Celebrated with a brand new launch trailer, Bohemia Interactive today released the much-anticipated Marksmen DLC for Arma 3. The new DLC adds seven new weapons, two scopes, remote laser-designators, ghillie suits, firing drills, and the Marksmen showcase scenario. The Marksmen DLC is accompanied by a major free supporting Arma 3 platform update, which implements game-changing features such as weapon resting and deployment, sound enhancements, a new multiplayer mode, and more. Arma 3 – Marksmen DLC TrailerTrailer DOWNLOAD VIDEO (MP4) "This trailer/video may only be displayed if it is behind an age-gate that: (1) is age-neutral (i.e., requires the user to input their date of birth or select it from a drop-down bar; (2) employs reasonable technical measures to keep underage users from re-entering their age after initially being denied access; and (3) does not display any ESRB rating information on the video player or the age-gate itself. Failure to implement these requirements may jeopardize your ability to obtain material of this nature from us in the future."
Hone your shooting skills and engage in ranged combat with the seven new weapons in the Arma 3 Marksmen DLC.
• Seven New Weapons - Five marksmen rifles and two medium machine guns offer new opportunities for squad-based gameplay. The new weapons are:
•Cyrus 9.3 mm – a high power marksman rifle •MAR-10 .338 – a high power marksman rifle •Mk-I EMR 7.62 mm – a medium power marksman rifle •Mk14 7.62 mm – a medium power marksman rifle •ASP-1 Kir – a special purpose rifle •SPMG .338 – a lightweight medium machine gun •Navid 9.3 mm – a medium machine gun
• Scopes - The AMS and Kahlia medium range scopes complement both the new and existing weapons. • Remote Designators - Two remotely-operated laser-designators can be used to spot and laser designate targets from afar. • Ghillie Suits - New ghillie suits for the NATO, CSAT, and AAF factions provide camouflage for various terrain types. • Firing Drills - Combine movement and medium range shooting in three new Purple Courses of Fire. • Showcase Marksmen - Use your new abilities and long range sharpshooting skills in a tense reconnaissance mission. The Arma 3 Marksmen DLC is supported by a major Arma 3 platform update, featuring a wide variety of new content and features. The platform update is free for all owners of Arma 3.
Supporting Content • End Game Multiplayer Mode - A team-based multiplayer mode, containing experimental gameplay features such as Dynamic Groups, Shared Objectives, and Revive. • Showcase Firing From Vehicles - Experience the Firing From Vehicles feature in an actual combat scenario for both singleplayer and co-operative multiplayer. • VR Training - Three new courses to train up your weapon handling skill-set. • Virtual Garage - Examine and customize the extensive collection of vehicles in Arma 3. • Vests & Face Paints - Three new heavy and grenadier vests designed specifically for improved explosive shielding and ballistic protection. Nine new types of face paint are added to provide maximum concealment for soldiers. • Editor Objects - New shooting range objects for Arma 3 content creators, including VR (vehicle) targets, balloons, swivel and dueling targets, shooting mats, a shot timer, a bullet trap, and an air horn
Supporting Features • Weapon Resting & Deployment - Benefit from a passive bonus to your accuracy while your weapon or arms are near any stable surface. Deploy your weapon firmly using bipods for the greatest precision possible. • Improved Recoil & AI Suppression Simulation - Fire personal weapons with a greater feeling of power and authenticity. Observe Artificial Intelligence units suffer impaired combat efficiency when under fire. • Sound Enhancements - Be immersed by a richer combat sound scape in different surroundings, at a distance, and under incoming fire.
The Arma 3 Marksmen DLC is now available for 12.99 EUR/10.99 GBP/15.99 USD on Steam and the Bohemia Interactive Store. People can also purchase the Arma 3 DLC Bundle, which includes the Arma 3 Karts, Arma 3 Helicopters, and the upcoming Marksmen DLC, for 19.99 EUR/16.99 GBP/24.99 USD - saving them more than 25% over buying the DLC piece by piece.
Those who are completely new to Arma 3, but are looking for the complete experience, could purchase the Arma 3 Extended Edition. The Extended Edition includes the Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition and the Arma 3 DLC Bundle, and saves people 9.99 EUR/11.99 GBP/14.99 USD over buying the vanilla game and DLC bundle separately.
For more information about Arma 3, please visit www.arma3.com and/or follow Arma 3 on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
FROM: Project Lead TO: Arma 3 Users INFO: Marksmen Release Week, Dev Diary #2, BattlEye PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
Fellow virtual soldiers, get ready to unfold your bipods. We've reached the week of Arma 3 Marksmen's release. Tomorrow we'll be updating main branch with version 1.42 (the platform update) and all Marksmen DLC data. The target window opens at 20:00 here in the Czech Republic. That's a bit later on the day than usual, but we'd like to coordinate things properly with our Steam H.Q. comrades across the ocean. If you'd still like to participate in last-minute testing, switch to the Release Candidate branch using access code: Arma3Marksmen142RC. You'll also benefit from not having to update with the rest of the world on release day. Do note, however, that this branch may still be updated a few times, so consider your bandwidth.
Still not sure what makes up the premium package and platform update? Creative Director Jay Crowe is here to lay out all the splendid details in his Arma 3 Marksmen blog post. What new weapons and items will be there? What playable content will be added? What is free and what requires DLC ownership? What does this huge update mean for every Arma 3 player? Find your answers here.
INTELLIGENCE
Another great resource for getting your Marksmen Intel, is part 2 of our developer diaries. Where part 1 looked at the new assets and features, this one goes over the playable content. Watch and listen as we describe the showcases, challenges, Virtual Reality training courses, VR Garage and, of course, End Game multiplayer. Special honors go to our Design Lead Jaroslav Kašný. Besides performing as Elite Tier 1 MOCAP Operator in the video, he's the one who has led the playable content design team to produce these highly enjoyable game modes.
A new weekly photo shows Sandbox Design Lead Lukáš Haládik in his captain's cabin. Being in charge of the sandbox assets for Marksmen DLC, he's making sure your latest feedback is processed, prioritized and implemented where relevant. The passionate gunsmiths, armorers and shooters on Dev-Branch have not only helped Lukáš' team to catch bugs, but they've also pointed out nice little details and special effects that we were able to incorporate over the past few weeks.
Project Lead Joris-Jan van 't Land (hey, that's me!) has recently attended the international Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to speak at a panel titled "Gaming the Laws of War". Together with people from different fields, he discussed integrating the Laws Of Armed Conflict into games. Is it desirable? Is it possible without impacting on fun too much? The Arma team certainly believes it's both desirable and possible. Without it being a formalized design philosophy, the Arma games have always tried to show these aspects of warfare with respect, while maintaining player freedom. There is a lot more that could be done in this area, and it offers a strong potential for meaningful gameplay and narrative. This panel is just an introduction to the theme; there is a lot more to be said. If you're interested, check out the video recording and slides at the GDC Vault.
OPERATIONS
We'd like you to meet End Game. Some of you have met at a few low-key social gatherings, but she's ready to greet everyone now. Part of tomorrow's 1.42 free platform update, End Game is a new multiplayer mode that has turned out to be a lot of fun to develop and play. The Early Access approach has yielded some significant iterations to the concept and underlying framework (that you can use to create your own variants). Mode architect Nelson Duarte has submitted an OPREP to go over all aspects with you.
LOGISTICS
We should clarify a few points from with regards to the new BattlEye service implementation. First of all, the new approach is not for update 1.42, but rather the update after that. We've only just started testing it on Dev-Branch, though it seems to be working well. Secondly, you'll still be able to use BE (servers) without the Launcher. You'll need to either let the game restart itself upon connecting to a BE-enabled server, or start BE manually. Programming Lead Ondrej Martinák has posted some details on our forums. Why would we make things seemingly more complicated than they were? The new approach is more effective at stopping common attack vectors, by wrapping itself around the game from launch to quit. We'll also point out again that the BE service is optional, though you'll not be able to connect to BE-enabled servers without it.
Vojtěch Schubert in our Publishing division has set up three useful Steam Workshop collections for Make Arma Not War winners, finalists and other entries. They let you quickly subscribe to any entry currently submitted to the Workshop. Once full mods make their debut on Workshop after update 1.42 and the new Publisher, we'll try to update these collections with the remaining entries.
On April 3, 2015, Nelson Duarte has reported an OPREP : END GAME on the official Arma 3 web site.
UNIT: Nelson Duarte (@Nelson_G_Duarte), Designer, Playable Content Design Dept. TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users OPSUM: Introducing Marksmen DLC's new MP mode
With Marksmen DLC, we want to introduce a new multiplayer mode that offers something a bit different to our previous work. Although not completely tied to the new content, our focus was to offer players a simple but hopefully interesting concept that encourages and rewards cooperation, which would also enable us to test out a few new teamwork-oriented MP systems.
The mode is called End Game, and its basic premise is to provide 'hybrid' gameplay or, simply put, a mix of multiplayer game types: Co-op, PvE and PvP. We'd like to give you a brief introduction to this upcoming multiplayer mode, it's related systems, and the type of gameplay you can expect from all these things when put together!
Arma 3 Marksmen DLC Developer Diary : Missions & Multiplayer Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday April 2nd 2015
Bohemia Interactive today released the second developer diary about the upcoming Arma 3 Marksmen DLC.
While the first developer diary explored the new weapons and free platform features, this new developer diary takes a closer look at the new showcase scenarios, training courses and firing drills, Virtual Garage, the new End Game multiplayer mode, and some of the experimental multiplayer systems.
The Arma 3 Marksmen DLC includes seven new weapons, two scopes, remote designators, ghillie suits, firing drills, and the Marksmen showcase scenario. The DLC will be accompanied by a major platform update, which will be free for all people who own Arma 3. The supporting update will introduce weapon resting and deployment, improved recoil simulation, improved AI suppression, various sound enhancements, a new multiplayer mode and showcase scenario, suppressor and bipod weapon attachments, heavy and grenadier vests, nine additional face paints, and Virtual Garage.
The Arma 3 Marksmen DLC will be available on April 8th for 12.99 EUR/10.99 GBP/15.99 USD, and is available for pre-order exclusively at the Bohemia Interactive Store with a 10% discount. People can also purchase the Arma 3 DLC Bundle, which includes the Arma 3 Karts, Arma 3 Helicopters, and the upcoming Marksmen DLC, for 19.99 EUR/16.99 GBP/24.99 USD - saving them more than 25% over buying the DLC piece by piece.
Those who are completely new to Arma 3, but are looking for the complete experience, can purchase the Arma 3 Extended Edition at Bohemia Interactive’s official store. The Extended Edition includes the Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition and the Arma 3 DLC Bundle, and saves people 9.99 EUR/11.99 GBP/14.99 USD over buying the vanilla game and DLC bundle separately.
For more information about Arma 3, please visit www.arma3.com and/or follow Arma 3 on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
FROM: Project Lead TO: Arma 3 Users INFO: MANW Winners, Marksmen Pre-Order, Launcher Updates PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
100. One hundred. This is the hundredth time you may be reading one of these SITuation REPorts. A little over two years ago, we launched this development channel alongside the public Alpha. We're grateful to those of you still with us! We're also excited for all of you new to the game, especially since last week's massive sale. If you are new, this is where we share reports of various types about on-going Arma 3 development. SITREPs are change logs for our main branch updates. OPREPs are more in-depth blogs about a particular feature, technology or theme generally. You can follow these reports in the Dev Hub, or in the game's Launcher for example. Good to have you along for the ride!
Many congratulations to the winners of the Make Arma Not Warmodding contest! Your entries have shown what can be done with the Arma platform, and hopefully motivated more people to explore their ideas. You've amazed us with the quality of the work, and the sheer scale of the content. We look forward to continued updates to your content, as we're sure, does every player out there. Our compliments as well, to the finalists and other entries who did not win this time around. Of course it can be upsetting not to win after so much effort, but it was nice to see some of your respectful reactions to the winners. Thank you for the hard work. Going forward, we believe there will be great opportunities for every modder out there. We have big plans to support that in 2015 and beyond. Pending a few technical confirmations, we intent to share specifics in the coming weeks.
INTELLIGENCE
You wanted a discount on DLC? Your chance has arrived with the Arma 3 Marksmen DLC pre-order. Exclusively on our store website, you can now buy the Marksmen DLC separately at a 10% discount. Until its release on April 8, you'll have unrestricted access to the Beta on Dev-Branch. Another point of access to the whole Marksmen DLC package and the 1.42 platform update, is the Release Candidate branch on Steam. Enter access code Arma3Marksmen142RC in the "BETAS" tab and help us test the RC version before it gets released. Do note that this branch may receive daily updates, and you'll not be able to join main branch multiplayer servers. Your reports are always welcome on the Feedback Tracker.
A modest celebration of the Make Arma Not War winners took place during last Friday's live stream, hosted by Associate Producer Matt Lightfoot and Marketing Communications Lead Korneel van 't Land. The most recent weekly random photo shows Matt setting up for the technical challenge of working with various different mods. This situation caused some issues during the stream, but we hope you got an idea of what made the top winners so deserving of their prizes. If you'd like to read up on how the winners were selected, visit the rather lengthy rules page. Highlights of the stream included suppressive bottle cork fire and elite piloting skills by a community player named Tomahawk. Of course the best way to experience the winning MANW entries is to check them out for yourself!
We've received a question about creating one's own radio protocol for the game. Rather than answering the specific question, Senior Designer Karel Morický felt it would be more useful to just share a large chunk of its documentation. It's quite a huge endeavor to create your own protocol, so be warned! More documentation reaches us via Encoding Lead Petr Kolár, who has written up how to configure weapon bipods. There is a sample available in the Arma 3 Tools Dev-Branch as well.
OPERATIONS
As we said we would, last Thursday we made Arma 3's Launcher the default way to start the game in Steam. We should clarify that the game and Launcher are still separate applications. You can completely bypass it, and use the game directly or use your own launchers for example. The Launcher is a much more user-friendly shell for configuring your start-up parameters, and most importantly, for setting up your mod mix. Your feedback on the forums is very useful. We're using it to solve certain advanced use cases that you've alerted us about. As an example, we're considering how to deal with custom applications that try to start the game via special Steam links, but which currently see their parameters being eaten or corrupted. Another problem case is joining servers through the Steam friends list. If you're a user of the Play withSIX launcher, check out this tip for compatibility. Should you really not want to use the Launcher, you can use parameter -noLauncher, or make your own shortcuts to the game's executable of course.
On Dev-Branch meanwhile, we're testing a new big iteration of the Launcher. This is the version that prepares the game for the switch to the new Steam Workshop version mentioned last week. At the moment we know there are some cases of subscribed mods unwilling to update. Unfortunately it looks like this is an issue in the Steam Client that we're trying to resolve with Valve. The work-around is to unsubscribe and subscribe again, which we'll try to automate if no other fix is possible. We're also going to test a new version of the BattlEye anti-cheat engine in the Launcher this week. It will provide a more robust and thorough detection of hacks and cheats. You will be able to still opt-out, but that will not allow you to connect to BE-enabled servers. Toggling BE on and off, as well as updating it, will now be handled via the Launcher.
LOGISTICS
In case you were wondering why our recent Dev-Branch updates were so sizable: it's likely because of the Marksmen DLC EBO files. These encrypted files are probably confusing Steam's delta-patching a little. This should normalize once we get the DLC released.
Today, Korneel van 't Land has informed us that Bohemia Interactive has announced the winners in the Make Arma Not War contest.
Bohemia Interactive, creators of the Arma series and the standalone version of DayZ, today announce the winners in the €500,000 Make Arma Not War content creation contest for Arma 3.
In the Make Arma Not War contest, Arma 3 content creators were invited to compete in four different categories: Total Modification, Singleplayer Game Mode, Multiplayer Game Mode, and Addon.
The winners, per category, are:
Singleplayer Game Mode 1st place (€50,000) – RESIST by Kydoimos 2nd place (€30,000) – Pilgrimage by Rydygier 3rd place (€20,000) – Deliverance by Sarge Studio
Multiplayer Game Mode 1st place (€50,000) – King Of The Hill by Sa-Matra 2nd place (€30,000) – Battle Royale: Ghost Hotel by PLAYERUNKNOWN 3rd place (shared) (€10,000) – Get Wrecked* by Sli 3rd place (shared) (€10,000) – Twilight Onslaught* by Dorian23Grey *These entries received an equal amount of points from the Make Arma Not War jury.
Total Modification Winner (€200,000) – RHS: Escalation by Red Hammer Studios
As part of a unique collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Bohemia Interactive also instituted the Health Care in Danger Special Award. Given to the entry which covers the topic of health care in danger the best, the winner of this award will go on a one-week trip to an ICRC mission in a foreign country, organized by the ICRC.
The winner is:
Health Care In Danger Special Award Winner (one-week trip to an ICRC mission) – Pilot Civilian Air Rescue On Missions by RobJ2210
In celebration of the winners, Bohemia Interactive will be hosting a special livestream tomorrow, Friday March 27th, at 16:00 UTC. Live from the Bohemia Interactive offices in Prague, Associate Producer Matt Lightfoot and other members of the Make Arma Not War team will be playing some of the winning entries. The session will be broadcasted from the official Arma 3 channel on Twitch.tv.
Bohemia Interactive’s CEO, Marek Spanel, said: “On behalf of everyone here at Bohemia, I’d like to congratulate the winners, and thank all of the contestants, supporters, and judges for their enthusiasm and hard work. As developer of the Arma series, it’s very inspiring to see content creators bring such varied, creative, high-quality additions to the Arma 3 platform, as well as the passionate embrace of their efforts by the Arma community. The Make Arma Not War contest is an important first step in the promoting and rewarding of content creators, and we look forward to building upon this commitment in the upcoming year.”
In order to better facilitate player-created content, Arma 3 features Steam Workshop integration, which enables people to easily share and install custom scenarios and addons. Bohemia Interactive plans to expand Arma 3’s Steam Workshop implementation to support full mods, total conversions and much larger file sizes in the near future. In addition, the studio is pursuing other opportunities that might help player-created content flourish, such as a potential Steam Workshop marketplace where Arma 3 content creators could sell their work. More specific details will be shared in a future devblog.
More information about the Make Arma Not War contest and the winning entries can be found on www.makearma.com/winners.
FROM: Project Lead TO: Arma 3 Users INFO: Marksmen Release Date & Dev Diary, Extended Edition, Default Launcher, Workshop Transition PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
Wednesday, April 8, 2015 - the date to mark in your calendars for the release of Arma 3 Marksmen DLC and its 1.42 platform update! That leaves us with a little over two weeks to disassemble the new weapons, inspect the parts, do a good cleaning, and polish them up for widespread use. To achieve this, we've upgraded our development Data Lock to strict. Cue the sound of some 60 developers crying. Where the packing of game data had already been restricted, they now have to request permission to do any work on the game. That may sound crazy, but it helps us greatly in this final stages. The smallest and innocent-looking change can make seemingly unrelated systems implode. This tool allows us to carefully track changes, quickly address issues and focus on the things that matter. Our next goal is to stage the entire Marksmen package onto , meaning we'll add the playable content.
Did you see the first of our two-part Marksmen Dev Diary? We're very happy with how it turned out. Sit back and let Jay Crowe, Petr Kolář and yours truly tell you more about the weapons and platform features. Get a glimpse of our team members and the offices they work in, as well as a recent audio recording trip to a local shooting range. You were right to comment that this footage does not actually show the full-team shooting event we discuss in the video; these were members from our audio team buffing their sample libraries more recently!
INTELLIGENCE
On Thursday we are going to perform a large-scale test of Arma 3's Launcher. This tool has improved massively since it was first introduced and we feel it's ready to be used by everyone. To confirm that, we'll be making the launcher the default Steam launch option for Arma 3. This means you'll no longer see that little pop-up asking you to start the game normally or start it in windowed mode. Instead, you'll see the Launcher and so the amount of clicks to start the game remains the same. There are, however, many useful things you can do with the Launcher. Further improvements on the horizon will make it yet more powerful. Should we see the Launcher (still) causing compatibility issues for a significant group of users, we reserve the option to change things back. These changes do not require any game updates.
Things are getting very exciting for the Make Arma Not Warfinalists. The jury has submitted its votes, and we'll be unveiling the winners of every category this Thursday.
This also is great week to get your friends to join you in Arma 3! All of the editions of the game are on sale with a massive 50% discount! That includes a new Arma 3 Extended Edition, which consists of the Digital Deluxe Edition and the DLC Bundle. Yes, that does include the Marksmen DLC, which will be available for separate purchase starting April 8.
Our latest weekly photo depicts the premiere gig of the Bohemia Band. Audio Lead Jan Dušek invited several in-team musicians to his studio to record a unique version of the Marksmen theme music. Stay tuned for a behind-the-scenes video of this jamming session!
OPERATIONS
Iterations of "End Game" multiplayer keep rolling in, and the mode is being eagerly tested every day. A recent big addition is the scripted prototype of the Revive mechanic. Senior Designer Thomas Ryan has been working on this system for a while as a way of rewarding team work. The mechanic is only deployed in "End Game", but will be available to community designers for their own scenarios. Just like the other two experimental multiplayer systems (Shared Objectives and Dynamic Groups), we consider this an early, but functional, implementation of something we'd like to explore more in the future.
Progress in another area is described to us by Designer Ondřej Kužel. He clarifies the recent enabling of Artificial Intelligence unit suppression and its parameters. It's still possible to tweak the configuration and balance how much the AI should react to incoming fire. Give it a try on and feel free to share your feedback.
LOGISTICS
We are ready to begin rolling out support for the new version of Steam Workshop in update 1.42. This is the version that supports multiple files per item and no longer has file-size restrictions, so it's a huge improvement! Including addon signatures will be possible, as well as big mods consisting of many separate addons. It does also mean this is no trivial change in the way data is processed and stored. We've worked together with Valve to make sure items currently on Workshop will continue to work, even without re-publishing them. It is however possible that errors occur during the transition, but they should be temporary.
What are our planned steps for this transition?
Today we've switched the Workshop to the new version in Steam's back-end. This should not change anything yet for you.
Soon we'll stage the updated Launcher to Dev-Branch, with support for the new Workshop. There would still not be visible changes, as all items on the Workshop were published in the old format. This Launcher version is capable of reading both the old and the new format however.
Finally, we'll release the new Publisher. This is when items will start to be published using the new format.
Korneel van 't Land has informed us about Arma 3 Marksmen DLC release date.
Arma 3 Marksmen DLC available on April 8th Fire seven brand new weapons, supported by new content and features Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday March 19th 2015
Bohemia Interactive today announced the official release date for the upcoming Arma 3 downloadable content pack, Arma 3 Marksmen. Flexing its guns on April 8th, the Marksmen DLC looks to build upon Arma 3‘s infantry experience by adding new premium weapons, attachments, and gear. Alongside the new DLC, Bohemia Interactive will also release a major platform update, which implements a new multiplayer mode, training courses and showcase scenario, plus several much-anticipated platform features related to weapon handling (#bipods) and sound.
Serving as the backbone of the Marksmen DLC are the seven new weapons. Among these are five marksman rifles, namely the Cyrus 9.3 mm, MAR-10 .338, Mk-I EMR 7.62 mm, Mk14 7.62 mm, and ASP-1 Kir. The other two weapons are the SPMG .338 and Navid 9.3 mm medium machine guns. The weapons will be complemented by the AMS and Kahlia medium range scopes. There will also be new ghillie suits for the NATO, CSAT, and AAF factions to provide camouflage for various terrain types. Furthermore, the Marksmen DLC will add two Remote Designators, which can be used to spot and laser designate targets from afar. Those who want to hone their shooting skills can pay a visit to the shooting range for brand new firing drills, or go on a reconnaissance mission in the Marksmen showcase scenario.
Overall, the Marksmen DLC aims to redefine what it means to fire a weapon in Arma 3. This idea will be reinforced by a major upcoming platform update, that will be released alongside the Marksmen DLC, and will be free to everyone who owns Arma 3. Besides new playable content and major upgrades to weapon handling, this update will include suppressor and bipod weapon attachments, as well as nine new types of face paint, and three new heavy and grenadier vests designed specifically for improved explosive shielding and ballistic protection.
In terms of playable content, the aforementioned platform update will deliver a brand new multiplayer mode called End Game. Here, two teams compete to locate and secure valuable schematics. On top of this new multiplayer mode, the update will also include the Firing From Vehicles showcase scenario, as well as new VR training courses, objects for content creators, and a brand new set of Steam achievements.
With regards to platform features, the upcoming Arma 3 update will introduce weapon resting and weapon deployment - which have been on the list of most requested features by the Arma 3 community. Weapon resting means that players will benefit from an accuracy bonus whenever they are near a stable surface, while weapon deployment will enable players to use bipods for a more steady shot. Together with improvements made to the simulation of recoil, and improvements to enemy AI suppression, this should provide a more tactical, intuitive, and rich experience to the players of Arma 3. Finally, the new platform update will make significant upgrades to sound by adding more sound samples and new sound technology. These improvements should enhance the immersion and contribute to gameplay by providing players with a better situational awareness.
To round out the Marksmen DLC package and the supporting platform update, Bohemia Interactive will be expanding Arma 3’s existing Virtual Arsenal feature with Virtual Garage. This means players will not only be able to preview soldiers, weapons, and gear, and create custom loadouts for their characters, but also examine and customize the extensive collection of vehicles in Arma 3. In addition, the new update will open up Virtual Arsenal so that people will be able to try out all of Arma 3’s premium weapons, vehicles, and other DLC content, without restrictions - even if they do not own the DLC. A more in-depth explanation of Bohemia Interactive’s approach to DLC for Arma 3, and how it prevents a split in the game’s multiplayer community between those who own DLC and those who do not, can be found in the studio's previously released blog.
The Arma 3 Marksmen DLC will be available from April 8th for 12.99 EUR/10.99 GBP/15.99 USD on Steam and Store.bistudio.com. People can already purchase the Arma 3 DLC Bundle, which includes the Arma 3 Karts, Arma 3 Helicopters, and the upcoming Marksmen DLC, for 19.99 EUR/16.99 GBP/24.99 USD - saving them more than 25% over buying the DLC packs separately.
To enlist for regular Arma 3 service, people can purchase the standard edition of Arma 3 (44.99 EUR/39.99 GBP/59.99 USD) and the Arma 3 Digital Deluxe Edition (49.99 EUR/42.99 GBP/64.99 USD) from Steam and Store.bistudio.com. A boxed version of Arma 3 is sold at many of the major high-street retailers. For more information about Arma 3, please visit www.arma3.com and/or follow Arma 3 on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
FROM: Project Lead TO: Arma 3 Users INFO: Weapon Deployment Dev-Branched, Remote Designators, Collimator Tech, Stance Adjust Bindings PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
After a Herculean effort by Task Force Bipods, we flipped the switch on Weapon Deployment for Dev-Branch late last week. We should make it clear that we intentionally released the feature in a fairly rough state. There were and still are quite a few things we need to address before update 1.42 is rolled out. We felt however, that the extra time in your hands may let us iterate quicker, and prioritize better. Major tasks still in progress are: replacing of placeholder animation sets for various deployment heights, a more distinct difference between deploying with and without bipods, and simply getting stuck or glitching in certain areas. Taking that into consideration, we hope you enjoy this huge game-changer and leave any feedback you have in this forums thread.
All of us felt very proud after watching this Marksmen DLC preview trailer created by BlackPixxelDE. It shows in great detail which weapons and other bits of content will be part of the package. Fantastic job!
INTELLIGENCE
For past week's random photo, we were able to extract a smile from Vojtěch "Iceman" Kovařič. As QA Developer, he is someone many of you have interacted with on the Feedback Tracker for example. His focus has been to filter and prioritize your feedback for the development team, and to try to get as much as possible fixed for main branch releases. More recently, he has also been part of evaluating new playable content, such as the "End Game" multiplayer mode that will be released alongside Marksmen DLC. You can still help us test this mode on various official and unofficial servers. Check out the change log to see how it was recently updated.
Did you spot the two new Remote Designators we've included with Marksmen DLC yet? NATO and CSAT both get their own small and deployable scout turrets. They can be remotely-operated after deploying them in a hidden overwatch position, and also provide laser designation to Forward Observers.
Bouncer Extraordinaire, Petr Kolář, was interrogated by our friends over at Arma France. While they tried to secure Intel on the Expansion, it's still a little too early for details. Do take the time to read through Petr's answers though; plenty of interesting info about this essential team member, the evolution of Arma 3 and the development of Marksmen DLC.
OPERATIONS
Lead Sandbox Designer, Lukáš Haládik, took a plunge in Marksmen DLC's armory in the latest OPerations REPort. He even managed to educate some of our own team's members on how we arrived at the 7 weapons in the package. Join Lukáš for an overview of the planning stages, conceptualization and read about one weapon's evolution in particular. Then see what sets the weapons apart by peering over some unique characteristics. The report concludes with a discussion of two features we investigated, but were unable to deliver. We hope you'll enjoy this look behind-the-scenes!
In an attempt to fix long-lasting graphics glitches on various weapon optics, our programmers have introduced new technology for collimators. Besides fixing the glitches, it also enhances the parallax effect on certain weapon sights. Check out this video for a good impression. Documentation for modders will be supplied once we're satisfied that the new binarization (required) works in all circumstances, and can be included into Arma 3 Tools. And while we have you on the topic of weapon enhancements, we're also quite pleased with the new particle effects for ejected machine gun belt links.
LOGISTICS
Sadly, an error related to adjusted stance key bindings has snuck into update 1.40. We had separated the single control for adjusting your stance (LCtrl in Arma 3's preset) into 4 separate controls. The new controls allow greater flexibility in configuring your stance adjustments up, down, left and right. The defaults should all remain the same (LCtrl + W A S D). During final preparation of 1.40, the engine and data parts of this change were incorrectly distributed. This resulted in the old single control being removed, but the new controls not being added. Until we fix this in 1.42, you can manually implement a work-around (or use Dev-Branch). In your Arma3Profile file, find the keyAdjust entry or add a new one : keyAdjust[]={29}; This will reset it to LCtrl, but you can find other key codes here.
In the first few days of staging Marksmen DLC assets to Dev-Branch, legitimate owners of the DLC (because of owning the DLC Bundle or a Supporter Edition) were not able to access all the content without restrictions. This should now be solved for everyone. A similar situation presented itself for Helicopters DLC, though it took longer to resolve that time. It is still connected to limited support to pre-release DLC on Steam. It will not be possible to buy the DLC separately from the bundle until its full release.
Julien Vida has been working on a new approach to set up existing customization options for vehicles. VhC replaces the previous scripted solutions in favor for a more reliable config approach. This also allowed for customization to be demonstrated much better in VR Arsenal's Garage. Examples can be found in the recent version of Arma 3 Tools' development branch.
OPREP - Marksmen Weapons reported by Lukáš Haládik on the Arma3 official site.
Extract ...
BULLETPROOF PLAN
When thinking about weapons you need to consider how they behave, and that's why we threw ourselves deep into the pit of Weapon Handling. That has several layers, consisting of Weapon Recoil, Weapon Inertia, Weapon Sway and Fatigue, all of which can greatly influence gameplay. To counter-balance this, we've taken it a step further: in Marksmen DLC, we will introduce new mechanics known as Weapon Resting and Weapon Deployment. Each has a significant impact upon the way you play or behave on the battlefield.
We selected weapons that could best demonstrate and take advantage of these features. We started with the idea of a marksman as a team member, not a 'lone wolf'. This was a difficult choice, especially with players' expectations in mind. This is why we've tried to explain the difference between a marksmen and a sniper. Of course, we known that this is not an easy task and even the explanations and opinions differ. Nevertheless we made the choice, and we are happy with it.
The marksman is an incredibly lethal unit that can drastically decrease life expectancy on the battlefield. And what makes a marksman stronger than a high-powered weapon which can be deployed in a heartbeat? With this in mind, we looked at the relatively new concept of MMGs, and it instantly clicked for us. We started to imagine various interesting situations that could arise from heavy suppression in the game. For example, what if you have a marksman teamed up with a heavy gunner? Serious firepower that is. A heavy gunner in your team can compensate a great deal. Laying down suppressive fire from a deployed position with a high power scope; he's pretty much a marksman by himself. It also gelled well with our idea to put bipods into the game. And that's how the selection of weapons for Marksmen DLC all began.
FROM: Project Lead TO: Arma 3 Users INFO: Marksmen Sandbox Dev-Branch, "End Game" Early Access, Livestream Recording PRECEDENCE: Flash SITUATION
Are you ready to begin test firing the new Marksmen DLC weapons? You better be, because they have just landed on Dev-Branch! The majority of Sandbox content is there, including 5 new rifles, 2 new medium machine guns, 2 new scopes, and some sneaky surprises. While we continue our finalization of these assets, we look forward to your thoughts. Community feedback has made all previous releases better, so let's do the same for this huge milestone. Similar to when we staged the Helicopters DLC sandbox, there are some caveats. The branch does not yet include most of the playable content (showcases, challenges, VR training, etc.). The DLC is also not officially released on Steam's store, so you cannot buy it yet. This time around owners of the DLC Bundle and Supporter Edition should already have unrestricted access however. Enjoy tinkering with your new toys!
The team has been gently slapped with two standard development locks as we progress through the schedule. We are now on Localization Lock, meaning the bulk of Marksmen DLC texts have been entered into our text database and sent for proofreading and translation. Authorized changes and additions are still possible based on testing, but our developers now live in constant fear of the wrath of the terrifying LockMasters. The second lock is a soft Data Lock. This means that packing of data (anything that goes into a game addon file), is restricted and approved on a case-by-case basis. While horribly inefficient for developers, this slows down development deliberately to allow for quality control of the entire build. It's a proven method, and the team is used to dealing with it.
Yours truly is happy to be back after speaking at GDC 2015 and meeting up with our partners to align plans for Arma 3. Many kudos to Jay Crowe, Petr Kolář and the rest of the dev crew for keeping the show on the road and upsetting community translators left and right!
INTELLIGENCE
Last Saturday we streamed a first look at Marksmen content on our official Twitch channel. Orchestrated by Associate Producer Matt Lightfoot, a whole slew of devs took the stage to demo and discuss various features and assets. Enjoy detailed looks at the new weapons, scopes and ghillie suits while they are being used to show off Weapon Resting and Weapon Deployment. They go on explaining our improvements to the (combat) soundscape, but do also take a look at this video by Nullrick to hear what's being worked on. Next, there is a look at the new vehicle functionality in Virtual Reality Arsenal (a mode where you'll be able to try DLC premium content without restrictions). Things wrap up with an overview of several first prototypes of gameplay features that we're experimenting with in Marksmen's multiplayer mode. Oh, Mr. Creative Director: "stop!".
OPERATIONS
The playable content team is proud to be developing its Marksmen multiplayer mode in close cooperation with the community. Their project, codenamed "End Game", has been published to Dev-Branch already! There is a sizable Task Force attached to it, but we'd like to single out the main architect: Nelson Duarte. Nelson pitched the original concept to us after being asked to dream up MP content befitting the DLC's themes. The team-based mode is accompanied by three experimental gameplay features which try to support team play (Dynamic Groups, Shared Objectives and Revive). For Marksmen DLC these will be (scripted) features that we'll mainly utilize in this particular mode, but they will be accessible to community designers. Based on feedback and lots of hands-on playtime, we'll then see which of the features are useful or how we should change them for Expansion. Do please check out this excellent overview website! And of course switch to Dev-Branch, join the official server, and let us know what you think about this Early Access Alpha!
But that's not all of that's happening on Dev-Branch. Senior Programmer Jan Mareček has continued his battle with the inventory bohemiamoth and added support for on-ground interaction with weapon attachments. You can now grab a scope directly from a weapon that's lying on the ground for example. The reverse operation is not available, meaning that you cannot directly attach something to a weapon on the ground. Caused primarily by a technical reason, there is a justification in authenticity. You would not likely neatly screw a pair of bipods back onto a weapon you're leaving discarded on the ground. The Big One, Weapon Deployment, is being pushed on hard. The people involved are keen to get a first version in your hands as soon as possible, but a few more things need to be resolved.
LOGISTICS
There have also been less obvious changes and fixes on Dev-Branch, so let's highlight a few. Programming Lead Vojtěch Hladík has changed the AI to use the object draw distance instead of the regular draw distance. This may help with performance in high-intensity scenarios. It also means that cases where the AI could see you, but you could not see them, are now avoided. Don't worry, long-range technologies such as radar will still use their actual maximum distance for detection.
As mentioned in the livestream, the last work on AI Suppression (for Marksmen DLC), is about to be released on Dev-Branch. Now that AI can detect projectiles flying near them, and avoid crossing impact zones, they will also receive an accuracy penalty. When under fire, the AI's 'dynamic aiming error' is increased, making them less quick and accurate in their reaction.
Finally, a little ease-of-use improvement. Arma veterans know that markers placed in multiplayer are placed in the radio channel that you have currently selected and they are only visible there. So, if you placed a marker while in your group's radio channel, only your group could see the marker. This was very badly presented to players and many of you probably never knew about it. Now, you place markers in a channel that you select from the insert dialogue, independent from your radio channel.
FROM: Creative Director TO: Arma 3 Users INFO: 1.40 Release, Marksmen 'First Look' Livestream, Land 't Spam PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
After a few additional rounds of feedback / iteration, Update 1.40 was deployed yesterday. With it, our players can enjoy a whole host of tweaks, fixes, and new features. The gargantuan SPOTREP has the complete run-down, and we detailed some of highlights (including splendid new weapon sounds, 'telescopic turrets', and vehicle passenger inertia) in last week's royal correspondence. But wait, there's more! Arma 3 Tools, too, have received some love. Tweaks for Terrain Builder and new samples are just the tip of the love-berg; swing on by the TECHREP for Julien 'chef amant de l'outil' Vida's full love-letter.
Meanwhile, on the Dev-Branch Front, players may have heard the distant rumblings of an audio feature offensive. As planned, a distance-based attenuation filter was rolled out. This means that distant sounds (e.g., a firefight half a klick away) are much more characteristic. As, uh, slightly-less-than-planned, the first wave of our 'Weapon Tails' feature made contact with the community. This week, we should see a more careful (and intentional) deployment. This development is part of a bigger package of audio features planned for Marksmen DLC. Although we're happy with the splendid progress thus far, it remains subject to additional tweaks, fixes and - in the worst case - postponement.
INTELLIGENCE
Progress, too, was made in the 'community challenge', which wrapped up yesterday. With it, our 7 new weapons were revealed: a mix of marksmen rifles and 2 new machine guns. Thanks to everyone for getting to grips with the Firing Drills challenge! Turning our attention to the weapons themselves, let's straighten out a couple of dropped balls (todo: rephrase mixed metaphors; or don't, I'm just a note, not a cop). First off, the 'ASP-1 Kir' is, in fact, a CSAT weapon; similarly, the 'Mk14' is a new addition for the FIA only. In addition, the Cyrus uses 9.3x64 mm rounds (i.e., not the calibre specified under the round itself). A similar glitch is found with CTRG's MAR-10, too. Apologies for the inaccuracies!
Then there's the question of 'why no bolt-action rifles?'. In short, we ran into some roadblocks related to, fundamentally, how we simulate weapons. We determined that the resources needed to change this were vastly disproportionate to the potential benefits. Instead, we chose to focus upon other features, which we feel can improve infantry combat more broadly. To see exactly what we mean by that - and to get a first look at some of the new content in action - tune into our official Twitch livestream. You can join a bunch of our team members on Saturday March 7th, starting at 17:00 UTC (the dress code is smart casual, but exceptions may be made for those with more lumbersensual sensibilities).
OPERATIONS
The bulk of this week's 'operations' are courtesy of our project-lead-in-exile. Prepare yourselves for Joris-Jan van 't Spam! Although he's attending GDC this week - part of an expert panel exploring the relationship between the laws of war and games - before jetting off, Our Dear Leader found the time to star in an upcoming development diary. And, if you missed it, check out his interview with pcper.com, which provides answers to variety of Arma 3 questions. We expect to welcome Joris back next week, when (to the great relief of our French community, who translate these reports) SITREPs will return to normal service.
Not one to be easily outdone, Lead Programmer, Ondřej Martinák, took the time to complete a 'Report In'. Aside from some shocking revelations (apparently programmers are not machines that transform coffee into code), he explains what it means to be a programmer on Arma 3, talks about some of the most significant challenges (#optimisation), and hints at what the Arma 3 Programming department will be working on in the upcoming year. Splendid stuff indeed.
LOGISTICS
Some interesting progress has been made on the NAT traversal front. In short, UPNP support for servers was enabled, which automatically creates port forwarding to bypass Network Address Translation (NAT) issues. This should help those behind a router with NAT who've been unable to create public servers following the GameSpy service shutdown. Documentation was updated across on our Community Wiki.
Speaking of documentation, our unsung programming heroes have struck again, this time expanding the compatibility of weapon magazines. This allows weapons to share various groups of magazines, rather than just listing them. For example, if someone creates a weapon with 9mm FMJ ammo and sets up the magazine group correctly, someone else could easily add magazines (with, say, 9mm HP), define it the same group, and the weapon would accept the new magazine.
This Saturday March 7th, starting at 17:00 UTC, Bohemia Interactive will be hosting an exclusive First Look Livestream for its upcoming Arma 3 Marksmen DLC.
Straight from Bohemia Interactive HQ in Prague, members of the Arma 3 development team will be showcasing the seven new DLC weapons - alongside much anticipated new features, such as Virtual Garage, weapon resting and bipods, the improved simulation of recoil and suppression, and various enhancements to sound. The session is expected to be about one and a half hour, and will be streamed to the official Arma 3 channel on Twitch.
“After many months of hard work, we’re excited to finally present the upcoming Marksmen DLC to Arma 3 fans. There’s a lot to show. We have seven new weapons, new showcase scenarios, a feature called Virtual Garage, a brand new multiplayer mode – and not to forget, major free platform features, such as weapon resting and deployment, which have been on the community wishlist for a long time. We hope to see all of you joining us for the livestream this Saturday!”, said Matt Lightfoot, Associate Producer at Bohemia Interactive.
FROM: Creative Brit TO: Arma 3 Users INFO: 1.40 Inbound, Sounds Good to Me, Workshop Gospel PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
With update 1.40 just around the corner, a 'Release Candidate' was made available over the weekend, which we've recently updated with miscellaneous maintenance and stability tweaks. These 'RCs' use a special 'branch' of data and exes, which helps our team to validate the stability of our updates 'in the wild', before they roll out to everyone. It also enables content creators to ensure the compatibility of their own custom creations with the latest version of Arma 3 ahead of time. If you'd like to participate in the final stages of testing, open the 'BETAS' tab of Arma 3's Steam properties, and enter the access code Arma3Update140RC. Right now, we're primarily focused upon validating some tweaks to MP stability. The update itself is set to bring several interesting Dev-Branch features to all Arma 3 players; let's take a quick look at these now.
Perhaps most notable will be the overhauled personal weapon SFX (outlined in a bit more detail in a recent OPREP). Although further iteration is still planned in the run-up to Marksmen DLC's launch (more details below), we want to introduce these improvements to everyone now. Aside from this, various small features are included. 'Telescopic Turrets' enables raising / lowering the commander's turret of the Strider. 'Firing from Vehicles Inertia' translates the momentum of a vehicle to those in FFV cargo positions, and helps shooters to maintain their aim when their vehicles are turning (within certain limits). New initSpeed enhancements will be enabled, meaning that muzzle velocity can now be defined by the ammo type and weapon. This means, for example, there's a difference in muzzle velocity between regular and carbine variants using the same ammunition. INTELLIGENCE
Last week, we rolled out Weapon Resting and Overhauled Recoil mechanics to Dev-Branch. We've been monitoring and processing your feedback and, so far, we're happy to see a broadly positive community response. If you'd like to add your voice to the choir, direct your lungs towards two dedicated threads: Recoil Overhaul Feedback and Weapon Resting Feedback. Chiefly, we're still debating the best way to offer feedback to the Rested state - thanks for sharing your ideas and preferences! Meanwhile, dynamic duo, Radko and Simon, outlined some configuration tips, tricks and limitations. Formal documentation is, naturally, (definitely not missing) work-in-progress.
During the pre-production phase of our 7 new weapons, artist Kamil 'Smoke' Prihoda worked with the team to create some wonderful concepts. So, with one eye keenly trained on Marksmen DLC, we've tasked our community to work together, earn the 'Bonus Targets' Steam achievement, and unlock some behind-the-scenes development artwork. You can find all the details over at arma3.com/marksmen-challenge. Top Brit Tip: Course of Fire Red I is the go-to place for bonus target hunting.
OPERATIONS
Some new audio data was recently added to Dev-Branch, raising several inquisitive eyebrows. Given that additional progress is likely to pop up over the next week or so, let's take a quick peek. In simple (i.e., overly simplistic) terms, after the weapons audio samples overhaul (going live with 1.40), the team moved on to decoupling the 'shot' itself from the 'tail': an additional layer audible during and after discharging. For any given weapon, a number of 'tails' can be defined. The goal is to link the tail to environment within which the shot takes place. In effect, the 'tail' in a forest would sound different to that in an open meadow.
Related to this work, we should soon™ see the deployment of an enhancement to distance attenuation. Currently, distant shots are quieter that those close by. Our plan is to complement this with a distance-based frequency attenuation filter. This work slots into our broader focus on Environmental Audio Improvements set to roll out with Marksmen DLC. The goal is to create a richer battlefield sound-scape based on an authentic simulation of real-life factors, where the shooter is more 'connected' to their environment. We hope to be in the position to offer more splendid details next month. LOGISTICS
Last week, holier-than-thou Arch-Hipster, Jiří Zlatohlávek, adopted the missionary position to spread the good word of the Arma 3 Launcher to the non-believers! His handy-dandy how-to helps hitherto-fore hapless heathens see the light, teaching us how to perform our very own miracles (like downloading/publishing a scenario/mod). Workshop disciples can also find the guide linked via the Arma 3 space itself. Long may his mission continue (and soon may this painfully extended metaphor end).
And, finally, we can report that with Our Dear Leader back in action - but trapped under several feet of administrative snow - these BRITREPs are set to continue for the next fortnight. That's right, 'fortnight'. ColoUr. Rule BIStania! Etc. Cheerio for now!
FROM: Creative Director TO: Arma 3 Users INFO: Resting & Recoil Incoming; AI improvements; Hello from the Environment Dept PRECEDENCE: Flash SITUATION
This week we're hoping to push two splendid (and related) features to Dev-Branch: Weapon Resting and Recoil Overhaul. Although we've dug into a bit more detail over the last week or two, it's probably worth outlining the basics once again. Weapon Resting provides 'passive' benefits to certain aspects of weapon handling, such as reduced sway. This 'rested' state is determined by a real-time algorithm that identifies situations where aiming would reasonably benefit from a stable firing position (e.g., when prone, leaning against a wall, resting on a low wall, etc.). Our Recoil Overhaul aims to make the mechanic more fluent by correcting some existing behaviour and rewarding the intelligent use of stances and movement speeds. Overall, this development contributes to our goal of making firing a weapon simple to do, and rewarding to master.
Since both features are closely related, we'd prefer to release them together to garner more useful / relevant feedback. However, this now depends upon the resolution of a couple of pesky issues related to recoil discovered at the last moment. In short, we define limits to the displacement of the aim point when a weapon is fired (determined by type, calibre, stance, etc.); unfortunately, we discovered that these limits were occasionally ignored (indeed, seemingly at random), resulting in wildly unintuitive (and unintended) movements. This was a bit of a deal breaker, but we hope to have found an adequate solution. Implementation is in progress, and we're now looking to roll out the features towards the end of this week. For the avoidance of doubt, 'Resting' is distinct from 'Deployment' - a feature that we'll continue to tweak and polish over the next couple of weeks ahead of Dev-Branch staging.
INTELLIGENCE
Recently, some subtle changes to the way that weapons are configured were rolled out to Dev-Branch. Rather than squeezing all the juicy details in here, Bounce Master Chief, Pettka, set out the background and goals of this development in a splendid OPREP. If you're looking to update your own weapons, you might like to check out some samples, which we've made available via an update to Arma 3 Tools. In short, these enhancements help bring about a greater diversity of performance between firearms. We hope this - in tandem with other features, such as Weapon Inertia - will translate to more meaningful choices when selecting the best weapon for any given situation. We consider such features to be part of Marksmen DLC's broader focus on improving weapons / firefights, which, of course, will be available to everyone that owns Arma 3.
On a related note, recent changelogs have contained notes relating to the detection of bullets impacting / flying around units. Let's take a quick look at how it all fits together. The first changes (released for a wee while now) were adjustments to pathfinding. If an area is under heavy fire, the AI will now prefer (in direct contradiction to the Kenny Loggins school of thought) to plan around such danger zones. More recently, the detection of bullets passing close by units was enabled. This information is now mapped to the behaviour of a unit reacting to threats. The next step will be to connect this to penalties in AI aiming accuracy. Although we're at an early stage, we can say that our goal is to improve the experience of firefights by refining their lethality and promoting / rewarding the use of legitimate tactics / maneuvers. However, making changes to core mechanics is not without risk. If we're not satisfied with the results, this work may yet not make it into Marksmen DLC.
OPERATIONS
As we mentioned in our Scanning the Horizon blog post, development of a new terrain continues apace. This production is a huge, ongoing effort, so - with respect to our goal of shining a light on the deepest, darkest corners of development - let's take minute to catch up with the noble Environment Department. Headed up by Martin 'Maxell' Pezlar, the team has shifted from a 'pre-production' phase into full on, balls-to-the-wall development. With much of the research, experimentation, and endless wishlists of assets in place (ish), and the basic shape and structure of the environment approved, the true work has begun! The team is now focused upon populating the map with compositions (above and below water!), refining the details of the height map, retouching the satellite texture / mask, and coordinating the production of all the assets.
The team also cooperates closely with other departments, solving issues together with programmers and artists in particular. One of the objectives of our next terrain is to find a more splendid balance between the rich, visually attractive locations, performance, and AI path finding. Creating repros and discussing best practice means that we needn't sacrifice one element for another, but find an agreeable mix that both caters to a number of play styles and creates a unique, authentic world. With much of the rest of the team still working towards Marksmen DLC or supporting the existing content, their hard work can sometimes appear sidelined; however, every now and then there's a real leap forward, and we're soon reminded that a whole new world lies just around the corner!
LOGISTICS
We've seen a number of nifty new script commands pop up on Dev-Branch recently. Programmer Tomáš ' Nesquick' Nezval graciously deigned to acquiesce to requests for new UAV commands. Highlights include enableUAVWaypoints and waypointsEnabledUAV to enable / disable player setting waypoints for UAVs in the AV terminal, while BIS_fnc_liveFeedSetTarget can be called with an optional parameter for smoother camera transitions. Continuing on topic, the new append command adds the useful ability to append one array to another, and - because programmers can Lern2UX, too - a scrollbar for long script examples was added to help dialogues. Fancy that.
Resident Tools Commissar, Julien Vida, politely asks users of the Arma 3 Tools development branch that were having trouble with FSM Editor to update now, now, now! Although we struggled to reproduce an issue related to starting the tool by calling it directly from a file, we hope to have perhaps possibly provided a fix in today's update. Oh, and the Arma 3 Launcher? Nah, you probably haven't heard of it. Never fear, design hipster-in-chief, Jiří Zlatohlávek, is here to tell you all about the Publisher and Launcher with updated documentation across on our community wiki.
UNIT: Petr Kolář, Encoding Lead, Encoding Dept. TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users OPSUM: Introducing new Init Speed parameters.
EVALUATION
What is the decisive configuration value for the muzzle speed of a weapon? Is it the round or the weapon itself? This has been a long-standing question in the Arma series. The answer is clear: both of them! So, with Marksmen DLC on the horizon, we've decided to tackle this issue once and for all.
The result is a modest enhancement of configuration options - both for our own weapons and for our community! We'd like to share a bit of the background about this topic and describe the steps we've taken to arrive at a splendid solution.
INIT, INNIT?
Previously, the initial speed of bullet was determined by the magazine. In effect, using the same magazine across different firearms provided no change to the muzzle speed of the projectile. This meant, for example, there has been next to no difference between standard and carbine versions of weapons (and even less before we implemented handling differences with Weapon Inertia).
We wanted to address this limitation for some specific weapons, where using a different speed of ammo would not make any sense. To achieve that, we've introduced an initSpeed property to weapons themselves, which - if it is defined - overrides values taken from the magazine.
UPDATES
We gathered some responses from our forums about possible improvements on this topic, and we are thankful for all of it. Using this feedback, we have iterated on the solution and added the possibility to use negative values of initSpeed in weapons as a multiplier of the initSpeed value of the magazine.
There are two advantages with this solution, both relating to community-created content. Firstly, setting initSpeed to -1 or 0 (as zero is neither positive nor negative) makes the weapon backwards compatible. In short: it won't break any existing content. Secondly, we provide both a possibility to use a coefficient and a constant as modders deem necessary.
With this change, we've addressed one of the troubling questions that has been in Arma for ages. We hope you are going to like the solution, both as players and as modders. At last, the length of muzzle may provide some meaningful difference and sensible choice for your missions.
The changes are already live on Dev-Branch, and we've updated Arma 3 Tools with a configuration sample. Thanks again for all the feedback; together, we can build an even better game!
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