Helmut_AUT

Hi all I'm not a modder myself, but from my observation: Arma1 really had a few islands that were easier on the framerate than Sahrani. Sakakah Al Huqf for example, the large Saudi urban map, had pretty much no to very few shader-intense objects on it. Even in Sahrani, the southern parts of desert were very framerate friendly compared to northern woods. It would be nice for people with less advanced graphics cards slugging around at 20fps to get a few islands which can easily give 10FPS more, without the need to reduce game or model details too much. After seeing the AI, Editor, Weapons, MP Savegame improvements/additions in Arma2, no one will go back. It would be great to have an island that turns down graphics load so people with less hefty systems can enjoy the core engine improvements at decent framerates.

Hi all I'm noticing with A2, as in A1 - but now made more important by 13 man Marine Squads - I'm using the colored fire teams a lot. In fact I use them much more than commanding single soldiers around. Vehicle crews are also a colored team with my setup, and I really only very rarely command a single soldier to do something specific. I never quite understood why BIS didn't take this idea to it's logical conclusion - have the Squad Leader command Fireteams as a whole as default (three icons or four with an attached vehicle instead of single soldier icons) unless he explicitly wishes to command a specific soldier. Take it one step further for multiplayer: The Fire Team Leaders should be automatically in command of their three AI bots, when played by a human. Right now, multiplayer within the same squad is pretty pointless since only the SL can command each individual soldier, whereas a Fire Team Leader (although present as unit and by rank) can not do anything more than every other soldier in the squad. It would much closer fit to reality if players would fill up Squad Leader and Fire Team Leader slots so they automatically get command over their appropriate section, it would also change the workload for the Squad leader to something more realistic and manageable. This would be a bit like the "High Command Module" but without the need for placing logics, and down low on the squad level. Make it even better: If an "Officer" unit is placed on the map and linked with two squads ("grouped", not synched, just like a normal unit) that Officer would now be in "High Command" of two squads, each squad again with three fireteams. There is so much potential for a hierarchic rank-based team/platoon structure in the engine. But what does BIS do instead? Remove the quick-select color team feature from A1 (used to be in the SPACE menu) which forces people again to put much more work into commanding individual soldiers. Which makes sense for Spec Ops (Team Razor) but not for squads.

I agree it's an AI issue (AI would need another "thinking level" besides squad leader and single soldier) but something they should look into. It would be a nice start if the interface by default allowed you to select fireteams easier, like it was in A1 - and maybe if the Fireteams came pre-colored at mission launch.

Hi all Currently I'm using this setVariable ["settings", [[], true, nil, nil, false]]; to deactivate random mission in SecOps, I keep it only for support requests. As I understand it, the empty brackets [] actually contain the pool of possible mission types, so setting them empty means SecOps will not generate missions. However, I want to give the player a choice to activate SecOps by radio trigger. Which would likely mean I'd have to use this setVariable ["settings", [["missiontype1", "missiontype2", "missiontype3"], true, nil, nil, false]]; But the only mission type I saw mentioned is "ambush". And even that doesn't quite seem to work. Anyone found a way to do this?

Jedo, thanks for the reply but for me variant 2.2 didn't work. After firing the trigger I had not recived a call for SecOps mission in 20 minutes wait time. It does work for you? I think the reason it does work is that "mainscope" holds all variables for the game, and "pool" may be ACM specific enough as reference.

Interesting. I'll have to try if my MP SecOps problems go away by using named units, thanks North Star for pointing me here.

Hi Guys I just tested a mission with a friend (him hosting) using the UAV and SecOps Transport functions. This works fine offline for me, but online the UAV only works if the group leader synched to the logic is hosting, and the chopper never landed - even if the player hosting is the group leader with the logic. Bug, or do I need to set things differently to use these logics online?

Thanks for checking in, NorthStar. At least I'm not the only one. Also: the High Command logic didn't seem to do anything, so basically as my friend was commanding a squad which was under my "High Command", he could not see/hear orders or waypoints I gave him trough the HC interface. We had to use regular map markers instead. I actually seem to recall people saying the MP problems with game logics had been fixed in 1.02, so maybe it's just something I need to do somewhere, or if it's a bug, please confirm.

Another suggestion for BIS to implement into their Arty Logic - or maybe for some modders? Right now, the Arty is always 100% accurate. You can give it any map point, or point the binocs at a specific house, and it will always 100% hit that house (with some random spread). The fire mission to "adjust fire" seems more like a gadget than actually needed, since you just don't have anything to adjust. Wouldn't it be nice if Arty was less precise at the beginning, and the player then had to call in corrections? It could be easily done by just randomly shifting the player-set aimpoint a 100m or 200 around, and then have the player make up for that random shift by judging the first one or two rounds to land. As it is, it's simple too easy to get massive fire support perfectly on the spot. You don't even need to have LOS to your target, since you can just point at the map and there you go.

Well likely that they remove the disk check later, but right now the game is much too fresh - took A1 to Patch 1.14 before it happened.

I wrote this in response to yet another player with a fairly decent CPU who can't get the campaign to play at good enough framerates. The problem obviously is that every AI unit on the island, no matter how far away it is from the player, uses the very intensive "Micro AI so I suggested: The only thing BIS can do (and IMHO should have done) is to enable two AI modes: With Micro AI, and without (same AI as in Arma1). Depending on distance to player, they need to switch Bots between these two AI versions. Because if a player is not present to see it, it really shouldn't matter if the AI fights like it did in A1 - without using cover. A1 firefights weren't that bad, and we had NO micro AI. If two squads engage in the north in a large WARFARE type mission, and you are south on the Island, there's really no need to have them do it in Micro-AI detail. Only when the player closes in to engagement range, or at least close to visual range, should they swap in the "Micro AI" so the player will have the challenge of a good enemy. But if there's another two squads fighting somewhere far off in the north, let them do it in the A1 way of "go prone and shoot" - it will not really matter to the game feeling, but free up resources. Right now, WARFARE for example is completely unplayable for me at 15FPS - and my CPU even exceeds the "Recommended Optimum". I do not believe they meant to release a game which only people on systems 1 year old or younger can run, but a lot of the campaign and missions are such that you need CPUs younger than a year for even 25 FPS.

The included ship is an LHD, which can carry at least one or two LCACs. We'd need a well-deck mod to fully use it, but just on theory you don't need an LPD or LSD to explain the LCAC. The way I understood it, LPDs are usually heavy on personell, LSDs carry LCACs and Amphibs/APCs, LHDs Air and Airmobile Troops, not much landing craft. But that's not a rule.

I think that just means this group has reached a waypoint and nothing further to do. But in WARFARE, a lot of AI groups are constantly moving, shooting, taking cover - the full AI works. I can definitely say that adding only 10 AI groups - out of sight - 5 vs 5 in an engagement already create a notable hit on framerate. If you set them apart so they don't move and don't shoot - less noticeable. There's no scripting involved in these tests. For Multi, the theory I heard was that AI outside your group is done by the server. Might not be the case after all.

Same problem as WAY ago with Brothers in Arms. When you make a story around a bunch of characters, you can't let them die. Queens Gambit for A1 suffered terrible from it, I never finished more than the first two missions since the AI just loved to get themself killed. Did that actually support Teamswitch too, I think I never tried.

Skytrek, your's is a special case: You are bottlenecked by both. For most users up to resolutions of 1920x1200, and with cards like the 8800GT or better, the bottleneck in Campaign and heavy AI-coop missions will be the CPU. But since you want super high resolution, and A2 uses a lot of shaders, you are ALSO bottlenecked by the card. IMHO you need both a current CPU (something like half a year old Intel Quad or Dual, not necessarily the newest and most expensive) and a fairly LARGE graphics card (GTX285 1GB or similar ATI) to break above 30 fps avg. with your screen and in AI- heavy missions. If you can live with smaller editor missions and smaller default missions, you can only swap the GPU. It's one reason why I'm not tempted by 30" - that resolution is a killer.

Yeah but "precise stand" means they will either crouch - and sprint - or be prone and only crawl. If they would stick to only crouch and prone they could still sprint, but without the risk of standing around like Dufuses. I agree with Reaper that right now, the AI is a bit too "independent-minded". While generally they are good in A2 without micromanagement, they need to follow leader stance, and if not moving in Danger or Stealth, there is NEVER a reason why I want them see standing.

Please see my suggestion in the relevant forum for BIS to implement "A1-like" AI for those bots not currently in contact with the player.

Nice. It will safe me some space to remove the other old PBOs since right now I only want Avgani.

Thank God they at least made a HOLO version. In A1 you only had ACOG. Agree that Aimpoint/M203 would be nice too, in standard color.

Formulas a great way to deal with this, but since BIS has real "agents" on the map and not just abstracted positions stored in memory, I think it would be hard to implement. Since it's basically not "real time fighting" and the engine is centered around real time events happening, the game would have to "freeze" two units on the spot of contact, calculate engagement results and then continue, but then where do you place dead bodies and burned vehicles? I'm just saying I agree with your idea, but it must be much harder for them to implement than simple swapping the AI pathfinding model. I guess pathfinding is actually what it comes down to, Micro AI is mostly used for centimeter-precise positioning of units, so if they could just give remote bots an accurate of meters instead of centimeters and make them stop looking for cover, that might well be 50% CPU resources on AI saved... For multi, if you are fighting a COOP it's not that large a matter since humans will close to each other, for PvsP play AI is less an issue. Of course, if you have 8 humans in WARFARE all over the island you can not reduce much, but then you have a dedicated server helping to handle the AI load anyway. The Micro AI is really brilliant when it works, but the computational cost right now is just too large for any average system.

Yep, that's the "Bubble" concept I meant. Basically action outside the player's sphere of influence has been abstracted in a ton of games during the last years, it's a common programming trick. I was only suggesting A1 AI because I'm not sure they can have add a "formula based" outcome generator for AI which is after all really physically present. That's a heavier abstraction layer than just making them dumber during the shootout. Maybe also reduce ballistics calculations for AI out of sight to a straight line?

1) Predator AT Missile: More interesting and newer than the AT4, would require some BIS work for the guidance system. Only in use with the USMC, so would be definitly nice to see it in game. 2) LAV-Variants: TOW and Mortar. Standard LAV Platoon on a MEU used to be 4x 25mm, 2x AT for a recon platoon. Mortar carriers the 81mm with a large hatch to fire from inside, and the ability to dismount it. In terms of gameplay, much better matched in range and firepowerk than the Army MLRS, and it would be a true Marines way for mechanized artillery - not the "borrowing of MLRS from the army" thing. Besides, MLRS in game is handicapped anyway since the engine can't do the massive fire rate from multiple rockets which is in fact the reason why rocket arty was developed. 3) CH-53E really should be there. I don't think even the Osprey can carry that much load, especially not externally. 4) Raven UAV instead of the much oversized, and Air Force owned Predator. These equipment changes would make the game "purer" in it's force structure, add some marine-specific toys, and I'd really like to see BIS do it since mods are always a source of confusion.

They were in A1, but are not in A2.

If you try playing WARFARE or any of the larger campaign missions, you quickly notice that the main FPS limiter is number of AI units - even out of view/range - on the map. Thus I can only seriously disagree with Big Dawgs statement. If you are running an i7 or new Quad Core Intel, you might not notice, but most CPUs between 2 and 1 year old struggle at about 25 FPS in a lot of missions. If you are making missions for people with somewhere near the official recommended "Optimum Specs", you're better off staying under 100 AI. That's enough for a Platoon each side. Take it from someone with a 5000+ AMD who's reading all the troubleshooting posts on low framerate - if you go overboard on AI, people will have troubles. Using the ACM btw. to populate the map with enemies seems to work pretty well, since it cleans up any units too far away from the player. If you want a lot of AI in lots of places on the map, you might look at that module instead of hand-placing a ton of units.

You meet the most unlikely people here... can't help you really since I can't mod anything. Texturing units might be the easiest part, but weapons and vehicles - outsch. I had a bit of "Austrian Peacekeeping Forces" in OFP way back, but that was also quite a hack job. Would be cool, but not enough skilled Austrians around to make it happen I'm afraid...