Second

No, terrain is poorer than in OFP. ArmA doesn't include adjustable terrain detail like OFP. What ArmA delivers is smooth terrain without bumbs or anykind other micro features in soil, ideal killing zone that becomes. Overall getting that kind level of micro detail in soil which OFP had will not be possible in ArmA, in Visitor 3 we have erosion setting, but i haven't been able to produce anything which would look like what OFP had at best. But it looks better for sure.

Technical "problem" is the amount of work ArmA addons requires, i think time it demands to produce good quality Addon has been multiplied (graphical side mostly). Or was this just with Islands? I haven't been into addon making (textures, models and stuff) so don't know, but i remember reading about this. There are OFP mods comming into ArmA form, like FDF. Tools haven't been that long available, has it even been a year of their presentation? (visitor 3 was released in July perhaps) That is another "problem". Scripting is bit different in ArmA, all commands doesn't go 100% same like they went in OFP. But scripts i've taken from OFP to ArmA had worked with just bit of tweaking. infact one my 20 scripts consisiting structure demanded just about half hour or hour tweaking to be ArmA compatible (testings in ArmA included, not just time spent in notepad) Scirpting in general has advanced, lots of new commands. Some AI scripting related and bunch of others, i liked them all.

Very nice this new one. Feels quite like new game again. Being Mercenary captain isn't as glorious as i thought. Pay is poor, my leader usually takes his time when doing stuff (=waiting) while my army has to stay close to him and wagers and food costs alot more than he gives me money... If there is no enemy armies to be smashed i don't have enough income to support my army in long run. I just hope that my contract will cease after certain amount of time... If it doesn't (bug! my game is kinda of ruined.... i wanted to devote my blade&army to some other nation than steel wearing Swadians, i just wanted bit of income and reputation from them.

Ah damn. Reservist thread anyone? Baddo: One of the best moments for me was last summer, when our squad formed all-around defence to one important crossroad and bit later our company commander says by radio to us that squad strenght Opfor unit wearing chilliesuits (röllipuku) has been seen to be moving towards our crossroad and one frianfly patrol is following them from distance. We set up ambush to get them in between us. Eventually after few hours of waiting our friendly 3 men patrol comming to us triggered their ambush just 20 meter away from us (they though it was us as we wore same suits with opponents). In few seconds it was over and friendly patrol was erazed and opponent's reconsquad went missing. We had joyful night after that as we spent it by sweeping local terrain in hopes to find them (or trigger their ambush again) or atleast harash their job. I saw chillied suited profiles (=bushes) quite a deal. Infact opponent wasn't chillie suited and there were just 2 guys... and they leaved area immediatly after they were exposed with that ambush + the way i see it, we had good change to spot them first and even get them into crossfire of two teams, if our patrol wouldn't have stumbled into them. Which i found out later when one of them released "report" of his experiences. It was guite amusing to read that "report", as i was sure that our opponents were alot more numerous, vicious and aggressive and cloacked in chillie suit, with determination to first recon and then swiftly strike.

Hmm... Sounds Intresting. Sound bit like sissiradists in "common" brigades, 12 months training for all of them, during NCO-class mostly practicing morsesignaling in barracks and rest of trainingtime spent in "camping". What traning during "campping" inholded i don't know.

Yeah your right in that. You are rangers if looking for english word. Have to agree that i thought that Borderguards and Utti would be training rangers, while other sissi- recontrained would be just sissis (=querilla with out better word) or recons and not rangers... But i think you are closer. Good questing conserning sissi&recon. To my understandment there is difference. Recon is mostly recon and they are called techinally recon in their military passport but train in sissicompany, wear arm insignia of sissi and by outsiders are being called as sissi. And ofcourse knowing what meaning word 'sissi' has on finnish mind, i think recon guys tend to not correct this mistake. I must admit i applied to antitank training when hearning that i would become recon and not (legendary) sissi if remaining in sissicompany.

Andersson: Sure i understand and know you costal guys tend to be proud, but yet... Aren't you guys jaegers like rest of us? You served in Nylands Brigade, right? I knew the gear trained to recon better than they did, thanks to Steel Panthers 2. Yet OFP did loads more improvement in that area because of 3D-model. In Steel Panthers i just saw picture from side. That is good side in deed. About negative sides: In general, computer games teaches to do basic soldiering things way too easily and even wrongly, worst thing is that game might give sense of knowing the stuff (=soil for mislearning is fertile at this point). ArmA is not different case. I have to agree that i got cold shower to my neck a while back ago about mislearning, luckily for me there were few borderguards "tenderly" telling what i'm doing wrong.

I threw them to boulder and buried into pile of horsepoop to be scattered to fields during next spring. Well that is because i'm peasant and got used to taking life from animals when needed. Nothing military in it, just way of life. Well... Puppy is puppy, it isn't most comfortable thing to do. .22 bullet to bull's brains isn't as bad.

This is true. Mostly my grieves with ArmA's MP are mostly my own faults. I don't play in private servers, i don't setup my own public servers in fear of cheaters... I'm basically caught in limbo eating my own leg and whining how it hurts every time i bite my leg. OFP had lots of good coop missions (ofp.info was my main place to visit), that was in year 2006 when i got my internet... I don't know much about earlier times. Did only play in LAN now and then before that. I just wanted (again) to tune down this elitis ArmA-war-sim attitude, which to my eye is mostly just talk. ArmA has possibilities like mushrooms in rain (minus AI), but last times i've checked MP-community (in public) isn't much using them. This is ofcourse big problem in all games i think, most gamers are like childrens: They like only things they know, which includes missions/maps which they have played hundreds or thousands of times. Like children, they should be forced to try out new things (me little nazi)

Now this then. It's sure Ullltra realiiiiism war-simmism to play against opponents who doesn't have a glue about anything (i'm referring to AI), they just know how to shoot. Well it's nice to able to slaughter hundreds of AIs with 10-30 human players... It's like killing spear wielding black-people with machineguns. Now, PvP is like Western Front in WW1. Everyone shoots everyone with machine guns, others are just better than others. In PvP i get(got) thrills as opponents are good and usully better than me (i'm unlearning ArmA in fast tempo, year back i was better). In coop i just shoot morons and finally act like moron myself. But to be honest: Constant use of respawn has made both coop and PvP very bad, no thrills anymore so in PvP i act like moron aswell after couple of deaths. ArmA is like rest of generic-FPS-gang to me currently.

Like most (80%) finnish males from my generation i served in Finnish Defence Forces. NCO. Reservist. Active reservist... well quite active reservits... Well quite active reservits who is getting older and older ArmA... no-no. Basically could be said that it shouldn't be taken seriously: I took it bit too seriously and lost my intrest, dream of mine which friendly fired me right into my back. -There are things included... and then alot is not (like ever will be). If i try to mix things from my training with ArmA i might get something out of it and might not. It depends of things i try to do in ArmA. But i really can't think of it as simulator anymore, like when i thought that possibilities with engine are limitless (which was quite stupid thing to even think about, but hey! We are stupid sometimes and do mistakes. That is life.). But i'm just cynical old-ish fart who mostly comes here for good naggings (i'm like old wife)

Conserning westren Karelia in where major battles were fought (eastern Karelia was mostly delaying battle in swamp- and forestlands by infantry troops): At start of offencive Red Army had crushing superiority in all aspects, but mostly in tanks, artillery and airplanes, and Soviet had all first line equipment, while finns had old and obsolent gear almost 1/4 of it's aircrafts and tanks. Red Army had lots of experience from great offencives while finns had sat more or less passively in trenches for few years. There was major flaws in all levels of Finland's preparations against Red army's offence. It could be said that Red army was able supprise finnish generals while their pants were in their knees. Red army was respectable and skillful opponent, nothing like giant with clay feet back from 39-41. In men it had 4 times more men than finns, this wasn't as much as in southern German-Soviet front in where Red army had 6 times more men than Germans during -44, so basically which finns faced was machine army which weakness was in number of men, but in tanks and aircrafts it had the edge. This combined with poor fortification lines both in location and readiness. Expacely first fortification line was in terrain which enbaled Red Army to use tanks very freely. First Finns went into shock by power of Red Army during -44. This resulted that Red army could advace 100 kilometers. This took 2 weeks, in which time finns were doing few (basically failed but time buying) counterattacks and succesful delaying to give time for thier reinforcement from other sectors to arrive to third "fortification" line. Infact there was not fortifications in this line, just line on map into where fortification should have been built. Typical for Red Army offences during -44 were that they were rapid, they advanced alot (several hundreds if not thousand kilometers) and they seized lost of POWs during that time. Soviet offence in western Karelia wasn't like this. It was rapid, but from start to finish finns could fall back in order. Sovets couldn't gain many POWs (finns could get to own lines by using forests) and they advanced only 100 kilometer before they were halted. dont' know reasons whi this happened, maybe it's terrain and nature of Karelian istum, broken by forests, rivers and lakes and having only few roads. Finally Finns faced the moment when (beloved and hated) Marshall Mannerheim had to tell to troops that if Red Army's advance region can't be stopped to Tali-Ihantala (part of third fortification line) then Red Army can advance to in-land and even to Helsinki capitol. At this point biggest battle in Scandinavian history flamed for two weeks. Finns won that battle after two weeks of mayhem for both sides, which factors of success i listed in earlier post. At first Red Army could advance and dominate slightly, while tired and weakened finns were trying to buy time for reinforcements. Attacks and coutner attacks swayed in battlefield, it could be said that hardly any finnish or Red Army's attack (or counterattack) was a success, but they all dried up to defenders artillery. But by time more and more finnish reserves were pouring in and expacely artillery was getting stronger while Red army was loosing it's men at high phase. Typical aspect from last days of this battle was that Red army's attack formations were broken with just artillery fire before they even managed to start attacking. Red army's attacks were also getting weaker and more scattered. Red Army's advantage on men had reduced to 2-3 times more men (i don't know is this actual or organizational strenght) After this battle there were few Red Army's offences trying to break thru finnish defences in other sectors close ot Tali-Ihantala, but they failed aswell. Finnish defence was reinforced enough while Red army's units became weaker and weaker by each beaten back offence. And when Tali-Ihantala was won by Finns (or was it bit later i don't remeber it right now), Stalin ordered that race for Germany had main importance and troops were begun to be shipped to south. During Winter War Sovet Union could wait months and muster more men when their first offence was failure, but now it wasn't reasonable because German was main target of Soviet Union and race for Berlin was on.

No it's not the iron they used, it was other factors. Typical tankfighting was done in distances where allkinds medium and long 75mm or greater cannons had good change to destory opponent (well not Josif Stalin 2) and first shot usually was a hit. Skill of crew and situational awareness had vital importance: Stugs commonly were participating in counterattacks and they had supprise in their side and they had idea of enemy's location. I quess that usually was enough to give finnish crew a upperhand and first shot. And besides Stug overall wasn't very important tools during -44 in Finland, infact it was least imporant AT-weapon. In antitankrole artillery (both AT and indirect), airstrikes and infantry AT-weapons caused more destoryed tanks than Stugs. Excuse my ignorance but how did the Finnish manage to give a 'superior' force not only a bloody nose but two black eyes and a broken arm? Infact it's very nice that you asked. Few reasons: 1. Great artillery usage. I think we had best FO system during ww2. Red Army had more cannons but we could use them much more effectively. If remember right we could consentrate 20 batteries of arty in 5 minutes to enemy's attack formations. 2. Weapons and food from Germany. We could muster more men and gained more weapons (expacely AT) and great german aircraft-unit Kuhmley. 3. Will to fight by Finnish units. At first morale of troops was bad, as we were on Soviet soil (many troops were against this) and many units did suffer from exhaustion of war fro verious of resons. But when fighting turned to Finnish soil morale of men boosted. Many time i have heard the reference to Winter War at this point (fighting wasn't illegal anymore to anyone, but it was necessarity) 4. Final clashes were fought in terrain where "machine army" (like Red Army was) couldn't fight well. Steep rocky hills, rivers and lakes. Soil was rocky which made artilleryfire to become very murderous. I'm not starting to lecture more now, maybe later, but right now i don't have time.

Set up some AI guys in a skirmish line with machine guns and place a hundred or so of those target objects that they will fire at. It's like Knob Creek on steroids. Yeah sure. I've seen SLA troops wasting their all mags in short amount of time by firing at empty HMG from couple tens of meters... I hate that Their weapons could melt and their cartridges could blow their eyes off in those situations and i would actually have quite fun. MehMan: True-true. It's somewhat stunning that BIS isn't capable to fix this kind problems. Has anybody fixed MK19 by tweaking configs or is this somekind mystery to community as well?

Quite intresting. AK-47 was fired for 10 magazines and only pauses were when operator changed magazines (selector was on auto and trigger was pressed all the time). Handguard did start to turn black and barrel was somewhat damaged. No reported malfunctions. Same with various other (mostly eastern) weapons, some which used 10 times greater amount of ammo. Two machineguns (other being PKM, other having theoratical 1000 rounds per minute, but using 7.62x39mm) was just feed a new belt after previous got empty and then gunner started to rock again. Weapon was 100% sound after 3000 bullets, no malfunctions or deforming exept one which was flaw of gunner no weapon or ammo (not related to PKM). I don't remeber about 23mm AA-gun, but amount of fire it could pour down without damages or malfunctions was stunning. Basically test's conclusion was that soldiers can't fire that amount of ammo in that amount of time. But that your example conserning M16A2 or M4 shows the amount of ammo fired in so fast phase... Is that reality in ArmA for players or AI? I can't think many situations where AI would have been in such situation that they could or would have fired all their mags in such fast tempo. Basically it would be quite amok-feat if someone would burn that amount of virtual powder in that amount of time and yet survive it.

Blah. Most smallarms (atleast soviet ones) can be fired in as fast phase as it takes to change empty magazine or ammo-belt to new one for thousands of bullets before weapon "deforms" even in slight way. Yes, i've seen the charts and heard his viewpoints from tester himself (officer whos job was to repair weapons and know them inside-out, from smallarms to cannons). I've even posted them here somewhere and in my viewpoint this discussion is pointless. People are stating about these kind things which doesn't have any big, just very minor, importance in battlefield. While there are real problems related to making ArmA succesful, challenging and playable fps or maybe even simulation. Yes i know that most thinks that ArmA is somekind mil-hardware simulation, where every bolt and screw in 3D-model has to be in correct position and there are even slightest (unimportant) details conserning hardware modelled... Sigh. EDIT: So if 40mm and few other weaponsystems are prone to malfunctions, just make it not able to fire at speed able to break it or ignore malfunctions. Whole system should not be tweaked because of those few weapons, it's fruitless and unimportant.

No it's not the iron they used, it was other factors. Typical tankfighting was done in distances where allkinds medium and long 75mm or greater cannons had good change to destory opponent (well not Josif Stalin 2) and first shot usually was a hit. Skill of crew and situational awareness had vital importance: Stugs commonly were participating in counterattacks and they had supprise in their side and they had idea of enemy's location. I quess that usually was enough to give finnish crew a upperhand and first shot. And besides Stug overall wasn't very important tools during -44 in Finland, infact it was least imporant AT-weapon. In antitankrole artillery (both AT and indirect), airstrikes and infantry AT-weapons caused more destoryed tanks than Stugs.

This is probably your problem and most of the others posting about the TOW not tracking. It tracks fine for me. You have to make nice smooth movements with the mouse and you can correct it a decent amount. I have no problems hitting moving targets at 1000m. Quite intresting this is... Infact now as your said this, my old rig and my old mouse performed much better with OFP's ATGMs. Moving T-80 at 1000-1500 meters was easy to hit with Operation Frenchpoint's Milan and ERYX (these guys did fine job) or FDF's ATGMs. I just thought that my memory of this subject was wrong, but instead it very much could be my hardware I've tested those with my current rig and mouse, and i didn't hit anything.

This has to be somekind test for abilty to take stress and still complete task... Altough i can't find way to complete task... IQ test also?

Richklink's dad was Gunner in Lynx attack helo, which had TOWs. Simple ain't it SUBS17: My joystic is worthless piece of (cheap) junk.

ArmA's TOW has same problems as with OFP. -It doesn't hit (usually grashes ground between target and me). This might mean that missile does too big swaying movement during flight, atleast 2-3 meters from line of sight. Way too much... -Missile guiding is waaaaaaay tooooooooo laaaaaaaaaazy, once i move my retice to some direction, my missile can't keep up with reticle. If i fire it to sky and move my reticle for about 5-10 mils sideways, missile seems to travel straight and does not correct itself. And if it does correct itself it corrects itself too slow. It should immediatly try to follow reticle. Right now it seems to travel several hundreds of meter without reaction. -Missile is bit too fast to 1 kilometer, average 3 or 3.5 seconds, so it's not a issue. If it would guide itself properly i would gain hits. -Mouse is issue with me. Reticle moves in jumps (as my mouse jumps), at slow speeds and overall is highly inaccurate. It can't beat strudy 26 kilograms bulk of metal designed for that porpuse, which has to be operated with upper body (moving sideways) and wrists/arms (moving up-down)... It is great way to gain fine control over reticle, altough mouse is lighter to carry Again, this doesn't matter as missile doesn't respond to reticle's moves.

I should test this new guidable ArmA ATGM first (i just got bit too over-entuhistic about subject, again). Right now i don't have time for it, but i'll try test ArmA's today. Explanation: I automatically thought that they are like OFP's missiles are... Sorry To be reminded: I haven't fired real TOW myself, i was squadleader in army which can give just one or two missile for each squad in training, those were fired by squad's gunners: so my experience and info comes from gunners in my former squad and platoon, my instructors, gunner manual and videos i've seen. I've took out few tanks out with laser during exercises and done lots of firing exercises with laser, but as someone might know laser-simulator isn't same as real missile. It tries to simulate, but it isn't 100% real thing. TOWdaddy's view as a actual TOW gunner in good and valuable (i quess he has fired few if not several of them).

Well, it already exists for OFP... Check it out... I noticed this few years back, but because of mentioned reasons... I think i will pass No offence but i doupt ArmA or OFP AI can act like it. I'm not so much about being predator as i'm into being target of (beliveable) predator.

That *ghost* is very common sight when playing with regular difficulty. 96D explained it correctly, that is the case. One thing: Look position in which the text of that marker is and you'll find your ghost usually there (this might be one additional bug) ArmA with the Predator... Noooooo. I don't want the idea of predator to be ruined. Btw. You gotta love the idea of creature with over 200 kilograms of weight jumping so lighty and silently from tree to tree in South American jungles (great hollywoodism... again)

TOW guy here. BIS's ATGM's never have worked like they would in real life, hard to say has none of aTGM's in games worked like they should. Steering is too lazy mostly, this with OFP and in ArmA too i quess, i actually haven't tried ArmA TOW or AT-5. I don't know how hard it would be to do properly guiding ATGM for game. But this far, like i said, noone gets it right. Main problem ofcourse is that you can't use mouse as you would use forexample TOW's 'guidingunit', i can't immerse myself with mouse in this and atleast my mouses aren't nearly as accurate, mouse is designed for fast draws, not slow draws (they become unaccurate kinda 'jumpy'. Same issue is with T-72 Iron warrior/balkan on fires... Bit more to 'TOWdaddy's' info: Minimumrange is about 200-250 meters. At that point missile has burned it's travel fuel, and now it starts gliding (it becomes more stabile and smoke should drifts away. It is possible for gunner to loose missile and target for few seconds, expacely when using more-powerful ITOW and TOW2). Fuze is set on at ~60 meters, but hitting something is about luck. Stationary target is quite okay, but moving is another thing. I haven't heard of missile's need for "lift up" after 2000 meters... hmm intresting. This might be some earlier version's problem? Not sure which model they improved with this But both my gunner's manual and instructors ever talked about this and this far i havent' heard any one saying anything about this. It might be that it's has been just ignored by my sources, we usually were engagning targets closer than 1 kilometer distances. Few facts straight: ArmA's TOW should have just solid 13x dayoptic. Thermal imaging sights aren't included in TOW model in ArmA, it has just dayoptic even in 3D-model (not sure about Stryker-model. Haven't used that kind IRL). I think 'TOWdaddy' was talking about thermals or then he used some chopper customized optics (i don't know nothing about them). I was in infantry it was just 13x dayoptic or thermal with 4x and 12x in TOW. EDIT: Question is what do you do forexample 13x times zoom in ArmA, engagement distances are very short. Over 1 kilometer is rare. Only distance in where i could engage targets over 2 kilometers is thin sea-area in between south-west parts of N. Sahrani and north parts of S. Sahrani. Oh and like said TOW's speed in ArmA is very high, it's like Soviet ATGMs (their practical minimum range is almost douple to TOW, we had those systems too in use). TOW's maximum speed is almost 300 meters in second (this at 200-300 meters when travel fuel has been burned). TOW in reality reaches 1 kilometer distance in 4-5 seconds, it glides in speed about 250 meters per second). 3750 meters in 22 seconds (glides 100 meters in second). I'm not sure about ArmA TOW's speed, basically could say that it doesn't loose it's speed. About speeds of Soviet/Russian ATGM's i can't tell, our own Soviet ATGM's have been replaced by Spike and i can't easily gain my hands on gunner's manual dealing with those missiles. i'm sorry if 'TOWdaddy'-name is offending, it's not my intention to use it in negative way, i find it nice name, hopefully my kid will use it someday, when TOW is already obsolent tool of war and he has been trained to something like Spike 3 at year 2020 ... Oh! i got sidetracked again. Back top original issue with name 'TOWdayddy': If it seems to be offending i will stop using of it.