FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Full update testing, Headless Clients
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

After a string of hotfixes, it's time for a beefier 1.32 update soon. Connoisseurs of Dev-Branch will know there has been a lot of development since the last big update. We'd like to synchronize these branches ahead of Arma 3 Helicopters releasing. The three core new features will not yet be part of 1.32! Advanced Flight Modelling, Sling Loading and Firing from Vehicles are still in testing and will be part of the update released alongside the DLC. If you'd like to prepare yourself, your community or your mod for 1.32 - switch to Steam's Release Candidate branch using access code Arma3UpdateOctober132Splendid.

INTELLIGENCE

The October 2014 newsletter for Make Arma Not War is out! In it, you'll find Intel on a new winners announcement date and details on a special Steam branch of Arma 3. Said branch will provide competitors and the jury a proven and fixed target, and ensure future updates don't cause incompatibilities. This branch will be based on the 1.32 update, so it will not contain the Arma 3 Helicopters features. Best of luck to all participants during this last month before the submission deadline closes on October 28.

PSA for users of TrackIR head-tracking: due to its current implementation and default bindings in Arma 3 (the Z-axis is bound to zoom, not head movement forward / back), we recommend to turn off TrueView in TrackIR properties for the best zooming experience.

OPERATIONS

Programmer Marián Krivda has recently been able to take an existing feature and iterate on it quite a lot. Headless Clients are special instances of the game without a graphics renderer. These instances can be used to do distributed computing in complex scenarios or modes. One example is to offload Artificial Intelligence computing to another PC. The version inherited from Arma 2 was quite rough albeit usable. Further work on this was not originally planned, but we feel it may benefit community content. HCs are now (Dev-Branch) easier to run, less hassle to integrate into scenarios and they are a real entity in the MP lobby. Take a look at the documentation here, and please share your feedback on this feature here.

LOGISTICS

Mods now have access to the Sling Loading constants in CfgSlingLoading. The tolerances for hooking and aborting are configurable via hookMinRange, abortHeight and abortRange in meters.

Inspired by community member Nullrick, a new module was added to Zeus. It allows Game Masters to accelerate the day-night cycle and go through an entire day in one hour for example.

Several script commands added on Dev-Branch were renamed to make them consistent with existing commands.