pooroldspike

Bot Tigris vs NATO Greyhawk (CAS) drone I set the drones 'this flyInHeight 25000' and the Tigris shot it down with combined missile and cannon fire (below) which was surprising. It doesn't look like its 25 kms high to me, I must have got the fly in height script or waypoint procedure wrong?

I never, but NEVER, play 1st person because it's too downright restrictive and unrealistic, like playing with a paper bag on your head with a few holes to look through. It's especially horrific if you're an AFV driver because you'll spend the whole game looking through the drivers slit without a clue what's going on all around you. (yawn). Give me 3rd person every time so you can look around, see your character, your vehicle, your kool uniform and the weapons and equipment you're carrying, and whether you're crouching, standing, bleeding or puking etc..:)

Bot Missile Specialist (AA) He fires when the chopper closes to about 500 metres range- ------------------------------------------------------------------ Note: all the above AA tests were carried out with bot shooters, but human shooters do much better. For example as we just saw, the bot Missile Specialist (AA) fired at 500 metres, but if you're human you can lock on and fire at about 1250 metres (below)- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Tigris under human control also performs much better. As we saw in the earlier Tigris test, a bot crew will begin firing AA missiles and the twin 35mm cannon at about 1200 metres range, but as this test below shows, a human gunner can open up at an incredible 9000 metres (yes,9 kilometres!) Your standard zoom through the Tigris gunner optics sees nothing except a label (this is Regular difficulty level as are all the tests).. But the zoomed view reveals the chopper.. And it appears on the map 9kms away as a faint blue ghost. (the blue becomes more solid when you get a positive I.D later) ..so just lock him and let fly.. At night you can use IR to see him.. Tactical note: of course during an actual game there's no guarantee you'll spot incoming targets at such long ranges, especially if you're looking the other way, or weather/visibility is poor, or if he's approaching from behind hills etc.

The choppers view from the start of the show- It detects the Tigris at about 6kms range but can't positively identify it, the readout reads 'Tank', and the blip at top (arrowed) is a vague yellow. The unarmed observation chopper is quite safe at this long range and has done its job by detecting something out there for other friendly units to check out and deal with.. ..but let's be gungho for fun and get in closer.. Aha, now at about 3 kms out we get a positive I.D. and the blip has turned red. The Tigris hasn't fired yet so we could still u-turn and get the hell out if we wanted.. ..zoom sees nothing.. ..but let's continue flying towards the beast.. ..and at about 1200m I suddenly hear a crazy warning trilling sound like a canary on crack, the radar panel turns red to signify I've been locked, and a Titan comes flying up, don't you just hate it when that happens?.. ..ouch.. ..and as the chopper drops like a spinning stone, the Tigris hoses it down with cannon fire for good measure.. SUMMARY: There are too many permutations to test, so bear in mind there are variables that might or might not affect results, such as- Difficulty level (I used Regular) Day/night Fog/mist/rain etc Human crews might perform better Different choppers and aircraft might be harder or easier to shoot down depending on their size, radar/IR signature and ability to withstand damage, and whether they can jam missiles or pop flares etc. Speed and altitude would also play a part, for example a contour-hugging approach would give good cover.

TIGRIS in action It packs Titan AA missiles and a twin 35mm cannon.. The bot crew launches a Titan at about 1200 metres.. Grids are 1000m at this scale.. Missile about to strike home.. Direct hit! The cannons also open up.. ..and pour fire into the chopper during its fatal descent into the sea..

I just began a series of Anti-Aircraft fire tests here..:)- http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?175240-Weapon-tests&p=2690752#post2690752

ANTI-AIRCRAFT FIRE TESTS I'll test the other mines later but meanwhile I thought I'd start this test series to find out at what ranges enemy bots will engage with various weapons. I'll begin with small arms and work up through heavier stuff and missiles later. I set it at dusk so we can see their tracer and muzzle flashes better. I'm flying an unarmed Hummingbird slowly at a group of 7 bots on the headland. RIFLEMEN They begin opening up at about 400 metres and I start taking hits- Zoom-I see no tracer but can see their muzzle flashes and hear bullets cracking, the chopper was riddled and dropped like a stone into the sea a few seconds later.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ AUTORIFLEMEN They opened fire at about 600m, plenty of tracers and I was in the drink within seconds.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mk 30 HMG .50 They started shooting at about 1000m, the high-velocity tracers came up so fast that I was barely able to capture them for a screenshot. I was dead meat real quick, nobody better mess with them boys..

APERS BOUNDING MINE It's another ground-sitter and is triggered by an IR or radar fuse when some poor schmuck gets too close.. You can run past it at about 10 metres range like this and not trigger it.. But if you try to run past it at less than around 10m like this you've had your chips.. ..because it'll pop up like this.. and detonate at head height.. Now let's find out its lethal radius. I place one in the middle of the group and run onto it.. ..and it hurts people out to about 20 metres.. SUMMARY: It's more lethal than the non-bounding APERS Mine because by popping up and detonating in the air, its blast and shrapnel is spread over a wider area, and it can detect people at a greater range. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Here's a recap of the explosive toys currently in Arma3, the Explosives Specialist carries all the items in the top pic, and the other 3 can be found in Explosive crates- At great personal risk, so far i've tested these below. When the local natives see me coming they run for cover shrieking- "Aieee! it is he who walks with danger!" M6 Slam AT mine (page 5) Explosive Charge (p 6) Explosive Satchel (p8) Claymore (pp 10/11) APERS mine (p11) APERS bounding mine (p11)

I've carefully examined vehicle softskin targets for signs of claymore ball bearing holes but haven't seen any, so presumably they're abstracted in Arma3. For example this one had its tyres and windows blown out by a claymore blast into its side but I can't see any holes in the bodywork-

APERS MINE IN ACTION (Hey noobs- if you haven't already guessed, APERS stands for anti-personnel. There are currently two APERS mines in AA3, one is simply called 'APERS Mine' and is the subject of this test, and the other is the 'APERS Bounding Mine' which jumps in the air, I'll test that later. Another kind of anti-personnel mine can be sown in groups from an artillery shell which i'll also test later) The APERS Mine looks how mines should look- thoroughly nasty.. They sit on the ground like this but of course would be harder to spot in grass or night. Here I run past it at about a metre away and it doesn't explode.. But on the return run I get very close.. and it goes off, ouch that hurt.. Next, I place one in the middle of a bunch of infantry and run at it to find out its lethal blast radius.. ..the blast kills and injures people out to a range of about 5 metres.. SUMMARY: They detonate if you get closer than about a metre even if you don't step on them, maybe they pick up vibration of footsteps through the ground, or have an IR body-heat detector or radar fuse. Tactically squads should stay dispersed from each other by over 5 metres so that if somebody gets blown up nobody else will get hurt. Ideally squads should move in single file if mines are suspected in the vicinity, so that only the point man gets zapped

CLAYMORES against VEHICLES No effect against these first four (T-100, Kamysh, Hunter, Marshall), not even the Hunter and Marshalls tyres were blown out, they must be heavy-duty military tyres. But these 3 were hurt bad, top left is the Zamax truck which had it's tyres blown out, but it didn't burn. Top right is the Offroader, it burnt bad, and bottom is the Quadbike which was also toasted- Summary: the Claymore can't hurt tanks. light armour and lightly-armoured wheeled vehs, but it can hurt softkins.

Thanks mate we'll take your word for it..:) Yes I like the RPG for short-range work because you can aim it at any spot of your choice, but the lockable Titans and PCML's automatically lock onto the centre of mass which might not be a weak spot. These two other guys also mentioned weak spots on page 1- Maturin said- "the tanks have hitzones now. If you get a weak spot, you can kill a T-100 with a single RPG (unguided) to the front. And last night I cooked a T-100 with one RPG to the rear turret" Alinixwissen said- "Slammer(both): underside of the tank (1 AT mine is enough to bail the crew other tanks take at least 2 the Kuma takes 3) crew hatched (at the rear of the tank) T-100: rear and side turret structure between the turret and the main body Top of the turret Kuma: top of the turret side of the turret structure between the turret and the main body no garantee for that info but thats what i have experienced"

CLAYMORES against INFANTRY Here's one with a rifle for size comparison. The blast comes out of this convex side, I think its a zillion ball-bearings.. ..so face yourself towards the enemy when you place it.. That's it on the ground just above my head.. Trigger by radio command or on a 40-second timer. Note you can be quite close behind it like this and not get hurt, but don't push your luck because in some tests I DID get wounded, so stay further back than this.. ..the casualty pattern shows the blast is fan-shaped. Some bots were killed, some wounded and some unscathed but were upset and shot at me, note the red tracer from a slug hitting my chest.. Below- in this test I moved the claymore back a bit so its blast fan would cover all the bots. Like before, it produced a mix of killed, wounded and upset, but the blast must run out of punch at longer range because the bots at the back are still on their feet. (Note: if a bot goes prone it doesn't necessarily mean he's dead or hurt, he can still shoot at you so watch out)..

I'm fed up playing against bots, so if there's anybody out there who wants to drop me an email anytime pooroldspike (at) aol (dotcom) we can fix up a game, whether you're groups, or just 1, 2 or 3 guys. I like a mix of fun and realism. For example we could do a simple mission where I have to sneak into a harbour in a sub, and you have to hunt me from a rubber boat, dropping grenades like depth charges. Or I could man an AA battery and you have to come in fast and low in a contour-hugging Neophron jet from a direction of your choice to catch me napping and blow up the control tower. Or we could do a 'night saboteur' mission, the possiblities are endless, I'm open to all suggestions. We can swop sides after each game to see if we can score better than the other guy. I haven't played multiplayer for a couple of years (with AA2) so I'm a bit rusty at how to set up multiplayer in AA3, but like i said drop me a mail and let's talk. I'm retired and have got all the time in the world, I'm in England but my body clock easily adjusts to any time zone..:) I played the Combat Mission series at the Few Good Men and other clubs for 10 years

Just found this useful link- http://killzonekid.com/arma-3-how-to-aim-mk6-mortar-in-first-person/

Thanks, I couldn't seem to find a far button but I'll run some more tests later. Presumably the rounds i've been using were all the "short" range variety with less propellant charge. Meanwhile here are the final screenshots from the "short" range mode- Ranging: Pgup and Pgdown are the default keys to adjust elevation, i'll try ELV: 88 degrees which is almost vertical, it can't be elevated higher than this, but nobody would want to anyway or they'd be bombarding themself.. ..This is how 88 degrees looks.. Bang, the round lands just 35 metres away at 88 degrees elev.. ..and this is ELV: 45 degrees which gives a max range of 500 metres, it can't be depressed any lower than this.. 45 degrees The mortar is presumably fitted with a laser rangefinder, here it reads RNG:706 to the control tower. The big red 'X' is an 'out of range' indicator.. ..but this structure is RNG:195, well within range, so there's no red 'X'.. I bombard the radar thingy for fun.. The test data chart: it's necessary to know the range to the target in order to use this chart. Example- if the rangefinder reads 315 metres, you'll need an elevation of 70 degrees. But if the range reads 270 metres you'll need to guess at an elevation of about 73 degrees. But don't get too fixated on the chart; just use it to get a rough initial idea of what elevation you need, then regard your first round as a "spotting" round, and walk the rest towards the target with the elevation keys and your eyeballs, especially as it's often difficult to get an accurate range reading through shrubbery etc or on flat ground where there's nothing for the laser to get its teeth into..

Manually firing the NATO M6 82mm Mortar (I placed an empty M6 and fired it myself. No wind) I could only get 500 metres max range out of it when manually firing it in the 3D world, I thought 82mm mortars could do a lot better than that? The Altis runway provides a flat testing ground.. The round explodes down the runway.. I hop in the Hunter and go park on the crater.. ..and the map reveals the range is 460 metres (each grid sq is 100m) (I did the Hunter shuttle to and from all the other craters during the tests to take range readings from the map)

Yes, and I think some real-world helicopter-launched Hellfire AT missiles do something like that, certainly they did in some heli flight sims I had. The chopper hovers behind a hill and slowly pops up to look over the top so the sensors can take an "IR picture". The chopper then quickly drops back down behind the hill and the gunner looks at the picture and decides which target to engage, so he feeds in the target coordinates to the Hellfire's computer, then launches the Hellfire. It zooms up over the hill then dives on the coordinates, locking onto the tank with its IR seeker during the descent.

Haha yes, Arma3 is set in the future so I suppose weapon scientists will have invented "miracle missiles" by then, so we're lucky to have them in the game here and now if we like fictitious Star Wars technology..;) But at least bots don't know all these little things! Where can I find the penetration testing script? Incidentally all my tests are vanilla Arma3 straight out of the box without any mods or addons, except for updates (currently on v 1.18). It's worth remembering that if each update is going to introduce new tweaks they might make some of my earlier tests in this thread obsolete which can't be helped, but I will go back and edit earlier old test posts if and when they need it.

Ha ha okay i'll tell the secret! Here are the two pics again, I'm on the hill looking at that T-100.. And in this second pic I've made it pop smoke.. Here's how:- It was an EMPTY T-100, and I placed a friendly bot rifleman down near it (he's too small to see in the pics). I made him 'Playable'. I then hit 'U' (team switch) to put myself in his body, climbed aboard the tank, popped the smoke, then team switched back to myself up on the hill in the blink of an eye..:)

Dunno if there are tables anywhere, but I'm going to do some mortar/arty tests soon if you want to keep an eye on this thread- http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?175240-Weapon-tests EDIT- I just ran some mortar tests on pages 9 and 10

Ach sooo, danke mein herr.. I just ran some tests to confirm it and yes, rifle grenades can wreck a Kuma track, but I wasn't able to disable the main gun, I fired at it's trunnion area where it enters the turret but maybe I didn't score enough hits, or missed its weak spot if its got one. Here the Kuma track gets it.. I board the empty tank and see the track damage is red. I tried driving it but it just spun around.. I restarted with a bot crew aboard, fired at the track again and they bailed.. I restarted with an empty tank and fired grenades at the optics on the top of the turret and climbed aboard to check for damage, and found the commanders HMG and his optics were jammed, but the main gun still worked, maybe I didn't score enough hits on the gunners tiny hard-to-hit optic, or missed it completely. I restarted 3 more times and poured grenades into the hull front, side and rear in turn, but the hits had no effect at all ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For good measure, I then ran the tests again with this T-100, and the results were exactly the same as against the Kuma, namely:- rifle grenade hits on the track will make the crew bail, Hits on the optic array will jam the commanders HMG and jam his optics. The main gun seemed to be too tough to hurt. The hull front/side/rear weren't even scratched. Below: the T-100 track getting it.. ..and the crew bail because presumably the hits have damaged the track. They begin shooting at me, what cheek! PS:- likeJgBtl292 said, patch 1:18 (which I'm now on) must have made the Gren launcher slightly more effective against tracks because in tests on early pages of this sensational thread it didn't seem able to damage tracks or force crew bails at all, so i've just edited the early posts to take these startling new revelations into account.

AT MISSILES AS BUNKER BUSTERS These tests are mostly for noobs to show you can still fire at bunkers and buildings and anything else even if you can't get a lock. (only vehicles are warm enough to be locked). The Missile Specialist (AT) Titan is best because its a beam-rider and will fly down the scope crosshairs at whatever you lay the hairs on.. (target is that bunker on the hillside, range 340m).. The Titan missile in flight. It's not locked remember, the launcher is projecting a radio beam at the crosshair centre and the missile is following the beam like a bloodhound.. direct hit.. burn baby.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Next is the Nato Rifleman (AT) with his PCML launcher.. It's not a beam-rider, so you have to use your eyeball to judge trajectory, here I lay the sights on the bunker but gravity drop pulls the missile too far down, so with the next shot I'll have to aim above the bunker to hopefully get a hit.. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Finally the CSAT Rifleman (AT) has a go with his RPG, like the Nato PCML it's not a beam-rider,so it's another eyeball job.. I lay its hairs on the bunker but the gravity drop is horrendous, so like the PCML I'll have to aim higher with future shots.. Summary: Get a Titan if you can because it'll beam-ride and hit whatever the hairs are on, BUT it's tricky keeping the hairs steady on the target all the way to impact because of sway, so try holding your breath. (or get a static Titan launcher, they're rock-steady) The PCML is next best, it's gravity drop is only very slight. Worst is the RPG because of its big gravity drop. (But firing at shorter ranges will be more accurate because the trajectories will be flatter and gravity won't have time to kick in much)

SATCHELS ARE MORE POWERFUL THAN CHARGES Size comparison; the Explosives Specialist can carry only 3 Satchels in his backpack, or 14 Charges.. A single Charge against a stationary T-100.. ..inflicts fair damage.. After a restart it's a single Satchel's turn, they always seem to produce more filthy smoke.. ..and it hurts the tank far more than the Charge did.. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay let's see what 2 Charges detonating simultaneously can do. They hurt the tank bad but it doesn't burn.. A restart and now 2 Satchels strut their stuff, note the violence of the explosion with chunks of debris flying everywhere and filthy smoke.. Haha the 2 Satchels have toasted the T-100.. ------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 Charges are needed to brew the T-100.. (PS- place them from the prone position because you can crawl nearer to the tank than if you place them while kneeling or standing) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Summary: I estimate Satchels are about twice as powerful as Charges, but you can only carry 3 in your backpack. On the other hand you can carry 14 Charges, so it's a matter of personal preference whether you want 3 big bangs or 14 smaller ones. 14 would give you more flexibility; for example if you want to blow up a light vehicle a single Charge would probably do it, no need for a big Satchel. And a couple of Charges would probably blow the track off a tank and put it out of the battle even if they don't burn it, so they certainly pack a useful wallop. But no matter which type of explosive you use, you've still got to get up to the tank to place it, which could prove a bit tricky unless the beast is stationary and there are no infantry around covering it.

No, in dozens of my AT lockon tests, bot crews have never popped smoke in AA3, it's realistic because they don't know they've been locked by IR missiles (and neither do humans) I'll leave the question open for another day or two to see if anybody can work out how I got that T-100 to pop smoke when I was up on the hill..:)