T.S.C.Plage

333 may sound much if you look at it as a whole but if you split that up to 10 years of war it gives you 33 a year. That's not that much if you consider the circumstances. The coalition forces in Afghanistan lost more then 15 helicopters so far this year and they've much more sofisticated stuff flying around then the Russians had during their intervention. Not to mention that the AA(A) threat is currently much lower then it was during the time of the Russian Afghanistan war.

Like I already wrote Skywar.ru and also other sources say that it were 333 helicopters at all not only Mi-24s. Most of them were Mi-8s. But I've to correct myself because production numbers of D, V and P versions should be about 2000. That's of course the case. I even heard stories that the former National Peoples Army of the German Democratic Republic had to "lend" some of their relativly new Mi-24s back to the SU because they needed them down their and that some they got back were badly shot up and only rudimentary repaired. That's why they (started to) operate in pairs or even bigger numbers. Can't you read? I wrote that 16 were lost to manpads from '85 on and not that only 16 were lost. It were much more. http://www.skywar.ru/afghanistanen.html

This would mean that about 1/4 of all produced D and P versions got shot down (or were lost elsewise) which is way too much. No, it was a Mi-24 and I was told that the crew survived and got rescued by an other helicopter.

Just in case you didn't know. (switch to 1:20)

Skywar.ru actually mentions 333 total losses of helicopters (includes also non-combat losses). The first Mi-24 downed by a MANPOD (manpad) is mentioned on 15th November 1985. In total only 16 Mi-24 losses to manpads are reported till the end of the war.

Maybe you mean the Special Forces soldiers? They wear vests which may appear black in a video. If so you can find them under BLUFOR -> USA -> Men (Special Forces).

Lol, when I wear a helmet only the aramid one and that's not issued by mum. ;)

Drawing a pistol in ArmA2 takes about a second. It's just a scroll and click. I don't know where your problem is. Infact you're right but for me it's simply not the case that I ever had the feeling that myself or my opponents are reloading too fast or slow. Like I said before there're much more important things that have to fixed than some missing reload anims and times. Respectfully, then you haven't verbalised it very well. So what you're actually bemoaning is that you don't press your cheek on to the buttstock while looking through the optics, right? If so you're talking about some few centimeters here concerning consealment. Before you mentioned it I never even thought about it. Maybe because it's simply unimportant in 99,9% of all cases. I don't get what you mean but I suggest you better leave my family members out of your comments!

#1: Pistols are backup weapons and not the holy cow of CQB. I don't have any problems with the anims as they're. Maybe you can explain a little more what is so cumbersome and downright suicidal? #2: Which is quite ok (except for the belt-fed weapons) or would you say that f.e. reloading an AK takes more or less time then reloading an M16 in RL? Your "running through" bushes point is correct but is that really animation related or would a "can't move while reloading" feature simply do it? #3: This point is nonsense it actually is the other way around. The barrel of the weapon is not at the height of the optics which means that you may can look over an obstacle and have a clear view but your barrel could still be at an height where it's blocked. You can simply check that in any other then frist person view and you'll see that everything is correct here. The problem is that the barrel has no collision which means you can mostly stick it into the ground or and obstacle without even noticing it if you're looking through the optics. It seems like you should stay with the standard ego-shooters because ArmA seems to be a little too much (or less) for you.

I don't know where you look but it has a lot more then roughly 30...click. But let's put it together. I count about 11 diffrent types of rocket/missile launchers, 10 types of pistols, PDWs and MPs, ~10 diffrent types of assault rifles and ~10 sniper and anti-material rifles plus some various unique things like the M79 which would all need more or less special animations. Rifle mounted grenade launchers also need at least a single animation per type. This sums up to about 50 diffrent anims which all had to be recorded and/or animated and squeezed through the pipeline till you have them ingame. That's a lot of work and you don't even have the statics included. I completly understand what you mean but for me it's not the case that I've problems with (not existing) "weapon" animations. I'm struggling with other things that need to get fixed with a much higher priority. Infact it's just eyecandy we're talking about. No matter if they record or animate it otherwise. It's quite a lot of work. I know that compared to other games the BIS animations aren't top of the notch. I played around myself enough with them to know that many things from simply a proper naming to better transitions could need a fix. Not to talk about some new animations that are really needed but I also see that with the evolution of the BIS games they got better and better on this part. I just think everything demanded here is not of top priority. Sure it would be nice to have pilots actually moving the controls in aircrafts and what not but is this really important considering the dimension of this game? It may add to the immersion but I actually never had the feeling I'm missing this or that animation in a firefight or what ever but maybe I'm not playing these "other" games often enough to actually miss something like that.

I agree with you that animations are something the developer has to focus on because unfortunately nobody in the community will have his own mocap studio at home. New models and other additions can be very well done by the com itself but as you already mention the old "OFP spirit" seems to get flushed down the drain more and more by the way BIS seems to work now (f.e. buying off modelers of the community to create DLC). Read something about the problems right here. http://pro.bistudio.com/index.php/services/motion-capture/fingers-motion-capture.html I don't know the second part but how many weapons do you had in part 1 exactly. IIRC not more then 10. How many do you have in ArmA? Mmmmmkay? For not knowing how it (mocap) and they (BIS) work exactly you're quite demanding. There're a couple of things you've to consider. For example how many people have to work on an animation compared to a model or island (map). While the last can be done by a single person to create an animation takes at least three (actor, operator and animator). I agree that modeling or creating a map is much more time consuming then to capture some anims but I'd say the mocap guys also get a higher pay (not sure here but they're more specialized then 3d artists f.e. which you can find like sand on the beach nowadays). Is there even free space in the studio? As far as I know BIS also rents it's studio to other interested parties because it's not exactly cheap to build and maintain such a studio.

BIS works with an Optitrack/Arena mocap system for the general movements. This system relays on markers attached to the suite of the actor while the cameras record the positions of the markers. If markers get covered up which is definetly the case if you crouch on the ground the system loses track and starts to bug. This means you'll have to manually rework the datas and fill in the missing positions of the markers or completly create the animation by hand. I guess that's the reason why it looks a bit odd.

I don't know where to start and where to end so I just pick some of your points and tell you my opinion about them but at first you should know/understand that motion capturing is not as easy as it may seems. Besides it's not exactly cheap to record animations even if BIS has it's own studio (btw, a quite good one as I noticed). There are actors and operators that have to get payed, most recorded datas have to be cleaned which is extra work and so on. They aren't "pretty much the same" if you want correct animations. For example the charging handle of an AK is on the right side of the weapon (attached to the bolt) while an M16 has it at the back of the upper receiver (behind and below the carrying handle). So you actually can't use the same anims. This counts for many other rifles, too. As far as I remember an M203 is loaded from the back while an GP25/30 is loaded from the front which means two diffrent anims again. This would mean you'd have to record or at least manually adjust any animation for the specific type of rifle because locations of mags and chambers vary from type to type. Same as above...f.e. M249 mag under the weapon belt-fed from left, M240 mag left of weapon fed from left, PKM mag under the weapon fed from the right and so on. Means special anim for every MG needed. Guess... RPGs and such ok but AT4s and LAWs are "throw away" weapons they don't get reloaded. As you can see from what I wrote above that's not possible. You'd have to record specific anims for each gun preferably with a model of that weapon in the hand of the actor. To record one "general" anim and make it fit to diffrent kinds of weapons is a lot of work. The grenade is actually created if it leaves the hand but I don't have a problem with it as you also don't have any visible nades on your gear. The soldier just makes a grap anim and then has one. What do you want? That the guy actually takes off his backpack, takes out the satchel, places it and then puts back on his backpack? This would blow everything out of proportion in a game like ArmA. Not to talk about the performance issues that may come up if you've a shitload of new anims. I actually don't need much more special anims and I don't think it's actually that kind of important for the immersion like you feel it is. But I agree that some already existing anims could need some tweaking and that some few newly added ones would make sense like f.e. some diffrent "get in" anims.

+2 Seems like you visited the wrong Anime/Hentai p0rn sites. ;) You can try and run the tool provided in the following link and see if anything comes up. http://www.free-av.com/de/tools/4/avira_antirootkit_tool.html

Or something like this? http://www.arma2.com/comref/comref.html

Strange, I've an other chart here which doesn't looks that good for the US of A.

Last time I checked a modern torpedo could very well sink a modern carrier. Btw, some photos of your invincible carriers taken through the periscopes of some old German diesel-electric subs. The Enterprise The George Washington And no, the carriers didn't knew the subs were there and the US admiralty wasn't happy.

Concerning... 1. Yes, many more aerials should have designators by default. I think ACE fixes this issue. 2. Is the pilot in reality able to control the gun or even the hellfires? If not I don't see the need for it. Yes, I know for MP but...get a gunner damnit. 3. Actually it's not only the dome but everything above the rotor head. In fact many of the models aren't 100%ly accurate. I guess one reason is to save some polygones. The other is that the 3D artist don't have or get the best reference material (blueprints etc.) for their work nor do they run around the originals with a 3D-scanner. Therefore you'll always have some "anomalies" in the models. About the shiny look. It's not an "engine limitation" or what ever. You can make them less shining by reworking the "_smdi" textures a bit. Works wonders! I never was a fan of this new "shine" feature introduced with ArmA. Btw, somethings wrong with the specular of the hellfires. They're nearly looking like chromed if the light comes from the wrong direction.

That's quite an interesing opinion considering what you posted so far. Maybe because of the alliance but I somehow have the feeling that this "Eather you're with us or against us" talk had also a big effect in it. Besides that I think my government thought we're some kind of responsible because some of the terrorists made station here before the attacks. I generally have a problem how easy our entry was declared. I mean the USA weren't attacked by the military of a soverign country so in my opinion the "collective defence" part doesn't take effect here. What you mention here are the worst reasons a country should go to war for even if it's a country which has such close relations like the UK has to the USA. And that's the point! We're more threatend now then we ever were before. The message was faul from the beginning but you're right that changing the reasons doesn't helped out to build the trust in to the government in the population of many, especially European countries. I think you unwillingly mentioned a reason why soldiers are still willing to go there considering they already know it's not for what they've been told. It's money and besides that where can a man nowadays experience something like adventure and can become a "hero" (and even get payed for it). Which is good because these wars are unjust in many, many ways. ---------- Post added at 04:57 AM ---------- Previous post was at 04:33 AM ---------- Why did I knew that you don't like him? That's not true 14th SFOD was there in '56 already. Not to talk about the guys from the drug traficking agency. I know it maybe difficult to understand for you but if the UK wouldn't have been involved in these wars these bombings may would have never taken place. Since it's impossible to prove the opposite I stick with this opinion.

Maybe Dr. Ron Paul republican candidate for the presideny in 2008? And JFK didn't started the war. Infact it was started already during the time of Eisenhower. JFK was dead before the real intervention started. I don't need you to tell me that you're proud of me, thanks. I was always talking rational. The problem is that you (Americans) tend to think everything "contra" has to be leftist, communist, tree-hugging, tin foil headed or what else but that's simply not the case. If I wouldn't care I wouldn't waste my time with posting here. The patriotism you were raised with unfortunately makes you blind on one eye and you can't see that good with just one left. The "pay for itself" lie is a good example how these few people betrayed you and it's by the way something that the mentioned Dr. Paul was very concenerd about. You see I really like this guy. You should check out some of his speeches etc. (f.e. on youtube). I guess you'll like him, too...at least a bit. ;) I'm sorry to disappoint you but I don't have the feeling that I'm mislead by our medias. Our media is unfortunately much more free and unbiased then yours. Same goes for much of the European medias and I'm lucky to be able to understand two other languages besides German so I'm able to check out quite a couple of diffrent sources (pro and contra). Yes, I know quite a bit about what lead to this mess but since it "officially" started in '65 (with troops and not only "advisors") I'm not so wrong. Of course you had your fingers in there before so if you want you can add another 10 years to the 50 to make it 60 years ago. /edit: @ Big Mac: Sorry I did forget to answer to this part of your post. I already mentioned the Trans-Afghanistan-Pipeline before which is in my opinion the most interesting economical reason but besides that Afghanistan has also larger resources of gold, copper, iron, lithium and cobalt. But I'm not sure if this played a role here because I don't know if this fact was known already before the war started.

For you people like JFK, Dr. King and nowadays Dr. Paul also have to be anti-american then? Yes, America helped to save the world more then ones and guess what I'm more then thankfull about that. I grew up in the so called American sector of West-Berlin and my father and his brothers were some of the boys that caught the parachutes that Gail Halvorsen and his friends were throwing out of their planes during the blockade. I've to tell only good things about you and never felt you were occupiers but close friends who care for other nations people. But all this seems to have changed drastically. I want back the old America from about 50 years ago that didn't started aggressiv wars and didn't go to war without a declaration and for lower (economical) reasons. You say yourself that Iraq was a big mistake and you were betrayed by some few (with which I think you mean your former president and his coatholders) but the same unfortunately goes for Afghanistan, too. Yes, my country is also involved but I'm surely not down with it even if I was a soldier in our military myself and have friends who were down there. If my voice would count we would be gone yesterday already because in my opinion this is just a massive waste of resources (human and financial).

It's useless to discuss with indoctrinated, literally brainwashed people like you who view the world with blinders. I gave you enough stuff to think about and work with but you're unable to question yourself "maybe we did something wrong". An error doesn't become a mistake until your refuse to correct it. Come to your senses!

Ok... It's quite understandable that you don't get the point which by the way you doesn't seem to get very often anyways. That's because you're ripping anything out of context and read between the lines when there's actually nothing to read. I wrote... Which means you attack a whole country to get one man! How many civilians (not to mention allied troops) died because of the search for this single man? If f.e. the UK would have measured the same way the USA did and does then they would have invaded Ireland long time ago already. But you've the big inside view or what? Oh, really. Tell me something new. The thing is for many of the people there there's no Afghanistan or Pakistan. They only know about Waziristan (which you call NWFP). Because it's impossible! In many cases it seem like you wanted to fuck up. You could f.e. have got him as was in the Saudi hospital because of his kidney problems. Actually the Saudis served him on a silver platter but you didn't acted. Why? I tell you because Mr. Oil was a big buddy of Bin Laden, Saddam and even the Taliban. Your government made them to what you now want them for. Think about that! These overhyped guys were quite usefull against the Russians but now as they don't dance to your whistle anymore they're trash unable or unwilling to find a man which you with all your hightech and what ever can't trace. I personally think he's dead but this is a big problem because if he's dead there actually isn't a reason to search for him anymore. Which means no money for the bang-bang anymore. Holding them responsible and punishing them are two diffrent things but I'm not sure if you Americans understand the diffrence. You at least don't seem to. My point is that somebody came up with telling us that the or at least an important reason to be there is the war against drugs. I just showed you that your very own institutions are deeply involved in what is condemned here.

Yeah, jump on the tin foil bandwagon if you run out of arguments. For sure they wouldn't have even bought half of that stuff. No IED threats = no MRAPs needed No stuff to bomb = no new ordonance No need to fly and spy = no UAVs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_drug_trafficking

Want o buy an iPhone? http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=105118