General Discussion (dev branch)

[Bobylein 1]

Oh great, I didn't know that.

Why is this release so utterly disappointing. Thank god there are mods out there.

I wanted to play the firing drills, and can't because of a barrier encountered during a cutscene 10 seconds in. Want to play UAV showcase, can't because of the darter idiotic behaviour, the UGVs bugged waypoints, and the inexplicable necessity of having a precise key assigned to a precise function for multiple waypoints to work. Went on to Tanks showcase, and the player jitters like hell on the starting chopper ride; I pop in the tank, and I'm greeted with OFP style forward! leftforward! rightforward! rightrightleftforward! stop! The battle starts and 10 seconds in my crew (not me, just me crew) gets ordered out the tank for no reason (we weren't hit once). Retry, and my gunner decides that the best direction to point the main gun is the rear.

Was QA ever involved?

Oh, and the game freezes my PC every twenty minutes.

Yay!

You are right there are still many bugs which shouldn't be there but

1. Dynamic lights without shadows aren't a bug but supposed to be like that. (and they are like that in many other games too, because of perfomance issues)

2. I still see no problem with that forward right left chat orders in tanks from the commander position, in multiplayer it is really handy if you don't have a voice communication set up.

3. That the gunner is aiming at the soldier behind the tank is your fault, as long as you sit in the commander position it is your duty to call the targets (use T), the gunner can not see targets outside of his view himself :rolleyes:

4. What idiotic behavior of the darter do you mean? for me it works like a charm as long as you don't forget to disable auto hover (which might be a real bug)

Edited September 18, 2013 by Bobylein

[smokedog3para 365]

I went to test today's dev update for performance and its still not good at first I thought it had improved as the distance textures didn't take that long to generate compared to the last build were it would take 10 secs to render the far distance 10k view so i was in sp and went for a fly and drive which felt smotth at first but within 10 mins was getting 20 fps from 60 with no ai or mods running just does not seem to be getting to what I had a month ago in performance.

I tried lowering my VD and OVD to 2k and on the options panel and the fps counter went back up to 60 fps but as soon as I went back to the game my fraps showed it dropped to 20 fps again so it does not really matter what I have set at the moment it does not effect the fps for me

here's a few screens for work that's needing doing

error on texture path http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/901008172711458060/8E54128BE1743BEDDFB8DE491691A56A1F3E53BA/

ai driving skills still ai need to pass there driving tests http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/901008172711469219/7F5E961619BD7272E2C40A50014CC68A267A4A15/

textures for the apc and non working mirrors http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/901008172711464689/F5F4CBA624B5D0D6016B39D6027AC06369FF845E/

offroad armed version rough texture http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=177442418

[neokika 62]

ai driving skills still ai need to pass there driving tests http://cloud-2.steampowered.com/ugc/901008172711469219/7F5E961619BD7272E2C40A50014CC68A267A4A15/

Please note that AI driving skill have remained the same (Improvements are being worked on).

What was fixed was the inability for the AI to "know" they are stuck, for example, in a rock, tree or building, they should now detect such event and act accordingly.

The collision detection is being improved as we speak, Klamacz is improving how the ray casting from vehicles is done.

[gliptal 25]

Don't get me wrong on this.

I know the game. I've been following it since Alpha's first day, and thus I know that when things work, the game ends up being really good. And until the last weeks of Beta, things did work: we didn't have much to do (at least BIS content wise), but what we did have worked well. Glitches and erratic behaviour were the exceptions to find, point out and get fixed. Mods came out that immensely enhanced gameplay: I followed quite closely the forums, so I've come to know of Tao's, tpw's, WW's and many others great work.

Then this release, full of content that was never really tested (or was tested only in the last few days of beta). Suddenly we have a lot more to do, but at the same time most of these new things are utterly unplayable. Whether because of broken gameplay, glitches, bugs or whatever, you can't play (or will have a really hard time doing so) with most of the new toys BIS gave us.

Granted, me and most of the users here know the game and can overcome some of these issues with the help of some experience and mods, but think of a new customer or a reviewer. They get out of the box vanilla ArmA III.

They see all these showcases, these firing drills, and decide to try the first one of the latter: no go, a barrier blocks the player during the cutscene. So they try UAV's, and find out the darter erratic and unpredictable behaviour, the UGV's pathfinding, the binding issues, the UGV camera controls, the difficulty of hitting things and using the laser. They try Tanks, and are greeted by a jittering player, terrible old style radio commands, awful gunner and commander AI.

They decide to take a scroll on the islands: no civilians around? No animals? No ambient life?

They put up a firefight with the editor and test a few things: why is AI so terrible in CQB (remember the release doesn't have the latest CQB AI fixes)? Can't I suppress enemies? Won't they bleed to death? Why did I just get killed because my player stopped on his tracks because I wanted to change my weapon? Why do enemies simply shrug uff hits like nothing until they die? Why is the action menu so messed up? Why is giving orders to friendly AI so clunky?

These are all aspects that can be easily fixed with some great mods. But reviewers must try vanilla games, and new users won't have the time or the will to meddle in the forums and search between all the existing mods to find the right ones.

The worse part is that these things do not come up while meddling in the editor or doing strange things. They come up 10 to 120 seconds after showcases start: showcases should be polished, bug free, no glitches showcases. If I want to try things and search for bugs I should be heading for the editor.

You are right there are still many bugs which shouldn't be there but

1. Dynamic lights without shadows aren't a bug but supposed to be like that. (and they are like that in many other games too, because of perfomance issues)

Ok, I can get over this. But think this: the UGVs lights are on to show ArmA III lighting, since there is no other reason for a stealth mission group to lit up the area like that. I strolled in the lights curious to see the shadows effects, and get nothing.

I can understand, but wil everyone understand?

2. I still see no problem with that forward right left chat orders in tanks from the commander position, in multiplayer it is really handy if you don't have a voice communication set up.

So this is about personal preference, I can understand that.

3. That the gunner is aiming at the soldier behind the tank is your fault, as long as you sit in the commander position it is your duty to call the targets (use T), the gunner can not see targets outside of his view himself :rolleyes:

Yes, this is normally true. But in Tanks showcase, it looks like that unless you continously give orders to your gunner, the main commander has some sort of priority over you and will start giving orders to your crew.

4. What idiotic behavior of the darter do you mean? for me it works like a charm as long as you don't forget to disable auto hover (which might be a real bug)

Altitude: high. Mode: loiter. The Darter will start banking randomly until it flips, stabilize itself, and the bank again. All of this half a clikc from the desired waypoint.

Yay!

Edited September 18, 2013 by Gliptal

[danil-ch 165]

Hi, Danil-ch have you any repro steps for your problem with clouds?

Mission settings

Edited March 16, 2015 by Danil-ch

[OMAC 254]

I also think those tweaks to Night showcase are great, and it's good to see that BIS is willing to revise the showcases after "full" release. Some suggestions:

Infantry showcase:

Charlie squad (spotters) should be placed so that they are not visible by enemy and player during battle for village. It is ridiculous that they lie there in full view of everyone, are not engaged by enemy, and do not shoot at enemy when you are in a fight for your life capturing that village. It would be MUCH better if they were a sniper team anyway. They should move to current overwatch position from some more hidden position when the town has been secured and the mortar starts firing. It would be helpful if they could radio in some more intel about enemy movement when you get close to village (like how many enemy are left, directions of their movement, etc.) Player can get get quite pissed at them for not helping out during taking of village. I have even lain next to them, "swearing" at them to fire, dammit, fire, just before being nailed myself by hardcore opfor ninjas! ;)

Hapless Bravo team holed up in house should have a medic to heal you (or at least some spare healing packs in a backpack or on the floor), have some grenades for your grenade launcher, and should also start firing at enemy when player gets to within 100m of house. Or are they supposed to be completely out of ammo and medpacks? It looks silly that they just sit there silently not doing anything when you are in such a desperate situation.

It appears as if there is a waypoint in the valley about 200 m east of village to which second squad of opfor move after other opfor have come over the ridgeline from north. The ofpor, usually the last alive in the village, move there and stay there, even if player has reached village and is firing at them from village. It can be a pain to spot them down in the valley. They should return to village and attempt to hunt you down once you have reached village. I would make the valley WP of search and destroy type, but with a switch trigger releasing the opfor from it when you have reached village, activating another opfor search and destroy WP in village.

General note: The Showcase uses heavy FSM scripting and is so complicated that it is extremely difficult to learn from and use as a template for making new missions. The scripting seems overly complex for a rather simple mission. Why not include a very simple mission template that would show users how to make briefings and other simple mission elements?

Combined Arms showcase:

Blackfoot chopper should not fly straight over base like an idiot or kamikaze, but engage the base from ~0.7 - 1 km out with cannon and rockets. As it is now, he gets wasted about 85-90% of the time because of poor tactics. He could then swing around and come from another direction, again engaging safely from range, but during movement between firing locations a trigger could be added to give him random damage if desired.

Marshall should not always move to same overlook point SW of base. It gets wasted by AT about 90+% of the time from there. He should move along road and then on hillsides, saturating base with fire from terrain cover, at least until base is clear of AT soldiers. If a human player controlled that Marshall, he/she could waste the base if they were smart. Now, the AI Marshall crew appears like idiots, somewhat like the Blackfoot pilot.

After base is secured, reinforcing opfor come from east to assault captured base. The opfor APC can come right next to base but doesn't always engage even though NATO troops are in base. The APC often sits there waiting to be easily nailed by NATO AT rocket. That is not a big issue, and it makes mission a little easier, but it is not realistic.

Armed Assault showcase is excellent so far, but I'm getting annoying onscreen scripting errors every time, when I am assaulting the roadblock. If I see the errors again today, I'll post them.

Hope this helps....:)

[CJoke 11]

dev branch strange messing up with civilian clothes and burning fireplaces.

if ai or player walk near a fireplace they die or get wounded arms and legs, it depends on the clothes they wear.

reproduce:

go to editor

place a independent (rifleman) as player

place a blufor (rifleman) add to init: this addUniform "U_C_Poloshirt_tricolour";

place a civilian (civilian)

all three next to each other

place a burning fireplace 2-3 meters front of them (Empty->Tents->Fireplace (burning))

click preview

the civillian will die, the bluefor will have wounded arms and legs, the indep-player with combat/uniform will have no damage

there is something wrong with the civillian clothes and/or fireplaces, this happen since yesterday->exe rev. 110133

pic

Edited September 18, 2013 by CJoke

[St. Jimmy 272]

@Gliptal

You should probably talk about those things somewhere else because this topic is about dev branch. What comes to that darter loiter behavior, don't use loiter if you want to laze things. Loiter is awful even with greyhawks.

[gliptal 25]

@Gliptal

You should probably talk about those things somewhere else because this topic is about dev branch. What comes to that darter loiter behavior, don't use loiter if you want to laze things. Loiter is awful even with greyhawks.

Why not on the Dev branch? I pointed out bugs.

I won't use loiter, but I still can't understand why I shloudn't use a function that is in the game.

Yay!

[Gekkibi 11]

Should be fixed with todays patch. More is to come obviously.

Nope, still there (since beta).

This time I decided to create an actual ticket...

[jumpinghubert 48]

nice performance gain with today´s branch and no stutter anymore on altis with jet :)

bench results: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?151794-ArmA3Mark-Benchmark-your-ArmA-3&p=2508720&viewfull=1#post2508720

[gvse 10]

yeah, ive noticed a performance boost with this branch too!

I only play single player, editor made missions. Now in mid-sized towns (Therisa and Charkia) with around 40 AI (some patrolling (cba fnc), some engaging enemy, some reinforcing their team [search and destroy waypoint]) i get smoother experience with 30-40 fps and with the lowest dips down to about 25. Overall, it feels quite smooth now.

[2nd ranger 282]

Oh my god, two seconds in the Tanks showcase and yet another blatant glitch: flying as passenger on the Hummingbird means having a continously stuttering player model.

This is probably because the chopper flight is recorded using BIS_fnc_unitCapture/play. Playing a pre-recorded path can result in jerkiness or violent stuttering, but usually only in MP. I can't say I noticed it happening when I played the Tanks Showcase, but then I haven't played that mission since release day.

[antoineflemming 14]

dev branch strange messing up with civilian clothes and burning fireplaces.

if ai or player walk near a fireplace they die or get wounded arms and legs, it depends on the clothes they wear.

reproduce:

go to editor

place a independent (rifleman) as player

place a blufor (rifleman) add to init: this addUniform "U_C_Poloshirt_tricolour";

place a civilian (civilian)

all three next to each other

place a burning fireplace 2-3 meters front of them (Empty->Tents->Fireplace (burning))

click preview

the civillian will die, the bluefor will have wounded arms and legs, the indep-player with combat/uniform will have no damage

there is something wrong with the civillian clothes and/or fireplaces, this happen since yesterday->exe rev. 110133

pic

They are being burned by the fire, and most likely, their clothes are less resistant to fire than soldiers with combat uniforms. Maybe.

[nodunit 397]

The fire...it hungers...haunted...it hungers for the souls of human. Snakes that can open doors, animals that do not startle from the presence of man, fire that devours the human spirit like a banshee...my friends, there is something wrong with these lands, if the creatures that inhabit it fear not man, what do they fear?

The kindling fire is no ordinary fire..think about it..all of those wrecks and derelict dwellings, the scattered remants of skulls and skeletons.

Something horrible happened and we have arrived in its wake and now the spirits seek their revenge against the living!

Dare not look upon the cursed flames of the damned and forskaen, dare not stand among their presence, nay, it would be wise to flee with haste and never look back lest you too find yourselves among the lost.

Edited September 18, 2013 by NodUnit

[Smurf 12]

May be related to yesterday's patch?

Civilians are more prone to be killed by anything

[Gekkibi 11]

The fire...it hungers...haunted...it hungers for the souls of human. Snakes that can open doors, animals that don't care, fire that devours the human spirit like a banshee...my friends, there is something wrong with Altis...

That fire is no ordinary fire..think about it..all of those wrecks, the spirits seek their revenge against the living!

Dare not look upon the cursed flames of the damned and forskaen, dare not stand within the presence of the lost, nay, it would be wise to flee with haste and never look back.

Mark my word, the sunken city mentioned in the loading screens must be R'lyeh... There's no other explanation for this sorcery!

[horrorview 10]

I noticed a lot of civilians "chimping" (walking around hunched over with stupid expressions on their faces and arms held close to their chests like the Easter Bunny) and crawling around today. I guess it's a bad day to live on Altis.

[murmur 10]

I don't know if this has been pointed out before, but the support soldiers that carry the mortar tubes (Gunner [Mk8]) for the Opfor and Independent sides are set to have backpacks that don't exist. They are set to have "O_Mortar_01_weapon_F" and "I_Mortar_01_weapon_F" respectively, which are not in the config file. The Blufor side works properly as it has an entry for "B_Mortar_01_weapon_F".

[Victim9l3 11]

I'm getting some really weird things happening. I created a mission where opfor land on the beach and Greenfor is waiting for them with static mk30's about 300 meters inland. The beach is sloped downward toward the water and their is a small ridge about 20 meters inland. So, no opfor can be seen by anyone on the other side of that ridge and opfor can't see greenfor. The greenfor static mg's are on a small ridge that's about 4 feet high (300 yards inland). So none of the static can see opfor until the start to come inland. Behind the statics there is a huge dip in the terrain. I have apc's in that dip behind the statics. The apc's can't see anything and no one can see them. They have to move up onto the ridge to see and be seen.

Here's the issues:

First, once Opfor got out of boats they started saying there are enemy tanks (even though no one can see them).

Second , greenfor starts shooting before they see enemies. But they somehow know that enemies are there.

Third, this is a HUGE HUGE problem. Once the opfor made it to the ridge and can now see green, the opfor leaders give orders to target statics behind themselves, back in the ocean. Most of the units In a squad and almost every squad, turn around and run back to the ocean in combat stances aiming at nothing. After about a minute of them leapfrogging back to the beach, they turn around and move toward greenfor enemies. I team switched to the subordinates in the opfor groups and they all had red target boxes pointed at and on the beach and some in the water.

It's insane, I can't play it now.

And on a side note, maybe someone can verify this, but AI won't take off from most airports. They drive their jet past the runway and into houses or forests. I tried about 5 airports and only 2 of those let AI take off. The main airport works and I think the aaf one works to but the smaller ones don't all work. I don't remember which off the top of my head.

@murmer - I noticed something like that yesterday and maybe it is the same problem. THe support soldiers that are gunners don't have gunner backpacks, they have folded tripod backpacks. So the gunner and assistant gunner have the same backpack and no one is carrying the guns. Until they fix it you can put something like this in the init of the gunner: this addbackpack "O_HMG_01_weapon_F";

That code gives the opfor gunner the right backpack. If you go to the "empty/backpacks" in the editor you can find the backpack then look at the top right corner and it will have the name/code for the pack you want.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Victim9l3

[themaster303 22]

left shift while aming in optic mode, gives a strange view, that wasn´t there before.

i use left shift to hold breath, in last dev-version that never happen.

please devs switch it back like it was before, this view is absolutly not usable !!

video:

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=14674

[Electricleash 133]

Tweaked: Showcase Night boat driver now has a beanie hat

In my play test just now the driver appears to be wearing an AAF 'Boonie Hat' and not a 'Beanie hat', though I can see where some confusion might have occurred (I would personally prefer to see the latter). ;)

The removeBackpack command appears to be broken today, just in-case anyone stumbles upon it; For myself, it appears in the form of an MTP 'Bag' with nothing in it, dropped at the units feet. According to Karel on the Feedback Tracker it is acknowledged and being worked on.

[smokedog3para 365]

Please note that AI driving skill have remained the same (Improvements are being worked on).

What was fixed was the inability for the AI to "know" they are stuck, for example, in a rock, tree or building, they should now detect such event and act accordingly.

The collision detection is being improved as we speak, Klamacz is improving how the ray casting from vehicles is done.

No worries I sat and watched the driver he did manage to remove himself from the barrier but then just started doing weird turns once free rather than just drive down the road again.

how much of a performance increase did you get on your side for the texture fix on the building you mentioned, if you could find out be cool the scene renders for me much quicker but does not equate to any fps gain still stuttering for me driving flying and turning ,also the new 3d scopes seem to be not halving my fps anymore when used cheers smokedog

[instagoat 133]

Is it just me or are the sound filters very rough? The gun blast from the tanks sounds gets really crackly and electronically distorted by static at distance, and pretty much all distant sounds do not sound like distance muddles them, but radio static. The guns and explosions are weird. I am trying to make a sound recording, anybody got an idea what kind of program I can use to make an example?

[kuIoodporny 45]

Record video best, Fraps or Bandicam is good choice I think.