FROM: Project Lead
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: Adapt released, Humble Bundle
PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION
After staging the "Adapt" episode last week, it was nice to get it fully released yesterday. Have a look at the full changelog in the SPOTREP. Modders, specifically animators, may find an interesting addition to get their work converted for use in Arma 3. Owners of the (Digital) Deluxe Edition will find goodies in the Bonus folder. There are 9 new tracks for the second campaign episode (MP3 and FLAC), as well as translated versions of the digital map for most languages.
The team's focus has now shifted to several things in parallel. Those involved in campaign creation are working on the final episode. Our testers and others focusing on the new multiplayer 'thing' will be spending a lot of time play-testing that. And yes, we are working on finishing those jets we promised you. Their artwork is close to final - including the interiors and weaponry. The many animated parts are being configured and we'll need to implement sound effects.
INTELLIGENCE
If for whatever reason you have played the whole "Survive" episode, but have lost your savegames, you may find yourself unable to start "Adapt" immediately. There is a way around this, but we'd like to stress that it's better to finish the first episode before you do. Use of the campaign cheat will apply weapon pool defaults and may cause other persistence issues.
Today is the last day to get in on the Bohemia Interactive Humble Bundle! Pay what you want, get cool games from our catalog, and support charity at the same time. To thank everybody for their support so far (it breached 1 million USD), we've added two more games. Those who purchased the bundle already can claim them on their download page.
Steam has been working on a feature called Family Sharing. We will likely need to disable this for Arma 3 for the time being, while we look at solving multiplayer cheating issues.
Our company's website has been updated with our stance on monetization using Bohemia Interactive content. It details a fair and generous policy with a request to just add a notice to the media's description.
With the "Adapt" episode taking place on Altis, now is a good time to remind you about some tips running the massive island on a 32 bit OS with low amounts of RAM. This post on the forums has a few advanced solutions for those struggling to run it smoothly.
OPERATIONS
We're aware of a loss of performance in test scenarios with lots of AI spawning simultaneously (e.g. 48 vs 48 and higher). Ironically, this was caused by fixing broken AI path planning. The AI soldiers weren't planning their paths when they should which resulted in higher FPS. Our programmers are investigating ways of optimizing this and AI in general.
LOGISTICS
David Foltyn has written a small example guide for server admins on how to use SteamCMD to download the stand-alone Arma 3 Server.
Resident design documenter, Bořivoj Hlava, posted documentation on the refraction particle effect (e.g. heat blur).