Altis and Stratis

[taztek 10]

I have been wondering, in the Finished game will we be able to Travel to Altis from Stratis and back? While playing single as well as Multiplayer. Even if we are not, the way Altis is divided will make for a great conflict in the Bridge of the map.

[DnA 5143]

The both environments are not in the same virtual space, so you'll have to load different maps to travel between them (just like Utes and Chernarus in Arma 2).

[OChristie 0]

I remember for ArmA you integrated Rhamadi and Sahrani into one terrain? I may be wrong?

[AlexVestin 24]

The both environments are not in the same virtual space, so you'll have to load different maps to travel between them (just like Utes and Chernarus in Arma 2).

But a certain mod going standalone brought those two maps you mentioned together in the same virtual space :rolleyes:

Just out of curiosity, would it be an engine-limitation or time-limitation to bring two such large maps as Altis and Stratis together?

[antoineflemming 14]

But a certain mod going standalone brought those two maps you mentioned together in the same virtual space :rolleyes:

Just out of curiosity, would it be an engine-limitation or time-limitation to bring two such large maps as Altis and Stratis together?

I bet an engine limitation. You do realize how far apart the islands are, right? You could just about fit another Altis in between Altis and Stratis.

[AlexVestin 24]

Yeah. Probably. I have no idea what the limitation is on map-size.

I've seen what looks like endless desert maps with no detail, so it still gotta be something of a object-limitation?

Not sure how big those desert maps really where, but Altis alone is something close to 65 square-miles or 270 square-kilometers.

[slatts 1978]

DayZ SA "moved" Utes closer to the Chernarus terrain..and I mean close..maybe one KM away. Story wise it's supposed to be 20KM away AFAIR.

@O'Christie, Rahmadi was always close to Sahrani, it was made a separate map to be used like Utes, a small training or testing terrain that loads quickly

[Binkowski 26]

They did it in ArmA1 with Sahrani and Rahmadi. Also it was done by somebody in the community during OFP where he had all four islands (Nogova, Malden, Everon, and Kolgujev) in the same virtual space. Sure performance was crap, CTDs were rampant in some cases, and it was buggy. But it was done.

I would assume with how they have updated the engine since then it would be a big performance hit to have both in the same space. This is all assumption though.

[chortles 263]

I'm guessing that any performance hit was too much for BI to accept, considering the comments by DnA to RPS about production polish.

[SASrecon 0]

Rahmadi was always in the Sahrani map (not implemented later as some people are making it out to be) ((or was it? :P)) as well as a playable island which you could load-up by itself also known as 'debug island', plainly because of how quick it was to load and it did everything you needed it to if you wanted to test a mod or a mission template etc.

Utes is 'supposed to be very far south off the coast of Chernarus but was never implemented for various reasons.

DayZ standalone 'may' be be moving Utes just south of Skalisty island on Chernarus to add some more playable terrain and a possible 'endgame' option, not set in stone yet though.

I doubt it's an engine limitation, currently the BI is at a point where they can tweak anything they want about the engine, if anything it's a time limitation or a performance/resource limitation.

I guess Altis will be around 18x15km and Stratis about 5.4x3.75km, Sahrani was easily 20x20 (Not necessarily the same amount of land-mass), but it may be possible to fit it in somewhere without going too far over 400km^2 (land & water mass), but question is, will it add anything useful?

I mean, if you want to play a mission on an island then just load up Stratis by itself, or make a mission on Stratis, then cutscene and switch to Altis when needed, maybe in some modular missions with PvP elements such as Warfare/Wasteland/DayZ where there's an option to make bases/camps it would be nice to have Stratis off the shore of Altis but maybe it takes too great a toll on performance for it to be worth making other missions laggy where you don't need Stratis at all. ramble ramble ramble, dunno if I said anything useful, but that's my 2 cents.

Edited March 1, 2013 by SASrecon

[nop123 1]

Dammit merge altis and statis... or add at least another airfield. 1 airbase for each map is weird, it's discouraging jets...

[Babur 10]

Dammit merge altis and statis... or add at least another airfield. 1 airbase for each map is weird, it's discouraging jets...

No its encouraging the importance of jets, and the need of controlling airfields/ airspace in war by forcing those who do not control it to take the airfield.

[nop123 1]

No its encouraging the importance of jets, and the need of controlling airfields/ airspace in war by forcing those who do not control it to take the airfield.

It's encouraging the control of airfield, not using jets...

Let's say someone starts having the airfield. They have jets, and you ? Do you really think AA will do much ? You won't be able to get it anyway as there is no way to shoot them down (if you're a good pilot of course) and instead they'll own your ground units (==you can't get the airfield..).

Edited March 3, 2013 by secret1962

[Babur 10]

It's encouraging the control of airfield, not using jets...

No its encouraging the use of Jets for the team that controls it as they can now secure airspace which since World War 2 has been the most important factor in war and shows the importance of it to the other team who too must field jets by either securing the airfield or constructing their own.

[nop123 1]

Secure airspace ? If there is only one airfield... and again, you can't get the airfield back.

[Babur 10]

Secure airspace ? If there is only one airfield... and again, you can't get the airfield back.

Well for one, its forces the maintaining of conventional warfare which is the main point of ARMA 3, its pretty easy to build your own airfield anyway a bit of flat land maybe remove any trees in the way and a little AA and there you have it a airfield (more or less).

Plus I’m sure there is an Aircraft carrier prop or something that can be added for missions.

Plus in all honesty this is how war is fought quite often, one side doesn’t have an airfield or control the air, and as such it forces the side without to adjust their tactics to meet the new treat which can only be a good feature.

[nop123 1]

Ahaha yes take off a jet directly from grass. You're lucky that arma allows it (which is a lot unrealistic). And yes, try to find the flat land :). Without air superiority if the pilots are good enough you won't have any possibility anyway. The AA can do really nothing in there, there is no SAM and you can evade missiles so easily. If there will be carriers there have to be proper jets and functions then, not only a prop. This game is going to be a lot UNBALANCED and irrealistic in a pvp scenario. I think this is why there have always been more coop servers than pvp ones. I have no idea why they have to upgrade everything but the jets remain always the same (I've seen TGP addons... but none uses them in multiplayer anyway + they just copied the F-35 from previous and put it in Arma 3... great improvement, no new jets for A3 I bet). And addons won't fix the problem at all since a lot of people don't even care about them in multiplayer except rare ones (ACE for example, but that doesn't fix all the problems anyway). I have never seen in arma 2 a server with F-18 jet addon or others. Developers got to integrate all the important addons in the game or it'll never be realistic enough.

Yea this is kinda different discussion, but it's a warning for developers because if I am going to buy A3, I won't do the same for let's say A4 if there is no improvement at all. Since jets affect the ground units experience too, then it can't remain like this, because it'd make the entire game-sim not trying to simulate anything at all.

P.S. where is the problem in merging stratis and altis anyway ? Altis is soooooo big (290 km2), where is the problem in adding a simple 20 km2 island ?

Edited March 3, 2013 by secret1962

[Tonci87 163]

And that´s how PvP players like to fuck up games...

"But there is only one Airfield, the game is not balanced, it sucks,"

There is only one Airfield on RL Limnos, so deal with it.

[nop123 1]

And that´s how PvP players like to fuck up games...

"But there is only one Airfield, the game is not balanced, it sucks,"

There is only one Airfield on RL Limnos, so deal with it.

In real life there are a lot more possibilities to send there jets. Here not. So a balance is required unless you don't extend the map.

[RuecanOnRails 10]

I don't believe they need to merge Altis and Stratis.

The distance between is something around 35km away. That would be a LOT of empty useless ocean doing nothing except causing more data to be loaded.

Sure they could easily put the islands close and just off shore of one another, but that would ruin the immersion set in place for the story.

The balance complaint is not a valid one in my mind. An offshore aircraft carrier would work better than having multiple airports all over the island.

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

In real life there are a lot more possibilities to send there jets. Here not. So a balance is required unless you don't extend the map.

Balance is in the tech - VTOL, and if Blufor happens to hold that sole airfield, then in the form of ingenuity - applies to Opfor.

I've personally used a 210 m stretch of road as a landing strip for a Su-34. While under fire. With 3 enemy jets in the air. With AIM9-spamming Cobras.

There are probably tens of spots suitable for a makeshift landing strip. If you thought taking off from Balota was hardcore, wait till you see Warfare action on Altis. :cc:

[johncage 30]

In real life there are a lot more possibilities to send there jets. Here not. So a balance is required unless you don't extend the map.

just park a carrier group next to the island

[nop123 1]

Balance is in the tech - VTOL, and if Blufor happens to hold that sole airfield, then in the form of ingenuity - applies to Opfor.

I've personally used a 210 m stretch of road as a landing strip for a Su-34. While under fire. With 3 enemy jets in the air. With AIM9-spamming Cobras.

There are probably tens of spots suitable for a makeshift landing strip. If you thought taking off from Balota was hardcore, wait till you see Warfare action on Altis. :cc:

So yea land in crazy places, and you call arma a simulation ? As I already said, you CAN'T land a jet on grass in real life. Therefore, changes are needed (don't make landings on grass possible). If they don't accept at least THIS requirement, then they are not trying to make a simulation, but to make the game more playable.

Ok keep telling me about carriers. But why VTOL ? There are already tons of addons in arma 2 for carrier ops, why can't they integrate those into arma 3 ? And I don't want to download tons of mods, because no server will ever use them.

Edited March 4, 2013 by secret1962

[Iroquois Pliskin 0]

So yea land in crazy places, and you call arma a simulation ?

Oh, boo-hoo - it's WAR! Probably World War III if going by the lore of ArmA III.

During wartimes, every method is genuine - if it works.

---------- Post added at 15:15 ---------- Previous post was at 15:15 ----------

Ok keep telling me about carriers. But why VTOL ? There are already tons of addons in arma 2 for carrier ops, why can't they integrate those into arma 3 ? And I don't want to download tons of mods, because no server will ever use them.

Perhaps there's a working carrier for Non-VTOL jets - we don't know yet.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Iroquois Pliskin

[SASrecon 0]

I've personally used a 210 m stretch of road as a landing strip for a Su-34. While under fire. With 3 enemy jets in the air. With AIM9-spamming Cobras...

There are probably tens of spots suitable for a makeshift landing strip.

you CAN'T land a jet on grass in real life.

When did he say anything about landing on grass?

There are already tons of addons in arma 2 for carrier ops, why can't they integrate those into arma 3 ?

Who says BIS won't include some carriers for Arma 3 final release/DLC?