bavvo

I have encountered this bug multiple times hosting multiplayer conflict games. After a few hours online suddenly all the remaining enemy AI disappears completely from the map. All remaining bases, checkpoints and supply depots end up deserted. This happened with conflict on Everon and Arland, and has occurred on two separate host machines. Friendly AI is unaffected. Anyone else seen this?

Latest update [0.9.7.41] seems to have finally addressed this! Now if you exit the drivers seat the engine keeps running, unless you manually stop it first.

Is there a way to shutdown/reboot a reforger server in a way to allow the game state to be saved for nest time? I play on a private server with a few friends, but we'd like to save any progress we make in the game so we can resume from the same point at the next session? The alternative is to keep the server running full time but that is getting a bit expensive.

I started thinking about this wishlist a while ago and decided to start making notes as I played. This is the result. I think most of these suggestions are fairly minor and could probably be achieved without major modifications to the game, but would enhance gameplay quite a bit, well for me at least. There may well be Items in my list that have already appeared, as I have not read through over 100 pages of ideas here…. AI control/behaviour 1. Variable spacing for formations. • This should be relatively easy to introduce, just an extra pair of commands in the formations (8) menu. 2. Allow different teams to have different formations • For instance, I would like to be able to have team blue flank left in echelon left formation, team green to flank right in echelon right formation, and team red to stay back in line formation, with me leading team white forward in wedge formation. 3. Allow flank commands to run from that unit/teams actual location. • So you could have the two flanking teams move forward from their flanked positions, rather than moving back to the centre on an ‘advance’ command. 4. Allow chainable AI commands, so you could give a sequence of commands, instead of waiting for each command to be completed before issuing the next one. • Try getting the AI to lay mines quickly in a logical pattern. It would be much quicker and easier to be able to give multiple commands, eg “Two, lay mine there, lay mine there, lay mine there†and have the unit lay all three mines in one go. • You would need a ‘cancel last command’ action as well, to correct mistakes. 5. Allow the action command wheel to apply to commands issued to AI. • Currently it’s a hassle using the (4) Board or (6) Action menus. It would be much easier if you could select a unit, and point at an object and have a context sensitive action menu come up in the same way as it does for yourself. So you could point at a vehicle, and select via the mouse wheel ‘get in as… ‘ and select the position, point at the ground and have a unit ‘go there’, lay a mine/satchel, supress that area. Point at a crate and have rearm or gear, point at a body and have ‘rearm/gear/hide body’. This would save a lot of time and frustration. You would still need the (4) and (6) menus when you didn’t have line of sight, but mostly it would be much easier. 6. Have AI proactively make logical suggestions. • E.g. If a BMP is coming, and there is a rocket launcher lying around an AI unit is aware of, have them suggest using it, to which the group leader could reply with a yes or no via the action menu. Or suggest manning an mg nest. This could help in situations where the AI is out of sight. 7. Allow more control of AI pilots. • If you are in a chopper, it would help if you could control the pilot with fwd/back/left/right/up/down/halt commands in the same way a tank commander can. Left and right would be turn left/right if hovering, or bank left/right if moving. Up/down would change to higher or lower altitude. You could also land this way without forcing the pilot to get out. 8. Behaviour mode for medics. • It would be handy to be able to set them in 3 modes - Combat – Fight and only heal when ordered - Combat medic – Fight but proactively heal others - Medic – concentrate on Healing, only fight when there is no wounded. 9. Behaviour mode for AA/AT soldiers. • Similar to the medics - Active AA/AT – Attack with AA/AT weapons on sight - Passive AA/AT – Attack with AA/AT only when ordered directly 10. Be able to setup patrols in game. • Order a unit or team to patrol between two points on a repeating pattern 11. Improve scan horizon. • Instead of the constant ‘ballet twirl’ they do now, simply have them move their heads either way, then move a ½ turn to do the reverse direction. This should be automatic anyway. • In formations, have the units scan their assigned directions. They tend to do this when stopped, but all look forward when moving. It would be better if tail end Charlie was frequently checking behind for threats. 12. Have AI gunners able to select their own target according to the threat level. • Be useful if you could assign an ‘Engage at will’ mode to a chopper gunner, and have them target shilkas first. Same with Tank gunners. Interface 13. Allow some items to be optionally removed from appearing in the action menu. • I have things like ‘get out’ and ‘eject’ mapped to keyboard functions, along with NV goggles, reloading etc. So it would be nice to be able to have these items not appear duplicated in the action menu and keep it uncluttered. Have a function in the keyboard mapping section where you could tick to remove from action menu. 14. Make the Quick command menu optional • I have never liked this implementation in ARMA2. I much preferred the uncluttered look and functionality of the original OFP. Please allow us to turn it off if we choose. 15. Allow the squad bar icons to auto hide if we choose to. • Some people really like an uncluttered HUD, so it would be nice to have an option to hide it and have it pop up only when called for (by selecting squad members) 16. Allow us to turn turrets with mapped keys. • Sometimes it is easier to rotate a turret with keys than trying to drag it round with the mouse, I often run out of desk before a full turn is complete. Or allow mapping to foot pedals if available. 17. Map team colours to keys, eg ability to map Team Red to a key. • Currently you have to use the Shift F key of a team member to select the team, or the quick menu, or 9-9-x. None is ideal, and it would be much nicer to be able to map an unused keyboard shortcut to this function. 18. Make steering wheels not auto-centre • Please make driving easier, and make it work with external steering wheels. 19. Allow us to draw lines and freehand on the map 20. Allow things like ipads or 2nd monitors to display the map information. 21. Have a way to record the action and provide a replay in game. • Could be a significant performance overhead and disk usage, but could be really good in some circumstances. 22. Allow us to browse each squad members kit in the gear screen like we could in OFP • It would save a lot of time if we could just click left/right arrows, rather than have to open each one individually. 23. Allow us to transfer kit from unit to unit via the gear screen. • It would be easier to do a drag and drop of ammo or weapons from one to another via this interface than have to get them to drop and item then send another over to pick it up. • Note, this would only issue the order to transfer gear, not teleport it from one unit to another. The two units would still have to physically meet to do the action. Gameplay 24. Make guns not force us to constantly move the mouse back across the desk when firing to simulate recoil kickback. • This is a flawed way of doing it. I understand it’s to try and make it seem like you are compensating for the way a gun recoil might happen, but in reality a trained soldier would simply lean into the gun and allow gravity to do the work. I find it slightly absurd when using a sniper rifle on a bipod and have it creep up with every shot. Its also annoying to have the mouse reach the edge of the desk when firing a long burst from a machine gun. Please note I am all for randomised movement as appropriate, but not this one way gun creep. 25. Tone down the light/dark transitions. • I feel constantly like the contrast is much too high, if I look ahead the ground goes almost black in a forest, when I look at the ground it suddenly becomes visible. It is utterly unrealistic, and means I have to force the brightness levels up unrealistically in shaded areas, and this is much too bright then out in the open. Real life is not like this even on the brightest days. 26. Discardable tubes for rocket launchers. • Everyone seems to want this one. As soon as a projectile weapon is fired the default action should be to chuck the tube on the ground and return to the primary weapon. 27. Discardable magazines. • More for eye candy really, but could be useful for trackers in discerning where troops were when they were firing. 28. Refillable magazines • A soldier behind the lines might take fewer clips, but more loose ammo to refill those clips from, to save weight. Clip refilling would necessarily be time consuming so best done in a safe place. 29. Weight penalties for stuff carried • Make it worthwhile to dump stuff when fleeing. • Have inertia effects from carrying a large load 30. Have mortars aimed by setting angle/elevation • You shouldn’t be aiming mortars with the mouse key like a direct fire weapon, but by calculating angles from tables, with assistance from spotters. 31. Don’t have odd bits of ground where a crawling soldier automatically stands up without a choice • I have been shot so many times when this happened. I will choose when to stand up thanks very much! I can’t believe there are many places on the planet where I can’t crawl and can only stand anyway. Engine 32. Give us a 64bit game, in addition to a 32bit one. • Allow us to use more than 2GB RAM, which would massively help the performance. Bug fixes 33. Don’t have troops go for a swim when issued a ‘flank left/right/advance/fall back command • I know they have the ability to swim, but I don’t want to find my team turn up without weapons because they have decided to go for a dip. 34. Watch direction via the ALT key now only works below the horizon • Please restore the OFP/ARMA behaviour, where you could point at the sky to get a direction. The ground is so cluttered it can often to lead to stupid commands like “Two, watch that animal!†35. When switching from turned in to turned out view, don’t go to 3rd person view • Happens even when a first person view is available. • Same with switching from Optics on the Laser Designator. 36. When commanding troops and switching to map view, often the zoom function is broken because the quick command menu is still forced on. 37. I like to map the look around and zoom to the right mouse button. But if you use it in freelook mode to zoom in, this forces your view back to the straight ahead view. • You have to cancel freelook to zoom in. This did not happen in the original OFP. 38. Targeting via right click for AI is no longer working properly • In OFP and ARMA you could assign targets via left click, which was a combined target and engage command, or right click, which only meant target that thing, but do not fire/engage unless ordered. Please restore that functionality for right clicking.

Cool, thanks. I have reset to defaults and that cured it. Just need to remap carefully now.

I have a slight problem with TrackIR 5 in the command menus. It seems that the command cursor is tied to the TIR viewpoint in Arma2. This means when you turn your head the cursor moves as well. Unfortunatly the movement is sluggish and in conflict with the mouse making issuing commands very difficult. I tried the same thing in Arma 1 and it worked fine, with the mouse only controlling the cursor when commanding. Is there a setting somewhere I have misconfigured? Disabling TIR makes the commands work just fine. Just to clarify this happens when you select a squad member with the F keys or when you go into command mode via the space bar or delete key.

When commanding in OFP and Arma1, you could right click on an enemy soldier or vehicle, and tell your guys to target that object. They would report "ready to fire" if they could see the target and were in range. That way you could get everyone setup before giving the fire command. Somehow in Arma2 I can't get this to work. There is only the Left click on a target, which causes the guys to attack immediately. Has this command gone or been replaced? Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, but I tried a few searches and couldn't find it.

Finally got this fixed with a firmware and driver update from ASUS. All working again.

well, I found out the cause, but no solution. The problem came down to my sound card. I have a Xonar D2X, and when this soundcard is in use it causes the problems. When I disabled the soundcard and enabled the motherboard onboard card, I could run normally, so for now I have done that. Trouble is, the onboard sound is rubbish and doesn't have surround sound or a digital output. What the exact cause is I am not sure. But it seems to be that as you issue commands to your squad, it fills an audio buffer, which seems to 'stall', so it might get halfway through a command and then pause. Since the audio for the command is never finished, the game seems to think the command has not been issued and so won't progress, or let you issue any further commands. I'd like to know if anyone has encountered this with this or another soundcard, or if anyone has any ideas for a fix.

What happened to the 'right click' target option for squadmates? In OFP/ARMA1 you could set your guys up to target specific enemies, for instance, tell a sniper to hold fire, then target an enemy officer. Now I can't see this as an option, only attack, which tends to cause the unit to charge in (Engage). Previously you could do the following as per this example; Select your unit with F2 Right click the target (2, Target that officer) 2 then reports "Ready to fire" F2, 3,3 would then tell number 2 to fire. 2 Would then only fire at the selected unit, and wouldn't go charging off 'death or glory' style. I can't seem to do that in Arma2. Even selecting via the target menu 2 doesn't work. Is this a bug or am I doing it wrong?

I have reinstalled OFP on my new pc, but am finding it buggy. When I am squad commander I find after I issue a few squad commands, they stop working. Usually after 4 - 5 commands it just seems to get stuck, and after that I can't control the squad anymore. If I quit the mission and resume, sometimes they acknowledge and obey the last command I issued, but then I still can't issue any more. Anyone seen this before?