instagoat

Will the Nato cage vests also get updated with MX Ammo pouches? Right now they use ammo still made for the FN-2000 that went to be used by the AAF.

This thread is just a little description of a trial I made with the vanilla game, against an empty MBT-52. It is to describe the (evident to everyone) problems of the armor penetration system, as well as show what -does- work. A total of 7 shots were fired from a static M2A1 against the frontal armor of a static MBT-52. Distance was 1600 meters. Fig. 1 Fig. 2 First shot fired hit the front of the hull, right at the joint of upper and lower glacis. The round penetrated the armor, and was stopped by some component just behind that. It did not reach the drivers or the fighting compartment behind. (Fig 1: View of the strike from the front. Fig 2: Shot of the strike from the inside. Armor joint can be traced between the triangular protrusions to the right of the headlights.) Fig. 3 Second shot fired hit the front of the hull, squarely in the upper glacis right above the first shots strike. Again, the armor was penetrated, but the round was stopped just behind by another unknown component. It did not reach the drivers compartment. The round was stopped at about the depth of the Idler wheel. (Fig 3: View of the strike from the front. ) Third shot was aimed at the turret front, upper glacis but went high, flying straight through the AA-MG mounting above the commanders hatch, nearly clipping the RCWS. Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fourth shot was aimed at the turret front but went low, hitting the hull short of the drivers hatch, just inside of the rear view mirror on the tanks right hand side. The round was completely stopped by the armor. It did not bounce. However, despite not penetrating, the hull's damaged textures popped up when this round hit. (Fig 6: shows where the round hit. Note damage textures. Fig 7: Side view showing round stopping right on the armor's surface.) Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fifth shot was aimed at the hull side, aiming to strike the spaced armour to test its performance. The round hit the armor straight on, penetrated it, was deflected by the primary armour inside and above the tracks and was then stopped by the running gear. So far, this was the most complex behaving round. (Fig. 8: Hit on the spaced armour front. Actual path of the round is always just below the drawn line, as indicated by it being not centered on the hit mark. Fig. 9 shows the path of the round just behind the frontal part of the spaced armor. Note how it deflects to the left and traces right along where the hull outside armor would be. The line stopped just behind the turret and above the tracks, but damage indicator still showed the track especially damaged.) Fig. 10 Sixth shot was aimed at the turret and resulted in a hit. The shot hit the inside plate of the gunners viewport, penetrated it into the space between gunmantlet and gunsight wall, deflected of some component to tag the commanders station, penetrated the rear wall of the fighting compartment, the rear armor of the turret and the spaced armor behind that and continued on to impact the ground behind the tank. To my complete surprise, this shot did not result in destruction of the target. (Fig. 10 shows the hit as the round is still in mid flight, after overpenetrating the turret. Green tracer colour indicates that the round had less than 25 % of its initial velocity left. ) The Seventh shot hit the tank in the turret ring and immediately blew it up. So, what did I take away from this? Firstly, I can't tell what is going on after penetration. The damage modelling of the individual modules is also still way too simplistic. On the other hand, the armor itself still appears to hold up as far as the hit and penetration modelling is concerned. I have been playing tons of warthunder in the past year, which has changed my view on what constitutes a good vehicle damage model. WTs selling point is obviously its realistically modelled vehicles, however, sooner or later vehicles will be in need of an overhaul of some sorts. The question is, how, and what do we as a community expect. Where does the realism overkill begin, and what do we take as to be expected from a battlefield simulation on the level of Arma 3? Here is my five points: 1: More diverse internal modules with module damage. Most basic should be: Tracks/Wheels, Weapons, Optics, Fuel, Engine+Drivetrain, Ammunition, Crew and Weapons articulation. 2: More advanced behaviour of rounds. For example, modern NATO APFSDS uses pyrophoric materials, so shot no. 6 should not have overpenetrated. Instead the round would have slammed through the armour on the side of the vision device and gone off, blasting burning uranium and liquid steel into the fighting compartement. Other devices in need of better simulation are shaped charge warheads and the like. 3: Crew Damage. Tank crews are invulnerable to penetrating rounds (Fig. 15) 4: Ability for crews to make minor repairs and crews not abandoning tanks just because tracks are damaged. 5: Better external damage simulation and wrecks. No more disappearing turrets, tracks, etc. Example of a warthunder killcam to show the complexity of the internal damage modelling. The game models armour spalling, shell fragmentation, shell explosive effects, ammunition fires and explosions. Killcam does not draw all fragments a shell throws around, but only those that cause damage.

I ended up with the following weights: Rifle: 3.5 kgs, Gunsight: 0.35 kgs, IR Laser: 0.35 kgs Pistol: 0.63 kgs Rifle Magazines 10x (9 On Person, 1 in Rifle): 0.45 kgs per mag, 4.5 kgs (without ammunition) 210 rounds of Rifle ammunition at 0.016 kg per round (Assuming 120 grain bullet with similar weight for casing and propellant) 4.8 Kgs Total for Ammo+Mags thusly: 9.3 Kgs Weight of Pistol Mags + Ammo: 0.36 Kgs Crye Cage Chassis in size L (Because of 1.90 m size of Arma characters): 3.63 kgs without plates. 2x SAPI level III plates: 5 kgs 2x SAPI level III side inserts: 1.6 kgs ACH with ACR rails and dingledongles: 1.75 kgs (Assuming 1.36 kgs for the helmet without any accessories attached) DAGR: 1.25 kgs NVGs: 0.9 kgs Radio: 0.85 kgs Personal first aid: 0.8 kgs 2x Handgrenade (M-67): 0.8 kgs 2x Smoke grenade (M-18): 1.06 kgs Personal Hydration equipment (Canteen or Bladder, 1L of Water, Filtration set): 1.3 kgs Food: 0.1 kgs Uniform, Boots, Gloves, Watch, Map: 0.6 kgs Pouches, Rope, Assorted Equipment: 0.4 kgs Total weight: 34.35 kgs. According to this document: http://www.2ndbn5thmar.com/notes/CombatLoad.pdf Ideal fighting load is 20 kgs. Approach march load is 32 kgs. So the individual Arma 3 rifleman is actually overloaded by ~ 40 % as far as the USMC appears to be concerned. (Document is from "Notes for Infantry Leaders - Infantry Combat PME" from 1998)

Why is this still a thing? There's a reason why modern militaries rely so heavily on mechanization, and why you never see people make long distance movements at any other pace than a quick walk. That or I missed the evidence to the contrary that shows modern soldiers with 70 kgs of equipment running all the time, at any distance, without getting fatigued. The system is fine, adapt your playstyle from run n gun to fatigue management. Plan your movement. (Nobody climbs the steepest grade in real life straight on, you serpentine, or find a flatter approach). For example, the normal NATO soldier carries his MXR, Pistol, 8 mags for the rifle, 3 mags for the pistol and 3 handgrenades. (Assuming 3.5 kgs for the rifle, 0.6 kgs for the pistol. 0.7 kgs per mag (without rounds) and .084 kgs per round at 30 rounds per mag, 0.37 kgs per grenade) That alone would amount to 35 kilograms. This does not count Uniform, Vest, Helmet, doesn't count pistol mags and ammunition, doesn't count NVGs, optics, etc, etc. If you don't want to get fatigued, drive, or ditch the plate carrier and carry only small amounts of ammo. In the campaign I ditched my pack and all my ammo save for 3 mags for the rifle, handgrenades and mission essentials whenever I needed to move. Then, move back, collect gear and hump it to the next objective. Rinse and repeat. Where's the difficulty?

Is it just me, or are some of the weapons looking really oversized? The ASP-1s trigger guard is big enough to fit an average sized persons four fingers through. Or is that just because the weapons all have these massive calibers and look big because of the magazines or what?

I have noticed that since Marksmen features started to be staged, my game was acting up, particularily with the menus in the arsenal not working, insignia not being accessible and small niggles like that. I've romped around and shuffled my mods forth and back and found joint rails to be the culprit, apparently BI has made so many changes that its conflicting with the arsenal somehow now? Just wanted to point this out and ask if anybody else is seeing similar issues, so it can be rectified when marksmen is out proper and things stop changing over every two days. Rly enjoying this little helpermod, so I hope that it can be made to work again properly.

Made three tickets about the minor bugs found so far on the rifles: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=23044 MAR-10 Black, texture bug http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=23045 ASP-1 has massive muzzleflash for some reason http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=23042 New Ghillies are missing normals, speculars, thermal maps. (I know, not a rifle, on my way to bed so I dun care.)

Nice new vests, but will they get versions without all the additional armour? Also, the special vests does not have any ammunition pouches on it, is that intentional?

You can deploy the weapon without a bipod, but you will not benefit from it as much as with a bipod (Lower position on the resting surface, worse recoil management, apparently. They show it off in the stream.) Weapon resting is not the same as deploying a weapon on a surface.

Recently watched a video with some novorussians shooting up a building of flats with a T-64. The reverb from the forests and fields hadn't subsided by the time the tank gave off the next shot. Bang, then a dull, sharp pop from the hit in the distance, thunder rolling all around. That kind of soundscape would be amazing, but I dunno how they could simulate that kind of thing. Every surface echoes and distorts differently, and it is good that in 2008 combat footage was generally not 1080p, otherwise the difference between the real world chernarus-y soundscape and cherna would have been even more grating. We are much closer, and the recent improvements make the combat so much more vibrant. Once tanks and vehicle mounted guns, as well as explosions get a makeover, it'll be a whole different game.

I managed the mission by camping and exploiting the AI's weakness inside town. I literally lured them in there piecemeal, then blew up one of the AAF wheeled APCs without wrecking it. Killed the crew after they bailed, and then drove the vehicle onto the hill behind the town and started to spend ammo on everything I saw. The rest was relatively easy.

It was the bulk of my supremely superficial 3D modelling knowledge making violent contact with hot water and a bucketful of fancy, the results of which crash you can witness in my above post. But really, it was just naive hope I guess. :( There goes my e-fame.

Hey, I got a question regarding the reflex and holo sights. Because the reticule is rendered at a distance, in some guns it sits behind the front sight post (AR-15 style rifles as an example.) like this: My question now is this: is it technically possible to have the gun display in two lods at once in first person view? That way the front sight post from the 1st world LOD could be used while the gun itself (and the mounted sight) are Pilot lod, making the reticule render in front rather than behind the sight post. Minor issue, I just got out of the shower and wonder if I had a groundbreaking Idea here or something. As for the rest, I am in awe before all this content. The tanks especially are a beaut to play with: once the AI can keep up with armored warfare, the fun will still be doubled!

Don't spoil my faith, nonbeliever! Yeah, that. I'm just hoping for something completely different this time. Some semi temperate south american terrain would be great, maybe landlocked like Chernarus was too. But this time with procedurally generated terrain around that actually has trees. As for the 60s setting, there was so much cool gear around in South America during that time that's not been in the games yet. FALs, AR-15s, Kalashnikovs, WW2 surplus, AMX-13s and Kürassiers, modified Shermans, Chaffees, as well as russian gear, etc, etc. It would just be great. Some of that equipment can also be used as insurgency gear in modern settings, so it combines nicely.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?149636-Development-Branch-Changelog&p=2889086&viewfull=1#post2889086 <- the very last lines lead me to believe that the next setting will be a fictional south american country during the 1960s. My faith is firm!

For the past couple of versions, the M200 has reverted to the old firing sound, was that intended?

Bloody hell this is good. I love it. I've not found feedback necessary, personally. The weapon not swaying has been enough in the few tests I've managed this evening. However, generally, I would go for visual feedback. The most sensible thing would either be a slight alteration of the crosshair or a small icon below the weapon in the ammo counter. Arma is good because the UI is so unintrusive, and I found this resting mechanic to be really intuitive without adding more clutter. Will continue testing though, and maybe add a little more opinion later.

Well, when I tested the armor penetration system in early release days, the game simulated armor penetration, different armor thicknesses on different parts of the tank as well as (very oddly behaving) hitpoints inside (that don't include the crew). One game that has decent, quick acting but comprehensive armor simulation is war thunder. They have post penetration effects, accurately simulated modules and armor surfaces. They also simulate the shells decently in their behaviour (HE vs APHE or APHEBC, APCR, APCS, HEAT, etc) for a good experience. Tanks do not always immediately blow up. There is also tons of different ways for a tank to blow up, and some ways of blowing up do not mean the tank is dead. 3:18 into the video, 90mm APCS against a Strv 103, fuel tank blown up, vehicle perfectly functional. At 6:14 they shoot a HEAT round at the lower glacis, which penetrates through a fuel tank into the engine frame without igniting the fuel. 6:16, another 90mm HEAT against the side of the vehicle, penetrating the fuel tank and into the crew compartment with the jet stopped by the gun breech. "No splinters or harmful overpressures reach the crew stations, and no fire is started in the crew compartment.". I guess that kind of thing would be shocking, but not deadly. But if a crewmember is hit, it doesn't cause the tank to blow up either. (Right now crew cannot be harmed by rounds passing through vehicles as far as I tested). There was a massive armor simulation thread where things like this were discussed, which then resulted in the advanced armor simulation mod. I don't know how that works in detail, but I would like for BI themselves to improve the vehicles, because right now the tanks are deathtraps.

The arsenal is giving me script errors and causes the game to get stuck in a loop at the moment. Is this because of the workover, or is my game due for a file validation? Last time I did that it changed nothing, and I already had errors like this for the past two versions (but no stuck game).

IR radiation is blocked by the windows. You also cannot see through walls. You can only see heat being radiated off surfaces where it leaks from the inside.

Hi, I'm gonna have a peek at the showcases and see what I can find. I can't roll back to the mission, since the save's been replaced by the game by now. However, what I can say is that the general behaviour of the AI appears consistent across skill ranges, the major thing that makes them dangerous now is accuracy. The consistency from mission to mission in this regard is also oddly fluctuating. For example: Another thing that persistently happens is AI vehicles running over people. Tanks are especially prone to this. In real life, Infantry is supposed to avoid tanks to not get run over, or tanks are told to specifically not move when infantry is around. Maybe some sort of rule like this could help?

I have a question. I've just finished bingo fuel, with AI settings on skill 100 and accuracy 25. However... I killed over 50 Soldiers (An entire platoon), destroyed 2 wheeled APCs, 2 IFVs, at least 3 MRAPs and damaged at least one more APC beyond repair. I did all of this without support from my AI friends, because the enemy AI did never react to being shot at from large distances (aside from starting to run around for a bit and then stopping again), they did not try to get me inside a building, they walked into killzones, ignored nearby shooting and never attacked me more than one soldier at a time. How is this possible, from an average player like me? And I don't want to hear "AI mods plz", because I want to play the vanilla campaigns without them breaking. The problem is that the enemy AI is beyond easy, even at the highest settings possible, at least tactically. You can make them super snipers, but their ability to attack and move is very slight compared to the advances of the rest of the game. For example, when I destroyed one MRAP with a captured launcher from about 1.2 km away, the AI reacted very briefly to the explosion, but then resumed their normal "follow waypoints" pattern as if nothing had happened. They also ignore corpses (Thief had this down way back when. There's run of the mill shooters and rpgs now that do this.) and are not morally impacted by taking fire at all. They also prefer walking down streets and open places instead of taking cover, and when being shot at do not move. I killed two supposedly much better trained CSAT soldiers in a prior mission when they took cover in the middle of the road and started taking pot-shots at me (me with a machinegun, crouched behind a rock). In this mission I had only a single instance of an AI flanking me, which was nice, unfortunately he was alone and instead of keeping to shoot, he preferred to shoot, run a bit and then try to shoot again. Gave me a lot of time to fix my mistake of not observing my flank. I like the campaign. Unfortunately being able to do things like this is a major break in my suspension in disbelief. Who am I, John McLane or your average soldier stranded on a hostile Island? If the enemy were completely accessible in the recon mode, you could destroy the entire occupation force on your own. Just hide in a building, they'll come to you piecemeal and all up the same path. And they also don't try to enter the building. Or try to shell it with a tank. And if you don't move, they forget you're inside the building after ten minutes max. There's so much stuff in here. Will the AI be getting a major makeover with regards to its ability in capability sometime in the future? Not rifle accuracy, but tactical ability?

I have a question, for developers if possible. When playing the Mission in Episode 2 where you have to steal the fuel truck, I have noticed that the enemy is completely non-reactive to shooting and taking casualties aside from individual squads reacting. Basically, I wonder if there is any plan/intent to give the enemy the ability to react to casualties globally. Usually if even a single patrol takes casualties or gets shot at, the reaction is usually pretty big. I noticed that they sent a single strider to investigate, but after I shot that, nobody else ever came around. At this point, halfway through the mission, I have destroyed every tank and truck inside the town itself, and probably killed every footsoldier. It makes the mission easier for sure, but it's a major break in the suspension of disbelief if the reaction by the enemy is so weak. So, will the AI be able to communicate between squads and support each other in the future in some kind of upper-echelon "All Units of this set belong to the same super-unit (A company, for example) and will share information and send help to each other" unit formation?

I like where this is going, especially the range of the sounds is great already. I went out as far as 1.5 kilometers and still could hear gunsounds, which is good. I hope the sound attenuation will improve, and another thing that the sound system needs is reverb and echo seperate from the gunshot. Those come from the environment, really, and not the gun itself as it is now. For example, firing a weapon indoors sounds exactly like it was outdoors and vice versa. I also hope that the sounds are not so bassy anymore in the future that they make speakers crackle with overload and aliasing artifacts.

Question is wether or not something like JAM can be organized again, because as far as I understand, ammo is now more complex, and there's also a higher standard players and modders themselves expect of ammo performance with regards to the adherence to real world data.