Sosna

Consider that the helicopter chassis hangs off the rotor disk. Gravity is what pulls down the chassis, and aligns the centered rotor disk perpendicularly to its pull. It's analogous to why, for example, a parachute is level, and the load centered. As for slowing the sideslip, in a frictionless scenario a slight bank would cause the helicopter to sideslip indefinitely at constant speed. Realistically though, we have the side of the aircraft ploughing through the air, gradually countering the lateral force that was generated by temporarily tilting the rotor disk. Helicopters in hover are constantly drifting around in one direction or the other, which the pilot must counter in order to stay static. Hind simulates this perfectly. I don't expect that level of realism for Arma though, I simply wish for the cyclic controls to behave in a realistic way, i.e. when the stick is centered, or no directional keys are pressed, the rotor should be centered.

Uhh... I'm afraid you are mistaken. The cyclic works by tilting the rotor disk in the direction the joystick is turned. If the joystick is centered, the rotor also is. Arma does not simulate this. Centering the stick behaves as "no input", rather than "center input". This makes it such that any cyclic movement has to be undone by the pilot in order to fly as intended. For example: If you take your chopper into a hover, very slightly bank left, and release the stick the helicopter will continue to sideslip leftwards at increasing speed (until it turns into the bank). This is very wrong, that situation implies that the rotor disk stayed in the banked position, when in reality it would be centered, thus leveling the chopper out eventually and slowing the sideslip. Interestingly, even if you pitch up slightly the helicopter reverses at ever increasing spead until it suddenly turns 180 degrees. Â Just for kicks, I'll try X-Plane, but I doubt it will be much different from the aforementioned sims.

Arma's chopper flight model is definitely more realistic than OFP's, but there are some grave errors that make it unintuitive and unpleasant to fly. First, when you bank the chopper in Arma the aircraft cuts into the bank as you lose altitude. This is wrong. Realistically, the chopper does lose altitude, but the bank is leveled out on its own fairly quickly (and no more altitude is lost). Second, and it's related to the first, the helicopter sideslips too easily. Banking or pitching very slightly, then letting the stick center starts an exponential gain in speed in that particular direction. In reality if you bank/pitch the stick slightly and let it center, the chopper gradually levels out and slows to a hover. To summarize: Any cyclic modification should level out on its own eventually, the time depending on the extremity of the movement - Currently this does not happen, and it's the main problem with the flight model. Third, the throttle does not have enough influence. When attempting to land, pulling up and reducing the collective, the chopper will continue to climb a ridiculous height, even if the throttle is at zero. The throttle needs to influence lift far more directly. Helicopters generate no other significant lift as a plane would. And lastly, the rudder is too weak when moving at speed - I think this issue may be resolved though in the next patch since the problem is similar with planes. I suggest that BI checks out some helicopter sims. Jane's Longbow 2 has probably the best flight model, but it's not an easy game to find, or to run with modern systems. Next best would be I guess Enemy Engaged. An abandonware game with a superb flight model is Hind, works fairly easily on Windows XP, can be downloaded here, or here. Would be nice to have realistic chopper flight in Arma, definitely in Arma 2 since there's such a pretty Hind Â

Realistic seasons would definitely improve Arma 2. The most complex - but possible - way to do it would be gradual texture transitions over time, with each day having a slightly different appearance. IMO that would be a nice thing to have in campaigns, to watch the scenery change over the days/weeks/months. I don't think such a system could be implemented within a realistic timeframe, however. It would require some very heavy modification to the engine. The most feasible way, IMO, would simply be to base seasons on calendar date, and not have any gradual transition. Most of the work would consist of retextures: Lush trees/bushes and greener grasses in summer, duller vegetation in winter with some snow/ice, and so on. Some simple work with models would also be needed, notably leaves of deciduos trees/bushes would need to be removed for winter. Also, as mentioned, some representation of weather changes, like snow instead of rain during winter. Overall, I think it would be worth implementing in some form. I feel that limiting the default game's content to one season would detract from the environmental immersion.

One feature I'd like to see in the editor is a "gear dialogue" per unit (Same as the in-game gear dialogue, except all possible weapons and items are available). I think it would be very useful for casual users of the editor who don't feel the need to memorize classnames/scripts, etc.

As far as the graphics go, at this point I'm sold. I only hope that it will be much better optimized than Arma 1. The terrain is incredibly realistic, very beautiful. It has lost Arma 1's metallic sheen, and is now wonderfully grainy. Reminds me of Kolgujev Overall, the lighting looks much more realistic now too. I'm particularly impressed with this screenshot. Looks almost photorealistic. I love the cloudy sky - so far I've only seen that type, and clear sky with sparse clouds. I hope there's much more variation. It would be great to see a matte overcast, such as on rainy/foggy days. I also miss the redness of OFP's dawn/dusk hours, would be nice to see it again. Nice to see the Hind back. Personally, I'd like to see the armour/fuel/heading gui elements gone - I've always found them arcadish. Would be awesome to have the data displayed realistically in the cockpit guages/hud. As for flight model, I've played chopper sims for a decade now, and I find Arma's chopper FM to be... unflyable. I suggest checking out the game Hind (abandonware, here or here), apparently it has one of the most realistic FMs ever made. I'm disappointed that the inventory system is still based on specific slots. I think it would be a mistake to keep this, particularly if the game will feature more guerilla/resistance type missions. It should be made possible to carry multiple NV goggles, or multiple rifles if needed. It needs to be more flexible for sure. From what I can see, Arma 2 is really shaping up to be OFP's true successor. Keep up the good work BIS.

Yeah it's about time we see ragdoll... It would increase realism and immersiveness in a few ways. Firstly, no more recycled death anims. After a while of playing OFP/Arma you see them all, and they become predictable. Same with the death poses - which currently IMO are a bit melodramatic. Also, I think it would be cool if weapons could be dropped at death. This would reduce the ease and predictability of finding weapons. Second, I'm getting tired of seeing bodies cantilevered off a structure. It's definitely an immersion killer which ragdoll would remove. Multiplayer is problematic, however. Personally I think it would be worth implementing ragdoll just for SP and using standard anims in MP.

Very nice, they seem to have fixed a few graphical irritations. First, notice in the twilight screenshot it actually looks dark - Arma's HDR would overbrighten those situations and make everything look flat. Second, there's some nice ambient shading on the tank's turret which Arma lacked in cloudy/shadow conditions. Compliments to BI, the new terrain looks beautiful and quite realistic (hope the LOD morphing won't be obvious though). The cloudy sky in the tank pic looks great,hopefully there will be more weather/sky variation than in Arma 1.

Works for me If you have a 64 bit OS (I use XP Pro x64), and your motherboard can handle 4 GB, I don't see why it wouldn't work.

In Arma right now there isn't much variation in sky appearance, at times it's a real atmosphere killer. I was thinking, what if a system of realistic 3D clouds were implemented? Here's an example of such a system: http://simul.co.uk/cloudwright/gallery The main drawback is system resource usage. I don't know how much more resources would be used compared to the current layered skybox. However there are many benefits: - Realistic shape, no paper thin clouds (particularly nice for high altitude flight) - Realistic ground shading from clouds - Unlimited randomized variation, no "familiar" clouds - No need for pre-drawn sky boxes and cloud graphics - Perfectly smooth weather transitions (instead of skybox switching) It could be done with particles, or perhaps voxels. I'm not sure of the costs vs benefits... Anyways, just something to consider.

Found a small bug. If you run into the rear tubes of the M119 Howitzer your character often gets injured. Occasionally running into those parts also causes the player to jump strangely.

I enjoy many of these mods, thanks for the work. I have a small mod request that I think fits with the PROPER theme. Right now in Arma when wearing NVGs and zooming, the black NVG overlay stays the same size relative to the screen. However, the zooming is meant to simulate the resolution of the eye, not the zoom of the NVG device. So basically, the mod should make the size of the black NVG overlay consistent with the eye's zoom level. I'm pretty sure it's possible since a similar effect was done in NWD's tank optics. To be honest though, I don't know since I couldn't script something if my life depended on it. Anyways, just an idea.

The inventory system should be made more flexible. I don't think there should be any predefined slots for anything, like one Rifle slot, 1 AT slot, etc. For example it should be possible to carry multiple pairs of NVG goggles if need be. Or a few rifles (albeit without much ammo). Some kind of backpack system should be implemented. At it's simplest, units modelled with backpacks can simply carry more. A more complex method would count the backpack as its own dropable object. This would make things quite convenient and realistic. Weight should definitely be taken into account. A character with only a pistol should run faster and for longer than a character covered with weapons, body armor and other gear.

Copy ".abel.pbo" missions from your OFP missions folder into the CWR missions folder. A few missions are playable although with missing units (ex: missing hind in "Steal the Car"). Some will cause a CTD. I havn't tested them all yet.

I was doing some testing. I placed an AH6, player as pilot. Once the engine was fired up I used my joystick to rotate the helicopter horizontally. Using the joysticks "rudder" (stick twist) the movement is perfectly smooth - definitely NO incremental movement. However when I use the mouse to make the same motion, the point of aim does not move until a certain distance is covered by the mouse, and then the point of aim jumps a fixed distance. Just in case, I tried a different mouse. The result was the same... I'd really like some dev feedback on this issue. It has caused a lot of frustration since I first got Arma, and I'm definitely not the only one.

I was hoping this would be fixed. At the time when the bugtracker went down the status was "open". With horizontal movement the point of aim jumps a few pixels, as if on a grid. (Although in a smoother motion than in the above animation) This makes long distance aiming with ironsights very frustrating and has cost me my life many times :[ Basically I have to rely on luck that the "gridline" will land on my target. I made a little video to demonstrate: click Watch as the point of aim jumps back and forth across the target. It's not possible to place the ironsights directly on the target because the horizontal increment does not happen to coincide with the target. Curiously, when moving the point of aim vertically it moves smoothly. I have both x and y mouse sensitivity at exactly half. If sensitivity is set at the lowest movement is perfectly smooth, but not practical for playing. At maximum sensitivity the exaggerated effect can be observed. I remember in the bugtracker, using a "hardware cursor" was mentioned as a possible solution... BIS please fix this bug, it's pretty much the last thing that keeps me from enjoying Arma as much as I enjoyed OFP.

It's irksome when people think that their "experience" has some relation to a game whilst completely disregarding the properties of the game. Is the rendering perspective in Arma identical to perspective in reality? No, Arma suffers perspective distortion - just as anything other than a human eye does. What defines the extents of the avatar's field of view within the game in relation to the screen? Nothing, an arbitrary choice on the part of the developers. What defines the default zoom level? Another arbitrary choice. What defines the precise camera position? I think you get the idea... The fact of the matter is: view placement, FOV and zoom are all completely subjective, and thus a matter of preference. It is irksome when people are too dense to realize this, and think there is one "answer" derived from irrelevant "experience".

I've been playing with 4 gigs (with xp 64 pro) since I got arma and I never had a BSOD. With my old computer (amd 1100, 512 ram, nVidia geforce 2 MX440) I did get that nvm.dll BSOD whenever I was playing OFP intensively (usually online). I never did fix it, or find out the cause  I would suggest trying arma with a different graphics card since the nv__ dlls are related to nvidia drivers afaik.

I always liked the weapon position/perspective when aimed down. Seems much more like the weapon is shouldered and pointing directly forewards. See pic Would be nice to have that when standing normally.

How can I zoom in with my real eyes when I look down the sights? Uhh how does this work? Without an attached binocular it's impossible. It's something that turns ArmA into an aim-cheating simulator. Can I zoom in OFP when I use the sights? I think not or I'm wrong? In real life you can focus your view on something, but not zoom in... If you have valid points that it's "realistic" I will change my mind. Uh in case you didn't notice, most people can't play at a resolution any where near that of the human eye. It doesn't make much sense to have a simulation force everyone to play as a nearsighted soldier. Zooming is the best solution possible for now. However, I think it should be modified so lower resolutions get more zoom, and higher resolutions get less, So the zoom level is consistent and fair. By the way, OFP did zoom in when using iron sights, it just couldn't be adjusted.

Open both eyes, hold your finger a couple feet away from your face. Focus far in the distance. You will notice that you will see 2 fingers, however you can see behind (or "through") both of them due to having two eyes. This is the effect I am talking about, not what you thought. Obviously this can't be simulated perfectly without one display per player's eye, but making the close grass have ~50% translucency is about as realistic as we can get with current common hardware.

That is a good solution, and realistic since when focusing far you don't see a blade of grass clearly due to the two eyes seeing it in different positions. I would like to see that implemented in Arma.

This is a very good point. I've always wondered about it since playing OFP in player-versus-player games (usually capture and hold). Why does pvp gaming usually result in "lone wolf" activity versus squad-based? It must be more effective, otherwise players would not do it. What I don't know is why. What is the difference between reality and ofp/arma in this aspect. I'm looking foreward to other's insight.

Yes, this is annoying. Whenever I look at the dirt my first thought is that the sun came out from behind a cloud, but then I remember it's just the nutty HDR adjusting brightness. It seems Arma does not allow things to be dark. I think that's why sunrise/sunset lighting looks bad compared even to OFP. Also in cloudy/stormy weather everything is too light. I hope this is fixed... Also some ambient shading from the sky is badly needed.

For every 200 points you get doing armory challenges you will unlock an item. Trust me... I unlocked everything. You can't use an item more than once to unlock something, unless you restart Arma.