Hints and Tips – Arma 2

Introduction

ArmA II is not like other FPS. It is a simulation. Most, if not all that you learned in other FPS is wrong. You cannot stand out in the middle of an open street or field and expect to survive long in a real battle or in a simulation of real battle. Bouncing around in full kit in real battle does not stop you getting shot; and it tires you out real quick, and would probably break your ankles; so just as you would not do it in real life you cannot do it in ArmA II. You have no ubber body armor, no magic medipacs, no bunny hop rocket boots. It is just you, and what ever weapons you are carrying. If you get shot any where important you are going to die, often right away.

If you are a New Guy you are going to die and you are going to die a lot. Sorry but that is just the way it is but there are ways you get over the boot camp hump faster. That is what this section of the wiki will help you with.

Sources of help

There are many sources of information for ArmA II

Official ArmA II Manuals

There is a manual that comes with all copies of ArmA II. If you have not got one contact the publisher and report it to BIS.

For those with steam the US version can be downloaded here: PDF ArmA II manual for Steam customers

OFP and ArmA I hints and tips

There is a Hints and Tips link on the index page page of this wiki it leads to this link OFP and ArmA hints

The ArmA II Bible

Dslyecxi's ArmA2 Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures Guide is considered to be the bible of ArmA II play. Much of it applies to both Single Player and Multi Player bu it has sections that apply to Multi-player PvP and others that particularly apply to the Coop game form.
Dslyecxi's ArmA2 Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures Guide

Battle Drills

Battle Drills are the basic moves to perform in battle, they are a subset of Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that are trained in the military to replace the normal human reaction to threat of Fight, Flight or Freeze. This reaction is hard coded into to your Amygdala. The Amygdala reacts much faster than the conscious brain and can short circuit it. The idea of training a Battle Drill or SOP is to replace these reactions with useful actions.

Firing blindly may kill your buddies who are likely to be closer and thus occupying a larger percentage of your Arc, thus the Fight Response is replaced with the React To Contact Procedure.

Altering the Flight Response so that you do not get shot in the back is also useful, the highest casualties in war happen during head long retreat, it is very hard to fire over your shoulder while running in the opposite direction, so the Battle Drill that replaces head long retreat is the Break Contact Drill.

Also the Freeze Response is not always beneficial, freezing in the same spot that the enemy is putting down effective fire on, does not stop the bullets, the Freeze Response is replaced with the Basic Drill.

This page links to the the Battle Drills

The difference between cover and concealment

Concelement is something that prevents you being seen.

Cover is something that prevents you being shot.

Concealment once busted is no longer concealment. Shooting or moving around making a noise, or sky-lining your self all bust concealment. Running behind a bush does not magicaly make you concealed from an enemy that saw you run behind it. Most of us lean this with the blankie game as kiddies

Examples
A bush is concealment not cover. Bushes do not stop bullets. ArmA II AI does not see through bushes.

A tree less than two foot thick is neither concealment nor cover. An AT rocket or pair of shoulders, beer gut, your fat backside, or rucksack; sprouting jauntily out of the side of a tree, attracts curious stares from both human player and AI; usually followed by bullets, which incentaly any thing less than a two foot wide tree will not stop. Interestingly even with a two foot thick tree, only 1 foot of it is near two foot wide in cross section in the line fire.

True cover is: Multiple walls of say a house, bullets of 7.62 calibre and above will go straight through most houses.
Thick lumps of terrain such as mountains are excelent cover.