instagoat

Okay, in case of mines, the Idea really is that you jam or prematurely detonate them. RPGs also used shaped charge warheads, which are essentially explosively formed penetrators, aren´t they? Same with gun launched and missile based HEAT rounds. Hard-kill systems are against projectiles. Against IED/mine threats, you use detectors and jamming systems.

I seem to remember that clothing items also had slot limitations, though I don´t remember how they worked. I know when I tried to gather up gear when I tried the thing at gamescom, I had the uniform selected and could only put one item into it. I doubt that the vests would be unlimited, though I suspect that every vest will have a different amount of slots available for equipment, on top of your characters innate abillity to carry only a certain weight. I think the other big thing to keep in mind is that BI are trying to implement actual working bodyarmour this time, so the vest not only is for lugging gear around, but also will offer protection depending on the type of armour used. I at least hope that they are able to offer different types of armour, maybe as part of a special RVMAT setting or something, so you can model pistol-safe type police vests to fully decked out military bodyarmour. The unoccupied slot is for eyewear, such as swim goggles, gas masks, ballistic goggles and if the modders so desire, fancy HUD goggles or something. Eyewear only offers a degree of protection right now, or is very specialized in its protection. Without swim goggles, swimming in the ocean will cause your vision to go blurry because of the salt water burning in your characters eyes. Obviously you will also need some sort of oxygen bottle/rebreather for diving, this is also already implemented.

Superb! I´ve got to try these out... I´m gonna throw these on the BI US Army units with my retex thingie and show pics once I´ve got them suited up. Thanks for making these available. :> Cheers Insta Tried them, and it seems ADS deliberately altered the colours of the flat pictures on their websites: they look nothing like on the recent photographs. I´m currently looking through their pictures and am trying to determine the actual values of the colours. OCIE actually looks kind of like a dry-er AOR-1 as far as the colours go according to some pictures I found from SHOT show. The shadows in the field pictures are very intense and finding the averages for the colours will entail a bit of work. I hope you´re okay with me altering the colourways to more realistic values? I´ll make the finished swatches available again too.

Oh yes, our great new Airport. It is magnificient (I live in the area, flew from the old portion of it to England last year). It is the most magnificient building site you´ve ever seen. Perfectly planned and executed, on schedule and on budget.... not. EFP's are actually intercepted by hard-kill systems prior to detonating. The standoff distance for most EFPs is really short (just look at the distance of the ballistic cages around Vehicles like the Stryker from the hull.) compared to the range of hard-kill systems. I am unsure about the APFSDS claims too, but these people need to look impressive to sell their products, and I am sure they have the numbers to back up their claims at least on paper. Trophy has been used in Combat, and has intercepted missiles of unstated type on Israeli Merkavas in the Gaza strip, according to Wikipedia. Hezbollah has been known to use Metis missiles along with locally produced RPG-2s and imported RPG-7s with various types of warhead (I suspect pretty much everything that was in service in the SU up to the point of its disassembly can be found in the hands of insurgents in the region). So far, no Tank with an active protection system had to defend itself against fire from other Tanks, outside of (likely classified or otherwise undisclosed) static range tests on the lab-ranges of the developing Companies. I wonder how and how well these relatively new systems will be implemented in Arma. We don´t know much about their combat history, and getting info about their reliabillity is seriously difficult it seems, especially because only a scant few have ever been used in conditions actually resembling combat. As far as I know, only Trophy has actually defeated battlefield munitions fired against it in anger.

The developer of Trophy claims that it can intercept APFSDS rounds (which are about the fastest travelling projectiles on the battlefield). The distance at which it intercepts seems rather large, from the grainy test footage of these systems that can be found around the web, apparently around 5 - 10 meters. Technically one could calculate the maximum theoretical distance for an EFP, since the equations should by now be available in public. I guess it would necessarily have to be within the kill range. However, russia is already developing weapons to defeat Systems like Trophy, using the "downtime" after an interception as a window to punch in with their projectile. They basically fire alight precursor round at a set distance in front of the actual round, and the Trophy intercepts the precursor, and while it resets (a timeframe of milliseconds, apparently) the main round strikes the target. Also, for the F-35 vs Sukhoi drama: The problem isn´t that the F-35 is american, the problem is that it sucks. And the reason it sucks is the laws of nature. The best policy for the US would be to ditch it, and instead return to the much better F-22, which is about the best Fighter in the world right now.

It´s a new Camo, made by ADS. It´s been designed for the recent US Army camo competition. There´s only a handful of -very- small swatches available, so it´s difficult to make a decent full size swatch without the pattern repeating itself in a jarringly obvious fashion. I know, I tried and kinda failed :( Their website is here: http://www.adsinc.com/company/solutions/camo-solutions/us4ces

Is this a phototexture or a hand painted swatch? It looks really neat, but multibutt isn´t my favourite :I I´m currently searching for a replacement for textures I am working on. You don´t happen to have a similarily excellent US4CES sample to go along with your multicam? Thumbs up for putting this out here for modders to use too, wonderful initiative!

Insta 7ID reskin (Personal, WIP, Unrel.), Reshmaan Province, ACE2 Testing current US Army Camo Competition 'flages. Krypek Highlander.

I like these a lot, and am looking forward to the final release! However, I can´t find any classname lists in the readme or here... is there any way/place to find these out? I apologize if I overlooked something obvious. I am just trying to get these to work with Ryd High Command. Cheers Insta

Hi! I have a general question regarding armed transports. When I am commanding a squad with transport vehicles attached (such as HMMWVs, Strykers or addon vehicles such as EXA's RG31 or the Ridgeback), even if I am in the vehicle I always get assigned a "get in" command. After that, the command chain for me stalls, sometimes for ages. Apparently I can fix it by disembarking everybody, and then re-embarking. When I get a command to leave the vehicles, I also usually get a "get out" instead of an "unload" command. This seems to affect the AI too, who sometimes get out of their vehicles, and then not all squad members get in again resulting in Units trailing the vehicles, or gunners not getting into their gunner positions again and instead occupying cargo seats. I´ve not got a repro mission as I am still trying to determine if this is a problem with this one Mission I have, or if it is something that happens in general. Do I have incorrect settings or wrongly applied classname tags in the lists? I´ll upload a repro as soon as I figure out which vehicles actually are affected and under what circumstances. It is just something I noticed whenever I play one particular (addon heavy) mission I built, and it makes the mission unplayable for me due to the erratic behaviour of this weird glitch.

Neat, I was sure I missed something. I do remember about the more easily accessible mission editor functions, but that was pertaining to an ingame briefing editor.

I dunno if there´s a video demonstrating it, but I have tried this system myself at gamescom. Basically it is broken down into Headgear, Eyewear, Vest and a Clothing Combo underneath that. I didn´t have the time to try it out, but from what could be gathered from other people who were at GC, as well as things stated here, the Vest or absence of it will define physical space on your body to carry gear. Vest, eyewear and headgear will also influence your protection value (Body armour will be simulated). Clothes influence your concealment value (At least, I hope they will be able to implement this.). All Items have weight, which will influence your stamina depending on how heavily you work out. Some screenshots show Iranian soldiers with differently camouflaged thermosuits, so we expect that clothing will also be available in different types of colouration and camouflage. This also means that if you want a soldier addon, you basically can break everything down into items. Instead of making six models each with a different vest and camo, the Idea seems to be that you make simply two vests, two suits, two helmets and different camos for each (hidden selections?). The improved Editor will also hopefully at last have an inventory editor (Not confirmed or even mentioned, but srsly BI, we need dis) so you can exchange gear as you please. The same will go for weapons, which will have three slots on them (Scope, Muzzle Device, Laser/Flashlight). So instead of 200 different models in your addon, you only need 2 Rifles for each combination (With GL, without GL, for example), all your scopes, and all your desired muzzle devices. And, again, hopefully a way to change textures for those Items as needed. Also: Iranian Urban camo: http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/steamarma3_4_16471.jpg Iranian Temperate: http://www.armaholic.com/datas/users/steamarma3_1_16471.jpg Fun times ahead!

Only after extensive rebuilds. The blast bottom is only a small part of the whole package. They put on ERA armour all around, added sensors and cameras to improve situational awareness and made the whole vehicle massively more expensive without a leap in combat value. And they didn´t invent a new tracked vehicle because they were already working on new tracked vehicles even BEFORE the Invasion started. The only new Vehicle introduced at the time was the stryker. After that, -many- new Vehicles were introduced, namely the MRAP family. This contains more than 10 different new Vehicles introduced since 2003. If you look at -any- Urban combat scenario, Tanks have -always- failed to impress. From Stalingrad to Hungary to Grozny to Fallujah, to recent footage from Lybia and Syria, Tanks have been beaten to a pulp by untrained rebels with 50 year old AT grenades and surplus Arty shells buried at roadsides. The main problem here is that the new vehicle families are built to do very specific things, and in a world in conflict scenario, the requirements for new equipment will change. Major conflict drives technological evolution. That is why we saw so many huge leaps during the cold war. The main reason why everything slowed down to a literal trickle of progress (at least to the public's eye) is that the main incentive to evolve and revolutionize existing technology was gone. Another thing one has to keep in mind is that warfighting equipment ever since WW1 is driven primarily not by presupposing an Idea, but by taking experience and working from that. And if you look closely, the main developments since the end of Vietnam have been in the evolution of air power lethality. In WW2, Airplanes made Battleships obsolete. Today, a single Airplane can carry enough firepower to paralyze a Battalion sized force if it gets through. Unless you have a tight air defense network (which no NATO army, apart from those that have purchased Russian systems), modern standoff weapons can be used to attack ground Units from far beyond the reach of manpads and ground based cannon. I think, this is why we have not seen major leaps in ground based technology apart from very specific threat defeat systems (such as Trophy or Shtora), because battles are won from the air in such a decisive fashion that ground Units really are only necessary for mopping up and holding won ground. The way air force destroyed the Iraqi military in 1991 was so decisive, everybody at the time was surprised. And the technology that was used then has continued to evolve. And from a Nato perspective, Opfor is not only catching up now, but if the internal problems of major western Air warfare platform developments persist, are realistically able to perform better than anything Nato can field in the next 25 years. Like Rocket fuel, Assault Rifles are pretty much at the end of development: you can´t really improve on what we have, aside from trying refinements in mechanism and propellant chemistry. It is much the same for tanks: many MBTs are physically so heavily armoured that you run into physical problems defeating them without putting excessively big guns on your own vehicles OR improving your air based weapons to defeat them. And it doesn´t make much sense to armour a tank against a Maverick class Missile. That´s the way I see it, anyways. And again, in a scenario of evident conflict, development will pick up again and continue like last time: until one side either runs out of steam (ie, economical leverage until society breaks down) or is beat in physical warfare.

This has been discussed extensively on the floor and here at and after gamescom. Summary: No, there will not be any change to the core gameplay. The main goal if you want to argue with semantics, is USABILITY not Accessibility. Easier to navigate menus, easier to navigate weapons, easier to use movement, more complex yet intuitive movement (incremental lean, popping up over obstacles.), no more robotic juggling around corners. Interface changes will happen, but last word we got was that all major changes will be subject to scrutiny in the alpha when it rolls around. There are also multiple different key layout schemes that have not yet been demonstrated anywhere, which will be open to be tested by the players then. The simulation itself will get MORE complex. The details are in the confirmed features thread. Source(s): Played the game at gamescom, talked to Gaia for a bit.

I enjoy riding. Dodging flying hooves and teeth is extreme, right?

Hi! I just wanted to put this out here for discussion/as a suggestion. Right now, vehicles on both the SE-Asia and Seattle maps completely ignore the roads (at least they have done so in every experiment I have made.) This makes mission design, particularily with the now coming rearmed booster and its tons of ground vehicles, rather tricky, because nobody can be bothered to stick to the main supply routes, instead careening trough the underbrush left and right. I know that this is, at least for the seattle map, a pretty big demand. I would be happy, however, if only the main roads would be properly useable by vehicles, and all major roads on the SE Asia map useable in a similar fashion. With great hopes Instagoat

Last info was there will be a public alpha version, the access to which has not been discussed yet. However, it has been stated at gamescom and before that the alpha will focus on gameplay design, it will be moddable, and will contain all basic and important features of the game. I think there will be a demo for the full version out too, as has always been for BI games, so I wouldn´t worry about that.

The layout is quite silly if you try to make it look like an ACS, because the untucked shirt is wrapped so that the seam of the zipper storm flap is at the edge of the texture. So unless you line up texture and normal map perfectly, it looks wonky (like this: http://i.imgur.com/HT96Ll.jpg). And I don´t think you´re supposed to wear the ACS untucked anyway, so I think a new model would really do the job. There were some other addons being worked on, but none of these ever showed up again after some small pics here and there. So I hope that this ends up being produced, I´d love to have some preppy, heavily loaded, salty looking US Army soldiers to supplement the ones already in the game.

I just noticed this, and oh nice! I have been dabbling with revamping these Units too with OCP and new shirt and everything, but I doubt I´ll ever release them because I have no clue how to build a working config. Will you also re-do the shoulder pockets and elbow protectors to look like the massif ACS, and/or Army Combat Pant style Pants? Looking forward to see more, I like the worn, beat up look. Edit: Just saw the newmodelsneeze, that would make stuff a lot easier for sure! Looking forward to this even more now!

Learning to put in textures. Personal use 7th ID reskin on Bukovina. ACR courtesy of Alwarrens Remington pack (excellent addon.). Multicam swatch made by my Brother.

And also: Has been a while since I have investigated these, but these should give some inkling what may be done in 20 years time. AI technology is starting to become cheap. The same goes for visual data analysis. By 2035 it is unrealistic to expect every drone to be piloted by a human, and it´s feeds observed by humans. Instead, there will be a network of drones, and if one spots something, it will act according to mission plan. Either close and investigate, immediately alert a controller, or alert nearby ground forces. Robots will also be able to navigate terrain autonomously, and projects like the robot Mules and Unmanned Truck Systems will result in support vehicles that can cross dangerous terrain without any threat to the operators, and supply forward troops without sacrificing manpower. This is tech that is being developed right now, and in part is already being field tested. You also forget that the most groundbreaking technologies are, more often than not, surprises, so I doubt anything I have listed is actually that exciting. Money is rarely a problem when a war is on, and while it is true that the individual combat system is much more expensive, it is also much more effective. Modern ground warfare will be -extremely- high velocity, and dominated and decided by reconaissance and air power. We live in a time where it is possible for a single lucky strike fighter to put a stop on a battalion sized forces advance, and two can put the same formation permanently out of commission. If you look at air warfare, you will also realize that by now we are developing missiles that can use IR seekers at BVR ranges, and which use dichromatic seekerheads that render all current IR countermeasures ineffective. Add to that the fact that the kinematic performance of every missile built for close in combat, which will use these seekers, will out-perform any human manned fighter (because the human body is now by far the weakest link in the chain.). Up until Desert Storm, ground forces could wage war against each other even without dense air cover. Today, any conflict is decided the moment one air force grounds the other (Desert Storm, War in Bosnia, Iraqi Freedom, and to a degree Lybia, as examples.), and air-air as well as air-ground weapons are only bound to become even more lethal as engineers strive to improve cost effectiveness and lethality. A lot of the things I said are, granted, very optimistic. But I think oftentimes, we also tend to be too pessimistic. Again, I am trying to provide some inspiration, possibly to the devs, and to future and current modders. I know the future conflict theme is hugely unpopular with many oldtimers in the community, and I am also trying to break that up a little bit too, where I can. The future is a fun subject.

Hi Does anybody know the exact make of this MOLLE hydration pack on the OA US Army Soldiers? I´m working on learning how to construct addons and specifically new texturing jobs, and I´m trying to find out how this specific pack looks irl in multisuck or whatever else is available. (Truthfully, I´m just trying to find out if there´s a modern version of the same pack with Velcro. I always will take up any excuse to add velcro. And patches.) Thanks in advance for the help

No hangover here. I was out riding. I got an appointment for a massage. The weather was splendid. Day 2 of 2013 has been enjoyable to the max. Tomorrow I will drink in honour of absent friends, and try to figure out what to put on this german news site I apparently am now involved in. If I write something, it sure will be unbiased. Totally unbiased. I wish a successful, healthy, free and happy new year to everyone!

Uh, I don´t know if this was mentioned in the confirmed features thread, (I am pretty sure) but there will neither be an updated 3D editor (the alt-E or whatever will stay, however.) nor a massively overhauled 2D editor. However, the 2D editor will receive game specific improvements and polish. Things mentioned by devs on social feeds and at GC were ingame classname displays, in-editor briefing builder (instead of outboard html coding as is done now.) as well as some other features. I am probably not remembering this correctly, but did somebody mention a native debugging tool and ingame script editor somewhere too? A 3D editor would be superb, but unfortunately, we wont get it. However, I think the 2D editor is at the heart of Arma, and any improvement to it would be very welcome. We will likely see how it´ll work once the alpha rolls around, if it does ever. I sure hope it does, though. That said, by now I have to admit I am getting a little disheartened and angry at the whole situation that´s developed in the past four ish months.

Last word on this was that there will be different sets of camo for any given uniform, this was early 2012 though. I don´t think anything was mentioned about this at GC, but I didn´t inquire about this, and I am not sure anybody else did. Anyways, the Uniform (in different layers), the vest, the helmet, eyewear and weapon attachments were already demonstrated as customizeable at Gamescon. So I think altering camo for any Uniform set is within the realm of the possible.