Kerel1

Alot of thanks for this page! Working on a couple of ships but only have modelling experience, so this will be very useful! Just a question, what kind of problems should I expect with ships longer than 60 meters? Only the inability for infantry to walk on it?

Thanks for the constructive replies guys! Think you both gave very valid insight and ideas! Just to keep things organized and clear for everybody reading this stuff (as most people will probably not read the entire posts here given their lengths). The current issues and ideas resolve around the following topics: -Vehicle active sensors sensors (Radar only ingame) -Vehicle passive sensors sensors (RWR) -IFF (Sensors classing targets as friendly or enemy) -Data linking (multiple units sharing sensor information and revealing targets for each other) -LOAL (Lock on after launch, currently not ingame) Active sensors: Radar See opening post. Passive sensors: RWR (Radar Warning Receiver and LWR (Laser Warning Receiver). We currently have only the RWR ingame and only as part of a radar. In real life alot of ground and air vehicles that do are not equipped with a radar do have RWR and LWR. It would be great to have these systems ingame seperated from radar. In real life some MBT's equipped with these systems automatically turn their turrets into the incoming weapon in order to make it hit its thick frontal armor. In addition they can trigger the vehicles smoke dispensers, reducing laser and infrared guided weapons accuracy. IFF: Usual radar IFF systems in real life only tell if a target is friendly or not. They are not able to tell if a vehicle is enemy or empty, although this can be checked by noting if the vehicle is moving or by visual confirmation. Currently the ingame radar IFF system knows the target identity at all times, making AI deploy weapons almost immediatly after target acquisition. The players PPI radar screen though hides this information for a short while, though this seeming lack of information can be bypassed by the easy lock system (pressing tab) as this will only lock enemy manned vehicles. Data linking and LOAL: See post above by Onno. Summary: -Radar should be customizable for vehicles, or at least have more presets than the current 4 (radarType = [0,1,2,4];) for detection ranges with air and ground detection having seperate values. Even a simple preset which is identical to the Vehicle radar (radarType = 2; ) but with the same range as the A/G radar of radarType 4 has would be great. (You could name it radarType 3, as it seems to be missing anyway ;) ) Easy lock should be removed ASAP (or at least we must be able to turn it off in the difficulty settings). Every contact should then be selected manually, either by looking at it and selecting it or via the target menu. -Seperate RWR from radar. (LWR would be a nice extra addition as well). Could simply use the current 360 overview template but only show the direction where the radar or laser is coming from. -Radar IFF should NOT be instantaneous and will only happen when a contact is locked (IFF information will be remembered though as long as the target remains on the radar, even after locking another target). -Data linking could make an exception for the IFF. If two vehicles on one side spot a target, and one has IFF'ed it, the other vehicle could receive this information and not need further IFF'ing. -LOAL, while a real thing in modern combat, would probably be to much for Arma at this point, it would need alot of complex work and would be very complicated ingame. Everybody who has ideas on how to improve or add to this issue feel free to share any constructive ideas! Hope we can think of something BIS is capable of putting ingame without much trouble :). PS. Could a mod please rename this topic to: Current radar system and simple fix ideas. (Was a bit frustrated while making the first post, which is not the best time for a good productive thread title ;) )

Thanks for the quick reply! Will try to use the Arma 2 sample models as references then :).

As the title says my Object Builder keeps crashing when I try to open .P3d files out of BIS own PBO files. The PBO files were extracted with Mikero's ExtractPBO tool and all other data seems to have come out of the extract just fine. Any thoughts on what to do or what I might be doing wrong? Opening my own P3d files does not pose any problem.

The strength of the Arma franchise is its flexibility with only your imagination (and some BIS hardcoded things ;) ) stopping you. Everybody is free to play the game the way they like it if you ask me. Sure I'd rather see all those players in coop and CTI servers but I don't blame them for having fun in other game modes. My only concern is that BIS should stay focused on the military side of things and not blindly follow the masses in life mods, but I'm sure they will keep supporting the game in the way they originally envisioned.

First of, I know there have been numerous posts concerning Arma 3's radar system with a broad range of requests on how to fix this. This post is a summary of my findings and thoughts about how to fix this in an as simple manner as possible for BIS. I have been a fan of this game since the days of Operation Flashpoint and have seen the game grow and grow while all sorts of features were being added. The platforms capability of uniting all sorts of gameplay from infantry to fixed-wing aircraft in a realistic yet balanced way in a grand environment has Always been the backbone of the franchise I believe. As such I'm happy to see the game being expanded with features. Unfortunatly though the game at the moment has alot of bugs/issues/inconsistencies that hamper the realistic but balanced gameplay, or make it impossible all together. The most prominent one is the radar system. Any aircraft with guided weapons combined with a radar has an enourmous and unrealistic advantage over ground vehicles. Not only against BIS' standard AA vehicles, but it is currently impossible for addon makes to make decent anti air vehicles due to engine restrictions. There have been numerous threads and bugtracker reports on this but it has so far been ignored (as far as publicly known). When the helicopter DLC was announced I expected it would deal with this Obvious issues and therefor I bought it immediatly, only to be disappointed later on (don't misunderstand me here, the sling loading is cool). However the fact remains that the gameplay is crippled in relation to any vehicle using radar and modders are unable to adress it. This issue has been destroying gameplay in both SP and MP for to long now and has actually been chasing away players from MP missions on a regular basis. With this thread I hope to identify the issues around this problem, keep BIS aware we need a fix for this major issue, and think of potential fixes (preferably simple to do as I'm sure BIS is already quite busy). The problem broken down: a.) Current A/G radar automatically targets enemy (and ONLY) vehicles when the next target key is used, even if the radar/ai has not IFF'ed yet. This should be fixed ASAP! b.) Current A/A and G/A radar have a vastly reduced range compared to the A/G radar range. Giving A/G radar equiped always a range benefit. In addition the AI in AAA vehicles will not IFF and engage vehicles until much closer (around 1km is seems) Current radar presets are flawed and simply destroy the possibility for any remotely realistic combat between radar equiped vehicles. Their hardcoding denies modders and addon makers the possibility to fix this, making sure this part of the game will stay broken until BIS takes a look at this and fix it one way or another. Most basic fix proposition: 1.) "Next target" key will only work on vehicles/infantry already detected AND IFF'ed. No more selecting a target and shooting it because you know it is enemy because the next target command has revealed it for you. 2.) AI should engage enemy targets when they are inrange and have been identified, not wait until they are much closer. 3.) All radar and IFF ranges should be equal. No more aircraft spotting ground units long before radar equiped ground units spot aircraft. 4.) If easier than request 6 (in-case you really want minimal effort to improve this aspect), please make some range presets for short, medium and long ranges. Example: 2000m, 4000m, 6000m extra: Extent the Cheetah and Tigris Titan missile range to equal A/G missile range of helicopters. 5.) Minimize the "Next target" command use all together. More thorough fix for this issue, requiring BIS to make small changes in the engine and already released content. But enabling the community with vastly more possibilities. 6.) Config improvements (Basic): Add following vehicle/equipement/weapon config settings: Set RadarRangeAirtargets: #m (Sets the range at which air targets are detected) Set RadarRangegroundtargets: #m (Sets the range at which ground targets are detected) Even more thorough, basically extending of improvement #5. 7.) Extra config settings (For more advanced simulation): Set RadarRangeAirtargets IFF (friendly/enemy/empty): #m (Sets the range at which air targets are identified) Set RadarRangegroundtargets IFF (friendly/enemy/empty): #m (Sets the range at which ground targets are identified) set RadarPower: 1-10 (multiplier for the likeliness of a radar to spot something.) set VehicleRCS: 0.1-1 (multiplier for a vehicle giving their likeliness to be detected.) radar detection then is achieved at: RadarPower*VehicleRCS*RadarRange=Detection range. (With a cutoff at Radar max range if Radarpower*VehicleRCS = >1) Personally I believe the fixes proposed in point 1, 2 and 3 are absolutely necessary as soon as possible. With proposal 4 or 6 being an very very welcome addition for the modding and mission making community. Proposal 7 would be a great addition, but it's mostly dreaming for now I'm afraid. Feel free to post your own experiences and ideas on how to solve the current radar issues in this thread. Also I would love to see BIS join in the discussion or fix this issue tomorrow of course ;). Anyway, keep playing and working on this great game all!

This assumes you get your helicopter within close range of the ground vehicles, which is not needed at all. The current air to ground radar has a much larger range than the ground to air radar of AAA vehicles (not even getting started on the need to get in visual range for the other vehicles.). It is very easy at the moment to fly your gunship, keep at least 3km between yourself and any threat so they will not engage you and simply picking them off with ATGM as your range is 5+km (partly depended on view distance.) Only ground AA units which do not appear on radar (infantry and statics) currently are a serious threat.

On the Dev Branch then I assume? Because the bug is definatly still there in stable.

Completely agree with Danczer here. First let me be clear, I've been a fan of the series since Operation Flashpoint. Arma3 is the first game I've picked up since the original ArmA and have been enjoying it alot. A number of nice steps forward have been made but there is also alot of stuff lacking which the community has been requested since OFP. What is bothering the most though is the same as Danczer states here. The current game has features which contain obvious bugs but these seem te be ignored. Alot of these bugs make it seem like you are playing an amature project and really kill immersion. My little list of stuff: Basic stuff: -Hot fences in thermal view. This bug was introduced a couple of months ago and seems pretty retarted, but still, it persists and seemingly no efforts at fixing it. -No minimal hit value for armor (since OPF). Basically meaning even a pistol bullet will cause damage due to the old hitpoints system. Could easily be fixed by a minimal damage value for a weapon before it does actual damage to armor. -Floating objects, all sorts of objects float just above ground level, especially far away objects. -Flares not much brighter than a star or led. Flares are just useless and unrealistic because of this Obvious issue. -ai in vehicles/objects with optical aids such as thermal view actually are far worse at spotting enemy inf through these optics than infantry without aids. -AA vehicles are defenceless against ATGM equiped aircraft due to unrealistic radar. Some more complex issues requiring more work (probably): -Vehicle destruction always ending in the same violent explosion (since OFP). Some vehicles should simply get wrecked, others burn, some should have ammo cook-off. -ai still have no clue about suppresive fire (since OFP) -ai suck with anything involving vehicles. Pathfinding around vehicles and driving over roads and taking turns actually seems worse than in the original OFP. Current unrealistic magical radar -magically knows if vehicles are manned or not (and by which faction). Meaning you just press the target key and it will select the next enemy vehicle in range (even if the radar is not displaying it in green/red yet). -all weapons fire and forget -Radar should give targets, to be checked by gunner with optics for IFF and locking, and if needed tracking for non-fire and forget weapons. Most complex issues I guess: Outdated graphics techniques -Only 1 shadow emmiting light?? Accurate damage models (visual mostly, but enhances immersion) -Tracks running off/lost road wheels. Currently no visual signs to suggest damaged or destroyed tracks. -Vehicle fires, but crew having a chance to escape before getting burned -Side skirt damages/breaking off due to heavy HE shells/impacts from light anti tank weapons/crashing into objects -Did I mention not everything should explode?

Hi all First of all want to thank BIS for opening up for feedback from the community as much as they do here. Though I am a bit puzzled by the persistance of some very obvious and seemingly easy to fix bugs in the game at the moment. Just to give one example is the bug of low-LOD-level fences in thermal views (Ticket here: http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=19730). It really makes it feel like you are playing some amature hobby project while it appears it could be fixed by a simple texture replacement of value tweaking (Forgive me if I'm wrong here). Can we expect a fix for this in the near future? And will BIS keep working on obvious issues with already ingame content or only focus on new content and performance improvements? (Which is appreciated as well).

Great to see Red Hammer Studios still alive! Been a fan of your stuff since the OPF days and had not expected it would still be around! Looking at the screenshots posted here and on facebook it seems it is all progressing nicely! Just one comment though, the abrams and bradley textures so far look very clean, as if they just came out of storage. Will they become a bit more dirty and used in the final release? Finally I just have to ask, are you working on a BMPT as well?

Hello all! I have been trying lately to solve the problem of the short range AA vehicles in my missions. So far I have been unable to find the location where radar parameters are defined, giving me the impression this is hardcoded in the game exe file. Anyway, would it be possible to add a piece of code to a units initialization box to make them use another radar type? As will probably be clear I'm trying to give the AA vehicles the air radar (used by air vehicles) instead of the short ranged vehicles radar. (So radartype 4 instead of 2.)

Not completely sure if this is the correct topic for this issue, but it has been on bugtracker for so long and been destroying quite alot of mp games so I felt the need to post it here as well ;). Current Anti Aircraft vehicles are completely ineffective against any aircraft with ATGM. While they are mayor threats in real life they are target practise in ArmA 3. Problem is their radar range maxes out at 3km, and IFF maxes out at 2km. Meaning they will only engage at 2km or closer. All while aircraft will engage them from 5km. It seems easy to fix (expect it is just a parameter), though I am no programmer. Hope this issue can be fixed, rather sooner than later :p. Besides this, been great coming back to the series since OPF :D. Hope to see this game being constantly improved and expanded as well! ---------- Post added at 20:17 ---------- Previous post was at 20:16 ---------- Some links to the feedback tracker around this issue (forgot about these); http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=18532 http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=14484 http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=18139