machineabuse

ACRE certainly can and should be easier to use. If I could cherry pick one feature from ACRE that would already make a huge difference at any scale it's that direct VON with directional sound should be a separate thing from everything else.

So it wasn't just me that felt that the LB has become super responsive speed wise. That would explain why it felt like flying a brick when I jumped into ArmA2.

First, weather I can shoot or throw a grenade around the corner without looking doesn't change the fact I will need to enter the room or go around the corner to check. Second, the chance I will effectively hit something shooting indiscriminately is so low it's not worth giving my position away. Third, you gloss over my implication about the significance of fratricide in real life which has long term psychological and legal implications. All of which is why indiscriminate fire is neither taught nor endorsed and in many cases strongly discouraged (often legally and frequently by ROE) by military forces worldwide. For the sake of discussion yes, you can stick this capability in for insurgents and what have you. However with respect I think the theme you will find in my posts and others is that the sum of benefits of this idea in respect to what ArmA is and is trying to be is somewhat lower than what you think it is.

Blind firing ought to be discouraged for the sole reason of the increased risk of fratricide. In a game, there are no lasting repercussions to putting a bullet into a friendly/noncombatant. Possible? Yeah lots of things are possible. Most of those things just aren't very good.

All: I agree that this particular design as it stands needs work as far as readability of the design. As far as using an icon in the side of the screen; my group has been using FA_Stance for some time and what we are finding is that in the heat of battle nobody looks at it because it's so far off where your eyes want to focus. Your mileage may vary, but I believe the best place for this information is somewhere central to the point of aim. If you play without crosshairs and don't need this information; power to you! :) I don't like using crosshairs myself but the way that ArmA is I'm of the same mindset as Dslyexci that crosshairs are better at projecting my intent as a player as to the direction my weapon is pointing. Stance indication as a HUD element is the same way. IRL you feel what your body is doing. In ArmA 3 yes you can look down to check but first of all looking down to see what you should be feeling is in itself not realistic, the second is the moment your visibility is limited this is no longer viable (darkness, smoke, what have you.). Sneakson: Some of the first designs I tried used dots and chevrons. The results were too noisy by comparison. This crosshair is 1:1 in scale with ArmA's existing crosshair, the more shapes you put into it the harder it is to read. My lines are certainly not ideal but dots were worse.

Over the past couple of weeks I've seemed to notice that when the Alpha crashes out to desktop I am more often than not either flying in or being transported by a helicopter in multiplayer. The specific type of crash freezes the game and half the time chucks me back out to desktop with "ArmA 3 Alpha (Not Responding") in the taskbar. Or is that a typical crash and I'm just spending a lot of time in helicopters? ;p Thought I'd check with the community before creating a ticket~

mmaruda: Nope, all stock clocking in my system.

Some great feedback here :) afp, EDcase: Yup, you're right. As I mentioned in the original post this doesn't do anything for people who play without the crosshairs and 3rd party solutions already exist. The group I play with uses FA_Stance. The problem I find with those solutions is that I find myself not looking at them even when they are there (being so far off where my normal focul point is) and they also tend to take up a lot of screen real estate. The servers I play on more often than not have crosshairs, I was looking to build a better mousetrap for that. hekuball: the thought did occur when I was making the sprites that they are pretty hard to see (especially for dudes with vision issues). These are based directly 1:1 in size with the crosshairs that are in the game at 1080p with the accents in the same style. They can be improved on for readability I think, drawn using solid shapes as shown here and also using more distinct shape language to show the stance. The idea behind the visual language is to indicate the displacement of body mass biased in a direction so players at a glance have a fuzzy idea of their stance or focus know exactly the deal. Probably could improve more than what I have here. Definitely agree that this would be best if it could scale to the user's needs. :) As far as the crosshair turned off I think mods like FA_Stance do a pretty good job of supplementing that need, but personally I find myself not looking at it when it's there. Like I said; too far detached from where my attention gets focused. Kremator: I wasn't thinking of modding this, more to contribute an idea to the discussion that some sort of stance indicator is needed in the game itself, seeing as that it's something quite frequently requested. Develop the idea with the community and then submit it as a ticket. As far as ability, my coding skills are not dangerous enough to practically add a new UI element from scratch, I might be able to bodge the stance crosshairs but I suspect that the crosshair in ArmA 3 is probably hard coded in a way that might make it difficult to change. I could certainly produce the art needed for it though. :) If any smart programmer dudes here want to have a go give me a holla!

Mattar_Tharkari: Aesthetics are subjective but yes they can be outside :)

I don't believe so, I just let Steam push me the Alpha updates :) I will check when I get home though.

KA-60 seems to fly pretty well for what it is. Somewhere between the ArmA 2 UH-1 and MH-60. Easier than the KA-60 in ArmA 2.

The mixing for mouse is intentional and IMO pretty ingenious. At low speeds you want more granular control over the antitorque (You call it "rudder") while at high speeds pitching with the collective becomes more important. Is it 1-1 simulation to how a helo controls? Nope. Does it need to be? I personally don't think so but I have found it a good compromise since the mouse is the closest thing we have to an analogue control for those of us who don't (yet) own HOTAS and/or pedals for two helo controls that are inherently analogue in input. As an option why not though I say.

There's nothing in the video you can't do with a mouse and keyboard. Just saying. That isn't to say you aren't flying well in the video, but more that's more due to the fact you are a good pilot rather than the fact you have a joystick :)

Deadzone is a function of the curve graph, there is no standalone setting for it. It's also completely preferential; I use the default curve with TrackIR and acclimation took me about 3 weeks. I did try a slightly larger deadzone and found I did not like it. Centering is very useful. I center every so often because my seating position tends to shift across a session. Aerial gunnery in the AH-9 at current is very much nerfed from what it was in ArmA 2 by my feel.

The problem with people learning to fly helos is that they try to start from the hardest part of flying a helo which is hovering. The first thing you need to do learn in helos (in ArmA) is how to maintain a forward flight profile and the relationship between collective and cyclic angle. As for Airstation Mike I agree that landing there in a Kasatka is more advanced than is suitable for a novice. Also +1 on not using auto hover!

That sounds cool and an experience I wouldn't mind having :) Voted.

The caseless ammo used by the LMG is based on the LSAT Caseless Telescoping concept. The kind of linkage that ammo is designed with is similar to standard NATO link designs.

You should be able to "strafe" if the helicopter is in the correct flight profile. The thing to remember is that at high velocities antitorque (is what you call "rudder" on a helo) becomes unresponsive due to the airflow around the body of the aircraft. You will find that antitorque becomes responsive as soon as you begin pitching the nose up which gives you that banking (strafing) motion you are looking for. You can also yaw the cyclic (WASD/Joystick) in that direction to let the rotors pull you into the bank. Just remember because of airflow at certain speed your helicopter is always going to want to establish the most aerodynamically stable flight profile and that isn't moving sideways.

Belted ammo is clipped together with spring steel links that snap around the body of the case and index in the rim. So yes you can unlink and link belts at whim. Automatic riflemen can also link up the current belt in the weapon to a fresh belt so they don't actually need to reload as such. This is of course for disintegrating link as used by weapons such as the M249. Continuous link such as used on most sovbloc beltfeds are a different headache :) So say you had two partially used belts for the OPFOR LMG that amounted to a bit more than a full belt, you would link the two belts together and unlink the excess so that you'd be able to stuff the belt back in the ammo box. If the recipient belt was already in the weapon you wouldn't even need to unload the weapon to do it as long as the remaining rounds where still sticking out the belt chute.

Once you go head tracking its hard to go back. I went from ArmA to Hawken the other day and I desperately wanted to be able to look around the 'pit. I have a feeling that the Rift and TrackIR are going to be good at different things and it's not going to be an either/or deal. That's fine with me; I have TrackIR and I will get a 'Rift when it comes out.

fraczek: While I have been a big believer in getting analogue movement into PC games for a long time in the case of ArmA my gut instinct is that if you are going to need a keyboard to support your controller you may as well stick with the keyboard hey? If you already have one for a PS3 then no harm no foul, seems like a cool way to play simpler games too. I guess one thing you want to do is figure out how many buttons you can reasonably chord together with it for ArmA. If you do go for it and it works let us know :)

There are a few topics that have been talking about the walking recoil of the Alpha on average being more severe than in ArmA2, personally I'm down with it already having learned to control it. However I did have an idea that might have some merit/appeal to others. The idea is to simulate shot follow through for semi automatic fire only. The mechanical rule is that after you press the mouse button and fire the shot, your sights will return to point of aim as long as you have the mouse button held down through the entire recoil cycle. Additionally when you release the trigger there will be an audible click as the trigger group resets. In a weapon with a bolt/slide holdopen this will let the player know audibly that the weapon is empty if they are slow firing (The shooters in the forum will know what I'm talking about). Just a thought :) feel free to discuss or ignore~ *edit* Tracker added! http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=6643

FWIW, I scan and reload after finishing an engagement regardless of how many left I have in the mag (An ACE habit from living without HUD ammo count). Since ArmA prioritizes mags from most to least full this guarantees I've always got the most loaded magazine in the weapon. If I am still alive after going through all my magazines once; then I have the luxury of worrying about partial mags. What I don't do is try to anticipate when the guy I am shooting at is going to die to instantly hit the reload key, which is the typical FPS gamer habit.

Shift+Alt = Combat Mode Shift = Hold Breath/Sprint T = Target 2xT = Throw Grenade Ctrl+T = Grenade Type Ctrl+C = Laser/Light/Vehicle Lights G = Gear Ctrl+X = Stand Ctrl+Z = Vault V = Teamspeak PTT Everything else is basically standard

A couple tips to help you out; 1. Rebind your hold breath key to stack on top of sprint (That way you're not having to juggle aiming and zooming) 2. Rebind your grenade key as a double tap function so you don't accidentally kill your team one day ;)