RedRage

THIS times 1000. Arma has been a toned down military sim ever since the Flashpoint days. It's not about zombies, RPG survival, Sims emulation, or some sci-fi BS. There are literally hundreds of better suited games dealing with these things. Many of these games are very moddable. Arma is unique. Altering Arma into something that it is not is a bit like trying to retrofit a rear seat and cupholders into a Ferrari to make it feel a little more like the Toyota Corolla that you love. I feel like RHS and whoever is doing the (remarkably similar) Veteran mod are the only organized outfits who actually get the spirit of the game and don't try to turn it into something that it was never meant to be.

I agree with you 100% on everything. I would love it if the game forced pilots to use countermeasures liberally when threat is present or even better when possibility of threat is present. Game makes alot of compromises, and considering the scale, it is totally understandable. Current "high" altitude for flight in Arma 2 is about 1-2km, which is the prime engagement range for for all forms of air-defense presented in the game (with exception of Tunguska, which likes to have more range). Deploying dumb rockets from that height is pretty much impossible, although in real life they would be deployed from 1-2 km if not higher, so in a way game forces pilots to stay low while giving them zero defensive tools. While more modern specimens like F35 don't really interest me, I'd like "down and dirty" attack aircraft, i.e. Su-25 or A10, to have a bit more teeth when it comes to survivability.

Cheers Mast! Currently putting the .pbo together (and it's taking forever:eek: ). And some additional info... Tools: To unpbo use http://www.kegetys.net/arma/ Download updated arma package and use cpbo tool. It appears to only un-pbo, so to pack stuff back up I'm using MakePBO found here http://svd.s20.xrea.com/x/tools.html RVmat files go into data/detailmapy dir

Planes are not powerful enough IMHO. We are talking about 30-90+ million dollar pieces of machinery piloted by most "expensive" graduates of military establishment. Fast-movers are already too slow, lack any sort of engine thrust, real countermeasures or evasive maneuvers (well you can do them, it's just that they are useless for all intensive purposes). SU-25 should be a beast for low attack runs, and yet there is barely enough power in the engines for 1 good attack run, before having to "recharge" air speed just not to crash. Most aircraft handle like flying bricks atm.

I think you have to un-pbo the whole thing and add rv mats manually. I found the whole thing too confusing on previous release and used the mod "as is". Downside of not loading rvmats is that textures look flat and lack Arma 2 "shiny-ness".

Lol no. It's photo of a real Su-35BM doing a Cobra maneuver.

Kids? That's rich...

US Secretary of Defece would disagree with you ;) US new COIN doctrine pretty much implies that there will be a Turbo prop plane adopted for CAS missions (most likely Super Turcano). Looks like 'Nam era OV-10 Bronco will be resurrected and modernized as well. So, CAS is going back to the basics with noticable advatages (against weak-AA equipped opponents) - cheap per hour flight time (to compare, Raptor costs 100k/hour to keep in the air and 30 hours of maintenance for every hour flown), longer loiter times, less meaintenance, can be deployed to directly to FOBs with dirt runways, can get in supporting positions faster than helos. Basically, Turbo props are a good middle ground between helos and fast movers.

Why is it unrealistic? As long as tracer itself looks realistic it's all good. Ive loaded C7 with tracer ammo before, it makes the shoots way more fun. Again, it's just another immersion point, that doesn't harm the overall experience if it is overdone. We don't have the ability to utilize all 6 senses behind the computer screen, so if some "gamey" compromises are made IMHO it's completely OK and even welcomed (as long s it it feels realistic)

I agree with the rifle point. Excessive tracers do make the game prettier. Now that is one tough choice with regards to which mod to go with :eek: Vihicle tracers are the best in seen in any game IMHO, but I absolutely love pistolified's tracer effects for small arms as well.

Well, realism aside making a version with a small S-8 rocket pod under one wing and machine gun under the other would make for one interesting CAS plane.

Is this compatible with Pistolified's tracers? Or is this an alternative? Or can the two be combined?

To illustrate the point with smoky airframes:

One of the top mods on my "Watch List". Proper tracer effects, while such a small touch, adds so much to immersion. Those night explosion effects are absolutely jaw dropping as well.

Been waiting for a "living airport" template for while (after a few disastorous attempts to make one on my own). Few questions: Will there be integrated air defenses? Would be interesting to see some sort of "scramble" script - i.e., fighter aircraft start taking off if opfor aircraft is present in the area - is such thing even possible? Any chances for setting up something like this for OpFor as well? Proper air raids between the two could be quite fun.

I think this is about the realistic amount of vapor actually, with other planes being severely under-vapored. I really like how the whole airframe gets smoky on sharp turns.

Excellent model and flies very nicely! Finally something to play around with F-16. Are you adding RKSL style countermeasures to it?

All is installed properly - Moshr00m's Extra units mod version 1.1 Still having the ralli.cra problem

Mission requires downloadable content, relli.cra I have all the required mods long installed, so any ideas?

You are missing out on 90% of content that makes all of Arma's bugs and technical woes not only bearable but ultimately worth it. Modding community is so strong and advanced for this game that BIS feels comfortable releasing half-finished games. Don't deny yourself the fruits of other people's hard work, especially when it's free! With Arma 2 Launcher, even an untrained chimp can successfully install and activate/deactivate mods within 10 seconds.

IMHO best plots with regards to games like Arma come from the beliavable minimalist approach - that is less Tom Clancy conspiracies and more real life situations, however routine, that soldiers have to go through. From flying "boring" re-supply of FOB missions on Mi-8 to providing CAS during a tough hill assault in mi-24 or su-25; from driving re-supply convoys without incidents to having the same convoy fiercely ambushed; from conduction house to house searches in villages to filtering refugee columns for insurgents at block posts; and etc.. Peppering the campaign with lots of "routine" and "un-interesting" (plot wise) missions that might go bad (or might not) will potentially create a better and tenser atmosphere than series of massive set-peice battles with tons of story line crammed into them. That is to not to say that larger battles are unnecessary - they are - however for every large battle i wouldn't mind doing 20-30 mission of smaller scenarios leading to the engagement. Some dynamic nature to the campaign flow will be interesting to see, but the execution might be harder than it's worth. Would also be interesting if Bardosy went with representing all branches of combat arms a little bit (but keep them within the same tactical formation) - so we get to fly a helo to resupply or extract the same Recce team we played a mission earlier, or support the same infantry squad we saw 4 missions ago while inside the T-72... Majority of the campaign should be kept from infantry perspective though. p.s.: Sorry Bardosy, hopefully we didn't derail the thread too much ;)

Russia is not a third world South American banana republic to have El Presidentes and military coups every other year. "Renegade Russian general" scenario is not only impossible, it's plain offensive for a military with close to 400 years of tradition. Such things did not happen in the '90s during dark economic times and political betrayal of the army in Chechnya, such things sure as heck won't happen now. More interesting would be seeing a campaign based on Russian mobile tactical battalion groups, similar to the ones deployed to S.Ossetia last year. Arma's current factions set up, and game's terrain, are simply crying for 8/8/8 war type of scenario.

To be fair OFP is already in the bargain bucket - 39 bucks on Steam (to get to next price drop to 29 bucks, one will have to wait for at least a year). And I think that the product is worth 39 bucks; yes, it's a disappointment as a milsim, but it still is a pretty fair game. I'm more angry at the wasted potential, wasted hopes, and wasted time checking out their site once a week for 3 years, than being supposetly ripped off.

Picked it up on Steam on day of release fairly excited (I don't understand fanboyism without any financial gain, so i gave both products an equal chance) - huge, huge disappointment. Immidiately after firing game up i noticed that there is no free look i'm so used to in Arma 2, no rolling in prone position, no leaning - what the fvck, it's almost like Codemasters did not pick up a copy of Arma 2 and did not take note at what the competition did right. Overall game feel and squad mechanics has more in common with Rainbow Six :Vegas (outdoors edition) than original OFP. Squad mate behavior and look are almost a "cut and paste" from the gutted R6 franchise. Graphically the game feels like World of Warcraft had sex with GRAW and OFP2 came out as a bastard child. Bland landscapes, cartoony appearances, generic looking enemies. I remember CM bragging about the game being so gritty that it would send an anti-war message. Well, i noticed zero grit, unless visibly spawning enemies and gibs that look worse than Quake 1 are considered gritty. To me an after scene of an ambush in Arma 2 is alot more brutal looking, because it looks like something taken out a news report (and with SLX mod, there are body peices everywhere as well). Smoke doesn't look like smoke, vihicles look like something out of Pixar's cartoons, tracers look like laser beams from the original Half-Life. After seeing the physics model of Chinese gunship in mission 2, I'm afraid to touch anything that flies/drives/swims in this game - helicopter acted like one the SkyNet's flying drones without even a hint to a semi-realistic flight model. One big plus to the game is how it runs. I was able to max the game out and run stable 60 fps. With Arma 2, I scored 3200 in Arma 2 mark with very modest gfx option selections (q9300 quad core, gtx260 sli, Raptor 2 HDD system :( ) - in game turns this translates into 18-42 fps with 2600 m draw distance (mostly in 25 fps range), medium texture settings, low AA, and everything else on normal.

IMHO, it'll be alot more fun to see Russia vs. CDF/NAPA sort of scenario (maybe with very few USMC advisors to CDF on the ground) - such scenario is relevant today and will make campaign a lot more authentic. US vs Russia scenario that does not go nuclear within a day is simply too outlandish (and this "renegade Russian generals" crap is even more outlandish, such things are simply impossible). COIN sort of a campaign with Russian Forces is what i've been waiting for in my 15 years of PC gaming :) How long is the campaign btw, took a break from Arma2 on mission 4 to be completely disappointed with OFP2 , so if it's less than 8 missions I'll savour it more :D