OPREPs

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In this thread we'll post updates in the form of short OPREPs, which provide details on specific topics of development.

Goals:

• Share progress on important development
  

• Short (~500-1000 word) blogs related to a specific topic; likely to be more technical in nature
  
  
• Sometimes significant ongoing development can be difficult to notice; it's useful to highlight certain changes to gain valuable feedback
  
  

• Improve developer-community communications
  

• Provide a place to discover and browse information; avoid having to dig through threads for relevant developer posts
  
  
• Help support & develop the communication skills of our team members
  
  

Keep an eye on the Dev Hub for all the details.

OPREP: Soldier Protection

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UNIT: Radko Voda, Designer, Sandbox Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users

OPSUM: Soldier protection in Arma 3: recent changes, future progress and what might save your life

EVALUATION:

One of the most significant recent changes in Arma 3 has been the gradual introduction of improvements to Soldier Protection. The goal of the work is quite simple. We wish to bring more meaningful choices to our protective equipment, not only in terms of different weights and capacities, but also protection levels against various threats. However, because changes to this feature can have profound impacts upon the overall gameplay, we want to share our general design objectives, describe the current state and outline plans for future progress.

Full Report

Edited February 7, 2014 by RoyaltyinExile

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UNIT: Petr Kolář, Encoding Lead, Encoding Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users

OPSUM: Re-inventing the (steering) wheel: improving control over driving in Arma 3.

EVALUATION:

Recently, we've made some small additions that should offer more control over our vehicles. We wanted to improve the experience of driving in Arma 3 - bringing it up to date with what our players have come to expect - and we're still st(d)riving for more!

Full Report

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UNIT: Å imon KolÄiter, Programmer, Programming Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users

OPSUM: Untangling the web: improving animations systems in Arma 3.

EVALUATION:

Faced with a complicated 'spaghetti' relationship between game code and animation configs, which greatly increases the risk of potential problems, we've set out to refactor our system. Our objective is to make the process of managing and creating features far more robust.

Full Report

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UNIT: Martin Pezlar, Environment Lead, Environment Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users

OPSUM: Environmental enhancements: locations, details & updates.

EVALUATION:

We're excited to finally present our newly improved Altis terrain. As we mentioned previously, this update includes two significant location additions alongside a variety of other modest improvements. Although we've only increased the total number of objects by 0.5% - bringing the total count to 1779883 - we feel that these additions make a real difference, offering new gameplay opportunities and adding new diversity to urban areas.

Full Report

Edited March 21, 2014 by RoyaltyinExile

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UNIT: Martin Gregor, Encoder, Encoding Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Expanding the Sandbox: introducing CAS planes to Arma 3.

EVALUATION:

Recently, Arma 3 received two new fixed-wing aircraft: the A-164 'Wipeout' and the To-199 'Neophron'. In this OPREP we'll take a look at these new assets, discuss their role, details and differences but also outline what's new for planes in general - improvements that benefit our own vehicles as well as future community creations!

Full Report

Edited March 21, 2014 by RoyaltyinExile

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UNIT: Ondrej Kužel, QA Specialist, Quality Assurance Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Taking on the whale: tweaking AI configuration options.

EVALUATION:

We've made some progress in terms of documenting and refining the basic values that affect our AI and in terms of giving players more meaningful control over setting up their game, making some tweaks and updates to the difficulty options. While our work isn't over yet, we wanted to share an update on the actions we've taken so far.

Full Report

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UNIT: Bořivoj Hlava, Senior Designer, Sandbox Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Autonomous Updates: recent changes & planned features.

EVALUATION:

During Arma 3's development, UAVs (Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles) took some big steps forward. However, some ‘rough edges’ still remained; particularly, in terms of user experience and more advanced control. Since January – in part based on community feedback – we've invested time into updates and fixes. Below, we summarise this progress and share our plans for upcoming new features.

Full Report

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UNIT: Jirí Wainar, Senior Designer, Playable Content Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Survive / Adapt / Update: recent changes & additions to the Arma 3 campaign.

EVALUATION:

Recently, we've published some changes to the Arma 3 campaign. We'd like to discuss the motivations behind our work and share some of the features and improvements it has brought about.

Full Report

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UNIT: Radko Voda, Designer, Sandbox Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Feature Refinement: Weapon Sway & Fatigue mechanics in Arma 3.

EVALUATION:

Over the past few weeks - and with the forthcoming Bootcamp Update in mind - we've tried to find ways to refine weapon sway and fatigue mechanics in an attempt to create even more authentic and challenging gameplay. Now, we'd like to share our design goals and overall progress with you.

Full Report

Edited August 5, 2014 by RoyaltyinExile

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UNIT: Karel Kališ, Designer, Sandbox Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Bringing advanced helicopter flight dynamics to Arma 3.

EVALUATION:

Right now on the Development Branch, the advanced helicopter flight model is available for all existing helicopters. This new functionality is composed of multiple layers: significantly different behaviour of helicopters in flight; a set of optional helpers and new customisable actions/keybinds; new gauges and indicators. We'd like to explain these things in more detail.

Full Report

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UNIT: Jiří Zlatohlávek, Designer, Sandbox Dept; Jiří DoÄkal, Programmer, Program Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Launching Arma 3's Steam Workshop integration to the next level

EVALUATION:

During our Public Beta, we tested Steam Workshop with scenario publishing and were glad to see that the community picked up on the new method of sharing, with thousands of custom scenarios published by Arma 3's launch last September. This was just the first step. Now, finally, we are gradually introducing Steam Workshop support for addons. Let's talk about the background to some of our decisions, some details of its implementation, and set out our future plans.

Full Report

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UNIT: Radko Voda, Designer, Sandbox Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Bigger ain't always better: Weapon Inertia in Arma 3.

EVALUATION:

Along with the introduction of weapon sway and fatigue in the Bootcamp Update, we promised to deliver more meaningful and authentic weapon handling mechanics. Now, with the next update set for deployment on the dev-branch, we would like to share a few words with our community and further explain our overall goals, specify what is about to be improved this time and outline how exactly it will be done.

Full Report

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UNIT: Jan Dušek, Audio Lead, Audio Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Outlining the current & future goals of Arma 3's Audio Department.

EVALUATION:

Over the past few months, Arma 3's Audio Department was reorganized, reinforced and refocused upon the job of making Arma 3 sound great. Now it's the ideal time to update you with a summary of recent developments in our team, outline further changes we have planned and, let's say, share a sense of the future progress of Arma 3's sound in general.

Full Report

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UNIT: Krzysztof Bielawski, Senior Programmer, Programming Dept.; Petr Kolář, Encoding Lead, Encoding Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-branch Users

OPSUM: Along for the Ride: Firing from Vehicles in Arma 3.

EVALUATION:

Sitting on the bench of Littlebird - holding the gun idly in your hands while enemies attack your chopper - we have seen that for far too long. The time for change has finally arrived! We'd like to share a quick overview of this new feature, discuss what it means for our mod-making community, and look ahead to what's next.

Full Report

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UNIT: Ondrej Kužel, QA Specialist, Quality Assurance Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: We wish you a pleasant flight: Arma 3's new advanced helicopter flight dynamics.

EVALUATION:

With the release of some significant new helicopter features with update 1.36, we'd like to share what's great about the new Flight Model, explain a little about the journey to full release, and outline just a few of the improvements made over the last few months - thanks in no small part to the splendid feedback of our community.

Full Report

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UNIT: Jan Dušek, Audio Lead; Kryštof Havel, Junior Designer, Audio Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-branch Users

OPSUM: Ongoing upgrades to Arma 3 weapon audio.

EVALUATION:

For Marksmen DLC, alongside our work creating samples for the new content, we decided to take a closer look at the sound design of our existing weapons and try to make some enhancements. We'd like to share the general goals of our work, describe the changes hitting Dev-Branch soon, and look ahead to our future plans.

Full Report

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UNIT: Petr Kolář, Encoding Lead, Encoding Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users

OPSUM: Introducing new Init Speed parameters.

EVALUATION:

What is the decisive config value for the muzzle speed of a weapon? Is it the round or the weapon itself? This has been a long-standing question in the Arma series. The answer is clear: both of them! So, with Marksmen DLC on the horizon, we've decided to tackle this issue once and for all.

Full Report

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UNIT: Lukáš Haládik, Design Lead, Sandbox Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users

OPSUM: Flexing the Big Guns

EVALUATION:

Weapons are the backbone of Arma. They are the core of the gameplay. As such, they require a lot of attention and that's exactly what we're trying to give in Marksmen DLC. We want to provide interesting choices of weapons that, aside from being visually distinctive, offer new and fun gameplay possibilities. Here we'd like to explain a bit more about the choices we made as well as the process that led to them.

Full Report

Edited March 17, 2015 by RoyaltyinExile

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UNIT: Nelson Duarte, Designer, Playable Content Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Users

OPSUM: Introducing Marksmen DLC's new MP mode

EVALUATION:

With Marksmen DLC, we want to introduce a new multiplayer mode that offers something a bit different to our previous work. Although not completely tied to the new content, our focus was to offer players a simple but hopefully interesting concept that encourages and rewards cooperation, which would also enable us to test out a few new teamwork-oriented MP systems.

Full Report

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UNIT: Jirí Zlatohlávek, Senior Designer, Sandbox Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: An evaluation of Content Licensing and our DLC strategy

EVALUATION:

10 months ago, with the goal of avoiding a split in the MP player base, we released Karts DLC as a test-bed for our DLC strategy (and an opportunity to fundraise for a good cause!). [...] This approach has spawned numerous discussions on all channels and, after extensive feedback and iteration, it has stayed with us. Marksmen DLC is a good opportunity to take another look on the goals and underlying principles of our approach.

Full Report

Edited April 16, 2015 by RoyaltyinExile

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UNIT: Jan Dušek, Audio Lead, Audio Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Users

OPSUM: Outlining the current & future goals of Arma 3's Audio Department

EVALUATION:

After an intense time on the run up to Marksmen DLC's launch, it's now the perfect time to look back upon the recently introduced audio features, explain them in a bit more detail, and provide new information about our future plans. There were also a lot of comments and questions from the community, so this OPREP will also serve as a summary reply to most of the topics which have been discussed publicly.

Full Report

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UNIT: Marek Novosad, Ivan Buchta, Environment Research & Development

TO: Arma 3 Content Creators (Map-Makers)

OPSUM: Community terrain makers are getting the opportunity to speed up their work with Terrain Processor, our little proprietary tool allowing the use of geographic data to quickly populate large terrains with basic content

 

EVALUATION:

Terrains have always been the centerpiece of Arma games. Creating believable and authentic environments for an immersive experience has been one of our top priorities since the days of Cold War Crisis, and our Environment designers have been using a variety of tools to do so. However, one puzzle piece was missing in our Arma 3 Tools suite. In the past months, our programmers have been working hard to get it into shape for public release, and now the gap has finally been filled with the recently released: Terrain Processor.

 

Full Report

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UNIT: Julien Vida, Tools Commissar, Mastering Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Content Creators

OPSUM: May I have this car, in pink, with all options, please?

EVALUATION:

Beware, mortals, the text you are about to read may contain a large dose of technical information, which might be hard to digest on an empty stomach. If you've already discovered the brilliant depths of Arma 3 content creation, you might very well be more than interested in the new vehicle customization options we've deployed a few months ago. Did you ever wonder what color of the civilian car you just placed in the Editor would be? There's now a deeper system running in the background that will surprise you every time. We call this 'vehicle customization' (VhC) and you may have already seen bits of Intel on this system scattered around the forums.

 

Full Report

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UNIT: Karel MoÅ™ický, Eden Editor Designer, R&D Dept.; Filip Sádovský, Eden Editor Programmer, Programming Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Content Creators

OPSUM: Return to Eden - 3D Editor Public Beta

EVALUATION:

Since the first release in 2001, games in the Arma series have featured an in-game 2D editor. It has been a powerful tool for designing scenarios, from simple military operations to story-driven blockbusters.

 

A lot has changed since the 2D editor first appeared. The game has changed. The ideas have changed. Ambitions changed as well. But the editor did not. Until now. Welcome to the Public Beta of the long awaited Eden 3D Editor.

 

Full Report

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UNIT: Miloslav Cinko, Design Lead, Sandbox Design Dept.

TO: Arma 3 Dev-Branch Players

OPSUM: Discussing iterations of Fatigue (Stamina) and Personal Protective Equipment for Nexus Update

 

EVALUATION:

Recently, we've been working on some changes that will alter the in-game experience, and we'd like to make sure everyone understands our motivation for making these changes.

 

We wish to tell you what we've changed in regard to hitpoints, hit reactions and stamina, and how you and your friends can use these improved game systems to gain an edge in combat situations. 

 

Full Report