Dangus

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">MP, how are the gun laws in Ireland? I would imagine that they would be quite restrictive over in your area.<span id='postcolor'> Same as any of the Euro-socialisms, only really rich snobs can even own the simplest of weapons. Some farmers can have shotguns for work purposes, but if you ever try to defend your life with one you might as well just shoot yourself afterward.

Nope, I don't live in Switzerland. It is a very interesting place though. Probably the only country in Europe that has the roads leading into their country ready to be destroyed at a moment's notice. I forget what they are using now for that purpose, but they used to have electronically detonated mines for that purpose, but I imagine they've changed that since then. Probably C4 now since it's so stable.

This is a thread for discussion of AI, and how OFP fails, and succeeds. Let me start. OFP fails: 1) AI infantry soldiers have too high of situational awareness at long range, and fire too accurately at those ranges. If you are 500 yards away, the only reason they ever miss you is because their guns are not accurate enough. Their aim is always dead on. 2) AI soldiers sometimes have no situational awareness, like when mounted in the gunner position of the M113(you practically have to be within 20 feet to get them to see the enemy) 3) AI awareness of you mounting a vehicle is absurd. In some missions I jumped in a vehicle with no enemies within LOS and instantly all of Kolgujev get beserk and attacked me. Helicopters, tanks, BMPs, infantry, all converged on my position. Another time, the enemy patrol was going up a hill, I mounted one of those 50cal standing death traps and just aimed at them. None of them were looking my way before I mounted, but the instant I got in it they all turned toward me and killed me. 4) AI soldiers only fire when they know where you are. This is unrealistic. In one rather absurd mission, Sniper Team, I was on a hill in a bush and killed 75% of the personel in the enemy base. None of them could see me since I was in a bush, so none fired. IRL, all hell woulda rained down upon me and the rest of the hillside for that matter. Soldiers in real life will often start firing, just to spam an area in hopes of catching the enemy. They should just fire around in the general area where you are at. Things OFP does right: 1) AI hits the dirt. This is still fairly buggy, but it's a step in the right direction. AI should take cover more when they can though. In general though, AI squads react moderately well to being attacked. 2) AI tries to flank you. I have been killed a suprising number of times by some AI bastard who ran 500 yards to the right of my target area, and crawled all the way up the hill behind me and then snuck right up to my bush and popped me. This is very cool. 3) AI commanders seem to assign targets well based on what your troop type happens to be. Tells AT soldiers to attack tanks, tells snipers to snipe, etc. 4) AI uses grenades. Granted they are way more accurate than they should be with them, but they use them at appropriate times, few games have AI that can use grenades well. 5) AI can be ordered to scavenge. Very cool, very realistic.

A cockpit that can take that large a round is not the same as a window that can.... The cockpit of the A-10 can take incredible hits but the canopy cannot. As for 7.62x51... yeah, it could do that, but it depends on how many bones it hits probably. Most people don't appreciate how much penetration these rounds are capable of.

Can DEFLECT 22mm rounds maybe, stop them? Not a chance. It would have to be made of 1 foot thick Lexan to even have a chance of doing that. I think you fail to appreciate how powerful a 22mm round is. .50 BMG SLAP rounds can penetrate over 10 inches of solid mild steel, and around 4-5 inches of armor grade steel. 22MM is a LOT bigger than .50 BMG (12.7mm)

One of the big weaknesses of this game is the very fact that a soldier can fly a plane, drive a tank, fly a helicopter, pilot a boat, run an AA gun, fight as infantry, and use anti-tank weaponry like an expert(all with zoom that should not be there!!). Spec Ops guys could probably do all of the above, they are very select troops who are capable of a huge range of things. Regular grunts are a MUCH different matter entirely. I would like to see, most likely in the next OFP game, or at least an add-on, where there are more character types, and their level of proficiency with various implements is based on what their skills should be. Tank and other vehicle operators should be capable of driving vehicles more capably, use fuel more effectively, and should have better situational awareness whilst in vehicles. Special view modes when not turned out are not realistic and should be able to be disabled by a server as well. Pilots of helicopters should be good with helicopters, pilots of A-10s should be good with planes, grunts should be good with rifles, machinegunners with machineguns, and probably the single most important of all, AT soldiers should be the only grunts who are able to use AT rockets with any sort of accuracy and have any sort of familiarity with where to hit the armor at. Others could use them, but you could implement unsteadiness to them just like sniper rifles have in Deus Ex.... Specialization in general would improve this game. Also, seperate campaign sections for the different types of gameplay. An air campaign, an infantry campaign, a tank campaign, a spec ops campaign, etc. As far as multiplayer missions go, the single most important element to me is respawn. Flying around as a seagull is not fun, and with no join in progress options, it can take a long time before you get to play again.

He probably has a Radeon...

The Hind cockpit in real life will not reliably stop .308, or 7.62x54R. It will definitely stop 5.56x45 and 5.45x39, as well as 7.62x39. To suggest it has any chance of stopping .50 BMG is absurd. Even a manhole cover won't stop that stuff. The M2 is way underpowered in the game. Most people don't realize that a full .50 BMG round is over 5 inches long with a base that is about an inch in diameter. It's as big as a dinner candlestick, whereas the 5.56x45 is about as big as one of those birthday candles you stick on a cupcake.

In some user maps(not sure if it sometimes does this on BIS maps..), I get in tanks and cannot see what sort of ammo I have selected, or how much of it I have. Why is this?

Switzerland is an interesting case. On one hand they are the oldest democracy in Europe in all effective senses of the word "democracy", but they've also had their dark spots too. Switzerland has a very effective militia system that has always contributed to their disproportionate strength relative to their size. Their citizens have been a perfect model of militia advantages, and the benefits militia give democracy. On the other hand, they have no ability to field troops on foreign conflicts, but then again they don't intend to anyway. Right or wrong, they consider most outside matters to be none of their business. Throughout the time Switzerland has existed, just about every one of their neighbors has tried to invade them, and always at a heavy cost. In WW1, a visiting German officer asked a Swiss general what they would do it the German army, twice the size of the Swiss forces, decided to invade. The officer thought about it and said, "Your troops train at 100 yards, and ours train at 200, and more often. If you were to invade we would shoot twice and go home". Smartass answer yes, but it has some degree of truth to it... In WW2 however, they basically armed and otherwise supplied the Nazi regime to a very large extent. So did Norway, but Norway got invaded cause it didn't have the sort of nasty defenses that Switzerland has....

That is rediculous. You admit you don't even know, or care about the reasons, but then you say that the reasons are pathetic? You can state all you want about the situation, but you clearly don't know a lot about it, or care to. It's well within your rights to post totally senseless and pointless words but why do it?

Yes, and it doesn't work..... Is this just a bug I am experiencing?

What you fail to understand that it is in Europe's interests to have peace in Europe and they are not pulling their own weight. We've defended Europe for almost 90 years now. It's getting a bit old. In the Balkans, our European allies were very disturbed to realize how few troops they could quickly field, whereas we could quickly field large numbers quite easily. That's saying something especially since our numbers are way down from what they used to be.... If we are gonna do this peacekeeping bullshit around the world then the other countries demanding we do it better be ready to match troops with us. Otherwise they should have to do it themselves. We are not the world's parents, and people need to stop treating us like it. Especially since they bash us so often.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Why is it ironic? i didnt say that no civilian had good knowledge of weapons, i just said that not many do.<span id='postcolor'> It is ironic because if we were in Australia, the guns we used to model the weapons in the game would have been chopsawed. Especially his MP-44. I would not have been able to give advice on what the various guns sound like if I weren't able to go to various machinegun shoots we have around here. I would not have been able to advise on what grenades sound like if I had not been able to go mess around with local reservists(the local rat population has been reduced lemme tell ya). Advice on penetration would have not been accurate if I had not taken various building materials out to the range and blown the hell outta them. Most people don't expect .30-06 or 8mm Mauser to go through 12 inches of concrete, but it can do it with some loadouts, though not reliably. Many aspects of that game depended heavily upon civilian gun ownership to become what they are. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Btw, you bring up the fact that in Iowa you have the lowest crime rates? how many of the crimes in Iowa are commited with guns? and how good would you say the knowledge of the state of Iowa's population would be on gun operation?<span id='postcolor'> I cannot cite the specific rates of crime involving a gun in Iowa at the moment, but I can look into it again. I have seen it but it's been a while. The 1999 stats are probably out by now, maybe even preliminary 2000 stats. We have a slightly lower percentage of homicides that involve firearms than the national average last I checked, though only very slightly. Of our murders I think 55-60% of them involve a firearm. The national average last I checked is about 65% Of felony crime in general nationwide, about 36% of it involves a firearm, again, last I checked, Iowa was a bit lower on this, around 33%. Nationwide most states have seen a decrease in crime in general though, so I would expect both sets of values to be lower for last year. It will be a couple years before all the data is figured out and posted though. In general Iowans, like most other heavily rural states, has a very high familiarity level with firearms, and the per captia ownership level is quite high. We have a higher population density than Australia, though we have no cities as large as it's largest few. If suddenly random Iowans were thrown into a large battle zone with a rifle and pitted against similarly armed random people from a state like California, we would definitely have quite an edge, as just statisitically speaking our people are more likely to be hunters, farmers, soldiers, and firearms enthusiasts. Not to say CA doesn't have some good people for this sorta thing, just that random sampling of them is less likely to turn them up. There will be no debate that Australia certainly the edge climate-wise though!

Generally, even though I'm not fond of the Catholic Church, I side with the catholics on this issue. I do not, however, condone attacking a school with crowbars and hammers and then acting indignant when someone tries to stop you. Anyone who gets shot because they are endangering school children, and attacking what by all means should amount to holy ground, gets little sympathy from me. The English really have no business being in Northern Ireland, but then again, neither do the seperatists who attacked the school. We should send both groups to Afghanistan and force them to deal with people even more insane than themselves.