Echo38

Looked around a bit for a demo, couldn't find one. Did a forum search, nothing relevant on the first page of results. Anyone know about this? Any plans for any sort of playable demo for Arma 3?

[looks around] For a game with so many players, I'm surprised to have such a hard time finding players who just enjoy fooling around in the AFM helicopters. I couldn't find a single thread about this either here or on the Steam forums. Keywords "fly" and "AFM" ended up with fewer than two pages of results, none relevant to my specific interest. So, any recommendations for how to hook up with other players who enjoy max-realism helicopter flying? Combat, not combat ... either way. I really just like flying around in the AFM helicopters, but it gets a bit old without other people to goof off with.

Anywhere I can see who composed which tracks? By listening, I would guess that most of them were composed by Jan Dusek, but I just heard one that sounded distinctly like Ondrej Matejka's work (I don't mean the main theme, which was a piece by Dusek that was based on one of Matejka's melodies). Anywhere I can find out for sure?

Thanks awfully! : )

Steam says that 20 000 players are playing this game right now. I am incredulous that a game with such a large active community doesn't have anyone other than myself who enjoys "just flying around" with others in the AFM helicopters. Am I really that unusual? Wow.

If the expansion has women, I'll get it. If not ... well, let's just say I'm not thrilled with any fictional universe that is populated exclusively by men. I wonder if the new prop plane is going to use the same old simple flight model, or if they're going to do something more advanced, like the helicopter AFM.

No, I have no plans to illegally share these tracks; I don't even know how to use a torrent program. That isn't why I'm interested in knowing who created the songs. I have always liked knowing who created any piece which I enjoy. As an artist myself, I always put my signature onto anything I'm pleased to have made, and I doubt that Mr. Dusek & Mr. Matejka feel that their songs aren't worth bearing their names. "Back on Stratis," "Proteus," "Revenge," and "The Trap" are the ones which, to me, sound the most like Ondrej Matejka's music for the previous games in the series. I note that none of them are on that (incomplete) list of Jan Dusek's tracks. Can anyone confirm whether or not my guesses are correct? Any others I'm missing? It's been months since I last went through all of the music, and I don't remember if I made a note for all of the ones which I suspected weren't Mr. Dusek's.

Today, I opened Steam and clicked Play Game for Arma 3. It began downloading an update; after it was finished, I launched the game. I figured out pretty quickly that something was wrong -- the Learn tab was gone from the main menu, and the version number displayed 1.24-something instead of 1.26. So, I tried to verify the game cache within Steam, as recommended. Steam announced that 300-something files failed to validate and must be redownloaded. No downloads appeared to be going, so I hit "Play Game" again and it began attempting to download an update. However, I got an error message: "An error occurred while updating Arma 3 (connection time out)". All subsequent attempts to download this update result in the same; re-verifying the game cache does not amend this. I am not running any mods -- this installation of Arma 3 has never had any mods installed. I cannot run Arma 3 at all now.

With the artist names? Where is this CfgMusic? I can't find it in the Arma directory, nor in my profile directory in Documents.

I don't seem to have that edition. Anywhere else I can find a tracklist?

Actually, having just listened to all of the tracks front to back (using the mission editor, erk), I believe I've recognized a fairly large number of them as Mr. Matejka's. Anyone know?

Expert difficulty does not allow enemy map markers, although death messages is optional for Expert. I haven't seen these map markers in any version (I'm on Expert), so I would examine yours mods as first suspect. Try disabling all mods, server and clients, and see if the problem persists.

Not one that has any means of transferring pictures to my computer, no. I'm not much interested in the latest & greatest cellular gadgets. You're right; it's about two millimeters. My initial estimate of 1mm was before I started using a ruler to measure it. The shake happens too quickly and is too small to determine an exact figure, but it is roughly 2mm. We both agree that a rifle isn't going to be the same; but, as I said earlier, I do not have good access to my rifle at present. The closest I could come was using a lighter object that was rifle-sized; since the weight could be a large factor, I don't feel comfortable with using this test to support my ~2mm figure; however, for what little it's worth, I was able to get about the same deviation measured from the "muzzle" as I was with the pistol. I dislike mentioning my old injury for reasons which this thread made obvious: Internet people frequently are disrespectful & dismissive of it (e.g. the three or four people in this thread telling me that my disability wasn't worth considering). Cpt.O posted a test with the implication that he does not have any handicap, but his test results are bizarre & unusual; I don't feel that I am being inconsiderate by questioning those results. If he actually does have Parkinson's disease (which I highly doubt -- rather, I suspect he was pretty tipsy already by the time he did his test), or a similar malady, I harbor no disrespect toward him for it. ---------- Post added at 14:51 ---------- Previous post was at 14:33 ---------- I've said more than enough. If I were wiser, I would never have written in this thread; I've used the Internet for too long to have an excuse for believing that any amount of discussion will change anyone's mind on a subject they've already decided on, no matter how legitimate their opponent's evidence. There's more than enough information here for anyone who genuinely wishes to know the truth of the matter to easily find out for himself, so I am -- have been -- wasting time. Good afternoon.

Sure. Send me a digital camera (or, better yet, a digital video camera) by mail, and I'll have the test uploaded the next day. Folks, I've already done this test several times, and I just did it again five minutes ago. I'm getting unrested pistol figures between 1 and 2 millimeters, measured at the muzzle by a ruler. Do your own damn tests and see for yourselves -- it isn't rocket science -- you don't need a video to find out for yourselves that what I'm saying is true. You don't even need a real pistol -- any object which is similar in size, shape, & mass to a pistol will sufficiently demonstrate the matter. I don't know why Cpt.O was unable to come anywhere near my figures, but if he wasn't drunk and doesn't have a severe physiological impairment (such as Parkinson's disease), then I can't help but wonder if he's intentionally waving the thing around for dramatic effect. I can't think of any other reason his muzzle would be wandering five times more than mine. (I'm not even a great marksman -- someone who's more practiced than me and/or in better physical condition would have less tremble than I do.)

For the pistol one, yes, I was. Not for the rifle. Both really ought to be measured in muzzle deviation, yes, but with a pistol, the hand is pretty close to the muzzle. Your ~2mm. figure sounds reasonable -- my ~1mm one may indeed be optimistic; I didn't use a ruler. I can't believe Cpt.O was completely sober when he took that picture -- I can't imagine any remotely healthy person having a full centimeter of deviation like that without being plastered. : )

My pistol example was unsupported. Even if you don't have a pistol handy, you can try it now. Pick up a flashlight or something else that's fairly similar in size & mass to a pistol, and walk up to a mirror. Put your hands around the object in the pistol grip and put it an inch away from the mirror. Use the edge of the mirror as a reference -- if you want to be more precise, stick { a Post-It note with a 1mm mark } on the mirror. How much does your hand (and the pistol-sized object within them) shake? Not more than a millimeter, surely, unless you're very out of shape. A rifle will be a bit different (the longer & heavier, the more different), yes. The front sight post's greater distance from your hand, the resting of the butt on your shoulder, etc. But it won't be that different. Try the object-and-mirror test with a rifle-sized object -- if you're in decent shape, you should be able to manage about a millimeter, even measured from the end of the "barrel" instead of at the hand. (I'm talking talking AR length, not sniper rifle, by the way.)

No, I'm not a great marksman IRL. My 1mm figure is an approximate estimation on the amount of shake (due to heartbeat & muscle fatigue), measured by my hand's travel, when I hold a pistol IRL. I don't have my rifle handy, so I only have my pistol to go by right now. In Arma, I mostly shoot a rifle with iron sights, while crouched. (Prone usually obscures the view too much with grass.) In reality, while resting my elbow on my knee like this, I expect that my deviation at the hand would be a bit less than 1mm, because my elbow is resting, but the sight is a bit farther down the rifle than my hand, which would amplify the shake. So I think that it would be ~1mm with my rifle as well. Really, at this point, it feels like a dead horse to me. How 'bout you?

~Half the people love the drunken weapon wave, ~half the people hate it. Echo38 really hates it because it aggravates his old hand injury, and three people vocally feel he should have to just Deal With It [/shades] and that his only choices should be to play with hand pain, use a mod which excludes him from multiplayer, or quit the game altogether. That's the TL;DR! ---------- Post added at 01:39 ---------- Previous post was at 01:19 ---------- I don't think it would be. I expect my sights to tremble, because of my real-life shooting experience. However, I don't expect to have to fight someone else yanking my gun barrel around every time I take aim, which is what's happening now. That isn't how real-life shooting works. Hey, I have an idea: go find a competitive shooter in real-life. Now, next time he starts to aim at a target, grab his rifle by the shroud and start yanking it around a few centimeters. Don't stop 'until he stops looking through the sights! I'll bet he'll get pretty pissed off, too, even if he doesn't have a hand injury. : )

It's roughly four people vocally disagreeing with me. There are others who like the DWW, of course, but I've seen at least as many who dislike it. It isn't just me & my bum hand.

Nor does a difficulty option. If one group likes playing with Setting X and another group dislikes playing with Setting X, then the two groups aren't going to both be happy playing on the same server with Setting X. Trying to force the two groups to play together doesn't work -- people who dislike Setting X will simply quit the game, if they aren't allowed to play on servers without Setting X turned off, so there's going to be your "split" either way. The difference is whether the second group plays on separate servers from the first group (if there's an option), or quits the game altogether (if there's no option). Which is why difficulty options exist. It's about different people having different preferences & requirements. I have the ability to manipulate a mouse to a reasonable extent. The current workload is not a reasonable amount -- it's abnormally high. None of the other hundreds of games I've played require nearly as much mouse-hand workload as Arma 3's current aiming system. Objectively, it's approximately five times more hand workload compared to the old system and compared to the average game. "But Arma is a sim," you might say. Then why can a soldier take two 5.56mm hits to the unarmored throat and keep firing back? (Which is at least half the problem here -- this is also making the mouse-hand workload several times more than it needs to be.) Moreover: if Arma had an accurate simulation of shooting, then it would not be hurting my hand to aim & shoot, since it doesn't hurt my hand to aim & shoot in real life. If the game mechanic is supposed to be a simulation, then an activity which is done with the hand (both in reality and in the simulation), which does not hurt my hand in reality, should not hurt my hand while using the simulation. If reasonably possible, then of course it should accommodate one-armed players. Why would you want it not to? I don't know how well Arma could accommodate one-armed players (with pedals, it might be doable). But we do know that Arma is easily able to accommodate playing with hand injuries such as mine, because it has done that -- until now, when they took away the low-hand-workload aiming system and forced a high-hand-workload system, with no option to switch back. Since the mechanics for accommodating my injury already existed in the last major version of Arma 3 (and since we established that giving that back to me won't reduce your server population), I can't imagine a good reason why this option should be withheld. I am a customer, too, and I do not feel that my handicap should be dismissed so quickly. You don't call { a ~500% increase in mouse-hand workload } a radical change? Look, I can't force you to take my handicap seriously, but what I'm asking is very reasonable. When I bought Arma 3, I was fully able to play it without my old hand injury hurting me. Since then, they've changed the game mechanics in a fashion that multiplied the hand workload by several times, so that my hand now hurts while playing. All I'm asking for is an option to be able to use the old system again, a system that has a normal, reasonable hand-mouse workload, comparable to that of other games. This would be reasonable even if I didn't have any disabilities. Remember, I'm far from the only person who dislikes this drastic change in the aiming system; regardless of our reasons for disliking it, there are quite a few Arma players who don't like the new aiming. If enough of the community dislikes the drunken weapon wave enough that they would play with it off, then it needs to be an option. Arma has always given the community lots of options for difficulty settings, because not everyone likes to play the game the same way. (Even if you disregard those of us who are physically unable to.)

They've already got many of the difficulty settings as options. One more wouldn't split the community up much more. By the way, it's very inconsiderate for you to suggest that I should have to play with { the option that aggravates my old hand injury } forced on. Do you also feel that restaurants shouldn't have handicapped-accessible restrooms?

The reason that I virtually never download user-made missions is simply that I dislike the process of sifting through the missions which don't meet my requirements in an effort to find the few which do.

By definition, the tremble would make your crosshair not stay there, whether you're touching your mouse or not. Instead of staying on target, it jitters around several times per second. (By the very definition I gave in my last post ...) Like I said, I don't think any amount of word exchange is going to convince anyone of what I say. Heck, after this post of yours ("but a tremble won't move the crosshair!"), I'm convinced that you aren't even understanding what I'm saying. (Or perhaps just not listening.)

How can a millimeter of deviation, measured at the hand & occurring several times per second, not make long-range gunnery difficult? o O Remember, that'd amplified by a scope. If anything, my millimeter figure is too large for a physically-fit person who is not already fatigued. As for breathing, I don't have any objection to a realistic breathing mechanic. Indeed, I'd welcome any change that makes shooting more realistic. As I said, with pistols, I don't suffer any adverse affect to my shake IRL if I breathe, compared to if I try to hold my breath. Maybe it's different if with rifles -- it's been a while since I've shot mine and (unlike my pistol) I don't have my rifle at hand. So any difference from breathing versus holding breath would have to be negligible for pistols, at least, and not particularly severe for iron-sight rifles being held while standing. (I suspect it's more noticeable when resting your elbow on your knee and such, because then you've got a pivot point that's moving with your torso and one that isn't, causing the discrepancy.) It may not be an improvement from the point of view of an arcade game player, but from a simulation point of view, my idea would be an improvement because it's a more accurate simulation of what actually goes on. In real life, you can't eliminate this tremble, nor significantly reduce it from the "static" level (that is, the level of stillness at which a minimal amount of effort --comparable to that required to stand without falling over -- keeps the weapon). However, in real life, you can decide when to shoot, and this doesn't require a long firing window, as the tremble's deviation is travelled very quickly (perhaps a fifth of a second to go from one side of the "circle" to the other). So, even if this tremble is randomized in the game (and it's pretty random IRL!), you still can -- like real life -- time when you shoot, meaning that it wouldn't be "random instead of skill" like a random-spread CoF would be. It would mirror reality closer, without having any gimmock that isn't applicable to the real shooting experience. (Again, you'd also have to add the other things that the simulation needs for a more complete depiction of the difficulty of shooting, of course -- this one change alone wouldn't fix everything.) Again, if I had access to sufficient recording hardware & software, I could easily post a few comparison videos (real-life & in-game) to excellently demonstrate the problems & solutions of which I speak. However, since I do not possess such equipment, I suspect that nothing I say -- no amount of word exchange -- will change anyone's mind on the matter, especially if those people have never experienced real-life shooting for themselves. (Bearing in mind that even amongst those with RL shooting experience, experiences and results can differ, if only due to difference in physiques -- for example, any given recoil force is going to affect a 125-lb. person twice as much as the same force affects a 250-lb. person ... and that isn't getting into things like muscle tone & cardio-pulmonary stuff.)

About the time I had hand surgery. : / "Then turn it off in the difficulty options!" Sure, I'd love to. Except that there's no option. And using a mod for it would pretty much rule out multiplayer, wouldn't it? I would love to post a video of the countless dozens of retries it takes me to get past a single firefight (firefights I could do in a couple of takes before the drunken-wave patch) now. Most of the time, I don't even think I'm missing -- it's really Arma's body armor anti-simulation that's the culprit, here, given that even moving targets are easy to hit at the virtual shooting range -- but the fact is that I have several times more difficulty killing things (even at 50m!) now than I did before the patch, and it's making my damn hand hurt like hell. I would love to record & post such a video (really, the consistent-multiple-headshots problem alone merits a video for a bug report), but I don't have any means of recording it. Already posted it. Twice.