dragon01

Don't forget the friggin' aircraft carrier. Even if it was worked on before and doesn't have much in terms of interiors itself, it's easily just as much work as modeling internal spaces for DLC vehicles. I think that at least DLC tanks will get interiors. Vanilla ones won't, except in the unlikely event that a DLC tank ends up being a variant of a design already featured in vanilla (e.g. the Merkava), thus enabling them to share internal models.

One of those "only in ArmA" moments. :) https://s29.postimg.org/h7s5ow3pj/20170604145701_1.jpg I have no idea how it happened (nor was able to replicate it), but it seems that there's still room for improvement here. On the plus side, the rest of the convoy drove more or less fine (at least until the point I blew it to pieces :)).

I don't think that IL-2 style FM is needed. However, a few things should definitely be added for it to feel "right": 1. Proper AoA. At landing speeds, it's usually about 8 degrees (see the pic above). Less if you're going fast, but it never goes into negative in level flight. 2. Turning behavior, especially when banked. It improved a lot lately, but the actual turns are still too slow. 3. Stall behavior. While autopilot and other aids can help it, it could be a bit more refined. This mostly applies to DLC jets and VTOLs (to a lesser extent), which should have significantly stall and post-stall characteristics from the other planes.

The problem is, ArmA planes have three degress of "fake" AoI, which in turn means that AoA is positive only at extremely low speeds. You can actually see planes fly at negative AoA because of this. In general, I think that this needs to be fixed before relevant indicators are adjusted.

Why? AoA indicator has nothing to do with sensors and everything with FM.

Not many that we care about, that is... :) BTW, kudos to BIS for bringing back the dumb bombs and extending the bombload on Wipeout.

Actually, from what we've seen in OFP, Malden relies on the US forces for protection. There's no mention of indigenous forces anywhere. For such a small, but strategic island, this is quite plausible.

Except that CSAT helo is in what seems to have been the helipad, so it was likely abandoned while on the ground. On the other hand, this would imply it being a CSAT base, which raises a whole lot of interesting questions...

Just a heads up, I noticed some weird flicker on the Blackfoot's loadout MFD. Some random text characters appear behind the missile loadout pictures.

I'm getting some z-fighting near the diesel power plant in Le Port. It's near the place where the quay "clips" into terrain. It doesn't always appear (seems to be LOD-related), but when it does, it's very ugly. Also, why does the abandoned complex have both CSAT and NATO vehicle wrecks? That's conspiracy-grade material, you know? :) I've also noticed something that looks like an oversized Praetorian CIWS mount near that area... any chance we get an intact version of whatever it was? EDIT: One more thing, the "small" road (between the city and power plant) in Le Port is disconnected from other roads. It can't be good for AIs trying to drive on it.

-1. This isn't WWII. Modern artillery pretty much does work like our Artillery Computer. Calculations are not really made by individual crews, but by fire control center, which then tells the individual guns in the battery what elevation and azimuth to fire at. With GPS-guided munitions (such as MLRS rockets), you pretty much mark the target on map and fire.

Ah, so there it is. If that's so, they never did require lock-on, it was just that for a long time, SACLOS has been broken for AI. That's probably why it was so hit or miss (*ba-dum-dish*). :)

Why is every gatling cannon called "minigun" in the weapon selection window? It's kind of absurd, especially when considering the 30mm cannon on the Wipeout.

Actually, it's a bit more complicated. If it's impossible to lock on with a human gunner, then AI should also use manual guidance, unless CUP is doing something weird. AI can use manual guidance, but it used to be somewhat unreliable in my experience, not working at all on vanilla missiles. The patch didn't automatically fix RHS missiles, at the very least, so devs probably need to look into implementing the fix. In case CUP is doing something weird, it should stop and use whatever manual guidance method Scalpel uses. Scalpel works, I can say that for certain. As long as the gunner is actually looking at the target (generally, it seems that designating a target does ensure that he is), the missile will guide.

Hind's missiles shouldn't lock on at all (besides AA ones). All ATGMs it can carry are SACLOS, which means they're manually guided by the gunner. As of recently, this should work (and on Scalpel, it does). You designate a target for the gunner, then launch and just make sure the target is in view, the missile should hit it. I'm not sure if that's how it works in CUP, but that's how it should work.

Think you can make it for the post-Jets patch?

It's a very stupid and pointless analogy, and also a misuse of economic terms. Development is nothing like manufacturing, not to mention products that do have to be manufactured also have development costs (this is, literally, always the case, since setting up a production line counts as development, if nothing else). Manufacturing costs are directly proportional to the amount of copies you make, which limits the amount of copies you can sell. None of this is the case with games. These terms are separate. You do not "manufacture" a game (unless you sell it in a box), you only develop it. Unless, of course, you meant "production" costs as in, producing a movie (in which case, it's a synonym for development and not manufacturing. English is silly). As for DLCs, they are a separate product, and as such have their own development costs (support can be rolled in with the base product, though). And yes, development is sunk cost once the game is released. This is why games, movies and the like operate on "the current one pays for the next" principle, with a significant investment needed to start. What you say about DRM is true, what you say about price is not. This is economics 101. As long as there's demand (and there is), lowering the price will increase sales. Piracy, in general, is harder and in case of games like ArmA, pirated copies are at a significant disadvantage. As such, the people who pirate it usually can't afford it any other way (my parents have been in such a situation for a long time. In the 90s Poland, you actually had to buy pirated games from crackers). Many other people simply never get it because it's so expensive. Thus, lowering the price will both curb piracy and increase sales to those who couldn't afford it beforehand. The only argument against lowering the price is that there still might be enough people around who are willing to pay the larger one. However, this varies greatly by region (depending on the price to average income ratio), hence why I'm talking about introducing regional pricing.

I'm not. It's literally in the very post you quoted. I mentioned at some point that that lowering the price on a regional basis could actually earn them more, because as it stands, fewer people buy it (and more pirate) in the Eastern European countries. Also, read the post above yours, in which I'm actually addressing the costs of maintaining a game. Comprehensive reading is generally a good thing to do. As for sales, I noticed that it takes a very long time for BI games to get more than 33% discount. I don't think Apex ever went beyond that at this point. They may not be priced like top-shelf AAA games, but they surely are discounted like them...

I mean sunk cost in the economic sense: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost Digitally distributed games to not have any fixed manufacturing cost, as copying data costs nothing. Only physically distributed games do (that is, the cost of making and burning the disk, producing the casing and printing the inserts and the paper manual). The only costs in that case are in two categories: development and support (in cases like ArmA, lines between these get blurred). Development includes everything that you pay before you have the game, this money has to be paid in full before you can expect any returns. As such, all of it is sunk cost at release. From this point on, in "conventional" games, no more money is spent on production and the full price of every instance sold goes towards recouping the initial cost, regardless of actual price. While you can fail to recoup the development cost and end up with a loss, you can't sell at a loss in digital distribution (unless the marketplace itself imposes a fixed tariff for each copy sold, but Steam doesn't do that and it's a terrible idea anyway). The remaining costs are support, which, in conventional development, is relatively small stuff like maintaining the help desk, running official servers and replacing damaged disks. In unconventional development (like what BI does), it can be harder to separate, but the basic principle works the same. If you consider each DLC as a separate product, ArmA3 development seems to almost follow the conventional model with extended, public pre-release phases (and a lot of technical term misuse :)).

I'm not saying it should be free, that'd be too much. However, maybe it doesn't need to cost as much as it does (not everywhere, at least). Games, in particular, have no fixed manufacturing cost (except for boxed releases), the only costs we're talking about is development, which is sunk cost. Thus, in digital distribution, selling the game at any price goes entirely towards recouping your development costs. Other, "physical" hobbies generally are reasonably priced for the place they're done in. Computers and gaming are the odd one here. Movie tickets for the latest Hollywood movie, for example, can be priced at an equivalent of 5 Euro, despite the fact that releasing a movie in another country actually costs additional money due to localization. Games, on the other hand, are only cheap to Westerners.

So, you're asking that every Russian simulation fan that is not upper/upper middle class find himself another hobby? It's very annoying that people from US or EU always say "it doesn't cost that much!" when in fact, it does as soon as you step out of Eurozone. BI store, in particular, doesn't offer much in terms of regional pricing (Steam is better about it... slightly). FIY, market-based pricing tends to actually increase revenue, as long as you have a reliable system for preventing people from richer countries taking advantage of lower pricing for foreign market. This could alleviate the problem somewhat, at least as far as foreign market goes. For most ArmA DLCs it's less of a problem, because BI's DLC strategy is very lenient towards non-owners (likely because they're Czech themselves). However, Apex is an exception, as non-buyers get neither the island nor map objects, on which an increasing amount of jungle maps depend on.

The problem with jungle maps is that since Apex was released, they started switching to Apex vegetation... so in the end, you end up needing Apex anyway. I would love to see more non-Apex dependent jungle maps, but they're on a steady decline. Also, 70 euros is not affordable to an "average guy" when considering the whole world. In Poland, it's more akin to having to pay 280 of your money of choice (when considering most non-computer purchases, prices between countries tend to be "numerically" similar, except in cases like Russia or Hungary, where they have an additional zero or two). This is a serious amount of money that most people tend not to have to spare. In countries like Russia, it's even worse. Ever wonder why Russians pirate games so much? Because an average Russian gamer can't easily afford most games he'd like to play. A Russian friend of mine recently put together a high-end (good and up to date, but not a monster by Western standards) gaming rig which costed about half of an average yearly salary in his country. If you're in on of those countries that are screwed by currency exchange rates, paying an equivalent of 30 euros (what Apex costs on Steam) can easily break your bank. Regional pricing helps a slight bit, but a boxed copy of ArmA2 (my first contact with the series) still set me back a lot.[/rant] I haven't bought Apex yet partially because of that (and partially because the SP campaign was so bungled that I refused to pay for it on principle), and while I'm hoping to get it eventually, it'll have to be a gift from my father (and he likely won't agree to buy it until it's on a sale, because he's got better things to do with over 120 Polish Zloty).

That was supposed to be fixed by Apex improvements, especially the "flying backwards" thing. It boggles the mind that we're so close to release and the DLC jets still aren't fully configured (either that or they aren't configured very well). Yeah, the artificial "angle of incidence" seems to be the case. I suppose it would make sense for Blackfish (which does seem to have some AOI), but the others have wings level with the ground. If BIS could remove this behavior, it'd be a noticeable improvement.

Make that future DLC tanks. :) That said, tanks as a whole will be reworked for tanks DLC, so maybe they'll change their mind.

Actually, from what I read from that Russian article I posted, it seems to be "sponson-mounted", that is, on the far right side of the turret. It is reloadable from outside, and has a decidedly unorthodox mount.