jed89

Can't really argue with that, but I doubt it would be more of a hassle than it is/was with the copy & paste content as well as the 'straight port' content. It's only 20 years from now and to be honest, mankind in the future ArmA III depicts doesn't seem to be very advanced. They only use weapons that are 20 years and older (since all of them exist in some form today (which is almost only justifiable by trying to keep it realistic (and I know about the M16 being in service for 61 years now, but that parallel shows that people wouldn't burn me as a witch, since they still seem to think the way we do))). CSAT uses an Objekt 640 tank, whose development was abandoned by the Russian military in 2001 because of poor performance, instead of a T-90MS or something comparable. And if you apply what happens in ArmA III's ground branches to the currently non-existent naval branches, one could guess that NATO and/or CSAT still wouldn't supply them with toys like the American LaWS or ship-mounted railguns. But that's off-topic, so I'll probably stop posting now.

In my opinion saying 'you can simply reassign a weapon' is the same kind of lazy excuse that 'just download a mod' is. Of course ArmA is a sandbox game that's highly mod friendly (and supposed to be exactly that), but have you ever thought about how mods divide the community? Multiplayer with mods is never ending pain in my opinion, since a lot of players don't join servers with mods and a lot of mission hosters don't use mods, because they know players will just pass it, since they don't wanna search for the mods first. Singleplayer is the same, just look at the download numbers of SP missions and campaigns at Armaholic. Work that requires additional addons gets downloaded way less than stuff that only requires vanilla content (except it's Namalsk Crisis or something of that caliber). What I just said might seem kinda off-topic, but 'you can simply script this or that' is the same. Sure, I could give some rebels a MAR-10 or SPMG, but it breaks the immersion (Why do rebels have top-notch gear? Why does CSAT have German arms? Why...). I'm not as much whining about the side-assignments as I am about the choice of what gets included as vanilla content. You could give CSAT all the weapons in the game, as long as I could rationally redistribute them, but if they don't fit for the other factions it would be as bad for the immersion as CSAT and NATO obviously having the same heavy arms supplier. And just because something is easy to script doens't mean people will do it. Have you ever heard about the complaints that the Skyfires on the Kajman are not controlled by the pilot, but the gunner? There are a lot, but did you ever see a MP server that used the four simple init commands it needs to give the rockets to the pilot? I haven't so far. So the point I'm trying to convey is: They should include content that's fitting for what the game tries to be (realistic) and distribute it logically or don't put out content at all and simply include an 'auto-download all required addons' function and let the community work on all the content. I don't mind BIS' DLC policy and the gameplay enhancements for the upcoming one sound great, but the content is just... it could be way better in my opinion.

Up to this morning I wasn't only completely fired up for the new game mechanics, but also the new weapons. When I saw the MG5 and the M14 this morning, my little hype bubble kinda bursted. I really liked the NATO additions, since we only have the MX series right now, whose LMG and marksman variants are rather inferior to all other weapons of that kind currently in the game, but why the heck would CSAT need another LMG along with the Zafir and the AAF (guessing from the scheme on the picture) a downgraded version of their already existing ABR? And why does CTRG get anything at all while the FIA doesn't get a new toy? This faction is almost non-existent and completely insignificant, even for the 'new' campaign and SP in general. And justifying it with 'it's for NATO, not just CTRG' doesn't really make sense too, because they got the Mk-1 now. They could have implemented way better alternatives than those three guns, like the already mentioned bolt-action rifles (AAF and CSAT will both still use the Lynx after the DLC is released), a weapon appropriate for civilians or an replacement for the - bad pun intended - Marksman system on the CSAT AA platform. Adding the M14 seems as useless to me as adding the M79 to Arrowhead, and it's also just an optimized version of A2 content, which is meh now that they don't have to grind for content anymore like they had to when they released the AAF vehicles. Guess I've satisfied my need for whining now... but still, kinda disappointing content-wise. At least weapon resting will be neat together with the new MGs.

Yeah, I know that attachto makes the collision kinda random, especially when it comes to vehicles, but I didn't really get how to set up the whole structure via proxies back then. I've sorted out almost all the problems now and the only things missing are proper textures and a working PathLOD, so if you don't mind ugly textures and lazy UV mapping or don't want AI to walk or drive on it a human player could already use it properly. So the only thing left to do is setting up a PathLOD that enables correct AI behaviour, maybe I'll find something that helps me in the ArmA II samples BIS made public.

So, I didn't have a lot of time during the last two weeks, but I've managed to get most of the stuff working. There are three things left that I'm not sure about. 1. One of the GeoLODs is not working and I really don't get why. Here's a picture of the GeoLOD: http://i.imgur.com/pxYHACU.jpg (278 kB) As you can see the LOD only contains 6 cuboids that are convex and have their normals pointing in the right direction. The fire geometry is simply a duplicate of this one and works perfectly fine. Also, rotor blades get damaged by the object, but the rest of the helicopter and everything else can pass right through without taking any damage. I've already redone that LOD, but I can't seem to fix it. 2. Right now I'm assembling the bridge like this: Does using Proxies and assembling it like the LHD in ArmA II have any advantages over this method or wouldn't it make any difference? 3. The last question is concerning the PathLOD. If I make an extra object that's only containing this LOD, how exactly do I do it? I've got an idea of how the PathLODs work, but do I have to pay attention to something special when drawing paths that are to be used by vehicles? As far as this guide tells, I'd have to do a series of connected faces from one end of the bridge to the other and define in-points. But does the AI make any difference between infantry and vehicle movement along paths? Do I have to span the path over the whole roadway (lane) or is a path of let's say 10cm width in the middle of a lane enough? And is there a possibility to tell AI to only use a path in one direction, so they don't crash somehwere in the middle or do I have to rely on my luck when sending AI above the bridge? I know the last question is basically to explain path modelling in it's basics to me, but I don't have enough time for try and error and didn't find something that really helps me. Thanks for helping again.

Thanks for the advice M1lkm8n I've chopped the bridge into pieces of 60 meters length and all LODs seem to work perfectly now, though I didn't have time to do more than one segment yet, so I don't know how good they'll fit together. Maybe I'm done with the functionality in some days and can continue with texturing, which I horribly suck at...

Sorry for the very vague title, but I've got a couple of questions concerning optimization and general configuration of a bridge in ArmA III. First of all, I'm not new to modelling, but I'm new to getting models into the game properly, so you can expect a certain level of knowledge from me. This is also the first 'real' object I'm trying to get into the game. 1. My first problem is size. The bounding box of half my bridge (other half will simply be mirrored ingame) currently measures 360x32x124, which I know is way to big for the engine to handle properly. I've digged up some old threads on the forum stating that an object should have a maximum size of 50x50x50 (2009), but someone wrote in another thread (2011 I think) that up to 100x100x100 shouldn't be a problem anymore. Can I just reduce the size of parts of my bridge until ResLOD, GeoLOD and RoadwayLOD behave like they should instead of bugging out to far from the center or is there really an absolute maximum I should not exceed at all? Here are some pictures showing size and shape: http://i.imgur.com/zuqLGlk.jpg (285 kB) http://i.imgur.com/pGXwAzZ.jpg (211 kB) Credits for the reference ship go to TxT btw. 2. If I split up my bridge in multiple smaller components, can I just leave the centers of all the new .p3ds where they are and have the components keep their coordinates from before or will the centers affect what the engine handles as the object's size? I wanna know this for ease of usage, since you could place all components at the same world coordinate, if the actual meshes could be some 100 meters from the center of the model. 3. This is more of a general question towards game design: My object doesn't contain a lot of independent meshes right now. The pylon for example is a single mesh aside from the foundation and the brackets holding the steel cables, making it 3x32x105 big. Would this be a problem or is it okay to do that? 4. My Bridge currently is a subclass of 'House_F'. I know that there's a class called 'Bridge_base_F', so I guess I should rather pick that one as superclass, but I don't really understand PathLODs yet. Neither the ones you have in every building, nor the additional ones that the already existing bridges have, like 'Land_Bridge_HighWay_PathLod_F' for example. AI compability is really something that doesn't bother me yet, but would I need the additional '_PathLod.p3d' to make AI cars able to pass the bride? And could the sloped surface prevent AI from acting properly here? Thanks for bearing with my lengthily questions. I'm a bit short on time right now, so I can't try all these things out myself at the moment. Thank you in advance.

Definitely looks nice. Usually I'm very critical when people glue together prefabs that weren't meant for that, but in Surfer's case it actually looks good. Can't wait to play it, and if you'll be looking for voice actors somewhen, I could send you a sample so that you can see if my voice would fit any character. My best wishes for your further work.

Thanks, that's exactly what I was searching for. I've tried eventhandlers myself, but I somehow tried using "IncomingMissile" instead of "Fired"... Why do it easy if there's a more complicated approach (that doesn't work)?

Is there a way to assign a handle to a missile that was fired by an AI vehicle? I know, that I could basically assign a handle to a missile since it's treated as a vehicle and can also be manually created by using "handle = missileType createVehicle spawnPosition", which also assigns a handle in the process. I want to do this, so I can interact with that missile, in my particular case attach a camera to it. Just faking that the missile is really being fired by the vehicle won't do it here, since you'll clearly see it while doing so. Any help is appreciated, even if it's just an approach on solving the problem.

Hi there, I'm mainly writing this, so I can start a new thread in the editiong section, but to make this post not completely hollow, I'll just write something about myself here. I've started playing Cold War Crisis back in 2004 (I think) and bought every ArmA game ever since. I'm experienced in playing as well as mission editing and (simple) modding and usually I can solve problems that may occur by just reading posts of other peolpe having asked my question already or by peeking at other people's work. But now I'd like to ask something about an issue that's bugging me lately.