Potential new player with questions

[CaptainDawson 93]

Hi chaps!

 

I am a student pilot from central Virginia, and I've been looking for a good open-world game to play this Summer. I usually like to play with some friends and my cousin who's currently in the Navy. We want a mashup between a flight sim and an open world combat game, and Arma seems to fit the bill. A game is the best way for us to spend time time together when we're far away. I keep seeing videos on YouTube on ARMA 3, and this looks like an awesome game! I'm thinking about buying while the sale is on. Downloading the free trial now...

 

A bit about me. I am not an "arcade" or "shoot-em-up" kind of player, I prefer realistic and rewarding games, like this game seems to be. I currently play WarThunder tank realistic battles. I also play multiple titles from the hardcore IL-2 flight sim series, so I'm not new difficult (or buggy) games. I just have a few questions to help me decide whether or not to buy ARMA. Feel free to answer all or just one.

 

1. Is this a relatively straightforward game, as in, does it have a fairly quick learning curve so we can be up and playing within hours, or will it take years to before we have to skill level to last more than 30 seconds without dying?

2. My gaming time is very limited. Is Arma something I can just pop into for an hour or two, or do I always need to be with a group and perform long operations for the game to be rewarding?

3. The helos and planes are the most interesting to me. Are the flight models realistic, as in joystick controls, some form of damage model, stalls, flight maneuvers aren't on 'rails', etc.? What are the differences in the flight model between having and not having the Jets and Helicopters DLCs?

4. It looks like the vehicle DLC packs each come with a few new vehicles. But can you still drive the vehicles that come with the main game without these DLCs?

5. Are there frequent glitches and issues that make would make this a high maintenance game for us, or does it typically run smoothly for players? We all have gaming machines with SSDs, I have i-5 6600K CPU and a newer GTX 1060 6GB DDR5 GPU.

6. Can I make my own server in Arma, and if so, is it relatively easy?

 

I'd appreciate your input and or recommendations!

 

Thanks in advance,

CaptainDawson

[JohnKalo 657]

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1. Is this a relatively straightforward game, as in, does it have a fairly quick learning curve so we can be up and playing within hours, or will it take years to before we have to skill level to last more than 30 seconds without dying?

Well you guys can simply play missions with Instant Respawn when you start playing and then move on to missions which have no respawn at all. That way you will learn by trial and error techniques. Most of the things you will learn in a few hours. The rest you will need a few days to get used to. To master all it will take much more time. 

 

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2. My gaming time is very limited. Is Arma something I can just pop into for an hour or two, or do I always need to be with a group and perform long operations for the game to be rewarding?

Yet again it depends on the missions you play. Others take 30 minutes while others take, not even the editor knows how long! That can mean hours upon hours. 

 

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3. The helos and planes are the most interesting to me. Are the flight models realistic, as in joystick controls, some form of damage model, stalls, flight maneuvers aren't on 'rails', etc.? What are the differences in the flight model between having and not having the Jets and Helicopters DLCs?

Even real pilots have been impressed by how realistic controls can be. Personally I do not know about planes but choppers are really nice. They have features such as increasing throttle makes the nose go down or coming close to the ground has other effects and such. Plus the damage models are impressive. Your main or tail rotor can be destroyed and you will have to land the chopper via auto-rotation or other means, it depends on the damage. The enemy might also cause a fuel leak and RTB (returning to base) can be needed, if possible. When not having the DLCs, not sure, but I believe the advanced flight models are not available. 

 

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4. It looks like the vehicle DLC packs each come with a few new vehicles. But can you still drive the vehicles that come with the main game without these DLCs?

You can try them in the editor. Using them in a mission however will mean advertisements will show up. Not good like at all!

 

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5. Are there frequent glitches and issues that make would make this a high maintenance game for us, or does it typically run smoothly for players? We all have gaming machines with SSDs, I have i-5 6600K CPU and a newer GTX 1060 6GB DDR5 GPU.

About that AMD hardware issues have been reported but you got NVidia so it should be ok. Not Very High graphics but High ones yep.

 

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6. Can I make my own server in Arma, and if so, is it relatively easy?

You can host games on your computer, you just press a button, and you can also host dedicated servers which I do not know if it is easy to do.

 

@CaptainDawson Generally speaking if you have players to play with, with whom you are close, Arma 3 will be an amazing game. Either you want to laugh or go fully serious you can have both. You might need guidance as to addons, so as to greatly enhance your gameplay, but that is also easy. Most players have got them. And buying a bundle with all DLCs is recommended. When there are sales that is.

[NeoArmageddon 957]

@JohnKalo Already made a good job answering your question but I will try to give you some more info.

 

On 28.4.2018 at 11:29 PM, CaptainDawson said:

1. Is this a relatively straightforward game, as in, does it have a fairly quick learning curve so we can be up and playing within hours, or will it take years to before we have to skill level to last more than 30 seconds without dying?

 

There is no learning curve in respect to skill to play the game BUT there is a huge learning curve to master it. Arma3 is straight forward to play but hard to master.  You can play the game with the basic controls (WSAD, Mouse and the action menu/mouse wheel) but mastering helicopter, tank, etc requires more knowledge about the keybindings and some training (like in real life).

 

 

On 28.4.2018 at 11:29 PM, CaptainDawson said:

2. My gaming time is very limited. Is Arma something I can just pop into for an hour or two, or do I always need to be with a group and perform long operations for the game to be rewarding?

 

We (my squad and me) play Arma every evening for about 1-3 hours. We play COOP missions.

 

On 28.4.2018 at 11:29 PM, CaptainDawson said:

3. The helos and planes are the most interesting to me. Are the flight models realistic, as in joystick controls, some form of damage model, stalls, flight maneuvers aren't on 'rails', etc.? What are the differences in the flight model between having and not having the Jets and Helicopters DLCs?

 

The heli clight model comes from Take on Helicopters which is a dedicated Helicopter sim. Both use RotorLib. The model is simplified for gameplay purposes but still has stuff like ground effect, vortex ring state, etc

 

On 28.4.2018 at 11:29 PM, CaptainDawson said:

4. It looks like the vehicle DLC packs each come with a few new vehicles. But can you still drive the vehicles that come with the main game without these DLCs?

 

Every DLC came wth a patch that added features to the game. The features are free for everyone while the vehicles in the DLCs are premium/payed and can only be used for owners of the DLC. You can mix players with and without DLC. The players without a DLC can see the premium vehicles/weapon but simply can not use/drive/shoot them.

 

On 28.4.2018 at 11:29 PM, CaptainDawson said:

5. Are there frequent glitches and issues that make would make this a high maintenance game for us, or does it typically run smoothly for players? We all have gaming machines with SSDs, I have i-5 6600K CPU and a newer GTX 1060 6GB DDR5 GPU.

 

The engine is old and has some quirks but nothing gamebreaking. Your computer should be finde to run the game. Arma3 is mostly CPU heavy.

 

On 28.4.2018 at 11:29 PM, CaptainDawson said:

6. Can I make my own server in Arma, and if so, is it relatively easy?

 

 

Yes, you can and it is easy. You can host from your client or setup a dedicated server by launching the game with -server in commandline. You find detailed explanation in the community wiki: BIKI

You can even make your own missions.

 

There is one important point:

There are only few missions that come with the game. Most content is generated by the community with the games editor (and it is easy to create your own missions). Advanced mission makers use armas scripting language to write completly new gamemodes. The important concept here is: An Arma3 mission can be anything: From a hardcore milsim mission, to a free roam patrol mission or to an roleplay mission. I have also seen stuff like racing missions, zombie survival, air traffic controller simulation etc. 

So you just need to get comfortable with the idea, that stuff like revive, respawn, task, etc mechanic can change from mission to mission.

[Janez 507]

One thing you should know about keybindings is that controls menu can look very intimidating at first. You will see couple of sections full of actions but you have to remember that you do not need every single action bound. There is a lot of "duplicates", like toggle vs hold key.

So choose a preset and then customize from there. Just load a desired map in 3d editor, place some units, vehicles and targets and try out what different actions do. It's really not hard, just takes some time.

 

Also, don't listed to Arma veterans what kind of control scheme you should use. We tend to have some insane ones from 2001. :)

[FallujahMedic -FM- 866]

With regards to keybinds, I tend to use the newest default ones. There's nothing worse than asking "hey, what's the key for whatever " and getting 50 different answers because not a single person is using default. 

[CaptainDawson 93]

Hey everyone! Thanks so much for your replies!

 

I bought Arma and most of the DLCs. I love it so far! I love how straightforward and intuitive this game is. I've already been able to figure out the basics of mission building by trial and error or google searches. My only gripe is that the controls are designed for keyboard users and are really difficult to bind some things with controllers. I'm still having a little trouble binding my throttle quadrant and force feedback stick, but I'll figure out the hack for that eventually. Once I can get my head tracking working correctly in Arma, I can see this is going to be a great experience!

 

Thanks for the help guys!

 

-CaptainDawson

[KeyCat 131]

Don't be afraid to turn down AI skills and AI precision in setup when you are new. It's better to do that and increase while you go instead of getting frustrated by AI head shots from far distance ;)

 

[JohnKalo 657]

And we should mention armaholic. Along with steam it's where addons, scripts, missions and much more are stored. 

 

@KeyCat ASR AI3 was the answer for us. Other such addons exist too. Before the addon I was once flying a chopper at 180km/h, 2 km off the enemy base, and I was headshotted with one bullet by a non scoped ak47. Skills!! 

[KeyCat 131]

2 hours ago, JohnKalo said:

@KeyCatASR AI3 was the answer for us. Other such addons exist too. Before the addon I was once flying a chopper at 180km/h, 2 km off the enemy base, and I was headshotted with one bullet by a non scoped ak47. Skills!! 

 

100% agree, use it myself but I recommend new players to start playing without any mods and not complicate things when they start out with A3 but as you say ASR-AI is awesome addon!