Republic of Folk

Today 14 comrades showed up for our funtimes.


We got to play a bunch of new stuff

• Dont Knock I
• Die Rebel Die
• Paintball With Bullets (Backstab Edition)
• The 3Way Pyrgos

Afterparty :

• Internecine
• Jolly Blue

As always, questions and comments are very welcome below, both comments about the sessions, and stories from them!

If you haven't already signed up for our forums or joined our Folk ARPS steam group now would be a swell time to do so.

I played the first two missions and had a good time fighting alongside the good people of Folk ARPS (especially on the first go at Don't Knock - Exploding Pickup Edition), but as before in Arma 3 I've had the following problem: I simply can't make out the enemy beyond 200m. I'm not sure whether there's some trick with the setup or some special zoom that wasn't available in Arma 2, but half the time I simply don't see the enemy at the distance where we engaged them - to the point where I often feel a bit useless to those fighting alongside me. Is this a problem anyone else finds they have? Is there a solution? Or are all of you rocking a PC with a snazzy 50-inch display at 4K resolutions?

Comrade Thirith, I'm in the same boat as you. In my younger days, in Takistan, I could spot a TK regular from across a valley and plink him with my trusty AK. However, it's not the same on Altis. I struggle to spot distant targets with the 'naked' eye, and the distance at which sharpshooting is effective has come down appreciably. Which I think is fine.

Quite a few of the mechanics in Arma 3 are about slowing the pace. In Arma 2 we could jog up a mounting, insta-spot some TK troops in the next valley and lay down punishing fire before making a pot of tea. Now, in Arma 3, we're really rewarded for managing stamina, using observation positions, and taking time to use the binos and rangefinders. When it comes to actually dropping the enemy, we're rewarded for closing with the enemy, or coordinating larger volleys.

In other words, I think it's useful to try and park your Arma 2 experience and take a fresh look at your personal and element-level tactics for Arma 3. My experience has been that once you adapt, Arma 3 has challenges and pleasures all of its own. Hope that helps!

Good points, fer, and thanks for making them. I'll definitely have to put in some more single-player time to get used to the changes too. It's happened to me in a few missions now, though, that my comrades opened fire on the enemy and I felt that rather than aiming I was left to fire at the place where their tracers landed - which made me wonder whether it is a setup issue to some extent, because it seems that others find it easier to spot the enemy at these distances.

Some of it is probably due to me being less used to the colour scheme of Altis and Stratis (and the kind of opposition we face there) than to that of Takistan, Chernarus etc., and that's something I should be able to remedy with practice. At least I've learnt by now how to use different scopes on the same gun!

fer wrote:Comrade Thirith, I'm in the same boat as you. In my younger days, in Takistan, I could spot a TK regular from across a valley and plink him with my trusty AK. However, it's not the same on Altis. I struggle to spot distant targets with the 'naked' eye, and the distance at which sharpshooting is effective has come down appreciably. Which I think is fine.

Quite a few of the mechanics in Arma 3 are about slowing the pace. In Arma 2 we could jog up a mounting, insta-spot some TK troops in the next valley and lay down punishing fire before making a pot of tea. Now, in Arma 3, we're really rewarded for managing stamina, using observation positions, and taking time to use the binos and rangefinders. When it comes to actually dropping the enemy, we're rewarded for closing with the enemy, or coordinating larger volleys.

In other words, I think it's useful to try and park your Arma 2 experience and take a fresh look at your personal and element-level tactics for Arma 3. My experience has been that once you adapt, Arma 3 has challenges and pleasures all of its own. Hope that helps!

Excellent post Fer.

You forgot to add that I am Most Handsome Comrade in all of Socialist Agrarian Utopia. Do not attempt to leave the country, a car is being sent for you. The kind of car with back doors that can't be opened from the inside.

Black box recording of The Incident

Thirith : Spotting has never been my strong suit, and I've found it rather difficult in a3. One thing i did that seems to improve things is turning the gamma a bit up. Basically, start some midday sunny arma stuff and crank the gamma up to the point right before the lights seem unnatural.
I might just be imagining things but i feel that such an adjustment helped a lot for me.

@audiox: Thanks for the tip! Will definitely try this. I'm not the best Arma player as it is, but yesterday I felt at times that I might as well have been an embedded journalist for all the good I did. Anything I can do to help me with spotting is much appreciated.

By the way, while I didn't survive all that long, I definitely enjoyed Don't Knock (and can't wait for Don't Knock XXV!), with its fairly slow beginning, initial long-range engagement, the WTF?! moment of Alpha 1 finding Heisenberg's tank and us then moving in for more close-quarter combat.

FWIW, I find zoom, really any amount of zoom, makes things A LOT easier. It could be the increased poly count, so the extra detail helps, but zoom anyway. So, my advice would be to wait until your enemy leadership bites it and nab the binos. Or, you know, sign up to lead and let the meatshields do the scouting. Also, re:gamma, I find myself sometimes wearing NVGs even in mid-to-low light conditions, depends on the exact situation. Giving up some FOV and colour recognition for a bit of extra contrast can be a good tradeoff. You just have to be careful with NVGs, since they make it tuff to tell friend from foe, what with everyone being green and all.
Speaking of which...

@lietuvis, what about The Other Incident