A while ago I tried to do an ARMA PMC campaign but it pretty much failed because I was a script noob and didn't understand locality so all my endeavors didn't really pan out. Things that worked when I tested them locally didn't work out on a dedicated server. Anyway, I've been playing more ARMA again and I'd like to give it another shot.... this time without fucking it up. Pre-emptive TL:DR - it will be PvE Mostly (But hopefully different from any Invade & Annex shit you've played) If you want Wasteland style run & gun or King of The Hill this isn't for you. The campaign will be driven by narrative, BUT every mission will have an encounter - you just won't know when it is coming. In-fact neither will I (most missions are highly randomised) - many times you'll be outgunned. There will be no MilSim experience required. But we will need a solid & competent squad to make it through every mission. We start slow and easy (respawn on squad, revive for all, ect) but missions are designed to be equal parts cinematic & difficult. Probably more difficult than people have experienced in multiplayer. Dying is going to be Very bad. Full TLDR: I hope to show a bit of ARMA that most people haven't really seen outside of "clans" - custom missions. The missions will develop based on the performance of the team in each "mission" with a focus on not dying.
I would like to play this again. I just wonder if my little laptop can handle arma. It can almost do star citizen so I would hope arma can run almost as well on lower settings.
I'm interested in the concept, but I don't think I can handle the time commitment. I think I'll just observe.
I'm hoping to run a mission roughly every other week and play time should run between 30 & 60 minutes.
Heads up. After speaking a little to people this will probably start in the second weekend of September. I'll publish the mods required here soon with links to download & instructions to install. The server will go live for testing these a week before & I'll be happy to help people out if they need a hand installing or using them, it is pretty simple. The most notable changes to game play (and keybindings to know) will come from TFAR (Realistic Radio Mod) & ACE (Adds depth to medical stuff). To begin with everyone will be able to revive & respawn on squad. Going forward, as we complete missions we'll have chances to upgrade equipment and people train specialised roles such as marksman, medic, etc. Which in turn will affect what missions we can take. If it is anywhere close to running Star Citizen I would imagine you will be totally fine. Just make sure you do not set certain graphical settings to LOW - which can actually shift some stuff from the GPU to the CPU and make it run slower and uglier. ARMA's main issue with optimization is how much is handled server-side, meaning the server performance & latency directly affects your local frames per second. Kind of like in Empires, the missions/maps have to take into account the limitations of the engine. The good thing is you don't need great frames in the same way you do in a twitch shooter, it is nice to have 60+, but it is pretty much playable all the way down to ~30, because you are usually engaging at such longer ranges.
Awesome. That'll be grand & I'll be glad of the help. Ideally as missions get more complex I'd like to play Zeus. The first scenario I'm just testing and padding now but it will be pretty straight forward. As much as anything it is just an orientation and setting the scene, making sure the nuts and bolts work. Basically we'll be landing on Stratis, collecting our ID/papers & gear, checking all our equipment works, assigning buddy teams and just seeing how the group hangs together before flying out to Altis for Tasking. I've got a shooting range setup with some scoring scripts so we can have a bit of a friendly competition before we ship out. SITREP: Whilst the threat level on the (NATO aligned) Republic of Stratis is low there are concerns that the civil unrest of Altis will spill over. So far the confrontations in Stratis has been limited to harsh words and some vandalism of military infrastructure and property. Things aren't so rosy on Altis - IEDs and sporadic skirmishes are becoming increasingly common place though fatalities have been low. The insurgency there is mostly driven by criminal elements of the deposed OPFIA who recruit the impoverished with hard-line religious & nationalist rhetoric and, of course money. The insurgency is surprisingly well funded by smuggling operations from the North, plus it was suspected that many OPFIA weapons caches remained hidden, so they are not short of small arms as a result. They are small but well equipped and trained. However with CSAT weaponry being sold openly to some questionable regimes in the region there is justifiable concern is that it will begin to turn up here. The region as a whole has fallen apart due to the economy flat-lining a decade ago and in the time since a return to some pretty right wing religious politics. Owing to Stratis military value & Altis wind & solar capability there is something of a proxy war developing. CSAT has been stepping up their show of force in neighboring allied states. Most alarmingly they have sold previous generation air assets and are conducting naval maneuvers around the region. Posturing ahead of political summits but dangerous to the balance of power and designed to force the richest NATO nations to commit more spending to defense in the area. As a response the US will be conducting a large training operation involving the USS Nimitz and has doubled it's drone and mechanized presence on Altis. It is a bit of a tinder box but CSAT-NATO relations are expected to normalize, however the nations caught in the midst may not fair so well unless some stability can be brought to civilian infrastructure and institutions. In any case there should be plenty of opportunity for us to profiteer from the chaos!
is it to late to buy this game and play with you guys? i really miss having friends to play vidya with
You are more than welcome to join at any time. I think it has recently been on sale, there is a deal on the DLC pack but honestly there is so much community content I've never wanted for any of the DLC.
OK So, Here goes the First Briefing: Welcome PMC ION Operators, (That's right ION - because I can't be bothered to mod a new faction and you can't be bothered to download one!) First things first: Anyone is welcome to join at any point by posting in this thread, but sign up at the start if you can. But if not, no bother, you'll join as a "new recruit/basic rofflemans" & we'll put some time aside to walk through the basics of using the changes the mods make (radio & medic stuff). The only prerequisites to join will be Vanilla ARMA 3 (No DLC) + some FREE (as in beer) mods which will transform the game, if you need help adding and testing mods you can contact me (And I think Lightening has some experience and will also help - cheers!) and I/we'll be happy to help. I am expecting/planning attendance of 4-6 and scenarios will be built upon that. Will probably be once, maybe twice a month depending on how quickly I get my shit together & people's availability - I'd also like to be able to run the missions (as they will be a bit random but linear) more than once, so if someone misses out they can catch up. The Current SITREP (narrative): Whilst the threat level on the (NATO aligned) Republic of Stratis is low there are concerns that the civil unrest of Altis will spill over. So far the confrontations in Stratis has been limited to harsh words and some vandalism of military infrastructure and property. Things aren't so rosy on Altis - IEDs and sporadic skirmishes are becoming increasingly common place though fatalities have been low. The insurgency is mostly driven by criminal elements of the deposed OPFIA who recruit the impoverished with hard-line religious & nationalist rhetoric and, of course money. The insurgency is surprisingly well funded by smuggling operations from the North, plus it was suspected that many OPFIA weapons caches remained hidden, so they are not short of small arms as a result. They are small but well equipped and trained. However with CSAT weaponry being sold openly to some questionable regimes in the region there is justifiable concern is that it will begin to turn up here. The region as a whole has fallen apart due to the economy flat-lining a decade ago and in the time since a return to some pretty right wing religious politics. Owing to Stratis military value & Altis wind & solar capability there is something of a proxy war developing. CSAT has been stepping up their show of force in neighboring allied states. Most alarmingly they have sold previous generation air assets and are conducting naval maneuvers around the region. Posturing ahead of political summits but dangerous to the balance of power and designed to force the richest NATO nations to commit more spending to defense in the area. As a response the US will be conducting a large training operation involving the USS Nimitz and has doubled it's drone and mechanized presence on Altis. It is a bit of a tinder box but CSAT-NATO relations are expected to normalize, however the nations caught in the midst may not fair so well unless some stability can be brought to civilian infrastructure and institutions. In any case there should be plenty of opportunity for us to profiteer from the chaos! The Format: I don't want to subject people to "drilling" - We Want Action! And so it shall be! So all "MilSim" stuff will be out the window. However we will need to function as a team if we expect to win. That means the basics - shooting straight, simple communication when calling contacts in an engagement & working in buddy teams. All of which we'll sort out very quickly. I have no intention of making this easy, I want it to be hard because most people are used to ARMA PvE being stupidly easy & boring. So bring your "A game" and keep your head down. Anyone who has played the most common PvE "Invade & Annex" multiplayer modes will be used to Heli-insertions, finding an overwatch, then shooting at useless AI that fall over and die, never returning accurate fire - I very much hope that this will not be the PvE experience here. As things go on you may fight against an "orchestrated AI" or person controlled enemu squads. So be prepared to fire & move - because you will get flanked, you will get lit up & you will have to conserve ammo, etc. To begin our missions there will be forgiving concessions for revives, etc. Because I don't want us to fail horribly, but I do want it to be butt-clenchingly harsh. As we go on with our deployment and become a more cohesive unit, individuals will get the opportunity to specialise (medic, demolition, marksman, grenadier, etc) which should give us some depth. I hope that everyone finds a niche they enjoy but if not I'll not force people into roles they don't want to specialise in, instead we will share them. That said, people will need to prove either in combat or in training an aptitude for their desired specialisation. Standard Operating Proecdure: I know, I know, I said we wouldn't have any MilSim shit, but there have to be rules. What do you what Fucking Anarchy?! We are a PMC, We are NOT the Military so there are RULES, and they are as follows: R.O.E. Rules Of Engagement: Always, ALWAYS: "Yellow". You only shoot at things that shoot at you! You are not permitted to engage anything that does not directly threaten the life of: Yourself. Your Team. Any Mark you are assigned to. Civilians - You better be certain. Positively Identifying Targets - We may be in a War Zone, we will not have any kind of BLUFOR tracker. If we are lucky we will get radio comms from friendly NATO forces (Grids, etc), but it isn't a given. If you cannot positively ID a threat you will NOT engage it. There will be times you are in a shit storm and identifying targets will be paramount. Friendly Fire / Negligible Discharge: We all make mistakes, but mistakes cost lives. Your mistakes will be recorded. In the confusion there is a chance it will never come to pass, but we'll know and if it is ever proven that you made a blue-on-blue or collateral kill your "Avatar" will be court marshalled, lose their specialisation, all kit & be replaced with a vanilla recruit (or you may get off scott-free! Depends on the situation, kind sof rouns used, etc). Also you may discredit the unit & we may lose contracts, otherwise sympathetic parties may become hostile, etc. How this affects the story: Basically every action has an equal reaction: That isn't to say we always have to be the good guys - we are a PMC and so long as we fly under the radar we can take any job we like. That'll come down to a vote: There will be plenty of ill-gotten gains to be had for cash; working for bad guys, or we might go A-Team Stylee and rescue the yokels for information, or just work for the military and have the chance to purchase some really fucking big guns. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The First Scenario: As has been said - Welcome to fucking Stratis boys (and maybe girls, but who am I kidding!) Once a place you'd have been proud to bury your sausage on a club 18-30. Now a military island where the locals subside on either military contracts (pouring concrete), or literally fishing for dinner - when they aren't dodging the local mob scumbags. At any rate it doesn't really matter, this is a staging post for NATO & we are off this shit hole in a couple of hours, still - it's a nice story! The Job: We have a contract with the United States Army to do the bullshit they can't yet do with drones! Which is fine because it pays really, really fucking well. That mostly means protecting infrastructure, doing checkpoint duty, motorised/foot patrols & all manor of mundane shit (though obviously that is the narative, everything will go to hell & often). The First Mission: Reference the map below. Or don't - I'm not your real dad. Do what you like. We'll be transported, courtesy of a US Navy Huron to the "Drop Off LZ" at Stratis Airfield. Our fantastic company car is prepared for us at the helipad with Toolkit, Medikit & AM/FM Radio. We'll be stopping on our way through the air base to pickup our contractor's ID/Weapon permits & kiss some arse. From the Airfield we're travelling to marker "Procurement" at the Kamino Gun Range. Here-in lies your first test! Someone is driving and someone is navigating - I am sleeping in the back! There are a couple of routes - One is safer, One is quicker, do what you like - just don't wreck the truck or we are all walking! (seriosuly, don't wreck the truck). At Kamino we'll pick up our equipment (GUNSSS!!). We'll assign our buddy teams - partly because we are BFFs and partly (mostly) because our accounting department didn't shell out for us to all have decent gear so we'll be relying on one another - decide who carries what and make it efficient. Then we'll head to the range for a bit of competition (there is scoring)- just make sure you stick to the clearly marked public lanes because the rangemasters are hardasses and if you go where you shouldn't expect to be disarmed/shot. Finally we need to get our salty old asses up to "Camp Rogain/Dust Off" - Before last light (If we miss our ride then we are on a stinky old fishing trawler!) and catch our 1st class ride off this shit hole Island to Altis - which, to be fair - is an even bigger shit hole island...... but at least it has work. The Map below shows the overwhelming control of the Island by NATO forces. There is an Unaffiliated Civilian Militia (who roundly hate everyone, Insurgent, NATO and CSAT) but really it is just a glorified neighbourhood watch. Leave them alone and they'll leave you alone, but everyone and his nan owns an AK here so try not to piss them off! The Red areas are unknowns - suspected smuggling routes, possible ties to the Altis insurgency - good reason to be suspicious of anyone around these parts besides industrial workers & most of them are stealing copper or diesel. Nevertheless Agia Maria is the only major civilian settlement and it is well policed by NATO troops. There isn't sufficient resources to patrol the whole coast and it isn't necessary; Drones keep decent tabs on movements around there and nowhere on the island is more than a few minutes from some seriously superior NATO fire power, just don't go wandering off the beaten path and turning over rocks and you'll be fine. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So that is the first brief - longer than most of them, but I wanted to set the scene & lay some ground rules. Once we reach Altis things will follow much the same pattern. The company will give a (half arsed, mostly incomplete) SITREP & tasking. It is always up to us how we get the job done, just get it done. We'll vote on the jobs we take - the votes of those who completed the last mission will be weighted.
Oh, I just realized I don't see the mods needed to be installed. Or is it you haven't decided which ones you want to use. Either way I got my gpu back so I can actually have this working halfway decently.
Sorry missed that other message. I'm aiming for the second weekend of September, might slip to the third as I've got kind of busy recently and I don't want to risk it flopping so I'll test the shit out of it this time to make sure all the scripts are executing right server and client side. I will post a definite list of the mods soon, will try to keep it as vanilla as possible.
id really like to participate in this aswell - i wouldnt mind about "milsim style" either, but youd have to teach me engrish radio stuff first i was in the military (only the non-voluntary part), but we speak german ... ... more relaxed would def be nicer tho
The more the merrier. I'll throw another couple of slots in. Sorry I missed it this weekend. I did get a bit preoccupied with work and Overwatch season 2 and there was more work than I thought getting the dedi setup with Arma, team speak and all the plugins I want for the campaign.
MODS: Here is a link to a Zipped copy of all the mods & the Teamspeak plugins. It is only 500MB total so should be a reasonably quick download and shouldn't add huge loading times when starting ARMA. If you already have Task Force Radio you can skip that one providing you have the latest stable version v0.9.8 available from http://radio.task-force.ru/en/ You may already have some of these installed (CBA, ACE, Alive & TFAR are quite common), but in which case please check the versioning, or backup your old copies if you need them and replace with these. Particularly CBA & ACE. Place the "@Mod" folders into your ARMA3 root directory For example "..Program Files\Steam\Steamapps\common\arma3\@Mod" Copy / Merge the userconfig folder into your ARMA3 root directory. Place the relevant TFAR plugin DLL into your Teamspeak plugings folder. For example (64bit TS3) "..\Program Files\TeamSpeak 3 Client\plugins\task_force_radio_win64.dll" Or example (32bit TS3) "..\Program Files (x86)\TeamSpeak 3 Client\plugins\task_force_radio_win32.dll" If anyone needs a hand just drop a message here. I'll publish ARMA 3 & Teamspeak Server details here tomorrow & put a placeholder mission on rotation for testing with. Note: There is a problem with one of the mod's scipt calls, it is apparently a known issue but it has an easy work-around, you just need to be aware of it: When you first load the mission it will give some error "Moss_fnc_LogicInit". You need to exit to the lobby and then rejoin. For some reason the scripts only initialise correctly for those who Join In Progress (JIP).
will there be conflicts if i downloaded some of those mods from the workshop? my workshop directory is "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Arma 3\!Workshop" and thats also where those mods reside (i have tfr and cba) its all recent installments, oldest is from 10.09.2016
