus comparisons between what you can do at home and what you can do on combat are invalid. The stress and anxiety of combat increases to your oxygen consumption rate. So does carrying heavy and unbalanced loads at high rates of speed. Here is another experiment for you: Do two minutes of boxing. See if they aren't the longest and most exhausting two minutes of your life.

    Third experiment; Run 8 laps at full speed on the athletic track and then do 20 minutes of fighting with someone who really has a grudge against you. Do it at noon on a summer day.

  8. Posted

    At this point I've been in the US ARMY for almost 14 years. Half of that in the infantry, and most of it as a combat or combat support leader.

    The fatigue system in A3 feels pretty accurate to me. So much so that I didn't even notice when it was rolled out. I was already moving and gearing up in accordance to my RL training.

    The standard fighting load for an infantry soldier averages 15.8 to 20.4 Kg (35-45 lbs). More than that and you're paying a heavy price in terms of endurance and effectiveness. The gear list will usually entails a helmet, personal weapon + basic ammo load (300rd for the rifleman), double plate carrier with plates, one MRE, two frag grenades (if issued), 2 quarts of water and some assorted small items that are usually not counted.

    Backpacks are usually left on the vehicles or left at a staging point if you are patrolling on foot. It is not the same to run around with a pack in a training environment as to actually fight with one. They unbalance you badly, add to the back pain generated by the body armor, and add greatly to your fatigue. Not to mention that they swing around, get you stuck in narrow spaces and fences, and generally fight you all the way. To go into combat with a heavy pack is generally considered a rookie mistake. It is like trying to work with a monkey on your back.

    Loads in excess of 20 Kg are possible but are not recommended for a combat environment. Loads in excess of 27 Kg (60 Lbs) are typically used only during administrative movements when you are away from the enemy. Loads in excess of 35 Kg (80 lbs) are considered excessive and only carried when there is no viable alternative.

    Moderate exercise in hot weather with a standard load (15.8-20.4 Kg/35-45 lbs) can be sustained by a well conditioned soldiers for periods of up to 20 hours (with proper rest breaks @ 15min/hour) a day for up to 8 days. However, moving around with that kind of weight, specially during actual fighting, will have you breathing hard within a few minutes and its sustainable only if you pace yourself. Most tactical movements and fighting are done at a walking pace or at the standard military 8 min/mile pace. If you start sprinting everywhere you will spend yourself pretty fast.

    Sprinting or fighting with a 45 Kg load is just not viable. Not only will you start running into all sorts of problems (orthopedic pains, blisters, etc...), but your soldiers will be pretty much exhausted in the first two hours. More than that and your unit will lose cohesion and have a trail of stragglers a kilometer long.

    If you want to fight like a pro in ARMA you need to gear up like a pro. If you want to win in ARMA you have to plan like a pro.

  10. Posted

    I am extremely disappointed. I expected something in line with the future vertical lift program (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_Vertical_Lift) which will be in effect by 2035. Instead I get a cold war era platform with a facelift.

    BI started with a great "future war" concept that projected warfare into the next-gen battlefield. Their nerve has failed them and they ended up fielding a things that are pretty much a facelift of obsolescent systems.

    Shame on you, BI.

  11. Posted

    I am finding the documentation for this mod to be incredibly vague. Many of the changes included in this mod should be tied to changes in the way players should behaving on the battlefield. We're having to find out the hard way simply because of vague or nonexistent documentation.

    Examples:

    Nerfed the plate carriers. How?

    Changes to aircraft vehicle physics. Details?

    It is hard to beta test and report if we don't know what is a feature and what is a bug.

  14. Posted

    I haven't had any trouble with ammo for the man-portable weapon systems. I switch to the CSAT weapons early on.

    It is the vehicles that I am talking about. We can capture enough stuff to fill the whole area around the base. However, vehicles are single-use since no Ammo trucks or other means of rearming them are available. It'd be nice to be able to use them while they last. :)

    Something else called my attention; Ammo boxes (full or empty) tend to catch fire when unloaded from a truck. They are destroyed by a fall of around 1 meter. Is there a way to get around this?

  15. Posted · Edited by firemane

    I am loving this mission. We've had a full server since we started running it. Thanks for the hard work.

    I don't have a problem with resupplying using captured trucks. I think it is consistent with the whole mission theme. However, while I can find plenty of medical and other trucks, I haven't seen an ammo truck and only once a civilian repair truck (in an older version). Do they spawn at all? Any hints about likely places? Have I just been cosmically unlucky? :)

    I have yet to run through the whole mission, but I've been to a couple of the Airports and Military outposts.

  16. Posted · Edited by firemane

    "where to refuel air units and heavy units?"

    You can do this at any fuel station.

    I've seen some AAF units around the map. They seem to ignore the players. I wonder if they and the civilians will turn hostile if enough of them are killed by the players.

    Something else I'd like to know is how do you folks reload a vehicle/mortar ammo? Is the only way to find an ammo truck somewhere?

  17. Posted

    Ah, that's some very clever solutions that I'll have to try. For the fire support carrier, if you position the manta directly over the gun of your carrier and go the first person view you can get a good bearing to the target by aiming at it with the manta's reticle and reading the compass heading. Switch back to the gun, match the heading and find your range. Fire for effect.

    Tactical Airpower

    Loadout: Rockets, Lasers, Armor MKII, (shield or ammobox)

    1. Upon arrival to the island send out the recon drone (better) or a pair of mantas on quick recon runs over the battlefield.

    2. Resupply and repair.

    3. Undock your mantas and give them a waypoint over the sea. Pause them before they reach the waypoint.

    4. Select each manta and shift-click attack orders over key targets in a sector. Give each one a different order of targets but make sure that key targets such as AA guns are targeted by more than one of them. The last waypoint should be close to the carrier.

    5. Select all the mantas using the "`" key (or ctrl-number) and hit E.

    By using that method you can efficiently clear the defenses and vehicle facilities on a sector or open a corridor to an objective. Exposure is minimal and the enemy has no time to bunch up on one unit. The last waypoint allows the carrier guns to clear away any pesky enemy air from your tail.

    You can clear the skies by loading missiles and sending a strike after the enemy mantas. This is best done with the data from the recon drone.

  18. Posted

    You can still get it for $5 USD online.

    I like CCGM. However, apart from the strategy portion of the game and the updated graphics HW:AR is just as good.

    I did love the V-chips too. They make the game remarkable. :)

    I miss the functionality of the Magpie, the old-fashioned resource gathering, and sneaking around in the buggie (serious offroad action!) for a sneak attack with the howitzer. Maybe someone can do an HR mod for CCGM. Rofl.

  23. Posted

    The quick answer: The light doesn't fulfill the mission requirements.

    If you have multiple helicopters capable of supporting "fast roping" then you'd be able to select one of those.

    Before you say it... Yes, I realize it would be faster to just land the light (wearing side-boards) "ala" "Blackhawk Down" than waiting painfully until half a dozen guys do the so-called fastrope one-by-one. But you know spec-ops guys. They can't survive without a show of "flash".

  24. Posted · Edited by firemane

    I fly in mostly from the dock by the windsock.

    I was a UH-60 crew chief in the Army. The turbines do sound like a symphony, metaphorically speaking. When you’ve been around them long enough and have to trust them to keep you alive, you listen to them. Winds, brass, and strings are all there.

    Amen to that! Back in my days as a Private (Army) I hugged my humongous 5-ton TPU (Tank and Pump Unit) while the engine was warming up. Literally. I could feel its tune and tell you if it was "happy" or not.

    No risk of crashing there. Still, I'd been an unhappy camper had my ride quit on me in the middle of "Indian country". Let me tell you, 3782 liters of ponderously moving, highly flammable fuel make you the #1 target for pyromaniacs from Morocco through Pakistan.

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