TinManNFO
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Posts posted by TinManNFO
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The short answer is that it is realistic that you cannot see the IR strobes through FLIR.
Generally speaking, in real life the types of IR strobes that are represented in the game would not be visible to FLIR and would only be visible on NVGs/image intensifier devices. The strobes emit electromagnetic radiation in, and NVGs see in, the near-infrared range, roughly in a wavelength range from 0.7 to 1.3 microns (700-1300 nanometers). On the other hand, FLIR and other thermal systems see and operate in a range on the order of 3 to 30 microns (3000-30000 nanometers). For reference, visible light is approximately 0.39 to 0.75 microns (390-750 nanometers).
Another physical way of describing this is that in order for you to see it "strobe" in FLIR, it would have to make enough of a temperature change on the outside surface of the device for you to see a visible temperature change through your imaging sensor. (Note that thermal wavelengths won't be transmitted through glass, and most other substances that are transparent to visible light.)
Interestingly enough, a thermal IR strobe is basically what in fact the weird cylinder behind the main rotor of the AH-64 and UH-60 that you see in the game is for. It's a sort of IR jammer that is supposed to try to help confuse the seeker head of some older heat seeking missiles that use a "spin-scan" tracking technique.
I agree that the strobe as represented should make more than a little blip on NVGs, as it should illumniate the area immediately around it (for at least a meter or so).
Watching the Black Hawk Down clip, it seems to show a strange amalgamation of NVD and FLIR vision. While there are devices now that do that, like the AN/PSQ-20 Enhanced Night Vision Goggle that is now being fielded, it looks different (normal green image intensification with reddish thermal overlay), and they didn't have that technology back then in 1993.
Though getting a little off topic, on the other hand it would be really cool to make a mod for ArmA 2/OA that would simulate the AN/PSQ-20 :bounce3:; see video below...
Mrb1TCgeDPo
See also: http://www.vimeo.com/4532787
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In defense of the original poster's frustration, I have found the original ArmA 2 support functions to sometimes be rather flakey. (Kind of a long story, but I was once doing a warfare mission where I would go up to a poorly defended town with an AH-64, blow the crap out of the place, land to capture the command post in the middle myself, hop back in the helo, and go to the next town and repeat. I had set up forward arming and refueling points (FARPs) as I advanced to minimize rearming times and thereby keep the pressure on the enemy and minimize the chance of their going in and recapturing the towns while I was elsewhere. One thing I found was that sometimes when I put an ammo truck in a spot, it often didn't let me rearm unless the helo was pretty close to level to the ground, which was pretty annoying when I noticed there weren't that many areas of really flat, level ground open enough to safely land helicopters. This ended up requiring me to rearm by landing near the truck, going just barely into a hover, and rocking the stick forward and back so that as the aircraft would nose up and down through 0-degrees pitch relative to the horizon, the "Rearming" indication would come up for a bit at a time, and the weapons would slowly reload a bit at a time.)
Anyway, I went in and tested this briefly in the editor using an AH-64D and an MTVR ammo with no mods in OA and got a couple findings.
1) Preferably, land within about 20m of the truck and to its rear; it doesn't seem to matter if you have the engines on or off, and you can actually rearm in a hover if you do it really carefully. Also, it seemed to work regardless of whether or not I had manual fire on, and it worked even if I had fired off all 8 Hellfires. In my experience, at least, it always seems to work best when I have the nose of the helo as close to the rear end of the truck as I can reasonably get.
2) It may start rearming automatically when you get close enough (you see the white "Rearming" just appear), but to force it to rearm, look at the truck using free-look (default is to hold Left-Alt key and aim with the mouse, or toggle with Numpad *), and hit the bracket "[" or "]" keys, and a "Rearm at MTVR Ammunition" (or whatever vehicle type) option should be available. (Again, you have to have the center of the screen/crosshair/whatever icon on the truck for the option to be available on the action menu.)
Hope this is somewhat useful...
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Hmmm, not sure if this would help any, but I was once doing the "Laser Show" (or whatever it's called) mission on LAN, and I got stuck on a rock on a nearby hillside trying to take out people at a distance. I had gotten on top of the rock and was bouncing off it straight up in the air, falling straight down onto the rock, and bouncing back up again in an endless loop that sounds vaguely similar to what you might be talking about. I was thinking I would have to restart (which would have been annoying because we'd almost wiped out all the enemies at that point), but by changing stance between standing, crouched, and prone repeatedly, I was able to move myself just enough to stop the endless loop and go back to normal.
So, the short of it is that my suggestion would be to try to team switch to the stuck AI people and changing stance a bunch while trying to move around for a couple minutes and see if that gets you anything.
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Has anyone seen if there is a command or parameter to set the initialization of a unit so that they can talk to locals in the local language like the special forces guys can? It would be useful for making a character who is an interpreter or a normal military person who happens to know the local language, etc.
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It will try to find your ArmA 2 installation and install it there to make Combined Operations by default. So, C:\Program Files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2 is correct from what I remember and just hit "OK" to the default install location.I want to have COMBINED ARMS version - With ARMA 2 & AO - I currently have ARMA 2 installed (CD version). I just purchased and am starting to install AO - My AO version is CD version as well -It is asking me do I want to install here
C:\Program files\Bohemia Interactive\ArmA 2
IS THIS WHERE I WANT IT to have it COMBINED ARMS...
Or should it be here
C:\Program files\Bohemia Interactive\
??? (not within the ARMA 2 folder)
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I don't want to go off topic here, but I felt I needed to say my quick thought in response to this, and any further discussion along this line should probably go in another thread.I didn't watch that vid until just the other day, because I don't normally like stuff like that. Camera guy looked like he was holding an RPG tube, but no one else looked armed.Here is a link I found to the 2BCT2ID investigation report into the incident (note: this is a PDF file): http://www.lineofdeparture.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/070717-2nd-BCT-15-6.pdf When I first watched the video (before I read the report) and saw the few seconds around the screen capture labeled "Exhibit B" (at time 06:20:06 Zulu) in the report, to my eye from having spent months of seeing people walking around with different types of weapons in theater (in the sandbox, if you had a weapon you carried it on you at almost all times, so your brain starts to recognize pretty quickly how everyone around you moves when they're carrying a rifle in whatever way) and from seeing tons of bad guys running at me with AKs and RPGs in things like ArmA, my brain registered one of the guys walking swinging what looked to me like an AKS-47 or -74 (holding it with one hand by the pistol grip) by his side and another guy with an RPG launcher recognizable by its length about 2/3 of the guy's height with a biconical part at one end. You can definitely see the cameras, though, just by the way they're holding them and the squared-off ends of the tubes; the devices are just too bulky and short by the way the people are moving to be RPG launchers.
If nothing else, and more on topic, this emphasizes how having a lot of advanced vision technology doesn't absolve a warfighter of being proficient at target identification and from needing to be able to make both quick and informed decisions in very stressful situations.
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Galzohar, just to be clear, I was not trying to insult your intelligence or anything, and I was expecting that any reasonable person would agree with you on the "open" part of your sentence. I probably should have made myself clearer that it does seem to be a common misconception in movies and some video games that you can see through windows and supposedly thinner surfaces like doors with thermal imaging; some examples I can remember are Rainbox Six: Raven Shield where there was a thermal scope on some of the sniper weapons capable of seeing through some surfaces including windows and doors, on the Aliens vs. Predator games where I have seen the Predator thermal vision mode able to see through windows, and I can remember some episode in the old Robocop series where someone murdered someone else by using the thermal imager in a prototype of the helmet to shoot him through a wall, and it goes on and on...
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It's been a while, but I remember it only took a few seconds for the AN/PAS-13B to start up, about as long as a handheld video camera; anyone who has actually used one longer and is more familiar with it, please correct me if I'm wrong. I remember it made a slight humming noise or something as the cooling system was working. Does anyone know if the later (and more compact) models use an uncooled array?What are the cooling times on these small-package IR optics? The Javelin CLU takes a few minutes and it's huge with all manner of heavy duty batteries. The Javelin missile itself uses a disposable coolant bottle to achieve ~10 sec optics temperature. The little PVS optic small enough to fit on a rifle has got be slower than a light switch.
Yeah, from the ones I've seen, it's like a 640x480 array at best, definitely not HD or anything...Also I think that the resolution and clarity of the images might be a bit much. I think if you more heavily post process the signal with noise and pixelation it would cause a more significant drawback for these systems.
The PAS-13 display is in fact in black and white and not green.Also, I think changing them to the more realistic, easy-on-the-eyes green screen instead of of the video playback black-and-white would further make the systems harder to use.
You actually can't see through windows (i.e. silicon dioxide glass windows) with FLIR. For the same reason that greenhouses work (the visible sunlight passes through the glass, but any reradiated thermal wavelengths are reflected back towards the inside), the glass is not transparent to thermal radiation, and looking at a glass window using FLIR will look exactly like you are looking at a mirror. The optics in thermal imaging systems use more exotic ceramics that are transparent to thermal wavelengths but are generally not transparent to visibile light. Also, you couldn't see through a door any more easily that you could see through a wall of the same material. As was mentioned previously, what the FLIR can see is based primarily on the temperature and emissivity of the objects in its field of view; you wouldn't be able to tell that a person is behind a door unless, say, the person was leaning on the door and made the door heat up enough that a warmer spot formed on the other side of it, but it would still just look like an amorphous warm spot and not like a person.Also, windows/doors need to be possible to see through. Especially open windows/doors...
IIRC that looked like they were using the electroptical (EO) mode of the TADS in that video. Most of the modern imaging pods and targeting systems I'm familiar with have both an EO and an IR imaging system, as one helps overcome the limitations of the other; for example you might be able to detect a vehicle easily with the FLIR, but you might want to switch over to EO to PID it as friendly or enemy by looking at the markings on it. (An example in game the other day: I was messing around in the armory with an M1 Abrams IIRC, and I saw an M113 driving towards me; not that it would have been a threat at all with just a 50 cal on it, but I happened to switch from FLIR to direct view optics (DVO) and saw it was Takistani but with the big Red Crescent on the side of it. While I know it's just a computer game, in real life a vehicle or building with a Red Cross, Red Crescent, etc. has a "protected" status under the Laws of Armed Conflict (LOAC), and you can't shoot at it unless it is being used illegally. So, I just decided to ignore it to suit my conscience, as it couldn't do anything to me anyway.)If we are talking about that "Collateral Murder" video...I don't think that was filmed with FLIR on? You can clearly see shadows, and other details that would not be visible on the IR Spectrum. -
Hmmm, this sounds like it may be some sort of mod conflict, as various combinations of mods running at the same time seem to occasionally result in unpredictable strange gliches like this. What mods are you using? Have you tried to see if this happens if you turn off everything except ArmA 2 and OA in the "Expansions" screen?
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The main problem is that I don't think the aircraft have the ability to self-lase like they can in real life. (Hmmm, I wonder if this would be possible to mod by putting the functionality of the UAV sensors into the manned fixed-wing aircraft to simulate a targeting pod...) In the game, you essentially need a forward air controller (FAC) with a laser or one of the UAVs (MQ-9 or AH-6X) to lase for you. (When someone turns on a laser, there is a "Laser Target" that appears that you can lock on to in the plane using the cycle target button or the target menu when you have LGBs selected, and it will move around with wherever the laser spot is.) As you mentioned, this isn't really easy in the editor, so I've only really tried it in multiplayer. There might be a way to use scripts to force an AI character in your team with a laser to lase things he sees, but I haven't explored that idea yet.Its very hard to use a laser designator when you play in the editor.And the Stuka thing sounds very unmodern in my opinion so I would rather hear some more people with more suggestions.
:)
The other problem is that the view distances are so short that you can't generally detect a target at the ranges would realistically be using for a target run-in (easily 10-15 nm), so you practically need someone else who isn't moving so fast to find the target for you.
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There are a bunch around Bastam (town center near the 056089 grid IIRC). I was doing a LAN mountain warfare mission the other day where that town was pretty contested between the BLUFOR and "green forces", so I was running/driving through there quite a bit and saw a lot of them around.
I want to make a counter-drug mission in the editor, i.e. a drug lord is funding local terrorism operations with drug production, and you need to find the guy and arrest him and destroy the crops; the problems are 1) trying to get a mission trigger to work that will detect the destruction of specific plants that are on the map, 2) while some of the kinds of plants (like the various bush-like ones) get flattened by explosives, that doesn't work with the grass-like or flower-like ones (you need to drive over them with a vehicle), and 3) it would be nice to make it a joint operation with what would be the "new Takistani Army" forces (to emulate Coalition forces working with Iraqi and Afghan Army forces in real life) but I'd have to see if there is a mod out that would work, because there aren't default units that really fit the bill.
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Hmmm, have you tried the demo yet? I can't remember if it had the various ACOG equipped weapons in it, but if it does it would be an easy way to see if the feel is what you're looking for; a warning, though: from what people have said the demo code is pretty old and non-optimised compared to the most recent version updates. Again, I found it a little off but not so much as to ruin the experience or cause major annoyances, but your mileage may vary.
Though I'm pretty sure someone has mentioned this in some of the other threads, Combined Operations (physical DVD copy) literally has the Arma 2 disk and the Operation Arrowhead disk in it, so you install Arma 2 and then install OA like as if you had bought them separately. There is a separate Arma2.exe and Arma2OA.exe, so you can run just the original Arma 2 if so desired, though I think you'd have to activate mods via command line that way as I don't think it has the simplified mod management capability that OA has.
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I just tested this out (vanilla A2/OA) on a known-distance weapons range in the editor, and, though I was using static/pop-up targets instead of actual people, the ACOGs (both the ones with the TA01-type and TA31-type reticles) look fairly close, both as far as the horizontal ranging line widths and as far as the bullets hitting the marks at the correct ranges. I did have to hold off a little bit, though, as the rounds seemed to be flying IIRC a bit flatter than the reticle markings at longer ranges, 400m and farther (i.e. the bullets were hitting slightly higher on the targets than the expected aimpoint).
From just what I remember from playing the game, the error isn't enough to keep you from hitting a standing target if you aim for center of mass, but it does cause some slight annoyances (generally like having to take an extra shot or two) if you're trying to bean a tango in the head who just dropped prone at range.
Overall, though, this is one of the few games I've seen that does a reasonably accurate representation of how the ACOG reticle is supposed to work, even if it's a bit off.
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Well, I did a search for this and couldn't see that anyone else had brought this up...
I have a clean install of Combined Operations patched to 1.07/1.52 with no mods of any sort added so far. When I have used the artillery module (just in the editor at the moment) tied to the Sec Ops Module, once I am in the mission an make a support request for artillery, the communications messages in the subtitles show what they are saying, but only the audio comes out on the words that are not specific to the module.
For example, when the artillery unit announces "Shot, over", and you reply "Shot, out", the only words you hear are "Over" and "Out". The words are just cut out completely, and there isn't, for instance, a gap where there is just no audio when the words would be spoken. So, when you are supposed to be saying "HQ, this is Alpha, requesting immediate artillery suppression on [blah blah], over", what you hear is just "HQ, this is Alpha, over". (Note: I'm sort of paraphrasing the dialog a little.)
When I had been messing with my brother's ArmA 2 on his computer before OA, the sounds came out correctly, but after we installed OA he has had the same problem.
I just tried this using the ArmA 2 exe instead of the Combined Operations one, and there still seem to be issues with the HQ voice, though the player voice seems normal. I don't know if the latter is tied to using Coop's voice, as that seems to be the voice being used when I actually hear the correct sounds. The problem with the HQ voice seems different because with Arma2.exe when HQ is saying "artillery available, transmit location, over", you hear static during the first part for a few seconds followed by "over", instead of just "over" with nothing before it.
My system specs:
(Laptop) Intel Core 2 Duo T9550 @2.67GHz
4 GB RAM (DDR2 @ 800MHz)
Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit SP2
Nvidia GeForce 9600M GT 512MB
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To clarify, if you equip the M110 with NV scope, it has both a direct view optic mode (what the original poster is looking for) and the image intensification view.Press N to turn off night vision.
A while back I went to the Leupold website and poked around a bit, and, as I understand it, they make different versions of the various models of their scopes that can have the reticle mounted in one of two focal planes; in one plane, the reticle stays the same size in your FOV as you zoom (like in the game), so the mil dots only actually show mils at one magnification, generally the highest magnification; mounted in the other plane, the reticle zooms as you zoom in, so that the distance between two mil dots show one mil regardless of whether you have the scope on 3.5x, 10x, or anywhere in between, so you can always do ranging with the dots without worrying about where you have the zoom set. Looking around just now, one source says that the normal day scope for the M110 is the Leupold Mk4 3.5-10x40mm Brown, so I'll look that up later...As it has stepped zoom, shouldn't the reticle follow zoom? It's understandable that the variable zooms doesn't have it though.Now that I think of it, I should probably try to see if the mil dots in ArmA 2/OA are actually showing mils correctly...
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I believe the default key binding is to Numerical Keypad "/" to switch between scope and backup sight when you are in the weapons sight view (after you click the right mouse button).
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By any chance did you turn a mod on/off or add a mod? Some mods seem to have conflicts that cause glitches like that; you could try to toggle off mods that you have (through the "Expansions" menu item on the Main Menu) to see if one or more is causing the problem.
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I tried searching for this, and it doesn't seem to have been mentioned so far... The position of the gunner's optics on the M1 Abrams (variants) appears to be incorrect. The viewpoint displayed is towards the port side of the turret at approximately where the Commander's Independent Thermal Viewer (CITV) is located, while the Gunner's Primary Sight is in fact located in the large box that is directly in front of the Commander's hatch. In other words, right now when you are in the gunner's seat you see the barrel coming out of the lower right of the screen; to be realistic, it should be coming out of the lower left of the screen. While I'm not familiar with the file structure associated with a particular vehicle in the game (at least not yet), I can't imagine this would take any more effort than adjusting an X-coordinate in some parameter in the vehicle's config file.
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I haven't been able to mess with the game much (my brother got his OA copy, and I've been trying it out on his computer, while mine should come in the mail tomorrow), but so far I haven't observed that BIS has modeled the thermal properties of the different materials of the environment and solar heating and what not. For example, a car made of metal or a rock would heat up faster in the sun than leaves of most plants and grass, so you should see a car as being pretty hot in a grassy field even if it's engine isn't running; if it were cloudy, this would be less pronounced, and then you'd have thermal crossover in the evening and the opposite stuff at night, etc., etc.I have a few issues with some of the thermal weapon sights on the game - namely that the contrast between objects is unrealistically low. I'm not talking about "hot" vs. "cold" per se, I am talking about objects in between - new generation thermal weapon sights are extremely sensitive and display much more distinct differences between different objects with slightly different thermal signatures. This isn't captured very well on Arrowhead.
I messed with an AN/PAS-13B (one of the older big chunky ones) a little when I was in Iraq a few years back, and I'm pretty sure it had a rectangular border because you're basically looking at a small display screen inside it. One thing that was neat was that you could switch reticles between different types of weapons using the various mode and +/- buttons.Secondly - why does the image from a TWS have a square border. The scope and eyepiece is curved, not square.
I actually wouldn't mind trying to add the TI textures for some of the ArmA 2 units and weapons, as I'm pretty proficient with the paint programs that I use, but I haven't really tried to do much modding with games in general so far and haven't tried to mess with any SDKs or such. It doesn't seem like it should be that hard fundamentally if you can get the original texture file; you'd just have to almost completely desaturate it (make it gray), reduce the contrast, and then just start sort of "spraying" white or black on areas that would be hotter or colder, respectively.alternatively the FLIR can be changed by adjusting the textures of the objects, just keep in mind to not use white as that is the part that heats up, the more neutral colors remain the same however...you'll need the most recent cpbo and textview 2 and a paint editing program if you plan on doing this (filename is under _ti_ -
Well, you could get ArmA 2 Combined Operations for $10 US more than just OA (most places have Combined Operations for ~$49.99 vs. OA for ~$39.99)...it would be a judgement call on your part whether all the USMC/CDF/ChDKZ/Napa/Russian units, two maps (Chernarus and Utes), and included campaign and missions are worth the extra $10 (some people don't care for the A2 campaign).do you guys think its worth buying arma 2 and OA? i know there will be lots of weapons and features. but for OA obviously theres gonna be addons made for it. so is just buying OA worth it? -
Thanks for putting that together! I'm looking forward to making some mechanized infantry missions with it!Here's a quick video showing the M2A3 Bradley. :)
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As much as I like a good story, I feel the ideas in this sentence are kind of bad movie cliches (that tend to result in a lot of eye-rolling on my part). Fortunately, at least in my experience, you very rarely run into people like that in the real US military; most everyone is just a normal person trying to do an honest job at whatever he or she is doing, with normal dreams and normal problems but capable of extraordinary things in tough circumstances. At least in my opinion, you can get a pretty good war story by putting together a bunch of characters with realistic personalities and just letting them problem-solve their way through some challenge and show them working through the issues inside themselves (like some of the other examples the reviewer uses), between themselves, and the bigger combat problem at hand, without having to be preachy or make stereotypes. (Anyone remember that old reality TV show from many years back called Combat Missions? I kind of liked that show in that way, now that I think of it...)A soldier with a chip on his shoulder or a crazed or incompetent CO could have been fascinating. -
Well, if it isn't too much trouble, could you please film some views of the positions (commander, gunner, driver, "ride in back") inside the M2A3 Bradley, including the different view modes (3D interior, optics, FLIR, stepped zoom levels). I keep wondering how well it's modeled, but I don't think I've seen a video that shows more than the driver position, nor do I remember seeing any FLIR video from any of the ground vehicles (only from the AH-64, ULB, and TWS). Thanks in advance!I will probably be making some HD videos this afternoon (CET). Mostly fiddled around with the settings yesterday to get the best recording results in FRAPS. Let me know if you want to see anything specific. :) -
Also note that the AK47 in OA has the ability to change its ranging, as you would in real life with its leaf sight. I think the implementation could be useful on a lot of weapons/systems, just only where it applies.If you're saying what I think you mean (again, I haven't gotten the game in the mail yet), this definitely would be useful on the M136, M203, Mk19, other grenade launchers, etc.
The Undead Mod
in ARMA 2 & OA - ADDONS & MODS: COMPLETE
Posted
I've been trying to make a few missions with the infected/zombies in Combined Operations with only the Undead Mod (v0.84) enabled on top of the vanilla installation, and some issues have been happening when I try to use the UAV/ULB. (Charon Productions, I believe you said you don't have OA yet, but it seemed like at least a good idea to start by seeing if anyone else has the same issue.)
I modified one of the example missions by copying and pasting a default group of people and equipment I use in other missions into the example mission. Everything seemed to work fine until I tried to select the UAV action at a terminal; the screen faded to black as normal and the word "UAV" appeared in the upper left corner as normal, but the rest of the image never came up, and there was no audio from the UAV either. The program stopped responding to inputs (including hitting Esc), but I was able to Alt-Tab to other programs and back without problems, and I was able to close ArmA2OA by hitting Alt-F4 (the word "Shutdown..." would appear and it would close). Same thing happened with the ULB. I tried deleting an individual item from the mission in the editor, testing it, reverting the mission, and deleting a different item, and repeated the process. It quickly became apparent that when I deleted just the Undead Module from the mission the UAV and ULB would function normally again.
To try this the other way around, I went to make a simplified mission on the nearly empty Desert map. I had both a UAV and ULB set up, and a couple groups of the undead characters a long ways off. The UAV and ULB worked normally. When I added an instance of the Undead Mod - Infected or Undead Mod - Zombies modules, the problem in the last paragraph would appear, but there would be no issues if I added only the Undead Mod - Spawn module (though the zombie characters weren't acting correctly).