creator_dlc_discussion

[wide steppe]

Today, yes - but so was the West-East German conflict, everything can be made more creatively and "alternative" in the game

[normal light]

So…Ukraine takes back Crimea situation?

[wide steppe]

But both Syria and Ukraine where rather loud and active in the beginning of the war, wouldn't say either would be boring

[wide steppe]

For example)

[normal light]

I mean….if some Dev team wants to do that, ya go for it I guess.

I still hope it’s WW2 though

The WW2 community doesn’t hardly get any love any more

[wide steppe]

But the more Eastern conflict would be more believable and reasonable

[normal light]

Maybe a India VS China DLC?

That would be neat

[wide steppe]

(ww2 underrepresented) Very false. Look at the amount of mods for that in Arma, or games related to it being released

[wide steppe]

(India China) That too would be cool - either of those countries are completely underrepresented in Arma.

[devout turtle]

Kashmir DLC

Some very cool old aircraft for that

and amazing scenery

[dense grail]

Or... a ww1 cdlc?

[normal light]

It’s not though. We got, what, like 3 Mods? And only one has any real content and it only covers the summer-winter of 1944

1 stopped deveopment (faces of war)

1 is gone (liberation)

And 1 is just reskins (IFA3 Geist)

So, ya, the WW2 community needs some love

Actually, we do have those Finnish and Czech mods, but that’s pretty niche.

[hearty heron]

imo ww1 wouldnt work very well in arma without major work. The AI doesnt handle rushes and charges very well, and ww1 wouldnt if the AI just buried its head in the dirt instead of advancing

[wide steppe]

IFA3, CSA38, FoW, Liberation, WW2_Units (massi?), US General Equipment, maybe some more. Not much into WW2 mods, so don't remember well

US gear, and another mod that adds completely new gear and faction stuff that I forgot the name of

[normal light]

Ya but that’s the thing

Most are either A) iron front reskins

Or B) really small, niche theater mods

(Like 1938 Czechoslovakia or Finland or China)

In fact, the IFA3 team haven’t added anything new in years

Hell, they’ve had tons of stuff taken away (the Ju-82, the desert rats ect.)

So ya, the WW2 community needs something big and new. Otherwise it’s dead in the water

[wide steppe]

Idk, CSA38 can be a lot of things, but small isn't the best word for a 15-20 GB mod.. Think its the largest single mod I know of

[torpid hearth]

I'd like a map with true mountains not just glorified hills. There are a ton of real life locations that could support it with real or alt history battles

[knotty ore]

well design wise mountains are great. they basically block most ground movement on large area 😄

but also mountains are difficult to make nice up close

[torpid hearth]

Fair

[solar mantle]

Anything in the Hindu Kush/Himalayas range. From Spin Ghar to Tibet. There are so many gorgeous scenes and many conflicts that would fit into the platform

[sinful cape]

and many places for the ai to get stuck on 😄

[trim light]

I'd like to see a Korean War cDLC, has a weird mix of post WW2 equipment and loads of varied terrain like the mountains around the Hook, urbanised like Pusan or even the Inchon coastline.

[devout turtle]

me too, simply for the aircraft, but also the atmosphere of night fighting on hilltops against hard core Chinese troops

[trim light]

Minimal cover, having to scrabble from shellscrape to shellscrape in between illumination going up. I would love that.

[steel valley]

Korean War gear can be easily used in multiple conflicts also, spanning back to WW2 and up to Vietnam. Would be a very versatile set of equipment to adapt to other uses.

[jade otter]

I could see Korean War being more likely than ww2, less dependency on bolt actions by then, which have always been janky in arma

[young geyser]

The Korean War with the US, South Korea, North Korea and China would be perfect indeed! A must buy cDLC!

[jade otter]

It’s also easier to focus on the Korean War than finding a specific part of the entire earth to cover in a conflict

If you wanted to fit the other cdlc better, you could do the second Korean War from 1966

[young geyser]

That Era is more than taken care off! We need something along the lines of WW2 to capture the most amount of players and finish covering all the time periods via cDLCs

[jade otter]

I’d hope the focus were in the north and South Koreans tho, which is nonexistent in coverage for that era

A fictional 80s conflict would be really unique aswell, getting to see daewoos and whatnot

Even a Korean conflict is almost entirely covered by mods and cdlc already

we’re only lacking like the m1 garand when it comes to small arms

[steel valley]

It's out there, just depends on how many GB's of mods you want to add to get it

[jade otter]

I mean the north is almost a copy paste of SOG’s NVA

[steel valley]

Yeah, if SOG had a garand, a thompson, and a BAR, add US general equipment mod and you'd basically be set from a US infantry side.

[jade otter]

And South Koreans just used American gear until the 70s

[steel valley]

NVA faction would need to be modified a bit to remove some of the modern weapons

[young geyser]

I would buy a Korean War subCLDC for SOG! With a new map and those new factions even if some things are re used! 😉

[jade otter]

I’d like to if we can get the farthest from things already available, America has been done to death for every era of the past 80 years

[gritty hound]

It doesn’t help that America was the advent of warfare tech and constantly in conflict during that time

[jade otter]

Still would be nice to see more niche stuff, that was my favorite part of GM, getting a conflict that feels fresh

[steel valley]

Well it makes the most sense from a DLC perspective. According to the recent chart released by BI, the US is the largest player base of ARMA players. So you want to sell copies, sell to the largest audience. Doesn't mean you can't have 2 or 3 other factions in the DLC though. Example SOG with it's well made Vietnamese factions. You could also do something with a united allied force, say the UK and US. Or do a WW2 late war European theater DLC, then you've got the potential for the US, UK, Germany, and USSR.

[jade otter]

Just because America is the largest playerbase doesn’t mean Americans want to only play as Americans, playing as Americans with the same weapons over and over is getting quite stale

American weapons and equipment hasn’t gone through many changes since changing to the m16 in the 60s

[young geyser]

Yeah and Russia was already featured in Contact and the russian weapons are everywhere anyway. We need scenarios and factions never done before. Like the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Japanese_War at the onset of WW2 that also featured Korea and China both invaded by Japan!

[steel valley]

It's not for lack of options, there are many high quality mods out there with a huge variety of weapons. Even in CUP and RHS alone there are a ton of weapons used by other countries.

[jade otter]

And double that for weapons and equipment used by America

it’s be much more exciting to see a Korean War dlc like GM, focused only on the north and south factions

Imagine getting the many Daewoo firearms and the K1 tanks

[steel valley]

It's because that's what the majority of people want to play as. Go on Reddit /findaunit - the majority of ARMA units are US Army or Marines. It's not for a lack of options, that is what they want to play as.

[jade otter]

and making an cdlc wouldn’t sell to those people, they already have tons of those assets already

Why spend the effort to make something beaten to death, everyone has already found those assets they like

[hearty heron]

idk I'd prefer a cdlc that didnt include america (or much us gear and stuff), and I think many people would find it a breath of fresh air

[steel valley]

There's a huge Vietnam milsim community, almost every one of them picked up SOGPF. So from purely a business perspective, that was a good move.

[jade otter]

Because Unsung is very dated, while American assets from that era are done elsewhere very well

Even seeing America in a Korean War dlc is just sogpf again

swap the m16/m14 for a garand

[hearty heron]

Now the british in the korean war...

that would be an intresting theme in my opinion

[jade otter]

I think a mid-80s Korean War would be fantastic, South Korea had gone into full production with their own equipment

They even had their own Abrams variant

[gritty hound]

Wow a whole variant! How new!

[jade otter]

It’s a hybrid between the Abrams and a leopard 2

it’s closer to an XM1 than the Abrams really

Different gun, different engine, a lot of customizations to operate in the mountains of Korea

A really cool thing is it can kneel like that Swedish tank

[devout turtle]

stand by for physx launch hehe

[jade otter]

I think it could be done smoothly, I’ve seen some mods do suspension systems smoothly

[torpid hearth]

I'm glad people agree on Korea. Migs and Sabres would be sick af

Plus the terrain has the potential to be pretty fresh for arma

And even though it involves America and people are allegedly bored of American assets it would be American assets rarely seen or never seen in arma

Could be super cool

[knotty ore]

one thing you folks do forget is the massive need for yet again new location appropriate objects

and I dont mean vehicles

out of model needs, vehicles and weapons are most trivial (although still not easy to get done)

there are very few building artists around

[sinful cape]

yup

completely new terrain scenery = instantly increased production costs

it's probably the most expensive part, because depending on the location you might need a lot new stuff

and then remember the requirements of the playerbase ... all houses can be entered, interactivity, furniture,...

and by god, do not reuse that one arma3 shack :p

[torpid hearth]

Ez

Just make it a place with no buildings lol

[sinful cape]

still very likely need new plants and stuff

[torpid hearth]

Nah

[knotty ore]

then it starts to go into the area of "whats the point of making something that has nothing interesting in it"

[torpid hearth]

Rocks are interesting

[knotty ore]

you would need new region friendly rocks then

thats another more tricky than it sounds model to make

[torpid hearth]

If it means that they can crank out cdlcs I don't care if they reuse assets personally

[knotty ore]

😅 its not quite that simple

[jade otter]

GM had an entirely new terrain with new terrain objects and buildings, yet tons of people claim it to be the weakest part of the dlc

You need to have more than just new objects, but you have to satisfy some kind of synergy that isn’t clearly defined to satisfy arma 3 players

it sounds really stressful lmao

[dusk cargo]

I like the GM terrain. What was the problem with it?

I can imagine that it was too boring for some people, but it's realistic. I think that being realistic doesn't mean interesting, maybe that's the problem.

[jade otter]

I found the terrain very nice, but I saw a lot of criticism against the terrain in peoples reviews

[dusk cargo]

IIRC there was some problem with rivers or with ponds or something like that

[devout turtle]

HG made a great point - korean houses, churches, temples, shops, schools, reservoir dam, bridges, bunkers, street furniture, cars and wagons, rocks and trees and bushes - for SOG that right there is a 15 man team working for 2 years just to create that stuff

[young geyser]

Main complain about the map was the lack of proper airfields. Most maps in Arma feature at least two airfields and for GM as well as any cDLC really some realism needed to be sacrificed in favour of gameplay, replayability and community missions potential, which was not a consideration while designing the map it seems. I guess that if the devs new beforehand that adding at least one fictional airfield would save them from lots of negative reviews they would have done it in the first place.

[steady nest]

This makes CSLA sound not nearly so bad...

[upper shale]

Personally I think Weferlingen’s terrain basically allows anywhere to become an airfield from sections of the autobahn to open fields

[dusk cargo]

TBH lack of airfields doesn't seem like such a catastrophic issue. I don't know if it's possible to make bots take off from custom airfields on airplanes but how many times do we need to make AIs do that?

[young geyser]

Doesn't Vindicta Rely on proper Airfields to work as intended?

[dusk cargo]

Sort of, but we made custom heliports instead, and we don't have airplanes anyway.

The Wall was a bigger issue, it splits the map in two for AI. So we had to make two versions: eastern and western part of the map.
But I wouldn't give a 'not recommended' just because of any of these things.

[young geyser]

But when you designed Vindicta did you think "Realism First" or "Gameplay First"?

[dusk cargo]

There were tradeoffs

[young geyser]

Exactly! But for the GM devs there were no tradeoffs... they went "All realism"...

[dusk cargo]

Well it's also a design decision :)

[young geyser]

Indeed... and a design decision that made some players including myself kinda sad. I would have enjoyed the map so much more because I know that Arma 3 sucks at representing super realistic scenarios anyway. It is better to embrace that this is a game far from being realistic and just focus on gameplay first and realism second.

Take Arma 3's damage system. When you are shot there is part of the damage that damages you "Overall", that damage is "" on the engine. It makes no sense on a realism side of things. If you are shot on the head your head is damaged and just your head, why would your torso also get damaged by the shot? Well because this is Arma and probably because Arma uses "workarounds" to coding problems they couldn't solve back in the day

Well, anyway, GM and its map are still awesome...

And at least with Arma 3 and GM we have a chance to fix (To a degree) whatever Dev decision we are not happy about (Via modding and scripting). That is the beauty of Arma!

[steady nest]

Sections of the autobahn -- I distinctly remember that in Rimmy's CSLA stream (from which the infamous CSLA video came) he was very much impressed (finding it really cool) by this being found in Gabreta as well!

[steady nest]

I could have sworn that the Jets update-introduced dynamic airports facilitated this?

[silk jolt]

I have also seen complaints, that the map is "too small", while it is in fact the biggest. For Jets all maps are too small and for helicopters one wouldn't actually need a dedicated airfield, right? My impression too is that some just consider the map to be "boring" - but that's how the area looks and it's great for tanks

Which was actually the strategy in that time

for that area

[young geyser]

Yeah but why be great just for tanks when you can be great for everything? Isn't Arma a sandbox? by just adding a couple fictitious airfields doesn't the gains far surpasses the losses? (If there are any losses for adding a couple airfields that is)

[silk jolt]

That might be a point, but if you want to depict it as real as possible? Arma is not a flight sim. The maps would need to be far bigger

It surely is also not so great for boats. One generally can't be great at everything

[jade otter]

It’s better to focus on what GM focuses on, open spaces and scattered towns for tank combat

GM isn’t really meant to function with tons of aircraft

[torpid hearth]

Yeah and you don't need airfields if there aren't planes

I'm aware of the plane in GM but I don't recognize it as a combat vehicle

[jade otter]

There are 2 light little planes that can takeoff and land on basically nothing

There’s nothing to require a full on airfield

[steady nest]

It's not that all maps are too small for jets, it's that maps large enough for jets seemingly-inevitably have technical errors noticeable by players on the ground

[young geyser]

The boats in Arma 3 suck, the ocean is not really necessary why add it! Just remove all oceans BI 🤣

[steady nest]

remembers that BI has made more than one landlocked terrain

[jade otter]

Oceans are not a required terrain feature, GM also does not include an ocean

[young geyser]

Arma 3 in general doesn't function with lots of aircraft yet you have 99% of maps with airfields.. terrible point really

[silk jolt]

Eh ... yeah. The level of detail of Arma on a flight map would break computers.

[jade otter]

There are many Bohemia maps without airfields aswell

Not every map requires an airfield just as not every map requires an ocean

[steady nest]

I mean that apparently this has been proven with some 'jet oriented' terrains released in A3, with floating point errors and the like

that said, 'the fix was in' years ago before the game's launch, once Jay Crowe and others called A3 'infantry centric'/'infantry focused'...

[silk jolt]

Just a slight comparison. DCS released today it's free marianas map. Islands map with lots of ocean. That map is 1500 by 1500 km and it's 120 GB and not as detailed as many Arma maps.

[steady nest]

Versus Altis overall being slightly over 31 by 31 km when including water (31 x 31 = 961 km2), and the land mass being slightly over 16 by 16 km (16 x 16 = 256 km2) -- I believe Moricky described Altis overall as ~1000 km2 and the land mass as 270 km2

[jade otter]

There’s strangely still a very religious aviation community to arma, and I understand they want maps with more airfields, but realistically how different is it what’s beneath you

not every map will have airfields

[silk jolt]

They surely are ok with a Superhornet one button start-up

[steady nest]

Which underneath it all is what 'interactive cockpit/realistic procedure stuff' amounts to... it's why I could never get into the interactive cockpit stuff, such as when Peral released the interactive-cockpit A-10C

[jade otter]

It’s a niche community and I don’t imagine a cdlc will come out catering to them

There won’t be tons of fighter jets and large terrains with airfields

[silk jolt]

Well it's ok, it's arcarde and surely it's fun, but I think it can't be a reason for me to nag about a dlc

[steady nest]

Heck the limitations were already apparent back when the Jets DLC came out... notice how vanilla missile and sensor ranges are practically-hard-capped to 16 km

[silk jolt]

And I thought it was worse before?

[steady nest]

If you mean 'magic radar + TAB lock' by 'worse' then sure

[silk jolt]

Don't want to downtalk it, I just think that, "the map is bad, because it's missing the imaginary airfield" is somewhat ... if you want to fly, there are better games

[jade otter]

I tend to go to that aswell, especially with people complaining about the lack of aviation in the new cdlcs

[silk jolt]

Or maybe one could create a map with lots of water ... that would be too demanding

[jade otter]

There are better games for high performance jets

[silk jolt]

I see that Weferlingen might be a bit boring for helicopters, but then it's a realistic terrain and there are other maps available

[steady nest]

And no matter how much closer to 'realistic' a jet is depicted as in A3... look at the difficulties mission-makers and Zeuses have attested to when it comes to integrating the existing ground attack aircraft into co-op, in ways that 'more study sim-level fidelity' won't resolve 🤷

[silk jolt]

Expand?

[steady nest]

It's kind of like 'the indirect fires' problem -- how do you have the jet player participate meaningfully as ground support without 'taking over the mission' or nerfing the hell out of them

[silk jolt]

And you're saying, it works better in Arma?

[steady nest]

lol of course not

Arma is ground-focused (originally infantry-focused), DCS is jet-focused

You can do all-air missions in A3 just like in DCS, but 'combined arms'... well, Bohemia Interactive and some A3 fans may promote that phrase as a marketing thing, but others before me with more experience as mission makers, as Zeus Game Masters, and as players have reported that it's a lot more plausible in A3 with helicopters than with jets

[jade otter]

helicopters are much nicer to work with in a combined arma scenario

I despise having to try and include a fighter jet into a mission

nothing faster than a su-25 honestly

[steady nest]

☝️ this was part of the problem with the Jets DLC (paid portion, as opposed to the gameplay update) for some people

[silk jolt]

all air-missions just like in DCS? I strongly disagree. The combined arms aspect is interesting since you can do both in both games, only that in DCS it's really not so cool on the ground and in Arma it's really not so cool in an A-10C

[steady nest]

I mean that in the sense of 'co-op where everyone's in a jet dogfighting', not 'everyone's in an A-10'

[silk jolt]

And you really think, that this is compareable?

For me it is definitely not

And I think that it's really ok to be infantry focused

[steady nest]

Agreed that DCS is really not so cool on the ground... afaik there's no playable infantry at all, and with ships you can only 'give orders' instead of play as crew?

[silk jolt]

Yes, but to be fair, you can't control that sort of ships in Arma either

And the infantry is not only not playable, but also somewhat face and featureless also looks awkward.

[steady nest]

Yes on big ships, but afaik this also extends to 'speedboat size' in DCS, whereas A3's got working armed Speedboats

[silk jolt]

I don't know. Never tried

But the ground just doesn't look cool enough to try

And if it were, it would kill most PCs

[torpid hearth]

The aviation is where it's at man

Granted arma jets are dorky

But they're so much fun

[jade otter]

nah, arma aviation is only fun for those who like flying, I’ve seen plenty of occasions of them ruining an entire mission for everyone

[torpid hearth]

That could be said for literally anything

Infantry is only fun for people who like Infantry

[jade otter]

Luckily arma is an mainly infantry game

[torpid hearth]

As long as it's balanced it's not a problem

The issue in Mike Force is that there isn't effective AA

[jade otter]

And effective AA keeps helis out of the sky

[torpid hearth]

That's why it's a combined arms game

[jade otter]

A lot of mike force servers just remove the F-4 altogether

Easiest solution

[torpid hearth]

Which is a shame

[jade otter]

I don’t think a good solution can be made without ruining the experience to cater to literally one person

[torpid hearth]

Also helis can definitely fly nap of the earth much better than jets

[jade otter]

helis shouldn’t have to constantly fly nap of the earth to accommodate for 1 dude in his jet

Very selfish to cater the experience to one guy

[torpid hearth]

But that's sort of what they do

Because AA irl doesn't just ignore the passing helis

[jade otter]

Yes but not in Vietnam, the AA sites weren’t that low into the country

[knotty ore]

better AA will mean helis and planes wont just have constant air superiority

[torpid hearth]

Exactly

[knotty ore]

but they have to work together with infantry to clear the AA

[torpid hearth]

It's not just an issue with the F4

[jade otter]

but an F4 can do way more damage than a heli, atleast a heli can be brought down by the current AA

[torpid hearth]

Also if there are enemy migs to wreck havoc with air forces

[knotty ore]

Mike Force can be played very safely right now and it is likely going to get harder

[torpid hearth]

Nice

Can't wait

[jade otter]

Currently jets are extremely annoying in mike force, and many people join a server only to do that one thing

[torpid hearth]

I don't think "many" people join for the F4

[knotty ore]

Just give it a bit of time to mature

[torpid hearth]

Most people can't even fly the thing

[jade otter]

Even more so, a lot of inexperienced pilots end up dropping munitions on friendlies

[torpid hearth]

That happens a lot with helis too

That's just part of the game man

If you want perfection just play on rp servers

[jade otter]

Yea but you just messed up the experience for 6 people

because you were being trigger happy

[torpid hearth]

Only if you're a hard ass. Most people just go "oh well"

[jade otter]

It gets really aggravating, when they’re not destroying all the objectives ahead of the infantry, they’re dropping muns on their own guys

[torpid hearth]

Play rp then

[jade otter]

If you care so much about cas join an aviation group 🤷‍♂️

[torpid hearth]

I don't care that much that's why I play casual

I just appreciate air assets in dlcs and you condemning all air assets because you're butt mad is dumb

[wide steppe]

The more time passes the more I reliase how much Arma pilots are like quickscopers in the old days of COD...

Loud, obnoxious, and want everything to be about their air))

[steady nest]

With the caveat that pilots have a game catering to them if they're willing to put up with the 'study sim' requirements, so to speak, and at least in theory Steel Beasts for armor... idk of any such equivalent for 'infantry-focus'

[torpid hearth]

More like noob tubers

You actually gotta be good to be a quick scoper

[wide steppe]

That's what's quickscopers, and pilots, both seem to believe)

Esp on console, where the auto aim does all the work for you

[torpid hearth]

I was trying to say flying isn't hard and is a little OP but I suppose that is also true

[wide steppe]

Summer camp?)

[steady nest]

I meant DCS for pilots, idk the summer camp reference

[wide steppe]

Summer camp or boy scouts could be considered an infantry-focused "simulator"

Jokes aside - Arma is the most infantry-sim like game i can think of too. Air people have DCS, tankers have Steel Beasts or Steel Armour BoW. So there are plenty of places for those two categories, while infantry only gets Arma

[solar mantle]

Bad takes like this are way it's hard to find good pilots to fill out groups.
I highly doubt that you want to drive or take the shoelace express to every objective.
it sounds like some of you equate public server people with milsim or casual players who are in groups with others of the same mindset.
If you're in a private group and aviators are ruining your sessions, maybe it's time to make a change for either yourself or for the group as a whole. Public servers are lawless wastelands and shouldn't be compared to the community as a whole

[solar mantle]

See above

People always want larger and larger terrains and yet still complain that Aviators ruin the game. Make up your mind. You aren't going to drive around South Asia or whatever the next largest terrain is, that would take forever.

[wide steppe]

Never asked for any larger terrains. Never said I don't plan on driving through big maps. Never said aviation ruins my games. Both of these are assumptions you made.

Never played public, don't care for it at all since its in my mind by far the smallest group of Arma most likely, possibly even smaller than the single player people.
I'm in a "private" group, but aviation isn't ruining any experiences, never said it did and didn't see anybody else say that either

What was said is that pilots keep asking for aircraft on every possible turn, and rating things as bad, me it CDLC or mod, if it doesn't care for their little niche

It is not hard at all to "find good pilots to fill a group". They are bloody swarming through the cracks. In the large community I'm in - finding a good infantryman has become a rarity, good and especially "good" pilots are way too plentiful

Especially when all a pilot is needed for is either take off in a heli and land somewhere a few times in an OP, or fly circled and press T on white dots in their thermals. Anything other than that is a rarity, and you only may need 2-4 of these "important people" for every 100 man OP we run.

As per CDLCs - just like many other things, Arma doesn't simulate major air warfare well, as the maps are tiny and anything large makes the quality of assets for who Arma is built for suffer. I believe GM devs said that they also see that, so choose not to implement any aircraft for those scales, as Arma simply doesn't need them, atleast in the initial release and first updates (Correct me if I'm wrong GM devs)

So spending lots of time on an asset that a minority will see that is only really usable in extreme cases when the rest suffer (map sizes) is rather counterproductive.

Comparable to this would be if there was a group of people in Arma who wanted lots of super detailed artillery guns or even ballistic missiles in every mod and CDLC out there. It's an extreme niche that only those few will appreciate, otherwise it will literally not be seen by the rest of the player base anywhere throughout their entire experience

Or "better" yet - submarines

[solar mantle]

It's bold of you to assume that you were the only person involved in the conversation.

[delicate pine]

what arma needs are fully modelled satellites. My immersion is ruined knowing that my GPS is working without them flying beyond my view distance!

[solar mantle]

You have the power to make that happen

[wide steppe]

You tagged me with your reply - your reply was directed to me. Other people can speak for themselves, I spoke for my part.
I also said that some of the things you said I didn't observe anywhere else in the convo

[solar mantle]

Not sure what arma sphere you live in, but it's obviously not like that everywhere. I've never seen a group that's struggled to find ground pounders. It's by far the most abundant group of people to find in my experience.

[solar mantle]

Can't argue with this. Air warfare in A3 and the previous game(s) has always been focused on Ground Force support. I'd like to hope that whatever the next game is will evolve past those mission sets and expand on how aircraft are utilized.

[solar mantle]

I would adore more watercraft. Both surface, and subsurface. I think that just adding the SDV and not advancing past that was extremely disappointing.

[wide steppe]

I personally would love super detailed and in depth artillery, but I don't go asking for it everywhere is my point)
"Minority want vs majority need" kind of deal

[sinful cape]

actually, they should be visible at night. now that you brought that up, i can't unsee anymore how there are no blinky dots flying over the nightsky. especially in the 2030s. thanks

[karmic harness]

Blinky dots flying over the night sky have been added in Contact 😉

[wide steppe]

Think they even existed before, called "stars"

[sinful cape]

not the same as satellites

leave the house at night and look up, it's crazy how much stuff you can see flying around nowadays

[sinful cape]

i just booted up contact, but i don't see anything. however, mission 2 starts with a falling star, which looks nice.

unless that was an attempt at a joke, in which case it failed

[wide steppe]

I was joking, think he was too, implying aliens

[sinful cape]

well, i'm german and thus not joking.

realism-wise, arma night sky is 2/10 now

[wide steppe]

I'm sorry for your loss 😔

[wide steppe]

Sky CDLC? 👀

[sinful cape]

ok, let's say 4/10, as you can use stars for navigation

[karmic harness]

Yes, I was joking. Sorry for raising your hopes up 😦

Out of curiosity, what would you want for a 10/10 night sky?

I can think of stars blinking due to air movement over long distances but that's it (besides the addition of satellites, obviously)

[sinful cape]

i find it rather hard to read the stars right now. some aren't glowing strong enough, which makes it tough to recognize constellations at times. so that's something i think could use some improvements. also the moon texture is kinda meh nowadays. the remaining points to 10/10 go to blinking satellites and planes and whatever is usually in the sky :> that being said, i would agree that such a feature should be optional, because in some cases you wouldn't want that (historical mods, or no-fly zones for planes, etc)

(the planes-part is not really necessary, but satellites going woosh could be nice)

that being said, i'm not super serious with this. however, if a future arma title would have such details, that would be pretty cool :>

[torpid hearth]

I think something people don't consider is that jets can easily loiter outside the map and over water or the featureless terrain. It's definitely a sacrifice I'm willing to make. It also helps that they are limited on speed compared to real life counterparts

[wide steppe]

Loitering outside the map is a 'feature' due to how Arma works, definitely not a "promotable" feature, and imo should be avoided.

Limits of speed and weapons range is most definetly not a feature or a good thinking in my opinion. You know how your weapon operate based on real data, otherwise when you change those numbers it's all a guessing game.
Also making a 2020 missile and jet fly as far and slow as 1960 ones is kinda bad

[steady nest]

Admittedly I'm not sure just how a new game would make a difference in helping the jet gameplay evolve past these mission sets of air-to-ground, especially when with enough config modding you can get (closer to) realistic sensor and missile ranges in Arma 3

[torpid hearth]

Well you can't have everything. There have to be compromises.

I can wish for dcs sized maps in arma but I know that won't happen

[wraith sleet]

I dream of a creator dlc about the first golf war🙏 🌴 🌞 A huge map of Iraq with the important places like Cam Lao nam does, it would be fantastic🤩 🙌

well I fantasize obviously😆

[torpid hearth]

Dude same

Gib choccy chip cammies

[wide steppe]

No please, maps should be like GM or CSLA maps - true to their nature, realistic, sensible, and usable. No more attraction parks! 😫

[torpid hearth]

Well considering how much more popular Sogpf was I'll take that

Cam Lao Nam is a great map

[solar mantle]

Having those things base game would, imo, be a huge improvement. It feels like Aviation in A3 and previous titles never passed the early '00s in implementation. Imagine having things like Aerial Refueling, proper FMV/ISR, FRIES/SPIES, and a more functional radar being built in to the engine and not having to be put together by, at times, weird scripts and mods

[torpid hearth]

Absolutely none

Only if you load the cdlc from the launcher

[devout turtle]

We opted for a nam fantasy map so people could play anything they wanted relating to the war on the first map available. Future maps made by the community would then do the 1-1 stuff and provide real topography. If we only made our map with a single location like oscar eight in Laos people would be begging for Hue or Saigon or the mekong or a US airbase, or a big map to bomb hanoi from a carrier or hamburger hill or the a shau valley etc etc.

So we chose to cater to as many fantasies as possible in one sandbox

It also works for Exile, KOTH, BR, antistasi, liberation, patrol ops, escape etc. If we had made a dense laotian jungle 20x20 almost none of these game modes would be fun

Right from day 1 we were talking to those guys to plan spawn to target distances and alternate routing and resource centres and attractors in the landscape

It was a balanced compromise between realism and gameplay

Looking forward to seeing what the community might create

[sinful cape]

a fantasy map is oftentimes the better thing to do, imo. you can't just use 1:1 terrain data anyways without at least rescaling it.

might as well make it more interesting right from the start - as long as the compositions make sense i don't think most players will care

[wide steppe]

Not more interesting in for some, but to each their own)

[sinful cape]

well, if you cut a piece off of vietnam for a map that works in a3, you pretty much have exactly the same visuals wherever you look. that's hardly interesting.

i think vietnam cdlc did a good job with offering a variety of scenery while also not feeling unrealistic

[devout turtle]

when you're making a DLC you have to consider who your playerbase will be and what type of gaming they will want. Nam = choppers and infantry battles, with occasional firebase defence and a bit of urban tank warfare, some air to ground bombing and hunting, some air to air combat, and a lot of close quarters jungle fighting.

oh and some river boat patrols

so we designed our map to cater for the player base, with_added_ capability for survival and zone control game modes

as part of that design, it meant adding 4 airfields (a staple of Icebreakrs popular designs over the years) and also avoiding creating barriers for AI (except for cliff-faces and rivers)

We created invisible AI path objects to encourage AI to climb over fortifications or ford rivers, or traverse cluttered camps and firebases, and extensively tested our bridges with them. Still can't be 100% sure the AI will "do the right thing" as its Arma, but we gave it our best shot in the design.

if you want a dense place that doesn't cater to the more popular game styles you can load up Da Krong, PKL, or Doung modded maps, or a bunch of others like Foxhounds dense jungle map, or Phuc Tuoy or Khe Sanh.

although Khe Sanh does cater for the other game modes

[untold elm]

I can see both sides of the issue for sure. Ideally, CDLCs would have the time, resources and money to cater to both, so there could be authentic terrain on the North German Plain of roughly the frontage covered by, say a Motor Rifle Regiment, with on-map military installations just being whatever a Regimental Echelon is - dispersed and temporary casualty collection points, ammunition and POL stores etc, with light entrenchments (slit trenches if occupied for a day or two, more complex works including vehicle fighting positions and gun pits for Rgt Arty if longer). But suppose you aren’t playing a milsim mission as an element of the recce coy or something? A lot of game modes wouldn’t work on that terrain, and while we can say that within the realm of reality the fixed wing aviation assigned to, or opposing a MRR would be based far out if the range if the Regt’s own organic artillery (lol), sometimes you want to see jets, and as far as I know the implementation in Arma precludes player-controlled aviation entering the map for an attack run, exiting the map and then returning the player to what they were doing as a ground element.

I am hopeful for aviation in Arma, and I would really like to see an expanded roster of fixed wing aircraft, especially Warsaw Pact types, but I also accept that would mean using those aircraft on less rigidly authentic maps. I feel like the benchmark for the maps that combine features shouldn’t be DCS but the Battlefield games, and Arma seems to do those maps better, certainly than Battlefield 1942 or 2, which were mindblowing in combining air and land assets in their day

[devout turtle]

all goodpoints - especially aboutaviation

we're in a middle ground between COD and DCS

i'd play DCS if i could be shot down, bail out, and land and have to E&E. That's not a mechanic of that game at all. I'd play COD if i could fly a helicopter insertion even 1500m away, but again that's not a mechanic of that game.

so Arma ruined my appreciation of other games, as they are... not Arma.

[wraith sleet]

I would love to get world like scale out of a future Arma series to make joint operations really viable but it needs an incredible step in terms of performance and terrain size and streaming to make it a reality. Arma is sort of good infantry, OK wise for vehicles and then helicopter and planes especially it is just too small. We would all like to do a lot more, the games limitations very much limit what can be done and what scale it plays at.

[knotty ore]

Im on the big scale boat too, but I do have to acknowledge the problem of even producing the data to fill such a large world.

[steady nest]

From what I hear VBS4's implementation meant that you're looking at 'online only' or install sizes even higher than what some A3 player groups' modpacks consist of

[steady nest]

Aerial Refueling: IMO the value of this would be dependent on 'the next game' making such large terrains (I presume you mean that someone can go 'bingo fuel' by the time they fly from one end to the other) detailed/error-free for ground players, otherwise you're right back where we started in A3. 🤷 By which I mean that such large terrains are possible in A3 already but with a lack of detail when viewed from the ground (hey, just like DCS!) and for some reason floating-point errors (I imagine engine limitations).
proper FMV/ISR: Not sure what's supposed to be missing from A3's implementation if by this you mean 'eye in the sky'...
FRIES/SPIES: Sooooo more ground support? 😛 By evolve past these mission sets did you mean how A3 aircraft's main roles are ground attack, touchdown-get-out-liftoff-again transport, and paradrop? Because this sounds like just another 'get in/out of the aircraft' option instead of what I thought evolve past these mission sets meant...
a more functional radar: As with what I said about FMV/ISR, really not sure just what Arma 3's missing here... unless you mean radar being involved in more than just 'find target, select target, launch active radar homing missiles'... seeing as the Jets update designers deliberately chose to simulate radar as 'flashlight tag' (active radar vs. radar 'warning receivers' vs. passive radar homing)... did you mean terrain-following/navigation?

Not saying that 'oh hey, features' isn't a reason to have them -- especially in light of some A3 features, such as the underwater implementation -- but I sure am not seeing the connection to how A4 jets evolve past these mission sets if by that you meant 'A4 jets as more than just ground support'...

[solar mantle]

Fair you got me there

[knotty ore]

If I recall right you still dont have whole globe at once, but you can select a theater location freely from anywhere and it gets streamed from the available data

or some such

and meaningful locations would still need to be made by hand

since generation can only do so much

(MS flight sim Im looking at you)

anyway. such stuff gets way off topic of the channel

[steady nest]

It's topical to the extent that 'what terrains are wanted by which players' is

[knotty ore]

well sort of, but in scope of CDLC, new tech is not really on the table

[steady nest]

Which limits the possible terrain options, I know

[steady nest]

I would want to know what you meant by a more functional radar before I could respond to that positively

although I can see and agree that A3's implementation is missing certain capabilities, such as marking-target-via-slewing (and thus 'ripple firing' missiles in a faux version of Ace Combat's 4AAMs :P) instead of A3's boresight and unidirectional cycling through radar contacts

[solar mantle]

A better refinement of the systems we currently have

[steady nest]

At which point you'd have to define 'better'

Seeing as the devs did outline the design philosophy behind their sensors implementation in an OPREP

[solar mantle]

There are so many types of radar systems irl. In A3 it either sees you or it doesn't and the terrain doesn't seem to effect that

[steady nest]

I could have sworn that LOS/blocking is implemented, so that NOE/terrain-following flight works

[solar mantle]

You cant, for example, fly low enough to the ground in order to try and get beneath the search area

If you can, I've never personally seen it work

[steady nest]

It could be that the IFV-6a Cheetah and ZSU-39 Tigris (despite their looks and different chassis, they're functionally identical in utility due to the turret) have 'too much' vertical coverage for that to be viable, or that on the official (base game, Apex, and Contact) terrains there aren't enough places where you can get low enough relative to the Cheetah/Tigris...

I apologize if 'canyon dogfights' is an inappropriate visualization, but that's the main circumstance I'm thinking of when it comes to NOE flight

Unless you meant flying low enough that relative to the opposing radar you're below-the-horizon/silhouetted by ground clutter? I do know that most vanilla radars have reduced detection ranges when this occurs, I've looked in the Config Viewer and unpacked configs (in CPP format) enough times to verify this

HorribleGoat is right though, we're getting pretty out-of-bounds for the CDLC topic... feel free to continue in a different channel if you wish

[solar mantle]

Flying low enough that the terrain can mask the radar signature

Absolutely, we're super off topic lol

If you wish, we can jump to another channel

[steady nest]

Replied in #gameplay_arma

[untold elm]

I mean, even if we had Jets DLC level aviation in the Cold War DLC, we run into problems immediately

The first thing that comes to mind is that a lot of the doctrine was delivery of tactical nuclear weapons which immediately breaks ARMAs scale and any ground gameplay lol

So we get a beautiful CF-104, but we can’t fly one of the missions it was assigned to. What about high altitude interception of Soviet bombers? The combination of altitude, map size, whatever sensor stuff is required - I mean, how would you even implement that?

I realize not all Cold War strike aircraft were intended to drop nuclear weapons on Soviet installations and tank columns, but many were

Even in a conventional mission, in the anticipated air defence environment, aircraft made a single high speed pass to deliver ordnance - loitering or returning to the scene of the crime was suicide

So again, do Jet players complete the entire mission in 2 minutes on a regular map? Do maps get big enough to support them? Beside however that would break ground gameplay, it would still be 40 minutes of flying there and back for a 2 minute attack, if all goes as planned. Then, for the ground element - your MRR SAMs would be engaging before you could even see or hear the attackers no? Even if not, the ground player “experiences” hiding prone in a ditch for 2 minutes and hearing Rgt AAA open up, maybe followed by hearing explosions and jet noise. Hardly engaging enough to break the maps for the ground gameplay they will spend the rest of their time doing. Finally, weakening SAMs and AAA to give aviation players more to do makes things even more miserable for ground players.

I like flying missions in DCS and Falcon BMS, but it is a lot of time starting up, taxiing and flying to target for 2 minutes of action with the enemy. Which is fine in a sim, but World War Two Online shows how much ground and air players’ interests conflict. Iirc the majority of pilots in that game are people with civil aviation licences, but playing ground, I don’t think I interacted with an aircraft in 2 years of playing. Stukas would hit the depot I was near, or bomb the tank column I was in, but it was over in 30 seconds, and those players had to fly 30 minutes back to base after releasing their single bomb.

All of that to say - “theme park” maps are the only way to get aviation to work on arma scale, so far as I know

[torpid hearth]

"Theme park" maps are the way to go. That's the whole point of map design. It's difficult to find a nice balance in a map that is specifically designed for gameplay but just grabbing a random plot of land from real life is not going to help gameplay at all

It's cool to have maps that reflect real life locations but it doesn't need to be exactly the same because the map would be missing out on many key things that make a good map

I like the GM map and CSLA map but they're a bit dull compared to other arma maps

[torpid hearth]

One of the things I suggested in Mike force was to make the F4 carrier based. I feel like it could fix a lot of problems involved with the utilization of the F4 in that type of game mode. There would be a more complicated start up procedure and it would also be farther away from the combat. Not to mention it's a lot more difficult to land the plane on a carrier to rearm and refuel. Granted you can't exactly use that for every arma map in every situation but I do wonder if it would help

[untold elm]

@torpid hearth I think that would be a great idea. The other benefit to it is the chance to use the carrier operations and deck crew animations/activity people enjoyed in the Jets DLC. I know how many times I replayed that showcase compared to any others. Flying operations from a Vietnam era carrier and seeing the deck activity would be great, and useful to community content makers who have made due with the Wasp afaik. The other benefit is that it gives a clear direction for content updates - iirc the Jets DLC team worked on SOG - an update called idk “Tonkin Gulf Yacht Club” or “Yankee Station” featuring F-8’s, A-5’s, maybe some more Vietnamese Air Defence Equipment or aircraft would definitely get me to buy if the (admittedly the correct decision) narrow focus of SOG didn’t appeal to me

[devout turtle]

In our original 85 page dlc proposal we listed 13 expansions... doesnt fit the single price for MVP design of creator dlc for arma 3 though - just uneconomic

Team motivation is high for these kinds of expansions but ambitions, time and money and reality don’t always align

Re the whole globe concept - to me this misses a key point entirely - what are the attractors? Around what objectives do the opposing forces align? You need a battlespace of about 1-2km in order to have infantry and support vehicles engage in a fun way, with flanking, holding, pushing, and ambushing potential. Having aircraft set up maybe 10-20km away is fine and you could make it more real and have the bases 60-100km away from the target site for recon or a battle area. As soon as you do that all the infantry will want fast travel

Tldr if the battlespace is big enough for real air to air engagement distances then the ground war becomes problematic in terms of drawing players together across massive distances.

Not saying it cant be done, just questioning who benefits and how would people have fun at all levels of the ORBAT

Right now i think 20x20 maps are fine

You can have a 5 min flight to an LZ in mike force and people enjoy it and its an incentive not to get killed - but this mechanic is cut short once you build a spawn point. So you have some gameplay where you really value your life and some where you can play a little more free and easy

Its a tricky balancing act. I guess the same could be done on a 100x100 map

But my gut says that people would find it empty and boring

For Arma to thrive it needs to be accessible to casual players who play BF and COD, making it into DCS level playspace would be going too far i think

And as HG said, the cost in resources - player pc power and company time - would be prohibitive to take on such enormous terrains at a level of detail that matches current arma 3 environments

[gritty hound]

I think you all are forgetting about the Jets showcase that does this perfectly

A fuller campaign using the jets campaign as a base model would be fine, go here, do this and then do this, rtb if needed

[torpid hearth]

I got the idea for it from the jets showcase

[untold elm]

If you really wanted, @torpid hearth what you’re describing could be sort of like Downtown https://www.gmtgames.com/p-160-downtown.aspx

@devout turtle I have no idea what kind of Air Defences can be modelled in Arma but a gameplay loop of flying “downtown” to Hanoi against the Air Defence Network gives air players a lot to do, and if there is a way for the ground players to feel like they are part of the system - control SAM sites (shutting down to avoid Wild Weasel etc), try to make sense of the picture via multiple radars in the face of US jamming (did they use chaff like Window, or have fighters try to fly the profile of attack aircraft to lure Vietnamese interceptors?), it creates a straightforward role for the MiG-21 as a player controlled interceptor

[devout turtle]

sounds like a great idea

[untold elm]

The Advanced AWACs mod shows whats possible for both Vietnamese ground stations and maybe a US EC-121? https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2419797022&searchtext=

I don’t know is that too similar to DCS? For the casual players, it reminds me of the BF-1942 map Battle of Britain https://battlefield.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_Britain

Or Bombing the Reich http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/maps.php?scenario=1&map=36

I’m one of the weirdos who loves reading game designers notes and rulebooks, @devout turtle I think you might find the ideas behind Downtown interesting, if nothing else https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/gmtwebsiteassets/living_rules/Downtown_Rules.pdf

And since that’s a boardgame, the implementation doesn’t have to be DCS levels of complex for engaging gameplay - which bodes well for the COD Battlefield demo you mention

“The US player controls formations of aircraft known as ʻraid packagesʼ attempting to bomb targets in the Red River Valley. Packages include mutually supporting forces of bombers, fighters, recon planes, jamming and defense suppression aircraft. Success for the US results from integrating all the elements in a package to complete the bombing mission.
The DRV player controls concentrations of AAA, Fire Can radar- directed AAA, SAM battalions and MiG fighters. Success for the DRV results from disrupting enemy attacks.” Anyways, cheers!!

[torpid hearth]

I've loved the idea behind a sort of pvp Mike force

Players controlling counter attacks or enemy aircraft to wreck havoc I think it's a great idea

[knotty ore]

only issue would be the need of constant playing players

but thats issue with any PVP mode I suppose

[torpid hearth]

Well you need players for pve too lol

[knotty ore]

sure

but pve needs them less

[foggy ravine]

What a coincidence, under the shower I was also thinking about a Mike Force PVP mode, with all those bases and logistics, it would be like Foxhole, but in FPS, with low FPS 😄

[knotty ore]

it would likely have to limit combat zones to 1-3 active zones like its done now

[twin grotto]

Mike Force but Lythium

[torpid hearth]

Yeah like designated attack/defend areas

[mild rain]

@torpid hearth look for Liberation RX. There is a PvP version.

[torpid hearth]

Cool will do

[timber cape]

Regarding the jets/terrains/combined arms debate earlier, I think the best solution would indeed be a kind of theme park layout where you've got some areas of interest and a decent amount of space in between. What you generally want are some areas of interest that are detailed enough to make infantry combat varied and satisfying, while also having enough space around that a plane isn't going to be ever-present overhead. That surrounding space doesn't need to be super detailed, just enough to make driving through it feel less like a chore and more like you're actually going somewhere and that there exists cover if you come under fire.

[timber cape]

Some time ago I tried making a few plane ops on the MLV terrains and man oh man, there's a point where a terrain is too big for its own good if there aren't any hotspots to look out for.

[torpid hearth]

What are the MLV terrains?

[wide steppe]

A mod that is literally called that

[knotty ore]

I recall they are very much reality based.

[random crane]

yes, they are different tiles of the falkland islands, heightmap and satmap should be accurate, no idea how populated they are

[wide steppe]

Not at all if I remember correctly

[steady nest]

So from what you're saying the terrain maker went 'realism/accuracy über alles'?

[steady nest]

How much of that is a matter of building/terrain object choices? (Be they terrain maker or mission maker.)

[timber cape]

There are three settlements that would be populated, but there isn't a single house.

[random crane]

by populated i mean terrain objects placed on the map

like rocks, trees, fences, etc

of course people live there 😄

[timber cape]

Yeahhh, MLV doesn't have that. I remember that the terrain seemed pretty exaggerated, often you'd have trouble seeing more than 150 meters because there was a huge crest in the way. I'd have to assume that they're working on improving the terrain first.

As for trees, I have a feeling that there aren't really any trees to speak of IRL.

[wide steppe]

The terrain isn't really exaggerated I'd say, look through Google maps shows some hints on how it is there

[untold elm]

I mean, the Falklands are almost a counterexample because they really are mostly empty windswept rocks

Which is great for modelling combat in the Falklands War, I suppose, but probably not a model for ArmA terrain generally. Reminds me of Op Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, which also took place on mostly empty windswept rocks, and you would have maybe 3-5 enemies per mission. Lots of driving around just looking for them.

[wide steppe]

Sounds like a fun mission)

[gritty hound]

If you liked that, another fun activity for you is to take a mallet and smash your groin

[ebon sedge]

Uh, what?

[gritty hound]

Just saying he might be into torture if he likes stuff like that

[wide steppe]

Liking military sim experience in a military sim game..?! Heresy!

[timber cape]

Exaggerated as in you've got huge hills ever few hundred meters making it so you can't see more than 100 meters from the town at Goose Green. The elevations seem to be way too uneven compared to photos and illustrations I find.

[wide steppe]

Maybe so, I didn't notice it when I looked at the map sometime ago through

[timber cape]

Hmm, well I tried to make a scenario where Brits are holed up in Goose Green and Argies try taking the town in APCs, and there was practically no line of sight from the edge of the town and up to the North. The APCs were audible looong before they came over the crest and line of sight could be established.

Wait, my gripes with the MLV terrains are pretty solidly off topic by now, probably.

[wide steppe]

Unless MLV CDLC 👀

[timber cape]

Yeah nah m8, knowing the Arma playerbase you might as well park a real Argentine navy fleet outside the actual port Stanley for how much furore that would kick up.

[ebon sedge]

MLV ?

[timber cape]

MLV is a shorthand for Malvinas and happens to be the name of a mod in development that aims to essentially recreate the Falklands war 1:1 in Arma 3.

[ebon sedge]

huh nifty

[timber cape]

One interesting idea it has is that it takes terrain data from the real Falklands and recreates it as close to 1:1 as possible in Arma.
Problem is, it kinda shows why Arma terrains based on real areas generally compress their size to two thirds of their real size. Even flying across large distances at over 700 km/h feels like a chore, I can't really imagine a motorized infantry op let alone one where you're spending a lot of time on foot. Doing some ops flying over the island and striking at Panhards, it was near impossible to pick out their locations without going by HUD markers because the surrounding hills look much the same from every height and there was no architecture I could judge distance by.

[wide steppe]

The last 25+ messages in this channel lmfao

[timber cape]

But yeh, I'll stop babbling and go take some screenshots to illustrate what I'm saying.

[untold elm]

The problem with large sizes, in part, is that the AI (lack of) driving ability or convoy behaviour really shows

If I could just look out the window, listen to a podcast or whatever during a road march, that’s fine, but take the SOG Alive mission that requires you to load a platoon onto vehicles and convoy to the centre of Hue City - no chance

So I have to be constantly frustrated as vehicles crash into each other, wreck, get stuck, damage themselves hitting every rock on the way

[steady nest]

Is this affected by terrain size, or is it just more noticeable on the larger ones with winding roads?

[steady nest]

Speaking of convoys: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setConvoySeparation

[timber cape]

Probably the latter, I'd assume. Not helped by the times when people think "hmm, I've got a lot of space, better have a lot of units!"

[vivid root]

Would love that so much

[steady nest]

That's a mission maker issue if your hypothetical is the cause...

[timber cape]

True, but it's more or less bound to happen and shape players' perception of how the game behaves.

[steady nest]

I guess it calls for a custom 'Convoy' waypoint?

[steady nest]

There's already a vanilla SQF command for setConvoySeparation (spacing between vehicles), and now there's ones for cruise control/speed limiting

so I'm guessing that the issue is the AI 'randomly' going offroad due to the imperfections of the AI behaviors? 🤔 (Careless/safe, aware, combat as opposed to 'combat modes' which are more akin to ROE)

[devout turtle]

#creators_recruiting might help

[nimble hatch]

interesting observation indeed, 😂 will remove my message due to the spam effects

[silk widget]

So what do you guys think about a Desert Storm creator DLC? It would have a map, campaign, some new jets and some ground vehicles like tanks, AAA, SAMs, and others

[ebon sedge]

Sounds interesting

Although I dont know how much sense it'd make in terms of cross-over with things already offered by mods

as in if things for that scenario already exit in a good quality with mods

[silk widget]

I’ve been discussing it in another discord, and people seem to like it, however I don’t know anything about making these types of things, like maps or new units to play with

[knotty ore]

You would either have to learn the stuff or put together a team of people capable of doing it, depending on the scope of what you want to do it will take maybe 2-3 years to complete

[silk widget]

I know

I would have to put a team together no way I could do it solo

Where could I look for people?

[ebon sedge]

#creators_recruiting

But before recruiting anyone you'd have to plan out what you want to add

as in whats feasible

[knotty ore]

yeah youll need to have a proper plan and presentation if you ever want to have a chance to get people interested

[ebon sedge]

And you also have to apply to BI to become a CDLC

although afaik thats usually done a bit later when you have a good plan and a prototype

[knotty ore]

prototype might be optional, good plan and concept could be enough

not that a prototype would not help

[ebon sedge]

True, I imagine showing that you are actually capable of producing content would help a good chunk with convincing the CDLC council though

[knotty ore]

I'll be honest though, finding the people to pull off a DLC is very difficult.

[ebon sedge]

Yup

[silk widget]

I have that already

[silk widget]

And I know

[ebon sedge]

Did you check it for feasibility?

[silk widget]

Well I think that it would be simple. Some new vehicles and player characters, a new campaign (may be left out if I can’t make one) and a new map

[ebon sedge]

a project of that size isnt simple

a lot of stuff in arma modding isnt simple

[silk widget]

Well most other creator DLCs did it with a team, so if I had a team I might be able to

[ebon sedge]

Yeah but you gotta get that team, and you gotta be able to lead that team

and also organize it

[silk widget]

I’ve got a basic idea of how I want it organized, and I’m already working on the map. That part won’t be too hard. The biggest problem for me currently is bringing models into the game for weapons, vehicles, and aircraft

[knotty ore]

if you are planning on buying models, be very very very careful about that as there are lot of models ripped from other games out there in the interwebs and if a project like this would be caught using one, it would be the end of it.

[silk widget]

I was just planning on taking the free models off the Internet. The only thing is I have no clue how to use them

[knotty ore]

oh no

[silk widget]

Plus I can also bring a buddy in who makes aircraft and help me

[knotty ore]

yeah that plan will likely not fly.

[silk widget]

Okay

[knotty ore]

A "free" models are more often ripped/stolen than paid models

[silk widget]

Gotcha

[knotty ore]

and B they are very varying quality which would lead to a very mismatched looking product

or immense amount of work to fix them

assuming they would be actullay really free and not just stolen

as you will be responsible for everything you put into it

[silk widget]

Yeah

Where can I get models from?

And I’ll put together a list to see what I can find later on

[knotty ore]

you might be able to buy some legit models but those are very unlikely game ready

and will need a lot of work to refine into Arma specs

or you get that team together and have artists in it make them

you will not be able to put together a DLC for "free"

it will either require money to pay artists

or artists to agree to be payed after sales

basically

[silk widget]

So it’ll have to take money to start the project?

What sites can I use?

[knotty ore]

sites for what?

and not you dont necessarily need money to start, but then you will need to have put together that team to work for a later payday

you can probably ask @devout turtle for some idea on what it takes to put together and release a DLC in this way.

[silk widget]

Sites for getting models

[knotty ore]

I think that you'll need to figure out on your own.

[sinful cape]

buying models for a3 doesn't make the job any easier

you still need to be able to get them into the game, create the missing lod levels, geo, etc. etc.

buying a model might speed up the process, but it's still not exactly easy

sometimes it's probably better to just hire someone who can make a new model and actually put it into the game.

[knotty ore]

a model might also look great in rendered images but be totally useless in game environemnt

[ebon sedge]

also with bought models you need to check the legitimacy, as goat mentioned

[silk widget]

Yeah

[sinful cape]

that's at least 1 to 2 years of work, by the way :p

[knotty ore]

and all of this is not meant to discourage you but to make sure youre prorperly informed on what you are getting into

[steady nest]

GalcomT and Mondkalb for example are the devs behind Vertexmacht (as was someone else iirc called Maverick, but idk if they're on this Discord) behind the Global Mobilization - Cold War Germany CDLC

while SunCZu, MAA, EMSI, and some others are members of CSLA Studio behind the CSLA Iron Curtain CDLC

If you wanted to ask them about what to expect as far as making a CDLC

[red saddle]

Theres also a bunch of devs from SOGPF that can advice, Like HorribleGoat, who already did ^^

[devout turtle]

Iirc GM and CSLA were started about 5 years ago, SOGPF was started 3 years ago. Gives an idea of timescales.

[honest girder]

Absolutely

[devout turtle]

We have worked with a 3D model supplier who could supply us 20 new vehicles, and a detailed analysis by our senior artists pretty much showed that it is easier and quicker to start from scratch than to buy pre-produced vehicles unless the retailer is prepared to pretty much rebuild their model for you. Some good weapons can be bought game-ready but they still need refinement, faces adding, supershader setup and animating.

Characters forget it, that would pretty much need to be new

You can buy props for the environment easily enough

Foliage and buildings likely need converting from vanilla or making new.

If i was to cost up a desert storm dlc id probably budget between 1 and 2 million dollars in time

4 jets + munitions $30k

4 tanks with interiors $25k

20 weapons $20k

10 characters uniforms vests packs and helmets $40k

6 trucks and cars $60k

15 static weapons (also used on vehicles) $15k

[sinful cape]

don't forget that you, yourself will work basically for free over the whole time 😄

ane nobody can guarantee you that you will make the money back in the end

[devout turtle]

Buildings and foliage $200k

Encoding and animating of all art above $150k

Thats half a million

Then you have terrain $200-300k, campaign including testing $100-200k, QA $100k and management, finance, legal, IT, marketing maybe another half a million, depending on your team size

The smaller the team the smaller your admin overhead, but the bigger the risk in terms of relying on very few guys not to burn out

The terrain could take 1-2 years and the campaign cant easily be done and fully tested until your terrain is in beta

And a campaign of 6 missions can take a year to write, implement and test and test and test

Thats an idea of how i’d cost it based on experience

That includes costing any time spent by anyone on the finished product. Some people will help for fun as its their hobby, maybe their work contract prevents them taking pay etc, some people will help with testing for free as they enjoy the scenario. Others will work for future pay but not anywhere near as many as you would need. So some financing would be a good idea

Aiming smaller is probably a much wiser choice given Armas age now

Id skip the terrain and campaign and go for an asset pack only

Just make it a kick ass contribution of high quality weapons, vehicles and characters and people can use it to make their own campaign or terrains

Check every mod that contains your proposed gear and aim to exceed their quality

You also need a pre-existing mod that it is based on iirc

Not sure if that rule still applies

[sinful cape]

never heard of that rule

[knotty ore]

Wasn't the rule just that preexisting /released mod content must stay free

[river hill]

hello everyone, can someone explain me why the vn mod is displayed on the GM cdlc but not the GM on the A3Launcher ?, i have only the gm.bikey and only the gm folder on the server

https://ibb.co/BGqdPRg

[red saddle]

Does the actual Arma Launcher have the same problem?

maybe its a bug with that launcher

[river hill]

no this worked well

ok thanks i will tell it on a3l discord

[torpid hearth]

Desert Storm would be sick

It would be rough for pvp because of balance but it'd be great for pve

Gib F-117

[vivid root]

Chechnya would be interesting as well

[torpid hearth]

Agreed

[vivid root]

Or former Yugoslavia - but that could be too controversial for a paid dlc

[sinful cape]

just change all the names

[vivid root]

I actually dislike all the fake countries

[sinful cape]

🤷‍♂️

it will always happen

[vivid root]

That was for me for a long time a reason not to buy Arma

[torpid hearth]

I don't mind the fake countries because they represent real places

And if it means they can make a controversial place with a different name then I don't mind

[vivid root]

Suwalki Gap nor Greece are controversial imho. It just effects immersion negatively

[torpid hearth]

But there's also Takistan

Why does it break immersion if it's actually part of the game?

[vivid root]

I think it is subjective

[random crane]

imo fake countries give more room for creativity, rather than just copypasting assets from the armed forces wikipedia page

especially for 'minor' or greenfor/opfor factions

[nimble hatch]

@vivid root **(as you may already know)**fake countries and armies are a must, especially when it came to the OPFOR, as dont want to stir any tension internationally, e.g ARMA 2'S Takistan/Army/Militia, ARMA 3'S CSAT, building off Chairs 'room for creativity' point, more room for creative freedom without implications/consequences

[vivid root]

Claiming it stirs tensions is an exaggeration

A computer game won’t create a new Cuban Missile crisis

[nimble hatch]

well not really, Iran has banned ARMA series in their country

[vivid root]

And? Iran is under Embargo in the first place

[nimble hatch]

a company wont recreate a new cuban missile crisis, because they know the negaitve implications when theres no real need, And just because iran is under embargo, that doesnt really make it right to do such, as in oh lets pick out iran of all countries because theyre under embargo and cant do anything

[vivid root]

It doesn’t matter that Iran banned Arma

Actually it can be seen as free advertising

[nimble hatch]

subjective perspective, yes, good and/or bad, depending on ones view, but there were some news article about how some video games were 'training' them up? which was just trumped up journalism

obviously, as we all know, we cannot avoid the negative interpretations, but we can minimize that scope, that could be open for scrutiny, imo BI have done a good job staying neutral whilst still being accutely aware

[vivid root]

Negative Interpretation?

[nimble hatch]

Saying that (i digress for one sentence) Call of Duty 2019 basically went off what maybe already happening, in regards to proxy wars, urzikstan, the narrative center, is fictional, so even though the UK, US, RUSSIA, were mentioned, theyve managed to play it off by it all being in/around one fictional country

[nimble hatch]

just people having a bad opinion on a situation/material, even if said items intention is not meant to be bad

And bringing the conversation back on creator dlc this is why the current released are all past/historical, because it wont necessarily have as much bad implications for the future, as the few decades after said events occured, have been able to mitigate/control, so being involved in a video game is good because we must be aware of history so its not doomed to repeat itself

[tepid lance]

Arma 2 was set in a fictional country by the Black Sea that would be invaded by Russia from the north. This was eeirly accurately predicting the South Ossetia conflict in 2008.

[nimble hatch]

Well damn thats true

[vivid root]

Is there a mod moving that campaign to Arma 3 ? I own Arma 2 as well but never played and don’t want to install it if it was moved

[tepid lance]

About CDLC's being set in the past: It also helps with researching the assets, vehicles and weapons because information about them is ubiquitous and declassified. Current Era vehicles and assets are a lot more difficult to research, especially when vehicle interiors are required.

[nimble hatch]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2281807528 found this on workshop, first search and first relevant item, not exact rewrite

[vivid root]

Thanks

[vivid root]

Challenger interior was leaked for another game - security breach

[nimble hatch]

Mondka, may i ask, what was your motive for creating your CDLC? was it personal? historical? philosophical? or just creativity/art? or all/none mentioned?

[tepid lance]

A big motivation was to have the backing and security by BI to prevent our mods from being ripped apart and stolen.

We spent most of the time working on GM in secret since we had some bad experiences with leaked data during the Arma 2 days when we were modding. The monetization "crisis" with RPG communities at around 2013/2014 didn't really strengthen our confidence in having our IP protected well enough should we release as a mod. So we just worked on it for the sake of building something that we enjoyed building. That was the main drive behind it. A public release of that project was certainly always an option, but never guaranteed. And I still find it very disturbing when people say that they are owed free mods. Every release of any mod or addon to the public is a bonus, not a right. It's a gift from the author to the community.

In October 2017 when the Third Party DLC pitch invitation was posted, we only had revealed GM to the public two weeks prior. So we considered the pitch offer with the main motivation to have better protection against exploitation for our work. And from there it then grew into GM of the current day. 🙂

[sinful cape]

funny, i released my csat campaign just 2 or what weeks before the cdlc announcement as well. this was such a bad timing. just a couple more delays and i could instead have polished it up even more, throw in some unique assets and ready would be the first cdlc.

granted, at the time i didn't thought what i made was any good. only some time after release, with lots of positive comments and stuff, i realized what i had done. so who knows, maybe i would have released it for free anyways, despite the cdlc announcement.

[nimble hatch]

Damn bruh, that must hit hard

[sinful cape]

only because i spend thousands of euros on it 😄

well, i wanted it. i never expected to make the money back in donations or whatever.

i just wanted to make something good, but self-doubt and just getting tired of the stuff you are working on can quickly warp your perception of what you have.

still. give it a month of delay and i could easily have submitted it for cdlc.

[nimble hatch]

well this is a big plus, i dont feel so bad for you now either, i thought you was in negative, 👍

[sinful cape]

no. rule of thumb is to only ever spend money that you actually have :p

[nimble hatch]

unless there is a feasible risk assessment and guarateed net profit return lol

[solar mantle]

This is me and my group, but for mods

and thinking about it, that describes so many modders in the community. Spend lots of money only to put a free product out that gets ripped to shreds by people with little or no respect

[solar mantle]

That same thing also happens to be the largest demotivators for modders (No shit).Seeing a ripped or leaked version of one our mods just hurts to see.

[random crane]

yea, chasing after people ripping our mods and having to constantly send dmcas or endure all the childish behavior once you deny someone is really not worth it in hindsight

plus all the headaches when you start thinking about possible legal issues and especially all the very large sums of $$$ that would be involved in that

i understand people who say modding should remain free but when you have to endure years of the above, without anything in return other than personal gratification you start putting things in perspective

sometimes i think launching as a cdlc would be worth it for the IP protection alone

[sinful cape]

i have mixed feelings about this. usually i want people to use my stuff. if they can improve on it, even better. the only issue is the reselling.

that being said, going cdlc doesn't really change these issues. it's just that now a bigger entity (BI) is doing the IP protection stuff (at least i think they will be doing that? can anyone confirm this?)

[devout turtle]

a creator dlc is owned by the company contracted to create it, and they license the IP rights to bohemia to publish. As the publishing rights are with bohemia, if the IP is compromised by a third party, then the publisher would usually exercise its rights to DMCA etc.

either owner (studio) or licensee (publisher) can exercise these rights

[young geyser]

I would buy anything you release as a CDLC! (As long as it is not set on the Cold War era)

[random crane]

oh boy would you be disappointed 😄

[sinful cape]

make a cdlc about making cdlcs

[random crane]

dynamically generated receding hairline

[prisma mountain]

I thought that was the Old Man DLC

[random crane]

would definitely be on top of the features list

old man is already old, nothing more to lose there

[knotty ore]

Old man prequel? Young Man

[random crane]

😄

sold!

[lunar rivet]

Cold war assets from nations other than the USA and Soviet Union is cool in my opinion.

[young geyser]

Too many of the already released CDLCs touch that era and its assets... so even non USA/Soviet assets really deserve more coverage at this point. The Korean War, much closer to WW2 era assets seems far more under-explored for example

[timber cape]

Why not a Whisky war cDLC?

[sinful cape]

australian emu war

the ultimate arma experience

[unique pike]

A second MANW would be cool

[jade otter]

Problem is any cdlc coming out soonish picked their theme most likely before they knew what others would be like

So there could be 10 Cold War cdlcs with each thinking they were gonna beat the curve for the Cold War

Any suggestions someone would take now would come out in 2-3 years

[silk widget]

We have a desert storm DLC started, nobody’s done that yet, mod or DLC

[tepid lance]

(that you know of)

Which was Biwwy's point. Dev times for these are quite long and public reveal is only possible once the project is nearly ready for release.

[jade otter]

Anything you want getting announced is merely coincidence for now

[sinful cape]

there is no such thing as a coincidence

[wraith sleet]

You are energetically bonded to the emu war

[sinful cape]

that i am

[prime hollow]

Mmmmmm Gulf War dlc would be pretty neat. That or Fallujah

[torpid hearth]

Mogadishu too

Operation Arrowhead 2.0

[hallow parrot]

I don't think so. Africa is not Middle East

[torpid hearth]

Wow no way

[vivid root]

Who claimed that

[torpid hearth]

^^^^

[hallow parrot]

You said Operation Arrowhead 2.0 and I find this is nonsense, because of what I said

[torpid hearth]

I just said Operation Arrowhead 2.0 because Arrowhead was a vibe and a half

Nothing to do with Africa or the Middle East

[wide steppe]

The "vibe and a half" of OA comes from it being in the middle East, which isn't the same as Africa, and would give a different vibe, simple as

[sinful cape]

that's bit high level nitpicking right now

it should be clear that he meant just another desert-something-something-themed campaign

[vivid root]

btw: Middle East includes Egypt - which is in Africa - Middle East is a region - not a continent

[torpid hearth]

I meant everything about OA the weapons the vehicles and the maps were great

I liked the middle east setting but it could have still been a vibe if it was set in other places

[devout turtle]

Takistan is arguably pakistan/afghanistan which is in Asia not the middle east. Sorry to join the pedantry, an unnecessary but valid point!

I agree Arrowhead brought a new experience to Arma - for me it was the great british units and vehicles

The dawn sky in Takistan was ethereal

That bright copper blue

[torpid hearth]

Lol

Man talk about a walk down memory lane

I forgot about the British units and all the other smaller dlc's

[torpid hearth]

I kinda wish arma 3 had something similar

I guess the modding community made up for it tho

[devout turtle]

all hail CUP for bringing it all into A3

and RHS and 3CB for making cool new stuff

[nimble hatch]

i know this isnt creator DLC, but i wonder how much oldman made, moneywise, 👀 💰

[red saddle]

None?

oldman is free... so...

[sinful cape]

depends. maybe it boosted apex sales :>

[red saddle]

if it did we would have no way of measuring that

[young geyser]

I am pretty sure Oldman repaid itself due to increased Apex sales. Also it was a great template to show what a talented team with a good idea and execution can do with the Arma 3 engine...

Also not only did it boost sales but there were lots of new missions and mods around Old Man's whole premise... All in all Old Man was a resounding success in many many regards. Authors and contributors should be proud indeed.

[red saddle]

Maybe it did. Not really any way to measure whether people bought the DLC or Arma for Oldman

[ebon sedge]

not without sales data

But I imagine to be able to point an increase in sales to old man, it'd have to be relatively big

[red saddle]

when did oldman release?

[ebon sedge]

uhh

14. April 2020

https://www.pixel-magazin.de/arma-3-apex-old-man-ist-ab-sofort-verfuegbar/

[red saddle]

Sales fluctuate quite a bit every month. Impossible to see what impact old man would have there

[ebon sedge]

ye expected that

[red saddle]

Would need data like "player bought Arma or Apex in last 7 days, and played more than 30minutes of oldman" then its likely that they bought it for oldman.
And pretty sure we don't have such data

[young geyser]

Yeah but what does your gut tell you? Use the force Luke! Just kidding... yeah kinda hard to predict. I made my brother and father buy Apex just for Oldman so I guess I am biased because of that

And by the way both of them finished Old Man where they couldn't get past the regular campaigns due to being bored... so...

[karmic harness]

Could you expand on that? I haven't heard of any mods related to Old Man and I'd be interested in hearing about them

[wide steppe]

I haven't heard any people play old man more than the first few days it was out until now, or anybody buying Apex because of it.
Don't see how in the world it could be considered to make its money back, much less a profit

[dusk cargo]

But imagine if it was released with Apex DLC? I think it would be a huge selling point in this case. 🤔

I haven't heard any people play old man more than the first few days it was out until now
well I played it a year after it was released or so

[sinful cape]

it would have made people perceive apex a lot more favorable

[devout turtle]

I still havent played any campaign more than 1-2 missions in Arma except our SOG one which i think we played over 80 times lol

Ive never opened old man or tacops

Should do it for research i guess

[ebon sedge]

I definetly recommend trying out the laws of war campaign

[devout turtle]

none of the super-modern stuff attracts me at all, im into cold war and before tbf

[sinful cape]

shame

but i will probably be the same just in reverse if next arma is cold war

[dusk cargo]

Just separate the essence of the game from its visual appearance. For me, Laws of War could be set in 1910, cold war, 2035, 2305, deep space exploration era, as long as it's still Arma 🤔

[devout turtle]

I like ironsights and lack of nvg

[sinful cape]

it's not like anyone forces you to use that stuff :>

[lunar rivet]

I loved the tacops missions. It helps that I started playing with near zero hud on those missions. Immersive as hell.

[prisma mountain]

I played almost all of it. You can really tell how much freedom BI gave to their developers to make various ways to tell the story.

I agree with Sparker as well, you can do plenty of historical context stories within diffren't era.

[normal light]

🤞please please PLEASE let the next CDLC be WW2 based

[mint nebula]

If it has quality stuff it can be themed after the coconut war for all I care

[torpid hearth]

Lol

Fair enough I can agree with that

[lunar rivet]

Coconut war?

[sinful cape]

some aussie thing

like the emu war

[devout turtle]

Bougainville was indonesia wasnt it?

[mint nebula]

Papua New Guinea

[mint nebula]

An island chain soon to be independent in 1980 had a rebellion by a guy who rallied some tribesman, the government who would be in power in a few months called for help and PNG and Solomon Islands came to help, it wasn't really a war, locals saw the armies as friendly, the tribesman weapons were bows and arrows and stones.

the guy who lead the rebellion lost his son when his son ran through a road block, and after that surrendered

later they found out he was backed by the french and a american libertarian organisation

[lunar rivet]

Learn something new everyday. Thanks!

[jade otter]

WW2 overdone and already well represented in arma, gimme Korea sometime between the Korean War and today

Any era is cool

[devout turtle]

ah yeah i was mixing it up with this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bougainville_conflict

as the Bougainville islanders pretty much ran a coconut based economy for a decade

[mint nebula]

It's an interesting conflict, fits in Tanoa very well

[mint nebula]

~arma primal~

[devout turtle]

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-coconut-revolution/

you can see why i confused it with something called a coconut war lol

[solar mantle]

Why not just make DLC that's just moving fruits and vegetables? I'm sure that would spice up the game real good

You could have the coconuts roll around on the ground

[hard mauve]

We already had the Orange DLC.

[ebon sedge]

Is it? I'd be super-down for some more high quality ww2 arma content

[torpid hearth]

I think ww2 vehicle combat would be super cool but I feel like infantry combat would be a little rough

[prime hollow]

1999 Kosovo or 1989 Panama or 1993 BHD or 2004 Iraq or 1990s Chechen or 1980s Afghan or Cold War Gone Hot but focuses on a Warsaw invasion of the US via Mexico

[torpid hearth]

Stop I can only get so erect

[wide steppe]

"..Mexico"
Cartel CLDC when??

[torpid hearth]

Arma 5 Pancho Villa Strikes Back

[loud apex]

Damn I'm ready to pay easily an average AAA games price, so around 60 and 70 €, for a good quality Balkans war CDLC

[jade otter]

I mean to be fair, what would be in the balkans war that’s new?

Just personal equipment

there’s some odd yugo vehicles but not many worth being represented

[devout turtle]

Chieftain tanks for the UN painted white

Id give my left nut for a decent chieftain

[vivid root]

Red Dawn DCL 😉

[foggy ravine]

I'd really like something like a civillian asset pack cdlc

Like some new houses cars clothes etc

Maybe tied regions like eastern european pack or middle eastern pack

[fresh oasis]

Don't worry, got you covered:
https://tanks-alot.co.uk/product/chieftain-tank/

[nimble hatch]

is there a strict ruling for naming objects, like animations? like the filepath stuff

[wide steppe]

Always make sure to use a name that absolutely can't be used somewhere else

e.g. RHS_asd

like rhs_weap_ak74m

Also, same example as above, good to have weap/vest/etc in the name, as if it's.. rhs_pasgt, you would know if it's a PASGT helmet or a PASGT vest (and wouldn't be able to use it)

Absolutely every variable that can be changed (other than really important ones) should always have your mod/CDLC abroviation in it

For compatibility reasons. E.g. There was a bug with CSLA and CUP loaded where one vehicles interior got put into another, most likely caused by exactly that - identical names

Through correct me if I'm wrong please, CUP or CSLA

[knotty ore]

tag_ prefix on filenames usually should be enough. other than that I like to have easily human readable names

[mild solstice]

For making CDLCs you'd have thought there's probably some guidance on filename and classname consistency

[devout turtle]

lower case everything ftw

avoids all the weird undocumented arma case sensitivities

[gloomy parrot]

I’d be down for a BHD dlc fr

[torpid hearth]

Yes

[nimble hatch]

Hey guys

what kind of features would you like to see be included in a CDLC?
let your imaginative side (within engine limits lol) go wild

[split sentinel]

Some more navy stuff

[sly ivy]

a new region that hasn’t been done before

like

idk

a siberia-esque region

[split sentinel]

Maybe some stuff like rappelling from helicopters, helicopters able to land on water and some more amphibious assault stuff like hovercrafts

[devout turtle]

a wild animal pack

a set of new vietnamese / chinese buildings!

[loud apex]

CBRN Warfare

[foggy ravine]

Wild west cowboy pack

[vivid root]

China invading Russia

hmm Gibraltar could be an interesting map perhaps - mountain, harbour and sea - fending off an invasion of Algeria/Morocco - so that could include landing boats - adding some Barbary macaques for wild life - stealing stuff

[mint nebula]

tbh I would like some asian stuff in the cold war, china, koreas, taiwan, japan

I think that would be the only scenario that would really have my attention, any other if its well done its fine also but wouldn't play around it much

a high quality swedish cold war cdlc would be lovely also

[prime hollow]

More Urban Environments/United States. Imagine New Orleans but half sunken due to floods. I think that’d be pretty cool to incorporate the Coast Guard and whatever country trying to invade.

[brazen dust]

mainland asia would be nice

[mint nebula]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1093210517&searchtext=usa

[prime hollow]

YOOOOO

[nimble hatch]

Heard word there was a 'superAI' AI modification mod, hopeful CDLC in the works 👀 🙌

[sinful cape]

i heard the next cdlc will fix every issue in a3

[nimble hatch]

Wonder who said that 👀

[wraith sleet]

cold war?

[signal kindle]

Just sad it is 2-3 years since last update 😩

[daring knoll]

I was looking in the terrain objects and noticed that GM added an airport helper. It lets you put down a dynamic airport anywhere, kinda like the USS Freedom. I used to use a scripted custom composition for that, but it seems the devs at least knew someone would want an improvised airfield

[daring knoll]

As far as cold war dlcs go, I think there's just too much room for asset overlap. Each cDLC has some sort of M16A1/2. Not really sure how to get around that without listing another as a requirement

[mint nebula]

I hate that, I think it's a waste of time just like the 1000 mods that have the same AR variants(that even then forget some), but I understand that's the product of people doing what they want to do(don't have a problem with that).

Kinda wish this was a coordinated thing with bohemia, creators have a project list to choose from and maybe one cdlc would complement each other with great compatibility and a overall project style so you don't get a bizarre thing when you put the cdlcs together.

[prisma mountain]

I like the idea but I don't think it would of worked in reality.

For example, some small group could claim all the vietnam side of things. Never really progress or create poor quality. Which would of left a team who maybe had better capability out.

[jade otter]

imagine if csla got the monopoly on the Cold War

And we never got GM

Not a great system

[devout turtle]

That is partly why we went with chinese versions of weapons etc - to reduce potential overlaps

Some overlaps cant be helped as you need certain weapons for authenticity for your groups and units but you cannot have a dependency on another dlc.

We could also have just taken bohemias RPG7 for example but we wanted to animate it differently and add new sounds and if we did that to a vanilla weapon some people would have complained we changed his vanilla experience

Its too easy to propose “simple solutions” but you need to consider the problems in much more depth to reach sensible ways forward

At the end of the day if both us and CSLA and Bohemia all have an RPG7 what’s the problem? You have an icon next to each so you can choose the one you prefer.

If youre considering value for money well a few “bonus” weapons in a giant dlc pack that overlap is a minor thing, and is not a waste of your money at all, when the primary costs of the dlc are the vehicles and terrain.

GM has a T55 - what if we make one for vietnam use? Will it cause people to want their money back? If so that would be about 100 people and so its likely irrelevant to us all.

When you consider the scale of a dlc, and it has 30 vehicles and 50 weapons, 1 or 2 overlaps are largely irrelevant

Unsung is creating a cut down version (additional to original unsung) to work better with our premium content. Maybe other cold war mods could consider making a compat version for the premium dlcs. But its extra work for already overstretched teams, so why would they do it? They would have to really love and support the other dlc.

One thing we created is a whitelisted arsenal module so you can easily config all the items you wish to see in the arsenal. So you could disable our RPG and enable bohemias in two short config entries.

[sonic shale]

It does also avoid the position where you have to buy things you don't really have an interest in, just to get a handful of specific things.

[mint nebula]

in theory what I thought was that bohemia would have a larger control of the cdlc team, this one acting like a small studio "inside" bohemia, that way it would have a better quality assurance and feedback of the development, and no team would have a monopoly over a topic as they would be mixed(single modders who choose what they like to do not teams), they would be segmented just like it is with current cdlcs(none of which cover a whole war or front to it's fullest extent anyway) so projects stay consistent and don't over promise.

but anyway that's just one idea

[sinful cape]

problem is that cdlc people might not be industry professionals

also there are dayjobs, etc. so based on that alone you can't expect the same level of reliability and stuff as from a professional studio that gets contracted for the job. it's always possible that something pops up and ruins the schedule.

[uncut meadow]

That and you run risk of the art in one pack not matching with another.

For example unique weapons in pack A are relatively clean and well kept, it fits with period and environment and thus gets the green light.

Pack B is taking a more gruney approach with dirt, mud, rust, scratches and dents galore. All of the unique weapons in pack B fit the art direction but there is weapon overlap, however the system to avoid overlap in place so an original common weapon is pulled... however because it was made with pack A in mind it does not match pack B in any way.

In this one instance it doesn't sound as though there is much impact, but multiply that by every weapon and every vehicle.

[prisma mountain]

To be fair, Arma 3 shaders are not the funnest to work with. I know several mods that the textures are all over the place because what might look good in substance painter, might look terrible in A3.

[uncut meadow]

that's probably the difference between spec/gloss and metallic/rough at work, they are mostly incompatible shader styles

example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrNMpqdNchY

[little rampart]

biggest issue with the shaders imo is that you get very limited range in your specular. Having glass and wool in one supershader just wont be possible. If you'd want to get the best range out of it, you need to autolevel your specular and gloss map, and then hand adjust the rvmat multipliers until it hopefully looks good. For each material color too... and who has time and motivation for that?

though i dont think its that. Even if you try to texture "realistically", it will still result in different art styles. One vehicle having more mud and dust than another, Using different mud and dust materials, different brushes for applying it, using different styles for suggesting wear...
It would need some serious collaboration, a common material library and people agreeing on using specific techniques/styles to make same quality textures. Not really achievable for a cDLC, i think, if we consider time and money constraints...

[knotty ore]

well said

[sinful cape]

likely not even achievable for professional studios 😄

something remotely like that could only work if BI would fund it for security, imo. and at that point might as well hire a real studio instead of community people.

[little rampart]

either that, or the modeller does a one-man-army job and does every single asset

[sinful cape]

yeah.

[uncut meadow]

then gets commit to a mental ward after it's all said and done

[sinful cape]

actually nobody can guarantee you that it will ever work out 🙂

it's a risk you have to calculate into it

there's so many video games that never get finished for whatever reasons. cdlcs aren't unaffected from that

well, or just mods. how many mods are announced and how many are ever finished? 😄

[devout turtle]

Id guess at 10%

[prisma mountain]

I would bet even less then that if you count they are 100% fleshed out. IE all the config entires and what not.

[devout turtle]

Comments on our youtube

typical range of comments anyone can expect for their dlc hehe

luckily most are in this vein

I do find it funny that whenever we post a really cool interview with a special forces veteran literally one guy dislikes it instantly. must be a pacifist.

someone's out to hate on us hehe

must feel great waving his inverted thumb around, howling in the wind

[sinful cape]

probably an australian. he just hits the wrong icon

[molten ice]

Youtube is Youtube, even on Cat videos there are dislikes, or videos that have someone just talking about their day, why? we will never know

[devout turtle]

I think it's likely someone who hates the creator DLC program and auto-dislikes everything related to it, rather than someone who hates US special forces veterans, or the aspect ratio of our Zoom recording etc

like you say- who knows?

[nimble hatch]

I wonder if Oldman could work as an MP game mode, like Apex... 🤔

[sinful cape]

performance would be hell

[dusk cargo]

it would have to be designed and programmed for MP initially

[mint nebula]

Isn't it basically liberation on Tanoa?

[dusk cargo]

no it's totally not 🤦‍♂️
'isn't arma basically call of duty with drivable car'

[little rampart]

And then there are just a holes who dislike anything they come across because they are angry at the world and themself... they probably wouldnt hit dislike, if theyd knew that dislikes also increase search rank, not just likes

[devout turtle]

Really hehe

[brazen dust]

What's the difference between Iron Curtain and Global Mobilisation?

I know they're both Cold War era but other than that I know almost nothing about them

[hallow parrot]

They're different, incomparable. Different CDLC, different assets, different goals...

In some very narrow perspective, we can teach you how they're different

[split sentinel]

They are about different settings. Iron Curtain is set in southern west germany/czech border, with americans and czech as the main opposing factions.

Global Mobilization is set in northern west germany's border with east germany. The main opposing factions there are west germans and denmark on bluefor side and the NVA and poland on the redfor side.

as well, GM's map "Weferlingen" is, as far as I know, the largest official map in arma 3.

as well, GM is the older DLC of both and has gotten quite a few updates so far, bringing new content.

[brazen dust]

Which one is better in your opinion?

[split sentinel]

I hope I dont annoy anyone with that statement, but I like GM more. It has more unit variety, more factions, a larger map and overall (much) better quality. It has a quite good completely voice acted campaign, lots of playable content and an awesome community.

However, it's larger in file size and a bit more expensive than CSLA. in the end, you have to decide yourself, what you have more interest in

[knotty ore]

or get both

[split sentinel]

definetly can recommend that!

[zinc nova]

today on questions that can be solved with a simple google serach..

[sage oxide]

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Category:Arma_3:_CDLCs

You can get the idea of what's what in here.

[nimble hatch]

is it possible though? (Oldman MP) @sinful cape

[sinful cape]

well i'm not an expert on the matter, but converting OM to mp seems like a waste of time

it's likely easier to build a completely new framework

[dusk cargo]

sure everything is possible if you apply time to developing it?

problems would have to be solved like... what if you take a quest and your friend is already camping at the position of the quest objective

Ai would have to react not to one but to arbitrary amount of players causing chaos over the map

[sinful cape]

i think the tasks are the least of the problems you have

OM has a huge composition spawn/despawn system

this stuff probably needs to be modified to work in mp. and then you have to consider the performance impact... OM in sp already has not that great performance.

that being said, none of this relates to CDLC, imo :p

[dusk cargo]

yes and the spawning system too of course

[normal light]

If we follow the pattern of past CDLCs, I’m going to assume that the next CDLC will be revealed around October.

[devout turtle]

Nostradamus is among us! cool.

[sinful cape]

if we follow the pattern of past CDLCs, the next one will be cold war setting 😄

[loud apex]

If we follow the pattern of past CDLCs, the next one will be a CDLC.

[red saddle]

You stole my idea before I could write it down 😢

[sinful cape]

git gud in typing i guess :>

what if the next cdlc was made by people from the community. wouldnt that be amazing?

[ebon sedge]

I'm still waiting for the farming CDLC

[hallow parrot]

They won't allow the devs to use the name fArma 3!

[dusk cargo]

And next one will be released after a previous one

[prisma mountain]

I would be really curious what BI would say though if some group made a small but vanilla quality CDLC like Jets or something.

Something that could literally be intergrated to the base with no issue.

[hallow parrot]

That's what I imagine in my dream

[prisma mountain]

Yea, as much as I like the Cold War. I'm more then fine with 2035 or more future.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict for example was very intresting. A mix of low tech but high tech tactics.

I think 2035 got there, it just needed a bit more manual driven things. Like 3-4 less CROWS turrets on everything

[graceful willow]

I sent an inquiry to BI about non-creator-dlc cooperation (regarding a multiplayer mission). So they replied with the basic template email about application to Creator DLC program 😂

I don't know whether they're trolling or just... ugh 😄

[ebon sedge]

props either some filter picked up the CDLC keyword, or just someone skimming the email and trying to get it answered quickly

[sinful cape]

if tv teached me anything, then that this was clearly aliens

[dusk cargo]

but what exactly did you want to know, if you are ok to share? A3 doesn't have much resource assigned to it now anyway 🤷‍♂️

so... even i f your idea means that your project is marked with 'made by BI', 'made by 3rd party with BI help' or 'approved by BI', it means someone from the company has to do it or check it 🤷‍♂️

[devout turtle]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2574329799

cool mod that crosses over GM and SOG

[wraith sleet]

I am Iranian and Arma is not banned

[torpid hearth]

I think it was banned for sale in Iran

[nimble hatch]

I am Arma and Iran is not banned 😕 😂

[wraith sleet]

[barren pasture]

Someone can say approximatly when the next creator dlc will be released ?

[red saddle]

No

[barren pasture]

Oh ok thanks

[knotty ore]

not in the past?

[foggy ravine]

in the future?

[torpid hearth]

not soon enough

[olive vortex]

when it's ready

[loud apex]

Yes approximately between tomorrow and next year.

[sinful cape]

you sure about that timeframe?

[serene gyro]

I can tell you with absolute certainty that it will be released at some point between now and the end of time.

[prisma minnow]

So...never?

[tidal marsh]

That Means it wil release!

[karmic harness]

He's from BI so that's The Official Answer to the question 😉

[torpid hearth]

I wish BI wasn't so tight lipped about stuff

I wanna ride the hype train

[karmic harness]

It's due to the specifics of how CDLCs are made. There is no way to do it differently with the current contracts

[red saddle]

You wish to get hyped about tons of cool stuff only to then be told "actually, that won't happen"
Only so you could then rage about it and wish BI wouldn't share stuff that doesn't happen?

[feral basin]

https://tenor.com/view/no-mans-sky-gif-5793942

[prisma mountain]

As a modder even I honestly hate hype trains. Some devs get motivated by it, I honestly get burnt out on it. I think my last two inner-community mods I made were just released when they were 100% finished, no preview or anything.

[sinful cape]

it really depends. once something is certain, i don't mind some information. in the past x years, BIs stance on information is pretty much "release some information, next day release the product"

i think it was laws of war that got announced and then basically released the next day. that stuff really made me angry. there was no reason not to talk about it like a month before or longer. at this point in development, things are fairly certain. it was even very contra productive to Tac-Ops, because people's expectations went wild and rumors about the most insane features started appearing left and right... then, once it was released, all these people were disappointed and mad. :>

same with other dlcs before that. only with contact BI changed their policy and did some initial teasing.

that being said, i don't think any cdlc should be announced until it is 110% in a state where it can be released and won't change anymore. :p

[torpid hearth]

Well I understand that wild rumors get spread but as long as devs stay conservative with information they release and stay realistic with their goals I don't think it's a big deal

Just saying "we have x cdlc in production" would be super cool to hear

I want to know what to look forward to

I think sog's approach to future content is a good example

"We are working on it but we promise nothing"

I can live with that and I'm hyped for whatever they put out next

[sinful cape]

i dunno. i think it puts unnecessary pressure on the creators

if nothing is announced, there is no additional stress to deliver

with sog it is different. they have a released product and things won't be taken away anymore. they have a working platform that can be expanded now slowly (and people know what to expect in the future). also, everything that gets added in the future is just a free bonus and not more.

[prisma mountain]

I think it's the entitlement that kills me. I could be working on something for 20 hours a week for 3 months, then some rando who plays the game 3 hours a week stumbles in and demands a status report.

I mean it sounds super cynical, but that is pretty much my experience working on any mod/product for the last 15 years.

Particuarlly when most end users can easily go to the website, scroll up, or for most product in the works read the FAQ.

[mint nebula]

only thing that hype is good for is making money, getting people upset, and having a month of hyped players that leave once the felling is gone

[torpid hearth]

I crave knowledge of the unknown

But those are all valid points

[karmic harness]

The hype for Prairie Fire was off the roof, when the project was announced and I don't feel like it caused the above outcomes (okay, maybe besides the "making money" part, probably 😄 )

[sinful cape]

i mean, it was announced fairly close to its release date

[torpid hearth]

It also delivered in full

[mint nebula]

that's why I prefer straightforward communication with who's providing the content or service, that way you know what is going to be like and if it's worth the price

that applies to any interaction not just arma cdlcs, honesty is everything

this sounds cringe but in the end honesty doesn't sell as much as hype does

[mint nebula]

well I don't mean to be controversial, but I saw people complaining about dead servers and I people who I play with didn't find it lived up to it's price.

[torpid hearth]

My friends and I think it more than lived up to it's price. Especially if there is future content

[mint nebula]

well groups have different takes on what they would like, for SOG the majority of people are pleased with it

[sinful cape]

i'm a bit meh about this take. i don't think people should expect future content for cdlcs. it's nice if they are able to add more content as a bonus, but it gets dangerous once players expect that to happen.

[torpid hearth]

I'm only expecting future content because they've said they're going to work towards future content

[sinful cape]

ok that's different then :p

[torpid hearth]

Even if something happens and there is no future content I'm quite happy with the current state of the cdlc

[devout turtle]

We’d love to publish a roadmap, especially given the funds have been committed, but even then artists can leave or struggle to meet deadlines, if we suddenly lose an important encoder or programmer we might not put X tank or heli in the scheduled update and cause unnecessary publicity and focus on the missing asset instead of players focussing on the new content and the changelog. Even though modders and Arma community stalwarts would understand, plenty of people would say we promised something in a screenshot and then didn’t include it, “so it’s fraud!!!”

Not really the reception anyone wants for their hard efforts and creation

[sinful cape]

pretty much this. not a good idea to talk about stuff that you aren't 100% certain you can really deliver

[devout turtle]

I recently reviewed the 2018 proposal we made for our DLC and we delivered 600% of the originally planned content - 6x what we had envisaged at the start - and yet a few people still say it’s not good value for money - these kinds of expectations and statements are really off-putting to creators, it’s a shame that people voice such unbalanced entitlement

If our offer is underwhelming, then no creator dlc will be able to deliver what these people seek

It makes you wonder what on earth they are expecting for $20

[dusk cargo]

equivalent of all of the arma mods apparently

people are just too used for free content

also there are lots of kids around for whom 20$ is a lot

[devout turtle]

Ah i see, so because we spent 15-20 years building out an enormous collection in unsung, they expect us to match it in 2 years development, and still set a store price that is half what it should cost for that kind of content scope

So no reality considered

[jade otter]

sounds like a fair deal 🤣 also immediately after releasing all that work demand for more jets or hyper specific piece of equipment

[devout turtle]

We added 55 weapons, Apex which is more expensive, added 15. So some sort of comparison of assets would make it clear we created a very good value product

[tepid lance]

Some people will move goalposts just to complain, no matter what appeasement is tried or if their suggestions and wishes are fully met. Luckily these people are very few in numbers so they don't cause much of a fuss. After 2 years of continuous updates for GM that added massive amounts of new content these people moved on to complain about why we're not delivering entire new factions of the cold war now...

[devout turtle]

Yep that sounds about right!

[nimble hatch]

i second everything you say, in the creative works, its hard to look back and be 100% happy and satisfied, but knowing that what you did is enough, is fulfilling in itself

To be fair, why should you release entire new factions, your content is good enough, 💪, them petty people will always want to cut a little deeper, given the chance

[nimble hatch]

i wonder how many of these 'modteams' on creators recruiting, are actually potentially, unconfirmed CDLC 👀 guess theyre not allowed to advertise anything more?

[sinful cape]

i see no problem in saying that you're working on a cdlc or not. it really doesn't mean much till something gets released. also it helps with finding people to help you work on it.

[random crane]

well if you're under NDA with BI/CDLC teams you should know what you can and cannot say

and it would be in your own interest to keep things for yourself to not give 'competitors' any ideas

[sinful cape]

sure, but "looking for people for a cdlc" hardly counts as that

i see this level of secrecy as contra productive