Col. Faulkner

Well the "depth of field" chosen is inappropriate with regard to the sights view as it makes the foresights of some weapons almost invisible. Oh well, "focussing on the target" it'll have to be then.

Yes, that's right, and one of the things I am most dissatisfied with in OFP/Arma too. ArmA desperately needs a "morale and fear" system (to model "suppression"), some solution for simulating "taking cover", and more realistic fire control in squads.

That would be a vast improvement, and one I'd be happy using. In the meantime I (and many others) want to know just how to get rid of the stupid things altogether!

could you explain us how do that ? thanks Yes, please, enlighten us! Do you mean that this is what you'd like them to do, or are you trying to say that this is what they do now (coz' they dont, as far as I've seen)

I concur, but you can also get a bit of mileage by tuning the game options and lessening your expectations a bit. For example I had all the hideous drawing and LOD bugs until I merely reduced the "view distance".

Where do you get that from!? It is not a rocket! I think the US Army Field Manual bears a lot of blame for this confusion because it calls it a "rocket-type cartridge"! It is a fin stabilized shell, initiated by a propellant explosion in a cartridge case held within the launch tube, not by a solid rocket motor. They do have a considerable kick when fired, similar to the Carl Gustaf 84mm recoiless rifle. In any case this is not quite so important as the fact that the ArmA portrayal of it as a big whooshing rocket with a huge smoke trail is incorrect. If anyone still doubts this take a look at one of the Swedish manufacturer's promotional films here (all participants fully clothed  ) : mms://qstream-31.qbrick.com/01580/01580_1344_1_wis_s.wmv No whoosing sounds, no rushing white smoke trails. This film also clearly shows how hard the HEAT rounds kick and demos how they are practically applied in battle against AFVs (in volleys). I'd love to see an ArmA soldier animated so he let fly with one of those then threw it away and hit the dirt like the demonstrators in that film! edit: Anyway a whooshing rocket that left a lingering finger of white smoke pointing directly at the firer's location would be tantamount to a suicide weapon on a modern battlefield! edit2: I think you might be mixing up the 66mm M72 LAW and the 84mm M136 AT4 in your mind. The former is indeed a bona fide rocket, the latter is a recoilless gun. M72 AT4 The US and allied troops in ArmA carry the AT4, not the M72 LAW. In fact since they are supposed to be US Marines the SMAW would been a better and more authentic choice to balance up the RPG-7s carried by the enemy! If  they had then the ATk gunners could have been animated with the same broadly correct hand positions (the RPG gunner in ArmA actually holds it like a LAW!   )

It would be really nice to get such a thing working in the game. I'd bet my nuts that some addon maker pounces on it, don't worry

Still the thin OFP "laser beams"; yellow for "West", green for "East". The only difference now is that occasonally they can "ricochet" (but only straight; the ricochetting rounds don't ever appear to "tumble" randomly like real spent bullets sometimes do and as some of the addon tracers did). Others are entirely free to use the default tracers if they prefer them, I personally don't and I'm just dismayed that the function for switching them off doesn't work as intended. Particularly so as I seem to remember similar problems with early builds of Flashpoint too.

You mean a pose something more like this? I would also have liked to have seen some kind of "fast crawl" something like this (maybe this could even have been a more logical "move directly forward at kneeling height" animation than the weird "cossack dance" thing they do now?)

The AI guys shoot too well for it to be Star Wars (those Imperial Stormtroopers couldn't hit a cow on the ass with a banjo! ) Â And they look nothing like bullet tracers anyway, they're awful! I hated them in OFP and I hate them even more in ArmA!

So is it a graphics card related thing then? I disable them too but still the stupid "laser beams" appear. I hate them! Â

The Javelin is "Ingame" but sadly it has no model or optics afaik this addmagazine "Javelin"; this addweapon "Javelin"; It probably can't simulate the "vertical attack" feature of Javelin anyway (or BIS's developers ran out of time before they could get onto that) - in game it'd probably end up as a standard direct fire ATGM, I bet.

Well first of all I'd certainly strongly advise you to at least try out the game! It has many facets of appeal and I find myself spending entirely too many hours messing about with it and having far too much fun with it than seems proper for a guy my age! Â With regards to your question about suppressing fire: I won't lie to you. This is one of the most serious deficiencies in the game for those who value "realistic firefights" rather than a "gunfight at the OK corral". The AI soldiers cannot really be suppressed by fire (since the game does not model "morale" in an effective way) nor can you order an AI gunner to saturate an area. I do get the impression that the AI guys in ArmA are a bit more reluctant to return fire than they were in Op. Flashpoint, but they still seem to be totally fearless, not always going for proper cover, and you still cannot "pin down" a group of men or mallet a particular position with fire from your squad support weapons. What you can do is to order a gunner to engage a particular target (ie. individual soldiers or a particular vehicle) and you can also order them to watch a certain direction - when they will usually engage anything that they spot moving in their arc. If you're hoping to be able to simulate or at least achieve the same effect of [british] Army style "GRIT" fire control orders in the game then that isn't really possible (GRIT orders: eg. "Gun group, 200 metres, half right, enemy in bushes at edge of treeline, rapid fire!" The American army presumably has something similar) . You can almost do it with the game mechanisms described above but it's not quite the same thing. This is a frustrating problem for those of us who'd like a decently realistic simulation of infantry combat in ArmA. You will find many posts here from guys asking "can the AI be suppressed?". I do know that some of this can be scripted and I know that there was work being done for Op. Flashpoint by modders to try to implement some of these things and eventually that's bound to percolate down to ArmA too. Let's hope so. The infantry firefights are still great, though, and in many cases still manage to suggest quite convincingly the atmosphere, excitement, euphoria and confusion of "combat". The new features of Arma do add considerably to that also. Having said this I'll now undoubtedly be vilified by those who care less for "realism" than for a fun game. Each to his own, but since you are asking about this then I must assume that you lean more towards the "realistic sim" camp than the "balanced and fun game" one. And ArmA does advertise itself as the "ultimate combat simulator". The game/sim has a great deal to offer players of both persuasions, however. We've been promised a demo sometime soon; give it a go!

Well certainly that, and presumably you'll also need to wait for people to have the time and inclination to do it.

Some of the Op. Flashpoint addons managed it after a fashion (backblasts causing injuries, and launchers discarded after use). I have little doubt that they will also find their way into ArmA eventually.

I notice that the iron sights with "post processing" switched on appear blurred (both the foresight and the backsight). I'm assuming that everyone sees this and it isn't some idiosyncrasy of ArmA's interaction with my pathetic graphics card (an ATI Radeon X800 SE - OK, stop laughing! Â ) Is this a graphics issue or does anyone know if it was intended to appear this way (to simulate focussing on the target in battle, maybe)? I could wish that they were a bit more "black" too than they are. Here are some images (jpeg - taken at reso' 1024x768): The Armalite rifle in "normal" view and in zoomed in "holding your breath" view And similarly for the light machine gun: normal zoomed in For those curious about what the Kalashnikov sights look like in game (try to stay calm if you're a Kalashnikov fan, it aint a pretty sight - pun intended!: "normal" view zoomed in view

Once saw a squaddie get his combat trousers ripped off by the backblast from one of them

I never even touched any of the BIS missions, the titles alone were enough to dissuade me... Â Â Â I never ended the OFP CWC campaign either for the same reasons - sending six men with satchel charges to counter General Guba's "clear and present danger" nuclear threat was just far too silly! This may be verging off topic now but does anyone have data on how badly an AT4 in reality would hurt a T72?

Right with you on that, but the super-quick RPG reload will still be a frustration. I set up a group of RPG gunners in the mission editor hoping they'd fire a volley - it looked like a Katyusha!Â

It'd certainly make human infantry players "realistically" wary of the damn things when they start moving  ("friendly" tanks I mean).  Although I do I recall on one (real life) ex. many years ago some British infantrymen trying to stop a US tank column (simulating the red horde) by lying down in the road... Â

I got the "flying tank" bug too today. About to shoot a BMP up the ass with an AT4...take aim...firing..NOW Hey! Whiskey Tango Foxtrot!? [the BMP has driven into a wall and shot 200 feet into the air coming back down and landing on its tracks] the black-clad BMP crew then tumble out and stand for a while as if astonished (I didn't have the heart to shoot at them after that  ) I also had an embarrassing (but not totally unrealistic) blue-on-blue: Lying firing my Gimpy (M240 or whatever you yanks call it) in controlled bursts through the "loophole" in a broken fence somewhere on Sahrani, a friendly grunt decides to relocate and runs past on the other side of the fence and takes a round from me straight in the napper "Oh no! Two is down!" Â

That sounds quite good to me! One of the most immersive elements in such combat games is the "empty battlefield" feeling, in reality all you often really see of enemy troops is their muzzle flashes. I enjoy ArmA best when it approaches that - the new grass helps a little with that - despite its many drawbacks.

One of my pet hates too.

I don't know how to post videos, but the reloading goes as follows (don't be too disappointed when I tell you): Your weapon goes dry, a cute little "Magazine" icon appears in the middle of your screen, you hit your "reload" key, the little guy actually removes the mag with his hand (his rifle is then in his right hand without the mag, [so far so good, but then it starts to go bad] then he waves his hand in the vicinity of his rifle's receiver at which time a new mag "magically" pops onto the rifle, he then makes a spastic attempt at hitting the bolt release on his M16. Exactly the same "reload anim" is used for all shoulder weapons.  There are no "weapon animations" (if I understand that correctly) in evidence anywhere. edit: Not all too impressive when you compare the reloading anims in something like "Rainbow Six 3" for PC from years ago (the Rainbow soldiers could even cock their weapons correctly! - or at least move their hands in the right way) edit2: The pistols are reloaded with hand waving and gesticulations - a different reload anim from all the rest of the shoulder weapons. None of the pistols have animated slides or anything like that - and the case ejection is somewhat "lethargic" too - they "plop" out rather than "whizz" out (and down the back of your neck for the M9 usually   ). I would opine that the 1st person sights view for the M9 makes it look like a huge cannon, the Makarov looks better IMHO. As regards the ATk weapons; they are modelled as hollow tubes now, so when the little guy lets fly you can look (if that turns you on) right through the launch tube. To reload it he takes it across his knee and sort of rubs the muzzle - the same anim as in old OFP. They carry the RPG launcher unloaded and when you go to use the RPG, a grenade magically pops into the muzzle as he takes it onto his shoulder. Some of the OFP addon RPGs worked in the same way (it looks rather weird). Edit3: Here you are, a quick screenshot (low/medium gfx settings) showing that at least he gets the empty mag off his rifle - that's unfortunately about as good as it gets - at least his finger is indexed outside the trigger guard! Same goes for the Minimi; he takes the box off (and it then pops out of existence - he doesn't lift the top cover on the gun or cock it or anything - and the reload anim is otherwise the same as the one for the Armalite): Edit4: Here's the cutesy icon that pops up when your weapon is dry. (I'll be disabling that just as soon as I work out how - how can you ever get a dead-man's-click if a sweet little piccy pops up to tell you when to reload!?) And finally, after all this, I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the users of the M24 bolt-action rifle do not in fact operate the rifle bolt, or make gestures that even slightly resemble how this rifle is loaded in real life (there isn't even a sound that plays for the bolt opening and closing! ) to all intents and purposes it is self-loading. Oh, and it ejects a case out to the left hand side as you fire Â

That always annoyed me about the "Carl Gustaf" in OFP too, the way it was modelled as a big smoky rocket launcher that could be "guided" (and, yes, I do know that the FFV651 round for it is "rocket assisted"). In the end I made my own, implementing it as a big rifle, with cool bouncing tracer effect too - shame the AI guys had no idea what to do with it, but for "player only" it was great! I notice that the RPG-7 in ArmA has a "double-bang" sort of sound which makes it a bit more like the real one! We still need it to have a proper tracer and backblast modelled though (and decent sights for it) - I'm sure that'll all be "modded" in sooner or later though.