I just discovered that the problem has something to do with moving in formation. As long as they're in formation, they run with rifle low, with the occasional peeking through the scope, very good. When they are behind, they get a bit confused and start raising rifle a lot or constantly, then they get tired and slow and get even more behind which results in very slow progress.

I think the different views points should ideally display the weapon in the true position always.

Maybe only use them for behaviour is 'SAFE' and unit is not player. Most of these animations fit a 'bored' state for guards etc., not units in action.

When you just cleared the lz of enemy forces and are waiting for the chopper to come in fast to take you out, your specOps guy suddenly starts yawning, WTF? :-)

JAIKS! I've setup my HOTAS X55 for this game, I don't want to lose the settings.

Ha, you'll get no down-vote from me!

@greenfist: a good explanation of what is going on

• Another solution perhaps: make the fire geometries not more complex or removed, but just smaller. With this solution it will be harder/impossible to stand in the blocked area while falling leaves and collision are still possible.

@R3vo: yes this last example is very annoying. I have many times wasted multiple bullets before realizing I will never hit the target that I can clearly see through the branches.

Definitely agree. A big part of the ArmA experience is the change of pacing during a mission. It is the only game where you spend significant amount of time in transit, or waiting.

This is a good thing as it adds to the mission story with you have frantic parts and relaxed parts. In the relaxed part it is nice to look around or turn out etc.

There is a functional aspect to this as well as you indicate nicely. Counting crew members, assessing damage, overwatching your surroundings etc.

I can imagine that's a technical compromise. It's easier to put a hat model on a person model than a tight fitting swimsuit around a seperate face?

Cool vehicle, I hadn't seen it before. I believe diversity in civilian vehicles is an exellent goal for modders, so devs could spend time on development of the core game. Still upvoted, because it is a nice vehicle, and it would be nice if it would be made by anyone, BIS or community.

It's possible that they originally planned to.

Haha, that's true, I'm a true gentleman.. But I use a lot of doors, mostly in CQC, and I don't want to stand right in the door way anyway to prevent me being shot.

Is door mechanism a problem for you in battle situation as well, or are you talking more about 'regular' door use?

It's not that regular use is not important, I think that Arma3 is more than combat.

I never have a problem with doors, why don't you stand a little bit to the side when opening them instead of pulling the door in your face?

Yeah for anything that brings tank interiors closer!

What the hell are your shooting the dogs for, bastard! :-P

Upvoted.

@FeralCircus: I understand your point about using 'vanilla' as much as possible. I've been playing Arma3 without mods so far. :-)

Sounds cool, but this is a typical mod request in my opinion. Let the devs handle the basic military stuff and the community make these things.

Please no idle animation for 3rd p either. Your character running across an open field, bullets everywhere, finally made is across, taking cover behind a house. Character starts yawning immediately. wtf?

It also related to another problem: some of the animations are over-acted. They are too pronounced and too slow. 'look at me, checking my gun out', 'look at me, checking for poop!' etc.

BIS please re-evaluate the player idle animations and hopefully remove them or at least some of them. I tried some removal mods and it was such a breath of fresh air to see your professional soldier just standing still instead of nervously fidgeting with checking boot poop, yawning and such, even in the middle of a combat mission!

Unfortunately the existing mods that remove idle animations are broken (and are easily broken) and do not seem to be updated regularly.

The introduction of the fatigue system actively encourages lowering of weapon, but this in turn activates the 'I'm bored' idle animations even in combat situations. Please, please remove or limit the idle animations.

My argument is more of a visual than a functional one. The current animations fit more with bored guards than soldiers in action.

As soon as there is a rest in a fire fight or I'm waiting for my squad to catch up, my soldier starts immediately checking his boots for poop or yawning! Very immersion breaking if you've just been in a heavy fire fight.

Acceptable animations for me would maybe be a slight neck stretching, a quick check of a part of your gun, adjusting part of your gear, etc. Only quick movements that are not intrusive and fit a soldier on alert. Either that or no idle animations (for player).

Definitely worth it to improve play with vehicles / aircraft in the game.

@mr_book: I think your line of thought is more suitable for buildings. It's hard to demolish a structure by putting neat holes through walls.

For helicopters, an AT shell flying through the cockpit, engines, fuel tanks, or tail, almost all parts, will take it down in no time wouldn't it?. The only exception would be the cargo area and then probably only from the sides.

HE, helo: the end.

@Jimmy: LOL, now I'm inspired to create a mission to neutralize the OPFOR Weatherman.

Anyway, upvoted.

I would be affected by this if development time is spent on this and not other, in my opinion more useful, features.

I noticed something similar with clouds. They change shape when you're moving. Are these issues related?

The ground thing from this ticket (and the clouds) I noticed only recently. Is it a recent change?

I hope we get to hear from people with actual experience but here's my two cents:

• Without lights, the compartment would be pitch black as soon as someone would close the door. NV goggles could be used, but does all infantry have them? Would infantry use NV goggles during the day when riding in their carriers? Soldiers would need them to read maps or check equipment during the ride. Just thinking about non-combat situations. There will definitely be lights on board.

• In the game, the internal light is the outside light, which looks strange when it is 'dusk' etc. in your IFV

• Low lights or lights off could be useful IRL a short time before disembarking to get used to night illumination

I'm curious what the light color should be. For me, the lights would not have to toggleble necessarily, that's maybe a little too much detail compared to the other vehicle functions.

Can my other two Stomper tickets be acknowledged too? If dev time is allocated at one time to fix the Stomper, it might be efficient to tackle all three issues.

I'm especially interested in ticket: 0020067, because the wrong driver viewport height has functional implications for using the Stomper.

It's my opinion, I'd thought I'd clarify my downvote. I do understand your point.

I am against this. The added complication of the system plus biased 'FIX THIS YESTERDAY!' voting doesn't make the system better in my opinion.

A brief analysis of what issue gets more mosts plus what type of issue is voted on (major/minor) is easy enough to base a priority list on.

Hope that this type of death gets improved. I made a mission with lots of light vehicles: quadbikes and armed off-roads. Because they both lack death animations, the game looks very old all of a sudden, like I'm playing OFP again. :-)

It is also a missed opportunity: ragdoll animations could look extra cool on body's falling from quadbikes and armed offroads, because of the interaction with the vehicle.

Related to 0016697: Vehicle (Ifrit, Hunter) damage is invisible on the inside

But there are amphibious tanks in the game. Are they broken at the moment or can't you get your own tank working with those configs?

Haha, I feel for you maskedkhan, people are running away a little bit with your request, but in the end it is clear: independent of what weapon you have selected, you would like to see (day or night) the lased target position of a friendly laser designator.

If you want to drop a laser guided bomb on this position or kamikaze your aircraft on the target is irrelevant in the discussion. Although I can understand that others want to add suggestions.

I like your suggestion of seeing the 'laser targeting device' box independent of weapon selection.

I will try to do some light weight running in Arma on one of the airfields later today, maybe you're right, I'm curious. I mostly do the running in game in mixed terrain in combat situations.

Don't forget that soldiers carry a lot of their equipment on their body (plates, ammo etc.). No backpack doesn't necessarily mean light weight.

I found this quote while searching for equipment weight of US infantry:

'[weight] Depends on the job and mission. Most of the time rucks aren't carried anymore. Take a simple combat patrol, walking. Over your regular uniform you got your knee and elbow pads. you got your helmet. You got your IBA with plates. The plates alone are damn near 30 pounds. Then you got all the pouches and stuff you add to that. Ammo, at least 210 rounds in 7 magazines for an M4. You got grenades, papers, medical packs, water in your camel back, camera, knife, flashlight, extra ammo if your a machine gunner. The list could go on. I don't even know the exact weight, never really worried about jumping on a scale over there. It's a lot and it's hard as hell to move. Especially climbing over things and getting in and out of trucks. Add in 100+ degree heat and your having a bad day.
Source(s): been there, done that.'

The equipment weight seems to range from 20 - 70 kg, average about 40 kg.

So this veteran says getting in and out of trucks is hard for professional soldiers. Maybe we should be glad BIS isn't putting this feature in Arma3 ;-)

Even though I am in favor for continually improving the fatigue system, I generally like the current system and agree with Shields. I think people are underestimating how hard it is to run on uneven ground going up or down hills with equipment.

Just pay attention how steep some of the terrain in Arma3 is, I very much doubt soldiers in real life run in those places unless in short bursts in combat circumstances.

Don't forget that soldier's fitness is also being able to run after marching for hours, standing guard, bad food, bad sleep. You can't assume soldiers start their mission fresh just after returning from holiday.

A final point is that Arma3's terrain is compressed. All distances are shorter, because the game might get too boring (for travel distances) and suffer performance otherwise. This could lead to the perceived effect of fatigue seem exaggerated.

Good tips Feral, I use the jogging method (rifle lowered one hand free) a lot. I think it covers ground quickly enough. Sprinting is really for emergency. This contrast adds depth to the game.

This is a horrible 'report'. 'Horrendous' size of the maps? Running around at 4x speed in missions? Don't want weapon sway? I'm not sure this game is really for you.

The same problem happens when entering or exiting vehicles. The weapon mode is reset. I think it should be 'remembered' and only change if I change it. Now I frequently cycle/check the modes during a mission to make sure I have the right one which is kind of annoying.

grenadelaunchers

Using the underslung grenade launcher is a firing mode and not independent of the firing mode of your rifle. It's a small problem, but one which is also a bit annoying. The unexplainable connection between main weapon fire mode and using the grenade launcher is a little bit immersion breaking, making it clear that the rifle/grenade launcher is a kind of abstract computer game thing. There should be a separate button for equipping the launcher.

Thank you for the update and clearification Iceman, although you might have missed that the discussion already ended 5 months ago. ;-)

@T-Bone:

I checked with my mom and she indeed bought a lot of tires from you. You are a very good salesman, because she doesn't even have a car.. ;-)

All joking aside, each of us has different priorities in what part of ArmA should be improved. I agree with you, that the community can show the devs what's important to work on. Unfortunately for you, I'm part of the community and I don't think the devs should be working on tires. What the rest of the community thinks, we will see.

I do understand your frustration though. Personally, I was shocked to find that the tanks in Arma still don't have interiors, then I was shocked again to find out that a lot of people in the community don't find this important, just like the tires. C'est la vie..

When you're not playing ARMA, are you a tire-salesman? ;-P

Vehicles as a whole are still fairly simple: driving behaviour, no opening doors, no interiors for tanks etc.

Skipping all that and adding let's say 'dynamic tire damage' with deforming tires or whatever makes little sense. It's takes a lot of time to create, it might hinder game performance and it unbalances the vehicle damage model (the tire damage looks awesome, the vehicle damage looks not so good in comparison).

I think the disappearing tires often look good actually, it's nice that you can destroy part of a vehicle and the damage is clearly visible.

This is definitely not a bug, but intended behaviour of the game. Do you have a proposed solution? Would you like shredded tires? Deflated tires (aren't they already in the game)?

In any case, taking into account the basic visual damage model for vehicles, Personally, I find the current situation balanced and acceptable.

Thanks for your detailed investigations Fennek, I hope BIS will pick up the ball on this one day and make tracked vehicles shine!

It's a shame really. I'm currently creating a mission with a BLUFOR mech. inf. attack but especially the Marshall is so slow on medium offroad terrain. It often can't reach 20 km/hour. The whole attack proceeds at a teeth-grinding slow pace.

(off-topic, because the infantry moves very slowly as well in COMBAT mode, there is no way to compensate in any way, the whole mechinf force moves very slow)

Thanks for this accurate description of what feels wrong about difficult terrain mobility of vehicles.

I feel that the Panther is very slow in general (at least with human player as driver). Is that related to this issue? That the tracks don't work properly?

By chains you mean tracks Helio? :-)

This is a known issue, but one I would definitely would like to see fixed. And well written for the people that don't know what's going on.

@KillZone, don't take it personal, but I have the feeling that your input in this case was not helping.

• Your points seem 'academic' and too much about semantics, whether it's 100% broken or 80% broken or whatever
• Your examples address very specific unusual circumstances where it does work or requires elaborate workarounds

This gives me a feeling of frustration, because, for example, I'm not interested in removing allweapons of AI or use selectWeapon only on the player.

I think the reporters of a ticket are more interested in either proof that something is working/not working as intended or a reasonable workaround for specific situations.

@PartyHead: good to hear that it once worked as expected (I never played ArmA2, OFP only). Mixed infantry attacking vehicles get massacred because infantry with launchers fire too late (rifles firing first). I want to use 'selectWeapon' on infantry with launchers to force them to fire early on targeted vehicles.

@KillZone 'So the problem is that AI changes to the "Binocular" momentarily and then defaults back to what it is holding. The problem is with AI refusing to use binoculars when ordered.'

And one would like to use 'selectWeapon' to do exactly that. So that means 'selectWeapon' is broken doesn't it? At this moment 'selectWeapon' seems pretty useless. I had the same problem with trying to force the AI to use a launcher.

I'm a little confused by your point Killzone. If selectWeapon only works when one weapon is available, it's broken isn't it? 'SELECT' implies choosing from multiple options.

I think the OP wishes (and I certainly do) a command that forces an AI to arm a specific weapon from its inventory list consisting of multiple weapons. It uses the selected weapon as primary weapon connected to a controllable condition (this goes for binocs, launchers, rifles, handguns and maybe grenades)

If such a command were created I think it would be useful to name it 'selectWeapon'.

I added a screenshot demonstrating the case.

I think if you shoot the window out, it is also gone from the inside view, but if it has bullet damage it's not visible from inside. Just to be clear, this whole ticket is about glass damage, a feature that was present in (at least) OFP and I expected to be present in this game for immersive and functional reasons.

I voted this down, the summary says: "StepOver" animation has to go! and it mentions 'It has to go because of its hacky nature.'

I don't want this to happen, the stepover is essential in navigating small obstacles.

It would be nice if the flaws will be fixed though.

Two things:

Are these findings purely for small-arms? I have the feeling that vehicle weapons cannons/miniguns have too small dispersion.

Another factor that might be needed to take into account is that I think the terrains are 'compressed' in space? In real life all features of terrain are further apart and firefights are generally over longer distances?

I'm not 100% sure of this, but I think this is the case because of performance and gameplay limits. A real infantry patrol through a valley could take hours. This is never the case in Arma.

@FeralCircus: I very much agree with:

'It's still taking a ridiculous amount of shots to take the enemy down...
And by this I don't mean 'kill' I mean to incapacitate them or force them to take cover.'

Winning is more than killing everyone, goals are also gaining the advantage, suppressing and out-maneouvring. This should be done by forcing the enemy to take cover by for instance wounding them or near-misses. Now it's way too much black-and-white which leads to very short fire-fights.

It looks like it's going in the right direction (at least a bit):

SPOTREP nr17:

• Impacts of bullets cause soldiers to ragdoll a bit (flinch) even if they are fully absorbed by armor

@Fera: I'm not saying wounded behavior doesn't occur like you say. I believe you, and youtube results of your suggested key words probably prove that (haven't tried them yet).

I'm having some doubts though if this is representative. For these reasons:

• You might find 100 youtube movies with wounded lying down upon shot, but maybe you can find 100 movies with wounded returning fire immediately as well?
• Are youtube movies the 'average', or more towards 'extreme' (that's why they're posted)?

What I'm saying is that I believe you, except the 99% part, you pulled that out of your ass, just to make a point! :-P

What I take from the discussion is that gunshot wounds and the victims behavior are highly variable and haven't seen good evidence to base a simple model on: let's say 80% of wounded fall down and 20% return fire or everyone with a torso wound falls down, but with a leg wound returns fire.

Interesting discussion this, I will take a look at some of the results from your key words. I hope Arma3 can be improved on 'wounded behavior'. Whether returning fire or taking cover, I think every one agrees that AI reacts too quick and accurate as it is.

That's a detailed description Feral. Although it sounds plausible in some cases, the percentage you mentioned is very high and your story contradicts some of the earlier contributions. Do you have some evidence to back it up?

@Armadillo: from my own testing I concluded that the Arma3 helmet object covers the whole head and resists 1 bullet. So even if you shoot the face (no, not the face!), it takes two bullets to take him down. Remove the helmet and it takes one bullet.

Even a little randomization would make the helmet behavior more believable. So sometimes it takes one bullet, another time two bullets in the face to take someone down.

I agree, I created a commando mission where 3 commando's have to overwhelm a position with 4 soldiers. It only works if I'm prone and can see only one enemy, shoot him and let my buddies target the other ones that are closing in on me.

It works, but it's too difficult. From a prepared position I should be able to at least take out two enemies before they react. As it is, if another ones sees me killing the first one, I'm usually dead, even though I turned their aiming accuracy way down!

I like that there is a penalty for heavy loads in the game. I think this is important. However, the animation slow-down is exaggerated at the moment. Soldiers look like they're running in slow-motion or in a reduced gravity environment.

I did try with and without game logic. The correct index is tricky, so I created a script which tries the command with iteration of index 0-50 with a pause to give the unit some time to go through animations. Unfortunately it didn't work.

At the moment it seems impossible to get a grip on AI use of launchers. I expect actions like useWeapon, switchWeapon or the command selectWeapon to work with launchers, but they don't work.

Control over AT AI is necessary if you want to engage vehicles and soldiers with a squad of infantry. If using only regular ai (scripting nothing), the AT soldiers wait too long or fire the wrong weapon, resulting in the squad getting massacred by enemy vehicle weapons.

Some other methods like specific targeting or selective open/hold fire commands also don't work in this scenario (I've been working for hours on this problem) so I'm thinking about creating a ticket to address this specific problem. The relevant actions/commands are present, but they don't work as expected.

For my specific case I got an acceptable result by temporarily ungrouping the AT soldiers from the main group and then giving them specific commands, but I find this a kind of 'heavy' and possibly AI interfering solution.

Thanks Killzone for a piece of nice code.

Three points:

• I consider removing weapons also kind of 'heavy coding' and I don't like the look of weapons evaporating when I'm working together with these type of soldiers.
• It also defeats the purpose of select/use weapon options, this is more like, use the only thing that's left command, still sounds a bit broken.

• Even though I'm complaining, I like your creative solution :-) BUT it doesn't work at the moment: I tried it with an enemy vehicle nearby and it looks good, but that's also his normal behavior. If you remove immediate target, it won't equip the launcher. Is this the same for you?

I can confirm, I'm trying to get a soldier to use a specific weapon, and I get weapon firing (grenades) and every time a pickup animation which shouldn't be there I believe.

I tried to use this command to make ai use NLAW, but it doesn't work (even with game logics). I hope this or other way will be created or fixed to have more control over Ai with AT/AA weapons.

I hope (ai) tank driving will be improved. There is a lot of seemingly tank-friendly terrain on Altis, but tanks get stuck on small obstacles like you say. At the very least I hope tanks will be changed so that they can drives over these small obstacles (low stone walls for instance).

Better path-finding is necessary as well.

I have the feeling that lately it is messed up. The 'flinching' is sometimes greatly exaggerated with units almost doing cartwheels. I definitely believe that FeralCircus' finding is not a one-time-only glitch.

This is related to http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=17149, the cargo compartments of most of the vehicles are too small. They feel very cramped and people's heads are clipping the ceiling. Very bad for immersive gameplay.

I saw some nice Outerra screenshots with vehicles (even Mechs!) indeed. That's one to keep an eye on.

@Circus: Why don't you ask Outerra to add an open-world-tactical-shooter to their engine, then you double your chances to get what you want (which will add up to zero for the near future I'm afraid) ;-P

Please take this as a joke, there is just a division among posters. People who put in here their dreams, however farfetched, and people who'd rather set realistic goals for the developers with clear improvements for the game in relation to its existing features. I'm afraid I belong to the latter. :-)

Still not fixed after two years, please fix, looks immersion-breakingly stupid.

I did some searching and it looks like the Hind in TKOH has manually retractable gear. But those helo's have operable doors as well, whereas Arma's door animations are not finished yet.

Currently I am sacrificing two kittens each night to maximize the cosmic chances that TKOH in ARMA will be totally awesome.

I definitely agree with the unwanted gear extension while hovering low.

I would like to add an extra argument: I have a HOTAS joystick setup with lots of control options and it would be awesome to use those to control the helicopter gear.

Arma3 could position itself nicely between arcade flying and hard-core flight sim by adding some aircraft functions to key-binds like helicopter gear, engine on/off etc.

You forget/don't know one point. Operation Flashpoint (2001) had good looking interiors for armor and it's the base of the game engine of Arma III. You could even look from outside into the tank through an open hatch and it looked awesome!

These vehicles had their own lighting space which unfortunately isn't built in vehicles from later games but is possible. There are some problems with it, but you have other problems with current vehicles. Even current cargo positions in APC, if it's dusk outside, it's dusk in the vehicle. I was so disappointed when I saw that for the first time :.-(

I can't believe the interiors are missing! In OFP it really added to the immersion to be able to glance around the inside of the turret in a quiet moment.

I think there is a huge difference between a game where all vehicles have interiors or a game where some vehicles have interiors, only when they are functional or for infantry or whatever. For me the missing interiors break the suspension of disbelief!

Some people mention that you don't spend much time looking at the interiors of armor, so it isn't worth the dev. time. Well I say I don't spend much time looking under water, so I would gladly have sacrificed some nice underwater views for interior views of the armor.

Also, I believe that Arma could and should be a general mil. sim. Now it's said (and marketed?) as combined arms, leaning on infantry action. I feel that's a bit of an excuse for an imbalanced game. It feels weird that the infantry has dozens of postures and items of clothing, but the vehicles are 'unfinished' because of the missing interiors (and animated doors).

Some vehicles have these by the way (gorgon has interior, ifrit has animated doors), so it was originally planned or experimented with to include these.

ArmA3 doesn't have to be ultra-realistic, war is often boring and otherwise horrible, but please make ArmA a balanced experience where I can jump in my sandbox and play one day with infantry and another day with vehicles, with the full ArmA experience!

My feeling is that the different opinions displayed here are not too far apart. The 'shock' opinion asks for at least some delay or disturbance of return fire, while the Combat Medics 'no shock' doesn't totally exclude a disturbance in reaction.

A one or two second delay in reaction is both impressive for a trained soldier, but also gives the advantage to the attacker, where it belongs.

I would like to see the 'return fire no matter what' situation implemented! It could scare the hell out of the attacker, while it may be inaccurate fire.

Works for helo's! I'm very happy with this.

@CXN: the default weapons don't have a safe mode and the player's inability to shoots its comrades in cargo already reflects a kind of safe mode, so I think your point is not relevant for this situation.

Yes please fix this! Even though this is a small part of the game, it breaks the immersion a little by 're-setting' your character going in-and-out of vehicles (some other things like stance are also changed).

More importantly, it has practical implications as well: I find myself more often than necessary cycling trough the fire-modes to check its state because it might have changed because of this situation.

Bug is also present in SP game.

I noticed this today as well, apparently it hasn't been fixed yet. It's a shame, because it's a clearly visible visual bug/missing model.

I said: 'In aware mode they TRY to keep highly accurate formation'. But they fail, because staying in accurate formation will tire them.

Some minor points:

• Even if your squad is 500m away, and out of formation, they might still be in formation amongst themselves. Again, they try too hard to be in formation with the guy in front of them which leads to the raising rifle problem.

• A unit who says 'where are you' is not lost. He is indicating by this that he is far away. If you would hide in a house and do nothing he would eventually rejoin you. In OFP this call would be automatically responded by the leader of the squad with his position.

Of course I agree with the general complaint that ai can't keep up with the player because of problems that should be solved.

'That was beacuse after enemy attack, their animation simply freezed. They forgot to put their weapon down and run.'

This is indeed one the problems, they get stuck in COMBAT mode or a broken version of COMBAT mode.

If you could force AWARE mode on the squad it would already be a little bit better.

@Fighting Power: definitely not. In aware mode they try to keep highly accurate formation. For this they have to change speed a lot. They do this with sprinting and jogging with weapons raised. This leads to the ai getting tired. This leads to the problem you yourself mention: the stay 'in the back too often'.

So more accurate is a bad suggestion with the fatigue system. Besides, the (current) strict formation is not very realistic anyway.

I have the feeling that a lot of speed and fatigue of AI is wasted in trying to keep perfect formation. Maybe allowing for a more rough formation will improve ai movement somewhat. As a bonus it might look more realistic.