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nkenny

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Posts posted by nkenny

  1. Posted

    http://www.scrippsnews.com/node/55375

    Washcall: Army ends bayonet training ...

    WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army says the last time it mounted a bayonet assault in combat was nearly 60 years ago during the Korean War.

    Even so, ever since, hundreds of thousands of new soldiers in basic training have had to master wielding one on a rubber-tire course -- even as their rifles evolved to be incompatible with bayonets and the skill ceased to matter.

    Now, after listening to troops share their battle insights after nearly a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has ordered the end to bayonet training, effective this month.

    That's not the only training and battle-drill change the Army has made based on insights from the current wars and projections about future ones.

  3. Posted

    I've just made an interesting discovery. Setting your squad to COMPACT COLUMN(all-8-8) or DELTA (all-8-9) eliminates all attempts at Bounding overwatch.

    YES. It is now possible to get the AI to disengage, even when in danger mode. Simply haul ass to the location you want your squad to retreat to and enable either of the formations above.

    I've also experienced that the AI will NOT use bounding overwatch when ordered to move places (such as to pick up gear or First aid) when in either of these formations.

    -k

  4. Posted

    Sometimes it works. OpFlashpoint had a lot going for it in that it had a definite local setting. It was modeled only in an ironic or even satirical way

    on the real world. That makes stories work better if the players are supposed to busy themselves blowing up parts of the imaginary world.

    Settings such as OA has are nearly impossible for good stories. The demand for the latest high tech gear combined with strong echoes of real world turmoil basically wrecks any chance at a good story since it leaves no room for irony or satire.

    You can either have high tech gear and go with a farce (the usual choice in games) or an intense local scene and go with irony and satire (as I think OpFlash Resistance did).

    If I had to write a good story in the OA world, I would make it very savage and very low tech, a tribal war with a horrified central government finally taking sides. Irony and satire would rule and high-tech-obsessed gamers would never buy it and BIS would go out of business since most gamers seem to prefer advanced weapons no matter what...ie even if they wreck the story. High tech weapons might make a good McGuffin in a Mercenary tale of savagery, but that's another story.

    Exactly.

    Think about this.

    - In Operation Flashpoint getting a weapon with full auto capabilities was an achievement.

    - Getting binoculars was a major reward.

    - GPS unheard of

    - Scoped weapons were rare.

    - M4 + Aimpoint? or a SILENCED mp5? and all of the above? man you were REALLY SF.

    Compare this to a normal game of arma2...

    -k

  5. Posted

    First mission of Red Harvest had (what was hinted at) rape victim, mass graves, crude interrogations, and more.

    To identify the problems:

    1. No colourful scenes that build character. Therefore there is little build up of tension BEFORE the shooting starts.
    "I spy with my little eye something starting with G"

    2. Awful voice acting, worse still a utterly impersonal and unintuitive command interface. You could get away with it in 2001. Not so today.
    "oh no 4 is down"

    3. Warfare and derivative game modes does a terribly bad job of making players invested in the little people.

    In other words; Introduce more talking/joking around or cutscenes to build tension. Make characters you can relate to that do NOT act/talk like robotic automatons. Give it a human touch. Recognize that 'ultra freedom' does not necessarily make it a better story.

    Overall I think BIS are doing a fairly good job, perplexing and frustrating as the loss of storytelling technique is. Recent releases are much better than Arma1-- and with the new periodic DLC's mission designers have a chance to continuously practice their art.

    -k

  6. Posted

    You are storming a building in pvp, the injury system is on. Grenade goes off, you rush in a foe is incapacitated on the floor in front of you. Do you empty half a clip into him? (You're storming, gun is on full auto) or stab him?

    I'm going to save my ammo thanks, I'll use it on someone who isn't helpless, also, this isn't a quiet stealthy lol kill, this is finishing a downed enemy after a grenade.

    How do you know he isn't faking it?

    How do you know he isn't cradling a hand grenade?

    How do you know his friend isn't right around the corner?

    What if one bayonet strike isn't enough?

    etc

    Nah. Viking scream and put a burst in the bastard.

  9. Posted

    M136 should ideally take up 4-6 Slots and NOT occupy the Launcher/backpack slot.

    Yeah, thats right. Function exactly like grenades.

    1. Not unlike grenades light AT weapons like these are a stopgap measure when the patrol is facing light armour. This permits teams to spread light-at capacity amongst all members.

    2. To carry a M136/RPG18 should be a choice of some consequence. Its heavy and cumbersome (illustrated by taking many slots) but does not stop you from carrying a backpack, thus carrying a lightAT is not a pointless exercise that detracts from your ability to support the team. (carrying ammo, satchels, whatnot, or just shooting)

    3. Unique gameplay element. Weapon is functionally and conceptually different from traditional launchers like RPG7, SMAW, and CG.

    -k

    (Also while mucking about with equipment sizes make 100 rounds of 7.62x51mm Nato take up 3 slots. That stuff is insanely powerful.)

  10. Posted

    There are two smallish drop in features I would love to see:

    1. Addon that removes Burst fire from all G36 type rifles.

    G36 weapons already have too many modes to cycle between.

    2. Addon that replaces the M16a2+m203 sights with the the ones from the M16A2.

    M203 sights are horrifyingly misaligned and the forced laddersights are immensely obstructive.

    -k

  13. Posted

    I think you meant to write "settle down to (0,0.5)"?

    Anyway, while it's probably true that drift isn't one direction in reality, I think it might be wise to stick to one direction, because the predictability actually encourages the player's constant involvement. If you have a completely random distribution, ie one without "forced trends" then it only make sense to get involved when the distribution has made outliers. And after outliers you can often expect a regression to the mean and you may have a tendency to overshoot the correction, "dramatically".

    I would probably have to see it in action really, but I suspect random direction muzzle drift, or even forced trends muzzle dirft, could end up being impossible to adjust for.

    Absolutely. Random recoil may sound like a novel feature, but in practice it fails.

  14. Posted

    @Revive script

    Rather Call of Duty inspired, but still a welcome change from the sometimes tedious revive scripts that are around.

    Question: What is now the function of the squad medic?

    @Flagpoles

    Bring it on! :) Although why not add steal the car as well? Come to think of it it was one of my favorite missions from OPF. It'd be great to be able to a spiritual successor in a coop environment.

    Note: The idea was that the enemy UAZ was filled with documents detailing russian attack or defense plans.

    @Mission Selection

    Would it not make more sense to have the mission type selection BEFORE the briefing so players will get to know what to bring?

    While the UI is hot looking, I think it'd be preferable to offer the various selections during the role assignment phase. (mission parameters)

    Eitherway things are looking good. :)

    -k

  15. Posted

    I guess it could make for an interesting set of mission equipment.

    Item%20406%20-%20Toro%20Lawnmower.jpg

    Real question is how many slots it should take. Perhaps the secondary primary slot instead of a CG/Rpg7?

    Alternative is implementing as a vehicle. I guess that would be more appropriate given Arma2's control/equipment limitations.

    lawnmower-dui.jpg

    -k

  17. Posted

    I play a lot using the mission generator wizard, using it to generate a "combat" mission with secops and support etc. It worked fine in vanilla ArmA, but now when playing a combat scenario in OA with the KSK troops, some of them insist on switching to their pistols, even when engaging at 400m and beyond. If I teamswitch to them, they have ammunition available - and their currently loaded magazines are not empty. Bit of an immersion killer, and frustrating as hell. Any ideas?

    Only seems to happen with troops armed with the G17 (glock 17) and then in particular the German troops. This bug is probably related to the rifle-At-rifle switcharoo dance. (which has also been going on since opf days)

    -k

  19. Posted · Edited by NkEnNy

    The new recoil is fine.

    Its not really about realism – arma2 does a poor job at emulating weapon handling in any case – whats important is the change in gameplay.

    It is now much harder to put down unrealistic levels of perfectly accurate fire. (basically negating AI at certain ranges). For PvP it gets even better because the new recoil ALLOWS manoeuvring – particularly in OA where cover tends to be scarce.

    Animations are the weak link

    As more than one person has noted – animations are the weak link of weapon handling in Arma2. Whilst leaps and bounds ahead of Arma1, the lack of smoothly flowing animations and sometimes technically WRONG animations does more to hurt gameplay than many other things.

    Pressing the Optics button should refer to ‘shouldering’ the weapon. When stationary the weapon should be looking through the sights. Whilst moving (walking or jogging) the weapon ought to be held at low ready position . Whilst sprinting the weapon should be unavailable.

    When not shouldered the weapon can still discharged, though increasing recoil or affecting dispersion would be appropriate.

    Currently

    :: Optics mode affects movement too much.

    :: Optics offers no real advantages to crosshair mode.

    :: Optics adds slow and ‘wooden’ animations

    -k

  20. Posted

    Secure the flagpoles does sound like an interesting gameplay exercise – but not a particular _realistic_ one.

    I find what I like about this mission is how it feels quite plausible. It’s a all about being a small team of specialists -- getting in, getting the job done and getting out again . There is neither reason nor practical to go total Armageddon on the entire village.*

    If you feel the need to add one more missiontype how about bringing back the nice old classic Steal the car? Randomly place a car (could be a few civilian decoys) with the mission area. Objective is to take it a certain distance from the mission (or to the extraction zone)

    -k

    *Which again is why I’m pestering you to add the option for civilians wandering about – complicating the mission objective ïŠ

  21. Posted

    If the BIS civilian module is out of the question -- How about, as a mission option, spawning a few randomly spawned groups of civvies with a simple 'dismissed' or 'urban house patrol' waypoint/script?

    Arma2 gameplay tends to suffer when players can employ inappropriate and and massive firepower with no real consequence during a mission.

    This is undoubtedly the Sp mission of its type I've played the most in Arma2:OA so far. Keep up the good work.

    Respectfully,

    -k

    edit:

    The particular reason I commented on the ranks was that the medic kept being assigned as #2. Impractical at best of times sacrificial at worst.

  22. Posted

    I'll join the choir-- anticipating this mission quite a bit myself. A few quick comments.

    All special forces soldiers are Majors? Wouldn't sergeants and corporals be more appropriate.

    Mission is rather immersive-- it would be even more so with the added Bis civilian module activated. Would also making looking for the warlord _that_ much more interesting.

    Looking into getting troops to do some house-patrolling might quickly up the ante as well.

    Finally a slightly clearer briefing with picture of the mission target-- and perhaps a few additional markers would be very welcome.

    cheers,

    -k

  23. Posted

    I concur. The new recoil model is lovely.

    The M249 has always had a little too much recoil to shoot standing, even in vanilla arma2.

    Additionally I'd like to add to the list of problems weapons are the Ak-74 series which seem to have a little too much recoil to be effective combat arms. Given their low caliber and relative inaccuracy.

    - k

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