joostsidy

This type of graphic would suit vector really well for multiple reasons, but I agree that it can work like this as well.

Unfortunately I agree. This weekend I spent in total about 5 hours on convoys. The best result I got was with: - behaviour AWARE (armored vehicle crews turn in) - combatmode GREEN (defensive firing, keep formation) - disable AutoCombat (keep vehicles on road, prevents switching to COMBAT) - limitSpeed (prevent high speed crashes) - setConvoyDistance (optional) In some runs they get it right and a moving mixed convoy with vehicles firing left and right look very cool. Unfortunately it still breaks sometimes, because vehicle commanders override the settings and make vehicles stop, go off-road or return to the starting point sometimes. This vehicle commander behaviour might be deep AI and hard to fix :-( If devs would create convoys according to this recipe and fix the errors than you have the ingredients for an awesome Convoy module.

Looks nice. Does GIMP support vector graphics? Is this a vector image?

It's a damn shame!

No, it should be set on all vehicles. You could even have say 40m between the first two vehicles and then 20m between the next two vehicles. I sets the distance to keep to the following vehicle.

Of course that would be the best outcome. I'm just thinking small steps as development on driving AI is very limited. :-) Best outcome for me would be that relevant commands and AI features are fixed or created and these are combined in an official Convoy module so we could quickly set up a simple convoy or use its component features to script more advanced versions.

A big problem seems to be that the commanders of the convoy vehicles override the leader of the convoy. When they have difficulty with a target they start issuing movement commands of their own. Is there a way to prevent this? Vehicles do need a commander to move at all in the convoy. I had partial succes with the convoy in CARELESS and an ungrouped gunner of the marshall in AWARE. This way the gunner can turn in and engage targets with the main gun. The commander will stay turned out like a WW 2 tank commander :-) I had partial succes with disabling 'AUTOCOMBAT' on all units. With this approach the convoy stays on the road in AWARE and making it possible for the Marshall crew to be properly grouped, turned in and use the main gun. However, screwups still occur. They just won't keep on driving on the road at all times when the convoy includes multiple armed vehicles and under medium/heavy threat.

I ran a couple of tests with my mixed convoy (prowler, hemtt, hunter, marshall) and this command seems broken. When vehicles switch to combat mode (starting with aware) they will leave the road. When they return to AWARE I think the forceFollowRoad functions again, but vehicles are unable to make a U-turn because they think they need more space than the road width allows. Such a vehicle will endlessly go back and forth a very small distance. I would love for this command to work properly as an alternative to CARELESS.

I will try the setConvoySeperation, see if it does something useful. The editor unit dialog (using 3den editor mod) shows a 'force stay on road', but it seems broken. I've looked for the command or function elsewhere but couldn't find it.

This is simply not true, I just tried it in the editor with a group consisting of a Prowler (armed), a medical HEMTT, a hunter (HMG) and a Marshall. I agree, this is very serious vehicle breaking bug. limitSpeed does a lot to counter this, although the fact remains that all vehicles are half-blind to obstacles. Although this sounds like a cool feature, the default is not half-bad in my opinion. In my 4 vehicle mixed convoy the leader gun was looking forward, the hunter to the side and the Marshall to the rear by default. With scripting I usually add a scanning arc to turrets which would make a good default feature to have I agree. My findings with a mixed convoy: - On 'CARELESS' and with a speed limit, a convoy consisting of a Prowler (armed), HEMTT and hunter (HMG) are actually doing quite nice. Staying in formation, with good inter-distance and firing at the enemy while escaping. - However, with careless, you can't add an armored vehicle to the convoy because they will turn out and only shoot with their rifles (!) The turn in action command to force them inside doesn't work and seems broken. - not using careless, but using setCombatMode 'YELLOW' seems promising because it means: open fire / keep formation. You can actually hear the commander yell 'keep formation' once in a while. However the vehicles will leave the road a bit and get stuck on poles, rocks etc. and try to return to their starting point. Basically, using a mixed convoy including an armored vehicle is impossible now. Convoys would work better if: - Some independent command to keep vehicles on the road is provided. - Better obstacle detection: if my convoy vehicles left the road (on Altis) they got stuck in seconds on telephone poles and rocks. - The 'return to the start' bug is fixed. - We could force turn in crew so the whole convoy, including IFV's could run on 'CARELESS'. I like the 'shoot while driving on' version that this combat mode provides. This is probably the easiest fix!

I think I would pick this one as the first thing I would like to see fixed. In my missions I have a kind of rule to not have more than one unit on a certain road just because of this problem. So if a foot patrol is assigned to a certain area/road, I make sure that a vehicle patrol is not in the same area. This is super lame. Vehicles vision for nearby obstacles is very limited, maybe it's because of some cap on AI for performance. If that's the case it would be cool if obstacle detecting distance could be variable: that vehicles can look further if there are fewer in your mission. I have plenty of missions with only about 5 or 10 vehicles, so they could get all the processing power they need.

Nope, gunners will still return fire in careless mode. They are not truly careless, but stick to their waypoints no matter what.

In the name of SCIENCE I did 10 test runs with the example without damage protection. :-) 1. Perfect run 2. Third vehicle lost a wheel. Two lead vehicles continue to drive on to the endpoint. After a while the last two vehicles show up as well! 3. Third vehicle lost another wheel. All vehicles make it to endpoint eventually :-) 4. Third vehicles stalls at ambush site, driver's legs are shot up! All vehicles make it to endpoint eventually 5. I died (passenger 2nd vehicle) and took over as driver last vehicle. All vehicles make it to endpoint. 6. Perfect run 7. Perfect run 8. I died, third and fourth vehicle are destroyed 9. Second vehicle driver and me were killed. I took over as driver third vehicle. Three vehicles made the endpoint. 10. Perfect run Special example: Immediately after passing the ambush I kill the lead driver with a radio trigger. The lead car drives straight into the trees. Nr. 2 says 'Fuck man down, taking command' and the convoy continues without any stopping or wavering. Convoy makes endpoint. Lessons learned: 1. 'CARELESS' mode is very important. In the above examples the vehicles kept very well to their appointed waypoint. 2. It's nerve wrecking riding through a hail of bullets multiple times as an unprotected passenger 3. Avoid being the third vehicle in a convoy DISCLAIMER: I know, driving is still not perfect. I hope my examples contribute to specific leads to the developers to further improve driving. For instance, if a (convoy) vehicle blocks the road, other vehicles will have a hard time continuing.

I used the line because Alwarren's example used it as well. I actually found out that this line protects only the drivers and not the vehicles. That's why in my example I set the speed to a fairly high 60 km/h (instead of - I think - a more appropriate 50 km/h) to 'rush' a bit past the ambush. I just ran the example again a couple of times without the command and it still works most of the time! I think this is quite impressive for a totally unprotected convoy! Of course it is no surprise that in some cases the vehicles and drivers will get badly shot up and ruining the convoy, but this has less to do with driving AI than with driving straight into an ambush with unprotected vehicles.

Fanboy here ;-) Convoy AI leaves room for improvement, but Alwarren's example is not properly optimized for convoy driving in my opinion: - Convoys need to be set on 'CARELESS'. This behaviour is not so much truly careless, but more 'STICK TO YOUR WAYPOINTS WHATEVER HAPPENS'. Unlike 'CARELESS', the 'SAFE' behaviour allows for switching to 'COMBAT', which means evasive manoeuvres that you don't want in a convoy. - Arma vehicles often drive too fast, which exaggerates the bumping problem. Use the limitSpeed command to fix speeds to more appropriate values for mountain roads and convoys. In my replication of Alwarren's example I used one waypoint and this in the lead vehicles init: this setBehaviour 'CARELESS'; this limitSpeed 60; this setFormation 'COLUMN'; {_x allowDamage false} forEach (units (group this));

Sniper camping annoys people because it is relatively easy, it's relatively safe and doesn't require much teamwork and is primarily done to rack up kills instead of really contributing to a mission objective. If everyone was a sniper, the game would grind to a halt, so there is a natural tendency to talk them down. That sniper players sometimes think they are really cool and elite doesn't help as well. That's just my experience. As long as you're playing by the rules of the game, you should just ignore the bitching. I think your opponents should stop bitching and start sniper hunting. If the game-mode grinds to a halt because of this, they should adapt the game mode.

Hmmm, looking at the camShake command, it is not bound to a specific player, but to all players. Maybe you could run it only on a local script in multiplayer, but that's getting a bit more complicated.

I can't resist mentioning that 'getting into the action fast' in an environment with (semi-) realistic weapons will of course get you killed fast. The default Arma rewards patience, cooperation and forward thinking. I'm not against action gameplay, but I see a problem when: If BI would change this can we then expect a post of a KOTH AA player that complains that he needs 2 missiles to destroy an unarmored chopper and pilot? He wants to get into the action fast as well, and kill lots of helicopters. Some of the solutions mentioned and I agree with: 1. I think KOTH mission/mod should just update their gameplay to fit more of the action style you want. I've seen some KOTH helo footage and I noticed there were some things built in like indestructable rotor near buildings/wires, so they could expand that to up-armor the whole helo. 2. Previously there were some discussions that little birds should have at least a missile warning receiver, because they sometimes do in real life. I would be in favor of this if it's truly realistic.

That's a gigantic Huron you are flying there ;-)

Although the power curve is indeed odd in auto-vectoring mode, you should not fly the VTOL in auto vectoring mode. Use the controls you have bound to flaps to control the direction of thrust on approach to landing (or all the time). This is much more closer to how VTOLS are supposed to be controlled. With a couple of hours practice you'll be able to land the Y32 on top of the inflatable assault boat if necessary.

I've just returned from a holiday in Dubrovnik, Croatia (the area you are describing). Malden 2035 looks EXACTLY like this area, sometimes it was a bit disturbing even, like you're walking on a high def Arma map!

Yeah Comanche was the most arcadey of the three games. Delta force was the best at the time in my opinion. Was almost unheard of in a game that you could be killed by one stray bullet. DF also featured swimming which BI took some time to catch up to in Arma 3 ;-) For me those games represented the feel that Arma 3 gives me now, the harsness of war scare, that trivial things can end your life. What's encouraged in other combat games will finish you fast here, at least in the more serious game modes.

Even though your resume is long and impressive, I must inform you that the correct preparation for this game is: - Delta Force - Armored Fist - Comanche - OFP ... eh ok, I admit it, I've never played Arma 2 :-O Hmm, first 3 games are all Novalogic, aren't they?

Same as @Grumpy Old Man I would like to extend friendly advice (again) to this new player that Blackfoot helicopter pilots can use 'eject' in flight to remove the mission disk from the helo's data-link system.

Looks great! I like it that it fits the Arma 3 Vanilla universe.