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I saw the video from my initial post and wanted to check Arma 2 game out so i could check this Invasion mod for ideas for Command and control for RO2 to suggest. I had never heard of ARMA 2.

I too thought the video must have been staged with a clan. But have been spending all morning in Arma 2 Arrowhead boot camp and just completed the team command and control. All i can say is where the hell has this game been! This is the way it is done in the real Army!!! in fact this game could be use for training purposes in the real army, It has realistic Maps with real grid coordinate system, mission orders at the beginning of the game rather than the cattle herd launching at the beginning of the game as we do RO2 without any initial plan, and the command and control is unbelievable, with every command you would need in real units - formation commands, everything!!! Granted, alot of commands and keys to learn to control the unit, but a little practice and i can see how you can easily operate as the units in the original video i posted on this thread.

All i could think about this morning is why didn't TWI use the Arma game engine to do RO2? My God it is all there in one package, but it is not the Russian Front and WWII that we want. And this is Arma2, Arma 3 is coming out soon so just imagine how much better it will be!!! If there just was a WWII, Russian Front version we would have EXACTLY what we want for realistic play!!!!!

Not only that, there is a mission editor easy to use to create your own missions. Unlimited potential!!!! So you can keep the game realistic by constantly varying the missions and not end up playing a map over and over and then learning the map to exploit it rather than learning proper military techniques!

I have to say having spent 20years in the infantry, that Arma 2 has nailed it on how real military units operate. So yea, i can see it has a high learning curve, real army units train to operate as a unit. But those seeking realism, these are the game features we need in RO2. You definitely will not see any COD run and gun types in this game. And you want to see a realistic wounding and medic play, FANTASTIC! Check it out.

I would strongly urge TWI to take a look at the command and control features in Arma and see if they can upgrade their game accordingly!! I tell you what if someone had done a WWII version of Arma 2, let alone Arma 3 i would immediately stop anything i was doing to buy it!

Yes i love ARMA2 a lot; one of the best games i have played in years when it comes to uniqueness.

It takes practice as the sheer number of keys may be overwhelming at first, but it is well worth it.

while you can go pubbing, and the community is generally friendly and helpful, i hightly recommend getting into a clan/unit; a microphone is a MUST for either option however.

The mission editor is very powerful too. I have created mission with dozens of random factors including the number of enemy units, their location, the types of units etc. This keeps the same mission playing out dozens of different ways.

i made a mission once where you're driving in a convoy headed towards a city, where you are raid a large warehouse and confiscate illegal weapons. I placed many random elements. The first 2 times our convoy made it to the city where we raided the building. the 3rd time however, our informant who was a takistani militant, decided to betray us and led us into an ambush.

An IED destroyed the lead vehicle and all occupants and we were in caught in a crossfire from insurgent small arms fire. we were about 1km from our objective, and our team leader had to decide if we were going to proceed with the objective, or set up a casualty collection point and request a casevac. Anyway it was a s*** load of fun.

The possibilities are endless.

One clan member made a purely vehicle centric map. where there were 3 elements of fully human staffed M1 Abram tanks numbering about 12, tasked to destroy a regiment of T72 tanks and overrun and airfield. On our side we also had a squadron of 4 cobra helicopters that would escort the tanks. All the vehicles and helis were fully occupied by humans.

I was a pilot and my irl friend was the gunner. We also had a UAV designating targets. it was sooo much fun and extremely immersive.

i recommend you pick up trackir if you done already have it too

I still play arma2/oa to this day
 
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You have no idea those that didn't play ARMA. It makes me laugh then someone says Red Orchestra is simulator. RO1 and 2 are tactical FPS with more or less realism. ARMA 2 is a simulator. Its like playing Microsoft flight simulator but on foot. Flying and driving is simple because its combat simulator, not tank or plane. The "game" evolved from Virtual battle space 2 simulator.
It takes all keyboard to control and there are different key combinations because of lack of keys and some functions arent binded by default.
You look where you wanna look, shoot where you wanna shoot move where you want to move. Ballistics are realistic. There are no little maps. Every mission can be done in any part of the huge map. There are tons of mods. Everything can be made in this game. AI arent human smart. But they choose what to do. You can script them ofcourse. But they are better by them selfes.
Engine capabilities are limited only by hardware.
Arma 2 Huge Battle Over 1500 AI!!! - YouTube

It's public server suck like all games. I joined a clan and there was no staged gameplay (jeez guys). Admin downloads someones scenario. We choose roles and leaders. We get 10 minutes of brefing on random mission according to task and stuff. We use tons of mods. I've been playing BIS sims for 10 years and I love them.
My favorite server evening tactical gameplay
ARMA 2 - ShackTac - ACRE Firefight - YouTube


You dont want to use this engine in RO2. The sim is so demanding if you want its potential.

Some overview of developer made map Chernarus:
225 km2 of real world data
1 million 3D objects
350 kilometers of roads
50 towns and villages
2 dams and numerous small lakes and ponds
Certain hilltops reach an altitude of over 700m
Almost 100km2 of forests
Urban areas contain ports, factories
Military installations including large airfield
Direction and distance signs accompanying road network
Civilian population and wildlife

There also Takistan for Operation Arrowhead stanalone expansion.
Area: 164 km2
Deserts, mountains and other stuff...

This game is literally unlimited.
 
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Night Operation

Night Operation

I am learning ARMA 2 and Arrowhead to be ready for Iron Front to come out.

Last night i played a little night raid. My God it was so realistic. The environment, the mission orders, the night vision, the helo insertion, the command and control, the combat, the extraction.

All i could think of how great it will be to have this kind of simulation for the Russian Front. I will definitely buy Iron Front when it comes out!, although am a little concerned that for a game to be coming out soon, there is little to no discussion on their forum site.

I do have a question on Arma 2 engine. Can you create new terrain sand boxes? What is needed to do that?
 
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As has been said earlier there is a big difference between a simulator and a realism shooter. The simulator is without a doubt the more realistic of the two, but it is also very demanding of the player. I personally prefer an entertaining relatively fastpaced fps that I can enter or leave when I please, and that has as much realism as possibly without inflicting on the gameplay that is enabling it. RO1 and now RO2 pretty much lives up to this.

ARMA2 sounds nice and all, but seriously, 10 mins briefing? And I can only imagine with the travel time and the waiting until the order to to attack and the slowly crawling along etc it is a very timeconsuming game, and even more so if you are in a clan with training and other obligations. It must be very rewarding finishing a good round, but it seems to me that RO and ARMA mostly caters to different crowds (with some overlaps of course as there always is).
 
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Balance

Balance

There in is the issue, what is right balance of realism, and every person has their own desire.

I think RO2 folks made great effort at balance and i still enjoy the hell out of the game. And like you say, you can jump in and out. I think, however, as i stated earlier that they might learns some features from Arma to upgrade their game, especially the command and control. I like in Arma how each soldier in the squad is given a number and can be given commands easily. I love some of the advanced movement commands like maneuver left flank, etc.. I like the wound and treatment system. I like the mission orders, but for RO2 they would need to be more simple and would only need a short minute before start of game rather than 10 minutes. I look forward to the mods coming out, more tanks and more maps. And i will continue to play.

But i am definitely going to also check out and play Arma 2 Invasion Mod now and Iron Front when it comes out.

But like the gentleman above who plays Arma extensively and as i have just recently discovered, if you really want realism, Arma is it.
 
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ARMA2 sounds nice and all, but seriously, 10 mins briefing? And I can only imagine with the travel time and the waiting until the order to to attack and the slowly crawling along etc it is a very timeconsuming game, and even more so if you are in a clan with training and other obligations. It must be very rewarding finishing a good round, but it seems to me that RO and ARMA mostly caters to different crowds (with some overlaps of course as there always is).

Where do you get the 10 minute briefings from?

It can be time consuming, but there aren't many times where you "sit and wait" or slowly crawl.
 
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One of the big diffs that lead to forcing people into some sort of team play are those lush huge open maps.. You simply cant run off on your own on this type of map.. RO2s infantry maps are just to linear and doom 3 like at the moment.. Is this an engine limitation?
You might think it is, but you have large maps in any other Unreal 3 engine game so I wonder why there is a lack of large maps in RO2.
Would be peculiar if TWI changed the UE3 engine into something that cannot cope with large maps well enough.
 
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Where do you get the 10 minute briefings from?

It can be time consuming, but there aren't many times where you "sit and wait" or slowly crawl.

http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showpost.php?p=958726&postcount=44

It's public server suck like all games. I joined a clan and there was no staged gameplay (jeez guys). Admin downloads someones scenario. We choose roles and leaders. We get 10 minutes of brefing on random mission according to task and stuff. We use tons of mods.

A post which incidentally also features a video of a guy half running half crawling for 7 minutes through the battlefield without visual contact with a single enemy all that time, although there is a terrific battle going on all around him.
 
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Pace of Game

Pace of Game

I know from my little experience with ARMA 2 this past weekend, you can create any scenario you want. One that involves having to move for a while to find the enemy or going directly into a fire fight in a relative short time.

I think the point they were making is the flexibility with the ARMA 2 map editor, you can go from small fire fights to large unit engagements involving 700 plus entities. The potential is enormous!

I am not a level designer, but after a few hours on the game and in just a couple of minutes with the game editor, i was able to put a small squad scenario together involving taking a guard post. I cannot do that in RO, COD. That to me has great appeal and potential.

The engagment involving the large numbers was impressive to me because i could just see building such a scenario for Kursk and some of the other large tank engagements on the Russian Front. And in such a large tank engagement that he showed in that video, if you were an infnatryman dismounted, you to would be keeping a low profile. Sometimes on the Russian front infantry found themselves out in the open in the middle of large tank battles, the fate of who won the battle rested their own fate as well.


Like i said before i enjoy RO2 and will keep playing it. But man, am really looking forward to Iron Front also and will load up Invasion 44.
 
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So one person's anecdote is good enough for you to judge the game?

There are "reenactment/realism" groups who try to push the limits and developing a plan of action before you start the mission is always a good idea.

But 10 minute briefings are not the norm in ARMA. Plenty of servers allow you to jump in and play.

You wouldn't characterize RO2 as a slow paced tactical game if a small community only played countdown using realistic tactics and weaponry and spent the first two minutes in spawn discussing the way to take the objective, would you?
 
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