Tanoa fog

[Eagle-Eye]

Hey guys,

 

Was just on EU2 where the fog was REALLY bad, with less than 150m visibility.

 

 

 

Though I wasn't a pilot myself, flying was scary as hell (NoE required all the way due to Prio AA side mission) and obviously, you couldn't see anything in AO on the ground either. From what I understood, someone who had played 4 hours before I joined, already had that amount of fog, so seemed like a fixed server setting.

 

While I don't want the fog to disappear completely, as it does change the dynamics of warfare quite a lot, can this amount of fog be limited to when there's an admin online, and have a more normal fog setting when they aren't?

 

 

Reason I'm asking:

- AI in general doesn't seem to be bothered by the fog as much, and especially so when Viper squads and a number of enemy vehicles have IR sights. As we don't have access to the ENVG or Viper helmets with IR capabilities, we are at a severe disadvantage unless we also take IR scopes with us. Don't suppose you want everyone walking around with Nightstalkers?

- I doubt it's realistic to have fog this dense for several hours in a row.

- When I joined, there were about 10 players. About 30 minutes later, there were 2, myself included. At one point, someone joined, asked "what is up with this fog?", and then disconnected.

 

 

So, would it be possible to increase visibility a bit? Thanks. 

[PERO]

Fog moves in due to island configuration. Last time I spoke to Bacon about it, he said all fog settings in Editor are turned off.

I'll have a look myself today.

Sent from my phone

[Pie]

for a pilot ILS comes into affect and Arma doesnt have ILS 

 

[Eagle-Eye]

2 hours ago, PERO said:

Fog moves in due to island configuration. Last time I spoke to Bacon about it, he said all fog settings in Editor are turned off.

I understand the principles of fog formation. Did some testing with in the editor, with and without Zeus, and this is the result for pilots.

 

At base, low level, on server:

 

 

At base, low level, with Zeus (100% fog, clear weather):

 

At base, low level, in Editor (100% fog, clean weather):

 

 

High altitude, on server (also note slight error in the side mission description. Should be Tanoa instead of Altis):

 

 

Medium altitude, with Zeus (100% fog, clear weather):

 

Medium altitude, with Zeus (100% fog, stormy weather):

 

High altitude, in Editor (10% fog, fair weather; IMO, this looks similar to what we had on the server):

 

Low altitude, in Editor (5% fog, fair weather):

 

 

 

Personally, after doing these quick and dirty tests, I prefer the Zeus fog, though I wouldn't mind to have it slightly thicker and extending higher, or a very low percentage Editor fog (10% max, 7-8% is probably the sweet spot for both ground and air ops), maybe in combination with low cloud layers.

 

[Radfahrer]

While I see where you´re pointing at, aren´t there conditions IRL where pilots just cannot fly due to insanely dangerous environmental conditions, like blizzards, storms, extreme fog, etc. etc. ?

 

Possible solution :

Organize transports convoy style, 2-3 HEMTT´s to transport troops with, add in the odd Hunter or IFV .

Y´know, driving like that could be fun too and is a definite change of the "usual procedure" of flying everywhere .

[Cebi]

I am that kind of fool that actually enjoys flying in fog this thick. For fixed wing aircraft landing I can place markers on a map in vehicle channel and then follow them to safely land on a runway by just looking on GPS and reading speed and altitude from HUD. You can prepare something similar for Helicopters to avoid hitting flood light poles and other tall objects.

 

My point is, that you can fly during midnight storm with fog thick as pea soup and still enjoy it if you adapt to those conditions (at least with basic flight model in ARMA 3). Work with a map and preparing your ingress and egress before you take off is the basic skill for pilot and pays off in adverse conditions.

[PERO]

On 27. 7. 2016 at 2:22 PM, PERO said:

Fog moves in due to island configuration. Last time I spoke to Bacon about it, he said all fog settings in Editor are turned off.

I'll have a look myself today.

Sent from my phone

 

I have checked the mission settings, the fog is not set to move in. I believe it randomly appears due to island configuration.

[Eagle-Eye]

7 hours ago, Radfahrer said:

While I see where you´re pointing at, aren´t there conditions IRL where pilots just cannot fly due to insanely dangerous environmental conditions, like blizzards, storms, extreme fog, etc. etc. ?

 

Possible solution :

Organize transports convoy style, 2-3 HEMTT´s to transport troops with, add in the odd Hunter or IFV .

Y´know, driving like that could be fun too and is a definite change of the "usual procedure" of flying everywhere .

 

IRL, yes, there are definitely a lot of limitations to flying, especially if you're forced to operate in VMC. As said, it's not that I want this kind of fog gone entirely, but I would personally reserve IMC for specially arranged events, e.g. Zeus-missions, or times when admins are around to listen to feedback and change it if it's (close to) game-breaking. Because that's how some felt it that day, not just the pilots but boots on ground as well.

 

For the EU1 and EU2 servers, I don't think convoy transports to AO's will work, since they would all be going towards the AO but not come back (unless destroyed). Then one guy dies at AO, respawns, takes a vehicle to drive to the AO alone, ... How long until there are absolutely no vehicles at base? One way to fix the vehicles not coming back, however, would be if Vortex would be allowed to take on the role of vehicle drivers, and shuttle to and from continuously?

 

However, that still leaves a problem in terms of time: if the AO is quite a distance away (NW and N islands come to mind), it will take forever to get from base to AO if you're limited to ground vehicles. Will people do the effort to wait for their taxi to return and bring them there, or disconnect because they spend more time waiting and getting to than operating in AO?

 

[Radfahrer]

Well, Eagle-Eye, I´ve been playing an awful lot of ArmA in several different communities and seen a few procedures .

 

Bier AIG (a german ArmA community that sadly doesnt exist anymore) had nice domination servers, with tons of people, where either BierAIG members or trusted members of the community were Admining (I´ve been standing on the base, for many a hour, checking the map for people doing shenaniganry, getting lost, answering questions, warning people, educating people, giving out tricks, etc. etc. etc. ) .

Sometimes when the Domination mission was all done, it had to get restarted. With that restart sometimes people proposed to leave the helis at home and do the mission in a convoy, which turned out to be extremely new, but still highly entertainable for some of the players that werent playing for as long as others .

The other benefit it had was that teamwork had to be near flawless : Comms via chat and TS were buzzing (in some instances we had 30 people on TS, forcing us all to subdivide into INF/LOGI/SUPPORTVECS channels that were reachable via Whispering keys), people started to really play their roles .

 

In the start we would go out from base with a few Trucks, HMMWV and our nerves really strung out from the ambient AI patrols .

After 3 or 4 Mainmissions the whole troop would have stolen lots of enemy vehicles to extremely bolster the offensive capacities of the whole convoy and thusly giving everyone something fresh to do .

 

Yes, it required tremendous amount of chatting/TS-ing back and forth to give people an idea of how it would work and at least 2-3 mainmission until everyone knew which vehicle he rode in, who his driver was, where his medics were and were the engineers were, but in the end people always were excited to play ArmA this way and enjoy an esprit-de-corps that was so much more tighter than when playing it in the regular fashion of getting flown to everywhere . 

For instance and for whatever it´s worth : I got to know Razgriz33 on these servers,  not to mention a horde of other players .

 

At least the convoy-styled approach could be tried, and if people really dont like it go back to doing it the old-fashioned way with permanent helitransports .

 

Sorry for the mentioning of a non-existant-anymore ArmA community, but it was one of the best experiences I personally had when playing and many things were tried out on their servers, to both total success and horrible failure .

The convoy was a huge success for most of the time when it got instigated .

 

For the waiting and hoping on transport : that can be quite easily mitigated, but not really wholly avoided : have 2 people designated to be Taxidrivers (preferably one of them being an engineer so he can fix broken machinery if some uppsie happens), give them manouverable vehicles and make them ferry the people that were too impatient to get revived by medics in the field back into the action .

Yea, that takes time again, but honestly ... we are talking about a computer game that is slower than most by nature, so people should really be a bit more chillaxed and less actionhungry, cause those that are sooooooooo eager to get into the action inside of 15 secs of spawning tend to die first anyway .

Besides... yes there might be some non actionfilled times in convoys, but those can easily be enjoyed and used to recuperate a bit before going back into the fray, couldn´t they ^^

 

Cheers, RaddyDaddy

[kman]

TBH I dont find the fog so much problem for a pilots (yes i flew in it too).

 

Its more annoying for the infantry - you are being shot by 100% invisible AI from the mist.

Its even worse than heavy foliage - where AI at least take some foliage into account.

[Eagle-Eye]

Last night, the fog was pretty bad, with a visibility of ±200m, but when I got on the server just now, it had the worst fog I've ever seen, at 10 - 12 AM (in-game time). The arsenal is just 25m away, and I can't even see the guy in there.

 

I think I saw at least 5 guys connect, and disconnect straight away in the 45 minutes I was on, so once again, I'd like to bring attention to the impact this could have on gameplay.

 

[Amentes]

I try to swing by #2 once a day to check the fog levels, but that's the best I can do on my part I'm afraid.

[Eagle-Eye]

In my opinion, for whatever it's worth, I think a more permanent solution than someone manually checking it every so often may be needed. I.e. active control over the weather (to some extent) instead of just letting the game decide what it should be.

 

Doing a quick Google search for "Tanoa Fog", I found several topics discussing how annoying the dense fog can be on Tanoa, so it's definitely something that needs to be looked into by BI, but until they do...

[zissou]

Yeah the fog issue is odd it seems to have a life of its own admins and Spartans can removed it but form what I can remember it comes back eventually. And when it returns it comes in thick and dense. 

Now I love fog and think it adds to the immersion but the amount of it is excessive so if it gets bad have someone restart the server. 

But if there's an admin on and there's appetite for certain conditions eg early morning fog and rain the admin might be kind enough to set it up. 

[Eagle-Eye]

On my days off work, I spend a few hours on the server as infantry, relatively alone (max 5 players). During that time, crystal clear weather and no indication that it will ever change. As soon as a pilot slot is taken, however, fog starts moving in slowly until about 30 minutes later, visibility is approximately 200m or less.

 

I know it's a long and very weird stretch (I don't see how the two can even be related in any way) but this has happened at least 3 times now, at varying in-game times... Seems a bit too much to still be just a coincidence. 

[S0zi0p4th]

1 hour ago, Eagle-Eye said:

On my days off work, I spend a few hours on the server as infantry, relatively alone (max 5 players). During that time, crystal clear weather and no indication that it will ever change. As soon as a pilot slot is taken, however, fog starts moving in slowly until about 30 minutes later, visibility is approximately 200m or less.

 

I know it's a long and very weird stretch (I don't see how the two can even be related in any way) but this has happened at least 3 times now, at varying in-game times... Seems a bit too much to still be just a coincidence. 

Ah you got us

 

We still looking in to this but beside manual labour currently there isnt anything we can do atm 

[Eagle-Eye]

Aha, I knew it! 

 

Just wanted to let you guys know what I noticed. Never know if it might lead to something.