New to Operation Flashpoint

[Vorpalbob]

Hey guys! Guess what?!

After many months of searching, I have found it! An unused copy of Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis, on Craigslist for 10$! :biggrin:

I have been looking forward to playing this game for a really long time. It combines all my favorite game genres into one; open-world, tactical shooter, war simulation, all that fun stuff.

Here is what I ask of you, O Great and Mighty Giants of the Playground; I ask for advice.

I hear that this game is very hard to start out, and can be rather irritating if you don't know the tricks for staying alive. In games like this, I generally roll with a stealthy sniper; how viable is this as a tactic, especially in missions where I am in command/part of a squad? How useful are the various types of vehicles? Is the squad command system relatively simple (i.e. can you issue commands and still fight decently), or is it rather in-depth?

I'm open to any advice or hints you may have. I know this game can be awesome, and want to make sure I know what I need to so I don't ragequit (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ragequit) because I died twenty times taking this one village.

Thanks in advance!

[pffh]

Stealth and sniping is VERY viable and the NPC AI is quite competent so the squad is actually useful instead of just getting in the way although I prefer playing it with a couple of mates for more strategic control. As for the vehicles many or very hard to use on your own and others (helicopters for instance) have a bit of a learning curve but you can drive almost anything (including tractors).

A very good thing to keep in mind when not sniping is to shoot you have to stop and to hit you have to crouch.

Other then that the best part of the game is the very capable mission creator. You can basically create any kind of mission you want.

*Edit: Oh and collisions with a military truck screw up the physics engine sending enemies you ram with it flying hundreds of meters away no matter how fast you are going.

[warty goblin]

I haven't played Operation Flashpoint in particular. I have however played Bohemia Interactive's later soldier sim games, and on the thesis that they are generally the same here's some general advise.

1) If there's a target shooting range somewhere in the game, spend some time with it until you can reliably nail both static and moving targets at a variety of ranges. If OpFlash is anything like ArmA, it'll simulate a lot of things most shooters pretend don't exist - in particular that the bullets come out of the muzzle of the gun, not the center of the sights. Unless you get used to this, you'll end up dead faster than you can blink the first time you hit an actual firefight.

2) Turn down the enemy AI a bit. At least in the ArmA games it tends towards disgustingly good marksmenship out of the box, there's probably an option in the settings somewhere. While you're at it, see if there's an option for additional player body armor or something like that. It's sort of cheating, but it makes the learning curve somewhat more climbable.

3) You've got crouch and prone buttons for a reason: use them. Unless you are moving or need to be standing to see over something, you should be crouched or prone. You're more accurate, and harder both to see and hit.

4) Maintain very good situational awareness, and always - always - think. Even with reduced enemy accuracy and improved body armor, you are still fantastically vulnerable in a game like this, and the usual shooter technique of trading hits simply does not work. You've got to know where the enemies are, and to do that you have to pay a lot of attention to the environment, otherwise you'll get sent back the the main menu in a body bag.

5) Your engagement envelope is much larger than most shooters have trained you to expect. That is to say your assault rifles (and those of your enemies) are probably going to be accurate and lethal to ranges most games would consider a hard shot with a sniper rifle. In ArmA 1, I've been effectively engaged and suppressed by heavy machine gunners at over 500 meters, and at two or three hundred by soldiers with assault rifles. If you go sniper, this means you're going to fighting from much farther away than in most FPSs, which makes good situational awareness all the more important.