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jpinard

Veteran difficulty - Tips for playing without "TAG's" and "Extened Map Info"

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I'd like to get better immersion by upping my difficulty level to "Veteran", but wow is it hard! Without the map showing where I am and the identified enemies, I'm blind... and not having TAG information I'm constantly shooting friendlies.

So I was hoping some of you who have made the transition to Veteran can give us advice on how to be more effective.

Also - does the mission maker have to integrate something special for GPS to work? I made some test missions and when I bring up the GPS nothing functions.

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To use the GPS, you need to have the GPS item in your inventory.

this addWeapon "ItemGPS";

As for getting your bearings without map contacts, if you have the GPS you can RCtrl-M and see yourself on the mini-map. Short of that you'll need to rely on your Mk I Eyeballs for spatial location services. :)

Look around for landmarks, roads especially. The small boxes on the map are 100m square, so if you see that there's a T intersection 100m NE of you and you find that on the map, you'll be able to place yourself. It's difficult, but not impossible, to keep track of yourself on the map. For OA at least the map is smaller than it seems, meaning you might think you haven't traveled far but you might have.

For traveling long distances in a car use the GPS and leave yourself markers. At each intersection put a small black dot with R or L indicating which way to turn. Do this in the Vehicle Chat channel to avoid messing up the map for everyone else. That way as you're driving along you'll see the marks on your mini-map and be able to make the turns you need.

As for detecting the enemy. Just pay attention really. That part is still making me dead! I can never tell where fire is coming from and it's exhilarating! heh

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I seriously do not understand how people can friendly fire in incidents other than CQB. Learn the uniforms of your targets and how to identifty weapons they're carrying as well as what sounds they make and you'll never shoot another team mate again.

As for map location and what not, if you've played for long enough you should eventually be able to tell your location just from your surroundings alone. Otherwise just use basic map reading skills and use your compass and GPS (if you're issued with one) to identify your location. Time can be telled by the location of the sun in the sky which you can also use to tell your heading.

GPS only gives you your current map grid co-ordinates, but this is more than enough for you to figure out where you are and if you need to, double click on the map to add icons showing where you are and where you need to go to.

My best suggestion would be to just use the editor, plonk yourself down on the map and then try to get from A-B.

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I should clraify this is just single player. I'm not shooting humans in mp.

As for detecting the enemy. Just pay attention really. That part is still making me dead! I can never tell where fire is coming from and it's exhilarating! heh

See that's the killer (bad pun) for me too. Using the map with extended map info feels like cheating, but without it engaging people at distance is really hard. I'm so bad right now my AI team-mates have killed everything before I can identify someone as civilian, enemy or friendly... or I'm dead and so are my mates so I can't tell anyways.

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One method i've always found to be useful when i can't determine where enemy fire is coming from is to quickly look at your team-mates as they return fire and face the same direction as them, then it's just a matter of waiting for movement or muzzleflash.

I'd also agree with the other suggestions - Landmarks are very helpful when you've got no GPS and a compass is always handy, especialy when advancing through forests at night.

Only other thing i can think of is just keep paying attention to your surroundings. It'll get to a point where you'll be running through a town and without looking at a map or GPS you'd know whether it's Chernagorsk, Novy Sobor or Khelm - They might all look the same when you first start playing, but eventually you'll recognise more and more of the island and should be able to navigate a bit easier without relying on maps.

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Observe closely, as if you were thrown into South American jungles with no supplies for 3 weeks and told to survive, because a rescue chopper will be there in 21 days.

Zoom in on the areas you think might be hazardous to your health, use the ALT to look around, while zooming in - there would be no Arma without the ALT key.

If you don't have a 5(7).1 sound system, play with your headphones, you don't want to be found deaf fighting in any wars.

The forth thing: memorize the landscape, the landmarks, open the Map religiously to see if you're looking at things you think you're looking at. Being thrown into combat without intel or the knowledge of the landscape - now there is hell.

I could list countless things, but I'd rather you watch my O4 Jackal playthrough on YouTube (link is in my signature).

Once you've mastered infantry combat awareness, there's always the aircraft & riding bikes down a hill somewhere in South-East Chernarus. :confused::D

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Please go through Dslyecxi's ArmA2 Tactics, Techniques, & Procedures Guide, it will help you a lot on how to be observant and take note of the happenings around you.

Things I do when playing on vet mode:

1. Stop to observe if you are lost. If people is shooting at you then go prone and observe the 180 arc infront for any muzzle flash.

2. If you have AI team mates, observe and listen to what/where they say/facing, in OA alot easier when they tells you the clock direction in relative with the group's direction.

3. KNOW where you are heading to... familiarize your self to where you are suppose to head... since mission you undertake is normally the highest in your to do list. It's ok to miss a few enemy along the way...

4. Know how to read your map and landmarks and also the grid location.

5. Know the difference of uniforms by colors or distinctive features like helmets, also if can know how to differentiate the type of sound different guns produces.

6. If you are totally lost or need to act in a desperate situation, cheat abit by pressing space bar to see whether it's friend or foe... Still works in Vet mode :)

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WOW! You this is all brilliant information. I thought maybe I was making things too difficult for myself, but if I take my time the game will be even more rewarding.

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Two handy tools to ID and locate enemy that I use are

1. If you see a man or vehicle in the distance use your Binos, scope, gun sights or if in vehicle (digital view display), place the unknown dead centre and use your REVEAL TARGET Button (defualt is right mouse), I do however suggest you change this as when you are in a vech right clicking also gives the target order, thus you end up ordering your gunner to fire at what u are trying to ID. Not good if its friendly, I have mine set to T as its default is swap teams something I never use. Mind sometimes you may need to press the button a few times and more likley than not the target will be classed as unknown however it does make your ai aware of the targets presence and they will try to ID it themselves as friendly or not, also even if you dont get a audio or text prompt that the target has been noted by you, check your target list (2) and the object will be at 12 oclock,this leads me to the most important battlefield target and fire control in the game.

2. The target list, default(2) is a life saver. When one of your AI or yourself spot a possible target they will be listed here. The fist number if there is one is which AI you control that has spotted the target and a brief description followed by a clock bearing. This bearing is always in referance to your exact facing at that moment, so if a enemy is called at 3 oclock it is 90 degs to your right. This helps because you can hit 2 to read a contacts location hit 1 (no target) turn, hit 2 repeat until the target is 12 oclock then it is a matter of scaning your current view for the object, be mindful that you may not have direct LOS from your current position if a AI has called it and that this information is of the last actual sighting (the object may have moved from where it was seen).

While the target list is up you can select any AI with their Fkey then press the number of the target to have them fire at it, If that AI has been given the Engage at Will order previously or if after giving them a target you order them to Engage from the 3 menu they will attempt to move to a clear shot of the target. When in a vehicle you do not need to select that vehicle's AI as any enemy selected on the list will be targeted by the vehicle's weapons. Thus it is handy to check yor target list often when in engagements for any threats eg rifleman AT, so you can deal with them by just selecting them on the list.

Edited by Tempai

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Accept that your not the hero (bad habit from FPS games) and think as in real life, try to survive instead of win. I had the same problems when I started to play OFP. The first missions, when I manage to survive to the end, I was glad if I had 1 or 2 kills. After some time you learned to distinuish between friend and foe.

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as in real life, try to survive instead of win.

+1 :yay:

When I'm lost, confused, under fire from an unknown direction or any similar scenario, I get my butt to the nearest bit of cover and try to figure out where the heck I am, if I have any support nearby and where the bad guys are. Being cautious and stealthy go a long way in keeping you alive.

All the previous tips are great, you'll stop teamkilling once you get some time under your belt and learn to recognize uni's and weapon sounds.

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In 4th IB we'd go out pretty regularly and do "field craft" style practices. Spawn or paradrop blindfolded a team scattered into some place you had no idea except the vaguest idea (4km box or so) with a map and a compass. The job was to look around at your surroundings, take compass shots to peaks and other features, and figure out where you were to the 100x100m grid. Then everyone would navigate from their grid to a central meeting place and from there navigate as a group to a final area.

Lots of fun and really teaches you to use reliable methods and good map reading skills. Often times the group navigation was harder than the individual because of group reasoning. None of us are as dumb as all of us!

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All very good info. The problem I have is finding shooters during the day (no muzzle flash) because the gun smoke is so slight I can barely see it. Most of the time I have to concentrate really hard to catch a wisp of smoke. This isn't a complaint or issue, just an observation and to be honest it adds to the tension of the moment. :)

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Don't get hung up on the FPS nature of the game, play as though your life really were at risk. Look at everything that might be a hazard. Don't move too fast, but also don't become immobile. Patience wins almost every fight.

Think: survival over all else - even over the mission. If you fail a mission but survive, that's good. How you fail a mission can be as entertaining as how you complete a mission. No plan survives contact with the enemy.

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The reason I love playing warfare (especially the brilliant Benny's editions) is that if you are careless and charge into a engagment and die you can look forward to a long travel time back to the front lines, so by default you learn to be cautious with your gameplay. I myself find it more rewarding to simply still being alive after a engagement than raking up x number of frags, more often than not I may not even fire a shot in anger as im to busy ordering AI and hidding behind the largest rock I can find :).

A couple of hints i've learned from 10 years of BIS games is the following.

USE POINT MEN- in the movement menu 1 key you can tell AI to Advance when in formation, each consecutive order of this nature will move the AI forward by more, Thus you can put a point man 100 metres or more from your main group while moving to contact (sacrifical lamb). You can use this and the Flank left and right comands to place a screen of early warnings around your main group. Fire support vehicles work well on the Fallback command as if they are a few hundred meters behind you and your point man in front, then enemy are usualy known about before they can use AT on your vehicle.

PUT AI PRONE- If in Contact order your AI Prone through the 7key menu, They will be more acurate (seeing a machine gunner stand up and fire wildly is just a waste of suppressive fire and his life), They will also be harder for the enemy to hit. The Keep Low command will place AI back into their defualt Mode were they are free to choose stance. I will often place my Fire Support team eg MG's on elevated ground on Prone and move a Assult team into a town getting them draw out enemy. Note that AT weapons will not fire from Prone and if there are low walls your ai line of fire will be blocked, you will learn when to do fire and movement and when to eat dirt.

USE SCOUTS- If planning to assault a Town or location, hold position away from it. Send a scout on Stealth and Hold Fire to a position in cover near the objective. Give them move orders of a few metres at a time or from cover to cover eg trees until they start calling enemies, tell them to halt they should start to reveal more enemys from that position. Now when you assult your whole force will have the drop on the bad guys and you will also blindly bump into nasty armour less often. If you are brave you can perform this scouting yourself with some binos and simply use the Reveal Target button on enemys you spot until you have logged them all, call your boys over the hill and yell GET SOME.

Edited by Tempai

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Sorry for such a huge text... but I couldn't stop))) :p

Don't get hung up on the FPS nature of the game, play as though your life really were at risk. Look at everything that might be a hazard. Don't move too fast, but also don't become immobile. Patience wins almost every fight.

Completely agree! I wanted to say that if we take any mission where you have problems with "being shot from nowhere" or other awareness problems and imagine that you are enlisted in real regular army, you are at service, you are at combat situation... Then you will say and know, that no combat mission is started without thorough intel, planning and high-command directives. In other words "PLAN as though your life and your squad lives really were at risk".

In real life there's more situational awareness and background knowledge of location, troops involved etc.

Before every mission everyone in squad at least know each others faces. They see and study maps. Their commanders make briefing, or even more than one. Every piece of intel is analyzed, all risks estimated. Every decision is taken with all the responsibility of the commander and HQ. Commanders count on good order handling so everything works, they plan to avoid unnecessary casualties, arrange extractions, support and always bear in mind that retreat for saving soldier's life is always more effective than victory at all costs. Every commander is responsible for lives of his subordinates and whatever at stake, he will always remember this.

So if my squad plans some operation, I always try to supply a map, a core intel and mission highlight beforehand, usually a week to get acquainted with briefing. The situational awareness during battle always depends on the leader, commander. Soldier is carrying his rifle, he is in constant battle pressure, psychologically and physically, he is acting on reflexes but still tries to follow basic guidelines. But he has no time to be aware of the full picture, full situation, every detail and at the same moment analyze everything to get more effective. It's not his duty and beyond his abilities most of the time. Commander is the person who's not about running and shooting. His main task is to organize and control every aspect of the battle. Right at the moment the commander starts engaging enemies, shooting etc. - he looses control and all his squad goes free roaming. In this case it's not a squad, but a pack of independent armed men. That's why I am usually lying at some observation position with binoculars and always envy my teammates in action. It's my duty as a leader and commander. Sometimes of course we switch roles etc. but most of time I'm in command and guys trust me.

So besides your own in-place situational awareness, overall success and effectiveness depends on good planning and your commander's decisions and ability to see the battlefield strategically.

And usually when you play some random mission, all the preparations and planning is skipped. You only read some briefing (if you read at all), which is usually more of a mere plot of the story, than a good analytical combat briefing. You quickly look at the highlighted map positions and ... GO... You don't spend much time at the mission map to plan everything (as RL commander will do), that will take a lot of time. So hence the biggest part of the problem with vet mode.

In easier difficulty with "cheating" markers etc. this planning-commanding-gap is compensated and you have more background info at your disposal. That's just to save time of a user who only wants instant action.

But if you go at maximum arma2 hardcore, as a fanatic)))) You go in all the deepest... Like I try to do)))) And in my squad every mission is unique, every participant will not forget it as a simple fun shootie-fraggy. And they WILL moan when I go through long half an hour briefings in Teamspeak)))) But in the end they enjoy the battle to the last bit and are thankful for such preparation.

And more to the point of good commanding. My squad is not that big, 8-12 men. I always tell them that you guyz are not ARMY, not a platoon of Rambos. You are 8 soldiers, probably outnumbered by enemy, and we go as planned on briefing, BUT if anything goes off the plan, any casualty taken, anything goes wrong - the only maneuver you shall perform is the RETREAT. No Rambo s*it! Happen we're in real combat, there's no respawn! You'' respawn in heaven or wherever you believe... But you won't be part of squad anymore. You're dead!

I consider mission successful not when the objective is reached, but when everyone in my squad stayed alive. No more joy and satisfaction in debrief when no one died. We then regroup, replan, consider all the mistakes, analyze what caused going off the plan, rearm, reload and strike again...

But when one of eight soldiers stays alive, completes the objective or whatever the end task was... It's Pyrrhic victory...

Well, I will tell lies if I say we always have that hardcore planning))) Of course some circumstances can force us into quick mission. Sometimes wo doo shootie-shootie CS-style with infinite resp, just to relax. But our main goal is to plan as deep as possible.

Edited by zvukoper

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And more to the point of good commanding. My squad is not that big, 8-12 men. I always tell them that you guyz are not ARMY, not a platoon of Rambos. You are 8 soldiers, probably outnumbered by enemy, and we go as planned on briefing, BUT if anything goes off the plan, any casualty taken, anything goes wrong - the only maneuver you shall perform is the RETREAT. No Rambo s*it! Happen we're in real combat, there's no respawn! You'' respawn in heaven or wherever you believe... But you won't be part of squad anymore. You're dead!

I consider mission successful not when the objective is reached, but when everyone in my squad stayed alive. No more joy and satisfaction in debrief when no one died. We then regroup, replan, consider all the mistakes, analyze what caused going off the plan, rearm, reload and strike again...

But when one of eight soldiers stays alive, completes the objective or whatever the end task was... It's Pyrrhic victory...

Well, I will tell lies if I say we always have that hardcore planning))) Of course some circumstances can force us into quick mission. Sometimes wo doo shootie-shootie CS-style with infinite resp, just to relax. But our main goal is to plan as deep as possible.

When I make my own missions, I like to make a squad of about 8-12 guys, but what I also do is randomise within that. So I make a nice mixture of types, and give each soldier a 50-75% chance of existing. This means that I always get a slightly different number and mix of squads each time I play, and that means that I need to act slightly differently each time :) So sometimes I might get a squad with a couple of AT guys in it, but other times I get a squad with no AT guys in it for example. Just that one mix difference can drastically change how you approach a mission.

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After playing for awhile, you will be able to tell the difference in sound from AK fire and Blufor fire by the weapons used (or vice versa if you play as Takistan/Russian). In trying to determine where enemy fire is coming from, listen for the shot (which you will hear AFTER the bullet crack or the sound the bullet makes when it hits the ground around you, not BEFORE, due to the speed of sound being modeled into the game). The sound of the shot will be much softer than the bullet crack or impact, but you will train your ears to listen for it.

To do this, it helps if you have a good headset. After awhile, within a shot or two you can tell generally where enemy fire is coming from.

Of course, the best idea is to see the enemy before he sees you. Use binocs.

If you are playing SP, you should have a good idea where your objectives are and which way you will be traveling before you start the mission, so unless you are ambushed or hit by random patrols, you will know where the enemy is likely to be.

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What is problematic and unrealistic for me in SP-Veteran level is that AI, if fired upon, can detect you almost immediately, turn towards you and return fire with surprising accuracy (even if you are 100 meters away). I would normally expect that if someone is fired upon (even if not hit) will go prone and start looking for the direction of the fire which would normally take some time to locate the shooter (due to shock, fear, disorientation etc).

For this reason, I have found a balance in playing at Veteran setting but with Enemy AI brought down to 75%.

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