bad benson

hm. you could use pilot helmets and make a script that creates an overlay in first person if you wear them. otherwise i don't see how you could do it without an addon. and i don't see BIS add gasmasks unless they also add gas. otherwise it wouldn't make much sense to invest effort in making them.

wow. you guys are really creating your own world. this almost looks like a new game.

you should look into AiA or CUP. not sure how exactly it works but it should allow you to play arma 2 terrains in arma 3. and i'm almost 100% that there was atleast one Nogova for arma 2. good luck

yea that's also what i got from it. hence me trying to give some input. felt like this thread was a bit quiet.

the problem is the way the polycount of the terrain mesh is reduced doesn't really account for silhouette staying intact. so if you were already at nearly max terrain detail you won't see much change. as Greenfist said. it helps "a bit". it's an old very frustrating problem. arma could really benefit from dynamic tesselation or something. kind of restoring detail when you look through the scope for that area you are focussing on.

wow. that's awesome to hear. i'm a sucker for sexy UIs. can't wait to see more. i think i was thinking i'm in the "complete" section. didn't realise this isn't finished yet.

that was kind of the philosophy behind my post too and still is for this one. wasn't probing for problems (hadn't even read the reddit stuff at that point) or trying to put you on the spot or anything. i was just wanting to drop some food for thought. no need for you to waste time addressing any points. just take what you like, if there's anything at all lol. about the NPC thing. it was just a random example since it has been done before and there's also a script framework available. i was trying to use it to tie up some of my thoughts into a nice little logical package. since you went a little indepth with it though. consider this: you seem to have limited it to talking to civs or somethig probably based on what you have as a story already. i was talking more about it as an example of story telling methods. the little amount i played of the arma 3 campaign had static cutscenes and (as far as i remember) in those little camps dudes talking about stuff when you came close to them or something. that is one way of doing it. a very old school and conservative one though. other games make you talk to NPCs to trigger them basically narrating parts of the story. this (imho) can feel more open and less staged. doesn't have to be multiple choice even. a recent example is "until dawn" (watched some walkthroughs on youtubes). in that game you are often walking around in two man teams. when a new piece of information comes up you get the option to trigger a short conversation at your companion that will basically be a tiny cutscene of him/her digesting recently aquired new info for you by reflecting on it. super simple but effective. i guess what i'm trying to say is. there can be very cool and simple ways to make the story move forward that can save you from having to make a lot of cutscenes :lol: this is something i thought too when i read the story draft. the "big story" doesn't have to be that detailed. character developement can be way more interesting and offer a more universial canvas for identification for the player than some red vs blue, good vs evil kind of conflict scenario. the best villains are the ones that make you almost root for them or simply kind of understand their motivation. that's another interesting choice too btw. having a real interesting villain character can be way more appealing than just having a whole side be the bad dudes. characters are more universial than factions. again i haven't played a lot of the vanilla campaign but the most memoral moment for me was when that dude that guides you at the start steps on that mine. "awesome" moment. sometimes it's not about crazy twists but rather making you develope some attachment to a character and then make you pay for it (or reward depending on what you want to do). or simply give weight to your decisions (even if they are premade ones for your character without player choice). i'm also thinking how it could be cool to have a little team of really memorable characters that comment on what is happening around you further establishing their characteristics making them grow on you more and more. maybe even have them potentially die or survive based on how you play. again. no artificial forks needed. they could simply perma die if they get shot. making you reload that one savegame so you can keep having that one cool dude with those nice one liners with you :D again. i'm just spitting out what came to my mind. it's not meant as assuming you haven't thought of any of that already. so take it as you will. the main reason i brought up organisational aspect though was the thread title. i was kind of expecting the community part being developed before there even is a story. so far it seems like you are just assembling a team to make A campaign. which is not a bad thing at all by any stretch. just me and my false expectation. having a real community effort might be nearly impossible anyways or at least a very challenging endeavor. anyways. i should stop rambling away. i'm just really into movies and game design and shit so this kind of triggered me lol. good luck to you guys!

aah! interesting. i need to check that one out then as soon as i can. thx for the heads up.

just had another idea. it's a very general thing but i bet some people would have some use for it. you know how you can make a camera move smoothly to a position using the "commit" command instead of having it snap/pop/skip (or whatever) to the destination like with "setpos"? i can't remember the situation i needed that. we all try all kinds of things and abandon alot of it due to lack of a clean method or something. but i think this could be useful for all kinds of things. same goes for "setdir". i think the latter would even be needed for cameras. last time i tried "camsetdir" was not working at all so a smooth progressive "setdir" could even help there while opening up many other possibilities. in general it would be great to be able to move anything via scripting in a smooth manner. i know one can somewhat hack it using the existing commands and oneachframe but i would love to have something more solid on the engine side being synced with everything and just moving inside the main loop. or maybe something SP based only? i dunno. summary: "setpos", "setdir" and maybe even "setvector"-commands being able to be used with something similar to "commit" for any kind of object.

i think the idea is not enough to not only make this take off but also keep it going. i haven't read the reddit stuff yet but i think it would be good, if you would provide a plan or structure of how this is supposed to work. i think there needs to be some kind of concept that allows to make this a homogene thing while having it be created by many different people. so i'll just drop some thoughts here that i had when reading this. an interesting concept could be to do it episodically in terms of releasing and creating it similar to a tv show or kind of the arma 3 vanilla campaign if you will. this could not only divide the workload into more digestable pieces for the creators but also save this from being a giant project that will just die half way through because of motivation problems. it can be tiring to just do the work once you already know what everything is going to be. it's always nice to have some mystery and potential to change course still while creating something. so it could be open ended at first and be made out of very small pieces so the milestones are easier to reach and to get something into people's hands faster to keep interest in it. and to make this still not entirely unstructured there could be a very rough story arch that is created before hand so while one improvises one would still have a destination in the back of one's head. in terms of narrative i mean. it could also be cool to have some more generic "game design" goals. like, how open will it be? will there be an exploration element? will different episodes explore different aspects (stealth segment anyone?)? will there be some kind of NPC interaction as seen in some of the popular missions (i think whole lotta stratis has talking to civs and a dialog system for that...might be another mission i'm thinking of). so in more general terms. will there be interface (or other) elements or systems that will be present throughout the whole thing that will probably need to be created before anything narrative will even happen? one could even take the whole community aspect into this and look for script sytems that have been created already and ask for permission to use them. like taking stuff that either everyone already knows and loves. revive systems, gear menus, dialog systems (i've seen one of those on armaholic one time with pip usage and stuffs), spawn scripts, AI enhancements (would be cool to only use mission side stuff and no addons, if possible). could be interesting to combine all the cool stuff people have reated into one epic hybrid. maybe i'm blowing this out of proportion but i'm just trying to think of stuff that can make this more than just the assembly of another team to make another campaign and really make this a community thing. sorry for the wall of text. just brain storming here :lol:

not sure how exactly it works in arma 3 but in arma 2 there was a camoflage value for each unit to make ghillie snipers be spotted less quickly than other units. not sure how it transfered to arma 3 but i guess these values are in uniforms now? that would be kind of neat actually. it's likely since i don't think the system was replaced or removed. so i guess in short: i'd be interested to know the specifics too :unsure:

to me this is the main problem. i can adapt to AI generally being very sharp sensed and stuff (or tweak with skill array stuff mentioned by oukej). but these kind of things are what kills it because there is no explaination like "they're well trained...there's a war going on" that works there to keep immersion intact. it simply makes no sense in any case that they still know. i am always wondering what data is actually being used to create behavior and simulated knowledge (since the game just knows everything at all times you should be able to pick and choose) sometimes, especially since that knowsabout discussion in the AI thread a month or so ago and if it will ever change. because as you said. some of the data seems awesome but it doesn't reflect in the behaviors. i'd go as far as saying that making their knowledge way faster in how it can change (concealed flanking example is perfect) would be a giant leap for arma's AI. i've seen some changes being made that go in that direction but it always feels just like multipliers put ontop of something that is wrong at the core. they need a "search but don't know" state for when they lost direct line of sight until they get new input like a shot sound or new visual. i don't want idiots with alzheimer's but the whole thing where once you're spotted they enter that mode where they just seem to know and only multipliers (or whatever you wanna call them) are keeping them from coming straight for you keeps them from being very interesting to deal with. i'm just interpreting the end result of course maybe it's already possible with tweaked values. i also wonder how much of the knowledge stuff is engine side and how much of it is in the FSM. because if the FSM is just taking certain things for granted and forcing them to appear different then maybe we need to go deeper or something.

that's some great stuff. the particle stuff made me think of something that would be very useful. when you create a particle and make it a "spaceobject" instead of a "billboard" it will get random rotation applied to it by default, which is insanely annoying. this might sound very specific but if you think about this, it could be a great way to "spawn" a p3d without actually having to create a real entitiy will all kinds of stuff in it happening (aside from maybe the particle source, which is super minor in comparison though). a very specific example would be NeoArmageddon's Map Builder. at some point he tried to make the objects you place be rendered like i just described by the particle system to save performance. it turned out to not be feasible at all due to described random rotation. if someone with access to that could just remove that random default rotation and let us set some rotation ourselves IF WE WANT IT, that would be amazing.

damn, i thought this one was resolved a while back. it's one of those things that have been in the series for ages. do they still magically spin or do they turn slowly towards you? i could swear at least the spin was fixed in alpha. i bet initially there was some reasoning behind them being able to spot you like that when directly hit, but i still think it's bad. i could see them having a little more spotting accuracy justified by urgency but i'd love to see these cheat things be removed. i'm wondering if that recently added target info command had any impact on the AI itself in a way that knowsabout might be replaced as a gauge so AI knowledge can be made much more reactive and dynamic. always hated that one way street of being fully spotted one time and then you gotta basically hide forever to get unspotted again eventhough you are concealed and made a huge effort to lose them. that could make stealth gameplay sort of an additional natural possibility, which is something i always wanted in arma.

couldn't agree more. always bugged me.

good luck guys. glad to see some old school stuff. always prefered that over thermal 50cal snipers and stuff ;)

would you guys mind making a short showcase video of stuff like the crafting and base building? with mods of this size i sometimes feel it would be great to get a glimpse of the more indepth endgame stuff so you don't have to invest tens of hours just to see it in action. i remember seeing an early version of your crafting system some time and it looked promising. i couldn't test it right now either way but i'd love to see how far you guys have come. anyways, keep it up. sounds interesting.

oh i'm sure i was the one with the smallest part in making it happen. although i felt very special for a second when learning about it :lol: you could pick the most important and universially useful to reduce the number or maybe group them logically in a document. at this point it seems to be about getting it out there either way.

err mah gerd! that's awesome! :o i guess i hit the window spot on this time lol. been bringing that up before. i can't test it yet but very soon. can't wait to see, if it is what i was looking for. thx for this! if i was you i'd not ask, if i could ask but rather just ask, if that makes any sense. :D someone is on a roll or something. you might regret later not having tried atleast. i'd also be interested in what you are looking for. just curious.

ooooh! that is entirely different then as you already have figured out. a lot less headache then the humanoid stuff to be honest. good for you not having to deal with that lol. very frustrating...

i had a feeling that was what you meant but i was wondering how that would apply to be honest. sounds like a really specific detail. like would that even apply for a normal window in a way that you can even perceive it in a meaningful way?

in terms of capability i tend to agree but that then kind of begs the question what do you define as "arma". i mean non of what you described is vanilla arma. hence my point that it's more about what people use it for and especially add to it (arma + something). and besides the driving part, most of what you describe (the stuff i took seriously :P ) requires additional code and content or a lot of the human element i described (role playing doesn't have to be a bad word, it's exactly what happens at fire fighter/police/etc drills when certain guys play the wounded and scream a lot and stuff). i know we've gotten used to this large spectrum of mods and missions and the fact that this community basically makes the content it plays itself but i don't see when and where arma/ofp ever tried to be educational on its own. i think people are just throwing VBS right in there when they talk about arma just because the tech side is so similar. VBS actually does all that stuff. gives you all kinds of modules to train certain procedures. arma just doesn't. to me personally we are blurring the lines of what "the game" actually is. by modders, in some cases, it's often treated more like an engine than a game. and then if you go that far you can take many modern engines (those with great tools especially and physics) and do the same kind of mini games you described in them. does that really make them "serious games" in the sense of the word? i'm not trying to put down arma. i agree it can be all kinds of things under certain circumstances. but i think at it's core it's "just" a large scale combined arms shooter. and i also think that "arma people" (and i count myself in) have the tendency to elevate arma (and themselves as its players) to something it really isn't without their own imagination and commitment. again, yes there are hints of it in there but all you have to do is dissect the exact differences between arma and VBS and you will see the difference between a so called "serious game" and a game. i mean in the end, depending on how flexible you are, it's all semantics. but then again. isn't that exactly what this thread is about?

that would actually be a good question. and i honestly think that the whole compass and map thing is a bit of grasping at straws. even going back to first playing the ofp demo i never felt like arma/ofp was even trying to teach me the things in it. i have zero recollection of a section explaining the compass and its use (yes it should be common knowledge but still). and i can think of countless games with a compass, so i don't know about that. i mean i was never a big player of the campaigns. for me it was always right to the editor so maybe i missed those "serious" campaign sections. so if anyone knows some those might be actually useful to the OP. another example could be zeroing. sure communities could teach it to eachother but to my (limited) knowledge the game itself makes no effort and there's a big chunk of players who just absorb the important stuff, that btw is not exclusive to arma (bullet drop, recoil, compass what else?), and then go onto just playing the frikkin game lol. i always felt that those aspects were just there. but maybe that already qualifies it. that would kind of mean that every sim out there has the purpose of eduction. not sure if that's really the full meaning of it though. i think i can recall watching some kind of documentary and one example was a training program for cops (arcade like shooting range thing). i always thought that what makes a game a "serious game" was the primary focus on education/training for problem solving. i don't see that in arma (maybe VBS but that came after ofp and was based on it). but that might be just me and my lack of campaign hours over the years ;)

good points. i always felt like there was no real difference between those military communities using strict rank structures and what life players do. the one "play" soldier the others "play" cop and robber. the point is: degree of "seriousness" of squad =/= quality of tactics and firefights. i have witnessed that myself several times. being invited to those kind of games. always quit when i realised it was yet another patrol holo deck with no decent firefights just strolling acting like a soldier shooting occasional small AI groups. not saying there is no good inbetween being done by some good people though. i also agree on the CS comparison. just because a game is faster or has different health system doesn't mean it doesn't require tactics. "even" COD flag based modes are known for fast team coordination and stuff. at OriginalPoster: if you want to focus on game mechanics you should take InstaGoat's post or look for some other feature lists of the arma series. if you ask me though, "seriousness" is the wrong thing to look for if you focus on game mechanics. then it's more about different types of realism and the difference between perceived realism and actual simulation and stuff. as far as i can tell for many arma players it's more about immersion. hence the shit storm about semi future setting. slower walking speeds doesn't make a game more serious. it makes it easier to immerse for people who like to feel like a real soldier in some way. it also explains why 3rd person view is still popular. i personally would enjoy simply arma's engagement distances alone compared to most games even if my character was a pony and my gun was shooting rainbows. that point becomes more clear if one looks at your list of games. all those games share the pseudo realistic military setting (i think you call them military shooters) so the people drawn to that dig them just from an atmospheric visual perspective. real world weapon models, uniforms, vehicles etc. i mean look at DayZ. THAT game is "serious" (i think you mean realistic by some standard). makes you fucking have to eat and you get sick. and much more micro management stuff i gladly am ignorant of. yet it is not in your list eventhough i wouldsay that jsut as a game minus setting and visuals, it's much more "serious" than arma. as someone said earlier. make some proper criteria and your list will magically change into something more meaningful. if i was you and if "serious" was a given then i would focus more on the human element. look into the practices of those communities with rank structure and life communities and see what qualifies as "serious". it's way more about how you play the game than the game itself.

oh you mean refraction? i think that is already in the engine as a shader/material type or whatever you call it. you can see it on vehicle exhausts and some fire effects i think. also dayZ has it on its raindrops last time i checked. i'd love to see that subtly applied to glass surfaces. unless you are talking about something else and not just the visual effect.