ARM505

Ah, the good old 'Beirut unload'. Alternatively you could just empty the gun straight up into the air, for very much the same effect on target. Actually, for recreating realistic scenario's I've just realised you do kind of need this....seeing as how often it does indeed get used IRL (surprisingly, given that the usual effect is only to make the person firing feel better and nothing else).

There would have to be some kind of 'saturation' effect surely as well? ie A single round passing close by shouldn't trigger the effect. So a sniper couldn't suppress you (artifically I mean, ie trigger the 'effect' whatever it is). Nor could a random shot that just happened to zip close by. Frankly I'm still in favour of louder/more pronounced effects for bullet impact and passing by. Those supersonic cracks are really loud, enough to cause ringing in your ears in a lot of situations, and like I said earlier, bullets hitting close by really give you an idea of how much kinetic energy they have (they thump into the sand berms, and fling up a lots of dust quite fast. In games the little dirt puffs somehow seem....a but feeble. The buzzing that real bullets make as they pass by sounds really....angry, I think that's why the word angry is used so often in books when describing bullets zipping by. They can sound like very, very upset and pissed-off bees. You really want to stay away, not just because you know it's a bullet - it just sounds dangerous anyway!

My well hidden point earlier was that once the initial shock is over, and the situation develops, you adjust and adapt, and a pc game cannot determine who in reality would actually be suppressed. Unless they apply some kind of legendary simulation, it'll pretty much boil down to 'a bullet landed/passed close to you, so you're suppressed'. In reality thats not the case. I have been fired around (not at) in actual combat too (only once, so I'll admit it's a very limited experience of course). I am not a soldier, and was obviously a non-combatant, although that wouldn't have stopped the aggressors from shooting at me in this case (the usual African tribal thing). Initially it's all a bit of a 'wtf', but once you adapt, locate, and find cover you can happily (ok, not happily, but maybe 'eagerly') look out quickly from behind cover to try and assess whats actually happening. It might be risky, but it's better than not having the faintest idea of what is busy doing the shooting. Thats what I did anyway. I might have been retarded, I don't know. But I kind of figured what was happening quite quickly after the shots started going. Also, I had a very handy stone wall nearby. I like stone walls. I loved that one. To sum up: I don't believe a blanket 'you're suppressed' effect is the answer here because in reality 'suppressive fire' doesn't always suppress as perfectly as many here would think. It's only when you actually think there's a very real chance you will be directly shot at (ie the MG/squad is shooting at YOU, and not just 'your area'), or bullets are coming VERY close to you consistently that you would really want to crawl underground. Otherwise, I believe you will stick your head out, and may well be able to squeeze off a couple of well aimed shots. I could support some kind of twitch if rounds impacted within 30cm or so (because you will flinch if debris actually hits you), but otherwise it's artificial. So what if it's a game - are we going to be able to 'force' everything to be more 'real'? ie a poorly trained fighter's weapon sway will be forced to be bad? They'll throw grenades badly? No, I think how one reacts should be left to the player. Anyway, my 2c. Enough from me.

Mechanical 'hard' suppression would be ridiculous in most cases. It's all about expectations. I've been on the firing line surround by guys shooting - I expected it, so I could easily aim and fire. But one guy pulls off a ND? Suddenly everybody craps themselves, flinches, and looks around, because they didn't expect it. Likewise, when I worked under the targets - 7.62mm rounds are flying just above my head. No vision blur, no nothing, because I expect it, and know I'm behind hard cover, even though the snap can be really loud (loud enough to ring your hearing). Once you think you're ok, you can work ok too (note - even if you just THINK you're ok, not necessarily whether you are ok or not). A hard coded 'vision blur' or shake when ANY round snaps by would be totally unrealistic. When unexpected fire, or fire that you have no cover from gets close, then you may start feeling degradation of your abilities I suppose, not before. And how is a PC going to be able to tell that in order to implement 'suppression effects' at the right time? It cannot, IMHO. It's trying to turn what is essentially an FPS (ie all objects, bullet paths etc individually modeled) into a 'generalisation' model, like in RTS type games (ie squad x has received y amount of fire in their area, they are now 'suppressed', albeit on an individual level). One thing that I would be happy with is the whole 'dirt in the eye' thing - I found IRL, when lots of rounds hit ground/cover close by, there are lots of bits and pieces flying around, and you tend to almost close your eyes. Goggles/eye pro really helps here. I found the twitch that RO2 gives when ANY round passes close is stupid - I wouldn't always twitch when my buddy is firing - on the contrary, I LIKE it when he is firing! Likewise you can't say it's 'feedback', since the world around you is supposed to give that. Pain etc that cannot be felt in front of a pc needs feedback. The sounds of rounds impacting/passing by is done by sounds and gfx.

A lot of ftf's/eject and stoppages in general are caused by the weapon being fouled by dirt/carbon build up or something like that, and of course the other culprits, bad ammo and old or worn magazines. If that's going to be the case, then you'd need to implement some kind of weapon cleaning routine, which would be a bit ridiculous in a game. Otherwise, you'd just be modelling some kind of random number, which IMHO wouldn't be realistic at all. A quality AR/AK (for example) that's in good condition and freshly cleaned and lubed, combined with good mags and ammo will almost never give issues. If you're going to model worn mags, dodgy ammo etc then it's all going to be a bit much to keep track of for both game and player. So unless you want 'randomly, my gun jammed' (ie not realistic), I think we'd be better off assuming our soldier has good mags and ammo, and recently sat down and gave his equipment a decent going over.

The prone bug. 0:39 looks quite painful actually.

Apologies if everybody's seen it already, but I thought this was rather funny: Support gunner keeping a low profile.

People tend to over rate the effectiveness of suppressors too. Having fired several suppressed weapons (9mm, .45 ACP, .22LR, 7.62X51) they are normally easily reconisable as having been fired when you are reasonably close by (a couple of hundred metres), and the bullet is VERY easily heard when rushing through the air, especially for somebody near the target, even subsonic ammo. Suppressors are legal, and require no licence at all where I come from. The .22LR subsonic is the quietest of the bunch, so that's the stealthiest, maybe this doesn't totally apply to that. The 7.62X51 makes quite a rushing noise as it flies through the air though, it's clearly recognisable as a bullet. The sound of the weapons action (if semi or full auto) is also actually quite loud, although obviously not as loud as a gunshot. The hollywood idea that you can fire something bigger than a .22 in a crowded room and nobody will notice is wrong (to be expected I suppose). The only people who won't notice, are people very far away, who would normally hear a loud gunshot. The lack of muzzle flash is however a huge bonus when using a suppressor. So I'm not surprised that suppressed CQB weapons at close range still get the AI to notice, that's realistic. Suppressed sniper rifles, at long range, should still cause the AI to get all worked up (they'd be morons not to notice a bullet swishing by), but they should perhaps have less idea where you are.

Tremble ye mortals, for I am laugh incarnate... Lol at ^^^

BIS has FAR more work to do to simulate armoured fighting vehicle combat before they start to get to active defense systems. One would think that to simulate armoured fighting vehicles, they may want to start with....well...armour? Bits of metal going through other bits of metal (or not), all of that? The hit point system cannot work for this. Worrying about things like Arena etc is putting the cart before the horse, IMHO.

I don't use my brain....is that some kind of problem?! I do have a TM Cougar + pedals and a wheel, as well as a TIR. In my spare time I play the harp, piccolo, viola, and piano, and DCS Black Shark. I only use the instruments as training for using the Cougar though...

Don't think of yourself as 'dead' after that fall, only 'incapacitated'. In game terms, that's as good as dead though, so no real difference. You still can't carry on playing either way. I think falling 10' with 30kg (or more) of assorted bits and pieces will be pretty harsh IRL anyway.

Google 'GMJ sight adjustment', and use something like the 31st MEU sight mods (originally from Nonwonderdog). Works great. You have a choice of scope patterns, all authentic. Sight replacements: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=2475 GMJ sight adjustments: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6494 Works great, the maths seems to work out, easy enough to install, makes long range shooting easier (really!) and more fun. IMHO.

Cape Town, South Africa. It's awesome.

I'm from Africa - if you've seen the film 'District 9', I often reside close to where the alien mothership was hovering, namely Edenvale, Johannesburg. Those aliens (prawns) are a bit of a pain, but my alien armoured exosuit is on back order, so hopefully that makes up for it... :)

IRL, helicopters do tend to 'weathercock' with an increase in forward airspeed, due to the shape of the helicopter itself. Also, there's normally has some kind of vertical stabiliser at the tail as well to help this tendency (the designers assume that when you're going fast, you want to be going forwards!) Nonetheless, the ARMA model isn't all that great, IRL if you push the pedals, you do feel the heli try to yaw, even at speed. It's not a good idea though, it becomes quite easy to cause a whole variety of life-threatening problems.

I've definitely heard it, every time I've been in the trenches under the targets - in fact it was just loud enough to make my ears ring. This was with 7.62X51 at 100-300 meters. It's like a loud snap. ARMA's rendition somehow doesn't seem to convey enough authority somehow, although the sound is close. Maybe it's because IRL it's an actual bullet passing close to your head! Sort or like the crack of a whip almost. But it was definitely that little sonic shock wave from the bullet. The muzzle report sounds totally different and is clearly a separate sound.

It's all very well saying 'mods add anything required', but a) somebody has to make them, and properly too (ie we still can't really fire from vehicles without befuddling the AI commander), and b) this can make MP a bit of a nightmare, unless you can somehow end up with a comprehensive, all inclusive mod (a la ACE) that most people can accept (you'll NEVER get everyone to accept something completely)

Played this one as best I could a couple of times now, this guy's invisible - I never see him, anywhere, no matter what.

Thanks Kegetys, mission accomplished. I added Armalib, then configured the appropriate axes in the Arma 'controls' menu, it worked perfectly. Nice to fly around properly for a change. My TrackIR insisted on staring at the roof when in vehicles, but I got around that. Disabling Armalib returns the original problem, and the all powerful G25 is once again the boss Now why can't BI make the appropriate changes to Arma?!

I simply cannot understand how a recently released game can struggle with something this basic - I also have the same problem (Cougar, G25, and an RC sim control unit). Is it because ARMA is built on the bones of OFP that it struggles with such a rudimentary control problem or what?

If left for long enough (I left the 32 per side game running for close to a day), then the enemy base eventually becomes a giant supply truck parking lot. When I started playing again, I couldn't win, since I physically couldn't reach their HQ to destroy, either 'in person', or using a stand off weapon. My PC also ground into a slide show when approaching their base, due to rendering what must have been hundreds of trucks all in one small area. Doh!

Perhaps it should be added that the Vikhr is not good against fast movers such as jets (which can move fast and pull a lot of g's to expend the missiles kinetic energy), and that it only has a '2D' control system, ie only one set of fins has a control surface. In practice, this results in the typical spiralling flight path, as it tries to keep itself centred in the beam, as seen in video's of it, as well as the simulation 'Lock on' with the FC addon, by Eagle Dynamics. The missile is therefore not so great at keeping up with a rapidly changing beam angle. Again, more reason that it cannot target fast or agile targets. In practice, it's not as easy as ARMA makes it. The targeting system has to be slewed to the target (which doesn't just show up as a red block), and must then 'lock' the image of the target and be able to track it in order to make a successful shot. This is a lot more complicated than the 'press Tab' in ARMA, especially for a single pilot. The Russian system also seems to have restrictions on the time the guidance laser may be active before it risks overheating, and thus automatically shuts down. The currently in development sim 'Black Shark' from the Lockon guys will no doubt present the best available PC simulation of the KA50 and the Vikhr system, on it's release (in one billion years time ). Nonetheless, the OP is correct: The Vikhr CAN be fired against airborne targets, while the Hellfire CAN'T.

Bloody Saffers! Well, like I said on the SAIX forums, I disabled the lean and the zoom axes. But I suppose that hasn't helped. All I could think of is if BIS added more setup options for the TiR, to cater for all tastes.