SITREP #00231

FROM: High Command
TO: Arma 3 Users
INFO: 1.90 RC-Branch, SITREP Frequency, Community Radar
PRECEDENCE: Flash

SITUATION

With 2018 done and dusted, we're ready for another splendid year of Arma 3. In this first SITREP of 2019, we'll discuss some of the changes to our future Situation Reports, take a look at some of the community content that emerged over the past few weeks, and talk a little bit about the planned 1.90 update.

INTELLIGENCE

There are some exciting things on the horizon for Arma 3 in 2019. Although a large part of the original Arma 3 development team is now working on Bohemia's new Enfusion engine, which means we'll not be introducing any major new gameplay features, we do have quite some new content lined up. For example, our developers in Bohemia's Amsterdam office are collaborating with our people in the Czech Republic and Thailand on a fairly unusual yet sizeable Arma 3 DLC. This is progressing very nicely, and it'll bring various bigger and smaller assets to the wider Arma 3 sandbox, alongside several top secret components. Apart from that, we're also happy to report some good progress on the first third-party DLC. We're not ready yet to share any specifics on all of this just yet, but please stand by for the official announcements later in the year.

Moving forward, our SITREPs (Situation Reports) will be posted monthly (instead of bi-weekly). In addition we'll be introducing a new monthly news item called the Community Radar (#COMRAD). As a result, our SITREPs should again focus primarily on the status of development, whereas the Community Radar will enable us to spotlight more amazing things that are happening in the Arma 3 community.

We're currently establishing the exact format of the Community Radar. It will most likely be structured into five main categories: Art, Development, Videos, Livestreams, and Events - and the first edition should be posted in two weeks. So, if there's something you'd like to see featured, we advise you to share your content on one of the following forum links; Art, Development, Videos, or on Twitter by tagging @Arma3official or #Arma3. Overall, the intention is to include a broad array of content and contributors.

Besides our plans for the Community Radar, we recently also posted our first ever "Community Profile" of the one and only thebuckfastwine. The Community Profiles are meant to be a series of mini-interviews with some of our amazing community members. These will give you a personal insight into their backgrounds and how they experience the game.

Since we're already on the subject of community content, let's still use this SITREP to take a look at some of the content that was shared during the holidays:

Flawless War Gamer recently posted a D-Day Armachinima on YouTube. Viewer discretion is advised, but we recommend taking a look at this seriously impressive cinematic video.

The very talented (and #Armachinima Awards winning) KinglesPringles collaborated with the team behind the Halo-inspired Operation: TREBUCHET mod to create a stellar cinematic trailer. Get ready to channel your inner-Spartan!

Another thing that gave us some serious Halo-vibes is this incredible screenshot captured by Radium. Whenever a lab is supposed to be secret, you know that things are about to go down.

Mxbperez, member of the Arma 3 community group Bourbon Warfare, created a 2018 year in review video for his unit - and it is fantastic!

Ceb Cin created this awesome Armachinima featuring a Black Wasp II pilot going for a joyride. Combining stunning cinematic shots of fighter jets with chill electronic music makes us very happy - and when is that new Top Gun movie supposed to be coming out?

Do you love piloting the Hummingbird, but you can't quite figure out how to get in and out of combat zones quickly? Look no further! CallMeTOMMEH created this brilliant guide which might help you out.

OPERATIONS

A little over a week ago, we've deployed a small security update to Arma 3's main branch. This involved an update of the BattlEye client. If you want to know more, you can check out the SECREP, read the BattlEye FAQ, or contact BattlEye directly if you have any questions.

Before the Christmas holidays, we also started testing Arma 3 update 1.90 on our RC-Branch. This main highlight of this update should be the re-introduction of the multiplayer security improvements related to addon loading, encryption, and server checks. We initially included these improvements in update 1.86, but we had to revert them in update 1.88 as they were causing several unforeseen issues related to mod compatibility. To help us prevent similar issues with update 1.90, we'd like to ask our community, especially those people or groups who play on large-scale modded servers, to test the Release Candidate with us and report issues to the Feedback Tracker.

We've also been paying close attention to the feedback on the new Warlords multiplayer game mode, and we're currently testing several tweaks and additions which have been requested by the community. These are currently planned to be shipped with the upcoming 1.90 update. As a small bonus, this update will also include several frequently requested green liveries for NATO vehicles on Tanoa.

Lastly, based on your feedback, we've recently started looking into memory issues caused by the caching of compile script command contents. We've implemented improvements to the caching on Dev-Branch, and added a new compile parameter which allows you to disable the caching altogether (e.g. when using a compile for a large amount of data). As always we'd appreciate your feedback or other ideas on this change. As the command has been widely used, we have to make sure that any change to this is fully backwards compatible. Make sure you submit your feedback on our forums.

LOGISTICS

We've prepared a few Warlords tips for you. So if you're curious about some of the things you might not know about the Warlords MP game mode, make sure you check out our Twitter.

A new #MeetTheBohemians interview has been deployed, and this time it featured Video Artist Ivo Stružinský. Ivo has worked on several of the recent Arma 3 trailers (plus he is also one of the technicians working behind the scenes during our livestreams), so if you want to know more about how he goes about his work, then be sure to read his interview on bohemia.net.