762WorldOrder

Absolutely. Â There are enough Vietnam mods and games out there. Â I'm not even really excited about the prospect of running through endless forests, because you don't get the combined arms battles of the first game. Â Besides, with most of the cool modern-day weapons and vehicles missing, it would be a big step backwards. Â Going from Hinds and Apaches to Hueys? Â No thanks. Â What would be really cool is a game set in the Soviet\Afghan war or maybe even a fictional invasion of the United States by Russia and/or China. Â That would open the door for great combined arms warfare, and a near-future setting would allow BIS to incorporate all the latest weapons, vehicles and technology, like optical camouflage, heat vision, radar jamming, F-22 and JSF planes, the Stryker combat armored personnel carrier, AWACS, hovercraft, etc. etc.

Absolutely. Â There are enough Vietnam mods and games out there. Â I'm not even really excited about the prospect of running through endless forests, because you don't get the combined arms battles of the first game. Â Besides, with most of the cool modern-day weapons and vehicles missing, it would be a big step backwards. Â Going from Hinds and Apaches to Hueys? Â No thanks. Â What would be really cool is a game set in the Soviet\Afghan war or maybe even a fictional invasion of the United States by Russia and/or China. Â That would open the door for great combined arms warfare, and a near-future setting would allow BIS to incorporate all the latest weapons, vehicles and technology, like optical camouflage, heat vision, radar jamming, F-22 and JSF planes, the Stryker combat armored personnel carrier, AWACS, hovercraft, etc. etc.

By far the most annoying part of OFP MP is that I can barely ever play it online anymore. Every goddamn server has it's own special missions that require new soldier units, new vehicles, textures, islands, whatever. Most of the time the servers don't even bother telling you what you need or where to get it, so I'm stuck. I can never play on pub servers anymore because of this, and I only know one other person who likes Flashpoint (my brother), so the LAN option is out. Clans take too much time and many are filled with immature morons who usually aren't very good at OFP anyway. Releasing Oxygen was a bad idea, and for exactly the reason Bohmeia initially declined to release it: TOO MANY ADDONS. Yes, it's cool to have units from every goddamn army on planet earth (even if the difference is nothing more than a shitty retexturing job with the appropriate army insignia), and more islands, vehicles and weapons are cool and all, but the flood is so overwhelming no one can possibly keep up with it, and as a result it has totally fragmented the multiplayer aspect of OFP. I go on All-Seeing Eye and see about 1500 Flashpoint servers, 95% of which have no one playing. Why? Because apparently no one else can be bothered to track down every stupid custom unit either.

Is it just me, or does that Mi-26 look a little too big? Looking at the scale of it compared to the soldiers, it makes them look like little kids sitting in it.

I'm using a Microsoft Sidewinder Precision Pro (USB). When I'm on the ground, I can twist my stick back and forth and turn in the appropriate direction, just like a real rudder on the ground. However, as soon as I take off that functionality disappears. It's damn near impossible to line a fast-moving jet up with a target when you have no rudder controls. Is there something I'm missing here? Why does the rudder work on the ground but not in the air? Otherwise my jet handles great with my joystick, throttle and all.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">I know, but it' still not the same like a real feature for the commander that allows to tell the gunner where to point the turret at. <span id='postcolor'> But why would you want to use the commander's seat at all? Â Do you actually want the AI to drive?? Â I have used every armored vehicle in the game effectively with the above technique. Â Just because there's a commander's seat doesn't mean you have to use it. Â I find the AI driving to be so atrociously bad it gets you killed before you can even do anything in a real battle. Â 2 crew members should be all you ever need. Â There is no way to control exactly where the gunner points the turret (unless you have him target houses or something in the direction you want to aim), but this is the next best thing, and for all practical purposes is just as effective. btw, have you tried telling your gunner to look at 3 o'clock, or whatever direction you want him to face? Â I've never tried it, but I'm at work and can't test it. Â Might be worth a shot. Â Â

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Staying with vehicles: One feature I suggested a while back and which I really hoped might find its way into Resistance was the ability for tank commanders to tell their gunners on where to point the turret. You can tell infantry where to look at, while clicking at that direction plus holding ALT key (or whatever key you binded for that). Why not make the same thing be possible for tank commanders. When you designate a position to look up, the AI gunner will rotate the turret to that direction, making the Bradley commander spot useable, at last.<span id='postcolor'> You've been able to do something like this already since the orginal OFP release. Â Get into a tank as commander (make sure you get in as commander first), then add a gunner, then switch to driver's seat (you only need two people, don't add a third or he'll become commander and the gunner will ignore you). Â You can drive manually and use your targeting button (right mouse on my setup) to call out targets for the gunner to aim at (I advise switching to freelook mode with the * key and 3rd person mode with the Enter key on the numpad in order to get a better view). Â If you click without a target you will say "No Target" and the gunner will return the turret to the front position. Â You can even choose to manually fire or have the gunner do it for you, but most of the time you want to let the AI do the shooting, especially when you're machine gunning troops. Â For really long range shots or firing at aircraft, you're better off aiming manually in the gunner's seat.

SpesnazWarriorX - Do you have any video clips of Systema in action? I've read a lot about it in the past and am interested in the art (I currently study Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and would like to add more stand-up fighting techniques to my arsenal), but for some reason I can't find even a 5-second clip on the Internet to show me what it's all about. I'm not going to order a video for $30 when I don't even know what it is, and remarkably Vasilli's site offers no clips whatsoever. I've read all the articles and all that, but have yet to see this stuff in action. Do you know where I can find some video clips or demonstrations?

Yes, while BIS is a great developer, one thing they've never been good at is promotion of their products. Â First they let the US release of OFP slip, then they say they'll release Oxygen to the community, then they say they won't, then Resistance fails to come out in the US when Codemasters says it will, leading to the continuing confusion over when we'll actually be able to play it here in the States. Â Not that there aren't good reasons for all of the above, it's just that they need to say what they mean and mean what they say, and quit being so wishy-washy. I've pretty much learned to ignore any announced release dates from BIS/Codemasters because of this. The whole IL thing is a mystery - why they ever announced it in the first place with nothing to show or talk about is beyond me. Â It's annoying when a developer/publishers says, "Hey! Â Look what we're making!" and then won't tell you anything about it when you ask. Â I mean what's the point?

The reason you have that problem is simply the design of the maps. Nogova has some towns that have quite a few detailed buildings in them, something the original maps did not (they were limited to small towns or villages with a few buildings, nothing more). You are getting bad lag simply because the engine has problems handling large numbers of buildings at once onscreen, and it's worse at night because then the engine is also trying to add lighting effects to all that as well. I have an Athlon T-bird 1.2 Ghz, 512 MB RAM and a GeForce 4 Ti4400 and I have the same problem, thought not to the same degree. I don't think there's much that can be done. Any environment that is that detailed in any game would bring most computers to a crawl. And you really, really need to get a new video card. 32MB video cards are at the very end of their life cycle in the current gaming market. I just switched from my previous card, a GeForce 2 GTS 64MB, which performed admirably, and now the game runs butter-smooth in all areas except for large towns, where it still dips quite a bit. I guess it just can't be helped.

Codemasters tells us the US release will be on July 2nd. Â It doesn't say it will ship July 2nd, it says "Out July 2nd" (see Codemasters' website). Â Now I called the local EB to make sure they have a copy before I run over there after work, but they don't have any copies and tell me their system shows the release as being on the 10th. Â I have not been able to get a straight answer from anyone about this. Â Can someone (BIS, Codemasters, anyone) please tell me what the deal is with the release?

I would be happy to help. My brother did some voice work for someone's mission, so I think I'll try my hand at it... fd2black@hotmail.com

Well I've already ordered a GeForce 4 Ti 4400, which I fully intend on overclocking to Ti 4600-levels, and I wanted to see if anyone here could tell me what kind of performance boost to expect. Â My current rig: Athlon T-bird 1.2Ghz 512 MB PC133 SDRAM GeForce 2 GTS Pro 64 MB DDR My framerates in OFP are pretty good for the most part (around 40-50 fps in small areas, gets down to 15-20 in bigger battles), but I have to cut down a little on the graphical detail. Â I was curious to know if I'd see a dramatic improvement in framerates (far and away the most important aspect, IMO, graphical bells and whistles, while nice, are not really of concern to me) and draw distance capability (I want to run this puppy with a draw distance of 4000, so I can have massive battles where you can see enemy tanks approaching from miles away). Â So has anyone else made a similar upgrade? Â Is it > 60 fps all the time?

All I have to say is, good luck and have fun trying to play OFP with your gamepads and joysticks. Â

Great. With the frequency at which the website is updated, I'm holding out hope we might hear some news about Oxygen before, say, the next asteroid hits Earth.