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Good changes!

Nice to see that the developer takes his time to ask for our opinion!

What would you prefer? i7 920@3.8MHZ and 12GB RAM Or i7 860@4.0MHZ and 8GB RAM What is faster (could not find a benchmark on the OC systems) Of course 12GB is nice for RAM disc but 8GB is not bad either and the only game I know where I can use it is ARMA and maybe a future patch will fix it. I read the i7 860 has lower energy consumption and less heat production. The i7 920 has the more future proof main board. What do you think is the best choice for ARMA? (Same price!)

I fully agree that the "no heal" feature should be optional. I guess the casualties transport feature should work for everybody. (You do not have to use it) For the original missions "no heal" has to be disabled. But custom missions could be written to work with few human players in MP or in SP. I would love to use such a feature in SP. The linked article is a scientific work written by the doctors involved: "Hypothesis: The transition from manoeuvre warfare to insurgency warfare has changed the mechanism and severity of combat wounds treated by US Marine Corps forward surgical units in Iraq." I do not think the authors neglected any major factors. I picked out the results from the beginning of the war because this environment fits better to the kind of missions we tend to play in ARMA.

Sorry I wanted to avoid repeating myself. In all computer games today, including ARMA, you have an unrealistic handling of casualties. In Games your men either die instantly and are ignored and left behind for the rest of the battle, or they are injured, get completely "healed" on scene and continue to fight as if nothing happened. Compare this to reality: Only few casualties die instantly (KIA meaning killed on battlefield or enroot to a doctor). Close to all casualties are evacuated as fast as possible to medical facility (including the dead). In my literature example the average time for a critical wounded to receive surgical care (at a field hospital) was only 30min. This includes the time it takes to get the casualty out of the danger zone, stabilise him, transport and admission to the hospital. Handling of the casualties is an important thing for the progress of an operation. You need resources that cannot be used for fighting at the same time and you have to grant safety for the evacuation. I don't write this as a BIS suggestion because I doubt BIS would risk to implement this kind of casualty handling because it has never before been done. I still have high hopes in the ACE team because of the big achievements they already did for the sake of a more realistic game play. The task is: 1. Increase the number of WIA (wounded in action) to like 90% 2. WIA are either incapacitated or get a handicap 3. Handicaps can be bad aim, no stand etc. (we already have most of them in the game or in ACE1) 4. Medics only stabilise (they do not heal!) 5. Make it possible to transport all WIA and KIA (including those that can not walk) with other soldiers and in vehicles. 6. Because of the join in progress option it is possible to leave your WIA and rejoin as a new soldier. In an ARMA mission this would mean after being hit you can continue to fight until you are incapacitated (instantly or because of blood loss). As soon as you are out of trouble you would deliver your character to MEDEVAC and re spawn as a new soldier. In an "overrun" scenario you would continue to fight because there is no better option. Medics are used to stabilise wounded soldiers and keep the rate of soldiers KIA low. They could also perform triage and organize MEDEVAC.

Some interesting facts related to casualetys from an article about operation iraqi freedom (invasion): "During this phase of operations, patient movement by air was swift and critical patients typically received surgical care at an FRSS within 30 minutes after injury." WOW that's hard to archive in peacetime! "During OIF I, 85.8% of casualties in the I MEF area of responsibility were classified as WIA" KIA only 13,5% (including those dying on transport) "Historically, the KIA rates in major conflicts have been approximately 20%. Death on the battlefield is most commonly due to penetrating wounds to the head (37%), chest (24%), abdomen (9%), and extremity (3%). One-half of these deaths are secondary to exsanguinating hemorrhage and 10% to 20% of such deaths are from extremity wounds." Here the link for further reading: http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/143/6/564 Hope it makes you see what is wrong in current computergames. And don't start to say it would not be fun because we never had the chance to try it out!

It would make teams stick together and give you some other challenges than just shooting...

You should have the option to stop playing your incapacitated soldier! You could re spawn in the meantime as a new soldier. For the incapacitated soldier it is the same as dying is now. But for his team members we have a new situation! They have someone they have to get out of danger, treat and evacuate! Of course they can also chose to leave him behind as if he is dead. That is probably what a drug intoxicated third world kind of soldier would do... A modern army would care! If ACE would implement that more causalities get incapacitated and that you can transport the incapacitated and dead soldiers you would have the option to adopt a new play style. You still have the option to play as you were used to (ignoring the incapacitated). About the discussion of different calibres and the damage they make... I just don’t see that you would be expected to continue to fight (the offensive way) no matter what calibre punctured your skin.

Jagged Aliance was a great game in this context. Here you often lost your good team members and often also the medics trying to save them.

I can only speak for the ARMA 1 ACE version. Here you hardly ever had incapacitated soldiers. You could completely heal them or they where dead and you could not transport them. I cannot imagine that you could script a mission so that you have more incapacitated soldiers and so that you can transport the dead. Even if it is possible it must be so complicated that I cannot see that it would be used in many missions. I know this is new thinking and most are sceptical, but this was the same in the beginning of OFP when people said a game can not be fun where you get killed by an unseen enemy hundreds of meters away with just a single shot after you walked over a huge map for several minutes.

I still have some high hopes in the ACE team to make a big difference in game play here. There is some nice coop (and singe player) team action going on in ARMA 2. It comes closer and closer to how you would react in a real firefight. As soon as you have casualties in your team things do not look realistic at all! In ARMA 2 and next to all other games the casualty is either lightly wounded (and healed in no time) or he is dead and totally ignored for the rest of the mission. Casualties do basically not influence the pace of the mission as long as you have enough men to fight. If single members of the team play like Rambo and get killed in an unseen location it does not matter for the mission outcome. (Should be a nightmare for a commander to have team members MIA) In today’s conflicts big efforts are being made to take care of the casualties. Offensive operations can be delayed or brought to a hold if it can save the live of wounded soldiers. The majority of casualties become a candidate for medevac few can continue to push forward and few die instantly. Even the dead would not just be left behind. Often medals are awarded for the efforts in connection to the rescue of wounded soldiers. Make it an option that more casualties are incapacitated and that you are expected to MEDEVAC them sooner or later in the mission, depending on the circumstances. (Waiting with the evac can eventually kill the wounded) This would really make ARMA 2 stand out as a different game from all the others!!! (Maybe Jagged Alliance is an exception) It would be exciting to find out not only if you archive your fighting objectives but also if your men survive (or are MIA). I would imagine that there is quiet some pilots in MP that would like the challenge of MEDEVACs in hot landing zones and under time pressure. In the time in between the missions they could steer an UAV or an artillery module from their base. Casualties should decrease in health at different rates depending on the injury. Treatment should lessen the decrease in health and transport should increase the decrease in health depending on the transport. (Dragging them is not so good, medical transport does not have a negative effect). There should be a decrease in health until the wounded arrives in a field hospital at the drop of point.

I agree it would be nice with a better cover system for the player but one of the most important things for the game would be a better cover system for the AI! Right now when you engage the AI they will mostly just stand still and return fire or drop down and return fire. If they begin to move it is mostly because they want to get into a better position to engage you. What I would like to see is that most of the AI starts to run to the nearest object as soon as shots are fired to bring the object in between the AI and the direction the fire is coming from. After breaking LOS AI should start to reengage. For some units it would be OK to return fire right away. This behaviour together with an AI that can fire from covered position would make a huge change.

Thanks for the comments, it seems ARMA works fine with big widescreen monitors! Anyone knows the Samsung SyncMaster 2493HM 24"???

I will soon have a new computer (i7 860@4GHZ + ATI HD 5870) and I have to decide for a new monitor too (my first LCD) I am not sure if a 24´is to big but I think the 1920x1200 resolution would be nice... or does the 1680 x 1050 Pixel on a 22´ have a similar clear picture? What about 1920 x 1080 on a 21,5´? Does the wider display make sense in ARMA 2?

Do you mean I should buy an i7 920 at stock 2,66GHZ or should I buy the expensive OC version i7 920@4GHZ???? (it is so expensive because it coms with watercooling) BTW it is no problem to change the configuration to better coolers. (does the stock processor need this or do you think about OC?)

Can you guys comment on my question about a new system in the hardware thread? You seem to have some experience with this stuff! http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1472427&postcount=3485

I am looking for a new computer right now and I need your help! Would you recommend me an OC processor? Is an OC processor worth the money (extra cooling etc.) and worth the extra noise it makes? System 1: GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD6 P55 LGA 1156 - INTEL Core i7 860 @ 4.0 GHz - Prolimatech Megahalems Cooler - 4096MB DDR3-1600 Samsung selected - 4096MB DDR3-1600 Samsung selected - Samsung 22x+/-RW schwarz SATA - 128GB Samsung SSD MLC - 1.0TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 - 1024MB XFX ATI HD 5870 GDDR5 - SB Creative X-Fi extreme Audio PCI-e - Coolermaster HAF 932 Black Tower - be quiet! Sys-Power 700W 80Plus - MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit System 2: ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 X58 LGA 1366 - INTEL Core i7 950 4x 3.06GHz 8MB - Intel Original-Kühler LGA 1366 - 6144MB DDR3-1600 Samsung selected - 6144MB DDR3-1600 Samsung selected - Samsung 22x+/-RW schwarz SATA - 1.0TB Samsung HD103SJ Spinpoint F3 - 128GB Samsung SSD MLC - 1024MB XFX ATI HD 5870 GDDR5 - SB Creative X-Fi extreme Audio PCI-e - Coolermaster HAF 932 Black Tower - be quiet! Sys-Power 700W 80Plus - MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Both systems cost about the same (2000€.) Should I go for the OC with less RAM? Or for the i7 950 4x 3.06GHz with 12 MB (thinking RAM disk here) Liquid i7 920 @ 4,0 with 12 GB RAM is an alternative but it costs 600€ more and I do not know if it is worth it?? P.S. I do not have the knowledge and time to assemble a system myself so that is not an alternative.

I bougt the game too! Thanks for the advice. Problem is: I still have no computer...

If you want to use a ram-disk, does STEAM have any advantages because it installs all files on the hard disk? Or do the DVD versions also install all relevant files on the HDD?

I will soon buy a computer. Can I buy the Game on Steam now an download it later?