My land warfare dilemma

Toonces · April 14, 2013, 10:02:45 PM

I spent a good portion of today playing with the mission builder in DCS Combined Arms and Planned Assault for ARMA2.

It is very interesting how the two games play differently. DCS is easier to get into, and browsing the AI is really fun during a mission. However, ARMA2 definitely gives a more visceral feel of combat, and has more fidelity IMO. I feel like I'm better engaged in the ground war in ARMA2. Yet, DCS feels more 3D with a far more fluid air war to complement the ground war. I need to experiment more with the ARMA2 air AI to get a better feel of the differences.

Toonces · April 15, 2013, 12:02:30 AM

I hate to start a new thread for a simple question, so hopefully somebody will read it in here.

In ARMA2, how do I command a 3-man TOW team, of which I am the commander, to deploy and engage with their TOW missiles?

It seems -2 is carrying the tripod and -3 is carrying the weapon, but I can't figure out how to get them to deploy it. Telling them to engage with the weapons still cased on their backs isn't working.

Toonces · April 21, 2013, 03:31:10 AM

At this point I'm essentially talking to myself probably, but just in case....

I'm continuing to really enjoy ARMA 2, especially now that I'm starting to get the hang of the UI. The AI in it does leave some room for improvement, though. I'm still not positive that it's exactly what I'm looking for. Combining it with Planned Assault has been allowing me to create some really quick, fun gameplay, but I don't know that I'm really playing up to "sim" standards.

At any rate, I'm now strongly considering going ahead with getting my Steel Beasts patched up and starting to give that a serious study. It's going to take a bit of an investment in money and time, as my version is prior to the 2.5 upgrade.

I was looking for some ARMA 3 videos tonight and came across this Steel Beasts video that got me very fired up to get back into Steel Beasts. Frankly, this is the kind of gameplay I've been looking for. Really meaty, consuming action with a lot of interesting decisions to be made. I have a really fun Planned Assault mission like this in ARMA 2, but it is a much smaller scale. I set it up with some TOW teams and a few Bradleys vs a Russian Motorized Infantry battalion with some an attached T-72 platoon and it starts out with a pretty vigorous artillery barrage on the BLUFOR area.

Anyway, here's the video. It is easily the best Steel Beasts video I've seen, and very much worth taking the time to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvC9TyTpOEk

MikeGER · April 21, 2013, 03:55:40 AM

Toonces, can you tell a bit more about DCS Combined Arms, please.
I am on the fence about getting it, (could be handy when the Huey get released too)
I am not so interested in its first-person tank-duel combat sim aspect, but more controlling the AirLand Battle war (drifting over into Full-spectrum dominance.... with recon and sensors?) from the map as a commander in the HQ-tent, maybe jump in as JTAC once a while, or get on a plane too...
How is the AI vs AI, while i am not at the map interacting ....and i've read in a forum (cant find the link atm) LOS is handled kind of strange, esp in woods?

MikeGER · April 23, 2013, 09:50:49 AM

-bump -
DCS CA anybody ? got experiences with it as a "(pauseable real time) strategy game"
(where u can jump into FP to help your progress in the war ...as pilot or as a JTAC, but don't necessarily have to...)

Toonces · April 23, 2013, 11:30:32 PM

Hey Mike,
I haven't spent a TON of time with CA, so take this with some grain of salt.

My impression of CA is that it has potential, but it's not really fully fleshed out just yet. I've only played it in single player skirmish mode where I use the included mission builder templates to create a fast mission with one side on offense and one side on defense. The builder will plop a template on there with objectives for the ground vehicles, and an assortment of ground vehicles based on the size and difficulty of the template you selected. For example, if you select easy difficulty the enemy might have T-55s and if you select hard you'll get T-80s and T-90s. The mission builder is very powerful and I'm just scratching the surface here. It works like the quick skirmishes in Total War, sort of.

In order for ground vehicles to be controllable, the mission builder has to check the box to allow a "ground commander" for the side. So if you go into MP and the mission doesn't have that flagged you won't be able to control GVs.

So far I've found the GV AI to be fairly brain dead. You have many options for setting formations and engagement criteria, and against another person in ground commander mode you could have a nice wargame skirmish. However, in SP I haven't found that the AI is very smart with changing formations, coordinating attacks, etc. It seems to just motor on towards the objective and engage as set in the builder. If you go into to 3D mode, you can clean house in an M1A1 or T-80 fairly easily. I haven't figured out how to control AI team mates in 3D yet.

From what I understand, JTAC only works with human players; you can't JTAC an AI jet onto a target.

Overall I see a ton of potential for CA and I'm enthusiastic to get into it more simply because there is so much you could do with it if you're creative and choose to take the time to learn the mission builder and build things. As the air side gets more and more fleshed out, things could get very interesting. With 50 players on each side this would be the only sim you'd ever need to play again.

MikeGER · April 24, 2013, 02:17:07 AM

Toonces, thanks for the insight :)
i will watch/browse the DCS forums further how the enhancement of the upcoming DCS patch will give more flesh to the Airl-Land war-sim.
there are improvement to scripting, and new triggers announced. and vehicles will go back on planed task (autopilot-key) when the user jumps back from FP into the command role... also a better control of directing your air assets as a GC (more options to set for them at a waypoints)

looks like the CA single player user has to make a more detailed battle plan, with lots of waypoint-tasks defined for the OPFOR, he wants to fight later, when designing a mission to compensate for an overall coordinating OPFOR AI.

knowin me;) ...there will be some impulsive buy in the near future :)

Grim.Reaper · April 24, 2013, 05:05:35 AM

Quote from: Toonces on April 21, 2013, 03:31:10 AM
At this point I'm essentially talking to myself probably, but just in case....

I'm continuing to really enjoy ARMA 2, especially now that I'm starting to get the hang of the UI. The AI in it does leave some room for improvement, though. I'm still not positive that it's exactly what I'm looking for. Combining it with Planned Assault has been allowing me to create some really quick, fun gameplay, but I don't know that I'm really playing up to "sim" standards.

At any rate, I'm now strongly considering going ahead with getting my Steel Beasts patched up and starting to give that a serious study. It's going to take a bit of an investment in money and time, as my version is prior to the 2.5 upgrade.

I was looking for some ARMA 3 videos tonight and came across this Steel Beasts video that got me very fired up to get back into Steel Beasts. Frankly, this is the kind of gameplay I've been looking for. Really meaty, consuming action with a lot of interesting decisions to be made. I have a really fun Planned Assault mission like this in ARMA 2, but it is a much smaller scale. I set it up with some TOW teams and a few Bradleys vs a Russian Motorized Infantry battalion with some an attached T-72 platoon and it starts out with a pretty vigorous artillery barrage on the BLUFOR area.

Anyway, here's the video. It is easily the best Steel Beasts video I've seen, and very much worth taking the time to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvC9TyTpOEk

Steel beast video looked great....really wish they didn't use that crazy dongle protection and so expensive....otherwise I would likely have pulled the trigger by now. Although I could swallow the price, just not sure how good I would be at this game to justify it.

Toonces · April 25, 2013, 12:38:08 AM

Grim-
Right now Steel Beasts is on sale for $75. Still a lot of money, but that's about 1/3+ off of the usual $125.

There's a big update due out this summer. I think that the big update will not be free, but I don't know what the price point is yet. I just bought the 2.6 update the other day for $25 which brings my investment in this sim to $150 so far.

Yes, it's a lot of money. However, if you're into this sort of thing, it really is reasonable if you're going to play it. If it's going to sit on your HD unused...well, you know what I mean.

Nefaro · April 25, 2013, 02:25:58 AM

Quote from: Toonces on April 25, 2013, 12:38:08 AM
Grim-
Right now Steel Beasts is on sale for $75. Still a lot of money, but that's about 1/3+ off of the usual $125.

There's a big update due out this summer. I think that the big update will not be free, but I don't know what the price point is yet. I just bought the 2.6 update the other day for $25 which brings my investment in this sim to $150 so far.

Yes, it's a lot of money. However, if you're into this sort of thing, it really is reasonable if you're going to play it. If it's going to sit on your HD unused...well, you know what I mean.

Ho-ry Crap! And a DRM dongle?!

Insanity!

Toonces · April 25, 2013, 02:42:10 AM

This is going to go off-topic pretty quick, but since it's my thread I guess that's ok.

In my opinion, the price of simulations in general has been a complete steal for decades. I'm writing something up now and it brought me back to my first flight sim purchase for the Atari 800, SubLogic's Flight Simulator, in about 1983 or so, which I bought for $50. I still remember the price because I bought it with my own money and that is a LOT of money for a 12 year old.

Now then, I've been browsing the DCS forum on SimHQ lately and I see people absolutely bitching about the price of DCS Huey, or the fact that in order to fly back seat in the T-2 both users will have to own a copy of DCS: T-2. Insane. I bought DCS: A-10 for $5 on Steam, and DCS: World with the Su-25 is FREE, yet folks are griping about the buy-in to the DCS series when a) you can play it for free with a pretty cool jet, online and multiplayer and have lots of fun, and b) the price of buy-in for the modules is less than my little cessna simulator from 1983.

We have completely lost sight of price/value here.

Steel Beasts is expensive, no doubt. But consider that you're getting a simulation that is essentially military grade. This is real-deal stuff. I have a $1500 dollar computer, $300 in controllers, a $500 monitor, and a $1000 cockpit, and I'm suddenly going to nickle and dime on the games I play?

No way.

Just think about it for a bit.

Nefaro · April 25, 2013, 03:00:23 AM

My only complaint with DCS right now is the DRM, although it seems to be more lenient than other online activation-based ones.

The creators can charge whatever they want for Steel Beast Pro. I don't think they're gonna garner many extra retail sales of it at their current pricepoint, especially with that DRM dongle you gotta plug in to play. Simply because there is more than enough gaming to be had for far less. If I was running out of titles to play, and became desperate for something new, then perhaps I'd be tempted. Even then, however, the annoying DRM would rule it out for me. But there are more games out there, and even just sims specifically, than most of us have time for so why should I bother with a high-priced sim with an overly annoying & insulting DRM scheme? I place value on not having such hassles, too.

Grim.Reaper · April 25, 2013, 04:02:06 AM

Quote from: Toonces on April 25, 2013, 12:38:08 AM
Grim-
Right now Steel Beasts is on sale for $75. Still a lot of money, but that's about 1/3+ off of the usual $125.

There's a big update due out this summer. I think that the big update will not be free, but I don't know what the price point is yet. I just bought the 2.6 update the other day for $25 which brings my investment in this sim to $150 so far.

Yes, it's a lot of money. However, if you're into this sort of thing, it really is reasonable if you're going to play it. If it's going to sit on your HD unused...well, you know what I mean.

I think I can get over the price since I have bought games that cost more than $75 before, assuming I feel I would actually enjoy it and it wouldn't be too hardcore for me. But I am not a big fan of a hardware device being needed to play the game itself, seems a bit extreme. Sure you could say that other devices are needed for games such as controllers and maybe you can justify it by it being a symbol of having to have a cd in the drive to play the game, but it does cut into my habit of impulse buying and playing right away. What I do find strange if I understand correctly, when you buy the game it is actually a download and then you have to wait until the device is delivered to actually play. If you want a cd you seem to have to pay extra. If I have to wait until something is delivered, why is the game a download and not delivered by default on cd? You can get a cd, but cost extra.