I am having a real love hate relationship with OFP at the moment. I am in the heart of Bleeding Edge ready to make my assault on the depot and once again I have no ammo for my main weapon or the one I looted from a dead enemy. Down to my handgun and no supply boxes in sight.

Frankly, I don't like the idea of looting the dead for weapons and equipment. It also does not make sense to me in a military sim. I can dig it in Modern Warfare because of the nature of the game.

Anyway, as frustrated as I am with OFP, I can't seem to put it down as it has that old Ghost Recon feel to it. The immersion is top notch, yadda, yadda, yadda. Oh well, time to suck it up and "Reload Last Checkpoint" for what seems to be the the fracking... I lost count anyway.

--T

I feel it brother... same stuff i felt...finally had to go online and co-op just to get through to the next mission.

While I always ran out of ammo, I always had plenty from looted bodies that it was never much of an issue.

Worse come to worse, kill a friendly AI (not in your squad) and take their stuff.

The pistols are completely useless in this game thanks to the slow rate of fire and odd recoil animation when looking down the sights.

Ahahah! Talking about realism...
Wait, hold on a minute: do you imply that's the untold story behind friendly fire in real world?

I recall that mission running out of ammo, being under fire, and trying to take them out with my pistol. Gave me that hilarious feeling of shooting plastic bullets.

Intelligent use of my AI-squadmates took 'em out. Then I looted a body (worked fine) and continued clearing. And all of that in hardcore mode, but that said, there have been missions I had to retry at least 20 times as well.

Magnum:

Thanks for feeling my pain bro. Seriously, I want to do the multiplayer co-op, but I fear that my skills do not make me worthy. Maybe it's a result of my experience trying to play America's Army and realizing that most people play it like DOOM, or maybe I really do suck! Still, I may some day take the plunge.

BTW, I'm mainly a lone wolf gamer because of my time restrictions and committments. Will Arma2 give me a satisfying single-player experience ala OFP? I've been on the fence about getting it because I know multiplayer is where the true experience is.

Flogger:
Remind me not to be in the same combat environment as you, unless I'm a member of your squad of course.

Blackbird:
I've tried the "Intelligent use of the AI" thing and that adds to my frustration as well. Sometimes my boys are Sierra Hotel and other times I'm left thinking, "What the 'ell were you bloody thinking, bonehead?" I've tried looting bodies but most times I can't even find the darn corpses. I see the enemy drop, get to the spot and then ...WTF??? I guess they have that new state of the art camo I read about in Popular Science.

Still, I can't put the game down, sooo off I go for more punishment...

Talon, if you think OFP:DR single player is frustrating, you obviously haven't tried Arma 2 on that. My advice: don't Arma 2 is great, but its single player campaign is full of bugs. Compared to that, OFP:DR is a dream come true, even with its bugs.

Just try the co-op feature. I've done it myself without any online experience with these kind of games, and I like it. Of course, you always have those elitest-of-the-elite thinking people that only want to work with the best, and leave the group if things don't work out right at the start, but that's a minority.

Myself, I've completed quite some missions in co-op, because it was almost hopeless to complete alone.

I'm always interested to join you online. I live in Belgium, GMT+1. You have to register in-game, then add friends. My game nickname is theblackbird.

It's definitely an oddity, this sim, as the SP campaign seems to be optimised more for coop than it is for SP.

I am on mission 4 or 5, can't remember which, and I have not had an ammo crisis yet but have always assumed that when the AI calls out "body found, it's one of theirs", that's the cue to loot some ammo, as I'm sure that only a small proportion of dead Chinese remain on the map.

So far, I'm enjoying this. Something is missing, however, I'm just not sure what. I couldn't tolerate ArmA2's singleplayer campaign; regardless of the bugs, I couldn't stand the cut-scenes, scripting, bad voice-acting, clunky drama and above all the non-tactical nature of the thing, especially in an engine that can support tactical gameplay. I think, at the very least, OFP DR deserves a little more credit than it's been getting for its tactical mission design and gameplay.

Currently I'm stuck in a mission segment involving taking out a SAM site approachable up a hill with wooded cover on the flanks and some support from another AI fire team. I'm getting chewed up by the attack helo, or jammed between it and fairly large numbers of enemy infantry coming down the hill. It's frustrating but I think it's a tribute to the game that I feel these to be legitimate tactical problems with tactical solutions.

I gave up until they put out some patches that hopefully fix some of the issues. Haven't tried coop yet, but hope to once I get a place and can set my pc up lol

I think I know the mission you are on. I had some trouble with it previously until I started to apply some stealth. The main advice I have for you is to avoid the waypoints and go around the tiny village area. Stick to the wooded areas as much as possible. Track the helo, while on the move, and every time you hear a spot call, go prone - preferably in the woods or deep shrubs. Avoid the other built up area on the hill then flank to the far left, while keeping cover. Get in a good position and call in an arty strike to soften up the hill then hit hard to finish the job. Remember to keep your ROE to "hold fire" until you are ready to launch your attack.

That's how I managed the mission; good luck.

--T