FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Alpha anniversary, Zeus intel
PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATIONTomorrow will have been a year since the release of the Arma 3 Alpha. Thanks to your enduring support and the hard work of the development team, Arma 3 has evolved into a cool military package. And it continues to grow and mature. As a small bonus for this mini-anniversary, we're including a
new variant of the Slammer MBT in tomorrow's update. The
Urban Purpose variant features a commander machine gun turret, a smaller caliber cannon, shorter barrel, and enhanced armor.
The update will also sport
improved optics for armored vehicles - giving them more unique and authentic styles. Alongside the game update, we'll of course be bringing the
Server packages to the same version. The
Arma 3 Tools suite is to receive more samples for various vehicle types, as well as a tool to extract PBO data.
INTELLIGENCEPetr Kolár reports: you may have already noticed that
new holders for various objects appeared in the Editor together with the
Zeus Beta release to
development branch. These are meant to improve mission making by adding a possibility to place weapons on specific spots, and not only for Zeus. It is easier for example to make your own firing drills with a wide variety of weapons on the ground around shooting positions. We have even added an empty one on popular demand, in order to fill it with stuff using initialization scripts. All weapons, inventory items, headgear, vests and uniforms should be available to use (and loaded with respective magazines in case of weapons).
Let's continue
last week's look at some of the cool aspects of
Zeus:
- There is a strong potential for training. Team up with an experienced player and let him or her be a cooperative Zeus who runs you through improvised combat drills, navigation training, tactics, or anything else you can think of. This form of multiplayer training can be very intuitive and powerful.
- It is very easy to create custom scenarios which use Zeus technology in some way. Many things are possible, but it starts by simply dropping in a player character and a Game Master module (F7). Check out the documentation to learn more about setting up resource / unlock schemes, using custom add-ons, defining editable objects and areas, and more.
- The Zeus tech, especially when broken down to its smaller components and modules, can be used for other projects. Think of other game modes or features like spectating for example.
OPERATIONSAs we get closer to the release of the '
Win' campaign episode, the work on the new vehicles comes to its end. We are primarily tweaking the jets' flight models and getting the final sounds in place. A few new sound triggers in the engine will be usable for community aircraft as well:
landing gear and flap SFX. Ideally we'll be staging the assets on
devbranch next week.
Another small Task Force has been mopping up work on
drones, based on player feedback and a few internal requests for upcoming scenarios. This
forums post sums up what has been fixed / changed over the past few weeks.
LOGISTICSNeed some
new wallpapers for your PC? Grab the
new ones for the
Make Arma Not War contest, or the splendid
Arma 3 ones!