Second

You sound quite brainwashed by your own propaganda...

This is main reason why i quit mission editing in DR. There was hack to stretch entity limit to 80+, which gave bit more room. Not much but enough to have said platoon vs platoon play ground which is the usual mission size i make my missions. Then the bright blokes at CM decided to kill that possibility... :rolleyes:

Coding stuff and deep understandment of engine is naturally out of grasp of people. Things regarding game-play, equipment in game, campaigns, missions etc are totally another matter. It happens and it works. If they can't defend choices then it's clear that they have made bad choices. They don't need to ban people, they dont' need to defend their points of views to last straw. They don't have to reason with everyone. I can understand that because it's not practiced much in gaming industry then people might not even understand what i'm after. I'm not meaning PR-stunts which CM employed before the release, they have not discussed atall. Example: Because these things aren't generally on maps, or at least aren't accurately depicted. Therefore, trying to communicate the location becomes a significant problem when nobody has their eyes on it. Sure, it could be done BUT with all the problems artillery had getting their rounds on major targets which DID have eyes on them, how effective do you think blind firing would be? Remember, getting a round close to a hedgerow isn't good enough. You have to get it pretty much on target or it won't do anything. Drop the rounds 10m on the wrong side of the hedgerow and you get no real positive effect. Drop them on the wrong side of a T intersection and you get no positive effect. Drop them too far away and you get no positive effect. Etc. And without eyes on the target itself you're throwing away any chance of correcting what is likely to be an off target barrage. But that's just it... a frontline commander has to deal with a chaotic arrangement of both friendly and enemy units because there are no neat rows to keep track of where everything is. So if I'm lobbing rounds without any idea, none what-so-ever, of where they are hitting... is that a good idea? No, of course it isn't. But I think you're missing the point here. Why would I, as a lowly Captain of a Rifle Company, be calling in artillery on something that can't possibly cause me any harm at that point in time even if there is something there? It's a waste of resources and, when compounded by thousands of other lowly Captains, bogs down the entire war effort. I'm not kidding here Plus, we're not talking about 200-400m away if you're unconcerned about friendly casualties. You'd probably have to fire at something 500-800m to be outside of the immediate danger area to your own troops. That's because even with spotted and adjusted fire you're talking about 300-500m possible range of error. Firing blind is obviously going to be even worse. At that range you're dropping rounds (possibly anyway) in another Battalion or Regiment's area of operations. That's never a good thing to do without explicit orders. Such targets would, by definition, cease to be tactical. They would instead be strategic and/or operational. In that case there would be a TRP and assets set aside to hit that particular target. Which CM simulates quite nicely Oooo... as much as I appreciate the realism of my own products , I must caution you to NOT use CM as proof of concept in that way. In CM you are able to make massively unrealistic maneuver shifts at the drop of a dime due to the fact that it is a game and the units are all controlled by a single person. In real life such massive, unplanned maneuvers did not develop within the space of a 40 minute battle, therefore having artillery be that flexible just compounds the historical inaccuracies instead of helping to put realistic constraints on them. In real life there would be TRPs for this, they wouldn't be fired on the fly. Correct. The lack of TRPs in CM:SF has been a known limitation long before you guys ever saw the game Steve Yes this is "developer discussing with it's community"-thingy which i'm after, bit extreme example but "on the mark" at the same time. Developer didn't drop one-liner, but participated in discussion. I still don't accept his points of views totally, i happen to be the quoted one, but dropped that issue there as he clearly has great knowledge of this thing. At the same time developers have also alerted some things when/if proper proof and claims have been brought up in mature tone. As for defending various aspects of ArmA: Yes i do believe i did a good job. Same stuff which i'm doing with OFDR. Crushing false information which has been spread around.

Been playing The Witcher for few days. I see replies. Ofcourse this is up to personal preferences. And i'm sure people at BIS aren't monsters, or arseholes. But these days i expect good dedicated developers to do their part of defending their game and choices they made when creating their game or admitting their errors. Yes, i've been in "barricades" to reason to people how engine works to squash mis-informed opinions, false accusations, testing how stuff works etc. While there was zero information from BIS. Sure it was nice that i could stretch my virtual-cock in eyes of community, but still my virtual-cock would have stretched even more (god knows what else!) is Suma for example would have said that Second wrote 100% on spot. I've seen one developer taking part of discussions to grand scale and it's great customer service, they take active part on defending their choices of features and development idea, problems involved etc. These days BIS seems to communicate more (unlike earlier days with ArmA), but still they just inform. As i can see in beta-thread (to which Andersson pointed). They don't discuss, they just inform. Which ofcourse is positive thing and good that BIS does even that. But it could be more. Discussions and more importantly debates is thing which i'm after, they are good for community (there's official information, community feels to be more as part of project) and good for developers (they get more insight, more points of view from outside). One problem with BIS is that they have "ivory-tower" syndrome: community discusses, debates, innovates, creates etc. Yet mostly BIS seems to ignore it and well-known result of it is that usually BIS titles takes step back with their next title when compared to what community made for their previous title. I dare to say that if there would have been more discussions from BIS to community and vice-versa. Debates are not to be evaded, but are soul of whole system: BIS has to be able to reason to people why they did as they did. If they can't do that... Well then there might be moment to look into mirror and maybe improve it next time. BIS would steer their boat more drastically to directions which generally are thought to be good. They say that competetion is good for developement, well OFDR isn't going to be that (yes bit on-topic as well in this post :p )... So BIS could compete with it's customers who visit and write here. I'm not naturally born english speaker, i'm far more dumb than guys at BIS, still i can squeeze posts which are often long and analytic. This with amateur understandment of ArmA and things which are discussed in off-topic section. Developer who knows his engine and has much higher IQ than i have could do much more than that with much smaller effort. This is one kind of fancy ideal. Sure it takes time from development... But then again it can boost the way game is being developed. And yes it's about what one expects from developers: i must admit my standards have risen somewhat when thinking what developers should do, while my dedication to put considerable part of my life to some game has dropped.

First is true. It was community which promised that they get whole world, reason why whole thing backfired. I've had respect for BIS as they don't atleast lie: They don't do games which i would enjoy anymore, but atleast they are honest about it. In this sense OFDR and CM is guilty, much more guilty than BIS is. BIS main flaw is it's unhealthily fanatic community and lack of communications from BIS to community to chill down those fanatics. People say that BIS communicates with their community? I haven't seen that. People report bugs and state of those bugs is visible, they might go into some interview. Yay. What i respect is that developers comes to forums and discuss with community, not just anounce something, but take actively part, preferably on daily basis. BIS is just like the rest... But yes, CM is worse, far worse. Second could be true, could be not. They are making OFDR2 which hopefully (ofcourse hopefully :D ) generates need to fix the game, which continues to affect OFDR1 also. Then again might not. However this is all assumptions, no proof that support will drop or will it continue to exist. Time will show that, sadly.

Most/many people HERE (points at these forums and few more) look it as toolbox. Most people over there (points at direction of world) looks at it as game. As for community. Yes. That part of community which stays around and accepts it's faults sure loves BIS. Other just leaves with more or less violent manner. I see lots of people who joined during 2009... Not so many from earlier days. Were you here when ArmA got released and stirs it's state created within community? Yup i was there. What was most popular thread? Well after screenshot thread came dissapointment thread, which noted many times that ArmA was good just for screenshots. There was also positive thread about ArmA, but it couldn't reach nearly the same amount of posts or views as dissapointment thread did. Yeah ArmA2 seemed to be much more satisfying game, towards which people are less hostile. But memories from days of ArmA when this community turned into hell for a long time remains with me, as with many others who saw those days, weeks, months. I'm not seeing much difference between ArmA and OFDR in this sense. BIS hid their time, took lots of time to get ArmA into proper shape (which still unsatisfied many). Game could be considered somewhat fixed during US release. Some people had suffered from Beta-game for months, was it half year i don't recall.

Set of fins and pieces from projectile's butt thru lungs and other organs usually has such good effect in person's living quality. LOL back in days when we were instructed to use of claymores in engineer training (sapper training might be more suiting word) we discussed that it would be neat to try that as bullet protection tied into combat vest and extra firepower, great CQB-self protection system also. Having swarm of enemy charging at you while your weapon jams? Don't worry just stand up and blow up the claymore which is always tied into combat-vest to chest height. Then we blew up first one and didnt' discuss anymore about it :D Talking about military stupidity.

You don't see me perform well in Civilization or in Total war's strategy maps, but CMSF in company scale is much less demanding than those former ones when it comes to micromanagement, in battalion scale it can become close however. This in my mind is important. CMSF can be anything from platoon level to battalion. True on depth which micromanagement creates. One has to basically handle all weapon systems at his disposal, all tactics involved into it. Using Stryker MGS as tank? Forget it. :rolleyes: I use Lassoing alot even in combat situations. Ofcourse it's about judging suppression versus enemy capacity, usually ranges has to be over 100-200 meters and enemy under heavy fire (if i'm in mood to preserve my men). Most problem currently is that Platoon HQ teams, MG- and AT-teams (SMAW-team not included) don't use bounding overwatch as they don't have teams inside them. So it's is practically impossible to give whole Platoon/company assault as one unit. Man i'd love that feature! True, quick movement isn't bad choice if given in tight pattern (one or two tiles between waypoints). Then again with experience placing individual orders for each squad and team in company isn't that time consuming process if player already knows what his company will do in given terrain. That if hotkeys are familiar and unit is familiar, player has formed understadnment how and what kind tactics to use, are familiar and terrain is enough easy to read. Mostly in CMSF things are needed to be taken slowly when in combat, there's maybe 10-30% of troops which are moving while rest are providing flank security and overwatch/firesupport. So if you have company sized force there is actually just less than platoon which player needs to pay attention to. Ofcourse that is possible if timeline is luxorious, which it usually is.

It really depends of battle, unit your commanding and at which phase the battle is. You can order large masses of units with just few mouse clicks or you have to pay close attention of squads and teams. Or you can just lay back and watch the fireworks. Usually all of this happens in one battle. I don't like micromanaging my self so i have created my own way to deal with it. I try to move as big units as possible in such simple fashion as i like. if i have to start micromanaging on how squads move i can do that in easy fashion. Sometimes it works out smoothly. Sometimes not. Oh and i don't mind casualties as much as some seems to do, as my play style tends to generate them more... And besides i like to keep momentum high :D Big deal for me is to play in WEGO-mode (turnbased). I give orders to my men just every minute in game time. That way i don't feel to be forced to micromanage my men almost every second of game time every time something happens. But it piles down to personal preferences. Anyways CMSF is hard game to learn. Not just tactics which to use, but which orders to use to get desired results. This is very important in WEGO as player can't tell his men to halt and get into cover if he has given wrong kind of order.

We have heavy lump of metal which gets attached to flash hinder with bolt. It's idea is to break wooden bullet into fine powder. There are changes that either screw will loose up (flies about 5-10 meters if shot at prone position), or worse case from what i've heard, bolt breaks when there lots of pressure and adapter can fly long distances. Another bad thing is that one isn't supposed to shoot just one round but atleast two even more at target from such close distances... First comes adapter and then couple wooden bullets, or what ever is left of them. Well they aren't flying all the time. It's more common to have rounds with real bullets getting mixed into blank rounds at least from what i've heard.

It's multi-faced stuff really. Very basic infantry stuff doesn't need virtual training tools at least in my mind, it might even hurt the training as all that time is away from terrain. Besides actual stuff in terrain is more complex than virtual tools can show. Virtual stuff does have few good things about them. They are safe in very complex situations such as CQB. Al as you said in marksmanship training they might be pretty smoking, low cost and accurate info on what went wrong form each shot. They aren't only way. I believe USMC trains with paintball markers. I've used airsoft guns to do the same. And as long as safe regulations don't forbid that (they shoot something at someone else) they probably are just as good. Strong points in both ways. Marines have good thing going on as they quite clearly aren't limited in such pretty stupid regulation that you can't have anything physical shot at soldier, oh i pardon, marine. Forexample we use blanks and maybe even Miles-kit (laser-receiver and transmitter worn over combat gear), and regulations dont' allow use of paintball or airsoft to be shot at living person (atleast last time i've heard). So also CQB has to be simulated with blanks ... But when safety regulations don't allow them to be shot at close ranges against living person but is required to shoot at sky: you have heavy blank adapter in point of barrel, which might get loose and start flying (i've been almost hit by one)... Which might cause rather ugly damage in receiving end. In reality one hardly ever follows that rule. Which makes me wonder which one is more dangerous to trainees. Paintball causing bruises (face protection would be required anyways) or blank adapter made of steel flying some 100 m/s! at his unprotected face... Military stupidity all the way.

Yeah and offtopic section seems to gather worst of them from every direction. Worst kind ArmA fanbois are here, i'm here, few OFDR-supporters are here. Bitter soup is ready, spiced up with bit if intelligence and several spoons of anti-intelligence.

Yup. It uses cover rather well and infact is just about as script free as ArmA2 AI is. One flaw about it's cover usage: It's probably not as accurate as ArmA2's centimeter system is. I've tested it and AI seems to register chest-throat height to be critical level where it will change it's stance to lower one, it seems to be bit random so i guess i don't understand it completely. Sometimes it seems to be in eye or even helmet high. It's not that bad with iron sights... But most firearms are having some x3 or higher scope and it is simple to gain head shots to 200 meters :mad: (if i want to have higher difficulty for game i don't use any scopes). There are problems in firing thru windows, probably frames are blocking their Line-of-fire and also line-of-sight too. They are sometimes totally unable to fire from house, but seem to be able to do it more when they fire into house! Which is damn shame! One problem with removing shield of dispression is that it will make firefight very lethal. So it has possibility to reach difficulty like ArmA2 would be with 1.0 skill and 1.0 in configs for AI. Now we add OFDR's idea for using suppressive fire which commonly is very heavy volume of fire with somewhat dropped accuracy... Without dispression shield it becomes Doom's Hammer! I've seen whole squads being erazed in matter of seconds when shield gets removed from game! Tweaking isn't most simple thing with as there are various variables which affects total accuracy. Compared to ArmA2 i think there are twice the amount of stuff involved along whole morale model (suppression, own injuries, how buddies are doing or are they dead and so on). One important thing to note is that AI in OFDR usually is under some amount of suppression, it seems to start from around 6 close-bys depending of skill level and can be kept up with rather low volume of fire. It's rather easy for one guy with rifle to keep one or even two AI's suppressed for longish times. Usually both sides are more or less suppressed after first seconds of combat. Yeah they aren't that accurate even unsuppressed, but seems to be able to kill me (mostly exposed) with averagely 2/3 spent magazine from 100 meters :p Templar had good ongoing project with it and it sure was education to study those files. I managed to tweak them bit on my own, but soon understood that it requires bit more thought than i though it would. Then came 1st patch and killed my motivation to get deeper into it :) (thank you codemasters!) I personally would like to keep current way, maybe make them bit more accurate against each of other. But would raise difficulty for player quite much so that player has to use cover and has to preserve he's life. That way it would be more engaging experience for player but would keep firefights long and wouldn't twist game to suppression-overpower (aka firepower kills them all). Right now AI has good changes on getting into cover and after that it (usually) has to be dealed with either movement into flanks or even assaults, pure firepower won't cut it very fastly of effectively... Or by player taking head shots with scoped rifle :)

Correct. Most of this is somewhat illusion which "we are so special"-part of OFP community has bathed in for years, which has become self extablished mantra. :) First of all it might have been Marek who stated after release of OFP that "We don't want to be known as military experts". Next: What is military simulator? Military is that big part of society, where you have captains, and colonels and slang, and guns, and vehicles, large facilities, of course budget issues, maybe even wars, politics and all. Does ArmA2 present this all? It's sure nice to toss around such word as military, then combine it with simulator and it's even fancier. OFP sold 5 millions!!! Why? Because player didn't die to first bullet? Or because it happened to be one of the greatest games amongst other shooters and people didn't give a damn if they died in the first bullet, as long as game is good and entertaining. We are discussing about OFP being niece, which it quite clearly isn't.. Is BIS niece developer? They seems to be closer to medium sized than actual niece. ArmA sold some hundred thousands units, ArmA2 will sell probably some more. It's rather normal for shooter which gets such reviews.

Btw Wiggum: TacOps4's SOP system is neat indeed. ;) Every game maker should include that box into their mission editor or command UI. Also CMSF should include that. Even when i hate micromanaging and getting new functions which i have to start using along with the old ones, this feature might cut need to think so much before hand about what might happen to my unit when i move it there. Makes also great to control lightly armored ATGM-units, trucks, APCs etc as i don't need to baby sit them so much. Simulation aspect isn't total lunacy. Bit about it: One guy who's part of day job consisted of seeking training tools formed following opinion. He played COD4 and MOH:Airborne. About MOH he said that it's controls are complex and he didn't feel like he handles it in 15 or so minutes (heck i've played it "bit" more and still don't handle them!). Not good for training soldiers. About COD he said that with few tweaks and added instructor and replay tools it would fit as training tool for infatnry. It's simple to learn, it has all the basic stuff which rifleman needs. ArmA2 with right people and right attitude could do just the same stuff as VBS2 does in similar use. COD would fit into here also. So in that sense it is simulation, as it is able to replicate things soldiers are supposed to do. I think Battlefronts one goal was to get forexample US army to use CMSF as tool for combined arms training. But to get US Army as (really big) customer fell to lack of Cooperation mode and replay possibility. Being small developement team they couldn't fit in those. So it basically is simulation, and it's ability to replicate things desired probably is sufficient. I've used Bird Hunter 2003 to simulate shooting flying birds from various angles, speeds and distances before and during waterfowl season. It seemed to work. :D VBS2 is about being flexible software which you can plug in various hardwares. That is the key-feature of it. You can project VBS2 into widescreen which troops and shooting with real rifles. You can make rooms and project VBS2 into walls of it to present some scenario then have soldiers finish that scenario using their own rifles and gear they would carry in such case (forexample hostage-rescue). You can do these is safe conditions where there is no need for live fire, it looks realistic enough and so on. Then you can have Blackhawk's cockpit which has VBS2 as software, which pilot and forexample doorgunner uses. Heck there's even stuff like drive vehicle into airplane stuff involved. Convoy training seems to include hardware hummers and all. It looks good which is big immersion maker. It has all wanted tools for training program. Probably good customer service which can fill needs of customer. That is they key feature of it. Not that you can play some basic infantry drill with it by keyboard and mouse, COD4 (with proper tools) or ArmA would do it. And would probably cost much less. Mission editor can be used to do realistic scenarios... But when that mission is fired... Well let's just say that if i would expect armored company assault against defending mechinced company play like it would in CMSF i'd be pretty let down. And i say CMSF has it closer to reality than ArmA would. Then again if i expect that i can act like rifleman should in combat i would not be that let down. I can lean, i can crawl, i can sprint, i can shoot etc. Playing with headset with like 10 other guys we could replicate what is supposed to do in reality in similar situation as a squad. But we damn right wouldn't be playing Evo or Domination. But more likely some 5-15 minutes lasting scenario which are very limited, AI can be programmed to fit in well for that particular scenario as training target.

Niece?! LOL. You know what OFP was first about to be? Ever heard game Battlezone? If they would have kept that direction it really would have been niece game, probably might had killed BIS. But gladly no, they made it mostly infantry game... Which juuuust happened to be very hot those days and has been to this day. Tactical shooter had already emerged and seemed to sell pretty well. Hidden & Dangerous was hot in 1999, i was in Army back then and couple instructors praised it to heaves, my rig was poor at the time so i wasn't able to play other than Quake's Navy Seals mod. That was era when it became clear that Doom, Quake and such fantasy shooter were already moving into "niece markets" to make room for tactical shooters. OFP was one of many. 5 million sold games is not niece. It was not intented to be to be niece, it designed to make large piles of $$$ for those involved. I believe this firm Interactive Magic or whatever in fact made BIS to take this step from their original "Battlezone-clone" which involved just vehicles waging combat over large area. And you can thank Codemasters for them demanding/advicing BIS to include MP, because that generates even more $$$. BIS of course understands this as it doesn't want to become just niece game developer as that doesn't generate $$$. Now. (Remade) Battlezone was one of the greatest game of it's release year (maybe 1999). It mostly it got praises from reviewer, many stated it to become classic (it indeed was smoking hot game!), but sold badly and sank, because it was actual niece-game.

That is mostly blame of VBS and VBS2 as it has same engine as OFP and ArmA has. Problem is that most don't understand why it has been selected and what makes it different from ArmA... After all ArmA wasnt' selected as a training tool, but VBS2 was. Then there's statements that VBS2 and ArmA aren't that different to play (from shooter's prespective). which i can't or wont' deny because it has been made by person who has played both. He says that he can get same playing experience by playing ArmA than he gets by playing VBS2. Which i'm not denying, because i think i know what makes VBS2 so special as i've been following how they seem to be using it... However in heads of less educated gamers this creates allkinds of chemical reactions which leads to conclusion like this: VBS2 is military simulator + ArmA2 plays like VBS2 = ArmA2 is [war, military, ultimate] simulator. Then take common gamer approach that soldier are playing VBS2 all day long like gamers do play ArmA2. Bit of Evo, then Domination. Bit of singleplayer scenarios. And lunch break. So here is your answer. :D

Short answer: Inherit position in command if HQ teams gets killed. And company command does have some effect, sharing information (Big help!) and improve performance of platoons (less big help). Long answer: They serve as "information network nervepoints" Platoon sends reports to company commander and then Company HQ sends them to platoons and to batallion. They also provide additional combat perfomance boost (if they are enough skillfull compared to their men. Crack level squad might not much gain from Green HQ team). But if you have bunch green troops with ill motivation you wish to keep them under command all the time. Which is pretty much challenge with Syrian Militia troops and similar, if there's not radios but company has to lead it's platoons using loud voice and hand signals. While leading unit (be it platoon, company, battalion) is having contact to it's subordinates he will give his effect on their perfomace in battle, more motivation, leadership and i don't know how experience modifier is being alerted (these are not visible to player however). But this is mainly job of platoon leader, but Company HQ might have some effects if platoon leader and platoon in general is bad. Are they in contact or not is visible in lower left corner of screen. Red dot indicates does platoon leader have contact to company officer. Next to it there's bar where there can be picture of radio, mouth, eye, or gray device with green display (hightech gadget, you won't find Syrians having these and not all Blue either). This indicates which kind of contact they are having. Radios may not work, same with high-tech gadgets. Voice has limited range and so does visual contact to higher-ups. Getting understandment how command network work and how to keep that up does take time, and is hard to describe. But if you are playing as Stryker troops you don't need much to worry about this as US taxpayers have invested billions of dollars so that US G.I can have his gadgets. They are handful of help and enable fresh player to pretty much ignore issues with CoC, it's still healthy to keep them close to their command. But it's not demanded. One note: Now due patching it has changed to more flexible way. If Platoon HQ gets killed some other unit from that platoon will inherit this status and work as link between it's men and high-ups. Same with XO team. If Co HQ gets killed, XO will inherit leading status and company can interact between platoons and battalion. Earlier on this link was broken for good, if i recall correctly. But yet if forexmaple riflesquad is standing close to Company HQ but can't establish contact to it's platoon HQ that squad will drop off from command network. At start i used XO and Syrian command teams to work as messengers between platoons and company but it didnt' work like that. Also XO teams are good to be used as medics, so squad can leave it's casualties behind and keep on doing what they do best: fighting. I like to organize medevac teams form everything which i think is useless for given situation. Command teams, bailed out crews, even HQ teams.

Yeah. I find it funny that iv'e played OFP for years, ArmA i played year on active basis. But yet even after all that experience and getting used to time if i happen to leave month or two vacation form it i forget A. Character controls B. command system. And getting again used to them takes time. Main problem with character controls is that i haven't set them like common shooters does have them... Then again i can go into OFP and use those almost exactly same controls and not have problem with them. Reason for that is really beyond me. Zipper5: I'm not saying that arma is easy. AI doesn't even need to be turned into super snipers. But it has it's own characteristics under which it performs more or less impressively. I really doubt any Mod can make AI any better. Just as with OFP and ArmA mods can try to hide those flaws under improved accuracy and faster reactionspeed and such, but still problems with AI are visible. ArmA2 is bit more complete, but main traits still remains. They are individuals. I spent one time as civilian watching US marine squad holding village against big insurgent (hasty but basically organised) assault. Quite fast as battle unfolded both sides started to send individual men into places where they shouldn't be. There were several incidents where men from both sides wandered on field next to village. They might have tried to form pairs or such and move while supporting each of other but engine just manages to mess that up. Once i just checked how they do use flank movement to take out enemy. Enemy team was on hill US squad leader started to sent it's men into flanking it. Soon whole squad was streched into one 'several hundered of meters long flanking manuver'-column (yes long column which followed terrain features in snake-like fashion)! No one supported their attack. There's not coherent team behavior such as in OFDR. Working as member of organization works much better in OFDR. They move as coherent unit, their squad leader is much more better in using fire and movement of his squad. Heck it would be interesting to see how actual platoon does work. Problem being that it has little use in game because low entity limit... Yes OFDR also has it's problems i admit that. Many of those problems doesn't exist in ArmA2. Which is better? I really can't tell. I like the fresh opponent which OFDR offers, but at same time i look at what ArmA2 has correct (in my mind) and wish they could be melted into one package.

Or other wise. ArmA encourages into reckless behavior which COD4 doesn't allow to happen without giving penalty for it (which is virtual lead poisoning). I actually had to re-learn cover taking and make that an automatic process when wishing to play that in harder difficulties. Yup just came form playing ArmA2 demo to check this and there i was taking potshots at 10-400 meters with out bothering to take cover (besides Kneeling is bugged so aim goes way off). Only ONCE i went prone to take few shots (not to take cover however!). This in hardest difficulty on several terrains from MOUT-like terrain to open rolling hills. So yeah. I don't buy that statement that ArmA2 is somehow super demanding for realism sense. It's slightly different with it's own flaws and stongpoints (as every shooter is).

Oh TacOps! I've played the demo of some version, but really don't remember did it have such menu. Now that you mentioned it... Heck i might just go ahead and buy it to see what it is like. I did like the demo :cool:

True, current system in my opinion is best solution. I already by now am on edge that game gets far too engaging for my attention and input. That SOP system is interesting thing. I must admit i've usually skipped those discussions so i really don't have idea would it work and what has been said about it. :o Are you familiar with Airborne Assault? I don't know what Battlefront has to do with it, but their name is on it's box and if i recall they had discussion board in their old forums about it (not anymore). It had pretty interesting system, where player just gave some order to some unit(s) and game sorted the rest based on order player gave to them (Use of fire, speed etc). It was freaking odd to just give orders and see then being carried on in way which i by myself could not have done (i tried it but casualty figures were ten times bigger and my assaults dried up far more often). I don't know how damned hard that would be to code in and how well it would work in 3D-game like CMSF. Probably too hard and not working at all :mad:

Real world military tactics is interesting question. How "real world" they are? Not too close i'm sure. Because it's just game which can't go to details which real world sets, and by that it's leaves space for "abuse". I'd dare to say that technical stuff (specs of weapon systems) is enough close to really consider it to be very complete simulation for those parts. They have tons of military experts in beta-team and community who really knows this stuff and developers does listen to them with open ears and are quite interested themselves about such stuff, their head designer is even participating into discussions on very active basis and one has to really know his stuff and prove his point of view to get it thru. But in tactical scale it still leaves things to desire for "ultimate realism" sense... which ofcourse is plainly absurd to demand, but is interesting question. So. It's game after all and is supposed to be fun (fun for wargamer atleast). Main problem is that breaking CoC isn't that bad. Units do operate under borgish collective mind (=player or AI's plan). There's no "friction of war". Platoon leaders, squad leaders, team leaders does "know" what player (=company/batallion commander) wants of them even if their higher ups have died, radios are not working leader and subordinate can't establish visual or vocal contact with each of other etc. CMSF does model COC and it's breakbility to very fine detail, but still when COC is broken for example in company-platoon level, platoons will carry on fullfilling stuff by players choosing, basically just their combat-efficency is being reduced. While in reality they would halt and start be asking from each of other "wtf we should do now?"... Sure they would send messengers (as for one option to do in such situation) on way to take contact, but that takes time and will slow things down a lot. So generally i'd say that player doesn't need to think so stiffly than actual leader has to based on how to plan missions so that they are reliably executed under worst possible situation, when there's no high-tech (radios or other gadgets) or it doesn't work. In CMSF this generates lots of room for errors without much fear of back-fires. Plans doesn't need to be so robust (=tied to tried and tested structure which generates them to be more or less stiff and formal). Good example of this is small arms and how they don't cause friendly fire (everything bigger than rifle caliber does generate however). Players and game probably couldn't handle that so it has been left out. Storming building with one team while rest of platoon supports by fire forexample is much-much more easy and fast to organize than in reality it would. Another is use of smoke to cover own movement and doings. In reality smoke drifting in wrong direction can have really fatal results: manuvering unit goes blind, gets lost ending into minefiled, enemy killzone, units getting mixed and whole plan going bad etc. In CMSF they just don't see anythign (not able to spot and fire hostiles) but can move in thick smoke without fear of getting lost, mixed or anything. These are two which comes to mind straight away. I'm just NCO who used (note word 'used') to lead just a squad and cooperate with Junior officer in charge of platoon so i can't tell much about higher stuff, but based on what i know these kind of things gets harder when command level gets higher. Very much harder if proper SOPs and procedures are left out. So it's interesting question indeed.

Pacific Assault on hardest difficulty level. It scolded me, broke me and made me better man... Okay i've had bit of booze. Really: I don't see how it turned into joke? [i'm sure you do] Anything in the game which involved aircrafts or not shooting things (that ship part) involved was terrible. Had jungle (bit too few, bit too tunnel like), campaign had strong moments, no Nazis, no Stg44. I despised MOH-name. I was rather hard OFP fan when i played it first time and still i approved it (unlike Farcry forexample). So sue me.

I don't know about war theme. Don't much listen the words, but sounds does rock. Thing i generally like about UK metal bands (well i don't know many of them) is their guitar riffs. Bolt Thrower plays in my player quite purely because of that, it's just great to hear that guitar gets handled in way that snot flies all over the place (i'm not much of music expert or play anything ;) ). I could see (or hear) this playing in my player from time to time. Yet i'm more Dimmu Borgir liker... Something like complex(-ish), apocalyctic Black metal or something like that (if there has to be definition), or then light folk metal. But this is good basic metal, which works. So yeah. Thumbs up. EDIT: Damn you aren't British. :o Just reminded so much from Bolt Thrower so i presumed automatically so. My bad :D (well i said i'm not much of an music expert)