frederf

I wish all developers communicated this way. It's not sugar-coating, it's not defensive. It treats the customer and the company as if they are on the same cooperating toward a common goal. I wish I could say that BIS devs are bad and I obviously have all the answers but I don't. The requirements for a comprehensive "new approach" are numerous and the solution's parameters complex. There are skill requirements, design feasibility, AI considerations, game performance factors, spectrum of implementation, etc. Lots of headwork will be needed to navigate the ideascape. I do have several core principles about the design that I'm relatively confident about. 1. More powerful = more skill, cooperation, and other limitations/requirements. 2. Design the human system first then adjust AI performance to match. 3. Allow for a reasonable counter.

On one hand it's not the highest priority feature in the world but on the other hand it's been almost 14 years.

Some people just want to be contrary instead of understand what they are talking about. A3 smoothed a lot of animation issues but several still persist. A lot of reasonable actions (walking while taking out pistol, ceasing a reload, etc.) are "stuck" in A3. I realize that pistol+rifle combos are rare in current service. I don't care to use them in ArmA personally. Reloads could be made slower, especially belt-fed. But that's not really what this topic is about. This is discussing how awkward and robotic many actions are where more smoothness or interruptibility even with less overall performance are routine in human activity.

I think the main thing is to compare shooting performance to real life instead of previous ArmA games. It might be annoying or even improper in how it accomplishes it, but achieving a real shooting performance is good. I have found that the "hold breath" feature is pretty much required for good shooting. By default it's combo-bound which causes it to be overused and then your character reacts when the short time of use is up which may exaggerate the sway significantly. Separating their key binds so you can aim, breath hold briefly, and fire gives good stability but only for one or two shots in a row before you have to relax and recover.

The lack of objects doesn't besmirch the use of the island for wider use. I don't understand what additional time it takes to click the "New Layer" button, put down the destroyed cars in a removable layer instead of baking them into the map which has to last for half a decade of modding and more general use like every OFP/ArmA game in history. The long-term use of assets is exactly the strong suit of the OFP/ArmA product line.

This is an idea for how grenades (and other throwable objects) could be utilized differently for player characters in ArmA 3. Currently the 'G' key fires the currently selected throwable ('Ctrl-G') when pressed. While simple and usable, I believe this scheme has several disadvantages that another likewise simple and consistent method could provide. Current advantages: 1. Very simple. 2. Expedient (perhaps too much so) Current disadvantages: 1. 'G' is a key that historically opened the gear/inventory, a problem that will diminish as time passes. 2. Provides little to no safety for accidental use. 3. Currently has no strength or vector control for delivery. 4. Inconsistent with other firing types (rifles). A new scheme is suggested wherein pressing a grenade key places the selected throwable into your hands to be thrown by conventional firing controls. The benefits are: A. Confirmation of throwable visually before use B. Utilizes conventional fire keys (Mouse0) C. Provides opportunity for modification prior to use (pull pin, set fuze, adjust aiming path, crack chemlight, arm extended aiming, etc. as imagination allows) D. Prevents one-key accidental use E. Un-expedients throwable use sligthly (if desirable)

BIS needs campaign details hardcoded at the expense of all else?

I find it quite odd when transitioning from mounted on the quad bike to dismounted.

Recently it is noticed that the rangefinder device did not provide range readout (reads 0000) for both myself and another client. The multiplayer host was able to use the rangefinder normally. EDIT: Version was dev branch as of August 28.

How I did it in A2 was to direct them to the ammo box (or body) then use the action menu, 6, gear (now 'inventory') and it would pop up the gear screen as if it was me at that box.

With human groups our standard procedure is to reference direction of movement/facing or the compass, clockface is heavily discouraged except when referencing the hull of a vehicle. The classic problem with OFP-A3 is that 12oc/front is defined by the same variable that AI line up in a column formation to. The concept of "front" is best related to significant motion instead of facing. If the leader or group has not moved a significant distance a particular direction then the group's motion and thus its front should not be defined. When the front direction is not defined then absolute (cardinal) directions should be referenced. This neatly avoids the "we've been stationary for 20 minutes and are all facing different directions, what do you mean enemy contact left?" problem. In short I'm saying that the manner contact directions are given should be logically dependent on several factors in order to make them natural and clear. The following is an example: CONTACT CLOSE-FAR -- Proximity will favor less specific direction such as "front-left" or "east" while distant contact will favor narrow definitions such as "2 o' clock" or "bearing 095." GROUP MOTION -- If the group has moved consistently for one minute at a pace of at least 2km/hr then motion direction is defined and front-referencing is allowed, otherwise cardinal or bearing. VEHICLE - If within a vehicle can declare contact relative to hull (not sure how this works with some of group in vehicle and some not).

I might be mistaken but partial magazines don't seem to stack in inventory (which is fine) but the mouseover text always says "rounds 30" instead of a number less than the capacity.

That's not required. There's no need to alter the config. What should happen is it should kick you out of (or suspend) the optic view if you look beyond some angular limits. That combined with a filter would assure that view beyond the optic is 1x or equivalent. The benefit of suspending the optic temporarily while side looking is that looking around at 1x is possible (as per reality) without the unreasonable benefit of the magnification provided by the device.

Much agree. There's a very limited angular box that you can look around in while viewing the RCO. There's no reason to have TrackIR this sensitive where a tiny flick of my head moves my view so much and I hit the angular wall quickly anyway. If the zoom goes up by 4x the TrackIR sensitivity should go down by 4x. Some kind of blur filter (mild) so that you don't gain (or lose) any feature resolution outside the glass boundary would be very neutral and proper.

I'm just saying that I replaced the function within loadout_0.sqf and it turned something that didn't work into something that did. [player, ""] call ACE_fnc_PutWeaponOnBack; does not work [player, ""] call ACE_fnc_AddWeaponOnBack; did work

Note to addon author: Due to a recent change in the ACE addon, the function "ACE_fnc_PutWeaponOnBack" is changed in use. For LEA's purposes the function "ACE_fnc_AddWeaponOnBack" should be substituted. Until this change is done, all loadouts which have an item in the WOB slot will not be applied when the loadout is applied.

I would be much happier with a 6-sided box interior textured black than being forced into the 2D optics all the time. When I hit the optics command in A2 it shows me a third person view. WTF?!!?

We all should have gotten the hint big time when the first DCS "module" came out that wasn't a separate install for the DCS world and the first aircraft module. That should have been red flags and ringing alarm bells. "They don't understand modular architecture, or don't care, or won't ever try." How you make a modular system is have a standalone environment, probably release it for free to maximize your mission-making base, and then sell the aircraft modules, even maps. But you continue to support the core environment, releasing it as the tech improves.

Interface is such an important aspect of a game. ArmA has acquired so many layers of interface over time, action menu, command bar, quick command bar, 1-9 keys, context abbreviated 1-9 keys, gear screen, map screen, high command... it's too much! The interface has gotten overgrown as well in terms of how prominent it is. More displays popping up whenever they want, growing bigger, invading the center of the screen. It's bad. The closer you can get the 2D interface to be gone the better.

I have seen a game where you can fire the chambered round during a reload and it did the N+1 rounds. I think it was a Ghost Recon or something. America's Army, Rainbow 6s. It's not all that uncommon for games that take technical accuracy seriously. ArmA would need to start considering the chamber as a place where rounds can be stored and then the magazine as how one fills the chamber. AT-4s and such could start to be handled correctly.

I do not agree. A good guy does more good than harm. There doesn't need to be someone bad (reverse) for that person to exist and act and be good.

Pretty much you can't have a word where there's no objectivity. Unless you have some irrational values (life is valuable, help others, pain is bad) then there's no way to judge any behavior at all. Bin Laden wasn't a bad guy like you could put some skin cells under a microscope and see the "badness" but at least 50% of the population of the planet when polled would construct a set of irrational values (see above) that would condemn him more than accept him. In that sense he's a bad guy because he's done more harm than good.

So is there a .13 TS3 dll or what?

Artillery: Can we have option of displays in 6400 mils? Can the calculator have a FO-centric adjust fire calculation if given FO-TGT bearing/range or simply FO position? Can the map marker at round impact be disabled? Logistics: Is there any way to hide the logistics options by default so it takes a deliberate effort to do any of the actions?

There are no scripting commands to "add round to magazine" or "remove round from magazine." I have no idea why but there you go. If there was the ACE CSW magazines wouldn't be "10% 20%.... 90%" approximations. There are ways to do it anyway, but really inelegant. It would also be nice to have empty magazine objects. Not everyone plays the same but I often have 5min+ doing jack all where I could happily switchMove sitDown and collate rounds. I could even fill magazines from a box of "loose."