Tigran

Sorry you got banned man, but you had it coming. I dont know what maps you are playing, but the realism in this game on the part of the AI is terrible! Unlike most here, I have seen combat, have fired the vast majoraty of the weapons in this game and personally own many of them. The best detachment of Rangers could not fire with the accuracy that the AI has in this game. I do often see the guy that shots me, he is usually on the other end of the field looking back at me through the iron sights of his AK and nailing my prone guy with a single burst from a standing possition at 300 meters - that is total BS! In Arma if you see an enemy detachment your only chance is to have hard cover, take a single shot and book permanently because even though with good aim you will drop a guy, maybe two, the rest of his squad magically knows exactly where you are at, spots you and goes to town with uncanny accuracy. It just doesnt work that on a battlefield. Even if you are alert, there is no way in hell you can even tell from what direction the first shot that wizzed past you came from. The concussion of the sonic boom surrounds you and the corking from the muzzle is drowned out. If the siper is well-hidden, it will take at least 3-4 shots to determine within 10 degrees his direction and distance. To actually find him, especially in the daytime without muzzle fash... In Iraq a sniper team will drop 10 guys before the rest even know what direction to point their guns in. Time and time again I will see an enemy detachment walk through my field of fire, take a shot and then get blown up by a TANK that was rumbling half a mile away in another direction. Let me tell you something - when you are rolling in ANY tracked vehicle you are wearing inches of ear protection because the thing is damn loud. You talk to one another via headsets even though you are sitting 2ft from one another. Guys know when to jump out because a light turns on. A guy could be 10 yards away unloading his AK or throwing bricks at your rig and you would never know it! Please tell me how does an AI tank instantaniously know exactly where I am at when I take a shot at his buddies whom themselves are out of his line of sight? I think the biggest missing part in the AI is the sence of self-preservation, which we all have. When you shoot at a group of people, you never see them start pointing their guns around, etc. They run for the closest cover they can find, evaluate where the shots are coming from and act on that. The actions of the AI troops when they come under fire is unrealistic. I am not saying that it should be a total turkey shoot, but there is a blance of self-preservation vs attack that is absent here, which makes these virtual engagement very weird for me...

I have been an OpFlash fan before it got released in the US. I own 9 copies (used to run a big LAN party twice a month). I had been watching the shelves for "op flash 2" and missed the Arma release. Now that I got it, I am stunned to see that everyone is playing coop. Why? The AI is TERRIBLE! I am being sniped by AKs from 300+ yards by a guy that doesnt even have line of sight on me! The other half of the online players are doing some RP RTS game that I tried to play and could not figure out. Good concept, but did you guys seriously buy Arma to play an RPG?? This game was made for PvP - CTF, Hold, etc. After playing coop for a few days online, I got sick of it, loaded up my hosted server with the right files and started my own game (there are almost no PvP servers out there!. Now its really hard to get people in there. The server is blazing fast, has over 10mbps of bandwidth, set up to play all of the Berzerk maps and it sits empty 90% of the time... I just dont get it... I have never seen anyone playing Battlefield2 or any of the other dozens of genre games in coop like players are doing here.

in the meantime anyone have any idea as to why the background GIF wont insert for me? Tyson

Man, I have been working with CAD/CAm proggies for about 5 years now and this thing is nuts! Like nothing else that I have used and not having any type of a manual is painfull. I downloaded all 3 of the tutorials but have had little luck. Got through the first one, no problems. Now on the 3rd (make an M16) tutorial and stuck at step 1. The English use in the tutorial is poor and I might be misunderstanding something but it says: "...place a picture in the background. You can fit it at any modeling window. Just press key "A", left click and drag in one of modeling window, then right click in selection. From menu select "Load Texture" and pick texture m16_FM.gif." Ok, I got Oxygen light running, press A on the main screen, drag left mouse button to make a box, right click in the box, select the gif file, click OK and NOTHING HAPPENS. I tried it again and again and again. Looking at the upper left hand corner on the example picture it shows "Front Texture: data\ M16_FM.pac" Mine says "Texture: Null" I cant figure this out!! Also, I have this feeling that this will not be the first time that this happens. Good techinical writers are hard to find. I am not complaining, this program will allow me to do what I have been wanting to do for so many months, but there has got to be a better tutorial somewhere. Does anyone know of one? Thanks, Tyson