Second

So? maybe situation was like it, one serious weakness in defence of that base. It's way too linear to always have option complete mission in several good ways. I find it seriously stupid and dump... n00b-likeish. You can gun your way in, can't you? You can TRY sneak your way into from several places like from gates, can't you? Well those are bad options, but you can choose to try those options if you like. No one isn't forcing you to go that way, or takes away your guns until you have reached your waypoint... Am i right? Think this for a moment: Was there flaw in mission design or in AI Cause i can tweak behaviour of AI very-very much, expacely in these "sneak into base"-missions. I think your not very experienced or advanced mission designer if you can't figure out what you can do to AI. I think community, when arguing about AI, should make clear to itself what are problems correctable with proper mission design. Which aspects are cubersome but possible with some drawbacks to fix or tweak with proper mission design. And which AI aspects are un-fixable in mission design. Flexibility to tweak of AI is huge aspect in ArmA. That is what ArmA does best, i think.

I think Ethne's problem with stealthness is mainly because of mission design. Overall, tweaking or add stuff to stock AI ain't piece of cake. Hardly anyone dares to do but minor stuff. I don't see major combat-behaviour overhauls, added combat drills, better leading for AI-leaders , why is that? Because they are almost impossible to do so that tweaks and extras would function in harmony with rest of the stock-AI areas... Sure talks are big about all-mighty FSMs and such... I can't much see things, just minor tweaks and additions. Which i've been working myself, while i had big dreams of script-structure which guides atleast AI-leader's job in more realitic and dynamic manner... Well then i got fed up (i can admit that i'm n00b, when comparing to someones) ArmA's AI even if i'm not saticfied with it, is complex one you just wont write simple piece of code to AI and make wonders with it, i even doupt that most areas can't be fixed, expacely in individual soldier's performace. Walker has been saying something about their project, which atleast sounds intresting... time will tell. And i would be intrested to hear what Walker thinks can be done to AI. My personal feeling is that no major overhauls to ArmA AI will come but after release of ArmA2.

Fine to hear that ArmA has best AI... Now where are all the all those best features of AI? I can't think only one: Scale of things it can do and flexibility (which means nothing to most, they don't have skill or will to learn scripting, which is endless swamp to most)... i would give AI a degree from bad to average in actual performace in various areas, in terms of how well it does things like fighting. Here quickly made list of mine, these are MY standarts, mixed with things i've picked up from other games and what i think standarts should be: Infantry -Defence basics: bad-average. Cover seeking is there... As long as mission editor finds out that he has to use stealth behaviour. Firepositon seeking methods itself are bad, many times it just harms squad's consentrated firepower. They have no dedicated killzone(s). Big part of problem in this is due bad leadership they receive. No better or worse than any other game, i think. -Attack basics: bad. They do use bounding overwatch, which is engouraging. How ever, they don't have sligthest clue of when it's is healthy to advance and when not (heavy incoming fire and/or no cover). -Skills to use terrain as cover in combat: very bad. They don't understand when cover is bulletproof and when it's not. They also don't know how to use several things such as building corners (or buildings at all) as their cover. They don't know how to take advantage of cover (firing and keeping head down and safe when fired at). Other games knows how to take good advantage of it. -skills to use terrain as cover from enemy fire and spotting: below average They don't select routes which are providing cover like valley or woods. In OFP they did this! In ArmA they follow almost direct line to waypoint, in OFP they could chance movement route alot (atleast i think they did). Very bad for recon and infaltration tasks: They will not evade hostile forces in their path. however they usually are capable to move from bush to bush and keep their head down (in stealth behaviour). -Leader's performace: Average-Good. They are capable to command widerange of men and vehicles. But sadly they aren't very dynamic on what they do. They have limited set of things which they commit on limited fashion: "you can't target, so you must engage". They have no idea of how spezialists and vehicles etc under their sommand should be used. Overall they just give targets or call for supply, medic etc... and are usually best shooters in their squad. Average because this is best AI leader behaviour still i've seen. Altough i would welcome more dynamicity and adaptation to situation from leader, but i quess this is one of the most hardest part of AI to develop, other wise i would give very bad-bad. -Use of fire + effects of fire: bad No suppression, no effect of suppression. These guys only knows how to make accurate shots at target and it's best thing to do as they can't be demoralized but by killing them + several other factors. However use of suppressive fire is basic militarything, many games already takes advantage of it at least in some amounts. -Obstacle course (flexibility of their animations etc): bad-average. Sadly they are relatively clumsy because of anmations system, i would guess. Some FPS-games AI seems to be in some superstimulants or something, but they sure are fast when they needs to be. ArmA's AI is fast when it runs, sadly forexample movement under fire is slow and not effective. There's no "whip-spalsh" in their moves. Vehicles: Hard to say... This ain't Steel Beasts or anything. Lots of things missing. Everyone can read it how they want, this is my personal viewpoint mirrored to other games i've played and to idea i'm having of making tough + realistic AI opponent. Walker as well as others has had solid points conserning AI's wide-scale abilities to control various vehicles as well as flexibilty of AI-programming in ArmA. Hmm... Gotta go to sleep.

So why has the bullet to kill ratio has tripled from the 60000:1 ratio of vietnam to 200000:1 ratio in iraq? Maybe the americans have since stoped counting civilian casulties as kills? More use of surpressing fire due to the terrain allowing of it in iraq? or maybe simply the figures are totally wrong... I dont know why, but i never believed the special forces kill:death ratio bollocks. In my mind, Its either blatent media campaigns to boost morale about how great we are, or, that the special forces are counting the kills of the artillery and aircraft they call in as their own. saying that, a nice feature in ArmA 2 would be the ability to select your men, and drag a box around an area, which would then allow them to waste some ammunition on it for a while, until they see a real target. I don't believe that special forces kill:death ratio is totally bollocks. And mostlikely those figures are somewhat limbing. but it certainly is showing some differences between elites and regulars. There are reasons for it such as: -Lack of firesupport which regular troops had. -different drills and rules of engagement, atleast i think so but i'm not sure. -Different types of missions that regular army troops will do. -Material of men (this has the main importance): They were and are creme-of-the-creme, and they are encgouraged to think so. Only aprox. 10% of men are truly capable soldiers and these kind of men are wanted to these kind of units. This is old universal truth and which every army uses: Finest willing men to finest positions. Anyways. During WW1 one casulity took only 20-30 shots (i'm not sure but much less than 100)! ... Oh wait! Maybe ArmA is simulating WW1 with modern equipment. That would explain several things...

Close Combat's main innovative idea, which made it to stand out from rest, was individual troop's morale + realism (we lived "golden" times of Command&Conquer and Westwood ), and how it affects to whole squad. You could have one or more soldiers in group which didn't act like rest of them. They paniced, fled, did amok, fixed their jamming weapon, fought heroically etc.

Naah. I as a amateur and scripting n00b could make quite simple suppression and morale model to ArmA. Why could not FPS gaming industry with professionals do better? It not hot thing in FPS (AI is just a bot, ment to be killed), that is the reason. ArmA might have best build-in morale model at the moment: squad either flees or then doesn't flee! That is not much, when you compare to something like Combat mission or Close combat. Until someone proves and shows that it can be good thing for FPS's gameplay and players actaully likes it, it will not be implented. Btw. in OFP allowfleeing 0 (don't flee) was used a lot (part of the reason was that AI could get stuck to fleeing point and mission didn't work as it should)

Dslyecxi: BI forums are full of nagging wifes i'll be telling you. My sad thing is that i couldn't use OFP's direct communication chanel ('direct speak' was it?), which atleast LDD Kyllikki was using. Same goes with ArmA, problem is deep inside my computer and DirectX... Oh and let's not turn this to troubleshooting topic either as it is OT and i know that problem fixing it is one helluva piece of work (and most likely difficult and unhealthy for my windows too)

Nice thing that VOIP is atleast good.

That would be just irritating. I was about to write long post about shooting in real life and how army teaches it. But naah, here's the short version of it: 3 seconds is royal time get accurate shot it's about bringing sights up (buttock raised to shoulder), aiming and shooting. 2 seconds and yet man hits pretty easily man's torso sized target at 150 meters. If bodyposition is broken down it takes longer time, but bodyposition is broken down only when running etc, so if character has stopped moving (or doing other thing like talking to radio) his body is in position which enables reasonible accurate and fast shooting (muscle's memory can be far more stronger than mind). To me (and many others) this would be worst kind gamebreaker. Not natrual way. High bullet count for one dead has more to do with facts that: -there's plenty of cover -enemy rarely presents itself clearly (not in front of bush but behind it) and instead tries to survive to see another day -Suppression and such effects -drills and tactic. Forexample in Vietnam US used alot of firepower to overcome and demoralize enemy. You don't need to see enemy (as you usually won't) to start firing. -maybe human nature not willing to kill another humanbeing etc. -and many other reasons not crossing to my mind. Soldiers do know how to shoot and they can do it fastly and accurately their targets... Are they able or willing to do that is another thing.

This feature should be in every comming FPS. ArmA2 included (but due animation system i doupt it). Vietcong had this for prone and kneeling stances, sort of hiding/shooting versions, and i instant fell in love you aim and you character raises his gun and aims, release aiming button and he goes low. Very good and AI knew how to use it, shot at and they imediatly pulled their head and weapon behind cover. It could be made even more complete by enabling player and AI to adjust their shooting position up and down (like low kneeling position, high prone position). But i'm not sure as it might just make things too complicated.

Here's what The_Captain had to say in infantry pathfinding topic. Went maybe bit offtopik there, but it suits well in here (in my opinion). This post i will quote was conserning bad outcomes in bounding overwatch. Big aspect of it is to make enemy to lose their effetivity of fire which makes movement possible and less risky. So it has to do with suppression and in suppression ArmA turns out to be bad: I agree, i couldn't have said better.

Your predication of better comms enabling more indepence and enchanced cooperation is right and it's already happening. I'm not sure will fireteam be BIGGEST tactical unit in future. But i think we think tactics in general to be different things... I've bumped to it earlier. Corrently platoon, but usually company is smallest tactcal unit, and better comms in the long run might make teams to be smallest tactical units. While division, brigade, combat-unit (sort of batallion and half, not sure about english name) are biggest tactical units. That's how i see word 'tactical unit'. And to ArmA: Basic problem in loner games is that loner truly are loners. Only thing visible in Chat is "LOL noob!" and map remains as blank as it was at start of the mission. If i ask about teamspeak no-one says a word. Basically only way to know that someone has made contact to enemy are gunshots and maybe even reports of "12 o'clock, enemy man, 400"... Or mabe i've been playing in wrong company? What you describe seems to be awfully lot organized team, using "unconventional" or high-tech ways

There's another thread about it. There are pretty good reasons stated by The Captain i believe. Tweakig configs ain't enough as whole game system starts to limb. You see enemy that see you, you can shoot it with 3 bullets but it needs 300! That's not good. There's so much factors in reality which ArmA won't and can't take into account. Let's start from lack mircodetails (cover) in terrain or lacks of Ai to use all that cover as it should be etc... I made suppression script, but fundamentally it's flawed for those same reasons (in some cases it works in some cases i'm not happy ). So basically ArmA can't make function in ways that Real World does in this case... And if it has been forced to do that (shoot much, hit rarely) game goes unbalanced and even stupid. Bit like with HD-mags, they are great in some situations but bad in others.

Basically this was problem for almost ALL southern countries. Their tactics was basically a linear one. While Finland's terrain forced (and still does) to use forces in deep formations and it also forced officers to trust their subleaders as leader couldn't see a thing. When others armies might have mentality that leader knows and see always what is happening. One cheer difference: 1. Generally speaking European battle ended to charge while having lots of different phases before that. 2. In Finland battle just started at charge. This puts all armies at disadvantage who trains to fight in some specific location, same would apply to finns in open plains. [Germans had same difficulties at start in Northern Finland, while soviet border troops were very tough nuts to crack at -41 when they were delaying finns. Ofcourse Germans too learned to fight in that kind terrain over the years.] Wolf H. Halsti was a wise man Back to topic: I'm not saying that organized team wouldn't be superiour, in that my last post. I've been usually with loners and playing as loner (aka loser ). And i can tell when my side is facing organized clan or team. Usually they are dominating the game, but respawn after 30-60 secs gives loners a change to come back fighting. Many times organized clan has been pressing hard, but yet not managing to overcome loners complitely (aka score a point etc.), as loners are forced to create (even coherent! defenceline. Mostly this has been in games where there are lots of players in small area. But yeah there are times when i've been able to take an advantage of their organizated fighting style and make them pay for it dearly. In other words i find spot which they like to use and start to shoot them there...

About lone wolfing in real life. Many truly great RL soldiers have been lone wolfs when they needs to, like taking out trench held by enemy. Others are just extraweight for them so they stay in firesupport to freeze and diturbe enemy, while this "fearless" one clears the trench with his SMG. he might had someone tossing the grenades but not all times (fellow kight had fled) Close combat quide wrote after ww2 or during ww2 also told that soldier might need to rise from his foxhole and start moving activelly when enemy is about to (or has already) broke to formation. This is also what many veterans tells: Green troops stayed their foxholes and shot at enemy, while many experienced men jumped from their foxhole or part of trench and attacked at enemy even before enemy reached defence line and saved the situation (enemy was hard to drive away if it already had seized even few firing positions from defencer). Also saying that: "It's always the best who gets killed" telling that they are doing quite dangerous feats. But ofcourse these things happens only rarely as mostly this same individual is working with his fellows. He just has eye for battlefield (or he will be dead) and courage to move away from his unit and work alone. That was just thing i wanted to bring up, it might not have anything to do with question at hand in this topic. So to ArmA: Most player have relatively lot skills and they are fearless and liking what they do. This makes them uber-shooters, capable to cause few casualities in short moment (dependent of situation and terrain). Ofcourse this thing is bad for "organized" unit as they usually don't act optimally, like usually too many is moving at same time, being visible and shootable... They most likely are a bit overconfident about their greatness against lone wolfs. And if one loner can pin them down, then there will be lots of lone wolfs comming at them from random directions... All of them having taste of virtual blood, knowing the area very well and being skillful shooters and having lots of experince about combat in ArmA. I'd say that if battles would get larger then organized mass would get much better. I tend to think that there's too much space per single man... Going to calculations: When looking at area which company of infantry will attack (atleast in theory) one can see that it's not much, only about 1000 meters wide for bit 130 men (and those 130 men are using only 500 meters), where about 1/3 is in reserves. so lets say that there are 7 meters of combat zone for one guy in that (i pulled that 7 meter out from my hat, but it should be close)... Now how much is there space for one man in Standart Arma match? I tend to think that area is about as wide as in my company expample, but only 10-20 guys are using it! So they are having much more space (about 7-13 times more). I'd say that setting favors lone wolfs, they have space to work independetly and under their own imagination and desires. If they had less space per man, they would be in deeper trouble as there is no room for their imagination. Meanwhile organized unit can fill the space more (closer to amount which standart military tactics rely on). Well this is just thing that crossed to my mind... Can't tell is that the actual reason for it. There are something else also, but right now i'm short of the time.

Mission editor is (was) the only way to play ArmA. For OFP i had about 300-400 selfmade quick missions and in ArmA about 100. Missions i usually do are made in few hours (no cut-scenes hardly ever a briefing as they are made purely for myself), more than that and mission is ruined and i loose intrest to it. In OFP i could make mission even a week, but usually those were the mission that i didn't like to play much if atall. More advanced the mission structure or scripts are, more dull it gets... Quite funny actually. Hour or two is optimal time to create good mission which i also like to play alot. Sadly already before ArmA i'd created pretty much every combatsituation i can figure out... I can't get that kind satisfaction from editor anymore as everything has been done in one way or in other. I could make those already tested situations more complicated with scripts and trigger-structures, but as i said i don't like complication and it requires more time so it ain't worth of a try.

Yes. Noraf most likely did mean standart rounds. But what Noraf said comes from Black hawk down... Atleast it is very common to argue that 5.56 is overpenetrating and draw example from Mogadishu. And counterargue is to say that they used AP rounds (mostlikely to gain better penetration thru walls in which 5.56 standart is bad) What you say about standart rounds is true. I just felt unnecessary urge to add the difference between standart and AP rounds.

At close range, actually, the 5.56 nato rounds tend to fragment, transferring energy to the target rather quickly over a large surface area.. they don't tend to overpenetrate, but rather blow up and cause lots of hiddeous damage.. like a cavity the size of a small apple inside. Yes, when talking about standart round. It's AP round which tends to go cleanily thru.

The_Captain has spoken The Words.

In enemy contact stealth is better... I can figure out various reasons for it. 1. Generally not enough cover. 2. In ArmA basic military things like Fire&movement doesn't work. Halt&fire is much better way (halt&hide&fire might be even better... or then not. It depends). AI which doesn't move but keeps on firing enemy at maximum tempo without exposing him too much has upper hand. There are several things which makes this work the way it works. 3. Unit which keeps prone has upper hand. In combat&bounding they have bad tendensy to rise to their kneeling position or even stand. Their accuracy and firing speed drops while they also expose themselves much more than in prone. In stealth grunts usually stay prone. 4. Tempo of bounding is quite much standart, enemy's incoming fire or number of enemies doesn't affect it. If they are receiving casulities they just keep on going, until breaking and fleeing. Experienced player as leader has better ways to deside that is it better to sprint like arse in fire, or is it better to slow down or even halt movement. Stealth is atleast slower way to get men killed if they face superiour force. But atleast they live longer and usually cause more casualitites to enemy.

Oh crap! Yeah, i didn't mention (i must have erazed that part) in orginal post that they did load new belt to PKM when former was shot empty... My bad, sorry. Yes, no one huuuuge 3000 rounds belt, but i would quess that they used 100 rounds belts.

No. Only pauses in firing were when new belt was fed to machinegun. I don't know their actual rate of fire but firing rate was said to be continious fire. Basically he mentioned that no-one would shoot that much and in that fast tempo in combat. And gunner was changed at some times... Altough i can't be sure about that barrel changing, there's not about it. So my quess is that they didn't. Okay you want more stats? Here's few: AK47. 10 magazines fired at continious fire (magazine shot empty without pauses). No changes in barrel, but blue color turns more white. 11th magazine and handguard starts to turn black and it is starting to burn. 12.7 NSV machinegun. 2200 rounds in 50 rounds belts (every 100 round and barrel is changed). No data about malfuntions or barrel etc wear. 23mm AA-gun (sergei, as we call it): 2400 shots, every 500 and barrels are changed and put to water to cool. No data about malfuntions or barrel wear etc. Guy himself said that Russians make their stuff to last. And these guys are the ones who tested the actualy extreme limits of weapons and in case of few weapons they didn't even reach those limits ps. If there's something terms which aren't correct, try to understand that i'm not native english speaker and i have no time or even will to check them.

Keeping one's position if it is far edge of forexample line formation is pain in the ass IRL too. It's quite easy case if: 1. Formation isn't bigger than squad 2. Terrain is easy and visibility is good 3. Leader understands to slow his movement speed 4. Formation isn't steering much Many times nothing in this list stands, and i as part of platoon's AT-team during NCO class had tough ride in keeping my position in far end of line. Trying to keep in even smaller formation (half squad aka team) while manuvering to enemy's flank/back can get hard. Last time during exercises i was carrying "gymnastics gube" aka vietnam era radio while rushing and covering my mates, as teamleader tried to navigate in dense bush+young tree terrain by hearing and keeping maximum speed possible... While leader could go in fast paced walking, i had to jog and run to keep my position when steering (which we did alot). But yes. ArmA troops seems to be awful at keeping their position and most of all: Awful in catching it.

Hard to say about barrel heating and it affecting to malfunctions. Here's data what i've heard from... How do you say it in english... Officer who takes care of repairing arms: PKM: shot about 3000 rounds. No remarkable changes in barrel or in lock and no malfunctions. 7.62 LMG 62 (using 7.62x39 round, not uber reliable weapon): Theoretical rate of fire 1000-1100 round per minute. about 2500 rounds fired. No changes in the barrel or in lock, atleast that much that barrel should be wasted, and no malfunctions, besides user's mistake when loading (feeding) new belt to weapon. I quess these weapons (2) were pretty new when tests were conducted, as when getting more used it gets much more unreliable (if some finn notices this post). Both weapons were shot without changing barrel and using almost maximum rate of fire.

Hippies have gained new level of influence "If we can't make it happen that WMDs would be demolished, then we demand that they have to be enviroment friendly!" They finally made it