FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Road map 2015, 33 things trailer, Weapon SFX
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

Quite a bit has happened since last week's report, in a good way, we think! After rolling update 1.38 out the door, Creative Brit Jay Crowe summed up our 2015 plans for Arma 3 in his "Scanning the Horizon" blog. Summarizing it with just: #BIPODS wouldn't do it justice, but that is one major thing to take away from it. Another big reveal was the acknowledgment that work on a 3D scenario editor has started in earnest. Do take the time to read the full blog though. The first half takes a look back at 2014 and the accomplishments of that year. The rest describes more of our efforts for this year: the first Marksmen DLC details, concept art for one of its seven new weapons, weapon handling features, the ability to try vehicles in Virtual Reality Arsenal, other platform updates, a little about the expansion terrain, and more.

INTELLIGENCE

We are proud of Arma 3, and some times we indulge ourselves and boast a little. A new trailer was commissioned to take a look at 33 things that set Arma apart from other games. 33 things which make it unique and particularly impressive. If you are reading this report, chances are you knew all of them already. That's fine; we've aimed it at those people who do not yet know the game, the platform and the community supporting it. Enjoy the return of The Voice!

There is another video (unofficial) we'd like to draw your attention to. Cinema Video Recording produced a stunning piece that showcases the combined arms warfare in Arma 3 brilliantly. Great job to everyone involved!

The 3D scenario editor mentioned in the blog, is being developed by the same dynamic duo that brought you Zeus. As you might have guessed, quite a bit of the foundations for that project, now benefit this editor (camera controls, parts of the interface, etc.). One of these developers is programmer Filip Sádovský. Last week's random photo shows the risk of LAN parties. Filip managed to injure his neck after falling asleep during a 40-hour gaming session. Fret not, he'll be fine and is excited to be working on a prototype for the new editor!

Now for a more serious caution: please be careful when using unofficial and unsupported tweaks to enhance Arma 3's performance. It's natural to want to get the game running as best as possible, but we cannot account for every method that is out there. For example, a particular registry tweak and the use of custom memory allocators, have prevented some users from starting the game after the 1.38 update (until they disabled the tweak). We are not deliberately sabotaging such efforts, and may even look for ways to let them work, but we cannot guarantee that. If you do encounter problems like instabilities, please first check that it's also the case without such changes. Some general tips for increased performance: use up-to-date drivers for your hardware, run the game from SSD if available, defragment non-SSD drives after updates and occasionally run local file verifications via Steam.

OPERATIONS

The audio team has published an overhaul of many weapon sound effects to . Audio Lead Jan Dušek and Audio Designer Kryštof Havel have written an OPREP to go over the details with you. Find out how these changes benefit the game now and how they prepare the soundscape for more changes down the line.

It may be worthwhile to remind everyone how our approach to DLC has been and will be: the features that we are developing for Marksmen DLC, will be free to everyone with Arma 3 (arriving in a platform update). So, weapon stabilization (resting and deployment) will be coming to everyone and can be used on existing weapons. User-made weapons can also be updated to support the technologies for anyone. The new weapons themselves are considered premium and are subject to the notifications and restrictions you have seen on the starter pistol in Karts DLC. We have further developed those systems to better communicate to you which weapons are considered part of what DLC / mod (in your inventory for example). And as a direct result from the responses in our DLC survey, we'll make VR Arsenal a part of the game where everyone (regardless of owning DLC) can try premium content without restrictions. That means using weapons and crewing vehicles as if you own them, in that mode only.

LOGISTICS

Did you miss update 1.38's change log? Have a look at the SPOTREP as well as the TECHREP for Arma 3 Tools. On release day, there were some issues in the free stand-alone Dedicated Server for Linux. The wrong Steam libraries were linked. This was quickly corrected and should now be working for admins. There also is a group of players who have encountered a Steam error 81. We believe this may be related to certain anti-virus packages, and are working with Valve engineers to resolve it.