Morning Discussion

Yesterday, I pulled the trigger on a mini-vacation I'm taking in January. On the 22nd, Jimmy Pardo and the rest of the team at Never Not Funny are recording an episode of their fantastic podcast live at the Congress Theater. With airfare and hotel for two as well as a pair of tickets to the show, the damage wasn't as massive as I expected.

Since Mr. Pardo isn't likely to journey to Toronto--where I'm located--I thought the live show at the huge theater in Chicago would be a great opportunity to watch the magic unfold. And brother, believe me... it'll be magic.

Now all I need to do is pick out a nice slack and a hard shoe to wear to the event.

Xav de Matos was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
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    December 2, 2010 5:01 AM

    So, how about that epic ArmA2: Operation Arrowhead session last night?

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      December 2, 2010 5:06 AM

      [deleted]

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      December 2, 2010 5:13 AM

      [deleted]

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        December 2, 2010 5:49 AM

        There are a few things to learn at first if you've been playing fps. But it's easy to pick up.

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        December 2, 2010 11:10 AM

        Just come to one of the smaller online sessions and ask questions on TS. Aside from figuring out which buttons to press (the keyboard layout is kind of odd) there isn't much to learn. You find bad guys, you shoot bad guys.

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      December 2, 2010 6:19 AM

      i kinda want to get in on this action. is it going to fizzle out soon? or do you guys usually play a lot.

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      December 2, 2010 6:27 AM

      [deleted]

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        December 2, 2010 6:32 AM

        [deleted]

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        December 2, 2010 6:37 AM

        Reminds me of outfit operations in Planetside. Cool stuff.

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        December 2, 2010 8:28 AM

        Who was it that was saying the AAA wasn't working? I would have to strongly disagree because that Shilka at the end tore us a new one. It put a round through the canopy of my A-10 before I even saw it on radar, and then it proceeded to shoot down ArcKnight's AH-64D. It claimed one more little bird before the grunts were able to silence it for good.

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          December 2, 2010 8:34 AM

          The trick with Shilkas and similar is simply to not fly a predictable path. The time-of-flight of the cannon rounds is long enough that any kind of significant maneuvering will make them continually miss. If you fly a straight-line path when in the vicinity of one, they'll get your lead and knock you down, but if you're jinking around they're unlikely to hit you.

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          December 2, 2010 1:01 PM

          I dunno, because the Shilka's were kicking our ass in the other map we played on Monday and early Tuesday.

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          December 2, 2010 1:27 PM

          I believe the AA the server has disabled are emplacements, not vehicles.

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        December 2, 2010 8:41 AM

        I got shot down, what, 5 times last night?

        A couple of Littlebirds, a Blackhawk(TK), once in the Apache and the Chinook. The Chinook was avoidable but I kept circling trying to get the AI to bail out.

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        December 2, 2010 9:20 AM

        nice shots : ) Can't wait to play some more.

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        December 2, 2010 1:00 PM

        Awesome shots, Hoov!

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      December 2, 2010 6:28 AM

      There's a steam group for this I assume? can I get an invite over here.

      http://steamcommunity.com/id/torazchryx

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      December 2, 2010 6:33 AM

      to play you only need OA, correct?

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        December 2, 2010 6:46 AM

        Correct. It's a stand alone expansion.

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      December 2, 2010 6:50 AM

      I shot some dudes. I sounded more english than I thought on teamspeak. We should do a planes only adverserial for lols.

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        December 2, 2010 6:59 AM

        Also, theres even more to the game than today (a lot more). With the AI cranked a little and a really focused mission, its trancended any other MP experience for me (at least in the time I spent on shacktac in the OFPs). Its literally its own genre (and I actually hope that doesn't continue, because BIS aren't the best at a lot of stuff).

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          December 2, 2010 7:42 AM

          We (st) have come a long, loooong way since OFP times, y'know. Four-ish years of improvements since then, A1 to A2 to Arrowhead, five year group anniversary is coming up in January in fact. Anyone who's enjoying Arrowhead at this point and wants that kind of experience to last should definitely join in on the 12ths session and look into hopping into ShackTac if it suits them. Hell of a thing to see week and week again, and we've got it down to an art at this point.

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            December 2, 2010 7:44 AM

            Did you guys ever look into Planetside?

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              December 2, 2010 7:59 AM

              Not as a group, no. The style of gaming we do (build-your-own-adventure at a high group level, basically, thanks to the mission editing capabilities of the series) really doesn't fit into the mold of something like Planetside or WWIIOnline.

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      December 2, 2010 9:23 AM

      Performance tip! I found that it really helps if you keep your Arma OA directory defragged, especially after a big patch. It definitely helps to have a fast harddrive too since the engine streams a lot of the textures and having a slow drive or fragmented files will cause a lot of texture popup. This game really makes me wish I had a SSD.

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      December 2, 2010 10:36 AM

      I run the game in windowed mode but the window is like 640x480. Is there a way to increase the window size? I didn't see anything in the video options to change it.

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      December 2, 2010 10:56 AM

      Spending the evening flying CAS in the A-10 was great fun. The GBU-12 + Laser Designator seemed very effective when employed. Would be cool to see some more broad use of the designator in the future, as the A-10 in this game doesn't have a working CCIP (continuously calculated impact point) for bombing accuracy, meaning you either have someone designate, or you have to employ dive bombing for any accuracy. Apparently the UAV can be used to paint targets also? We should definitely look into this.

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        December 2, 2010 11:07 AM

        Yeah, but the only person who can use the UAV is the Commander.

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          December 2, 2010 11:07 AM

          Plus, the UAV always orbits almost 5 km away so keeping something lased with any degree of accuracy is damned near impossible.

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        December 2, 2010 1:29 PM

        I'll make sure to carry a laser designator from now one since we figured it out.

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        December 2, 2010 1:41 PM

        Laser Designators are great for FTL to spot enemy contacts at night. They are very visible through NVG

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      December 2, 2010 11:13 AM

      Anybody want to play this evening?

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      December 2, 2010 1:23 PM

      Incredible is what it was!

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      December 2, 2010 3:27 PM

      Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPP5hx6aH1g

      Just a little compilation video I made of some Shacktac sessions.

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        December 2, 2010 4:15 PM

        ShackTac stuff is awesome.

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      December 2, 2010 3:54 PM

      It was amazing!

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