-Coulum-

@Solzenicyn and devs It would be easier to provide feedback on this feature if we knew what is within your team's goals and capabilities. Are you guys limited to using the current "damage reduction" system or is there a possibility for a more realistic penetration/deflection system. Are you guys planning/able to define where armour covers better (ie. helmet covers just the top of the head rather than the whole face). Is it within your scope to add more hit effects (ragdolling, animations, sway). I think it is necessary for us to get this info because depending on your answers our feedback will change. Like already mentioned, the in-game ability of a plate to prevent fatal injuries are not unrealistic - thus keeping the target alive longer. But there are other negatives to such a hit currently no in-game. And if these are not going to be modeled it may be better to nerf armour more for gameplay's sake... We need to know how close to complete you guys consider the current system - are you guys just tweaking numbers or still adjusting and adding mechanics - because our feedback will vary depending. What do you want our feedback to be about? Thanks.

Yeah I have to agree. The POV should be such that you are practically looking over the rifle, not to the side of it. It is better than arma 2 but it could be improved. Anyhow a cool addon idea for sure.

Hey guys, to try and support the soldier protection thread, I have made this little mission that allows you to easily see the effectiveness of body armour in game. This is purely a testing mission, no fun here. But if you're interested to see a bit further into the mechanics of wounding and armour in Arma give it a wirl and report your feed back here. Any suggestions for more in the mission are welcome. Download Further Details

Nice will have to look into this when I get time. Thanks.

When it comes to turret handling the ai should have just as much trouble as the player. Right now it is dead easy for a player with FLIR to take out entire squads. The ai should not be handicapped in comparison. What I have more a problem with is the ai doesn't seem to have a narrow FOV when in vehicles - however I haven't really tested tis out recently so I am just going with the "gut feeling that I get".

Yeah well try it again anyhow. I know I had the same thing happen to me when I started testing armour a while back. The first time I tried it I was all like "wow this works really well". but then after more testing I began to find out that it wasn't so much the case. But there isn't that much detail in arma at the moment. In reality armoured plates are quite small and cover about 40-50% of the upper body (waist up) at most. In arma however the plate cover 100% of the upper body. This means that people will not be in "serious trouble" if hit in certain locations. I seriously doubt the devs are going to add more hitzones to combat that problem at this point (though I would be pleased if they did). So keeping that in mind, it probably isn't such a horrible thing to have damage build up for the reasons similar to this: Furthermore there are reasons why "dampened but culminating damage from nonpenetrating hits" is realistic, ie.: After repeated hits to a plate the integrety of the plate decreases - multiple hits leads to eventual penetration. In game multiple hits would lead to death. Though a non penetrating hit won't tear up tissue, it can still cause damage. Bruising and pain are definitely going to happen and more serious internal bleeding and broken bones are possibilities as well (though not for smaller munitions). The way damage culminates in game can represent this to a degree. So although there is merit to the "it penetrates and kills or deflects and does nothing" train of thought, its not 100% true. There is also realistic enough reasons for "dampened culminating damage". And I think that in the end the devs are not going to have much choice but to use it. So might as well start discussing how we can get the most realistic results out of that system. I believe it is very possible.

dev. With a .45 yeah, one shot kill to the face and to the helmet. Multiple glancing hits to kill. With a 9mm no, two shot kill to the face and two shot kill to the helmet. Multiple glancing hits to kill. What I am seeing is the helmet protects the whole of the head, but the .45 is simply strong enough to punch trough that protection regardless. The lack of difference between the 9mm to the face and 9mm to the helmet indicates that the helmet protects the whole head. Do you get the same results as in this video?

Hmm, I don't find that. The overall damage done to a unit seems to be pretty consistent except for the last shot which is usuall less because the unit dies before the full damage can be done.ie. .184 .184 .184 .184 .184 .08 was the damage dealt to a blufor rifle's upper leg with a rook 9mm. For headshots, when the head is crippled, yes the overall damage will immediately jump to 1.

Yeah, thats something I immediately noticed. Basically every hit damages a bit of every part of the body. I have no idea why BIS does this but that is what I have been finding. And when it comes to skimming shots sometimes these "spill-overs" get tot be drastic. Once I shot a guy in the side of the arm just skimming it. Somehow it ended up killing him and in my hint box I was told that the majority of the damage was dealt to the head.

Its not a shot limit to the legs. What happens is ever shot not only damages the body part hit, but also the body parts around in (very little) and the units overall health - so when the guy dies of 6 legs shots it because his overall health has been depleted. Try this test mission and you will see.

Okay so I have made this little mission that gives you a selection of units from each faction to shoot, and unlimited weapons to choose from through VAS (though there are some error popups (I think due to devbranch changes) it still works). You can download it here. If there are any specific features or units you want me to add just let me know. I think it generally provides enough info to get a good idea of how the armour system works. There are many area of improvement for the armour system I have noticed so far but I will see. Unfortunately I have not found this to be true. Although there is such thing as glancing hit that do less damage, a direct hit to the upper head seems to deal basically the same damage to the lower head. When you use a .45 the helmet is not strong enough to keep the unit alivve unless the hit is glancing. If you use a 9mm you see that you can hit a unit point blank in the face and he will not die.

Yes each armour covers a specific hitpoint, not the whole body. I am making a mission that displays the damages you have dealt to a unit so we can test things and get numerical results. It will be done soon.The problems occur within each hitpoint - for example the helmet protects the whole of the head, not just the top.

No what that video showed looked horrible and very simiar to what we have in arma 3 right now. Agreed but unfortunately I think we are going to have to deal will the damage dampening that is in place now. It can still work if implemented well. Yes it is not the survivability that is the problem right now but rather the immediate reaction to being hit. That and the accuracy at which armour is depicted (ie. Helmets currently cover whole head rather than just the top)

Hey I really liked using this in other peoples missions (great work!) and figured I would have a go at putting it into my own. I just copied the example mission into my missions folder and tried to preview it. Upon opening the virtual ammmobox for the first time I get the message No entry "C:\Users\Ben\documents\Arma 3\missions\gear_test.Stratis\description.ext/Vas_Diag/controls/gundetails/ListScrollBar" And I notice that the scroll bar in the vas menu is blank. Also when I try dragging an item into my inventory I get the message '(.this|#| +1) call VAS_fnc_quickAddDrag' Error Generic error in expression Other wise it works as expected. I have used other peoples' missions with VAS without these errors so I must be doing something wrong. Would you have an idea what? All I did was copy the "gear_test.Stratis" file from the download into my user missions, loaded it up in editor and previewed. I am using dev branch.

HA! Brilliant!

I am so glad you guys opened up this thread, it is definitely an issue that needs to be discussed. I agree with .kju.

Great to hear. Is this the next step for All in Arma or is this a separate project? Much respect .kju for all thee hard work you are putting in.

Yes the problem your seeing is the helmet seems to protect the entire head rather than just the top. That said, only pistols or glancing rifle shots will not kill with a headshot. And even then the second shot is pretty much a sure kill. I do hope that BIS is able to make it so the top and bottom of head are protected seperately. Research modern body armour. 6-8 shots (which is only survivable from a pistols in arma -3-6 from rifles) is not all that unbelievable. Now the reaction to getting hit in the armour should be different ingame though. More like this:

Ah I misunderstood you then. I thought you thought that the reason BIS wouldn't implement it was solely for fear of breaking mission balance in the campaign. Yeah I get the impression that doing it to the standards BIS wants requires alot more than what modders have been doing to achieve weapon resting. And right now BIS is focused on campaign, balance and optimization I believe so your right that there is really no way anything is going to be done before the end of the last campaign episode. And even then there will be along period where they are focusing on fixing the campaign bugs so... Unfortunately they can only do so many things at once.

Its because they are wearing body armour (Was implemented in this patch). The survival rate is not all that unrealistic but the other effects on target are not all that realistic. Also armour seems to cover the whole of each hitpoint - so a helmet covers the whole head, not just the top. Armour is a feature that I am happy to have, but it definitely needs to be further fleshed out. Opfor actually have less armour than blufor. See how many 6.5's a UAV controller or paratrooper can take to the torso before dying. Surviving 6 shots in the armour is not all that unrealistic but there would be other side effects in reality that are not simulated in the game and definitely should be. I am hoping BIS aren't finished with body armour just yet.

Doubt it. They have been adding and tweaking stuff despite the campaign (fatigue, armour, sway etc.) and bipods would have so little effect on the campaing that I doubt this is the reason they haven't implemented it yet. I agree. Dwarden did acknowledge and promise to bring it up with other devs in one of the many weapon resting threads. Of course he didn't promise that would lead to anything. BIS definitely know we want it bad though. Now I can only hope that it is a matter of getting enough time to implement it properly. That seems to be of large importance in arma 3 - either its done well (little chance for bugs in the future) or it doesn't get in. Lets hope that in 2014 they get the time to put it in proper. If not the most important, its definitely the most wanted feature.

Sarcasm? No I don't think you are right. IMO the whole reason for trying to get arma 3 on steam workshop is so that BIS doesn't have to add favourite mods into the vanilla game but it is so easy to get and use them that to the user it pretty much feels like it is part of the vanilla game. Combined with "make arma not war", I think that BIS is pretty much going to allow addons to be apart of the game. For example Tactical battlefield seems to be picking up steam as a mod. Imagine how big it will be when it is up on steam workshop. Much like Dayz or ACE, people will forget that there was ever a vanilla. Mods will define the game even for the average/casual user. Thus there won't be much need for BIS to make mods apart of the base game.

Yeah I have had this. Also while playing offline sometimes I will quite the game but then when I try to shut down steam or go online, steam will tell me I must quit arma 3 first - even though I did. And it doesn't even show up on task manager. Have been able to find steps to reproduce it though it does happen frequently.

Where did you here that the reason was ai? Because I kind of doubt it that is the only reason. By that logic they wouldn't have added the sub stances sytstem - ai can't use that either...

Haha, yeah I know eh? Its a wonder nobodies thought of that yet besides the OP... Patience. Give the modders some time. You'll see they know what they are doing.