That annoying "ooops... wrong order" bug is fixed in the upcoming release 3.2, I'm happy to say

Likewise, the Bots have had some love and attention over the last couple of months!

Add in the MG 42 and the Soviet IS-2 and the new release should be good.

Oh - and you should be getting some special attention on it from your own staffers here at SimHQ !

Cheers,

Very cool!

Been playing a bunch recently. It's a lot of fun, but sometimes I feel the respawning takes away from the realtistic gameplay. Do any servers run with permanent death ala America's Army? Is this possible with RO?

Also, has the team considered adding suppression effects as in America's Army? As it stands, bolt-action rifles seem to be a bit too effective, mainly because an auto weapon can be showering the rifleman's location while he calmly takes aim and kills them. Right now, putting down suppressive fire on the opfor might as well just through up a huge neon sign that says "Shoot Me Please!" Would be awesome to see real fire and maneuver taking place.

My first question, knowing that RO is spawned from a "bunny hop" Rambo FPS fantasy title...

Is it easily hacked? If I go online to try this, will there be dozens of snotty nosed punks using aimbots, speed hacks and other "in-boi" items to stack the odds against anyone who just wants a fair fight (er, as fair as warfare will allow, I mean)?

If I could be reasonably sure of the integrity of the online experience, I might be tempted to actually try this. The lack of a 'serious' military FPS with "real earth" physics and such has kept me from ever trying a title of this sort (and in the case of WWIIOL, who wants to be a soldier when you can fly a plane or drive a tank?)

AK davis wrote:
This is an interesting concept. Sounds to me like the crux of it is the same as in any sim: how do you simulate "fear of death" realistically so that everyone isn't overly aggressive or prone to take too many risks.

How would you simulate "suppression"? How does America's Army handle it?

I'm totally ignorant of anything in this genre, so that's why I ask.

America's Army handles it with a "combat effectiveness" meter. If you are in close proximity to enemy fire, you lose combat effectiveness, which basically means it's harder to shoot accurately.

I don't think a meter is necessary. Feedback can come through audio elements (sound of near misses, heavy breathing) and through reduction in ability to aim (swaying just as when fatigued, but perhaps add in a "jerking" effect when in iron sights). Short of another sniper, the most effective counter-sniper tactic is to lay on as much firepower to the suspected position as possible. Not even a super-human can aim accurately under that sort of suppressive fire, but any return fire should have some effect.

In a nutshell, am I correct to say that RO is currently a realistic FPS for multiplayer only ?

Further, am I correct to say that they are working on some bots (singleplayer) but that area still needs quite a bit of work ?

You can find the answers to your questions by clicking on this link

Ok - because we are based on the Unreal Engine, it can't be hacked easily. After two years, we've still not yet found anyone doing anything (in terms of cheating) than exploiting the odd hole in the terrain (and we close those off as soon as they are found!).

The aim all along has been to make this a combat sim... no bunny-hopping little rambo types

Actually, as an old sim hand (going all the way back to board game days) I actually find it helpful to have a few gung-ho kids online in a game with me - they make great assault troops (ie bullet-magnets and sniper-detectors) so that I can rip off a burst or 3 from the MG42 and THEN charge on to the objective (over the bodies of my dead comrades, if they insist on dying na rodina !

Try it out - borrow a copy of UT2004 first - but try it !

Well, if there's a retail version of RO, with bots for offline play, I'd buy it like a shot.
I'm not really a MP fan (but prefer open-ended MP-style play to scripted missions) and also have a 56K connection
so cannot realistically either download the current version of RO, or play it with a reasonable ping, so I'd definitely
pick up a copy if it isn't too expensive.

For anyone who plays RO, what are the maps generally like in terms of terrain openness? I'd imagine the UT2004 engine allows for reasonably realistic outdoor maps (some of the original maps with the game are pretty large).
And how many vehicles are there currently - are there support vehicles like halftracks and trucks, stationary AT guns
and artillery, etc. as well as tanks?

I would define the maps as semi-open. Most are urban. The rural maps have that "arena" feel to a degree and fog is pretty noticable. They don't really do tank vs. tank combat justice, but it's still fun.

Equipment wise there is:
-truck (ZiS?) for the Russians (not the best model in the game; should be replaced with the M3A1 scout, IMO)
-SdKfz 251 with MG42
-KV-1S
-T-34/85
-Pz IV F2
-Pz V Panther
-JS-II "soon"

There are also artillery strikes, but no on map artillery/guns (other than static objects to capture/destroy).