instagoat

I´ve done a few tests a while ago to see how well the AI can spot you while being prone. I´ve used the Force Recon teamleader, and a default squad of russian soldiers, letting them walk past me at settings "safe" "column" "slow". They only noticed me when they got within 20 meters or so, or if I moved (then they will notice you within about 50 - 80 meters). As Walker stated, they don´t "see" per se, but instead use an algorythm that can distinguish between ground types (tall grass, road surfaces, empty ground), and I think it also includes a camouflage value included in the character pbo, as well as their own skill level. Rule of thumb: don´t move, especially not when somebody is looking in your direction. Also take into account that the AI can hear you. If an AI is looking the other way, you can crawl literally right up to their heels, even in daylight. Cheers Insta

It worked in Arma, but it´s a far from perfect solution... At 3:36-3:37 you can briefly see the reticule floating in mid air as he´s reloading the gun. In Arma 2 this trick doesn´t seem to work at all, and even in Arma 1 it was hit or miss. Some guns with proper collimators worked on my PC, and some gave me permanent floating reticules or dots even when not looking trough the gunsight itself. If it can´t be done with textures, then it´s either leaving the sights alone altogether, or using UI red dots/reticules instead. Considering how important and widespread these sights are, and that most (if not all, and even those that do not really need them) other shooters get this right, it would be really nice to see Arma fix this up too.

http://dev-heaven.net/projects/show/cis <- the CIT can be found here. Devheaven in general is http://dev-heaven.net What´s most daunting for me about it is that I´m never sure what´s a valid thing to post and what isn´t, and there´s so much stuff already you need to search twice or thrice before you can be sure you´re not doubling tickets. Otherwise I think it´s a great tool, and it´s pretty cool that BIS works together with the community in such a way. Edit: Sickboy beat me to it. :V I so slow, lol

Hello again I checked Devheaven, and this is the relevant ticket to the topic: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/5290 It says that BI themselves tried various solutions, so I´m a little reluctant to post the GUI Idea there. I doubt that, if they searched for a way to fix this, they overlooked this solution. Should I post the suggestion on there nontheless? Cheers Insta

I think all solutions that have been tried so far by the community (and possibly BIS too, they know about the problem. There´s at least one, if not multiple tickets on the CIT) have involved texture trickery and magic of one sort or the other. What would be great if the red dot could somehow be turned into a part of the GUI that only shows up when looking down the sights, because that would solve many problems at once, in my opinion. (I´ve to admit I´m no programmer, and not very familiar with how RV works on the inside since I don´t do any modding, though) You could scale/alter the sight according to the gun very easily, you could set brightness/dimensions/type very easily, and it would always be projected at infinity, as a red dot/holo sight should. The feature is already implemented in the default "crosshairs" that you can enable on lower difficulty levels. It would be like that, except permanent and only working when looking down the sights of a red dot scope. I´m going to go check on Devheaven if this has been suggested already tonight, because this solution has been talked about before on the forums, and maybe it´s been tried and found impossible already too. Would be a pity if that, because right now, Red dots are pretty much useless. If they could be made to work, the headbob could be brought back too, so you´d have a definite advantage with red dots over iron sights. Ironsights I prefer in many situations right now, simply because a few of them have less obstruction than red dots, and you can aim just as well. It really shouldn´t be that way.

I don´t understand the complaints about US forces being the leading edge in this rendition of Arma 2 again. Realistically, the US will remain pretty much the only country with a sufficient military force to do any kind of major operations such as Arrowhead suggests being, and we already get Czech, German and possibly an array of UN troops on top of the already existing forces. (For the UN, a BMP and a Mi-8 have been shown, I think, but I would also believe there´s more than that). Otherwise, if I assume I wouldn´t know the OFP series, I have to say this trailer is fantastic. As somebody who has been with the games ever since 2001, though, the quirks jump readily into the eye. Like the afforementioned AI spraying around with the Humvees turret, or the scene where the soldiers run in front of the Hummers. You can just picture in your mind how one of them suddenly stops and gets run over. "...Oh no, 2 is down" I am really hopeful that this time, it won´t be as noticeable as it was in previous times. Arma 2 was already a vast improvement, so Arrowhead will most likely top that. Both thumbs up on this one, BIS.

The silenced G36C with the eotech, yeah. But I think that´s actually intentional.. the manual says all assault rifles are zeroed to 300 meters, and the C uses subsonic ammunition, at any range outside of about 280 - 320, it´s either way above or below the reticule. I´d also have to say that the silenced M9 pistol is pretty much useless in the stock game. My fav gun is the MK48. I guess I´m more of a "hang back and spray" person. Cheers Insta

It really depends on the mission/campaign. Some missions allow you to change your gear by clicking on the gear tab in the briefing, and some don´t, for various reasons. Often you will find that after starting the mission, you can look around in the starting area and find ammo crates with new kit to give to your team. That´s certainly true in some missions of the Harvest Red campaign. Hope this helps Insta

Nice to look at, however, the longer this graphics craze goes on, the less benefit I see in it. Good graphics can´t rescue a bad game, and a good game will stand without good graphics at all. (Examples would be The Void and Pathologic, or indeed Operation Flashpoint). Instead of people pursueing the holy grail of infinitely detailed flowerpots, how about somebody concentrating on making a capable ingame AI? That´s something that´s been sort of ignored ever since Unreal was released. Arma 2 is about the pinnacle of it, and while not bad, I think the whole Industry would be much further ahead in this departement now if they had stopped concentrating on fancy graphics two years ago. Unfortunately good graphics is something people want, plus, it drives the technology development. From a business point of view, nice... but as a gamer, I´ve to say that this is something I´ll gladly ignore in favour of other, more interesting developments in the field.

What´d be cool if they´d give you the option when installing to either have Multicam or UCP Units in the campaign, but have both available in the Editor, even though that´s probably a lot to ask. I´d be happy if they went with either of the two, though seeing as the US soldiers even get fancy things like SCARs in the game, it´d probably more logical to also give them new Multicam ACUs.

For the AI, I made a little test to show how they move when cover is present under combat conditions: http://www.youtube.com/user/Waaaghster?feature=mhw4#p/a/u/0/-BcYN5dBD9c There´s a definitive improvement over the Arma 1 AI, however, there are still some old OFP glitches present such as occasional clipping trough walls (though its very rare on map objects, and usually only happens with things like fences, or user placed barriers) or Trucks falling off the road. That and you can now reload while moving. For some reason that got me all excited when I got Arma 2, and when I go back to playing OFP I constantly get snapped out of existence because I try to reload while running and suddenly stop in front of a tank.

Some of the features are... - Expandeabillity and a large modding Community. It´s comparatively easy to make content for this game, and there are tools provided by BIS to help put community generated content into the game. - Virtually capless multiplayer, only limited in dimensions by the group limit (65 groups with 24 men each max, I think) and Server power. - Abillity to use all Vehicles in the game, Tanks, Cars, Helicopters, Boats and Jets. - Abillity to use all weapons and equipment in the game. - By default, over 70 vehicles, and about as many guns. - A dedication to realism. The game is about at the edge of what´s possible while still remaining a game. Some mods push the envelope even further. - Large, expansive and detailed maps. Chernarus for example is 255 km² full of rolling hills, large forests, small villages and moderately sized towns. - Large amount of Community made maps, missions and campaigns on top of existing game content. A lot of these require mods, which can be a fuss, but it´s usually worth the effort collecting these. Etc etc etc. In short, this game is MUCH more expansive than what is on the game DVD. Downsides are, for example, the clunky controls, the overly complicated command system, possibly bad performance, sometimes unreliable AI and the occasional flying tank. In general not enough to even begin turning down the positive sides of the game. Hope this was at least a little bit helpful

Thank you for the compliments! It´s just a really simple setup, with a double hesco barrier around the test area, and objects placed within. I´m really bad at scripting, so there are no fancy things going on besides a civilian with camera.sqs initialised. I´ve set up three more testing areas, and uploaded the file here: http://www.2shared.com/file/12003120/2b8e3499/TestAreas.html Anybody who downloads that mish, feel free to expand/alter it in any way you see fit. I think there´s people out there who can set up much better and detailed testing areas which are more telling than what I´ve produced here. I think setting up experiments like this is the only way to empirically test and verify what the AI can really do, and where it still needs improvement. Science, it works! I´m also looking to get Zeus AI at the moment, so I might post another video later this evening. Cheers Insta

Video is now up. I think I might be SEVERELY nitpicking in this... all these small problems I point out I don´t mind, 90 % of the time. I think it shows both the good and the bad things. There´s lots of things that could be improved, but at the core the AI already does a decent job, I think. Before people complained about them being way too deadly, now some seem to be unsatisfied with the time they take to aquire targets as well as their precision. They´re still set up for long range combat, I think. For Arrowhead, a lot of things need to be improved to bring Urban Combat to work fully in Arma 2. They need to stop clipping trough fences and user placed objects (when there are a lot of units on the map they also still warp trough buildings when the player is relatively far away) for example. Just bashing the AI, the game and the devs isn´t really constructive, though. The only way things are going to improve is by giving BIS feedback on the improvements they have made and I´m sure will continue to make. Whining or Insults hardly classify as constructive criticism, though. One thing that makes BIS as a company special is that they listen to community feedback: instead of getting angry about things, it´s probably a better Idea to try and be part of the process of fixing the things you don´t like, instead of getting upset about them. There is the community issue tracker, as Alex72 said, so getting involved in that process is also easy. Games today are massively complicated and expensive projects, and only the very largest of companies (such as Blizzard) manage to put out games that are mostly bug free, because they can afford very large Q&A processes. That Arma 2 was released in the state it was in was pretty disappointing, but things are improving, and they will continue to get better, and a large part of that improvement process is community feedback. Wah, sorry for the rant. :v I sometimes just go overboard.

I´ve just built a maze of my own with a fireteam on each side, and the AI used the sandbags and barriers as cover, threw grenades, and suppressed last seen positions of the enemy. I don´t see a problem here? The video is unfortunately too long, so I´m gonna reupload it once I´ve got it cut to the length youtube demands. The only thing that I´ve altered was forcing AI skill and precision to 1 in the config. The problems I see are that the AI prefers moving over shooting, that it can´t predict where an enemy is going to reappear, and that they´re really slow in reacting to contact if not set to combat mode. (And even then they take an awfully long time to actually do something according to the situation. If a tank shows up, they wait until half the squad has been killed before retreating. And especially in areas with cluttered cover, they often take cover on the wrong side of an obstacle.) My two cents. Video will follow in a short while, or a long while, depending on my connection.

For me, neither the clock nor this "to our front" spotting system work. Especially because the clock bearings started to jump around (as CarlGustaffa said) once the squad began to shift around under fire. The only system that would be easy and realistic is one that works by giving a general direction, reference object, and position of the target. "Enemy Man, East, To the right of the White house with the red roof, between the birch trees." That would be very difficult to implement, though, because you´d need the AI to use the correct references all the time. It works in MW2 for example because the levels are very restricted and the zones for target recognition are very clearly defined. In Arma these zones look different from every angle. Thus, I dont have very high hopes for this feature ever coming close to being completely useful.

To be fair, though, I know of at least one Games Magazine that has revisited Arma 2 with the release of 1.05: Gamestar, in Germany. They have upped the score from a previous 72 to 76 (Equal score as the other game) Their main points of criticism remain, though, which is the unintuitive interface, and the persistingly erratic AI. (Moments of brilliance, lots of solid mediocricy, but very often very bad judgements: Cars crashing into each other or falling off the roads, Tanks tipping over, AI hiding on the wrong side of teh cover, ignoring kill-zones or immediate threats such as Tanks emerging right in front of them, crashing helicopters and a lack of a more solid command system, instead of having to baby-sit the AI all the time.) The biggest problems for me in this game remain the performance, which is solid enough if you want to sacrifice some of the good looks, but once missions get bigger I rarely get above the 20 fps mark, the inconsistent AI and the lack of a task-based command system. I can live with complexity and the depth is appreciated, but it needs to be more logical and task oriented. I have shown the game to all my friends to get them to play it, some ten-ish people, and of those only two picked it up. The rest don´t like the performance, or didn´t want to put up with the command system and the interface. Especially if the Game is supposed to go to console, this needs to be changed. Less is more!

One thing that´d be cool would be a more diverse command system for the AI, ie, having squads split into the coloured groups by default (defined in the units config), and then have the squad leader only assign tasks to the fireteams instead of targets. IE: "Yellow Team, Assault Kabanino." -> The fireteam leader of yellow team would then proceed with moving to that location and attempt to take it, coordinating with the remainder of the squad. Right now you can only tell Units to move to a location (Then they will prioritize moving over shooting), or attack a specific enemy (This requires lots of micromanagement, as Units will often ignore other enemies nearby and headlessly run after their target until they become isolated.). The Micromanagement is very problematic, in my opinion. This would make it necessary for the AI to be much more careful, deliberate, precise, predicteable and autonomous than it is right now. Summa summarum: Allow the AI to function without having to baby-sit it. Once that is achieved, the interface can be reworked. You could toss out at least half the commands in the command menus for the leader, and drop the other half from the fireteam leaders menus. It would make handling AI much easier. What I´d love to see in the future would be this: -Task based Command System for the AI -Actual Squad hierarchy, not using HC as a workaround. -More careful and deliberate AI. This includes: -Recognizing Killzones. -Staying clear of streets or open areas in the presence of tanks. -ALWAYS trying to move into cover when vehicles or helicopters are around. -Putting priority to killing an enemy rather than moving (I have observed AI shooting at an enemy right in front of them, missing and then deciding to run just to get shot in the back.) -AI automatically using buildings as cover, setting up ambushes and fire bases, planning and coordinating their movement. Emphasis on planning. I know this is all castles in the clouds, however, even a little bit of improvement here and there would make an excellent AI even better. And for Arrowheads coming Urban environments, I at least expect the AI to not run around between buildings anymore without care and cohesion, or ignore buildings altogether.

Hi Mods! I´ve done a little search, but nothing has popped up, so I thought instead of clogging up inboxes I would ask the question here. I wanted to do a few fan-made Arrowhead themed Arma 2 ads and maybe a sig for myself, and I wanted to ask if it would be okay to use the official Logo (Arma 2 Arrowhead) for that, and if yes, if it should just be taken from the Website or if there´s any other way to get a hold of it (either as gif or png or psd)? If necessary I will post an example of what exactly I want to do via pm. Thanks in advance for the answer.

I noticed those news today too, and it´s quite shocking to see. They close the lid on the game with game (and potentially rig-) breaking bugs still in it? Talk about giving your customers the finger. I wonder if the gaming press is taking notice of this farce at all. DR wasn´t the most important game to be released towards the end of last year, but I still think just by the way CM treated their fans and customer base during this, some big attention by gaming magazines and sites is warranted. Maybe that would get some answers as to why they decided to take it this way. Shameful, Terrible way to end this.

Well, this thread is about the game, and if he likes the game its his right to defend it here too, if he wants to. Doesn´t change the fact that Codemasters is entirely responsible for how they made the game. Their lack of response makes it look as if it´s just a big blunder, rather than conciously made game design decisions. If it were the latter, you´d think they´d defend their choices. And it seems as if the latest patch was more of a game breaker than a fixer. The memory leaks the game is suffering from are bad enough, or the inherent limits of the engine, but deep-frying graphics cards when idling in the main menu is a bit drastic of a bug. Maybe a remainder of that class-1 bug they said they had found back in december? Somewhere in their "Work Pipeline" has to be a serious glitch.

Wow... that´s pretty harsh. I thought it was only two or three people getting the hammer, but that would´ve been pretty bad to begin with. But 8? It looks as if they´re completely unwilling or unable to back up their game against any kind of criticism. Whereas BIS devs can be found justifying their design choices, for example this stupendously complicated and clumsy command interface, or why they keep 3rd person view in. And not one liner replies and trigger-happy banning sprees.

Oh dear, so their exec has finally spoken again... wow. And in such an unprofessional manner too! Either they believe that their game really IS the second coming and that everybody who doesn´t like it is just wrong, or they are really bad with dealing with criticism. Which, I think, is one of the things you should be able to if you´re heading a large and so massively publicised gaming project. Games aren´t movies, you don´t just have to deal with Critics, but with the involvement of the actual consumers. This snippish remark is either very immature of him, or he has a really thin skin. I don´t know if his behaviour has anything to do with the game itself, though I would argue that the Community IS a part of the game, and that this one has just set out to summarily execute the last vestiges of hopefuls that are playing the game. A good reminder for me, too, why I love BIS as a company, though. There´s more guts in there.

Just finished watching these videos Templar found over at ELSEWHERE, and it´s pretty stunning to take all this in. http://uk.gamespot.com/pc/action/operationflashpoint2/video/6196274/gc-2008-operation-flashpoint-2-first-look-interview http://www.gametrailers.com/user-movie/operation-flashpoint-2-gc/256748 Especially the first one is downright upsetting. Rubbing up to the original fanbase of a Game they didn´t even make themselves? That´s a pretty large leap to take for a publisher... and the gibberish about Military and Tactics and Realism and and and seems so utterly fake now that the game is out. There´s also a few gems in there: 1:03 "You don´t have hitpoints, you don´t have FORCE FIELDS" <- I guess the Invisi-shield doesn´t count. Later on tons of fancy equipment and talk about how the game wouldn´t be dumbed down. Such a pity this had to happen. By now I´m also glad I didn´t buy into the hype that was going on shortly before the game was actually released. As for the videos, nice finds. Kudos to Templar Cheers InstaGoat

FDF Podagorsk, Ace2, RH MGS weapons, WarFX Particles, NIM Weather. Thx to all creators of these fantastic mods/addons.