instagoat

Wow. Even though, I have to say for a console game, it´s a pretty clever solution to lower CPU load. Instead of having to manage five seperate entities, it only needs to manage one entity, which in turn moves all five attached squad members as a coordinated whole. That doesn´t really do anything to the AI, though. It´s still the same, just with a few more abillities. It still can´t hit the broad side of a barn, but what I´d be interested in is if it does anything to how well they maneuver under fire. The AI of Arma 2 can be a little frustrating in that respect. In terms of scope, though, it´s still a joke. You can have battles with around 200 AI on the field, and still have a playable fps rate. In OF:DR, I sometimes get massive FPS drops when ten AI bunch up in dense "urban" terrain, for example at the end of the demo mission where you assault the village. It´s terrible to think that there´s people out there who get introduced to OFP by this game, and not CWC.

Or, alternatively, set up a HALO jump near the tower and try to land on its very tip. At Night, in the rain and with fog, to make it a little challening. Seriously, though, I´ve scoured even the woods around the thing in search for an invisible rope or something to get up there. Possibly it would be a fun challenge to try and land a helicopter on the tip too, so that it doesn´t fall off again. 8) The tower is offering all kinds of possibillities. Merely climbing up on a ladder would be a little too easy, after all...?

Weh, from time to time I fire up the demo again, and it´s a disappointment in every instance. The most iconic things I can think of, when thinking about DR is the gunwobble and the "how copy"-ing. Doesn´t quite compare to the mission in OFP:R where you ambush the convoy or spy on the russian officers. And this new patch seems to be another catastrophe. Class 1 bugs literally the moment it was supposed to be released? Something is wrong there. One can´t say they aren´t trying, though, I can really imagine them sitting around their table in their meeting, going like "okay, what else can we do." "Uh... we have a huge draw distance for smoke...?" "Great! Let´s do a CTF-ish domination thingie but with smoke columns, and let´s do it at night!" If that´s playing to the strength´s of the ego engine, I don´t know what else there is left for them to drag DR out of its ditch. A pity, and it gets sadder the longer you look at it. But it´s sort of like a trainwreck, I guess. You don´t want to look, but you can´t help but stare (which is probably also the reason why this thread is still going.). Meanwhile, we get the afforementioned Campaign, Chopper, Bugfixes and Performance improvements. And of course, Ablative Cow Armour: (I hope this link is okay despite the size of the pic, so long as I´m not linking directly.)

Totally looking forward to this rendition of the Island. Also to seeing what mission designers will come up with, even though making a campaign with a realistic story is nigh impossible. Especially since Russia and China are allied: all I could think of was a JSDF + USMC vs Russia + China setup. The Russia calls US for help in DR is total alternate-universe quantum leap stuff. The Island really is lovely, though. :> Great work.

I think what it does is make people aware that a very involved community exists. Especially people who haven´t been with BIS´s games for a long time and are completely new to the experience might not even begin to scan the forums or google for community websites. Having some sort of database on the Company website shows dedication to the community, which is a good argument for the game, isn´t it? As far as advertising goes, this is a nice Idea. Getting more people to play the game, in the long run, can only be good for the game and the community in general. :P My two cents

Hmm, I did that twice now. Everytime it´s the same. The island folder remains empty, and the update process seems to abort. I´m afraid of resetting the config because I might not be able to get it to work again at all, I´m not very tech savvy in these matters. Possibly it -is- a problem on my end. How can I get SIX to log the whole event? The logfiles currently inside its folder don´t seem to be related to my attempts to download Aiaktalik at all. Cheers

Hi I´ve set up the Six-Updater, but I think I made a mistake somewhere. ACE etc. is downloading fine (Did the lazy method because 5 hours of fiddling didn´t make it work for me). I tried to set this up manually now because I thought I´ve seen trough it, started the webclient, edited the preset with the new addon, saved it and updated. The updater runs fine until it gets to the new island: then it just crashes without prompt or complaint, leaving an empty folder inside my arma2 folder. (Literally no content). When trying to update again it says the folder is incompatible. What am I doing wrong? Running on XP here, too. Thanks in advance for the help

Same Issue here, still. I updated ACE today (v 0.1.187) and during daytime, the gunsights still fade to near invisibillity in the shade and are increased/decreased in their visibillity depending which direction the sun is coming from as if they were transparent reflections painted onto the sights glass. The ticket says it´s fixed. Has it not been implemented yet? It doesn´t seem to occur for everybody, so I´m also wondering if it could be something with my settings. I´m going to keep an eye on this, and will test a little bit with altering the graphics settings. Right now the red dots are a bit difficult to use when there´s sunshine and trees around :<

*That* RAH-66 is the venerable DKMM Comanche :P Which originally was released in 2002 (I think) as an addon for OFP:CWC. I don´t know if the model has been updated since then, though I think not, which explains the level of quality. It was (and still is) a fantastic addon to the original OFP, because of the level of attention that was paid to its features. I think that it´s an addon made by one of the Community´s addon teams is the prime reason, along with its age, that we´re getting the Apache instead. I don´t mind either. 8)

I´ve been running most of the beta patches, and performance has significantly improved already. I think it´d be unfair to call the added content a "distraction". As for the Campaign, I´m really thrilled about this twist, even though I was kind of looking forward rolling out the DKMM Comanche for this. Something I noticed, though, which would strike me as kind of prophetic if it´s already been there: http://ew.moricky.com/en/download/ The box for the Campaign itself says 1.05. I don´t remember if this had been that way before. Anybody got a screenshot of the site from, like, 5 months ago or something? :p I´m completely on edge about this. New beta has been released too. http://www.arma2.com/beta-patch.php This obvious and steady progress to see with BIS is somehow pretty rewarding to look at, even though if my only participation so far in it is by playing the results. Very good ones, at that.

Wow. Talk about setting a high bar for the competition. I´m really looking forward to this. Excellent work! Seriously, I´m nigh speechless... coupled with all the improvements of the beta patches, this is going to be really fantastic.

I think to stop that, we need to stop being half-rational, half evolved primates with a destructive streak. Stopping conflict altogether, though desireable in the short term, won´t do much good to the Human species as a whole. The way conflicts are -resolved- needs to change. If we stop fighting, we basically stop the machine that drives progress. Conflict is essential what the free market system is built upon, and all wars ultimately spring from what one or more sides in a conflict perceive as life threatening Ideas. I´m all for the Invasion of Iraq + Afghanistan. It was about time the US fixed the messes the CIA created. That doesn´t change the fact that some terrible, and technically unforgiveable mistakes have been made, and some of those have never been resolved. So, in a way, I´m all for conflict. Just leave the guns out of it. Unless somebody threatens to put you under some sort of dictatorial, oppressive and inhumane system. That warrants using force, I think. Coincidentially, the Taliban were such a system, and a religious one on top of that. People always seem to tend to behave a little worse when they think they have a god on their side, and if they start blowing themselves up because of a misquoted piece of text in a 1500 year old book, something needs to be done about it, I think. In the long term, both Afghanistan and Iraq are off much better now.

I´ve had some problems with ACE CTD´ing, but I found that it wouldn´t happen anymore when removing all other mods. I´ve not been able to discern which one it is, yet. I´ve got a hunch that it is CAA1, which I´ve not updated in a while either. On another note, I wondered if Rucksack funtionalities are only fully enabled for players? I found that when opening the gear inventory of AI soldiers, you can drop Items into the ruck, but not get them out again anymore.

I did some testing regarding the AI spotting abillities at Night, and I didn´t notice them performing any impossible feats. I had standard AI squads walk past me at a distance of 20m (Russian, no alterations, Ultra-AI on and Vanilla AI setting on max.), and none of them spotted me. I also fired single shots from silenced M4 from a distance of about 150 meters. They only noticed me when I hit somebody, and even then they began to wildly supress the landscape, taking around a minute or so to locate and rush me. The AI is even more incredible now than it was before, but I´m gonna fiddle a little more.

For the Installer, I think it´s a good thing. Once it´s running, it runs. What I did to get it to work was get Sickboys rsync config, and then went into IL-2 mode and worked down the checklist. -run rsync -Plug into the website -make sure server data and mods are selected -synchronize (This was why it didn´t download the ACEX folder for me. Once I resynced, it worked. Also MAKE SURE that you have the correct setting (ie, beta or non beta selected). Then check the init line of the shortcut. I had errors occur when the -mod=beta plug was missing from my shortcut. -run download and have a cup of tea while everything downloads. -Check folders for completion manually, move config into place, check shortcut init, run game, have a blast. I have to admit it took me five hours, but that can be attributed to me not being tech savvy. I vented the frustration by going outside and taking some pics of the night sky, came back and everything resolved itself once taking it on with a clear head. Now, I have to say this is already beyond awesome. Just watching the recoil animation of the MGS gives me the pink bubblies <3. Nice oomph! Fantastic work, ACE team, I´m really looking forward to experiencing how awesome this will be once it all is put together.

Went around to test a little, and encountered the bug mentioned here: http://dev-heaven.net/issues/show/6419 http://img300.imageshack.us/img300/3686/missingdotm16a4aim.jpg http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/5281/missingdotm4socomeotech.jpg http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/7468/missingdotm4socomaimpoi.jpg It seems to occur in all ACE rifles so far, which have red-dot sights. The projections are also very faint against sunlit backgrounds. I also have a GTX 260. At night, the sights work perfectly, though.

Got it working, thanks to the people who helped. Mistake was that I didn´t input a server (You have to do this manually, it seems). I am wondering, if the current Beta is already supposed to add new Units, or only add the new ACE features? All Units are default right now, the @ACEX folder is empty after updating, and there are also no new sounds or visuals that I can discern. Is this correct, or did I make another mistake during updating? Thanks in advance for the feedback, and sorry if this was stated somewhere before and I overread it.

Hi I´ve tried figuring the updater out, but I´ve failed so far. I watched the videos and read the Installation guides, but I can´t seem to piece this together. Am I missing something? One of the installer help pages says that ace logins are provided on a personal basis. Will I need to wait until the thing goes from beta to final, or am I simply putting in the wrong data into the updater? Also, when checking the "servers" site on the updater page, it remains empty. Any help would be appreciate. Sorry if I´m inconveniencing you.

I´ve tried the DR Demo now too, after spending months before and after release just browsing the forums here and there and being amazed at the kind of trainwreck codies managed to pull off. It´s kind of sad to see the OFP name dragged down by this half-baked Ghost Recon+Delta Force clone. This game feels like it was a complete victim of the marketing departement. I put up a video on my youtube, where I flail around to russian folk music, which was the only way to make playing it bearable for prolongued periods of time. Very satisfying to come back to Arma2 and drive a tank trough people´s lawns with the Chernarussian anthem playing in the background. I think while Arma 2 has its share of problems, DR comes nowhere near feeling as complete. About the only thing that´s cool about it is the scope of the Island, and watching the hillcrests and ravines as the sun goes up. Everything else feels incredibly watered down and shabby.

I agree, this needs to be expanded upon. HC is one of the features that makes Arma 2 especially worthwhile to me, but right now, it´s just a big frustration-fest. Among other things the System needs things like: -Unit Status indicator needs more info (Ammo, are they mounted/dismounted, fuel and readyness status.) -More control and coordination. (No need to place waypoints to make a Unit perform an action, such as wait, dismount/mount, guard, etc.) -Better Feedback: Units acknowledging Orders in a more precise manner, reporting enemy sightings directly, updating on their progress (ie, reporting that they´re taking fire or casualties, that they are engaging the enemy, that they are withdrawing, etc.) -Working chain of command (Right now it seems to be non-functional. I built a Combat Brigade, and subordinates wouldn´t pass orders below.) -Better response to commands. (I noticed that AI sometimes ignore the waypoint type, such as mount/dismount, or do not alter their movement speed when ordered.) -Enemy AI also using the system against you (This is probably too high a demand, but what could be done, for example, is limit the HC AI to a very low rate of cycles, updating its situational awareness every 30 seconds only, and performing actions every 10.) If Warfare also gets polished up, a great game will become fantastic. I realize this is a lot to ask for, but I would hope that at least Operation Arrowhead will receive a big update in this field too. I would pay an extra ten bucks and wait two months longer for that too 8) Cheers

Select the Unit, and hit 3 - 3. I´ve not tested this with vehicles, but it should work too. Individual soldiers are usually very reliable with this command, provided the target is within range and that they have a clear line of sight. First-shot accuracy of snipers is also really depending on the skill of the unit and wether or not they´ve just sprinted a mile.

I´ve used ACE for Arma, even though I´m a SP only person, and I loved it. All in here sounds fantastic already, really looking forward to the release! :D

Neh, Warfare is a little more complicated than that. Vote yourself to commander. Once you won the vote, hit ctrl + space (switches to high command mode). This will replace the Units of your squad with the Units of your army. Arma supports anything up to a Army group, as far as I know (4 Regiments.). That is, as a symbol, not as an entity limit. Once you´re in HC mode, you can send your Units around the map. The control interface for that is really badly explained in the tutorial scenario, though. For example, you select a Unit, go to the map, and give it a waypoint by clicking left. Ctrl + left click to generate a chain of waypoints. Right click on a waypoint to bring up the waypoint interface (there you can assign waypoint type, speed, modes etc.) It´s really cool, apart from being partially broken. The "radio command" triggers don´t work when you try to use them in the Editor (just with the HC module), so you can´t coordinate attacks by setting everybodies waypoints up first and then having them execute your plan by radio command. http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/High_Command Biki page It also explains how to set up the radio for the afforementioned waypoints, but I´ve yet to figure out where to put those (External script? Trigger init box? Unit init box?) As for the assigning units, once you have checked the Unit number in HC, you revert back to normal Command, select the members of your squad you want to reassign, and do the 0 - 9 - 8 procedure, and select the appropriate number. It took me ages to figure this out (and lots of frust playing the warfare SP missions), but it´s such a cool concept that in itself would warrant me buying Arma 2 a second time on its own, if it would be anywhere near being polished, which it is not. Like I said, it´s like Battlezone, but infinitely expandeable and in the real world. :D Edit: Oh, and the City Menu is easy: Logistics is the amount of Money it generates, Defense is how many Defenders that location spawns on its own (never more than the set value.) I think already spawned Units won´t get removed if you lower the Defense value in favour of higher logistics, but if the Units get killed, the location will eventually be left undefended. As commander you get the lion´s share of the money generated by towns, if I´ve analyzed this correctly.

Actually, I´ve just noticed that it indeed is possible to tell your team members near the base to buy units (constructing buildings should work too) when they´re inside the base, using the action menu (6). pretty neat, you just have to remember who is in the base so you don´t accidentially reassign them.

I´ve stopped using Avgani for CQC, because what happens frequently is that the AI reverts to Arma 1 style bug-outs. They get stuck, bunch up, don´t go into the narrow back alleys and ignore killzones completely, even if there are obvious ways around it. The more open nature of the towns in Chernarus works much better for me.