pooroldspike

Most of us simply don't feel it's our calling to be a soldier, but thank God there are people who do.. "Battle is the most magnificent competition in which human beings can indulge"- Gen George Patton "I have a high art, I hurt with cruelty those who would damage me"- Archilocus (Greek mercenary) 650 BC "Victory is reserved for those who are willing to pay its price"- Sun Tzu, 600 BC "I was happy in the midst of dangers and inconveniences"- Daniel Boone "In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield"- Gen Douglas MacArthur "Cowards die many times before their deaths, but the valiant taste of death but once"-Shakespeare, J.Caesar "There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter" - Ernest Hemingway “Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere on the sea. When they find it, they have to land on its pitching deck. Where do we get such men?"- Rear Admiral George Tarrant in “The Bridges at Toko-Ri†"I have a rendezvous with Death At some disputed barricade, When Spring comes back with rustling shade And apple-blossoms fill the air-- I have a rendezvous with Death When Spring brings back blue days and fair. And To My Pledged Word Am True I Shall Not Fail That Rendezvous" Alan Seegar (1888-1916) "Here at last I take it!"- Young cavalry officer Winston Churchill unhorsed and alone, calmly contemplating death as Boer horsemen charged down on him. "Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be defended by men with guns. You need me on that wall, you want me on that wall" MORE QUOTES- http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/showthread.php?561-Quotes

Or try holding the right mouse button

I could never have joined the military because I wouldn't have been able to take orders if I thought they were stupid, and I'd have been forever arguing with my "superiors". A fool is still a fool even if he outranks you.. ---------- Post added at 11:36 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:23 AM ---------- Yeah but there's not much glory in pen-pushing..;) "Raise a banner on a bare hilltop, I have summoned my warriors to carry out my wrath..they come from faraway lands..to destroy the whole country..and destroy the sinners within it" (Isaiah ch 13) "Adm. Mike Mullen awards the Silver Star to U.S. Army Capt. Gregory Ambrosia at Korengal Outpost, Afghanistan, July 11, 2008 for valor under fire after running into a hail of enemy gunfire to help save fallen comrades"

I thought about joining the British Army in my teens many years ago, but only got as far as sending off for the glossy brochure then changed my mind because of all the drilling and boot-polishing bull etc. A 'Sergeant Butterfield' (full dress uniform, stripes and all) later made a followup courtesy call to my home but I never answered the door and dived behind the settee til he'd gone. There was an official 'sign up' form at the back of the brochure, so I tore it out and filled it in with the name and address of a kid down the street who nobody liked, and sent it off.

Yes perhaps, but like I said the permutations are endless and it'd take forever to run tests for every one. My testing policy is just to do a few basic "skeleton" tests, which we can all then interpret, meditate on,extrapolate from and found new religious cults upon as we see fit. The bush tests show that if you're lurking quietly behind a bush, the AI bots are much less likely to spot you, but if they see you move behind it you're likely to get bullets ripping through the bush at you just as in real life, and that's all I personally need to know..:) What words of wisdom can you give us Master? "You must expect the unexpected, grasshopper"

If by 'teleport' you mean move away,I tried it a couple of times but the instant Red sees Blue he usually starts shooting and kills Blue before he can get clear. No sweat, I think we've all pretty well established that- A- If you're stationary and non-firing, the enemy usually DOESN'T have x-ray vision through bushes and won't shoot at you. B- But if he saw you go behind the bush, or if you're shooting or wriggling around, there's a good chance that he'll fire through the bush and get you.

Sounds simple, yet two attempts of mine failed miserably, I kept getting weird "won't work" messages, and one game was so big it had to be spread over 3 DVD's and still wouldn't run.

And maybe Blue was harder to see because he was in the shadow of the trees, the permutations are endless.

And at last Red spots Blue and blows him away. I held Blues fire for the whole test. CONCLUSIONS- The bush gave Blue guy total concealment even though he was standing all the time. He was only spotted when Red came round the bush pointblank. Perhaps running degraded Reds spotting abilities, I don't know. Also perhaps more attackers would have had a greater chance of spotting Blue.

ANOTHER BUSH TEST (vanilla Comb Ops 1.08/1.57) Reg difficulty This time I'm going to make Red guy move (standard default type movement) very close past Blue guy's bush- Okay, Blue is behind the bush as Red comes over the hill- Red is running in a slightly zig-zag pattern and there's no sign he's spotted Blue- Getting closer- And closer-

Some people (including me) avoid buying ANY downloaded stuff like the plague because we prefer having a solid disk in our hands. Like i've said before- "a disk is forever, but a download is only til your next PC crash". For example I lost my Virtual Sailor d/loaded game in a crash and the company made me pay again for a replacement, grrr... I also bought BAF via download then accidentally uninstalled it later (duh), but i've forgotten where I got it from (duh again), i've tried to log into all the known vendors to get a free replacement but just get "failed login" messages, what a hassle, so i've lost BAF and my cash! PS- I think it's legal to burn downloaded stuff to disk isn't it, I tried once but failed miserably (I'm just a grunt wargamer not a geek) is there a tutorial or something to help us out?

Another view. Note the range is only 64 metres and the bush is only a fairly scrawny thing- Another view. Like I said, Red completely stopped shooting the instant Blue went behind the bush- I decide to taunt Red, so I move Blue sideways out into the open, and Red INSTANTLY BEGINS FIRING- So I run Blue back behind the bush but Red KEEPS FIRING THROUGH THE BUSH, ouch that hurt- And the fat lady sings.. CONCLUSIONS- A bush will sometimes provide cover, and sometimes it won't. Early In the test we clearly saw Red cease fire when Blue ran behind the bush, but later Red did NOT cease fire and shot straight through the bush. I suspect there's an inbuilt 'random' factor within the game coding to make things less predictable and I have no beef with that, as it means we have to expect the unexpected during play. Other factors may also be involved, such as weather/visibility/difficulty level/how many enemy eyeballs are on the lookout for you/whether you're standing,crouched or prone, etc. PS- or maybe some areas of the bush itself are thicker than others (undetectable to the players eye) and will provide concealment, whereas if you move a few inches either side, the foliage is not so thick and you get zapped..

I'M SHAKIN' IT HERE BOSS! My 'Bushes as concealment' test, (vanilla Comb Ops 1.08/1.57, Regular difficulty) Mano a mano: A blue (player) and a red Rifleman - Blue guy runs towards standing Red guy (circled) Red sees Blue and drops to a crouch and starts shooting- Red has now gone prone and keeps firing as Blue runs on- At last Blue makes it behind a bush and the shooting stops. (I waited a good 2 minutes but Red never fired again) And I held Blues fire throughout the entire test-

I agree that carefully setup tests are the way to go, but the fly in the ointment is that tests might only be valid for certain versions with or without certain mods, patches and addons etc. For example my tests are done with vanilla Combined Ops 1.08/1.57, so whether they're valid for anything else I just don't know.. ASSORTED TESTS etc- http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/forumdisplay.php?123-Armed-Assault-II

Sometimes the enemy AI can be hopeless at spotting you, as these two recent tests indicate. In the first test I crawled around prone in clear view of the enemy for over a minute and they never spotted me, and in the second test I was standing in plain view of them at 300metres and they couldn't spot me!- http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/showthread.php?7702-Some-general-spotting-tests

As I said earlier, it's a perfectly normal real-life tactic to fire into light cover if you suspect an enemy is in there even though you can't see him, it goes by names such as "searching fire", "suppressive fire", "speculative fire", "area fire" etc. In fact I posted a video in this very forum last year showing US marines plastering a hut with small arms and killing the unseen terrorist inside, and drew a 3-month ban for posting "explicit content", ha ha..:)

Just a couple of points- In the game, when we see an enemy run behind a bush, we fire through the bush and get him even though we can no longer see him, that's a standard real-world tactic too. So it's only fair that the AI enemy does the same to us isn't it, so why all the bellyaching, ha ha..:) In military terms, anything that can be fired through (eg bush, long grass, wooden fence or a small hut etc) isn't real cover at all because it won't stop bullets. If you want real cover get behind something solid like a stone wall or a house etc. PS- As for the enemy having 'x-ray eyes', my experience is that he doesn't (although I need to run tests). If he saw you go behind the bush he'll fire at the bush, but if he didn't see you go behind it, he won't fire because he doesn't know you're there, that's the impression I get.

Incidentally trucks often catch fire if you riddle them with small arms fire (especially MG's), so you don't always need to get up real close.

There were two Reinforcements on the shelf at Game Store in Cornwall St, Plymouth UK yesterday, dunno if they're still there

Scroll down to 'The AH-64D Apache gun' here for a series of screenshotted tests that I did- http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/forumdisplay.php?123-Armed-Assault-II A couple of samples- Player as pilot- Your gunner opens up as soon as he sees the enemy- And now let's be the gunner- Hit 'N' for DTV (Daylight TV) view and swivel the chin gun almost 360 degrees with mouse movement, the gunfire will go wherever the crosshairs are pointing-

Which map, Takistan? Tell me where it is and i'll go look at it.

The gunner finds his own targets and auto-fires if I remember correctly? Re Hellfire, you might pick up a few clues here, scroll down to 'Hellfire Tutorial'- http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/forumdisplay.php?123-Armed-Assault-II

I sometimes get a total complete freeze and can't get out with Task Manager, so I have to switch off the power and reboot. It doesn't happen very often and I can live with it but it's still annoying. Any advice?

Right, that's why small on-map 81mm mortars are ideal, as there's always a chance their shells won't have killed all the enemy, so you have to be careful when you take your men in to mop up after a bombardment. To recap what I said in my Tutorial earlier in this thread- An 81 mortar comes with 8 shots and has a range of about 3 miles, so work out how you're going to ration its shells during the mission, eg 4 on a suspicious building and the other 4 on a wood. And of course you can have more than 1 mortar to whistle up more bombardments when you encounter resistance as you move around the map.

If you mean with the '/' numpad key, all it does is give us a red dot at night, it doesn't give us night vision unless we're wearing NVG's, or have I misunderstood? My full thread is here at FGM if you'd like to add any comments- RIFLES- http://www.thefewgoodmen.com/thefgmforum/showthread.php?7858-Rifles