dmarkwick

Could it be some variant of the Boomerang technology? i.e. some on-vehicle doohickey that analyses sounds through a ring of microphones that can give a reasonably accurate location for incoming fire?

I found, for my own preference, that turning down accuracy but allowing for high awareness gives a good play experience. As for the do-they/don't-they AI experiences, as always a solid repro is the best evidence. Anecdotal evidence is not nothing, but it's also not useful, if you have time then setting up a scenario that displays the problem and putting that scenario up for download by others (or, a written precise step-by-step setup) will do far more revealing the problem than anything else. Regarding grass - clutter has long been a problem for lots of people, you can level the playing field somewhat by disabling clutter, at the expense of visuals. AI shooting players that are hidden - very variable in terms of anecdotal tales here. AI will remember where you were seen, and also what direction you were going when you were seen. They can also hear you. Don't be surprised to be shot behind a bush when you think you're hidden, you can only achieve hidden status by not being seen in the first place, and keeping quiet 🙂 AI shooting through terrain - never seen this personally. A repro is the best way to go here. As mentioned before, there's a possibility of AI regarding low-terrain fidelity vs the player seeing high terrain fidelity, but I've never seen anything like this personally.

I think licensing has become an issue over time, so the older titles assumed a fair use but it became stickier :) Large companies are a lot more savvier now when it comes to monetising their very name. I'd guess before they were happy for their stuff to be represented, or did not care about a small issue of video games. Now video games are big money, and game technologies mean a more accurate and hi-fidelity representation, lawyers start to sit up :) As to why BIS take the future route, well perhaps they don't want to just make the same game over & over, and want to create original content. I'm sure they have their own ideas they'd like to develop, and I seem to remember that OFP "became" OFP based on an originally sci-fi concept, so maybe that's always been their eventual passion project. Yes real-world content worked in the past, but those games are still available and quite playable :) and for the most part can be ported in. Mod support can give most people their real-world fix, that's what I meant by 3rd party content :)

While most of these types of game are all trying to get a portion of the widest demographic, it amounts to battling for a thin slice of a fat pie. It's only a matter of time before some developer sees the opportunity to cater for a smaller demographic, and get a fat slice of a thin pie. This is where ArmA comes in 🙂

ArmA has always been a sandbox, and it's the mods that make it a mil-sim IMO 🙂 For the future, it's probably going to remain that way. Not-quite-real-world hardware but allowing for 3rd party real-world hardware. This is the most likely continuing situation simply because of licensing. I know you can recreate items and give them faux names, but at some point it's better to own your assets totally I guess and not have to dance around the legalities. As long as A4 has mod support, and support for easy importing of <A4 mods, things will be good.

I'll be happy to get a new map, and some new assets, and with it the inevitable tweaks, fixes and features of the Arma engine. This stuff doesn't pay for itself, and ArmA 3 is getting on a bit now so engine development won't spring up out of the ground. Most everyone who will buy Arma 3 has already bought it. Will I play the campaign? I've never played one yet, so I base the decision to buy on the other stuff. I'm looking forward to it. If all the buildings are enterable I'll be happy 🙂

I recently bought a Pimax 4K VR headset, ostensibly to play Elite: Dangerous, but but actually I am playing nothing but Project Cars 2 :)

Each time you see certain buildings or areas, you remember times of extreme drama you experienced there. Certain bush LODs at a distance look a bit like a soldier with a gun. But you're suspicious anyway, just in case. You put a few extra rounds into any dead body you see, because you're not sure whether or not one of your addons simulates recovery.

I've noticed for a while now that looping scripts will degrade in perfomance over time. I have custom smoke effects that initially look pretty nice, but degrade after a while. This is in a DAC mission which also has scripts running, for the first 20-30 minutes it seems fine, but after that it degrades, so DAC controlled units stop responding and smoke loops get stuck. Often during the making of missions I'll use the floating camera function, and I notice that when all the other functionality degrades, trying to call this function results in a delay before it happens, so I will call the camera function and nothing seems to happen, and maybe 2 minutes later it suddenly executes. I think there is some script scheduling issue over time.

I currently live in the Czech Republic. Years ago when I played ArmA 2 I wondered if the "real" Chernarus was really as crumbly as the game made out. Turns out, it is every bit as crumbly 😄

24-30 fps is not too bad for Arma 🙂 As ever, settings can help. Not so much visual quality, as generally Arma is CPU dependent in this regard, but object distance etc could help. Mods & mission design too affect fps hugely. What you can look at to get a feel: Single unit somewhere on altis, nothing else going on, what is your fps? Vanilla mission from the stock game, same thing. Make your own missions, varying from very simple to quite crowded. Fiddle with the settings in each of the above, do you notice what settings are most effective?

If I'm correct in my current understanding, the Enfusion engine is not improving AI meaningfully, it's really more about animations etc. It's good enough for zombies, basically.

I first encountered the Arma series with the original OFP when it was first released, as I was looking for something to play that was like Battlefield 1942, but more so. I initially took the game back to the store after a game-breaking perceived bug, which later turned out to be caused by my keyboard after the same bug appeared in another game. I re-purchased and didn't look back. It not only replaced BF1942 DCS but opened up whole new areas of gameplay. I'm apparently one of the few people who actually liked Arma (1) on release, mostly because it made use of my TrackIR but also because Silola upgraded his excellent DAC scripts to Arma. At the very end of that game's life just before Arma 2 came out I started to experiment with scripting, and continued that into Arma 2 culminating in the release of a few well-received addons. I do less scripting now in Arma 3, just a couple for my own entertainment, but I still enjoy DAC in a solo environment.

Sins Of A Solar Empire: Rebellion free until 18th. I don't know much about this game, but some people really like it. https://www.humblebundle.com/store/sins-of-a-solar-empire-rebellion

Well, I've seen stupidity in AI behavior, and I've seen stupidity in human-player behavior, I'd be hard pushed to favour one over the other :) AI, while not perfect, is acceptable IMO. There's the possibility to tweak it, mod it, and use numbers to give appropriate levels of challenge in non-PVP gameplay. I don't do too much online play, I just like to pootle about in my own scenarios. Changing stuff around and adding randomisation gives me surprises and keeps me entertained :) I'd say having AI in ArmA is pretty much a must, will it be perfect? No, but are human players perfect? No, so choose your stupidity and play within it :) I get huge enjoyment out of the AI.