instagoat

I don't think so. The initial tiring is okay. I tested the opfor rifleman (who is just below half bar on the load) and the opfor AT specialist (who is at 90% loaded) on a 500 meter straight course on the runway (measured out with cones). The rifleman's sprint lasted until about 125 meters from a standstill, the AT specialist managed about 70 meters before he got tired. Both managed to run with sprint key held for 3 km, then I stopped to check the cooldown on the tiredness. There is a hard cap for it, both took about 45 seconds to recover fully from max fatigue. Weapons sway while fatigued was increased -significantly-, so that point is moot too. The system is about as punishing as that of Arma 2, plus the weight management. It could be more punishing (tired jogging and sprinting animations, as well as double fatigue system (sustained and immediate).) for my tastes, and I hope we will see some improvements. By now I think that the scare of the fatigue system being "taken out" is wrong.

It is a Battlefield simulator. It doesn´t simulate any of the assets to maximum detail of functionality, it attempts to simulate the whole picture with focus on the infantry level. However, that´s my stance, and not the official stance and in fact I think so far no one has even really defined what kind of "Simulator" Arma is/was supposed to be. I dunno, but I never looked at OFP being a simulator back then in the first place. It was a fun game that had a type of unique and engaging gameplay that went along with my interests: modern combat. And from a business perspective, I do not know how lucrative the hardcore community is to begin with. If you owned a company, would you try to sell to a group where you knew you wouldn´t get your money back in the first place? Arma 3 has top notch assets in it right now, and along with the other titles being worked on right now, millions of euros have been invested. 70 people x 2000 € (That's way below half of the reported monthly average net income of european developers in games development, and about 1000~ short of average entry pay for games developers in Sweden) x 12 x 3 is 504000,- €. I do not know what taxes are, but in germany you would need to double that amount -at least- to get what the company actually has to pay. If you assume everyone gets the average pay (4300 €) you double the 504.000,- roundabout, and double that again for taxes. So the dev team will have cost around 1.5 Million alone. Add running costs for your assets, advertising, conventions (those are expensive, not even counting travel expenses.) as well as wastage, and considering that this isn´t the only game in development these numbers stack up quickly. Two years ago they re-financed with an external investment of 3 mil, so by now money will be tight again, and while DayZ was lucky, I doubt that you can sustain a company from accidental sales from a mod for however long it´ll take before they will be able to finish Arma 3 to the standards we as a community are expecting. Also, DayZ by now is a major and deep re-write of the engine, so that will tie up more expensive man-hours that need to be paid for. And I for one paid for the alpha full well knowing that I was paying for a BIS product, and it is only a game, and I expected things would not go smoothly at all. Especially after the greece debacle. If people went into it not expecting at least a few bumps, I feel sorry for them, but it doesn´t invalidate the fact that this development has gone rather shittily over a long time period, and that the fat needs to be cut where necessary. In fact, I´d rather have them throw things out when they don't work, rather than keep them and make the game taste as bad as Arma 2 did again. And I won't make any assumptions about what tasks the Mission designers fulfill: I do not know how BI organizes their team, and how task assignment is structured, and I don't really care either. All I want is a tightly packaged, polished game, with no nonsense attached. For example, another manhattan. Yes. I am an exclusive SP person too, I have said that often. However, I am pretty sure that I am not going to be dead one week after the game releases (knock on wood), and I have enough interest and time to wait for an excellent SP campaign, rather than a shitty one now. This is what the complaints seem like: "We don't want your fixed, non-buggy, polished campaign tomorrow, we want your buggy, badly designed, nonfunctional prototype campaign now!" Remember Manhattan. And even outside of the many, many rivet-counting issues Arma 3 has from the perspective of someone interested in Asset realism, there are many building sites in the program that need to be resolved, and I´d rather have them work on those right now, rather than diddledaddle about with non-matching AI/Assets and Campaign design.

I am not even going to comment on this. Not because I am angry at BI now, but because the community response is as raging as can be. Really? For years I´ve watched people in mod threads (going back to OFP times) saying that they do not care about the BI campaigns, they do not care about the BI Missions, and how the community does everything "teh best anyways" (remember the Armed Assault times when signatures like "BI delivers the Game, The community delivers the Content" were common?) and now this is suddenly a major problem? You're starting to complain about the fact that BI has realized that especially the hard core community is very unsatisfied with many details in the simulation part, and that they want to focus on delivering those features before wasting tons of effort in coding for scripting a massive campaign that now needs to be used for making other things work that need to be put in to make the game work? I do not get you. Edit: However, I also have to add that my surprise at this revelation is everything but positive. Not sure if I can keep up my confidence, but since OFP was a very troubled development, the superstitious part of my brain urges me to actually take this as a good sign.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gfUZBAvqugrveCmFZ-O84gieJQ6dFsdIw-pxAkqJQKw/edit?usp=sharing Prior to downloading today's patch, I have done more tests using yesterday's version. NEW TESTS are always at the TOP of the document, with date and now also with version number. Only four, but they were revealing as I could note some behaviours I´ve also spotted while playing other missions. The low movement is very good, and use of prone vs high stances was also good, even in the other missions with open terrain. There still are problems, particularly with cover exploitation, as well as making decisions of firing over moving or vice versa. Vehicles, especially Aircraft, are terrible in their use of terrain and tactics, and often suffer undue losses. I will add an example Mission later to demonstrate this.

The very tall turret is also a plus. Place it somewhere hull down and you`re virtually invulnerable, because even if you withdraw you still have the CITV popping over the ridge. The AI doesn´t know this, though, which is somewhat problematic, in the end.

The RPG-42 now has a smoketrail, and no backblast effect. The launch unit burns out inside the tube, the shell should have no smoke trail at all (maybe a heat effect, but nothing more). The NLAW actually is a rocket, firing after it has left the launch tube.

The 3GL has a capacity of 3. The 3rd packs are not used on the normal soldiers, however, they use the single rounds only.

ACtually, the AAF officer is the CSAT officer's top with the pants from the AAF battle uniform. But yeah, I see what you mean.

Explosions don't sound like explosions. They sound like what action movie writers think explosions sound like, but they´ve never heard an explosion. A handgrenade doesn't go "pew", it goes "BANG". And a rocket impact isn´t a low, rolling thunder like some sort of avalanche, it is a pretty sharp and LOUD bang too. And the reach of sounds is too low, too. You can hear rifle fire over miles irl. Tank guns are heard out to 50 kilometers in clear weather. If there is a battle anywhere on the map, and it´s not raining or snowing heavily or something, you should be able to hear it. The sounds also go dull very rapidly, and the audio filter doesn´t sound like actual distance filtering, it rather more sounds like rattling tincans. The Idea is there with the sounds for the rifles, but the rifles are unfortunately about the only things along with the voiceovers and some engine sounds from the vehicles that sound good. Explosions and Rocket sounds are particularily weak. Note, none of these go "rumble". They go "boom". And in Arma, the bigger the explosion, the more it sounds like an earthquake rumble or a very, very, very distant volcano or something, not an explosion. Bang. Bang bang bang. Not rumble. The sound only gets lower over distance. Big distances, not 700 meters, but rather at distances of 1 - 2km ish, depending on the size of the explosion. The louder the bang, the further the high pitched frequencies in the bang will carry.

Textures are pretty HQ. There are textures for greenfor and redfor camo for the CRV too, and all have farsi (or arab indeed?) markings on the crane. It looks like some sort of company logo, maybe the supplier of the crane system?

I think they´re vanilla Nato soldiers, with a script to replace their gear. The equipment is a mix between greenfor and bluefor (The greens now use the MK.200, which isn´t really consistent because all other weapons they use are vintage but that´s not the point of this thread), the helmets are just the light combat helmets without camera and lights on them, and the vests look like the normal tactical vests in olive. You can literally throw anything together with this system. Which is what is so nice about it. :> For example, I´m using opfor light infantrymen as "Guerillias". I just give them TRG's, hats, civvie clothes and reskin those using the hidden selections and voilá, Freedom Fighter Terrorist Guerillia soldiers. Anyways, apart from the helmet, all equipment seen in this picture is ingame already.

Guy on the left, rear skid appears to have a MK.200 with an ACO mounted. Guy on the right, rear skid has an Intervention. The others are pretty much indiscernible. The helmets are plain, high cut helmets. We only have the version with gadgets tacked onto it ingame right now.

I have to add that the calculator used in that only used rough inputs, like muzzle velocity, barrel length, etc, and no detailed requirements you`d see in an irl application. For a more detailed view on coilguns in real life, this paper seems to give a rough Idea, from reading through it quickly. It also explains how coilguns work in theoretical detail: http://www.physics.utu.fi/projects/kurssit/UFYS3032/SandiaCoilguns.pdf

I was for it the entire time! Well, not when it was a railgun because railguns are silly, Coilguns can actually work on such a scale as far as energy levels. I hope it´ll make it in, still, along with new and nice effects and everything. It´d be a rad toy.

I want my coilgun. :I Coilguns plz. Seriously, that kinda gun would be fun. And the destruction effects you could realize! Think about how amazing that´d be.

Yeah, AI is difficult to do. In fact, I think it is the single most difficult thing to do in a game. The fact that we do not have robots that can safely cross a street irl but can beat people at chess shows that interacting with a dynamic, unpredictable world is horrifically difficult unless you have an evolved brain. They are going in the right direction, though. Right now I see them try to preserve themselves by hunkering down, which I hope gets only adjusted as far as cover exploitation, and not removed again altogether because of people who don´t know how to use the combat modes. Mission designers may need overrides, but those can be provided even if the vanilla AI stays as "low" as it is right now. Problems with clever pathfinding (ie, flanking, using cover to sneak up on tanks, and deciding when to pull back or not pull back, etc), tactical context thinking and perception are still there, though, and they remain the major flaw. Along with the fact that the AI does not know the concept of an area target, and thus cannot do suppressive or covering fire, or recon by fire, or anything like that. That´s also why they are too lethal if they spot you, and not lethal enough when they do not spot you (and they also are too good at spotting you, especially over large distances.)

I suspect that during the campaign, they will receive military aid from nato, ie, they will receive second line Nato MBTs and repaint those. There is a greenfor texture for the panther already ingame, which I suspect is also meant for the campaign.

When set to danger they should crawl. Set them to aware and it´ll be no problem. The crawling is excellent, the casualty rates are down a little bit just because of that small change. Also, I think what´s more important for the AI is (to go against or with the points above) AI that can rearm from each others backpacks. AI that can use terrain (hull down cover for tanks, popping up and down behind walls and rocks for infantry) AI that can use Buildings AI that knows how to employ vehicles/aircraft. Right now the tanks and helicopters just blunder about, often not going for the strengths of their craft.

I was doing outdoor sports on saturday when we had 38° outside. Your argument is invalid 8I. But really, as long as you would be able to set specific speeds on waypoints to coordinate helicopters, different top speeds wouldn´t be such a problem. Maybe speed should be a distinct waypoint option for vehicles, at least for aircraft?

30 kph in rugged, hilly, rocky terrain is good speed. On flat ground, vehicles are too fast off road: all surfaces are treated as if made of concrete. There is no difference right now between road surfaces and offroad surfaces. The only thing that affects vehicle speed is steepness of hillsides.

Try it. The sound is transmitted through your skull, not out of your mouth and into your ear. You can hear yourself breathing even if people around you can't. The noise isn´t too loud, all it needs is tweaking to make sound as if it really is inside your skull and not external. Before starting to complain about lack of realism, check wether or not you actually looked into how whatever you are complaining about and how it actually works.

I think we need the whole deal, the menu needs to go. It needs an intelligent, context sensitive replacement. Look at a door, open it. Want to place an explosive, hold button, select explosive, it gets placed. Want to drag a teammate? Hold button, drop down menu pops up, scroll to the bottom and drag. (The point dyslexci makes about the randomity and the lack of abillity to muscle-memorize the menus is a very valid point). When at the target, simply hold button again, scroll to "treat" and immediately treat the victim. First option should always be drop, last option should always be the most vital. The highlighting is really just a visual help to ensure that the game has noticed what you expect from it. So it is a vital part of the whole package too, but people should be able to turn it off at their own peril.

They do. Policy with the german tanks (back when my father served in the 80s" was to drive around with the hatches "half popped", so that just your eyes were above the rim of the hatch.) in the 80s was to preferably have the hatches open to improve situational awareness. With your hatches down, you immediately become blind, apart from the narrow slices that your optics can see. You can´t tell where you are being shot at from (with a modern tank like an Abrams I doubt you´d even hear the noise of rifle fire against your hull or handgrenades going off nearby, and heavier rounds hitting you would make it bang from all around.) without a sensor and help from the outside. This is why you have buddy-team systems where each tank observes what the other does, to see where they are being shot at from. Another good example from the early days of tank warfare is the Book "Tiger" by Egon Kleine + Volkmar Kühn (I believe, which I am also not sure is available in English unfortunately), where they have combat reports by crew members of Tigers all the way from the very first to the very last. There you can see that driving around with hatches open even under fire or under threat of making contact was very common, to improve communication, situational awareness and possibly to allow hasty escape from the vehicle. You only completely button up when you are positively in hard contact, to protect against blast pressure, shrapnel and thrown weapons from nearby enemy infantry. Modern Tanks do not suffer from this as much because of their advanced sensors, but when you look at footage from Combat even from Desert Storm, you will often see them driving (even firing) with the hatches open. I would support BI even removing the external view completely from Tanks, apart from on the very easiest difficulty, to simulate this fact. We´d also need a half-pop "turn out" option, and the AI would need to be strictly limited to only see where their sensors are pointing and where there are periscopes on the hull. You should literally be able to casually walk around behind an enemy tank when they are not looking your way.

I´m sure the broken action menu doesn´t ruin Immersion. I also totally board the driver seat when I´m trying to jump on a truck irl. Or open a door that´s ten meters away while looking at another. Ignoring the limitations of the platform isn´t being for more immersion, it´s being silly. We need some kind of visual aid to show us what we are going to do when we hit that button. Right now it is guesswork and luck.

Combat is much more enjoyable with the AI down and actually looking like they want to stay alive. In Urban terrain they should prefer crouching, but out in the country, when moving between cover and not out in the open, I actually really like the prone AI. But I can already see people complaining about how the AI "refuses to move". This is difficult to get right, because wether or not they should stay down or move is heavily context dependent. I am not sure how well that kind of thing could be fixed, since a computer code has no Idea of concepts such as "The enemy has a tank, so I should run for cover as long as he didn´t spot me yet" versus "There is an enemy patrol and if we want to ambush it we need to stay down instead of running head-first across the landscape to find a big rock to hide behind."