Jigsaw

Here's a sidemission that I think is impossible to win: My team consists of 2 snipers (one of 'em is me) and a demolitions expert. We are supposed to destroy the two Urals packed with explosives, which are parked in the garage. There is also a radio in the base. If an enemy soldier manages to call reinforcements with that radio, the mission is over. And if the soldiers manage to drive one or both of the Urals out of the base, the mission is over either. On top of that the mission is also over when any soldier manages to leave the base on foot. Here's the problem: My teammates don't seem to have any grasp on the mission critical objectives whatsoever. As a result they kill enemy targets randomly and don't care if someone goes for the garage or the radio. And I can't cover radio and garage at the same time, as they are too far apart. There is also trees surrounding two sides of the compound obstructing soldiers who run for the exits. And the sides with no trees don't allow any view on the garage entrances. Is this mission, which is supposed to make the main mission easier, actually not meant to be won? It sure seems that way. As I said: the teammates are useless for the job. Or did somebody actually beat that mission, miraculously? If so: how??

Yup, they did. I killed them all and I even totally flattened the damaged house and adjacend trees to make sure no soldiers could hide there.

That was probably just a traffic jam of several soldiers using the same pathfinding solution and coming into each others way.

That was spot on!

So, what did you sign up for? Just for your information: I wasn't kidding when I said that ArmA is a simulation and that you want it not to be one. I also wasn't kidding when I recommended Battlefield 2 and Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, because they obviously are the type of game that you want, but that ArmA is not.

I did that. The Tank and BMPs even came over the hill, trying to attack the base we just conquered When we wasted them, we get the info "Good job, get into defensive position" and then nothing. On the map there is some red arrows, suggesting a possible counterattack from the North West. But nothing like it happens.

Hehe. That's what I was thinking:

For all the wanna be arcade players: maybe go buy a shoot'em up - Battlefield 2 or Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter. Not being funny or anything but.... Sorry for being sarcastic, but in the end Armed Assault is meant to be a combat SIMULATOR, thus needing a flight model that is at least resembling reality, like simulators are supposed to. That's what ArmA does with the 1.02 flight model. If a rather realistic vehicle behavior is not your cup of tea, then you bought the wrong game and you would be better of with some of the more simplistic and user friendly titles out there. In other words: you are barking up the wrong tree.

If it's any consolation to you: pilots don't do these kinds of things either, at least if they are sane, they don't. Of course the cartwheel on the rotor ist complete bollocks, but why in the world would someone wanna do that in the first place? Other than that the things that could be seen in the video can be done with a real helicopter. The main fault with the flight model ist, that the axis of rotation is too high. It should be within the body of the chopper and not be attached to the rotor.

Just for protocol: mouse and keyboard are just not the way to fly a chopper! It's a makeshift solution at best! If you wanna have fun with the choppers, you'll need a joystick with rudder and throttle. If you are not willing to make that investment and thus profit from the enhanced flight model, you really are better off with OFP, I guess. I just find it hilarious that people are willing to spend hundreds of bucks on new graphic cards and CPUs, but when it comes to spending 30 bucks on a stick, most of them buckle out.

Looks like I'm through either... and I can't believe it. Operation Flashpoint's Campaign was so much more entertaining, immersive and engaging than ArmA's. It also was quite a bit longer and had a bigger variety of missions. Looks like ArmA is meant to be a mission building sand box package for the community with only a short "demo campaign" to show what can be done. I gotta say I am a bit disappointed. The abundance of script errors doesn't help much either. I don't regret having bought it, but I sure expected an improvement over OpFlash in every respect and not a regression in the most important element: the game itself.

Lol, sorry but a single man with PK would shoot you down at once during your hoover beside the convoy. I know. But I wasn't showing combat tactics, I was showing maneuverability of the 1.02 controls. I suppose a few people got that. You didn't, obviously. Well, no, I'm just replying that you can't see any issue on the 1.02 flight model. Try to attack the convoy with FFAR's im MP against few people armed with PK's or sitting in BMP/T72 by the MG on the tower... You can't survive that. Still no issue? Come on, you need to minimize the time spent in the hot area, but with the todays flight model you need almost to hoover or fly below 50kmh to actually hit something with Hydra rockets. The choppers now in ArmA are a weapon only when carying guided rockets. With other weapon systems they are useless. Even AI shoots you down with the main tank canon when attacking with FFARs. Well, I didn't try attacking a convoy with MP players, I attacked a convoy with stupid AI. I would have and could have used completely different tactics if it had been a different situation. The flight model wouldn't have prevented me from doing so.

Some spelling mistakes that I noticed in the "Final Countdown" briefing: "haev" instead of "have" and "completely" is incorrectly spelled with two Ls. Also the sentence about the Harrier charting enemy positions sound a wee bit odd.

I'll be damned! Choppers CAN do barrel rolls! Never seen that before. I knew they could do loopings, depending on the model of chopper, but this is amazing. Okay, now I'm even more happy with the flight model.

Okay, here's another one for the rows of frustrated players. I killed everybody but the mission won't finish. That's actually two unfinishable missions in a row! I already had to skip "Armored Fist", that preludes "The Great Battle", because that one didn't finish either. It's really sad, seeing all the effort, that was put in the game by the creators, being stopped in it's tracks because they didn't bother playtesting the missions thoroughly. Game stopping bugs are a absolute NO GO! A game that has bugs like that cannot be granted Gold status under any circumstances, not even when Christmas is imminent. Even worse that there have been two patches already that haven't fixed the issue. Better performance and a good helo flight model are all nice and fine, but they are not much good if the game itself is broken.

Same here. As soon as I finish the soldiers running around on the southern ridge like headless chicken, I get the message "Good job, take defensive positions and defend the base" and that script thingy from above. Then the T-72 and the two BMP even come over the ridge. But when I blast them, nothing happens. This needs to be fixed!

Lol, sorry but a single man with PK would shoot you down at once during your hoover beside the convoy. I know. But I wasn't showing combat tactics, I was showing maneuverability of the 1.02 controls. I suppose a few people got that. You didn't, obviously.

Exactly! If you wanna make an allround combat simulation, you need to make all it's parts as realistic as possible, or at least make-believe-realistic. If you don't, you don't even need to bother, because we already have an arcade game called "Battlefield 2". Thankfully Bohemia Interactive seem to be agreeing with me.

Here's a funny video I just found on Youtube. It's quite possible that it was posted already by it's creator, but still.I wasn't even aware that ArmAs damage model included stuff like that. So far it always struck me as a little coarse and rudimentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ygr8uL3ek2s

That's my theory either. The tunnel vision of only having a monitor in front of you already makes it a lot harder all by itself. Not to mention the lack of other input.

I made a video of me flying that mission. Really can't see any issue there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZg9nDJQIos Don't forget that choppers are no planes. You rarely make high speed strafing runs with those. You move them into postion and take out the enemy from a quite stationary point, like a hovering/mobile weapons platform.

I wish people would stop showing these stupid barrel rolls and loopings. It casts a bad light on an otherwise decent flight model.

They possibly did. But if so, they did one hell of job of making the helos not behave like real ones in v1.0, because I'm very positive that real helos don't have a binary throttle (full power or no power). That was the main problem with v1.0 that was fixed in 1.02. Now the throttle is actually usable for manual hovering. Well, that's exactly what v1.02 did. Before, the helos were almost unflyable, but now they are actually useful. Enhancing the rudder/tailrotor behavior would not only make it more realistic (as least as far as I know with my paper helo knowledge), but at the same time make the choppers more intuitive. You see, by enhancing the flight model we both get what we want.

I, for one, do care. It may not be a flight sim per se, but it IS a sim. Thus realism should be the main goal, and not some mickey mouse dynamics that make it easier but unrealisitc. That's why it's interesting what a real pilot has to say.

I'd love to see a full campaign for helos only. Attack runs, drop offs, extractions, the whole shabang! If there is no more "Longbow" games we need ArmA to be a good substitute!