Confirmation of new Engine in development?

[Wiki 1558]

Would be Nice to see them make a new engine as realistic as the new unreal engine.

[I give up 152]

I don't think that the engine of Arma 3 is such a bad thing. It works within the acceptable.

If Altis had different concept, a bit smaller and principally with less towns, people would have a different opinion.

It become obvious that Altis in matters of game engine, in matters of hardware and also in matters of concept is oversized, the engine architecture requires a continuous data loading and the speed required to perform this actions without struggling is not feasible with the current available technology.

Even with new engine, if the architecture and the concept remains the same, it will be more of the same.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Same here, I'm really curious as to whether something could arise out of UNIENGINE, or some other Outerra based software like TitanIM. To be quite frank, they show a lot more promise as a base engine for a game like Arma than any other. In fact, because of how scalable they seem to be, it wouldn't be entirely crazy to try and build some sort of Arma + BMS/DCS mashup. Plus realistic transportation ranges, artillery ranges, air to air and surface to air engagement ranges, etc.

The cool thing is, with such a scalable system, your terrains could range from anywhere between small areas for those of you who like to play Wasteland, KoTH, A3L, etc. (the kids who seem to make up a significant chunk of A3 sales), to entire continents or even an entire planet. I assume these engines could have the game world be an entire planet at flightsim levels of detail, with "smaller" (altis sized or bigger) inset areas of high detail for infantry/vehicle operations (I know for a fact that VBS3 can do this). Outerra looks like it has both integrated terrain editing, and the added capability to generate a planet from scratch, so actual basic map creation/customization wouldn't be that hard.

Imagine a milsim game that includes space logistics and communications. U2-esque spy planes, ASAT missiles to cripple enemy satellite datalinks, actual radar, or even suborbital transport. Having such a flexible platform would mean the sky's the limit (actually, space, but whatever) when it comes to features and content, which would be a massive step up from our current situation (wanting to overstep this outdated engine's already overstressed boundaries).

EDIT: Messed around with the Outerra demo a bit. It can't generate terrain like I though it might be able to, its clouds and trees are shitty 2D billboards, the current terrain resolution is 100m so the terrain is very bland... BUT: it looks very good from any distance (from 10m to outer space), runs fairly well (much better than arma, although there aren't really objects so it's hard to compare), and seems to have better vehicle physics already. I'm sure it supports the capability to have hi-def terrain insets.

I wouldn't say select. With Outtera, essentially, you can model the entire earth realistically, as it already does that to a simple basis. But you wouldn't need to create terrains. It's all there, with just a few touch ups for more detail, and the all you really need is the assets, and game mechanics. You can already free look and such, it's a bit basic though. Then model weapons systems, infantry, and boom. Especially with Outtera, it's something else for sure, even to how basic it is. Last i heard, they were updating the Engine so it can now have Rivers and Ponds, subsequently, that of which Arma 3 is missing. Even their full version has it's own very realistic Fixed Wing Flight model. That's one of the most interesting features about it, and i'm almost certain it's going to become a Flight Sim Engine before anything else. Hell, if someone does it right, they can make a combined logistics game, like Euro-truck Simulator, Freight Train, Cargo Ship Simulator and Flight Sim X combined.

Edited February 26, 2015 by DarkSideSixOfficial

[badluckburt 78]

I wouldn't say they're blaming it on mod(der)s

I agreed with that statement until today. I updated to 1.40 yesterday, fire it up this morning without any mods and I'm presented with a disclaimer saying something along the lines of:

You're running modded game which may change the gameplay experience and cause errors

Really? I've seen more errors in vanilla Arma than any mod I played so far and perceive this as BI giving the middle finger to mod makers. Heck, I can't even spawn a genuine black guy in the editor. If I use createVehicle he'll be all white and if I use createUnit he'll have a black head and a white body. He turns black when I shoot him though :butbut:

This along with some other observations and the server monetization leaving the addon creators themselves emptyhanded has made me decide to invest my time elsewhere.

[chortles 263]

Whereas I found that message to just be part of BI trying to deal with wider-player-base ignorance of Arma (or at least said wider player base being a lot less "following Arma as closely as BI forums") considering how many of them might be the "downloaded the game just for this mod" crowd (or how many of them BI's decision-makers believe there are).

[Jackal326 1181]

Whereas I found that message to just be part of BI trying to deal with wider-player-base ignorance of Arma (or at least said wider player base being a lot less "following Arma as closely as BI forums") considering how many of them might be the "downloaded the game just for this mod" crowd (or how many of them BI's decision-makers believe there are).

Indeed. I saw it as a response to all of the idiots who post issues on the feedback tracker only for their issue to be either a mod incompatibility or an issue with 'Mod X' or 'Mod Y'. I don't see it as a 'middle finger to modders at all, but then again it wouldn't be the first time someone has accused me of being a 'fanboy'.

[chortles 263]

That, and this is the same BI that used "player base ignorance of the Lite method" as a stated reason to not do Lite version of DLCs anymore...

[badluckburt 78]

Whereas I found that message to just be part of BI trying to deal with wider-player-base ignorance of Arma (or at least said wider player base being a lot less "following Arma as closely as BI forums") considering how many of them might be the "downloaded the game just for this mod" crowd (or how many of them BI's decision-makers believe there are).

Here's one thing that would really help Bohemia in that department:

Put out a tutorial that actually shows and explains why some things are bad for performance and how they can be fixed. I shrugged off the fact Joris-Jan emphasized the 'mods can lead to bad performance' without giving any examples but after getting the same thing shoved in my face in-game? No thank you, I'm not buying it anymore.

Mods can lead to bad performance, errors and whatever else can happen with the Arma engine :), I'm not denying that but lately it seems they're trying to imply that to be the core issue.

Indeed. I saw it as a response to all of the idiots who post issues on the feedback tracker only for their issue to be either a mod incompatibility or an issue with 'Mod X' or 'Mod Y'. I don't see it as a 'middle finger to modders at all, but then again it wouldn't be the first time someone has accused me of being a 'fanboy'.

I'm not gonna label anyone 'fanboy'. But I don't think the 'idiots' will be posting less issues in the feedback tracker because of that message in-game, a big-ass disclaimer on the feedback tracker form that states 'MAKE SURE YOUR ERROR APPEARS IN VANILLA ARMA WITHOUT MODS' might but time and time again nature has shown us, it will invent a better idiot who will manage to ignore that as well.

Edited March 4, 2015 by BadLuckBurt

[chortles 263]

Put out a tutorial that actually shows and explains why some things are bad for performance and how they can be fixed.

How would this even work though? For starters, is the target audience for such a tutorial supposed to be modders or players who aren't at all in the modding scene except as not-previously-in-the-know end users? Because both the disclaimer and the previous "why no more Lite" explanation seem very much meant for the latter.

I shrugged off the fact Joris-Jan emphasized the 'mods can lead to bad performance' without giving any examples

And what, risk the project lead be caught talking crap about a specific mod? Even if he doesn't name it, actually explain things he might have to be comprehensive enough that it'd be recognized which one he'd meant. ;) Unlike modders can say about each other...

[badluckburt 78]

How would this even work though? For starters, is the target audience for such a tutorial supposed to be modders or players who aren't at all in the modding scene except as not-previously-in-the-know end users? Because both the disclaimer and the previous "why no more Lite" explanation seem very much meant for the latter.

Sorry, I guess I jumped from one end to the other on this but the 'tutorial' would be meant for modders. Why explain to players what can apparently be fixed by educating modders?

*missing quote by yours truely*

And what, risk the project lead be caught talking crap about a specific mod? Even if he doesn't name it, actually explain things he might have to be comprehensive enough that it'd be recognized which one he'd meant. ;) Unlike modders can say about each other...

Well, apparently they think their claim is true enough to bring it up in interviews and warrant an in-game disclaimer, just not enough to back it up with actual info. If mods really were the main culprit of performance issues, would anyone be using them? And, if a modder is not made aware of any design-flaws in his mod that affect the game's performance, how will he fix them?

[Tankbuster 1746]

Well, apparently they think their claim is true enough to bring it up in interviews and warrant an in-game disclaimer, just not enough to back it up with actual info. If mods really were the main culprit of performance issues, would anyone be using them? And, if a modder is not made aware of any design-flaws in his mod that affect the game's performance, how will he fix them?

Disclaimers? I should have been seeing on my screen, until yesterday;

"You're using 1.38 of the game. The UI might shake because of a bug we introduced in this version of the game. This may performance."

And then as of this morning;

"You're using 1.40 of the game. We fucked up the nearestObjects command. This may affect performance."