FROM: High Command
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Official Mod, Milsim Stream VoD, Top 10 Update 1.58, Price Reductions, Score Screen
PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
We've moved a step forward on the #RoadToApex, admittedly with a few stumbles, now that update 1.58 has hit main branch. There were several great improvements, which we're confident have bolstered the game's usability. Later in this report we will also share Intel on how we're dealing with some of the issues that were shared with us. Apex is looming on the horizon, so besides dealing with update glitches, we're already in full motion to compile the 1.60 build (Visual Upgrade and more). That does mean there are many more complex changes coming up, which we all know don't always work flawlessly in the broader player-base. But we still feel that doing this in chunks, rather than all at once, makes it more manageable for us, modders and players alike. Plus it means you don't have to wait for everything we're working on. Bear with us, it will be worth it!
INTELLIGENCE
You can now watch the full-length recording of the #milsim live stream, organized by Community Developer Greg Becksted and QA Assistant Adam Hurta with the 21st Ranger Regiment. It was impressive to see the unit react to unexpected events while observing strict discipline. Greg reflected on the fun event by stating: "We've completed our first ever #milsim live stream, visiting the 21st Ranger Regiment on one of their regular co-op milsim missions. With 70+ players active, multiple platoons and an active campaign lasting weeks, what does it take to organize, run and participate in a milsim group like this? We took a close look at the 21st Ranger Regiment's operations, touched on what mods they use and discussed the details of what is involved in running one of their typical missions. We were also joined by FRIZNIT, one of the developers of the ALiVE mod. He expanded on the mod's features and provided some of its history and their plans moving forward. Many thanks to Vegas, the leader of the 21st and everyone in the 21st Ranger Regiment for letting us tag along on one of their operations and letting us explore how they use Arma 3 for their milsim experience."
Perhaps it has snuck past you unnoticed, but we've announced the first permanent price drop for Arma 3 since its release in September 2013. Both the base game and all released DLC have been reduced in price. For newcomers, the Apex Edition definitely still is the best option. It will give you the game, digital extras, DLC and the upcoming Apex expansion. Take a look at the updated purchasing overview.
OPERATIONS
Last week we did something a little unexpected. We published an 'official' mod to Steam Workshop as a celebration of Arma's custom content scene. One of our goals was to show how easy it can be to discover, install and maintain such content via the official Launcher. Read the whole story in Creative Director Jay Crowe's most recent OPREP on the matter.
What kind of mod is it actually? We present to you the 'ADR-97 Weapon Pack', which consists of several variants of this unique SMG. Created by the multi-talented Senior Programmer BXBX in his spare time, you can now play around with this high rate-of-fire weapon for free. We should also acknowledge splendid support by Project Lead Petr Kolář and Senior Animator Paweł Smolewski for their off-duty help with encoding and animations respectively. To clarify: even though this firearm was crafted by our devs, we do really consider this a mod, not a vanilla Sandbox asset. See the weapon in action in our introductory video, and then jump into the game to squeeze off a few rounds yourself.
Senior (UI) Designer Vladimír Hynek has teamed up with Senior Programmer Krzysztof Bielawski to convert the previously hard-coded score / stats screen (seen in multiplayer by pressing P by default) to one that is configured like most other displays. This will not only let us tweak and improve the screen, but also allow modders to make relevant changes more easily.
LOGISTICS
A full change log of the 1.58 release is available in its SPOTREP. Even after four weeks of public RC testing, various issues did pop up. Let's go over the major ones, for which we are considering a small hotfix in the near future.
- A group of users report severe performance degradation after some playtime. This appears to be an issue when using the system memory allocator. Most of these users confirm that the issue is solved by switching to another allocator (e.g. TBB4). Regardless, we believe we have a fix, and we're testing it in-house.
- The Difficulty Overhaul mostly just caused confusion, which was a matter of re-configuration for server administrators. Tips and work-arounds are being discussed in this thread on the Arma subreddit. Actual bugs in the implementation are not yet confirmed, but are being investigated.
- BattlEye started kicking clients who took too long to download custom scenarios. This was temporarily mitigated by setting a longer timeout, but a proper fix is being sought. The silver lining is that these changes to the BE implementation lay the groundwork for support in the Linux and Mac ports.
- We're also processing (modded server) crash reports.
The Tools and Samples also have their change log, and a very nice overview of the changes written by R&D Lead Julien Vida. Here there was an issue that caused faulty binarization of terrains, which has swiftly been fixed on the relevant Dev-Branch.
But let us not forget the cool stuff these updates bring to the platform. We've written up another Top 10 article to go over the 1.58 highlights, such as the Tasks Overhaul and the weapon switching package.
That's it for this week. Now that the weather gods over our various studios have decided it isn't quite spring yet, we join PhiGohlYT in wishing for the summer season!