Black Hawk Down

[Black Hawk Down]

"lots of critics get pissy if a movie doesent "EDUCATE" people.."

No, critics are just idiots that have pathetic little lives in which they think their opinion about moving pictures on a screen are worth something.

And believe me, anyone who's watched the likes of Blackhawk Down and Saving Private Ryan has gotten an education, indeed. I know I did.

[If OFP can't do it, maybe this will...]

"Before you run out and buy Battlefield 1942, you should talk to some guys that have played it. It's almost as bad as World War II Online."

Oh really? And who are these "guys who have played it", considering it's nowhere near finished or released yet?

I've watched a video of it, and it looks promising. The developer stated repeatedly that the emphasis is on FUN, not REALISM, so all you realism junkies can it. It's not supposed to be realistic. Let me say that again, so no one misses it:\

It's NOT supposed to be realistic.

And before anyone goes off harping on the play mechanics (such as shooting 100 rounds without reloading, or gripes about the models): remember that this game is not finished. All the little details and graphical optimizations are made at the very end of a game's development cycle, not the middle. At worst, this will be a fun diversion from the hardcore realism of OFP. At best, it could be one hell of a fun game to play against others online. The graphics are obviously better than OFP, and the netcode will probably be better too (it can't possibly be much worse).

I'm really looking forward to this game, because you can pilot anything, from trucks to missle launchers to planes to boats and battleships.

[Blackhawk Down - Delta Force Choppers]

Just wondering if anyone knows what the small black helicopters are in Blackhawk Down (the ones that ferry the Delta Force guys in and drop them on the rooftops)?  They have these really cool side harnesses that the troops can latch onto and ride off the side of the chopper.   They are also armed with miniguns and carry out air-support by strafing the enemy troop positions.  They have the distinctive bubble-cockpit shape of older Sikorsky models. I believe they are Sikorsky models of some type, but I could be wrong.  

This would be PERFECT for quick insertion of troops in an enemy area.  Someone made a modified verison of the OH-58 that has a minigun, but that's the closest thing I've seen to it.  I'd love to create a coop mission where you're ferried in to take an position and the choppers give you air support.  

Assuming the ability to import new models becomes a reality at some point, wouldn't it be pretty easy to make one of those choppers with full functionality?   I don't see anything in the OFP engine that wouldnt' allow it, although the troops riding off the sides obviously wouldn't be able to fire while in flight.

[Unreal Tournament 2]

"the human eye cant tell the difference past around 28fps.. so as long as its 30fps plus it could be 800 fps and it wont look any different. "

Where did you hear that, Gamepro.com? Go put Quake 3 on at 30 fps and then 120 fps and tell me you don't see a difference.

[How to set crosshair back to fire mode]

I always just hit the tilde key (~). Hit it once to select all of your troops, hit it again to deselct them all. Sometimes it acts a little differently if you've recently highlighted only a select few squad members, but it this case you just have to hit the tilde key twice real quick. You should never have to hit it more than two or three times, and usually just once.

[How to heal?]

I don't know about anyone else, but I've never been able to successfully make one of my teammates heal at an AI medic. Does he have to be within a certain proximity? Whenever I try to tell one of my guys to heal, there is no "heal at medic" option in the actions menu. Does he have to be standing next to the medic?

[Idiotic CD Detecting Patches]

Did you try downloading a different 1.42 patch file? The one you have might just be corrupt.

[I can't see explosions anymore since 1.42]

Ah!

I specifically remember disabling cloudlets a couple days ago, right about when this started happening. Guess I didn't make the connection. Doh!

Thanks for the help.

[I can't see explosions anymore since 1.42]

The game runs fine, but I don't get any explosions when I shoot things. If I shoot something with my tank, I'll hear the shot and it will hit and destroy the target, but I see no explosion. I don't see explosions from anything else either.

I think this has only started happening since 1.42. Anyone else have this problem / know how to fix it?

[AI tank drivers]

Don't ever let the AI drive you.  If you're commander, switch to the driver's seat yourself (when standing still) and you can still call out targets to your gunner using the crosshair and a right click on the mouse button.  This way you can tear ass in your tank at full speed (while knifing straight through the enemy or moving parallel to them) and your gunner can shoot everything in sight.

[State of OFP...]

I don't have the time to join a squad or clan, nor do I want to mold my OFP playing time around a schedule. I don't have any other friends that play OFP (I'm working on one), and quite frankly I think it's a pain in the ass that you have to converse with several people and have this whole level of organization just to get a freaking game going.

I want to be able to jump on and play OFP when I have time, period. It's a game. I want to be able to play it at will. I have a job and other responsibilities, and I HATE it when I have an hour to play and I have to waste half of it waiting in limbo because stupid newbie admins take their sweet time getting a game started because they don't do their job as an admin and make sure everyone gets on a team quickly and efficiently, or they don't know how to disable the AI, or they're waiting for their friend to show up, and then decide to change their mind about what map they want to play, or they want to go back to Gamespy so they unceremoniously drop everyone from the game and we have to start the whole process all over again. It's like pulling teeth.

Quite frankly, I'm am astounded that BIS was so shortsighted that they DIDN'T consider multiplayer as the primary focus of this game. I mean shit! Look at the game!! It's not very hard to imagine people wanting to play this on a large scale online. That was the first thought that went through my head the first time I saw a screenshot of OFP. I can't believe the developers just brushed it off like that. Coop and CTF are really fun as is, but just imagine how great it COULD have been, with dedicated code and massive 64 player battles.

If you guys want an OFP-type game that's made for online play (although a little lighter on the realism), check out theese screenshots from Battlefield 1942. It looks to be everything we've wanted.

[Crosshair and other bitmaps are blurry]

All bitmaps in the game are slightly blurry. Since they are used to texture the game, everything is slightly blurry.

The crosshair in-game is blurry too.  The game runs at a great framerate, but all the textures used in the game are slightly blurry. Version is 1.4, although this problem has been around since 1.2 on my buddy's computer.

Anyone know how to fix this?? I can't find info on it ANYWHERE. There used to be a thread on this in this forum, but it's long gone now.

HELP!!

[Your coolest MP kill?]

My coolest MP kill (or the best one I can remember right now) was a couple weeks ago on Everon, in a 5on5 CTF.  I was the Soviets.   Most of my teammates were n00bs except for one other guy.

I managed to get a T-80 (had to man it by myself) and park it partially hidden in a tree that had fallen across the road that leads south out of the airport.  I managed to position my tank so that only my turret was showing over the tree, and I was lined up straight down the road towards the NATO base.  I had to wait for a bit, but eventually an M1A1 comes roaring down the road at full speed.  There was a driver and a gunner.  Well, he's not even paying attention to me and I slam a sabot right into his turret.  The driver start driving in circles, the turret circling around all over the place, trying to find me, when I'm sitting right in front of them.  

They finally figured out where I was after I had taken two shots at them and they fired back at me.   They were circling while firing, and I could only sit perfectly still while manning the turret (no driver).  I hammered the turret a couple more times, and saw it go limp and stop moving.  I guess the driver figured out his gunner was dead, because he wheeled around and started hauling his smoking, broken ass back down the road where he came from.  

I was about to take the final shot to send him to Hell when I saw a Hind swoop in off the right side of my screen and obliterate the tank in a hail of missles and gunfire.  My teammate did my cleanup work for me.  It was the most perfect ambush I've ever accomplished in MP.  

A funnier one was in CTF - Hold City.  I was the East and had a BMP, and decided to just charge the West base.  I blazed through the city so fast that the jeep coming towards the city from the West's side didn't have to move out of the way.  Instead, as I'm charging him full-bore on open road, he comes to a dead stop and starts backing up as fast as he can.  Of course, it wasn't fast enough - I outpaced him by an order of magnitude and smashed right through him and his jeep, sending them both hurtling off the side of the road.

[Yes, we can finally make new addons]

Yes, but can you define the behavior of the weapons?

It will kind of suck if every new weapon or vehicle has to comform to a weapon or vehicle that already exists in the game.

[PC Problems (graphics :( )]

What OS are you using? If you're talking about using fdisk, I assume it's an MS OS.

If you're using Win98, switch to 2000 or XP.

I would format if it's not too much trouble, that will start you back at square one. I had to format 3 times before I could get OFP running perfectly, but boy was it worth it.

Using hardware T&L? 32-bit color? Turn everything down low or off, then start re-enabling graphical effects one by one until you hit your problem, if possible. Also, try setting your desktop resolution to the same as OFP, just to eliminate that variable. I run both at 1024x768 and it's fine.

If you can (I realize this is a long shot), try to swap another GeForce 3 in and see if it has the same problem. That will tell you if its the card or your system.

Sorry I can't help more, these are just suggestions.

[ATTENTION: play bug.]

If you're trying to play as the tank commander, you deserve to get shot. That position is a deathtrap, I saw it from day one. Your AI driver doesn't go where you want and takes 5 minutes to get turned in any direction. However, the AI gunner is spot-on.

So what do you do? Well, when you get in as commander, wait until your gunner and driver are in, and while stopped in the tank, bring up your action menu and choose "to driver's seat". Then, switch to third-person mode and enable mouse freelook. Now, you can drive the tank yourself, and look around with the mouse, but you are still the commander. To call out targets, all you have to do is right-click them with your crosshair, and left-click to fire once the gunner lines them up. This is much, much easier than the convoluted process of trying to tell your moronic driver where to go and trying to get your mouse cursor to find the "edge" of a target with the commander's retarded crosshair because it won't turn red to attack if it's centered on the target too well. This method gives you a regular crosshair.

It doesn't help the fact that you can't interrupt your men's chatter with your own commands, but it keeps you from getting driven somewhere you don't want to be, and makes effective fighting in a tank possible, even with just two people.

[If you could pick, what would you change to make OFP better?]

"something to make using triggers much, much, much easier "

AMEN

[The best weapon in OFP?]

"Like i said you just made me laugh, I drive and fire just by myself, I don't sit what so ever, I wont actually tell you how it's done (called tactics), to date I've only lost a 1 vs 2 battle once, my tank will get destroyed only when a 2nd tank enters the battle."

Well, there's only two ways to operate a tank solo (I know because I do it all the time too):  You either get the turret set and just try to position your tank so that you're aiming at your target and use manual fire, or get set somewhere good for an ambush.  Most of the time I use a combination of the two.  I always try to jump to the gunner's seat if I can, because although it doesn't seem like it, trying to drive your tank around to the proper angle to hit your enemy often gets you killed, especially in medium- to long-range engagements where accuracy is critical.  In a 1-on-1 battle, unless I'm really outgunned, I will literally stop my tank, jump to the gunner's seat, and put a sabot as close to the enemy tank's main gun as I can.  Then another right in the side where the treads are.  I will let the enemy hit me right on the front if that's what he's happy with, because I know I'm gonna get hit once or twice, and I'd rather take it up front where the most armor is.  Most people don't think about this stuff, surprisingly (which makes them easier to kill).    

And I can't even tell you how many choppers I've shot down in MP with a tank.  It seems most people who fly choppers conveniently forget that tank shells can be fired into the air, and the gunner's sight can be zoomed in quite a bit.  They will happily strafe me back and forth while I dodge and weave, then they get a nasty surprise when a sabot shell hits them right in the windshield on their next pass.  Then they're like "WTF?"

Btw, just out of curiosity, how do you guys operate your tank?  My prefered method is 3rd-person, freelook mouse, so I use my cursor keys to steer and my mouse to look 180 degrees around my front.  In choppers I still use 3rd person but no freelook (I use mouse for control, because my Intellimouse Explorer lets me steer as well as adjust altitude with its five buttons).  

(Edited by 762WorldOrder at 5:52 pm on Jan. 3, 2002)

(Edited by 762WorldOrder at 5:53 pm on Jan. 3, 2002)

[If you could pick, what would you change to make OFP better?]

JOIN IN PROGRESS.

And better netcode.

[The best weapon in OFP?]

"its no use to sit inside as a driver when you dont have the 3d-view, it may not be a 100% realistic approach, but it makes it feel as you do a job as a part of a "team/crew" "

I agree, and would prefer to use inside views if I could, but it's just not convenient at all. I'm sure for people who have squads or clans and compete regularly, this is no problem. But for the rest of us who play on public servers, we're screwed. How many times have you ever seen three people get in the same tank in a public game? It's pulling teeth to get just one person in with me.

If I had squadmates who knew what they were doing, I wouldn't have a problem with it. But people on public server often don't know how to play very well, and I find myself able to capture the flag or kill the enemy much more efficiently on my own than having someone else with me. A lot of times having someone else with you is a liability, not an asset. Case in point: I was in a T-80 by myself, and I stationed my tank right behind a fallen tree on the main road, in case anyone came to get my flag. Only my turret was visible. An Abrams comes smoking up the road right towards me. It had a driver and a gunner. I put a sabot right into the front of it before they even saw me. Furthermore, I stayed perfectly still, only moving my turret, and successfully engaged and defeated the Abrams, which kept trying to circle around me. I killed the gunner with a sabot, and the driver attempted to flee before he was chased down by my teammate in a Hind and annhiliated. I could not have done that in first-person mode, just because I can't see anything.

It's not for on foot; I always use 1st-person mode on foot (3rd-person crosshairs aren't even accurate). It's just for vehicles that I need 3rd-person. I hate being forced to do anything in a game that the developers didn't intend because someone can't stand to lose.

To me, it's the same as those pussies that ban the AWM in Counter-Strike or the Steyr Aug in Firearms because they're "too powerful", even theough the same weapons are available to everyone.

[The best weapon in OFP?]

Best gun in OFP: The Bizon, easily. No other gun even comes close to it's firepower, not to mention the addition of a silencer. But the G36 has the coolest scope.

"but easily fixed with a server that has 3d-view disabled"

Let me tell you something, I absolutely HATE it when they disable third person view. It's so idiotic. Driving the vehicles in first-person mode is a monumental pain in the ass, simply from a control perspective.

No, I do not care if someone can exploit 3rd person and see me around a corner. I can do the same thing, anyway, so its an even playing field. I would estimate the number of OFP kills caused by this exploit are very low. I won't care if I am killed because of this a couple times in the course of playing OFP. But I WILL care if I can never use 3rd person mode in vehicles, because a tank is f**king useless unless you have a full crew (which hardly ever happens). You can't see a d*amn thing except through your targeting reticule. Since I'm usually better with a tank on my own than most people with 2 crew, this seriously hampers my skill because I have to constantly try to switch positions inside the tank and reorient myself. It completely kills the enjoyment.

People who run servers need to realize that overzealousness to curb "cheating" (which it isn't, anyway) can seriously hamper the fun of the game for the rest of us. I played on a server like that for about 10 minutes until I figured out I couldn't use 3rd-person mode. I dropped it and found another game. I don't have time to put up with that s**t.

If real cheats pop up in OFP, that will be a different matter, but I wish these server admins would quit being little babies and trying to cover up every new discovery in the game. Peeking around corners does NOT take away form the enjoyment of the game, and it's something you would do in real-life anyway. Just think of it as an exploit that should have been a feature to begin with.

[New Expansion Mod **Beta 1 Released for February ???**]

Well, what I'd like to know is how they plan on importing all those new models into the game.

If they would be so kind, maybe they could let everyone else in on their little secret?

(Edited by 762WorldOrder at 10:04 am on Jan. 1, 2002)

[Was A10 a Russian Plane???]

Uhhh... the F-16 is a made for an entirely different role than the A-10.

The F-16 does not carry the air-to-ground weapon load the A-10 does. It is used for air-to-air engagements and close air support.

The A-10 is basically a flying tank, which engages enemy armored units at close range and low altitude. It is made to directly support ground units, not fly in dogfights, as it's too slow to effectively engage most modern air-to-air fighter aircraft.

Whereas the F-16 is a quick fighter made to maintain air superiority over a certain area, the A-10 is armored and made to grind enemy tanks into powder.

[UNOFFICIAL Kiowa Warrior addon v1.0]

How did you get a minigun on the chopper?

And can the same process be used to add guns to the Humvee and BRDM, like their real-life counterparts?

[d*amn FPS!]

"Hardly; if you only have 128MB of RAM it doesn't matter how fast your CPU is because you'll spend most of your time swapping to and from your hard drive. You can buy graphics cards with more than 128MB of RAM today, so putting only 128MB of main memory in a system with a 1+GHz CPU is a joke. "

Which is why I said he needs to post more specs. If he's got a PII 400, it's going to make more of a difference (relatively) than if he's got a lot faster processor.

And unless you feel like paying over $1000 for a industrial-strength professional-level graphics card, you're not going to find a gamer with a video card that has more than 64MB of RAM. Be realistic.