US Military seeking better VR simulations

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First off, a bit of a notice: please read the National Defense Magazine article that's been attached to Gamespot's afterwards. Gamespot's reporter did a TERRIBLE job summarizing the info on that post. Seriously, how the hell do you extract "US Army wants a better-selling, easier to play COD/Battlefield-Clone" from that article, the document was pretty exact and specifically mentioned the demand to create a tool accurate enough to train somebody for real-life work!

OK, done reading the REAL one? Good. My bitching about Gamespot's shoddy piece of journalism and even more idiotic commenters aside... anybody notice how immense the Military's requirements are for the project? They're asking a developer to create a virtual copy of Afghanistan, accurately portray every square inch, make an easy-to-use map and script editor, improved AI, better player-avatar control and handling, and then make it MMO-style with HUNDREDS of military personnel being able to log in at once. I mean Christ, talk about a videogamer's wet-dream come true, but the scope of it doesn't even seem possible!

Even if they did choose a company like Bohemia Interactive, their games (and others such as Flashpoint, America's Army games) have constantly had the issue of poor AI and pathfinding as well as overly complex controls and commands, and none have yet come remotely close to fixing it. The project will probably succeed in re-creating the extreme attention to detail and the creation of VR-Afghanistan that the military demands thanks to Bohemia's experience with creating previous mil-sims for the military, but the rest seems really iffy.

Thoughts?

edited 22nd Jan '13 7:29:54 AM by SgtRicko

I think VBS 2 can do some impressive stuff already isn't it?

Other than that...the area thing might be possible...there's already games that render terrains from satellite images isn't it?

For the lots of players thing...that might not be a problem if they're training in single facility or nearby ones that connection by high-speed cables is possible...but..."ability to play across mobile and PC-based platforms, it stated in the solicitation." err...on mobile? Really?

The mission specific training tool might be a bit far though...cause that's gonna cost a LOT...

Still...the original article does mention the play like COD thing...I think that's mistake or something...the look like/better than COD makes sense, but play like one? Eh...especially when there's the mention of the "avatar was also customized to reflect the soldier’s shooting accuracy and running speed" part...

edited 22nd Jan '13 7:22:14 AM by onyhow

It seems like the military, too, is getting impatient for ARMA 3.

So, Planetside 2 sized, with ARMA realism.

Pfft.

Just render Afghanistan in Cube.

I think the emphasis on the "massive multiplayer" aspect is mainly so that they can run a training simulation with an entire company or battalion at once. It would certainly simplify the scheduling for training rotations on the simulators.

One thing to keep in mind: It's not like the US Army is just making this thing to entertain its Soldiers. They're doing it specifically to provide as accurate and true-to-life a training experience as possible within a VR simulation. The emphasis on better graphics are likely part of that, to help with immersion.

edited 22nd Jan '13 2:37:00 PM by Specialist290

VBS 3 will no doubt be based on Arm A 3 and will get the contract. Nothing else on the market comes close to the VBS software in terms of penetration into the world's militaries.

I've completed over a hundred missions in VR. I feel like some kind of legendary mercenary.

Well, if there's one thing the US military has, it's truckloads of money. If they develop a game with that, more power to them. And gamers, too, they're not commissioning a movie after all

True, our military budget is ridiculous.

That is quite a tall order. But the military chasing simulations is nothing new. Physical real world mock ups like MOUT town at camp pendelton are huge, expensive to set up and maintain, and present injury and other hazards.

But the benefit is realistic training.

One thing I don't really grasp with this is how the users would be controlling their VR selves in this training sim. If it's a traditional controller or mouse+keyboard I don't get how any of the other stuff will significantly help more than the currently used training and education.

From what I remember seeing from a documentary they use weapons hooked up to electronics in those simulations. Kind of like those arcade shooters, except far more advanced.

edited 22nd Jan '13 8:47:47 PM by rmctagg09

Yer, that is right. I had a go on one of those exact same things just before I left the Territorial Army back in 2000. A whole bank of SA 80 rifles hooked up to what was at the time a pretty state of the art milsim. I would hazard a well informed guess then that the VBS 2 would work in the same sort of way but of course far more advanced.

The things that sim could tell you about your firing position and how you actually held your rifle and how that would affect your shooting was fricking witchcraft scary.