ultra realistic mode

[diveplane]

But do modern helicopters and jetfighters not usually have some form of sophisticated HUD? As opposed to the unrelistic HUD elements for lets say an infantry rifleman that the game allows ? Removing HUDs from modern fighter aircrafts would be a step back in realism, not forward... if the purpose is to make the game as true to life as possible.

hud being the unrealistic one on top of the screen showing enemy positions.

[bhaz]

I definately agree that elements of the HUD and game should be removable to create some sort of... hardcore mode. But I wouldn't want it all the time, perhaps a per server option? I guess it'd needa be like the grass in multiplayer, if the server has it enabled, so does everyone else.

[Frederf]

As mentioned elsewhere, rather than an unsighted crosshair I'd like to see an interim ironsight position where your weapon is raised but you haven't yet placed your eye to the scope/sights. This would offer much better CQB usability for weapons with medium/high-power optics and/or dual sight arrangements. One suggestion was a quick tap and release to toggle ironsights or hold down (1 second+) to go to full aiming through the sights.

I believe that was me or I have made a similar suggestion as someone else that you've read.

Rifle states are currently low ready, high ready, and sighted. The inclusion of a shouldered and semi-sighted site (or changing of the existing states) might be helpful.

The sighted mode, even with 2xNum_- (FOV max toggle) is really hard to use for CQB because your eyepoint is bolted to the weapon sights, the weapon sights bobble, and thus your eyepoint bobbles. I believe ArmA2 has gone a long way to correcting that by having your eyepoint pretty steady and having the sights move with respect to your eye. That's my memory from watching videos.

[galzohar]

Unless you have your weapon down (like, while running or while manually hitting the "lower weapon" button), it's always in the "shouldered and ready to fire" position and you're just not looking through the sights.

The problem with unsighted shooting crosshair is that it forces the accuracy to be determined by pure conefire, and we all know random conefire is bad for realism (if I didn't move my rifle, while should my 2nd round be totally off in comparison to the 1st?). IRL even if you didn't hit because of lack of training, you can adjust based on where the bullets hit. In a game with conefire and a crosshair this is not possible. In a game with no crosshair it's still (after a bit of practice) pretty easy to hit someone at 25m, maybe not first shot (which btw is realistic for 25m unsighted), but hitting will be possible. Then the only way this system can break is by drawing a dot in the center of the screen, but you can force a bit of freeaim to prevent that from being effective.

All in all, making realistic unsighted shooting with no crosshair can give much better results than any crosshair system if done properly.

[Osmo]

I definately agree that elements of the HUD and game should be removable to create some sort of... hardcore mode. But I wouldn't want it all the time, perhaps a per server option? I guess it'd needa be like the grass in multiplayer, if the server has it enabled, so does everyone else.

I agree. I'd love to see "realism" mode which could be switched on by server (and forced on to all players) which removes HUD etc. Some things should still stay to keep it reasonable. For example, it's important to be able to see how many magazines you have left, and in real life you can just look down to where the magazines are stored and check it, but in ArmA you can't do that so it's good to be able to see it as text on the screen.

[Frederf]

Unless you have your weapon down (like, while running or while manually hitting the "lower weapon" button), it's always in the "shouldered and ready to fire" position and you're just not looking through the sights.

Yeah that's called "high ready" the problem is, at least in ArmA1, it was really far from your vision such that usually only the muzzle tip poked in the corner of your screen and firing by generally looking along the length of the weapon was no where near as effective as it would be with the rifle in my hands.

The problem with unsighted shooting crosshair is that it forces the accuracy to be determined by pure conefire

This is not true. There is no "cone fire" for an M16 in ArmA. It always tracks where the muzzle is pointed even if it is on your back. You might not be able to tell without crosshair but the bullet always flies where the weapon is pointed.

[galzohar]

Neither IRL nor in game are you supposed to fire "along the length of the barrel" (unless you're firing in point blank). You're supposed to just know that when you hold your weapon in a certain way it'll point in a certain direction. IRL this is achieved by practicing a lot, and same can be done in game. At short range I can hit people fine with no crosshairs (highest difficulty). I'd just love it if conefire would've been removed and possibly other methods introduced to reduce accuracy of shooting without sights, so that if I see I hit left of my target I know it's because I need to adjust right, and not because the game rolled a certain number.

I don't see how you can say the weapon always fires when it's pointed when you have a converging crosshair. There would be no reason for a converging crosshair if there was no conefire when firing unaimed.

[Frederf]

You seem to be ignoring the direct statement that there is no "cone fire" in weapon aiming apart from the natural dispersion of the weapon itself. There is no "converging crosshair" The little bars ][ on the sides show how fatigued you are from running. The little ' mark between the bars ]'[ always shows your muzzle direction. You can even see it jump when you fire as the muzzle climbs briefly.

Also the crosshair ambiguities and the muzzle tracking ambiguities are two separate issues. The crosshair could take on any shape or visible appearance that you please; this does not change the fact that the muzzle is always tracked by the game engine. There is no "rolling of the dice" apart from natural weapon dispersion.

To clarify what I mean by "natural weapon dispersion" I mean if you screw the rifle to a big hunk of concrete and pull the trigger several times the barrel is perfectly stationary but the bullets will not all fly the exact same path due to atmospheric effects, small changes in bullet shape, etc.

As for being able to shoot without any crosshair accurately... what floating zone do you use? For me the weapon is barely on the screen and since I operate with some floating zone (hey this isn't CS:S), it's usually impossible to have any idea where the weapon is pointed except for somewhere in the middle 50% of my screen in the X and Y directions.

[GoOB]

As far as I know, there are no hit indicators on real tanks....

And as far as I know, ARMA2's tanks aren't real either - I heartily agree with stripping alot of GUI features out (no floating waypoints in first person view, no crosshairs, no "health meters" and no magic radars for all vehicles with weapons mounted). But for tanks, and to certain extent two man aircrafts the radar screen and the damage indicators simulates something that can't be represented very well IG, atleast not in singleplayer anyway. The radar in a tank for instance may very well be seen as the information the commander of the tank is feeding to the gunner, the same for a two seat helicopter like the Cobra, the radar represents information that the gunner is feeding to the pilot. That said, for multiplayer these radar screens are redundant, in MP you can have another player feed you that info from the gunners seat.

As for damage indicators in tanks et cetera they serve to simulate the fact that sitting inside a tank, or indeed, a soft skinned vehicle you will be rather well aware of when you need to bail, sure, you might not know the damper fluid is leaking from that last RPG/.50 cal salvo or that your fender is bent.... But at the end of the day, we can't simulate all the cues to vehicle failure/explosion/destruction that we would receive in real life - Take the GUI with a grain of salt, and indeed, see it as something that replaces smoke that makes you unable to breathe as a way to know when to get the hell out of dodge.

For all this text.... I very well see how nice it would be to remove radar-fields and whatnot for multiplayer use, but for singleplayer they do have a purpose, to simulate a flow of information that we in MP could get from our teammates. I remember playing with Cobras that lacked radar screens in good ole OFP for instance, good fun, and a good challenge.

[Frederf]

I disagree about "IR radar" in single player. AI spot targets just as well without "IR radar" and can be ordered to target them as quickly if not more so than a human gunner would.