dragon01

I never had a problem with stealth missions. Just save often and don't blow your cover. On the other hand, I agree that there are things in AI and mission design that could use an improvement. Being suddenly killed from a distance by a soldier you can't see or hear happens IRL, but if you're trying to be sneaky and wear camo, and the enemy doesn't expect you, I guess you could sneak around in pretty well in real life. Not so in ArmA, where you'd get nailed by an eagle-eyed, all-knowing AI soldier. With an assault rifle. At night, at 100m. But this is a known problem. AI has inhuman reflexes, sight and hearing. I partially remedy this by using a customized difficulty (with enemy AI dumbed down a fair bit, but unrealistic features disabled), but occasionally, I'm still a victim of this.

I think that the way scopes are done could use a rework. Right now, the only thing they seem to do is to narrow down player's FOV, without any additional effects do go with it. LODs, grass and view distance stay the same, no matter if you're zoomed in or not. FPS stay the same or drop, despite a smaller, less detailed area being displayed. This doesn't make much sense to me.

I agree with the OP, "gore" needs to be much better than in ArmA II. Dismemberment, blood trail, precise decals (not only on bodies, but vehicles could use them too) and realistic bleeding (like blood gushing from the throat if a unit is shot there) is something that helps immersion and, in some cases, assists in gameplay (you could work out what happened to a dead body from how it's wounds look). Also, flies gathering above dead bodies (already exists as an AII mod) would be another nice addition. Truly well done gore would greatly help conveying the horror of war, right now it's unrealistically clean.

If your computer can handle 10Km view distance with further LOD switching distance, go ahead. Mine can. ArmAII is very demanding on your hardware, so the way to limit visibility is there for a reason.

For me, the main problem with Warfare was always the lack of realism. I would like, for instance, get some assets assigned (on board a a carrier), and be given a mission to accomplish. Then, I'd plan how to deploy and command them, either from the field (taking care not to get shot) or from the carrier (taking care not to lose a comm unit). For instance, I'd like to be able to order a squad of AI soldiers to deploy from carrier be a boat, take down enemy AA batteries (previously found by UAV) and then send in more troops via air. After that, order troops to flank and destroy OPFOR in the village I was to capture. It shouldn't count as "secured" until enemy is driven out of it and stays out for some time (no silly "control bunkers"). "Buying" units with cash from captured cities is unrealistic (though if you do well, high command could allocate a few more soldiers to you). I'd also like to be able to allocate support (ammo drops, arty, CAS), either to a unit (they could call it when they see fit) or independently. What support I can allocate should depend on ships in the battlegroup (of course, provided command agreed to give me Tomahawks), planes I have on my disposal and arty I deployed previously. All that in an intuitive, user friendly and realistic (as in, based on how a real CIC looks) interface. And of course, AI should actually follow orders, move where it's supposed to and overall, act less retarded. Setting up field bases should also be modified, with more detailed animations and without disregarding logistics needed for such task (for example, to set up a medical tent, you'd need some soldiers to do it, a truck with necessary materials and some medics to man it). Of course, that sort of simulation would be very complex, but also very realistic, with logistics making up a major part of the Warfare (in AII version, there aren't any logistics, which is, IMHO, really bad).

How can I extract BAF and PMC PBOs? All PBO extractors I tried (Eliteness, CPBO, UnPBO) either crashed, or in case of UnPBO, showed gibberish. Of them, only UnPBO was able to extract OA files. I've downloaded all them for Armaholic. Does anybody knows a tool which could extract these files?

But why did they encrypted them anyway? From what I've seen, BI is ussualy friendly to modders. I don't think encrypting these files helps modding in any way.

I have noticed a slight problem with LOD distances. Simply put, they're too small. http://www.abload.de/image.php?img=wnormalyose.jpg# You can clearly see lower LODs on that image, while planes are only a short distance away. That looks rather ugly.

F/A-18 Super Hornet is now released, so could you update the template, Snafu?

Considering I have entire ArmAII series (not from BIS store), can get ArmA dirt cheap at a book store and original OFP either at Allegro (polish version of EBay), or a classics stand in the same book store, also dirt cheap, ArmA X seems a bit expensive for me. Besides, I have already bought AII: RFT, so I should be able to listen to these songs outside of the game, without paying any additional costs.

Same results with everything but UnPBO, which now makes a huge file named "ArmA 2 OA". What I want is music from both addons, I'd like to listen to it outside of the game.

Considering the fact women serve in combat units, I strongly support the idea of adding female soldiers to ArmA III, if only for the sake of realism. I'm sure that female players will appreciate that. It'd also add some more variety. Mods are possible, but I'd like to see them in stock campaigns.

I think that soldiers that don't have desk jobs would be rather skinny and muscular, haircut is regulated, so it's identical for everybody. Combat armor hides most other features, so I guess that things that could be customizable would be limited to height (which also should be randomized on AI units, it's weird that everybody in 12 unit squad is the same height) and face. In full armor and with tactical glasses, it's even difficult to distinguish male from female (unless you know him/her, that is). Nametags and cutomizable attachment system should be enough to tell squadmates apart.

I've played the preview, and I must say I'm amazed. As for any problems, perhaps the biggest one is the lack of fully interactive cockpit with working instruments. HUD does a good job, but it'd be more realistic to have these indicators on instrument panel, especially that they're modelled already. Most simulators I played have this feature. Also, a tutorial would be helpfull, even in PDF format, since flying a heli is very difficult, as I managed to find out.

CAW11 (based on USS Nimitz): 2 Squadrons of Super Hornets, 2 squadrons of Hornets, one squadron of Seahawks, one squadron of Prowlers, one of Hawkeyes and one of Greyhounds. We may not yet have planes for the latter 3.

I've read somewhere (I can't find it now, but IIRC, this was a BI site) that ToH is going to be "compatible with AII: RFT". Does anybody here know what could that mean? It would be great if it allowed flight model from ToH to be used in AII (that's how I understood this), but then, how it could be achieved (also, why RFT and not CO)?

Actually, CATOBAR F-15 and F-16 variants were proposed and tested, but never really went into service. F-15N Sea Eagle was defeated by F-14 Tomcat and F-16N by F/A-18 Hornet.

I have (IIRC) AMD Athlon 610, which only supports SSE instruction set. If FaceTrackNoIR requires SSE2 or above, then it won't run. I can't find any info about that though.

I've installed FaceTrack, applied the latest patch, but upon startup, I'm getting an "Application was not started correctly (0xc000001d). Press OK to terminate the application." error. It appears twice. I'm using Manta Plako webcam, which is advertised to work without drivers or any sort (it seems to, at least Windows recognizes it). I'm running Win XP Home edition, 32bit version. Does anyone knows how to fix that?

Soon, I'll be getting a new game and I decided this game to be ArmA II: RFT (I already have CO). So, because it's not available in Poland yet, I found a retailer in UK who sells it at a reasonable price on EBay. The problem is, this retailer sells english version of the game (and it's the only one in existance, from what I see), while I have a localized, language locked Polish version. If I try to install english RFT with the version of CO I already have, will it work properly?

I recall somebody having done it already, it's just a matter of finding that addon (shouldn't be hard).

OK then, I may try using an addon to change language of my CO version to english (it'd be weird to have 1/3 of the game in english). Thanks.

I don't think a rocket could detonate on a branch. If it doesn't happen in real life, it shouldn't in ArmA II.

It seems to be an F/A-18 Hornet. I was talking about F/A-18 Super Hornet, which is a noticably different plane. Original Hornets are no longer used in US Navy IIRC.

Awesome. Now we only need an F/A-18 Super Hornet addon (unless I missed it and there's one already).