Stray Bullet

I just got Arma 2 today. Steam version, fully patched to the recent 1.09 patch. I am barely into it at all since I keep failing the firing range. When you first go up to the guy he tells you to load your weapon and fire off a few rounds. I can hit every target just fine and I rarely miss. (I've been playing Arma 1 for a while now so I'm used to Arma game play) So then he starts the actual firing range qualifying. The targets go down, one pops up, I shoot and hit it and the instructor says something like "woo-hoo, I think you need more practice..." And then I am offered the choice to try again or quit. I try again and the SAME thing happens every damn time - I hit the target, and he gives me that same message. I've read that Arma 2 has a lot of bugs but I didn't think I'd be battling one 3 minutes into the game and have to spend an hour reloading and retrying over and over again just to qualify on the firing range and still fail to get past it. I've tried no less than five times already and I'm starting to get sick of it. What's going on here? Am I doing something wrong? ---------- Post added at 01:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:07 PM ---------- EDIT: Okay, it figures the problem would just fix itself right after I go to a forum and ask about it. This time I started a new game and went straight to the firing range and did it and passed right away without any troubles. I managed to get past the medic training, the MOUT and the anti-tank range too so far, so now I'm a happy camper. I guess it was just bugged in my first game for whatever reason.

I just started a new game of Arma 2 and had JUST begun the Razor Two mission. You know, after Miles dies and Shaftoe sends us to Dressler and all that good stuff? Anyway, the next task after talking to Dressler is to capture Bardak. There is a WHOLE LOT of other stuff to do in that mission too. So anyway, I was just driving around when suddenly I see a car coming at me and when I got close enough I got the message that I succeeded at capturing Bardak. I went up to his car, which by that point was pinned against my Humvee and couldn't move. he had nothing to say, and wouldn't get out, so I just shot him. After that I get the message that it would have been preferable to take him alive, but I guess c'est la vie. ;) So then, that's it - mission ended, and it went straight to "One Week Later". Now, I guess it was just freak chance that I accidentally happened upon Bardak so quickly, but IMO, that ruined the entire Razor two mission for me. I hadn't even had a chance to talk to anyone, hadn't gathered any clues, hadn't done *anything* but begin my journey. If that's not a bug, IMO, it's a poor design choice. Bardak shouldn't even spawn anywhere before the player does some other things. The task to capture Bardak shouldn't even be available to the player since doing so causes the entire level to become finished, and can literally happen at any time, even before the player has had a chance to do anything else at all.

I don't know about Bardak, but you get a message that Lopotev is suddenly on the move. Swordsman tells you that you may have roughly 20 minutes to capture him before he escapes to the Russian border, but very shortly after that the mission will automatically end with the message that Lopotev escaped. Lopotev is the main target, of course. It also seems to depend where you are on the map at the time, whether he gets away quickly or not. I have no idea how that works, really, but the first time I played, I was on the razor Two mission for a pretty good while. But this time, after restarting last night, even with avoiding Bardak, it still was maybe an hour of Arma time before Lopotev escaped and the mission ended. I spent most of that time fighting in Stary Sobor, just trying to stay alive, pinned down and surrounded by bad guys while I was trying to make my way towards a tank I wanted to take out.

Okay, thank you. :) See, I thought it was already over, since the on-screen message said I had already achieved his capture. I thought it was just a bug that he didn't say anything and nothing else happened after that. If that happens again, I'll just let him go. I never would have thought to do that, but that's a great idea! Thanks. :)

Well if you're saying that's not a bug, then that's fine and I believe you. Nevertheless, it still seems to me to be bad planning to have that mission available right away. I would think that they could make it come into focus after getting more information. No, I know that nobody is going to force me to do it that way, and I've played through all of Arma 2 once already. I'm thinking though, a noob would say to himself "wth was that all about?" A five minute mission and I never even fired a shot? See what I mean? And yeah, you have plenty of time. Lopotev is almost certain to get away (so I've read), but you could drive around for hours before finding Bardak. But chancing upon him right away like that just completely removes all other options no matter what and you miss out on a lot. It IS still a game, after all, and should be fun and not have anything that can cause you to miss huge chunks of it like that. A noob might think that's all there was to that mission, and never even get the time to enjoy it. Which brings me to my next point - the way the saves work in Arma, you can't simply revert to a save from right before that. The mission ends, the next mission begins, and the only way to get back is to go through the beginning of the mission again and start completely over. Don't get me wrong -I love Arma 2 (and Arma 1, plus I have Combined Operations) - but there just are things I'd have done differently. ;) At any rate, I tried to replicate that scenario by using the same route as before and it didn't happen the second time. It was just northeast of Pusta where it happened, btw.

I've played all the way through Dogs of War and have just delivered Lopotev. I got the message that the "Deal with the Russians" mission was completed. Cooper says something like "Come on, let's get back to base".. And then... nothing more. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next. I keep getting messages about other towns being lost, but after reading some walk-through's I'm under the impression that the Dogs of War mission is over after Lopotev is delivered and the game should give me one of a few endings now. Any help would be appreciated. :)

I've been trying to get through the Manhattan mission for about 4 hours now and all I've been able to achieve is to report to Shaftoe. Lagushina doesn't show up anywhere, although I think I've seen her car abandoned in Krastonstav. Same thing with the weapon smuggler - I found a white '"Coyota" pickup parked there but it never moves and nobody is around. The towns are almost all completely deserted for that matter. Where the Insurgent camps supposedly are is all abandoned... I did manage to do the mission where the one guy's house gets blown up when you're on your way there to arrest him, but that's it. I get shot at every now and then and occasionally see a few bad guys running around but that's about it. I'm just wondering if I'm wasting my time now even trying. All I've been doing is driving all over the place hoping for something to happen but it never does. Plus I read in a bug list somewhere that the Manhattan mission can be impossible to complete due to script bugs so I wonder if that's what's going on here. Anything I should try or something obvious that I'm overlooking? I'm playing Arma 2 in "Combined Operations" mode, Steam version, with the latest patch. Thanks. :)

Thank you for that, Hanzu! Sounds like great advice to kill off the Chedaki base early. :)

You can find a lot of posts claiming that Manhattan frequently isn't able to be completed. I think I was heading in that direction before starting over. Apparently the AI bugs out and some key characters get lost... But I started over and all went according to plan the second time around.

I've had this happen a few times too. When the AI in Arma 2 works well, it works great, but when it bugs out, it bugs out HARD. In addition to what MacScottie said, sometimes switching to another team member and back will fix it too. Sometimes that's not possible though.

Thanks for the replies, everyone. :) Thank you too for the information, Jezuro. Arma 2 (through Steam) just automatically downloaded a 92 MB update for me, so I assume that's the patch you refer to? Anyway, I'm going to start it all over again from the Beginning of Manhattan and see if I have better luck this time. I read all the Notes and everything else and tried to find Lagushina, but as I said, nobody was around. I think something just bugged out for me. There were barely any people around at all, actually, and the ones I did see weren't talking. Everything was fine up until after the house bomb. Anyway, it's a whole lot of fun, so it's no big deal trying it again. I love this game. :) I'll be sure to check out your link and report anything specific. Right now I'm pretty new to this so I have to admit I don't really know what's what yet with the missions. EDIT: I started over and manged to finish every mission, except for finding the gunrunners. That mission was canceled by command though, I think probably because I found the Chedaki base before getting around to it. I was told that someone else took care of it. I did everything else though, including finding all the sentry camps, so I guess the new patch worked. :)

Thanks again for the replies - you guys are very helpful here. :)

Thanks, yeah, I'm seeing that. ;) I'm no stranger to Arma. I've played quite a bit of Arma 1 for maybe two years now, so I know its tradition for bugginess. Although it's been a long time since I did anything in Arma 1 except create my own missions with the Editor. Since my problem this morning it's been going fairly well, I guess at least until very recently. I'm in a situation where my team isn't entirely listening to me and it's beginning to piss me off. I noticed I have the word STOP over my avatar and now when I give the Regroup command, my guy says "All follow group" instead of simply "regroup", and they all just stand there. I can get them to move and it seems any other command, but Regroup isn't working. I wonder if it's because I was injured earlier and had to get the medic to help me? Someone else temporarily takes over and I wonder if I never properly got my control back? Is that possible? I don't remember the word STOP over my avatar showing up. Did I hit the wrong command somehow? It's seriously impeding my progress...