Arma 3 coming into its own moments before release... must-have mods.

[sproyd 2]

Everyone has their own opinion on Arma 3, opinions which unfortunately tend to be generally quite dramatic and black and white!

Personally I was a day 0 downloader of the Alpha and have played it almost everyday since. I think I have a pretty good understanding of where its been, where its at and where its going and I couldn't be happier.

Well, sort of... because as usual I have become acclimatised to the game having logged 257 hours on Steam (including Editor time mind you) and the quirks seem to become more normal and acceptable if you will. However, there seems to be some nascent modders that have come out of the woodwork immediately prior to Retail release now that the build has stabilised and I am here to tell you - you need to check out these mods. They are absolutely transforming the experience and taking what A3 vanilla is really good at (graphics, weapons, sandbox) and lifting them to a whole new level. Links to must-have mods are in my sig but here's what you should be looking at.

JSRS is Back

Yes its some of the biggest news on the forum but some of you may have missed it if you weren't cruising the mods:discussion sub. JSRS by LordJarhead is one of the best mods form A2 and overhauls the sound system. Its in very very early Alpha for A3 but oh god is it good. Having played so many hours I was getting very tired of the 6.5mm gunshot sample and this elevates that sound and many others to high levels. Not to mention sonic cracks from overhead rounds and being able to hear distant firefights echoing through the valleys... Go get this now.

TMR

TMR introces a range of features but mostly to do with weapon behaviour. This resolves pretty much all complaints about "too much recoil" and feels just right to me. Other features include cool changes to the rocket launches.

FFIS

FFIS or Fire-fight Improvement System vastly overhauls AI behaviour and its hard to believe this was whacked together by one guy. Firefights now take a lot longer and you are much less likely to take a 9mm between the eyes from 200+m. Even AI vs AI firefights feature suppression, evasive tactics, flanking, high use of cover (like a normal firefight).

Mid-Range Textures by Bad Benson

This is an old one but essential nonetheless as very uncharacteristically, BIS hasn't addressed the very poor mid-range textures. May become obsolete if Retail includes a patch on textures but don't hold your breath. Essential mod to stem eye bleeds.

And in tandem these 4 mods will reinvigorate your Arma 3 and once Altis launches we will hopefully all be in ... Arma Heaven.

[pharoah 65]

These sound good but won't help unless actually allowed by MP servers. Most tend to band everything, even CBA! These really should be included in the game by BIS so that we don't have to mod them eg. weapon resting/bipods.

[KyleK29 1]

....

Thanks for the heads up. Installing them all now.

[unknown03 2]

These sound good but won't help unless actually allowed by MP servers. Most tend to band everything, even CBA! These really should be included in the game by BIS so that we don't have to mod them eg. weapon resting/bipods.

^ This...Very much this.

It's my opinion that JSRS needs to be the vanilla sounds for this very reason. Can't join any MP servers with mods enabled, and I was told that it was all or nothing. Either all mods allowed, or nothing allowed. In fact, not a single server in my area with decent ping will allow JSRS. I haven't played with the other mods, but some of these mods just need to be "official".

[pharoah 65]

It $hits me that BIS haven't done anything in this regard. Its KEY to infantry combat ie. suppression, fire and movement, recoil/use of bipods, etc - stuff that even something arcadey (compared to ARMA3) like BF3 has (supp/bipods anyway). They've sacrificed a lot of content because they wanted to focus on the infantry combat element (their words...or something like that) however they've totally missed, or most probably, ignored these key areas.

[KingScuba 1]

wtfh? No CBA, ACRE, or STHUD?

[Hud Dorph 22]

^ This...Very much this.

It's my opinion that JSRS needs to be the vanilla sounds for this very reason. Can't join any MP servers with mods enabled, and I was told that it was all or nothing. Either all mods allowed, or nothing allowed. In fact, not a single server in my area with decent ping will allow JSRS. I haven't played with the other mods, but some of these mods just need to be "official".

Not so strange you cant find any servers allowing it, as the are no key for it yet..

[sproyd 2]

These sound good but won't help unless actually allowed by MP servers. Most tend to band everything, even CBA! These really should be included in the game by BIS so that we don't have to mod them eg. weapon resting/bipods.

Yes of course CBA as well which is a prerequisite for most of these mods to work. Yes, at the moment you won't be able to play any of these mods on MP. However, the mods are still in Alpha testing phase mostly so need work before they are finalised. However, many mods already have bikeys so if you did want to host a server for your friends/clan with these mods enabled you can - and people have. Just not available yet on big pubs.

Anyway, even in JSRS's heyday on A2 it wasn't running on most servers despite it unanimously improving the experience. I remember my server search filter was just 'JSRS' - that's how important it was to me to use it.

---------- Post added at 08:32 ---------- Previous post was at 08:31 ----------

It $hits me that BIS haven't done anything in this regard. Its KEY to infantry combat ie. suppression, fire and movement, recoil/use of bipods, etc - stuff that even something arcadey (compared to ARMA3) like BF3 has (supp/bipods anyway). They've sacrificed a lot of content because they wanted to focus on the infantry combat element (their words...or something like that) however they've totally missed, or most probably, ignored these key areas.

Like A2 just mod to your heart's content. FFIS and TMR work well together and vastly improve the AI infantry fight situation. Check it out!

---------- Post added at 08:35 ---------- Previous post was at 08:32 ----------

wtfh? No CBA, ACRE, or STHUD?

ACRE is of course great if you play a lot of MP (I've never used it as I'm not really part of a clan).

STHUD is great too and I used it heavily in A2 but I guess doesn't dramatically change the A3 experience like FFIS/TMR/JSRS. However its a must-have mod for sure if you want tighter squad control and situational awareness. I'm interested how it plugs in to FFIS which can see members of your squad rout - will they still be visible on the STHUD once they've temporarily left your group?

[comp_uter15776 1]

Only 257 hours? Kylania's amassed something like 450+! :P

Not to derail the thread, I personally find mods like these a bit of an annoyance, perhaps with the exception of the mid-range texture patching. It would be a hell of a lot easier with some form of autodownload or even just an autoupdater so we're not stuck having to manage all these good mods put out there to finally bring the content up to some huge pack. So, I like the concept of many of these but imo it's a gamebreaker having to dl/install, then get the keys, then allow them on a private server etc... (because public loves to run vanilla only)

[sproyd 2]

Only 257 hours? Kylania's amassed something like 450+! :P

Not to derail the thread, I personally find mods like these a bit of an annoyance, perhaps with the exception of the mid-range texture patching. It would be a hell of a lot easier with some form of autodownload or even just an autoupdater so we're not stuck having to manage all these good mods put out there to finally bring the content up to some huge pack. So, I like the concept of many of these but imo it's a gamebreaker having to dl/install, then get the keys, then allow them on a private server etc... (because public loves to run vanilla only)

I know what you mean, although I wouldn't say its an annoyance. The great thing about Arma's modability is that you don't need to have mod a, b ,c and d you can just have mod a and d if you so choose, although this creates a bit of fiddling.

In terms of auto-updaters PwS works well but unfortunately most mods aren't on there and some on there are out of date so its by no means a perfect solution (except for say CBA).

[comp_uter15776 1]

I know what you mean, although I wouldn't say its an annoyance. The great thing about Arma's modability is that you don't need to have mod a, b ,c and d you can just have mod a and d if you so choose, although this creates a bit of fiddling.

In terms of auto-updaters PwS works well but unfortunately most mods aren't on there and some on there are out of date so its by no means a perfect solution (except for say CBA).

Well, personally it's the idea that the community becomes a bit spaced out across all their preferences, whereas if things were just downloaded as and when needed (and say, optionally stored), people could once again play with others and have a large playerbase on even the most heavily modded servers.

[sproyd 2]

Dorph;2479200']Not so strange you cant find any servers allowing it' date=' as the are no key for it yet..[/quote']

Exactly, its barely out of the cradle.

[KingScuba 1]

I've got 357 hours on arma 3 myself at the moment ~~

I'm really interested in FFIS. I kind of doubt STHUD would work like you're saying, it only tracks your squad members, so once they drop out, they shouldn't show up anymore.

[unknown03 2]

Dorph;2479200']Not so strange you cant find any servers allowing it' date=' as the are no key for it yet..[/quote']

JSRS had a key for Arma 2, but sadly I wasn't able to find any servers (ping under 100 or not private) allowing it either :(

[kylania 567]

wtfh? No CBA, ACRE, or STHUD?

CBA isn't as required due to BIS functions being much more powerful. ACRE is only needed in large units. In Smaller groups its more of a pain than a feature.

That said STHud is virtually required! So awesome. It needs CBA too so.

[big_t 1]

These mods sound amazing! I wish they would be implemented in multiplayer . As of now you can't enter a normal multiplayer game with mods installed.