Echo38

Are you serious? Zoomed-in is approximately the real-life picture size (it varies based on your monitor size and your distance from the monitor). Having to zoom in and out is indeed unrealistic, but it makes things unrealistically difficult, not unrealistically easy as you imply. I.R.L., you have all of the FoV of full-zoomed-out-view and all of the zoom level of full-zoomed-in-view (or most of it, if you have a bigger monitor and/or sit closer to it). More, in fact, because even with the zoom at minimum, you only have about half of your real life FoV. I.R.L., you have both; in the game, you have to choose between the two. (And even then you can't get all of the FoV.) This isn't a problem with the game, but rather a problem with computer monitors being a small fraction of the R.L. FoV. So, zoom is only giving us the option to get a small part of what we see in real life, instead of a tiny part (which is what we'd have without a zoom function). Another couple of things: if you removed the zoom function, those with smaller monitors (and/or sitting farther away from them, as recommended for health reasons) would have a large disadvantage compared to those with larger monitors. This disadvantage itself would be extremely unrealistic. Secondly, who exactly is to be the judge of what zoom level is to be used? Again, R.L. zoom level varies between monitor setups, but even if we all had the same setup, what standard would be used to determine at what level the zoom is to be locked at? If you put it at the R.L. zoom level (roughly maximum zoom), then you have a minuscule FoV and extreme tunnel vision, like you're looking through a cardboard tube. If you put it at the R.L. FoV (about twice as wide as the game allows), then you have a very tiny picture and soldiers will appear to be a few pixels even when they're only a few yards away. In short: zooming in is only unrealistically easy if you have a massive monitor/screen and are sitting close to it. Most people don't have anything of the sort. For the rest of us, zooming in only lets us get part of what we have I.R.L. Trying to take even this away from us is like stealing from the poor--it'd be making "unrealistically difficult" into "even more unrealistically difficult."

Tonci is correct, however--the aircraft in Arma are, for the most part, extremely nerfed compared to the real ones. Although the A-10 isn't that terribly far off in terms of speed and turning ability. Biggest differences are, as Tonci pointed out, visibility (zoom, FoV, render distance, etc.) and ceiling, but there are plenty of other issues which make aircraft less effective in Arma than in reality. But, I'm still curious about the Tunguska.

I'm planning on getting C.O. when I can, unless Arma 3 comes out before then. In the meantime, I make do with Arma 2 vanilla. That's what I play, so that's what I gotta go by.

So what does he mean by "only supports Resistance PBO"? Does Arma 2 use the Resistance PBO format, too?

Hmm, the BIS community wiki doesn't seem to have an entry on PBO Manager. Any idea why?

I don't at all disagree (I don't know much about the real Tunguska), but in what ways is the game's Tunguska better than the real one? [nod] In "vanilla" Arma 2, there isn't even a countermeasure, let alone the RWR. On the other hand, we do have the arcade radar (which is forced on us), but I suppose it sorta-kinda-notreally makes up for not having a realistic view distance & zoom & FoV, or good friendly intel, or the Maverick's IR thingy, and so on. (Desperately hoping Arma 3 does better, but that's another story.)

Sorry for resurrecting such an old thread, but I have wasted nearly an hour searching through troubleshooting threads and trying out different PBO tools. I am a Bear of Very Little Brain and cannot get any of the PBO tools to work. I do not want to mess with my registry. Running cPBO from the command line isn't working, nor are any of the other non-registry-fiddly recommended fixes for any of the PBO tools I've tried. Can anyone help me get an easy-to-use PBO extractor tool working? I'm an artist, not a programmer. ("Damn it, Jim!") Oh--nearly forgot; I'm trying to extract default BIS PBOs from Arma 2 Free, not the encoded expansions' PBO files.

This doesn't work with Arma 2, correct?

You are correct; Arma 2 does not feature adjustable weapon sights. The expansions do, but not the original Arma 2.

I don't think anyone here is asking to see that sort of thing in Arma 3. Those of us who desire more realism wish for realism in areas where realism wouldn't make gameplay any less fun. For example, the aforementioned helicopter ejections, or, for that matter, being able to take a rocket launcher and sniper rifle into the cockpit of an A-10. Being realistically unable to eject from the helicopters wouldn't make gameplay less fun; to the contrary, having to autorotate down like a real helicopter pilot makes things more fun, not less. Having a SMAW launcher in your A-10 cockpit--it's just lame. Removing that unrealistic gamey stuff would only make the game better and more enjoyable, except to arcade kiddies. And, really, why are they playing Arma anyway if they like arcade stuff? Call of Battlefield seems more up the line of someone who'd parachute down from an Apache with a SMAW in his pocket.

There are a great many things in Arma 2 which were intentionally made unrealistic--a good example of this is being able to eject from helicopter gunships. Although I'd like for this sort of thing to be improved, I don't see any reason that it would be, since most players evidently prefer less realism in these areas. Arma 3 will, like Arma 2, be a game with some simulator elements, rather than an actual simulator. While it generally has more realism than most shooters, it has less realism than some shooters in some areas, and less realism than a high-fidelity simulator in virtually all areas. Ah, well--Arma is what it is, and I love it, but it'd be really nice if it did a better job of living up to its reputation as a simulator game.

This. I have thousands of hours in the OpF and Arma series. I love the game, but it is undeniably clunky even for a highly-experienced (and effective) player. Needlessly so, too--the clunkiness does not add to realism, but rather detracts from it.

Loved OpF and Resistance, and even Codemasters's expansion Red Hammer. Couldn't stand Arma 1. I don't have the full version of Arma 2, so I don't know how the campaign goes for that, but I'm really hoping that the Arma 3 story will be like OpF and expansions--if they go cheap on it like Arma 1, that'll be very disappointing. As Codarl pointed out, Arma 1 essentially had no characters in it, and very little story, too.

I would disagree, because, in a simulator, a weapon mechanic which is the exact opposite of how it is in reality is indeed "broken." If I were King, the weapon switching would be 100% realistic, which would generally mean dropping the rifle and drawing the pistol (with, of course, the option for the slower put-rifle-on-back-then-draw-pistol). I doubt that this will happen, however; despite the marketing, Arma is a game with some simulator elements, rather than a simulator, and very often things are intentionally made unrealistic to attract more players. I don't like it, but I suppose I can't blame the developers.

Yeah, it disappeared pretty quickly for me--I think 15 posts? You can zoom in on the image with your browser. In Mozilla, the hotkey is Ctrl+Plus. Don't remember the hotkey for IE but it has the zoom function as well.

I like a good balance, but, if BIS is marketing A3 as a "simulation" (and they are--in fact, the most realistic infantry simulator, they called A2), then deliberately modelling something incorrectly for reasons of balance isn't right.

That's the problem, then, or I'll eat my hat. 1.10 is an older version. You need 1.11. That goes for you, too, Mdiddy--be sure you've patched up after installing. The non-Steam A2F installer isn't up-to-date.

Is this the Arma 2 HALO training mission, or something in Operation Arrowhead?

"Evasive right" does nothing while you are standing. This is working as intended. If you want the same key to lean right and evasive right, so that E will lean right when standing and roll right when prone, then you need to bind both "lean right" and "evasive right" to E. This is how the default controls are set up, although the key itself might be different. The key doesn't matter--what matters is that both functions are bound to the same key (if you want the same key to do both, as in the default control scheme).

Why not do it realistically? Can't think of any decent reason to do this. Arma is marketed as the most realistic infantry sim ever, so there's no excuse for deliberately making a weapon mechanic unrealistic. Doing it realistically would also solve the problem being discussed here (switching to pistol taking longer than reloading), so there's even less reason to do it unrealistically. Only potential reason to do it unrealistically fast is to keep Call of Battlefield players happy. And they won't stay here long, anyway.

There are some broken animations in Arma 2 where part of the soldier becomes longer or shorter based on the animation. I don't remember which animation this was, but I recall seeing a few weeks ago a soldier's arm becoming longer or shorter. I think it was an animation having something to do with being wounded. Maybe during the training mission where you practice your first-aid skills?

There are several reasons why, and most of them aren't your fault. The biggest problem is that, unlike real fixed-wing combat aircraft, the ones in Arma do not have their guns aligned with the aircraft's boresight. They're pointing off-center, so you have to "inverse lead" as well as lead the target. That is, you have to not only compensate for bullet drop and for the enemy's motion, but you have to compensate for your own motion as well. You don't have to do that last part in the real deal, because the gun is pointing the same direction that you are. So, for example, the Arma A-10 has its gun pointing downward, about 10 degrees IIRC. So when your gunsight is aiming at, say, a tank, and you're flying directly toward it, then your bullets will land over and behind it when you fire. So you need to aim under the tank (at the ground between you and the tank, close to the tank). Again, real A-10 pilots don't have this problem because the gunsight is aligned. (Also, they have a computer-assisted gunsight, I believe, but they don't have this problem even if they turn it off.) Another problem with the gunsight not being aligned properly is the one you're having--rolling the aircraft moves the gunsight around, because the gunsight isn't close to the roll axis. This makes shooting extremely difficult, even for a highly-accomplished virtual pilot. The solution is mostly to zoom in, use rudder, and walk your tracers on target. Do a minimum of rolling; as long as your nose is "mostly" pointed at the target, you can use rudder to do the rest. Practice, as with any virtual (or real) flying activity, is the most important part. Oh! I nearly forgot--the SU-25, alone of all the fixed-wing aircraft in the game, has a cannon which is correctly aligned. Unfortunately, there is very little ammunition in it, so learning gunnery on it can be tricky, but it'll be much, much easier to aim with it.

Thanks for the info. I might check it out sometime. Although I'm not a fan of the F-16 because of its full-authority fly-by-wire/AoA limiter, it'd be nice if there were a good alternative to Eagle Dynamics' DRM antics. TBH, I'd rather support a company that develops a sim that's "pretty damn good" and has honest business practices, than one that develops a sim that's "close to perfect" but riddles it with malware. (I'd also much, much rather have a realistic flight sim with out-of-date graphics, than a pretty one with a bogus flight model, but this comparison doesn't apply to this particular pair of sims.)

I assume that it means that Slatts confirms my impression. ; )

Falcon's flight model used simple vectors. (One lift vector per aircraft, I believe--for comparison, Aces High II uses 32 lift vectors per aircraft, and A.H.II is far behind DCS.) Unless your modders rewrote the engine pretty much from the ground up, Falcon's still vector-based. DCS, on the other hand, uses fluid physics. So, again, unless the Falcon modders somehow rewrote the whole physics system, there's no possibility of this BMS thing being even close to as realistic as DCS, since they both have the same level of avionics/systems detail, while the latter uses a good fluid physics system--perhaps not as good as Rise of Flight's, but considerably better than the acclaimed X-Plane's airfoil wedge thing and miles ahead of just about anything else. Really, whenever anyone says that Falcon--even modded Falcon--has good flight characteristics, I immediately suspect a bias originating in sentimental nostalgia. [shrug]