nyles

Oh c'mon! That's the easy way out, Dwarden... Justifying that certain equipment is unreliable in the game, because the RL counterparts are as well is really strange, if you look at the rest of the game, where BMPs and old tanks like the T34 have very efficient main gun stabilization, where countermeassures on aircraft are closer to force fields than real ones, where weapons in general don't malfunction, where 5.56 and even 7.62 rounds lose a rediculous amount of damage over distances of 300+ meters, where barrel-launched missiles like those on the T90 are almost impossible to steer on target, and where ATGM steering in general goes crazy after around 1500 meters instead of 3000+ meters range they usually have. The list goes on. Now looking at it purely from a game balance and user expectations point of view: The MI-24 is the only attack chopper available to Takistan (compared to Cobra and Apache on the US side). Takistan should have a reliable gunship available, which can at least to some degree compete with those available to the US forces. Either it is a really bad design choice to only give it missiles that miss most of the time - even if true to reallife - or it's a bug that should get fixed (for example by dropping the missiles and put AT-9er on it instead or by improving chances to hit). I would claim it's a bug. So please look into it. :)

Yeah and the problem is that the woodland camo can not just be put into game easily. The woodland would be for US military, which are on the WEST side. The Takistan M113 is on the EAST side and the UN version is on the INDEPENDENT side. So the only way to make it available to West is by changing the texture on the Independent version and setting them to friendly towards West. The moment you have a mission where Independent is supposed to be hostile towards West, it won't work anymore (red on radar). The only way to get it working properly for West is via a unique config entry, which BIS should provide in one of the next patches. Everything else would require 3rd party addons to get this working, which will not be useful for those playing mostly online.

Gamebalance-relevant bugfixes? :eek: That's friggin' awesome BIS!

To me it feels, like you guys are just looking at it from a coop or fixed-class mission point of view. If I take a look at something like Warfare, both RPG18 and M136 are being dominated after a short while, since everybody goes for the medium or heavy AT choices instead. Not even the super-cheap price compared to the others helps keeping them attractive. If they wouldn't take any equipment slots, but still would be kept at a max of 1, I'm sure they would be more interesting as a backup choice for more players.

+1. Yep!

Plus, taking a look at the damage values, both the RPG18 and M136 are weaker than (most of) their respective reloadable counterparts. BIS, please look into this. We need AT weapon game balance.

Finnish Army often has AT soldiers equipped with two LAWs, but those are way smaller than for example a NLAW or AT4. In the interest of keeping the system clean and simple and perhaps even based on the current inventory, I would agree with CarlGustaffa that it's fine to have such restrictions.

Yep, agreed, but the guns are not disposed after use, like the launcher would be.

The problem with it still taking x ammo slots in addition is that you could then in theory carry multiple missiles, but the launcher would be dropped after the first shot fired. This feels weird to me. To keep it clean, I would suggest not requiring any ammo slot for a one-shot disposable weapon.

I find it really funny that this thread touches the same topic like this one, currently running in the suggestions forum: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=111230 In general, I think there is a big hope in the community that BIS will bring ArmA2 and Arrowhead more in line in the future, treating them as a combined product and melting away the partially artificial borders between the two. This includes ArmA2 units' inability to use backpacks, different camo sets for woodland and desert, new Arrowhead units being made available to ArmA2 factions with respective textures, but also adding missing variations of units that are available by other factions. This and overall game balance and equipment standardization, like offroad speeds in Takistan vs. Chernarus, different ammo slot sizes for similar ammo of certain weapons like SMAW vs. MAAWS, lack of Thermal imaging and built-in NVG on some vehicles, etc.

Mhh, on one hand the argument comes up that we do not need any addons from BIS, since the community did or could do them. On the other hand it is said, addon makers are doing the stuff for themselves primarily and that no-one is in the position to "demand" anything from them. This is of course absolutely right, but doesn't this also somehow make it even more important for certain gaps to be filled by BIS through official channels? Btw guys, I really like that even with such a controversial and heated topic, most of the replies to this thread have been presented in a very mature way and without much flaming. That's really great! Keep it like that. :)

Added Woodland M113 for US Army and camo KA-60 for Russians as discovered already being hidden in the game here: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=111330 We just need those to be set up properly now (Kamov for EAST and M113 for WEST).

Even better! Now, can we please get those as properly set up units in the editor in the next patch, BIS? It's really painful that there is no way to change a units side affiliation via scripting. If there would be an option, we could simply change the KA-60 from Independence to EAST for specific missions and be done with. Of course you can edit the mission file, but this will only work for vehicles that are not crated or respawned at run time, like in Warfare. Currently, putting a friendly crew in a vehicle belonging to a different faction will always make it show up as hostile on the radar.

Please add that in with the patch, BIS. If it's not too much to ask, add a desert version of it as well please. Oh and please an EAST version of the KA-60. Can have the same black skin without any markings, but would be super useful already!

I think that the fact you can't take one while having a MG, heavy sniper or backback is at least already one disadvantage at least.

NLAW should also be one-shot disposable. Difference to the Javelin would be that it doesn't take any ammo slots, but you can only ever carry 1 shot for it, while the Javelin has the compact launch unit be the "weapon" and otherwise uses 6-slot missiles for reloads.

Wasn't sure about the AN-2 still being in use with the Russian Federation Air Force, but good point.

The only thing I can say to that is that apparently it IS too difficulty or too annoying, otherwise more people would surely do it right now already. I don't think it's about stupidity. It's more about convenience. I just don't think you can survive as a company over the long term, if you just hope to sell to a mature audience. BIS opting for a DLC strategy is suggesting that they are seeing this to and are trying to find new ways of making the game more accessible and also to get additional income. I have no idea about the Arrowhead sales figures or the money BIS gets from military contracts still, but I would not be surprised if those from their gaming division are declining. This has not necessarily to do with the quality of the product, but with the decline of the PC as platform in general and the inability of developers to find new methods to reach their audience.

You should maybe read first, Strangelove. The suggestion was about paid content and was later on extended to perhaps still offer a part for free. Vilas, yes, you are right. But you also have a biased view on this since you are making addons and it comes to you second nature how to set them up, install them and maintain them. I try to look at this topic from purely the consumer's point. This might not be perfect either, but like I tried to explain before, if people are not fed content directly, most are reluctant or less likely to take advantage of it.

I fully agree, but I am playing the devil's advocate here. It's not just about the size of addons, it's about managing them. You have to put them in the right folder, you have to constantly look for updated versions, you have to watch out for inconsistencies and conflicts. Back when I was involved with FDFmod at least there was one single package since it was a total conversion, but having dozens of individual addons from different people in the community simply is a lot to keep up with and maintain. I would dare to claim that it is too much to mess around with for those who just want to play some basic ArmA2 online. A proper built-in mod manager with decentralized auto-downloading and updating might be a great thing here, but this would also have to come from BIS directly and get really integrated to be used by a broader audience. Also don't forget the part about cheating. If players connect with modified config files or 3rd party addons, it is much harder to ensure them not bringing something nasty along that ruins everybody else's fun.

Been a problem since OFP days and will continue to be in the future. This is not about supporting laziness, this is about making sure that players have a great game experience without the need to sort through gazilionbytes of addons - many with questionable game balance. Look, here is an opportunity for BIS to make some easy money and do the community a great favor at the same time. If they agree, great, if they don't they might have their reasons. I can only present a lucrative option.

I agree that not using some of the excellent community addons is really a shame, but this doesn't change the fact that they still are not used. So this talk doesn't help us. Either we need units made official or we need a different way of releasing these addons in a framework that is more likely to ensure them being available on servers and used by clients. For now, I think adding units through official channels, like DLCs or patches is the more realistic option. I am afraid, the rest is wishful thinking. If that means stuffing a couple more euros down BIS's throat, that's fine for me. There isn't much of an alternative in regard to games like ArmA2, so I am fine with financing ongoing support as long as it serves the interest of the game and the established MP community (which honestly I do not believe the PMC DLC did a great job with).

Stop trolling please. There are legit requests up in that list. As said before, community addons don't cut it here, since you will not find them on any but a few private servers. And even if you do, you are still stranded without anyone to play with since there are also only few clients having them installed. If you want to have stuff available and used frequently online, it simply HAS to be included in a patch, DLC or through some other official channel. The list above is of course way too extensive. There isn't even the slightest chance to get all of that. See it as a list of suggestions to pick from. Some of them are very very easy to create (bascially just make a copy of the config, change the faction and perhaps re-arrange some of the textures used by other variants of the same model already, like for UAZ, Ural, MI24, etc); others will require a bit more work, having to do new textures for them. As for the whole "many of these items should have been included from the start" argument. Yes, you are right they should have been. I wouldn't mind paying for some of these however. What could be interesting is a similar strategy like The Creative Assembly started doing with their Total War games. A patch introduces a dozen new units for free, and a small DLC allows purchasing another 10-15 units for a small amount of money in addition for those willing to pay for them. In the case of ArmA2, this would mean everybody gets all units, just some of them will have a lower res, unless you buy the respective DLC. That's fair enough to me to be honest.

...and not play on any of the public servers....no thanks. I want stuff like that in a proper official patch so it can be played on any server and gives more freedom to mission designers without having to rely on addons, which 99% of the servers will never run. I play ArmA2 competitively mostly, and it's already a pain very often, due to the lack of proper game balance. Mission designers can only do so much about that. Giving them more tools and equipment will help create a better MP experience and will help improve ArmA a lot. Hell not even the new KA-60 was made available for EAST in addition. That would have been a start to make some new stuff available for WEST vs EAST scenarios, like Warfare for example.

I agree, but this is even less likely to happen than a paid DLC with perhaps some of those included at least. I'd rather pay for some reskins than yet another meaningless DLC adding some new faction with limited and incomplete equipment set. That way at least the existing core factions will get improved further, being a million times more useful for a big part of the favored community maps pool - especially for competitive multiplayer balance.