Noob general mod questions

[stickywickets 10]

1. I bought A2 and all the expansions on Steam, but I don't know which one I should use – they are each installed as separate programs (except Czech). Would, for example, the Harvest Red campaign run any differently, i.e. less buggy, if I loaded up Private Military Company and played through that?

2. I also want to download some unit and map add-ons and install them. Is there a guide/suggestion on the simplest way to download and manage mods beyond installing Armarize?

3. One of the unit add-ons I want to download says it requires Advanced Combat Environment 2. Is this going to cause all kinds of changes to the gameplay? Would it really be necessary for a unit add-on? How easily can I remove mods?

4. In general, how often do mods cause crashes and compatibility issues?

Thank you very much for any help.

[chortles 263]

1. Quick summation:

Download/install and run Arma 2 (preferably as admin).

Then download/install and run Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead (again, preferably as admin).

If the above went right, then within OA you should see Harvest Red, Eagle Wing and Operation Arrowhead in the SP campaigns list, you should see both a numbered list of tutorials and a numbered list of tutorials prefixed E in the Boot Camp, in Expansions you should see both Arma 2 and Operation Arrowhead enabled...

Download/install the DLCs, then if you want to play the DLC campaigns, load up Operation Arrowhead and then pick the corresponding campaigns from the SP campaigns list. (In effect, OA is the game client but it's able to load Arma 2 content.)

2. Here is a wikiHow tutorial on modfolders. In general, the principle is that a modfolder's name is prefixed @ (i.e. "@ACE"), there's an addons subfolder inside that, and then the mod files (file extension PBO) goes inside the addons subfolder. (If there's BISIGN files included they go in there, and if there's BIKEY files then they go into another subfolder called keys, i.e. @ACE/keys). The modfolder goes inside either the game directory (i.e. C:\Program Files\Steam\SteamApps\common\Arma 2 Operation Arrowhead) or into your game profile folder (C:\Users\username\Documents\Arma 2).

If you put it into the game directory, then either right-click OA in your Steam Library, click Properties, click Set Launch Options, and type in -mod=@mod1;@mod2 with the appropriate names (i.e. -mod=@GLT_MissileBox;@RealAirWeapons) which is called a modline or instead follow the wikiHow's instructions of making shortcuts (i.e. on your Desktop) with their own modlines. If you want to disable one of these mods, simply omit it from your modline before you next launch the game.

If you put it into the game profile folder (my preferred method) then you can just choose Expansions from the main menu in Operation Arrowhead and disable/enable specific mods, then restart the game.

3. ACE does indeed change the gameplay and the units were presumably designed with them in mind, i.e. their default loadouts including ACE-specific weapons.

4. It... varies by the mod, but (of course) stability is pretty much a given with the most well-reputed mods.

[stickywickets 10]

Thank you very much for your long and helpful answers. It looks like I lucked out - my install happened to be consistent with your instructions.