lev

Yeah, I've tried autohover. Autohover seems to account for some of the instability so I don't need to trim. However as soon as I take autohover off, the chopper just goes crazy and I inevitably end up crashing. The best I have been able to do is hold it steady for about 5-10s before losing control.

I don't know if anyone else noticed this but one issue that has been bothering me is the difference in recoil when switching between ranged optics (RCO, ARCO, etc) and CQB optics (CQB version of RCO, ARCO, ACO, HOLO, etc). Recoil has a huge effect on short range optics but barely any noticeable effect on long range optics. Whether or not recoil is too high in general for the weapon system is one thing but it is totally wrong when the short range optics seem to have a huge effect while the long range optics suffer no problems at all on the same weapon system.

I use one of the side buttons on my mouse as a zoom button. It's mapped to the control that "numpad +" is also. I think that is what you are looking for?

So you can accurately land nav? Its great you know up is north but what if you needed to know the exact bearing of a structure/terrain feature relative to your position? They also need to remove that "compass cursor" and circle that shows your approximate location. Elite should be for players who actually know how to read a map and don't need hand holding.

I'd support #2 as long as appropriate accuracy penalties are applied to aiming while moving. I'd imagine shooting while swimming will be incredibly inaccurate. Underwater move speeds should probably also be implemented for this as well. There will need to be a difference between inching around a rock to shoot at someone and swimming rapidly while randomly spraying for covering fire. Slower underwater move speeds should translate to more accuracy. For #1, I have no experience with diving what-so-ever so I don't know what a natural resting position underwater is like.

I have to give a big round of applause to the devs after watching some of those E3 videos. Usually when you watch demos/E3 presentations it feels like a marketing session with a lot of pandering to the popular demographics, but the BIS ones all seem very earnest and down to earth. It was especially nice to see Jay Crowe talking about community issues that we've discussed here on the forums.

Thanks for the post. I've always felt like A3 movement speeds were way too fast. This makes it way too easy and effective to just go running through exposed areas. This problem gets even worse when machine guns in A3 are pretty much useless atm.

Have we gotten any official word from BIS on whether or not difficulty settings will be standardized for release? With respect to features such as: -3rd person -crosshairs -maps that identify your location automatically -maps that identify friendly/enemy locations automatically

I don't think its unreasonable to request an engine that more effectively uses the CPU power we currently have. Citing examples of RV's strengths is not a valid reason for why they should not try to improve the engine's CPU usage efficiency.

That is the point of ACRE. It simulates radios and communications in an authentic way. In real life not everyone has a radio and not all scenarios call for everyone to use radios. There are procedures for this type of thing and encourages team play since you need to stick with your squad in order to be in communications with your command structure and team. If the mission maker intended for all team members to have radios then they would put them in that scenario. It is not uncommon to see missions with only squad leaders having long range radios and squad members only having short ranges or no radios at all.

I agree that the devs probably didn't consider an ACRE like radio simulation to be important and hence their focus on other features but that doesn't mean that we should as a community should not be pushing for this to become a priority. Of course there are other key features they need to work on as well and understanding that, I don't expect them to release with radios simulated but I do wish that in the future they will try to build this into Arma. My example of hiring Smookie is to demonstrate how features provided though mods can be integrated into Arma to add value and shouldn't necessarily just be left to a mod. Your counter example of not hiring ACRE modders does not indicate that ACRE like features should not be built into Arma. There are many reasons for hiring or not hiring various devs and I would not presume that it was because of interest or lack of interest in a particular feature that drives their hiring process. Most jobs hire to fill roles, not for specific features (that is what contractors are for). I'm going to close with the following: It is very easy to come up with reasons for not adding new features. But if we maintain that mindset we are denying ourselves a better game and preventing Arma from reaching a better state. Of course there needs to be discretion as to the prioritization of new features but we should not take this to mean that these features do not need to be added. We as a community should support efforts to improve Arma even if it is ambitious and requires a lot of resources and leave the prioritization and development to BIS. IMO an ACRE like system is very innovational and adds great value to Arma by providing more realism, authenticity and depth to the core game. The OP brings up many valid points regarding including an advanced radio simulation. Of course it will not be easy to implement and might not be necessary at this moment but it is a feature I think should be built into the game. I'd much rather debate the value or usefulness of a radio simulation rather than argue the priority (pointless argument for us to engage in and if we really want to discuss that there are so many other problems to be talked about before even getting to the adding of new features)

Perhaps previously this was true but it does not mean that it should remain this way. ACRE proved that realistic voice comms were possible so why should that not be implemented? The new stances followed a similar route; they were previously a mod known as SMK stances and animations and the developer of that mod (Smookie) went on to work for BIS and build us the new stances. I consider ACRE to be a defining feature of the Arma experience and I think it would add a lot of value as well as improvements over a mod if BIS natively developed the system into A3. Of course we could always leave an option of the simple/unrealistic comms for users who prefer that (just like we do with 3rd person) but at least this way realistic radios will become part of this game. I'd be really amazing if they simulated an in-game microphone for the radio so if you press the radio transmit button you can send sounds of your surroundings to receivers. Imagine being able to hear background gunfire or other noises as someone is radio-ing in their status. That would bring so much immersion to the game.

After playing a bit more, I think there is something strange going on with recoil right now. From my personal observations, I've had less recoil when sighted into a high magnification scope (RCO or ARCO) and firing multiple shots at higher ranges (~300-400m) than when using short range sights (ACO, HOLO, red dots on the RCO/ARCO) and taking single shots at close range (~15-30m). This has left me with a very strange sensation of being able to shoot more quickly and accurately at long range than when I am at shorter distances. Occasionally I have found more success with just hip firing and following where the bullets land to adjust my aim than using the sights because of the recoil. The recoil is so high in short range that the jerk from the recoil in the sighted in view actually obstructs the target for far too long for me to be effective.

This sounds right to me. I've tried this patch and pretty much no improvement on any setting.

Yep map tools all the way. Wouldn't even mind if they went with low tech vs high tech gear. So the old paper map that requires physical map tools and some sort of electronic map/gps combo. On the physical map you shouldn't be able to see markers unless they were premarked during briefing. The high tech version should behave as it does now, i.e. magically appearing markers.

Thanks for the update. Hope this fixes a lot of the performance issues with the 690.

See my previous response for why the demo will not be a good impression. Also you may have forgotten how the A2 demo did for A2, so I don't have great expectations for A3 demo already. I think you have a good point with the influx of new users that aren't generating any useful feedback. However, if that feedback is coming through alpha lite invites, then the people doing the inviting are not being very discretionary with who the are sending them to. The point would have been for myself to moderate the expectations and issues my friends would have experienced, but I can see how many people may not be capable or willing to do that. The cost here is opportunity cost. Many posters responding seem to be approaching with this idea in their mind that "we should be grateful" for what we have instead of approaching the idea of "how can we make A3 better or more successful". Since BIS decided to take the time to provide an alpha at all it would be in their best interest to make sure they are getting the best result out of it (impact for resources tradeoff). I am of the opinion, as many others in this thread, that by not expanding the capabilities of the alpha lite invites, they are limiting the potential and usefulness of the invite. BIS might disagree and the decision is in their hands and we users have no choice but to accept that. Hence, like I said before, my invites aren't going to be claimed since they won't be of any use to either myself or BIS.

Ungrateful? I'm trying to help BIS sell their game and support a product that I enjoy. Had the 3 alpha invites been equivalent to the paid for version of the alpha, that would have been potentially 3 more A3 sales from my end. Imagine if all supporters got at least 1 of their friends to convert to a sale. That is almost 2x the revenue they already have from alpha sales Yeah so I'm so sorry for being ungrateful and trying to improve BIS's revenue and perform free marketing services for them :j: I agree as a tech demo it does its job but really that is preaching to the converted. None of us here would hesitate to purchase the alpha because of our inherent interest in A3, but only a very small percentage of players would actually be interested in just a tech demo that you have to pay to play or get an invite to try out. The thing you bring up is that the core gameplay stays true, which I agree with. However, pretty much all of us on the alpha have tried the showcases and the core gameplay already and we've already reported the majority of those problems. On top of that core gameplay does not stress the game and root out the issues that need to be fixed. Custom mods/missions and MP push the engine to the limits of its capabilities and helps us find the problems that would actually affect game play when we have the full game. A demo will probably be released at some point but the value of that is questionable because at that point the community will probably be fractured into demo players and full game players. Very few experienced arma players will go download the demo just for the sake of trying to show new comers on the demo how to play or explain what cooler things exist in the full version. Whereas right now BIS has a great opportunity to allow a cohesive community experience in testing and enjoying the alpha which can convert more potential players into actual sales or at least generate more data by giving players a build with re-playability value. Long story short, IMO alpha lite without MP support will not generate better testing nor will it increase sales so more or less it is useless to both BIS and a lot of players hoping to get their friends onto the game.

If this was truly the case then the alpha lite invites are completely useless. Veterans of Arma who actually know what to look for in terms of improvements and testing have most likely bought the alpha already. These people are the dedicated community that will actually find and report bugs as we have done throughout A2 and earlier development processes. I'd rather not send alpha invites for testing purposes to users who don't understand Arma and will most likely report issues that are non-issues with Arma (just think about how many complaints and useless suggestions we got about A2 when the influx of dayz players joined). Considering the lack of any replay value or technically challenging game play in the showcases delivered for the SP component I highly doubt any useful testing will come out of that (face it how much useful bug reporting comes from a less than demo quality build sent to non-core consumers?). Any bugs that would have been found through a single or a few play throughs of SP will have already been reported by the large amount of players who have already played the SP and are now on the MP component. Also given that they are showcases, they deliver contrived missions that try to "show off" the engine instead of challenge it to do things that might cause issues. I did consider this a good chance for allowing some friends to play some coop or something in order to convince them that the final product is worth getting. It would have been a nice couple of months to be able to show friends the multiplayer aspects of the game which sell this game far more than any showcase BIS packages in to "show off" the game. Most players are almost willing to overlook the flaws with conventional Arma gameplay given the chance to experience real gameplay in a multiplayer environment. As it stands these alpha invites are of little use to me. I'd be very lucky if I got a friend to try play the SP component of a game that they did not have much interest in to start with and with no promise of playing cooperatively or in multiplayer.

I think for the alpha invites to be effective there should be some form of multiplayer allowed. Sort of like A2F where you can play MP, but no mods are allowed. I know for many players, my own friends included (who I will be sending invites to), single player is not a compelling experience particularly the Arma sp experience. The fidelity of multiplayer really sells it for them and is the difference between "meh" and a sale. It is disappointing that MP is not supported; I do not know if I should even send my friends the invite now as they probably will not put it to good use.

This is not only on the 690 but on all systems using a SLI configuration for the graphics card. If you turn off SLI mode and place it on a single monitor, then PIP will work properly. Once Nvidia releases a SLI profile for Arma3 this should be fixed I think. I using a 690 as well and I have not experienced your ATOC - white trees and grass issue. On a side note, how is your performance with the gtx690? Mines is far less impressive than I thought it would be on 3 monitors (about 20-30fps @ 5760x1080) or on 1 (about 30fps @ 1920x1080).

It is fine as it currently is. The uniforms have enough difference that you can generally tell the differences at 100m or less with your naked arma eye. The other thing is servers that want to can have a HUD overlay showing you friendly troops. A more advanced answer is that when played realistically, players should be depending on team work and coordination to accomplish tasks. Maneuvering should be coordinated between friendly elements to prevent friendly fire. It is also generally advised not to take enemy equipment to prevent confusion and friendly fire incidents. On the firing player's part, you should always do your best to positively identifying hostiles before firing but take consolation in knowing that if you TK or FF a player who is rambo-ing then there isn't much that can be done to prevent that so just give a simple apology (to be cordial) and keep on playing. That being said, not all missions are created realistically and may not give you many options to coordinate or choose your weaponry in which case you're at the mercy of the mission so just roll with it.

I would strongly support a reduction of movement speed across the board for all movements (to a lesser degree for walk/crawl speeds). I do like the momentum they seem to have added with a bit of sliding at the end of the turn. It would be great if they could do the same thing for turning so that players can't maintain crazy speeds while zig zagging or changing directions.

I know this suggestion will sound crazy, but turn up your AA and post processing settings for better performance. I'm not 100% sure why this works but I've noticed about a 4 fps gain by turning up AA instead of disabling it. My guess is that at the distances which we are rendering objects, by turning up AA, we allow less detail to be shown then if AA was off. Also the post processing introduces the blur effect which reduces the detail needed to render things while moving. These are just my guesses as to why I've noticed this gain. If someone else can confirm this for me that would be great. I did only two tests and noticed that turning up AA and post process worked better and then I went on to tweak other settings so this isn't exactly a scientific conclusion.

Not really related to animations exactly but just throwing out some ideas that I think were touched upon in this thread: 1. Animations are nice and smooth for the stances and switching IMO. -Things to be improved on: not freezing the player in place to load magazines/rockets (or at least let the player choose when to load, not immediately after picking up a weapon/ammo) -Movement speed is a bit too high IMO. Speeds should be reduced a bit across the board. Sprinting speed should be reduced only a small amount but the stamina impact needs to be much higher (shorter sprint durations). Stamina recovery rate is also very high right now and could use a bit of reduction. 2. Combat pace should be a modifier for walking speed, not running speed -Make it so that combat pace toggles increases the walk speed to the combat pace speed -Make running speed normal The reasoning for this is that when I am in combat pace, I want my walk speed to move faster but be ready to run if I need to. My controls layout are below: tab - combat pace toggle shift - walk/run shiftx2 - walk/run toggle w+s/s+w - sprint toggle z- prone x- crouch c- standing ctrl - stance modifier mouse 4 - slow walk mouse 4 + w - fast walk