Arma 3 Reduce Weapon Sway: Why It Matters and How to Master It

This is day 5 of me playing Arma 3 - every day of play my keyboard skills improves but there's something i can't get over - weapons sway. I know there's been some discussion regarding weapons sway but i really can't stand it anymore - the excuse/reason for the sway is that in real life there's a sway when u put your scope up. But it sure kills the gameplay - i scope up and suddenly i'm on a 'Perfect Storm - ahoy there sailor' sway with my scope - it takes me awhile to wait for the sway to align with a target and then shoot - do this a few times and suddenly my gut reaction regarding Arma 3 is that it's clunky & clumsy.

Arma 3 Reduce Weapon Sway

Download File

If you haven't been doing it, holding RMB also holds you breath, drastically reducing sway for a few seconds. If not, there are mods like TMR that allow you to rest your weapons on surfaces and reduce sway and recoil.

While laying down with the TMR that allow you to rest your weapon on surfaces it should stop completly but instead it sways like hell. The weapon gains some life and thats just freeking ridiculous. I agree!

I've tried TMR and the problem with that is that u need to be prone and among the tall grass lying prone i can see jack-shit. So up i go a notch and scope up and 'ahoy there sailor - we are on a rocky boat" sway starts again and i get shot cause i'm trying to control the damn scope from see-sawing about. I'm not getting the satisfaction of the game like i get from playing BF. BF is arcade like (CoD is worse) but i do have a sense of handling the weapons in BF and it felt great. i hope i don't get damned for saying that in this forum but i really wanted ARMA to be my main game but as of now with this damn swaying crap it's pretty disappointing. I don't even feel like firing the game up to play - like as if i'm ever gonna be in the mood to have motion sickness. OK - maybe in real life the scope does sway that way (what do i know - i'm just a civilian) but this is a game and swaying is really no fun at all. I can't see myself getting past this swaying thing.

Not only that, but lower your stance if possible. If you have an MG, Go prone or sniper sit as they reduce the weapon sway MASSIVELY, for other weapons it has less effect as I recall, but still makes it much more stable.

Unfortunately i don't think there are any mods that totally eliminate weapon sway. However there are some that tweak it so you could probably take those apart tweak values and put them back together to make a mod that does totally eliminate it.

Currently, fatigue mechanics prevent you from sprinting and holding breath when your level of exhaustion exceeds certain thresholds. This also increases the inherent weapon sway and, thereby, makes it harder for you to aim and shoot accurately. The new mechanics generally work the same way in terms of slowly accumulated impediment, however they bring some great new elements to it. Most importantly, there will be an 'animation slowdown'. This effect builds up according to the fatigue level and causes a player's movements to slow down by a certain non-linear degree.

Instead, we want players to actually understand the game mechanics in order to give them an opportunity to learn and manage their behaviour. Therefore, we refined the sway behaviour to actually simulate breathing and grip as separate forces that affects your weapon sway in a more predictable - and thus manageable - way. This, we hope, enables more meaningful weapon handling. Your grip is not always rock steady. You have to maintain it to be able to place precise shots.

The above code added to the initPlayerLocal.sqf in your mission folder will remove all weapon sway from the game. There is still a tiny movement, but this compensates for the ridiculous fatigue effects after running a short distance.

If you want to add some other animation, just drop any .anm to "anims/weapon_sway/", rename to sway_3 or sway_4 (or overwrite mine) and choose them in MCM. Animations I use are two lightest earthquakes from default Anomaly (they fit very well).

One thing of note, would it be possible to "cancel" out the sway if you were up against a box/wall/sandbags/etc? Canceling sway would change up combat dynamics. If you wanted to take a more difficult shot, you would need to maneuver to some kind of cover to rest the weapon upon. Also, does the sway go away if you're prone? Crouching/Standing obviously there should be sway, but prone you'd be able to have a prone supported position and pretty much reduce most sway in real life.

[error]Expression : [error]Function : CObjectAnimator::LoadMotions[error]File : ObjectAnimator.cpp[error]Line : 47[error]Description : fatal error[error]Arguments : Can't find motion file 'weapon_sway\sway_3.anm'.

This addon is controlled by script and have a lot of MCM options so you can change it in game to your liking, add different camera animations (there are plenty in Anomaly files or you can yoink from other mods). Plus some new features that I want to add and the one I just added (to put a weapon on obstacle to decrease sway), with the intention to make all of them adjustable via MCM. ;]

To get the best out of the Switchblade X9, it is highly recommended that you attach a Hybrid Mag and Stabilizer to help reduce the weapon sway at longer distances, along with a Grip to help improve recoil, and a Laser Sight for better hip-fire accuracy.

Procedural Weapon Animations aim to reduce the amount of animation assets needed to animate the weapons, provide more flexibility for designers to tweak the look and feel of the weapons, reduce memory budgets, reduce processing budgets and simplify weapon production while still delivering competitive visual quality.

The first layer have a base pose animation asset. This is a single frame animation that will place all the bones of the arms in the right place. A different base pose is needed for each zoom mode that weapon supports. The layers on top have different additive animations that manipulate the weapon position in a particular way, move and rotation sways, idle, run or sprint animations, etc, were all implemented that way. A Pose Modifier is applied on top of all this layer; STAP Pose Modifier. This Pose Modifier is responsible to rotate the entire body above the spine around the camera position. This way the arms rotate in the direction of the camera view without rotating the legs. The arms and legs in first person are the same model. Lastly, action additive animation assets are played on top if needed; those actions include melees, reloads, recoils, etc.

For any Arma 3 goers here, I suggest you check this out.This mod isn't mine in any way shape or form, but it addresses one of the more annoying issues in Arma 3 in the most customizable way. so I thought I'd share it with you.That issue is the amount of sway when using a sniper rifle.I found it incredibly frustrating lying prone, and trying to get a shot on a target not very far away, but the weapon was floating all over the place, to me, in a real life shooting situation, a trained sniper would be able to stop this before it even starts by controlling their weapon.But in Arma 3, the character seems to have absolutely no control over the weapon, and you find your weapon drifting a fair bit away from your target, for example, I was aiming at a target lying prone under a tree, while trying to hit that target, my scope(zoomed in) reached far beyond the top of the tree and I was looking up at the sky by the time it had peaked.Attempting to control the rifle yourself provides only more frustration, as constant adjustments are needed to even get the cross hair over your target. the second you stop to fire, you're off target again, and holding your breath seems to do very little in terms of stabilizing your shot.This mod addresses the stability issue very well, you can customize it to make the sway more prominent(therefore getting your crosshairs stable becomes more difficult), or make it more like Arma 2, where less adjustment is required for the perfect shot.The mod is by a guy called VanZant and it's called steadyshot.general rule of thumb is, the lower the number, the less the weapon sways.it also works the other way around, so you could set the multipliers higher than the default, and you will get more weapon sway/recoil.my config is as follows:

You guys (and gals) should check out VTS Simple Weapon Resting as a solution to weapon sway. It's dreadfully simple to use, and quite effective. Also, the Arma 2 maps are now available for use in Arma 3 without resorting to using that bloated mess which is AIA.

Unlike bandages or smaller and disposable medical kits, the Medkit's uses are unlimited. In addition, Medkits allow for the full recovery of a person's wounds as opposed to its single-use counterparts, removing the lasting effects of any serious injuries (i.e. increased weapon sway, reduced breath holding duration, etc.).

But what about weapon sway? Doesn't weight or stamina influence it?Not really. From the tests I've done, and not counting the influence of wounds, weapon sway increases due to movement. When you stop and aim, the amount of weapon sway and how long it takes for it to stabilise depends on two factors:

You hold one button and you have a 100% sway reduction. Something like 50% would be allright as a kind of weaponfocus. But no sway in every stance? You see somebody and you are immediately ready sniper. No need to go prone, positon yourself, it doesn't matter how far away - if the poor sucker stands still you hit no matter what. Pionier is lightweight and has little sway? Everyone picks the mosin, you hold that button and they're both the same in terms of aiming. I tried to point that out here (+ a moddel to divide stamina from breath) 2ff7e9595c