Altis map - planned changes

[progamer 14]

I could make it with UAVs, but the Buzzard can't make it at least without taking damage from ramming something.

It can. Just taxi to the very edge if the runway, then put flaps down all the way. Then go for it. Remember to pull up the gear so it doesn't hit stuff. You can take off with no damage too easily.

[laverniusregalis 10]

It can. Just taxi to the very edge if the runway, then put flaps down all the way. Then go for it. Remember to pull up the gear so it doesn't hit stuff. You can take off with no damage too easily.

I was talking about landing. The airfield to the NW in the hills is really tricky to land on.

[progamer 14]

I was talking about landing. The airfield to the NW in the hills is really tricky to land on.

Do the same thing with the flaps. Its ridiculously easy.

[laverniusregalis 10]

Do the same thing with the flaps. Its ridiculously easy.

What are you on man? Full flaps, just above stalling speed, and you'll barely, BARELY avoid crashing into the ditch ahead of the runway. If you land on the bit of flat ground before it.

[Tacti-Cool 10]

What are you on man? Full flaps, just above stalling speed, and you'll barely, BARELY avoid crashing into the ditch ahead of the runway. If you land on the bit of flat ground before it.

He likes to argue and sound superior.

[mistyronin 1181]

I was talking about landing. The airfield to the NW in the hills is really tricky to land on.

IMO all the airstrips require skill to manually land or take off as they are pretty short. I've achieved it in all of them, but after some failed attempts.

The only one that seems fitted for jets is the airport, but in war time its normal thay armies use whatever they can have. On the other hand they are perfect for helicopters, and maybe some vstol aircraft.

BTW one civilian plane would had been nice, a small cesna and maybe a middle size airliner for the main airport.

Edited October 30, 2013 by MistyRonin

[laverniusregalis 10]

He likes to argue and sound superior.

I noticed, but I don't allow people who aren't legitimately trolling to do that. Admit defeat or actually be right.

[KingScuba 1]

that sounds like it'd be pretty cool.

[Alwarren 2767]

We're curious to learn what you think about these larger changes - especially since it may affect custom scenarios you have already created in the above locations. We don't intend such large changes beyond this.

I think it is safe to say that changing the ID's on the map are likely to break 33% of custom missions. Waypoints that have been placed on objects will no longer work, giving the dreaded "invalid link to static object" error. Considering how much Arma 3 depends on custom scenarios, I think you should think hard before changing anything post-release.

Don't get me wrong, the additions look great (especially like the hotel), but it WILL break missions, unless you find way to keep object id's as they are.

[Harry Canyon 10]

Well, as much as I respect the modders, this game needs to progress, and it should be expected that things are going to change.

[Alwarren 2767]

Well, as much as I respect the modders, this game needs to progress, and it should be expected that things are going to change.

It's not the modders that suffer from it. It's all of us, players and mission makers alike. How would you like it to see a promising mission on the workshop, download it and try it only to be greeted with an error message?

Progress is nice if it doesn't break things. It was acceptable in the Alpha and Beta phase, but user experience will suffer greatly once missions start to break in a released game. People will ask why a supposedly finished game starts breaking existing missions.

As much as I like new stuff, great care should be taken to NOT break existing scenarios.

[progamer 14]

It's not the modders that suffer from it. It's all of us, players and mission makers alike. How would you like it to see a promising mission on the workshop, download it and try it only to be greeted with an error message?

Progress is nice if it doesn't break things. It was acceptable in the Alpha and Beta phase, but user experience will suffer greatly once missions start to break in a released game. People will ask why a supposedly finished game starts breaking existing missions.

As much as I like new stuff, great care should be taken to NOT break existing scenarios.

If the mission was made with an unfinished part of the game like the medical system, then the author should update the mission to fix this. If he does not then delete the mission or don't use it. If an aspect of the game was made better, then this still means the author should fix the mission, if they do not then delete the mission.

[tempestriser 10]

Very nice news, its good to have a hotel compound in the game, for such missions like "kill priority VIP", its even better if it could have a big walkable interior :)

[Sniperwolf572 758]

It's not the modders that suffer from it. It's all of us, players and mission makers alike. How would you like it to see a promising mission on the workshop, download it and try it only to be greeted with an error message?

Progress is nice if it doesn't break things. It was acceptable in the Alpha and Beta phase, but user experience will suffer greatly once missions start to break in a released game. People will ask why a supposedly finished game starts breaking existing missions.

As much as I like new stuff, great care should be taken to NOT break existing scenarios.

If the mission was made with an unfinished part of the game like the medical system, then the author should update the mission to fix this. If he does not then delete the mission or don't use it. If an aspect of the game was made better, then this still means the author should fix the mission, if they do not then delete the mission.

This isn't like that. Changing of the ID's happens whenever a map is recompiled I believe. The objects that are there get different ID's, everything looks the same, but the missions now don't work due to ID's not pointing to the same object.

Imagine you are reading an article on a website, and that article has an id of 1234 in the URL. You share it with a friend. Before he clicks the link, some writer for the website the article was on added another article to the site, but imagine the site behaves like the terrains in Arma and the URL for the article you sent your friend is no longer valid because 1234 is no longer the ID of the article but the ID of either a non-existing article or a completely different article. For the reader and probably the editorial staff this is an inconvenience and makes no sense. But the developer might have thought "well, you know, we should to this so our last ID is always the total number of articles in the database and so we don't overflow the ID field too soon".

To be honest, the best solution should be done in the tools/engine. If an objects gets removed, so be it, it's tolerable, but ID's changing all the time on even the smallest updates is a larger issue. ID's should persist for objects on the island that weren't modified.

Maybe have an SQL-like "auto increment" variable that is stored with the map so you could do if implemented:

• For old maps, you'd regenerate all ID's for one last time when the terrain is saved.
  
• ID's of objects that have been deleted are no longer available (Referencing a non existing ID would return null as kju suggests or whatever it returns now)
  
• New objects get ID's that are being incremented from the stored increment variable (Potentially assign ID's only on map save so you don't skip an ID if you place then delete an object between saves)
  
• Existing objects never change their ID's
  

This would solve 99% of the issues for the community with regards to the ID's and it would let the island authors update their islands as they please without the need to concern themselves with issues like these.

Progress is great, new features, new additions and everything. I'm not a supporter of "backwards compatibility at all costs" if it impedes the progress even slightly, but this something that could and should be solved in some way.

Edited October 30, 2013 by Sniperwolf572

[[aps]gnat 28]

I think sacrificing a couple scenarios (of which half could easily be updated) for long term positive changes to the terrain, is ok.

Great to hear content being added. Earlier the better of course.

As for this stupid airfield debate .... FFS, they are JETS!! They aren't meant for any of those airstrips !

Try my CESSNA .....

[Rovka 14]

For jets we have Almyra salt-lake and Altis Int. Airport.. About those smaller grassy runways scattered about; It makes me wonder what BIS is planning content-wise to let land or take-off from there..

Ofcourse, that's a wholly different matter up for speculation if one wishes to get into that, but its possibilities of what perhaps may come, make me quite happy. And one can always hope.

But what I would love to see, are default vanilla Ultra-Lights in both helo-esque form, and plane variation, possibly with armed versions of those to the FIA to give them some limited airpower.. Would be awesome I'd say! :D

*keeps fingers crossed* I know, alternatively the community might create those, but best would be if those were vanilla. That way everyone has the same version standard in game by default. Something to be said for right?

[progamer 14]

For jets we have Almyra salt-lake and Altis Int. Airport.. About those smaller grassy runways scattered about; It makes me wonder what BIS is planning content-wise to let land or take-off from there..

Ofcourse' date=' that's a wholly different matter up for speculation if one wishes to get into that, but its possibilities of what perhaps may come, make me quite happy. And one can always hope.

But what I would love to see, are default vanilla Ultra-Lights in both helo-esque form, and plane variation, possibly with armed versions of those to the FIA to give them some limited airpower.. Would be awesome I'd say! :D

*keeps fingers crossed* I know, alternatively the community might create those, but best would be if those were vanilla. That way everyone has the same version standard in game by default. Something to be said for right?[/quote']

If you pay attention to trivia, the one airstrip is ment for RC planes for a local hobby group.

[Harry Canyon 10]

If you pay attention to trivia, the one airstrip is ment for RC planes for a local hobby group.

LOL, I wouldn't be surprised.

[gobbo 10]

I already love those changes and can't wait to see them deployed to the dev branch. An abandoned hotel is exactly what I need for a mission I'm working on (well, I didn't know that I needed it before the announcement, but it gives me perfect material to work with).

A pity this change will likely break some missions referencing certain objects, but I think it's worth it and a mission can be fixed easily if you know your way around mission making.

I also have to admit that I'm slightly mindblown by this:

Well, I expected a new stadium, as it has been under construction for months ;):

http://www.imagebam.com/image/df201a284720460

Great continuity there! (Whether intended or not)

Edited October 31, 2013 by gobbo

[Alwarren 2767]

If the mission was made with an unfinished part of the game like the medical system, then the author should update the mission to fix this. If he does not then delete the mission or don't use it. If an aspect of the game was made better, then this still means the author should fix the mission, if they do not then delete the mission.

Huh? Where did I say anything about the medical system? We're talking about invalidating a potentially major part of user scenarios just for the sake of having some more objects on the map. We're not talking about a lazy mission designer not wanting to update to something or taking shortcuts. We're talking about genuine work that someone invested into their mission.

This kind of attitude shows a blatant disrespect for the works of community members that potentially put a lot of effort into something that you shrug away with "if they don't do X then I delete it".

[NeuroFunker 11]

what i have wondered, why the forest do look quite empty, no smaller trees, no bushes, no anything, just trees trees trees. I've not much of idea, how the forests look at mediterranen, but i think, there is something more then just all the same trees, with same size and shape.

[Alwarren 2767]

Gnat;2546891']I think sacrificing a couple scenarios (of which half could easily be updated) for long term positive changes to the terrain' date=' is ok.[/quote']

I think a major question would be just how many would be affected.

We're also talking user experience here. Yes, it is rather easy to fix, if you know how. But I'd venture to say that most people do not, and for them, it's a showstopper until someone fixes it. It's frustrating to say the least to go through a couple of missions on the workshop only to find that half of them don't work. In the light of making the game more accessible and thus getting a wider audience, steps that deliberately break existing content is something that needs careful consideration.

And since almost nobody on this thread mentioned this, I thought it might be a good idea to bring it up. Especially if you want to get away from the idea that the game was released unfinished, as a lot of reviews suggest. This will only cement that.

[.kju 3245]

Terrain object ID changes

[bvrettski 10]

Would be nice if the big map ran better..how about that for a change before you start adding sign posts, phone booths, and kiosks that add almost nothing to the game play.

The map is flat boring, sprawling and barren...has bad fps hits all over the place and with anything less than 150 players the island for the most part feels deserted unless you have a mission that packs players into a small area...then it lags so bad its unplayable.

Congrats on the world biggest map ever but until you provide improved performance, and good gametypes..its not very useful.

[Harry Canyon 10]

what i have wondered, why the forest do look quite empty, no smaller trees, no bushes, no anything, just trees trees trees. I've not much of idea, how the forests look at mediterranen, but i think, there is something more then just all the same trees, with same size and shape.

I agree. I always feel like I'm walking through the park from the cartoon "Regular Show". :p At least on Stratis. Altis feels a little better.