Bohemia Interactive presents 2015-2016 roadmap for Arma 3
Two major platform updates plus 'Arma 3 Apex' expansion
Prague, Czech Republic, Wednesday October 14th 2015


With over two million copies sold to date, Bohemia Interactive today presented its plans for their tactical military shooter Arma 3 in the next year. The 2015-2016 roadmap, which was shared via a blog post written by the game's Creative Director Jay Crowe, features two free platform updates that pave the way for the Arma 3 expansion in the second quarter of 2016.

First up will be the 'Nexus Update', which is scheduled for release in November this year, and focuses upon the refinement of core features and multiplayer systems. This includes significant improvements to Arma 3 gameplay features such as stamina/fatigue, personal protective equipment, and more. Furthermore, the Nexus Update will deliver a revamped version of the End Game multiplayer mode, that was introduced earlier this year. The renewed End Game multiplayer will be paired with various improvements to general multiplayer systems, which can also be used in other official and unofficial Arma 3 multiplayer scenarios. Last but not least, alongside the Nexus Update, Bohemia Interactive plans to deploy a foundation build of 'Arma 3 Units' – a web-based service that aims to connect players with community groups.



The second platform update for Arma 3, codenamed 'Eden Update', is penciled in for the beginning of next year (2016). The highlight of this update will be the official introduction of the brand new Eden 3D Editor. Designed as the logical evolution of the classic 2D Scenario Editor, which has been a core component of the Arma series since its debut in 2001, the new Eden Editor will give players far more control over their creations than ever before by enabling them to place and edit entities directly within the 3D game environment. Besides the new editor, the Eden Update will be complemented by several Arma 3 usability tweaks, and an overhaul of how players discover and join multiplayer sessions.



The Nexus and Eden platform updates lead up to the roadmap's focal point: a major Arma 3 expansion in Q2 2016. Titled 'Arma 3 Apex', this expansion will feature the 100 km2 South Pacific destination of Tanoa, which was first shown during the PC Gaming Show at E3 this year, plus a co-op campaign, new vehicles, weapons, and characters. One of the central themes of the expansion is near-future combat, which players will be able to recognize by the introduction of new vehicle classes such as VTOL aircraft and other new gameplay elements. As with previous Arma 3 DLC, the expansion will be accompanied by a major free platform update that seeks to address important 'legacy' issues related to Arma 3's multiplayer, interaction mechanics, and discoverability of official and custom content. More information about the Arma 3 Apex expansion, including specifics on pricing, purchasing options, and early access availability, will be communicated next year.



“We're optimistic and excited about our roadmap. Having recently hit the 2 million copies mark, we're keen to grow even further! We've set out to refine our core gameplay, experiment with some fantastic new content, and deliver an unrivalled, open, diverse platform: truly, the apex of the Arma 3 experience”, concludes Arma 3's Creative Director Jay Crowe in the full blog post.

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: Firing From Vehicles Enhancements, Eden Editor Layers
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

It's been a long time coming, but later this week we'll finally be ready to share our roadmap for the rest of 2015 and 2016. We'll be discussing how we've divided our work on the Expansion and Arma 3 platform across several themed updates, meaning you'll not have to wait for all improvements. You can also look forward to the Expansion's name and more Intel on the contents besides Tanoa. In unison, we're going to publish an in-depth OPREP about the refinements to core mechanics that are due in the next big platform update. And Bohemia Interactive will hopefully have a cool little bonus to close out the week!

INTELLIGENCE

In Zeus-curated multiplayer scenarios, you can attract the Game Master's attention by pinging. The Y-key is used for this by default. It will sound a subtle audio cue for Zeus and highlight your name. Pinging is useful to alert Zeus to problems with the scenario, or for opportunities the GM may wish to do something with. Basically, use pinging when something is or isn't happening, but don't overdo it. Pings are only sent once per second, and Zeus may not take kindly to spam. A bit of divine trivia: when you ping, you hear a slightly different tone for the audio cue each time. Zeus hears a different tone per specific player (with some limitations), so He or She may actually recognize players by their sound alone. Ping once and you'll unlock the "Worshiper" achievement like 9.1% of global players so far.




Perhaps you're not quite sure what to expect from Zeus, or you haven't yet experienced a good curated scenario. Luetin has uploaded a lengthy but entertaining recording of an advanced Zeus multiplayer session. He acts as the Game Master in a custom Invade & Annex scenario that is already running. There are three distinct phases (see the time codes in the video description). Firstly the GM actually uses the Zeus interface, extended by the Ares mod, to build prop compositions, garrison troops, lay out patrols, place map markers and finally assign an objective. What follows are two stages of the actual real-time scenario as the players assault the enemy bases. It's interesting to see and hear Leutin theorize what the theoretical enemy commanders might see and how they should react with fire missions and reinforcements. He makes a point of not directly killing players, instead scaring and guiding them with indirect fire and by role-playing NPCs. Who are your favorite curators? Share you experiences on Reddit!



This summer saw its fair share of after-work grill parties for our various dev teams to enjoy. Last week's Brno event most likely concluded this year's season, but it offered attendees a special dish. Witness Senior Programmer Jirí Dockal, Senior Designer Josef Zemánek and Bohemia Interactive Creative Director Ivan Buchta prepare a traditional grandma recipe for Czech Guláš.

OPERATIONS

Still confident that Firing From Vehicles technology can be further improved, Senior Programmer Krzysztof Bielawski has staged an iteration to Dev Branch recently. The current state uses new limits for a few vehicles (Offroad, Huron, Mohawk, Pawnee and Hellcat):

• These limits allow for more flexible shapes within which you can aim your weapon, rather than the rectangular boxes used until now.
• Forward passengers in the back of Offroads can now 'turn out' and engage enemies up front.


• When they stand up, they can use secondary and shoulder weapons, like RPGs and MANPADS.


• Go over the updated documentation on our Community Wiki. Note that the old method of defining limits is available in parallel and is therefore backward-compatible.

Several more tweaks are planned in the near future:

• You can currently aim through other passengers, but a new solution to tackle this issue is incoming.


• The new limits are a bit more complicated than before. We will provide a recording tool, usable in the special diagnostics executable only, so modders can define limits faster.

LOGISTICS

The Eden Editor crew has begun implementing a much sought-after functionality: custom layers. Just like in many image processing applications, you'll be able to assign entities to layers. These layers (and their entities) can be locked, hidden, manipulated, nested, named, etc. While some of the interface work is yet to be done, an early version of the technical groundwork will soon be live in the experimental build. Let us know what you think and how you'd expect to use these layers.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 User
INFO: Launcher Mod Dependencies, Scripted System Optimizations
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

We've said it a few times over the past weeks, but Dev-Branch really is where our attention is placed as we move towards to next big update. We're already processing feedback on several live changes and iterating via the daily experimental updates. Other major improvements, such as for the Launcher, are detailed in another section of this report. Please keep sharing your findings in the dedicated forum threads, or via the general discussion thread. Specific issues are best filed in the Feedback Tracker.

INTELLIGENCE

In weekly dev photo #28 you may have been exposed to somewhat of an internal running gag. We've asked one of the culprits, QA Assistant Vojtech Kovaric, to try to explain what's going on. Read at your own risk: "We showed a cardboard Commander Shepard enjoying a break with Greg and Julien. This Shepard belongs to our Prague QA team and serves as their mascot. Our QA colleagues were trying to guard him very carefully but, while they weren't looking, Shepard was taken on a ride to our Mnisek Arma 3 studio. He experienced the best month ever. Took a ride in our tank, joined a BBQ party, had a lunch with the Project Lead and met the one and only cardboard 'Flashpoint man'. All of this was of course documented and the photographs sent to Prague QA for them to see what a great a time Shepard was having. While they were not very happy and talked about kidnapping and other major felonies, Shepard had the time of his life. However, everything that is good must come to an end. After a month of a splendid internship, Commander Shepard returned to his home base among his QA colleagues and is enjoying their company instead. Needless to say, we are now heavily guarding our Flashpoint man."




ArmaHosts published a useful video tutorial on setting up a Windows Dedicated Server on a clean PC using SteamCMD (a free command-line utility) and the free Arma 3 Server app on Steam. They include a series of suggested command-line parameters and go over the server.cfg file briefly. Finally, they also recommend which ports to configure in your firewall to allow the game to communicate over the Internet effectively. We also liked seeing their default scenario being the official ZGM 4+1 Bootcamp training grounds. Excellent choice!

OPERATIONS

The Launcher has received a significant iteration on Dev-Branch. Launcher Programmer Jirí Polášek has kindly shared the details with us: "Our Launcher has received a major update with new features and a lot of improvements. The important ones include support for dependencies between mods: Launcher automatically detects other Workshop mods you need and it can enable them if you load the mod or get them for you in case don’t have them. This said, mod authors might be interested in updating the Required Items for their Workshop items. You can do this directly from the Workshop page. Since there are a lot of large mods, another nice feature is the ability to change the folder where the downloaded mods are stored (the folder can be changed in Options > tab Mod Options > section Mods Storage)." Your discussion of these changes is very welcome in this forums thread.

For weeks now, Senior Designer Jirí Wainar has been eagerly waiting to publish his optimizations of various scripted multiplayer systems. We were quite careful to roll them out, first awaiting the engine-supported remote execution to be solid. Now the time is ripe and his changes have reached Dev-Branch. Specifically this means the frameworks for Tasks, Remote Execution and Shared Objectives should now function in a much leaner way. In our measurements this has led to a drastic reduction of the traffic generated by these systems, ranging from 30% to even as low as 3% of the original traffic. If your (multiplayer) scenarios already use (parts of) these underlying frameworks, you should see improvements to network performance. We'd recommend studying the linked documentation to consider whether your creations can benefit from similar optimizations. We do have plans for tweaking similar systems in this way, and Jirí hopes to share his observations as general scripting guidelines over time.

There also is less optimistic news to share. Making improvements to the mid-range terrain textures has been a hot topic for a long time. We have investigated various solutions and looked at the problem it with our programmers and environment team. Our conclusion is that it's unfortunately not realistic to expect big improvements for Arma 3. Existing community solutions can work great under certain circumstances, but in our opinion based on tests, make things worse in others. We thank you for thinking with us and for proposing some pretty advanced workarounds! The basic and short explanation from Arma 3's engine's point of view is that we're limited by our terrain shader and hard limits of the amount of textures we can store in materials. The overhaul required is too complex at this stage. If we do find a way forward, we'll re-open this decision, but it's not likely during Arma 3's life time.

LOGISTICS

For the latest on Eden Editor, we defer to the in-game Updates Log. By pressing its icon in the top-right of the menu (new posts are indicated by a red !), you can read a weekly digest of changes, fixes and tweaks. Of course not everybody has access to that log, but you'll be able to track all changes in the primary Dev-Branch change log. The highlights this week revolved around the rotation widget, automatic grouping and a flashlight for night-time editing.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Eden Editor, UGL Reloading, Update 1.52 Released
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

Welcome to all new recruits who have joined the growing community after the recent sales on Bohemia Interactive Store and Steam! You've arrived at the front lines during exciting times. We've just released maintenance update 1.52, which, allowing some time for servers and mods to adopt it, should help a little with stability and performance. The next update promises to be rather significant. As discussed last week, plenty of things are starting to appear on Dev-Branch, and await your evaluation. Some things will make it into 1.54 in November, other things may require more time in the incubator. Enjoy your time with Arma 3!

INTELLIGENCE

We were humbled by Southpaw's nice and visual explanation of our DLC strategy. In the interest of transparency, a few tiny corrections: the unrestricted free use of premium content is available in VR Garage / Arsenal (not the Editor), and only the passenger positions aren't locked (gunners are). We know the strategy can sometimes be a little confusing to explain. Thank you Zach for sharing the message in this effective way. For more background you can read our OPREP on Content Licensing.

OPERATIONS

Sandbox Designer Radko Voda has visited the forums to explain the improvements to Personal Protective Equipment now live on Dev-Branch. In the most basic terms, there is added precision when detecting what parts of a character are protected by armor or not. If you get a chance to try the changes and feel something still needs tweaking, now is the time to share your thoughts.

Using the new reloadMagazine2 animation source, Encoder David Sláma has worked together with Artist Martin Valášek and Animator Pawel Smolewski to finally get Under-barrel Grenade Launcher reloading animations in the game (Mk20, Katiba and TRG-21 for now, MX coming up). This seems like a simple change that could have happened much sooner, but due to the way the special muzzle and magazines for grenade launchers are simulated, it required some creative implementation. We would also like to animate an actual grenade, but this faces yet more technical obstacles. We're prototyping a solution, but cannot yet guarantee it will be feasible.




The Eden Editor Public Beta has experienced a very productive first week. We're receiving a lot of positive feedback and valuable constructive criticism. Plenty fixes, tweaks and additions have dripped into the build on a daily basis. For a more in-depth look at Eden and its road map, we invite you to read the latest OPREP by Programmer Filip Sádovský and Designer Karel Morický (follow them on Twitter for bite-sized updates throughout development). Our Prague QA team and embedded QA Assistant Vojtech Kovaric also deserve kudos for their hard work to get the very initial Beta release in good shape.




Let's also highlight a few extra notes on Eden Editor:

• Scripters and modders may find the new type of UI menu controls and connected script commands very powerful to build their own interfaces. The same applies to miscellaneous UI features being implemented to support Eden (like multi-line tool tips). Find an initial dump of commands here, but we'll also update Community Wiki soon.


• Some selected improvements may be back-ported to Zeus, but we don't yet know which ones. Eden and Zeus share the same foundation and developers, but it's not a simple matter of copying the tech.


• As discussed in the OPREP, ultimately this editor will fully replace the current 2D editor. There will be a transition phase between the release in early 2016 and the main Expansion, during which both will be available. Some people were worried they would lose 2D editing, but you can of course switch to 2D mode using M by default (we also want to make it possible to set this as default view). It's our goal for the new editor to be everything the old one is, but much more productive and useful.


• There exists a function to export to Terrain Builder, but this editor is not meant for terrain editing itself (it is for scenario editing).


• One of the more powerful aspects of Eden is the ability to mod the editor itself and write custom plugins. Some mods have already started to experiment with this!

LOGISTICS

Bohemia Interactive's various offices and teams are on the look out for great new comrades. Available roles range from (Tools) Programmers to Artists and more. If you're interested, or know someone who might be, please visit the careers page for more details.


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FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Dev-Branch Activity, Eden Editor Live Stream, Autumn Sale<
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

There will be lots of interesting Dev-Branch activity over the next couple of weeks. Last Friday we staged the first version of improved Personal Protective Equipment tech, enhanced Firing From Vehicles limits are live, and yesterday evening we ambushed you with the Public Beta release of Eden 3D Editor. Next up probably is the Visual Update package, which tunes the lighting configuration of Stratis and Altis, but also adds improved (underwater) fog and water reflections. Some time after that we'll share the Fatigue iteration. And there are many more smaller things being prepared for your feedback. Please note that most of these are expected to evolve over the weeks based on your comments. The first versions are not likely the final target states, so there is some time to get things right. We'll also try to communicate and document the changes clearly via OPREP, Community Wiki and our forums. In short, there are a lot of cool moving parts headed your way. Some are bound to have rough spots initially, but that's what Dev Branch is there for. We're keen to see your reactions!

INTELLIGENCE

Bohemia Interactive is hosting an Autumn Sale on its store, with great deals on titles like Arma 3, DayZ and Take On Mars! At a 50% discount, the Arma 3 Extended Edition is an especially good option for newcomers. It includes the Digital Deluxe Edition and all presently released DLC. Even though most games are shipped as Steam product codes, this is not a Steam sale in itself. By buying games directly via our store, you support us even more directly. Dekujeme vám!




Senior Artist Martin Valášek displays his game development fuel in weekly dev photo #27. Martin is a highly skilled technical artist who often serves as the connection between art and the game. He prepares models for the engine, provides feedback to colleagues, and coordinates outsourced art efforts. And let's not forget it was his go-kart model prototype that ultimately led to the Karts DLC. Like most of the art department, he is currently focused on delivering high quality assets for the Tanoa terrain.




Marksmen DLC was released with the surprisingly named Showcase Marksmen (PLAY > SHOWCASES). As a CSAT marksmen, call sign Viper-Black, your objective during this counter-insurgency operation against the FIA is to sweep clean a local H.Q. compound. The mission is a showcase of the new Cyrus 9.3 mm rifle fitted with Kahlia scope, as well as the weapon resting and deployment features. If you should manage to complete the mission without having an injury inflicted upon you, the "Dodge This" achievement is unlocked. At time of writing its global unlock percentage is 0.5%. Showcase designer [i]Václav Oliva recommends you carefully observe the patrols, and take them down when they are out-of-sight using your suppressed weapon. The other guards should not notice this. You will want to pick your position wisely and also prioritize targets such as automatic riflemen and other marksmen. Finally, it is recommended to lower your weapon (2 x LCtrl) while trekking to another objective, in order to preserve stamina.

OPERATIONS

Welcome to Eden 3D Editor! During its reveal live stream last night, Eden Designer Karel Morický and Eden Programmer Filip Sádovský[/i] were joined by host Jay Crowe to provide a good first look at the new scenario editor. They went over some of the major improvements this 3D editor brings, while Designer Nelson Duarte quickly threw together an iconic 'Steal the Car' scenario. During the next segment, they were joined by Community Developer Greg Becksted, who fired a bunch of collected questions at the hosts. And then ... they pressed the big red button. Right there and then, the Public Beta of Eden Editor was staged to Dev-Branch for everyone to experiment with. Check the full recording here (or this unofficial French dubbed version). Cheers for tuning in and we'd also like to thank the rest of the behind-the-scenes stream support crew for their great job!




The current Dev-Branch Beta is a first basic version that brings the functionality of the old editor with some huge steps forward. We are very much interested in your feedback in the forums and on Feedback Tracker (category Eden Editor). There is plenty of time until the main release in early 2016, so we expect lots of tweaks and some major extra features. Stay tuned for an OPREP with more details very soon. Documentation will also start to grow. On the other hand we also are curious to learn what you find out intuitively and what aspects need to be made clearer. You should keep in mind that we cannot be 100% sure that scenarios you create now are forward-compatible with the main release. We will try to achieve such compatibility, but you may want to wait before you use Eden for your major projects (they will also not be playable on main branch during Beta). Eden Editor will arrive as a free platform update for everyone with Arma 3. Enjoy!




Besides details on our development of the vanilla game, there are many mod teams who also provide updates of their work. Take for example, this ACEREP #00002, which details the major changes in the 3.3.1 version release of the ACE3 mod. Or enjoy some SITREPception via this report by Blue Harvest Interactive about their progress on the Imperial Assault mod. Closing this week's random look at mods, we had previously missed this cool video update about the French R3F Armes 3.4 release. Keep 'em coming!

LOGISTICS

The release of update 1.52 is pushed back even further. We are aware players and several mods are eagerly awaiting the changes, but we're still not satisfied that some of the complex multiplayer fixes were tested thoroughly enough. The best place to stay up-to-date is the Release Candidate announcements thread.

Does your brain implode when trying to fathom all the available Steam branches? We've added a overview for all main Arma 3-related apps on the Community Wiki. Read up on how they work, what their purpose is and how you may access them.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Second Armaversary
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

Last Saturday marked the start of the third year of Arma 3's life, following its main release on September 12th 2013. The development team is incredibly proud to still be working on making the game and its platform better. But this has very definitely been a cooperative effort with the tireless community. You've kept playing the game, you've hosted servers, you've created custom scenarios for others and you've developed a massive library of amazing mods. Together we have the potential to make this third year the best one yet. Soon you'll start seeing the fruits of our labor appear on Dev-Branch as we start laying out the first segments of our 2015 / 2016 road map. Meanwhile, we're looking forward to the big mod releases that are already being teased online. Cheers to a splendid future!

INTELLIGENCE

Every Monday we hold team meetings in both primary offices. On weekly dev photo #26 you can see yours truly opening the proceedings for Team Mike. We update each other on what has happened the week before and share what we will (or should) be doing the next week. Most interesting are the quick presentations, demonstrations, videos and images of our work. They make it much easier to see what's going on, especially since we don't all have time to constantly check every aspect of the game ourselves. If any cool community media caught our attention, we share those too! However, let's face it, the main reason our devs show up are the delicious snacks provided by our dear Office Manager, Jitka Čížková.




Freelance writer Ian Birnbaum did an interesting piece for Vice Motherboard . He went through rather extreme lengths to re-create a real-life sniper shot that is registered as the world's longest sniper kill . Teaming up with Arma player Handel Humphrey, he used a mod mix consisting of ACE3, CUP and Kunduz to simulate conditions as they would have likely been (given the huge difference of being behind a PC and not in a war zone). He also touches on the ethical topic of creating games about war. Read the rest in his article and also watch the video of their shooting session (which we were glad to see used an artificial target).




Continuing our look at community milsim operations, this week our very own Community Developer Greg Becksted shared "Veiled Threat". Aussie group Foxhound International edited together a (failed) session with an especially eerie ending. The video sets itself apart by using many different camera angles besides the typical first and third person views.

OPERATIONS

We've decided to delay update 1.52 . We don't expect many changes to the current Release Candidate, but there is a particularly low-level fix that we'd like to attempt. It has the potential to solve a collection of crashes, but requires more testing. It's likely that this will push the main branch release to next week.

In October last year, our former Senior Designer Jiří Zlatohlávek held a presentation during the Central & Eastern European Game Studies 2014 conference on the topic of Arma 3's DLC strategy. The organization has now uploaded the video recording for anyone interested. Mind you, this evaluation dates back to a time before Helicopters DLC and most of the discussed future plans were indeed executed since then. Read up on these changes in the more recent OPREP about Content Licensing.

LOGISTICS

Learn more about FIA headgear and facewear randomization in documentation courtesy of Tools Commissar Julien Vida. You might find it useful for your own scenarios or mods.

Say what?

Prague, Czech Republic, Thursday September 17th 2015

This Tuesday September 22th, starting at 18:00 UTC, Bohemia Interactive will be hosting a special sneak preview live stream for the upcoming brand new Eden 3D Editor for Arma 3. The session is expected to be about one hour and will be streamed to the official Arma 3 channel on Twitch.

During the live stream, Eden Editor Designer Karel Mořický and Arma 3's Creative Director Jay Crowe – supported by other members from the Arma 3 devteam – will provide a first look at the new editor, demonstrate its features and improvements over Arma 3's original 2D editor, and discuss some of the key design decisions. The only thing that's changed is everything.

With its long-standing focus on user-created content and modding, the classic 2D scenario editor has always been a major staple of the Arma series. Taking a massive leap forward, the powerful new Eden 3D Editor for Arma 3 will give players far more control over their creations than ever before. Users will now be able to directly create or edit entities, such as characters, vehicles, buildings and other objects, within the 3D game environment. They can also set mission objectives, define waypoints, control time of day and weather, and make use of all other functionality previously available in the classic 2D editor.

All of these capabilities can be accessed via Eden Editor's easy-to-use interface. It enables even the beginning user to create a basic single- or multiplayer scenario in a matter of minutes. The more advanced scenario creators, on the other hand, can continue to make use of the extensive library of custom scripts. Plus their previously created scenarios made in the original 2D editor will be backwards-compatible. In addition, modders can extend the editor's functionality via custom plugins. As such, the Eden Editor will form the go-to destination for playing around in Arma 3's rich military sandbox platform, featuring detailed simulation, large-scale terrains, and a wide variety of soldiers, weaponry, vehicles, and other objects.

Last but not least, due to the seamless integration of the Arma 3 Steam Workshop into the Eden Editor, sharing your scenario, and downloading the scenarios made by others, has never been more easy. With more than 16.000 scenarios, addons, and mods published to the Steam Workshop at present, Arma 3 players already have access to thousands of hours of additional gameplay – and this number is expected to grow significantly with the anticipated introduction of the new editor.

The new editor will be made available to all Arma 3 players for free as part of a future platform update. More details will be provided during the sneak preview live stream. The Eden Editor's release date will be shared at a later date.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Maintenance Update, Disabling Remote Sensors
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

Our normal update cycle is between four and six weeks for the main branch of the game. With update 1.52, we've elected to push it out a little quicker. We realize that main branch updates cause some overhead for server administrators and modders especially, but we feel the changes contained within will benefit players and the sooner we get them out, the better. You might consider this a special maintenance update. It will contain crash fixes for rare situations, an update of the default memory allocator (that may help with some of the memory errors), and a potential multiplayer optimization that we'll describe in another section. Release Candidate testing has begun and we are planning the actual release for early next week. The Steam access code follows the usual pattern: Arma3Update152RC for both Arma 3 and Arma 3 Server.

INTELLIGENCE

Where to even begin with the 25th weekly dev photo? We see Art & Animation Consultant Zdenek Vespalec having a jolly good time with Brno's Operations Manager Martin Horák over a fresh cup of tea. Creative Brit Jay Crowe had this to say about the authenticity of the animation: "Decent overall form, with bonus points for consistent deployment of national dress". Zdenek has done a lot of technical art work on Arma 3 during its primary development. More recently, he has coordinated several art outsourcing operations and he has provided support to the DayZ team. Martin is one of the key people keeping Team Bravo happy in the Brno offices. He oversees a wide range of things, from the facility itself to liaising with back office departments like Human Resources, Legal and Accounting.




The Volunteer Combat Battalion (VOLCBAT) has shared an older but no less interesting video of one of their British Armed Forces operations. Take a look at how they handle convoy driving, while dealing with IEDs and combat dismounts, as well as lots of "chatting to civvies and goats". As we saw in previously highlighted videos, their Rules of Engagement in urban areas show some of the complexities of war. A particular decision made during this patrol is even being openly questioned by the troops. We wonder what their debriefing and After Action Review concluded!

OPERATIONS

We've covered various bits and pieces of the Vehicle Customization (VhC) system in the past, but Tools Commissar Julien Vida has now published a comprehensive OPREP on the topic. This tech makes the configuration and use of the various liveries and animated components of vehicles more straight-forward. It also uses an approach that is faster and more optimized than the previously scripted variant, and hides the need for some of the specific texture paths for example. Read the full report for details on those aspects and more.




Programming Lead Vojtech Hladík has added two script commands which may be used by (multiplayer) scenario designers to optimize performance. Commands disableRemoteSensors and getRemoteSensorsDisabled let you disable raycasts for remote entities in a group that doesn't have any local entities. These raycasts are used to determine what other entities an entity can see, and they take a lot of CPU time. This is of course a bit of a trick, because rather than a true optimization, it disables part of the simulation. However, there are certainly types of scenarios where these raycasts are not needed. An example is a fully Player-versus-Player scenario, where the visibility between every combination of player entity is not needed. So why not disable this by default? There are cases where you do require these raycasts, for example in stealth scenarios. Without them, commands like knowsAbout, nearTargets and targetKnowledge will only function for local units! The commands themselves are local, can be used on servers and clients, and the state is reset when the scenario ends. So, carefully consider whether your scenario can benefit from this method. We've measured some significant performance boosts for high player count PvP scenarios in testing already.

LOGISTICS

First reports on using the experimental beta ports to Mac and Linux are good. The limitations make them mostly suitable for singleplayer right now, but performance benchmarks appear to be pleasantly surprising. We don't yet have further plans to share, but will update you as soon as we can. Our QA team has meanwhile updated the Community Wiki documentation with tips on various Linux distros, updating graphics hardware drivers, configuring controllers and running Dedicated Servers. Please feel free to contribute to the page with your own experiences and tips.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Ports Beta Started, Windows 10 Compatibility, Update 1.50 Released
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

The public beta for the experimental client ports to Mac and Linux has begun yesterday! Owners of the Windows version on Steam also have access to the ports. Installation is straight forward; just install the game while Steam is running on either port platform. We would ask you to visit our overview page to learn about the current limitations, requirements and a F.A.Q. Please share your experiences with us on the forums and report issues on Feedback Tracker (the user guide was updated to include platform specifics). If you have information that may help other players with compatibility with specific hardware, drivers or OS versions and distributions, consider letting us know or even contribute to the documentation yourself. Most of the work occurred outside of the main Arma 3 development team, so kudos go to Bohemia Interactive's publishing and QA teams. We'd like to especially thank our partners Virtual Programming for the heavy lifting and the job they have done so far!

INTELLIGENCE

Like trains? So does Konstantin Spiridonov! This Russian modder is working on a very interesting and advanced mod for Arma 3. It basically lets you ride trains and include them in scenarios. Read more in this translated interview with the creator (Russian source).



We came across a German-spoken MilSim COOP video by Smart Tactics, featuring an operation conducted by the 101st Airborne Division community unit. It offers highlights of their patrols and compound clearing, while also calling in Close Air Support and suffering indirect fire on their positions. Their Rules of Engagement with regards to non-combatants were also interesting to observe. We might point out that smoking during combat operations poses a potential health risk.



Another intriguing cooperative scenario analysis is offered up by Dslyecxi. The second episode of his Hindsight series shows an airfield assault from multiple points of view, including his own as C.A.S. pilot, some of the infantry players on the ground, and a mix of 2D map and 3D camera techniques. Combined with the radio communications and narration, it shows how the fog of war can make all the difference in combat.

OPERATIONS

Several reports ago, we cautioned about the upgrade to Windows 10. Now we can say that we're not aware of any major issues specific to the game and this latest version of Windows. The issues we did investigate were caused by broken shared libraries and resolved by repairing those or by doing fully clean Windows installations (back up your files!). This Community Wiki page offers a few solutions if you do encounter such problems. What we cannot say for sure is whether all hardware manufacturers have already made their drivers compatible, but the major ones do appear to be very active in this area. In short: we think Arma 3 should work on Windows 10 just as well as other versions, if not slightly better according to some players.

Update 1.50 already disabled file patching by default, but in the next update we'd also like to expand what file patching controls. On Dev-Branch since a number of days, the script commands which reference other files, are also affected by file patching settings (loadFile*, htmlLoad, prepocessFile* and exec*). You'll not be able to execVM a local unpacked SQF script when it's disabled, for example. In the interest of security, we are also considering removing the ability to include files via absolute file path for #include pre-processor directives. If you can present valid arguments for not doing so, please let us know.

Speaking on the topic of security, we'd like to kindly request anyone with knowledge of security threats or exploits in the game, to contact us privately first. You can report confirmed details on Feedback Tracker and set the issue to 'private' View Status. Then send us the issue link or reference number without revealing further details, via the forums or by e-mailing support[at]bistudio.com for example. Online Services Consultant David Foltýn is a good direct point of contact to ensure we're aware of the situation. We'll do our best to react quickly if the nature of the exploit demands it. Thanks a lot for contributing to a safer (multiplayer) environment!

LOGISTICS

Arma 3 Tools update 0.94 included the new Terrain Processor tool for terrain-makers. To celebrate that release, the gentlemen behind it, Marek Novosad and Ivan Buchta, have posted an OPREP. In the report, they evaluate what prompted the development of the tool. They explain what it does and doesn't do, and highlight some particularly useful features. In the last section they also describe its open architecture and possibilities for community tool makers via an upcoming SDK release.







Of course we've also released update 1.50 for the game last week. The change log can be consumed via its SPOTREP as per usual. This has been a good update overall. We're mainly still working on addressing the random memory addressing errors that occur for some people. By their nature these are very hard to catch. Unless they happen on our own debug set ups, they produce no usable reports to process for clues (but do keep sending them our way; you never know!).

The update did cause some troubles for certain mods. Encoding Lead Petr Kolář describes what can be done to avoid this: "As we are working on improvements of Personal Protection, there appeared some issues in community-made mods. We have added some underlying basics of the new system into the configuration of our units and that caused several mods to stall the game. This was mainly caused by a slight difference in the way class declaration and inheritance works - if content creators need to inherit something from a parent class, they need to declare it first to use it for the new class. Let's have an example:

class MyParentClass {}; //Probably incorrect method
class MyNewClass: MyParentClass {myValue = 1;};

class MyParentClass; //Recommended method
class MyNewClass: MyParentClass {myValue = 1;};

We've spotted the first method in some of the affected mod configs, and it's probably not what you intended. This will empty the parent class and then create the new child class based on it. Instead, when using the single ; you tell the engine to find the parent class somewhere in the configs, and then base the child class based on it, but without changing the parent."

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
UNIT: Main Branch
ACTIVITY: Game Update: 1.50 (File Patching, Remote Script Execution, Animation Tweaks, AI Visibility Tweaks, Script Commands)
SIZE: ~889 MB / ~431 MB

NOTES

• Consider using the Steam client option to verify the integrity of the local game cache to avoid corrupted data after downloading this update.
• Consider defragmenting your HDD after downloading large updates.
• A Legacy Build Steam branch is available for advanced users. It contains the previous significant main branch version (1.48). It can be used to compare specific changes between major releases. The access code for this branch is: Arma3Legacy148
• You can find the servers in the Steam library (switch the filter to "Tools") - "Arma 3 Server" (based on your OS, it will download the Windows or Linux version).
  • Administrators can also use the command-line SteamCMD utility. The app ID is to be 233780.
  • NVIDIA GameWorks™ Technology provided under license from NVIDIA Corporation. Copyright © 2002-2015 NVIDIA Corporation. All rights reserved.
• In case of problems, please check the Bohemia Interactive support F.A.Q., Arma 3 F.A.Q. or BattlEye F.A.Q.
• You can help us to further improve the game by posting your feedback on the Feedback Tracker.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Experimental Port Betas, Special Edition, Samples, Edita
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

For a couple of weeks, we've mostly reported on main branch updates like 1.50 (Release Candidate testing still on-going). However, a large part of the team is working on the production of assets for Tanoa and the rest of the expansion. These range from natural objects like trees, bushes, rocks and ground clutter to artificial structures like buildings, fences, signs and landmarks. Then we also have production of new vehicles and weapons in its early stages. Besides assets, there are new features and technologies in development. Some of them you'll see trickle into the game via updates, others are more connected to the expansion. The first details will soon be shared in the road map blog, after we nail down some of the planning.

That road map was also the main topic for our in-company Arma Development Conference 2015 last Wednesday. Once per year we bring our Arma developers together from their various offices across the Czech Republic. The objective is to present each other with progress and to discuss the plans for the next year. It's also great to meet everyone face to face and catch up. Another part of ADC is some sort of military or otherwise Arma-like experience. Last year we took the team to a shooting range. This year we had the opportunity to race around in the mud in military trucks, a BMP and a T-72 Main Battle Tank!

INTELLIGENCE

Several weeks in the making, the "Turbines and Dust" machinima by Mike Herrmann and Nefron shows off an impressive action-packed vehicle chase. Enjoy the insane-level helicopter flying skills that we are very envious of!



Virtual Arsenal mode lets you save the load-outs you create, and doing so will net you the "Lock and Load" achievement (10.8% global unlocks). The load-outs are saved to your profile, so they can be used elsewhere in the game and across sessions. You should only be aware that a load-out containing items from an inactive addon or mod, will not be available to load. Any scenario can set up equipment containers to open the Arsenal interface and let players pick their own load-outs. Official End Game multiplayer has such containers at the F.O.B., and other (custom) scenarios use them too. Another application is Zeus multiplayer. Game Masters can place equipment containers (Units > Empty > Other > Ammo), or use load-outs for the available respawn kit (Respawn > Loadouts). Take a look at the technical documentation if you're creating your own scenario and would like to use this functionality.

OPERATIONS

We can finally share news about the experimental client ports to Linux and Mac. They are being prepared for public beta release very soon (shortly after update 1.50). We consider them a complementary service to owners of the primary Windows version, so anyone owning that version, will also have access to the ports. It should be pointed out that there are some significant limitations, which we'll detail along with the start of the beta. There is also a possibility that these ports will never graduate from beta, but we will be evaluating their popularity and usability for some time. Keep an eye on our information channels to be notified about the beta starting!

LOGISTICS

The Bohemia Interactive store now offers a very special edition of Arma 3 for collectors and fans. It includes the most complete digital edition of the game itself, as well as some awesome physical collector items. We especially like the laser glass statue of an Arma 3 infantryman and the game's logo cut inside it. For a limited time, you can purchase this package with free shipping. Is it a little strange to release this edition so long after the game's release? Probably! Our company has been entirely focused on digital distribution, and we never planned to do such physical edition of the game. Previous Arma special editions were typically done in cooperation with publishers and distributors. This is a good opportunity to get a physical distribution pipeline up and running ourselves on a limited scale. We may start selling some of the merchandise separately in the future, but that's not confirmed yet.




Two weeks ago we outlined our plans for the separation of the Arma 3 samples from the tools. These changes have now gone live. In addition, Valve has changed the way in which free applications are handled on Steam. They are no longer automatically added into your library. We've manually added both apps to all ownership packages of Arma 3, but if you still don't see them, please visit their store pages (Arma 3 Tools / Arma 3 Samples) and install the 'games' there. To be clear: ownership of Arma 3 is still not required for either app, but you do need a Steam account. Tools Commissar Julien Vida has all the details in this forums post.




Remember that tank we drove during ADC? It's actually ours! Bohemia Interactive bought a decommissioned T-72 and she's called Edita. She is very much able to drive, but her gunnery systems have obviously been disabled. We actually need to drive her around every now and then, to keep her in good shape (it's a tough job, but ...). Now she stands parked at the Team Mike office compound, proudly displaying her BI squad.xml logo. Getting her to the offices made for a surreal early morning. Many of us were gathered at the gate at 07:00, waiting for the massive truck combination to arrive. The truck managed to get stuck on the narrow roads, so Edita drove the last leg of her journey. There is no specific goal for having her around, but we did already expand our audio recording libraries with the roar of her engine and tracks rolling over hard surfaces (and destroying them). Welcome to the family!
...

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Update 1.50 Highlights, Community Group Spotlight, Server Monetization Feedback
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

Now that Release Candidate testing has begun for 1.50 (Steam access code: Arma3Update150RC), let's go over the highlights of additions, tweaks and fixes for this update. Engine-supported remote script execution is finally being rolled out, after a lot of work on its configurability and security. The update also disables file patching by default, and lets server administrators deny connection of file patched clients. We have tweaked the data and configuration of certain bits of vegetation and other 'clutter' on Altis and Stratis to improve how visibility is simulated for Artificial Intelligence units. Previously mentioned tweaks to (crouched) sprint animations and vehicle steering have also been included.

In terms of fixes, further optimization of the memory footprint are included, as well as at least one invalid memory addressing crash fix. This work continues still, with a few more low-level optimizations requiring more testing. Our thanks for community efforts such as the one organized by Altis Tales to aid us. Other welcome fixes are for TrackIR, unrestricted movement exploits and the inability to use Night Vision Goggles as a vehicle passenger. Read more details here and discuss the RC here, as we push for a release next week. The best place to report issues is our Feedback Tracker.

INTELLIGENCE

The Arma 3 community consists of many varied players and groups, playing the game in the way they like best. Of course one such way is to role-play authentic military operations as large and organised units. Some units are open to anyone and some have recruiting rules. Some are dedicated to a specific region of the world, others are international. They often use specific mod mixes and sometimes even create mods for themselves. Custom scenarios frequently apply Player-versus-Environment cooperative gameplay, but not necessarily so. Many units host training sessions, special events and competitive meet-ups. We think this is a great way to experience what Arma has to offer, though it can be daunting to new players and hard to get into. We have plans to support groups more over the coming months. For now, let's take a look at a (very random) selection of units and events that caught our attention during just this past week. Cheers to 1st Combat Division, 16 Air Assault Brigade Milsim, BTS Brasil, 16th Infantry Regiment Arma 3 Realism Unit, BattleGroup XXI, 40 Commando Arma 3, 101st Airborne Division, CentralOp and Reality Gaming for sharing their experiences!

OPERATIONS

At the start of 2015, we began a year-long trial for Arma 3 server monetization. About half-way through now, there have been both approved and denied servers, as well as those which switched to voluntary donations instead. Please let Associate Producer Vojtech Schubert know how you feel about the topic and our specific implementation thus far on the forums!

LOGISTICS

If you're curious about the Terrain Processor tool, you may find this tutorial very useful. It instructs users on its basic usage and demonstrates how to use OpenStreetMap geographic vector data in your terrains. Sample data and projects are available to study as well.

There are many approaches to creating scenarios for players. You can prepare them before-hand using the editor, or curate them in real-time using frameworks like Zeus. StrategicGamingTV has started a series of videos discussing the latter especially. It gets into topics like intention versus perception and freedom versus restrictions. The focus is on being a role-played high command Game Master who can react to player actions dynamically. A general tip they offer is to not focus on killing the player at every turn, while obviously providing a good challenge. To quote one of the videos: "Arma is a game of risk management". Sounds about right!

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: RC 1.50 Incoming, Terrain Processor, Community Upgrade Project
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

It's our intention to prepare update 1.50 for Release Candidate testing later this week. Extensive build tests would then be conducted during next week (and the flanking weekends), before releasing the update the week after that. Keep an eye on our @Arma3Official Twitter channel for the access code and multiplayer stress test details. We realize one huge obstacle for those willing to participate, is Steam Client's inability to install parallel branches of the game. Our Game Updater utility in the Arma 3 Tools suite does allow you to do that, but for the moment you'll need its Dev-Branch. Your help, whether you're a player, modder or server administrator, is tremendously useful. We're grateful for your support while we try to not only maintain the game, but make it better!

INTELLIGENCE

High time for another episode of our Community Guide video series, in cooperation with Andrew "Dslyecxi" Gluck! This episode deals with the tactical employment of Machine Gun Teams. Specifically, it describes how the roles in such team can be divided and where you might position the team in the battle space. The guide also explains how a gunner can best suppress or engage a target or position. Take a look for yourself and then boot up the game to start practicing your gunnery and teamwork skills!



Last week's dev photo was taken at the entrance of GDC Europe. Five of our developers attended the conference to meet their peers, discuss hot topics, be inspired and of course to see cool tech and games. Another one of our Bohemia Interactive colleagues, Eugen Harton (Associate Producer for DayZ) held a well-received lecture on the controversial topic of cheating. It would also appear that several people spotted and snapped our fleet of Arma 3 vehicles traveling in Germany.




Have you tried all seven Marksmen DLC weapons yet? Achievement "Marksmen Weapon Master" at just 2.5% global unlocks, says you haven't. Even if you do not own the DLC, you can try all these weapons without restrictions in the LEARN > VIRTUAL ARSENAL mode. Pick the Rifle category in the left menu bar, scan for the Marksmen icon on the right of entries, select one of them and hit TRY. You don't need to try every color variant, but feel free to do so. Alternatively, you can open the DLC Content Browser by pressing Shift + P in the main menu. Click the MARKSMEN tile and check how long you've used each weapon, or TRY them directly from there.

The 5 rifles and 2 medium machine guns in the DLC were described in detail in Sandbox Lead Lukáš Haládik's OPREP. Some more information on each weapon can also be found in the in-game LEARN > FIELD MANUAL, in the Weapons Info category. This is the complete list in case you have any trouble finding them:

• Cyrus 9.3 mm CSAT marksman rifle


• MAR-10 .338 CTRG marksman rifle


• Mk-I EMR 7.62 mm NATO marksman rifle


• Mk14 7.62 mm FIA marksman rifle


• ASP-1 Kir CSAT special purpose rifle


• SPMG .338 NATO Medium Machine Gun


• Navid 9.3 mm CSAT Medium Machine Gun

The Community Upgrade Project is a cooperative undertaking whose goal it is to port all Arma 2 content to Arma 3 standards. A large portion of the source data used is contained within the licensed data packages that were released to modders for free. There is no denying the immense effort it must take to achieve the lofty goal, but their initial releases are very impressive. Join us in expressing our gratitude to all contributors for putting in their time and delivering this mod to all players (under APL-SA license!). Very recently, they have released the first version of the CUP Units Pack, in addition to updating the CUP Weapons Pack. Amazingly, both the CUP Terrains Pack and CUP Vehicles Pack are also in the works.

OPERATIONS

Animation Encoder Martin Kašpar has placed a call for feedback on animation tweaks. You can try the current state in Dev-Branch and submit your notes in its discussion thread. We'd like to focus your attention to the crouched sprints, whether that's unarmed or while holding a sidearm, primary weapon or secondary weapon. The goal was to make them more plausible and balanced. While we have you looking at the movement animations, please also test whether any movement exploits you know about have been addressed in this version.




Our testing of Arma 3 on Windows 10 so far has been promising. The issues we do know about are mostly caused by performing upgrades from another version of Windows. This can be done without a loss of data, which has the potential to damage certain libraries that we rely on. It's possible to repair such libraries by using the solutions listed on this page. For the safest and most robust upgrade path, consider doing a fully clean installation or an upgrade with loss of data (but obviously make sure to back up first!).

LOGISTICS

A new terrain-making tool has started its public testing phase on the Arma 3 Tools Dev-Branch. Terrain Processor is meant for making mass changes and additions to Arma terrains. While separated from Terrain Builder (to facilitate easier maintenance and tweaking), it does require users to import the results into TB in order to use them. One practical use case is to import many thousands of objects from geographic data. Another is the automatic alignment of terrain under roads. Impressively, the developers behind this tool have launched it complete with a manual, sample project data and tutorials. Let us know what you think on the forums. We hope it helps terrain creators, like the team behind the Australia mod by Aussie, to achieve their goals more efficiently. Many thanks to the one and only Ivan Buchta and programmer Marek Novosad for making this happen!



We've decided to separate the Arma 3 Samples from the Arma 3 Tools application on Steam (both still freely available). The sample library will likely keep growing, and some people just want the tools, or just the samples. For the time being, the samples will remain part of the tools, but we recommend you start using the separate application once it becomes available. Both applications can be found by switching your Steam library to "Tools". Later, we'll probably remove the samples from the tools permanently.

Another upcoming change is the removal of the licensed data packages from Arma 3 Tools (they were a special gigantic branch). If you are using this branch, we recommend you copy the data to a different folder soon (to avoid having to re-download). These packages will only be available via the primary download channels on our website.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Dev Diary Tanoa, Personal Protection, Mod Highlights
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

For many people in games land, this week is about the annual Gamescom expo in Cologne. While some of our developers are attending its sister-event GDC Europe, we don't have a formal presence at the show this year. We decided to focus on development and use the extra time for all the cool stuff we have coming up. In the next couple of weeks, we'll finally publish our roadmap update blog, with more specifics of the themed updates on the road to the main expansion next year. We've also not stopped the effort to address memory and crash issues in and around the game for upcoming version 1.50.

INTELLIGENCE

Whether or not you want the "Scapegoat" achievement on your record may be quite subjective. Only 1.4% of worldwide players have been permanently marked so far. The achievement relates to the free multiplayer Zeus DLC. Watch this useful tutorial video by Luetin to see the framework in action within the editor. One of the Game Master / Moderator abilities is to embody any non-player unit and remotely control it. This is a powerful tool to tell your story. One application is to spawn a civilian in a town, take over control, start role-playing, and provide the players with Intel about their mission. You can also take over an enemy vehicle and engage the players, or help them. Should you get killed by a player while doing so, you get this achievement. You'll have made an innocent NPC your scapegoat.

Using this functionality is simple. Go to the "Modules" list and select "Remote Control" from the "Zeus" category. Drop it onto any non-player entity and start controlling it. There are a few limitations, such as the inability to issue squad commands or to use the UAV Terminal. Press 'Y' to return to the Zeus interface (this also happens when the unit you're possessing dies). Our own Zeus, Karel Morický, has two tips to share:

• When engaging players, shoot to suppress, not to kill. You can very easily intimidate and scare the players to great effect using this ability, but actually killing them may not be productive for your scenario.
• Speak on the direct speech channel via VOIP. This will even make the NPC's lips move and is a great way to create a more dynamic scene for the players.

There are many great play-through videos out there, but the designers on our team enjoyed this one a lot! EvilViking13 takes us on a tour of trials and errors while designing a coop scenario for his group (the video description details where you can grab it yourself). He narrates a testing session with an analysis of the nature of sandbox games and their complexities in design. Dealing with the vanilla game, mods and handling all the dynamic situations that may occur due to player agency are all factors to consider. There are also some tips and tricks on how to approach creating big and complex missions, by learning as you go. The end result looks like a lot of fun too!

OPERATIONS

The freshest developer diary is all about Tanoa. Creative Director Jay Crowe and yours truly sat down in the office yard to discuss the inspiration, characteristics, potential and status of the new terrain. The video speaks for itself, but we'll take the opportunity to clarify a few things you were discussing after seeing it:

• The new 3D editor has reached internal Alpha, and is shaping up to be a very useful tool. It retains the simplicity of creating a scenario, but allows far more efficient workflows. This is still a scenario editor, which does not let you modify the terrain itself. It will however be much, much nicer to build complex object compositions. The 3D editor will be free to everyone with Arma 3.


• The work-in-progress water and lighting enhancements will not only be free for all Arma 3 players, but we're also configuring them properly for Altis and Stratis.


• Our stance on building interiors has changed from the main game's terrains. In the broadest terms, fewer buildings will be fully enterable. You'll find more buildings that are partly enterable, and also some that cannot be entered at all. Kavala's hospital is an example of being partly accessible. There are various reasons for this approach. We all know that Altis had a great many enterable buildings, but they were void of furniture and felt suspiciously empty. We don't have the resources to solve this by producing top-notch varied interiors for all buildings. There is also performance to consider, which is helped by having more solid structures. This topic may be controversial, but we felt it better to be open about this at an early stage. We're still producing the final structures and experimenting with the balance, but it's quite clear not every building will have a full interior.

Martin Kašpar, one of the more recent recruits of the animation team, is seen handling one of our prop weapons in the latest weekly photo. We own a collection of disabled and mock-up weaponry that our developers can use for reference material. That may be for actually re-creating a weapon, or for feeling the weight of holding one, looking down sights, manipulating the moving parts, etc. And of course they are just awesome office decorations! Martin himself focuses on the graph of animation states and delivering animations for new features. Some of his recent work has been a special 'frozen' animation spider for competitors in Firing Drills, tweaks of the ambient animals, and fixing reported exploits of player movement.




Improvements of Personal Protection are being tested internally, and should make their way to Dev-Branch not too long from now. Specifically being targeted is the precision of protection on the character's body. At the moment, wearing a helmet will protect your entire head. In the new version, the helmet will actually only protect the parts of the head it covers. Similarly, body armor with special neck and groin plates make a real difference. The trade off between their weight and added protection will become even more pronounced. In technical terms, the change will let encoders define more hit points per piece of protection and configure how damage is distributed. Samples will of course be updated to reflect this.

LOGISTICS

Lots of good developments were shared in the community since the last report! First up, ACE3 has reached version 3.2.0 and also started distributing an official build of their open-source project via Workshop.

Matt Dean has updated his Marine Expeditionary Force mod to version 2.2, promoting it with some spectacular screenshots of USMC characters, weapons and vehicles. His mod too, you can subscribe to on Workshop.

Our final spotlight of this week (don't be shy modders, share your media and releases with us) shines a light on the C2 - Command & Control framework. It seeks to push squad commanding forward in terms of usability and options. Get it on Workshop now!



The web team reports that the Bohemia Interactive forums were migrated to their new engine, so you can start posting again. The operation took longer than expected due to back-end issues. The previous forums were also heavily customized with pages of plug-ins, which were hard to carry over. We are working on improving the experience, adding some missing features, and doing stylistic tweaks. It may take some more time to get the forums in the shape we'd like to see, but the robustness of the core is going to be important in the long-term.

If you are using the licensed data packages via the special branch of Arma 3 Tools, please copy the data to another location. We'll be removing this branch and Steam mirror of the data. It will remain fully accessible via the primary download locations on our website (direct or Torrent).

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: 1.48 Hotfixed, Windows 10, Vehicle Steering
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

With your help and patience, we've finally honed in on the suspected culprit causing severe performance degradation for a group of players. The hotfix released today improves the situation for a lot of people who reported back to us. In another section of this report, we explain in some more technical details what caused the issues. This is not considered the end station of this investigation. We're doing our best to address more issues in this area. There are many factors that lead to problems like these, which probably would make for an interesting Dev Hub post in the future. Ultimately, however, we strive to more effectively prevent such issues from ever reaching you, the player. Our apologies and gratitude for assisting us in finding the first tangible clues that lead to this step forward.

INTELLIGENCE

Community Developer Greg Becksted has announced that an upgrade to the forums' back-end software is currently underway. From Tuesday 09:00 CEST until approximately Thursday 11:00 CEST you will not be able to start new threads or reply to existing ones. Part of a plan to facilitate a unified Bohemia Interactive account for all services, we'll go from vBulletin to IPB and a slightly different User Interface and layout.




Greg has also shared a very entertaining Arma 3 ShoutCast of a Team-versus-Team match. This is one episode in a series of "Friday Night Fight" events. MicOne's narration of the VIP Escort in Zargabad gives a cool perspective on the small unit tactics employed during this session without respawns. We look forward to more of these!

OPERATIONS

Windows 10 is scheduled for release tomorrow on July 29. Arma 3 will of course be running on this version as well. We've tested the game on various preview builds over the past months, and it mostly worked well. However, recent preview updates have revealed some new issues that we may need to work around or fix. Therefore, we recommend to delay your upgrade until at least update 1.50 (Arma 3 / Arma 3 Tools 0.94) has been released. We'll have had some more time to react to the 'final' OS version and learn how it works in the wild. In addition, our research of DirectX 12 is still underway for a future update.

Programming Lead Vojtěch Hladík and Designer Ondřej Kuže have been cooperating on Dev-Branch tweaks to vehicle steering. Ondřej reports: "To make driving more intuitive, fun and also to give individual vehicles more unique characteristics, we've made it possible to adjust the steering sensitivity for each vehicle separately (this applies to digital / keyboard input and ground wheeled vehicles only). Recently we've set up these characteristics for the basic vanilla vehicle types. That includes a neutral, jeep-like configuration of the Car_F base class, which allows mods to benefit from the improved steering from day one. More info about the configuration can be found on the Community Wiki. We're interested in your feedback!".

LOGISTICS

The premiere SECREP , meaning a main branch anti-cheat update, was published last week. It provides modest BattlEye stability and performance improvements, especially to servers intensely using client-side script scanning. Kicking has been temporarily disabled for scripts.txt scans (instead a warning message is shown on server launch). Admins may have to amend their filters according to what is logged in scripts.log >. Once they are sure that their filters are compatible with the new version, they can re-enable kicking by adding "//new2" into the first line.




Various players who are already using Windows 10, have reported a "Driver Load Error 577" for BattlEye. This was a temporary issue introduced in one of the Windows preview builds (10074), and fixed by them in build 10162 (it also affected other software). BE will be monitoring for more errors of this type. Please contact their support team if it does still happen to you after updating Windows.

Another glitch causing frame rate problems while playing Arma 3, appears to be caused by erroneous continuous downloading of Workshop content by the Steam Client. Valve has been trying to fix this in recent beta versions of their client, but it may not have been resolved for everyone. As a work-around, visit Settings > Downloads, and restrict downloads to a time during which you're not playing.

So what is our current theory on what caused the performance troubles that prompted the hotfix? During March 2015, we introduced an optimization to the way PhysX collision data is loaded (yes, the irony is not lost on us, but most optimizations are a battle between improvements and unwarranted side effects elsewhere). The data was baked into the game-ready model during binarization, so that the game could access it faster while streaming new parts of the terrain and scene. The trade off here was that the memory footprint of those models grew. Over time, more and more game data got re-binarized and for some PCs this clearly pushed the budget over the edge. Specifically in update 1.48, we believe the standard rocks were the biggest problem. The hotfix has optimized how the baked data is stored, which should help in most cases. This is where things get unclear, and further investigation and analysis of data is required. We still cannot reproduce the problems on our company hardware. There also is no clear or obvious common factor between those people who reported the issues. We do know that for some of them, using the default Windows memory allocator prevented the issues. It is slower overall than TBB 4, but also more conservative and it may handle the situation more gracefully. We'll keep hunting and finding alternate avenues to optimize memory usage.

FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Update 1.48 Released, External 3D Artists
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

Main branch update 1.48 saw the light of day last Thursday. For the majority of players it works well, and brought some useful additions, tweaks and fixes. Take a look at the for the game and the TECHREP for the tools if you'd like to know all the details. During the last days of testing, we decided to delay inclusion of Remote Script Execution. We found a few issues in complex use cases that we'd like to fix first. Once fully ready for the next update, it should help multiplayer designers to achieve modest optimizations and benefit from security improvements.

The team is aware of two issues affecting a smaller group of players. That doesn't make those issues less important. It does make them very hard to diagnose and solve, since we cannot reproduce them in-house. If you're experiencing such issues, any information you'd be willing to share may help to narrow down the cause(s). Specifically, we're investigating memory corruption crashes and unexplained performance degradation. Even though we know it does not help everyone, we would like to ask people to try the common solutions to problems: defragmenting HDD storage, running Steam file verification, updating hardware drivers, installing OS updates, switching back to the non-Beta Steam Client, and other methods listed here.

INTELLIGENCE

What is going on in the latest weekly dev photo?!




Our Creative Director, Jay Crowe, will take on an interesting panel at PAX Dev in Seattle this year. Together with DayZ's Brian Hicks and Paradox Interactive's Shams Jorjani, he will be debating the intricacies of developing and maintaining highly modifiable games, during a panel titled "A Clash of Kings: Vanilla v User-Generated Content".




Achievement Spotlights let us tell you more about features and modes that don't necessarily get the attention they deserve. One such mode is the "4+1 ZGM Bootcamp" multiplayer scenario that was created by Designer Nelson Duarte and introduced in 1.24 Bootcamp Update. Implied in its name, this mode caters to 4 Recruits and 1 Zeus Game Master Instructor. The latter can guide the Recruits through a series of pre-defined training courses, but also set up any dynamic challenge that comes to mind. The narrative context for the mode is NATO personnel training AAF troops at the Altis airport. Several Firing Ranges and Obstacle Courses are pre-build to use. The "Ready for Duty" achievement (0.4% global unlocks) is awarded after you've completed all stages as recruit once.

Receiving training from experienced human Instructors can be very powerful. They can use the Y key to open the Zeus interface and use all of its functionalities (Recruits can use the same key to ping the Instructor). Specifically for Bootcamp, there are 3 modules in the "Training" category that are of great use. "Bootcamp Stage" lets them start the pre-designed training courses. "Hint" triggers any of the game's Field Manual hints to all players. And to have a little bit of fun, they can use "Punishment" to force Recruits into push-ups or squats as a corrective measure. Being an actual character in the session, they can also lead by example and participate in the training. One excellent example of rounding off a session is to build a final live-fire Close Quarters Battle exam for the trainees. Final tip: you can press and hold T to reveal various Points Of Interest.




Senior Designer and drone overlord Borivoj Hlava came across an old but relevant video tutorial about the use of drones in Arma 3. Learn how to use a single Greyhawk to lase and strike a target, or how to make several UAVs work together. The instructions and tips are still accurate, so join us in thanking Oddity for uploading it!

OPERATIONS

The Art department would like to remind everyone that we're still looking for more external 3D artists for (paid) help with building Tanoa's assets. This is contract work without fixed working hours, so even if you can only contribute part-time, we're interested. Several recent recruits are already producing new buildings for the terrain! Find the details on our careers page.

LOGISTICS

The most recent update of the Arma 3 Tools Dev-Branch has added Game Updater support for Legacy Build branch. This tool lets you maintain several branches of the game on your hard drive at the same time, something which the Steam client itself does not do. The Legacy Build branch always contains the previous main branch version. It lets users switch to it in case of major issues with a new version, or just to compare the differences. Currently it contains update 1.46 and its access code is Arma3Legacy146.

We'd like to give modders a friendly piece of advise: please check the game's RPT log after running the game with your mod(s) enabled. While trying several popular mods recently, our team found various error messages being spammed. Besides indicating the error itself, this can also cause micro-freezes (unless you use -noLogs). Most of these errors are very simple to fix and involve missing sounds or textures. The RPT and other logs can be found in a folder like C:\Users\\AppData\Local\Arma 3\. Having said that, we'll be the first to admit that there can be such errors in the vanilla game as well. Let's clean things up together!

There is one more addition in 1.48, hidden away in the game's install folder. A new file, arma3_keyboard_layout.pdf, contains a localized control scheme guide for various aspects of the game (for the default and Industry Standard schemes). It's even laid out in a way that allows printing and folding into a convenient cheat sheet next to your PC.