This needs a lot more attention and votes, everything is affected by this. Buildings, characters, foliage, rocks - everything is fully lit by sunlight or other light sources even if it lays in the shadow that is casted by the terrain.
It doesn't matter if one chooses to approach an enemy position along a mountain slope that is facing away from the sun, because you're lit up by the sun anyway and you will be perfectly visible.
The shadow detail setting does not change any of this.
If the solution would be easy, I am sure they would have come up with one by now, considering how much attention the devs put into improving the lighting over the last weeks.
Actually, what I wrote above is not correct since grass is already affected by terrain shadow. However it does not cast a shadow itself, like all other objects do (even in terrain shadow). This allows for some odd observations, like trees casting shadows although there should not be any light to begin with.
Objects and people at a certain distance should not just sink into the ground and I think we can agree that rendering grass up to 1 km is probably not an option at this time. So one has to come up with a solution.
The sinking appeared a while ago in some Arma 2 beta patch (iirc) and it felt appropriate at that time. In 2013 and also in regards to the fidelity of the rest of the game it feels more like a makeshift solution, imo not worthy of the otherwise great visual appearance.
I think an adjustment to the current system would be easy to implement. Taking a prone soldier as an example: how about a fade effect to simulate grass, a higher opacity where the body is closest to the ground, towards normal where the head is sticking out of the grass. Maybe even make that effect a bit uneven, simulating grass leaves, small bushes, etc.
I noticed that the Zefir's 7.62 mm bullet are able to penetrate the sand sacks of the large bunker. And those are quite thick. I would assume that the bunker is safe to hide in from small arms fire.
@ SaMatra
Good video, but from my experience it is usually just the closest object to a dead player/AI that gets destroyed, maybe two when death occurs where two pieces of a wall join together.
Anyway I hope this shines some light on an almost ancient issue, which needs fixing.
Has there been any word from the devs about this yet? No answer is never a good sign, at least with the binocs there was a hint. This and deployable bipods are the two features that would make infantry combat really stand out.
It would be nice if they could add a second watch that shows oxygen, compressed air, etc. Maybe even a third that shows the altitude when performing paradrops. I mean there is the watch slot might as well use it properly.
I think he uses free aim on maximum setting. That would be around 30 °and when you touch the border of the free aim zone, turning is hindered by mouse acceleration.
@dvdbrewster
There is a workaround: you bind left and right turn to left and right mouse movement respectively.
I cannot believe this is the most discussed feature. There are women serving with many armies around the world. So female player models should be included. How they are used is up to the mission makers, whether there's abuse up to us players. But if you are worried about that, you're playing with the wrong people and/or on the wrong servers.
The mission designer should be able to decide whether or not it is possible to wear enemy uniforms.
Upvote.
Yes, upvoted. Something that lets you take attachments off rifles on the ground without dropping your current weapon and having to pick up the ammo afterwards.
Every time I try to upvote this I realize I already tried to do so a couple of times. That's how much I want this feature.
@Helari
Nah, it's funny.
And writing "That is all" is so 2011.
The Strider seems to have a higher center mass point as for example the hunter. It's a low profile vehicle but ingame it feels very strange to drive. Which is also the reason for the unreal swimming behavior. The center mass seems to be somewhere in front of the vehicle and you can swim sideways...
I always liked the idea of the headless client in MP games, it would be awesome if that was possible for SP games, effectively having a separate process only for the AI calculation.
This is a collection of tickets that regard the same issue (afaik):
#6123 #5524 #3977 #6893 #1195 #2543 (marked as resolved) #2344 #3331 #6995
The issue is present in the latest DEV version (27.05.2013) and has occurred since day one of the public alpha.
It seems to be mostly in the Wasteland mission (various versions of it) but is not restricted to it.
Some people mentioned that this is a locality issue, vehicles being created server side and then filled with weapons and equipment. Maybe someone with actual mission making experience can add his opinion here.
As reported in the other tickets there are several workarounds:
I believe many of the above mentioned tickets can be closed as duplicates while the issue should be looked at again.
I agree with SGTIce. Additionally one has to consider the development firearms have gone under in the past 50 years, a trend that will continue surely. Compare M-14 vs. SCAR H, M-60 vs. H&K 121. And that's today's technology in capable hands.
I'm sorry to bring DayZ up here but Dean Hall mentioned this bug specifically in the latest livestream and that they managed to fix it. Anyone who has DayZ can confirm this.
Remember the ticket description includes the word "proper". The implementation must satisfy the community, if the feature turns out to be half-a**ed, this ticket will live on for much longer. :D But enough discussion.
Military grade thermal imaging equipment is very powerful yet expensive and unless BI plan on simulating budget cuts, this issue needs to be fixed. What you are referring to, the daytime when thermal imaging becomes tricky usually doesn't last very long. The high contrast and the resulting easy spotting of enemies even over large distances is another issue though.