Arma 3 Creator DLC: Western Sahara

[Ex3B 266]

5 hours ago, joostsidy said:

I hope the CDLC weapon stats are not a sneaky attempt to make them A3 comparable, but slightly better (popular) overall.. 😅

Doesn't explain the XMS, being a bit worse than expected

5 hours ago, lexx said:

I took a look at the stats and the post makes it seem more crazy than it actually is.

I didn't mean to imply that it was "crazy"

A muzzle velocity of 800 instead of mid-to-low 700s isn't "crazy", nor is 950 instead of low 900s is 800 instead of low 900's for the XMS

5 hours ago, lexx said:

Did some tweaks now, but I'm really not sure if those 25 points make or break it. Pretty sure most don't even notice a difference.

It won't make much difference, but it's more of the OCD in me.

The ballistic coefficient is generally more important, and A3 has quite a different BC for 7.62x51 and x54 vs x39 (an 800 m/s 7.62x39 round will not have nearly the range of an 800 m/s 7.62x51 round)

5 hours ago, lexx said:

Most of our values were already based on existing weapons.

I don't think you'll find real world 7.62x39 rounds getting 800m/s regardless of barrel length, unless it's some impractically light bullet with a poor BC.

 

Another tiny suggestion: enable the gunshield by default for the up armored off-road+HMGs, and make the gunshield match the camo scheme.

 

On another note, I'm loving the Marshall ATGM variant, love that it has color schemes for pacific/woodland forces. It seems unnecessary for the mod given NATO forces aren't really a focus, and with a few lines of text one can get NATO camo schemes for the Gorgon, which fit with NATO in the lore, and function as an 8 wheel amphibious IFV with an autocannon with ATGMs (ie nearly the same as the new marshall), doing a green reskin for the Gorgon is trivial (I have done it). I guess you had the marshall files for the down-gunned CV variant for Ion, and figured, why not?

 

Why not indeed, the Gorgon doesn't fit in the blackfish, but the marshall ATGM does! No need to take a Rhino MGS along with the Marshals, the Marshals can defend themselves against enemy armor.

[lexx 1363]

What I meant is that the weapon stats were based on certain vanilla weapons.

 

And yes, you are right - the NATO forces are purely a bonus. They were never planned to be a big deal at all. We were able to throw in a bit more fluff, so we did it.

[mushik 13]

I am stuck at two questions, maybe someone can help me:

- I have no idea, how to reload any ammunition to my cars (refuel and repair I have found)

- I am not able to find the digital camera in the last task: The guy does not have it on his body, and no other one in the vicinity. I think, I checked every room in the hamlet (and the 2 hamlets nearby) with no success. There are two rooms with some interiour, but no camera.

 

[Ex3B 266]

On 11/30/2021 at 10:03 PM, lexx said:

And yes, you are right - the NATO forces are purely a bonus. They were never planned to be a big deal at all. We were able to throw in a bit more fluff, so we did it.

Which leaves me curious: in hindsight, a modified Marid (ATGM/autocannon variant) would be more interesting to me.

Why choose the marshall over the Marid?

In your view was the Marid not suitable for a PMC? 

Given that it's a PMC, Even with a HQ in a western county, I could imagine them operating a Turkish built apc/ ifv if it's competitive in price, and doesn't contain sensitive technology

[Ex3B 266]

On 11/30/2021 at 2:13 PM, lexx said:

I took a look at the stats and the post makes it seem more crazy than it actually is. Did some tweaks now, but I'm really not sure if those 25 points make or break it. 

I looked at the new values, they seem to be right to me. My only suggestion now is lowering the base XMS inertia from 0.5 like an MX to 0.4 like a mk20/trg-21/katiba. Although, I know it is inline with the SPAR-16 I think the apex's spar-16 and CAR-85 weren't so well balanced (800m/s muzzle velocity, 0.5 inertia vs 930m/s, 0.3 inertia with a 9% better ballistic coefficient)

 

Also, I realized that the Marshall ATGM does not carry passengers... why? Its not like it's cargo space is all taken by extra ammo.

 

With troop capacity, it can function like a less armored/durable version of the NATO skinned Gorgon with a bit more powerful autocannon.

 

If that airmobile part matters much, and there's no troop capacity, it is more comparable to a Rhino, and I would take the Rhino over the marshall for an anti-armor role

[lexx 1363]

The Marshall ATGM can carry passengers. Only the mortar variant can't.

[Ex3B 266]

15 hours ago, lexx said:

The Marshall ATGM can carry passengers. Only the mortar variant can't.

My bad, seems that the wiki is still unreliable:

https://armedassault.fandom.com/wiki/AMV-7_Marshall_(Western_Sahara).

 

"When outfitted with ATGMs, the Marshall can stand on an even footing with other ATGM-armed IFVs - albeit without the ability to ferry troops. It can double as an amphibious tank destroyer to complement the Rhino MGS, while still keeping the added benefit being air transportable with the help of Blackfish VTOLs."

 

"Crew Capacity

All variants support a crew of three consisting of the driver, a commander, and the gunner. Only the baseline IFV and CV variants are able to transport up to eight passengers at a time."

 

"The  main difference is that it has been retrofitted with Titan missile pods on both sides of the turret. Each pod contains two Titan AT missiles for a combined total of four missiles (neither pod has access to spare missiles). This variant specifically lacks the ability to carry troops in its rear compartment."

 

The wiki said it 3 times, so I thought I had overlooked it... I'm glad this is a mistake, and I can directly replace the Marshall/"NATO Gorgon" with the Marshall ATGM in my missions 

[xxbbcc 6]

I just finished playing this DLC - it's easily the best of the Creator DLC line and I'd say the price is OK for the content. The story is all right and the one SP mission that comes with it (Extraction) was fun. Thank you for making it.

 

A bit of feedback:

• If you plan on making another DLC, please don't make more maps - Arma 3 already has plenty of maps but fairly few very good SP missions. Most of what's out there are dynamically generated scenarios which end up being much the same - random skirmishes on largely empty landscapes and with not much point to them other than killing as many enemies as possible.
  
  Quality SP missions with a good story are fairly rare - a new DLC with story-centered SP missions would be welcome (and I imagine it'd be easier to make, too, since time wouldn't have to be spent on creating all new assets). Most of what's out there also require tons of addons that few other things require.
  
  While the new map looks cool and I'm pretty sure it's fairly authentic as far as deserts go, it's very empty and becomes uninteresting fairly quickly. I don't really see myself going back to it unless someone makes another good SP mission on it.
• The friendly AI is pretty useless; they got stuck in the terrain several times - this is something that I've seen all the time in Arma 2 but rarely in Arma 3 - and eventually I gave up on them and just played solo. The mission also took away their equipment at one point for no apparent reason.
• Enemy AI seemed excessively accurate at long distances.
• A few building models cannot be entered when crouched - the door / threshold prevents entry.
• Having enemy APC-s in several spots was completely unexpected and nothing hinted at the possibility of encountering one. It'd be better to mention this early on.
• Because the mission is partly dynamically generated, most locations were empty and boring. This was a major immersion killer for me.
• When completing some of the tasks, the location populates with civilians - when this happened, civilians, animals and vehicles appeared out of nowhere right in front of me (some of them less than 50 meters away).
• Nothing gets cleaned up on the map and save times got pretty long towards the end of the mission. It might be better to have several smaller missions rather than one massive one. This is the same problem that Old Man had.

[zukov 490]

i'm wondering how cool the ION faction  in Tanoa against Syndakat (reworked obviously) a sort of ghost recon.... MP

[Ex3B 266]

14 hours ago, zukov said:

i'm wondering how cool the ION faction  in Tanoa against Syndakat (reworked obviously) a sort of ghost recon.... MP

I'm more enthusiastic about using the up armored off-roads with syndicate...

That and further making a pseudo "Tanoan Defense Forces" faction based on Syndicate, with the zsu-23s for some air defense and fire support

[unnamedsoldier 2]

Good day! First of all, I want to thank the authors for the quality DLC. Really good... but a bit underfilled. Hence the question - will there be at least some development of this add-on? A little bit of extra content could have greatly affected its appeal to ARMA fans. Nothing special - just a little functionality and a little atmosphere. In terms of atmosphere - at least one more dust glasses and cross-machine-gun belts as a vest. And add army cap with camo UNA uniform, please. Plus the headband (black and red) for contractors and rebels.  As well as a retexture of the base Colt 45 in black (as you did with ADB). Camouflage AAF for armed SUVs. This is sorely lacking in all DLCs for "Arma". In terms of functionality - add a 12-gauge shotgun (like AA-12 from "Arma-2") and one-shoot rocketlauncher like RPG-18 or LAW. In ideal - a drone with a supply of grenades that can be "dropped" on the enemy. The drone model is already in 'Laws of War',  just need to refine the new feature. I'm sure this will greatly increase the value of your add-on in the eyes of the players. With excellent quality, it lacks content a little.
P.S. And yes - a machine gun shooter in an armored jeep cannot be killed in the head when firing from the front and to the side. Please fix this bug. For the armored jeeps themselves - special thanks. A very useful thing.

[Rovka 14]

Hello, not sure if this had been mentioned by someone else beforehand..

I was wondering, can we perhaps see the uniform of the UNA be expanded into a greenish/brown camo variant? So as to deploy those to greener environments too?
And I do refer to the retextured AAF type general infantry uniforms being done in what I believe was originally Syndikat type camo, if you please. Thanks a lot even if considered.

Also it seems to me that UNA currently has no shoulder-patches on their uniform?
(hard to distinguish without blue vests or helmets/berets on, like the survivor class of men.)

Anyways, thanks for all things already brought out so far! 🙂

[zukov 490]

i'm not sure but the camo is close (a lot) to a russian mountain like in RHS mod

[B1g0of 0]

First of all.. I love your work. Thank you for that Masterpeace! It's clearly as great as the default campagne! 

 

But one question... would it be possible to let also friendly forces (let's say in Checkpoints or bases) respawn after they all died? Maybe with a trigger in these places: If no forces are left in the area, wait 200-300 Seconds and then activate a Garbagecollector with a local Reset...

 

It just makes me sad when I find a new place and everyone is dead because of the random (re-)spawning Enemyforces.

 

Best regards,

B1g0of

 

PS: In the last two months, I made a gaming-break and started your mod yesterday again. I saw the huge changes that you've made and don't know if this is already implemented, but nothin the less, thanks for your work!

[Kid Irie 0]

Thanks for this DLC. Purchased it mainly for Extraction and love it so much, BUT just found 2 issues that might make it unplayable: 1) No save in multiplayer. My daughter and I prefer to just sit down for single missions at a time, and we don't have the time to run through the whole campaign in 1 sitting. This makes the whole gathering info concept and campaign style play useless (which set it apart from, say, a Dynamic Recon Ops mission). 2) Even worse, there appears to be no way to play multiplayer without starting the campaign over again and losing your singe player saves. Just tried that and lost all of my single player progress!!! I believe other campaign DLCs with coop options save single player and multiplayer missions separately, correct? UGH, please tell me there's a way around this and I'm not forced to have to choose to play Extraction either one way or the other!

[lexx 1363]

Thanks for your feedback. Regarding 1 - sadly there isn't much we can do. Saving the mission in multiplayer is quite complex and has a bazillion possible issues attached to it, which we weren't able to deal with appropriately. About 2 - this indeed was not supposed to happen. Guess it slipped through QA because it happens rarely that someone plays the mission in sp and mp simultaneously. I'm not 100% sure right now, but I think the issue is the savegame created by the host. We will fix this with the next update - sadly at this time we can't say when exactly this will be (it's not in our hands).

[mickeymen 324]

Hi @lexx!

 

Does the user have any chance to get some updates for this DLC or will there be no more updates?

If updates are planned, then would be interested to know when approximately they will be and is it possible to hope for additional content(weapon/vehicles/map) ot it will be only bug fixes?

 

I really liked Sefrou-Ramal map, but its main drawback is its small size. Essentially a desert - it not have many objects, for this reason, the current size of the map seems small. An additional larger map would be a great addition to this DLC.

Do you have any plans to add a new map for this DLC as it was later added to Prarie Fire DLC?

[lexx 1363]

All I can say is, there will be an update, but sadly I can't talk about any details right now.

[Ex3B 266]

On 6/27/2022 at 11:49 PM, lexx said:

All I can say is, there will be an update, but sadly I can't talk about any details right now.

Insert plug for hexacopter drones with shorter ranged weapons: lim-85, Adr-97, etc

[the_one_and_only_Venator 163]

The GLX 40 mm iron sights seem to be not properly zeroed. It shoots to the right to about where the first digit of the 3 digit ranges is.

[mickeymen 324]

Good day!

 

Thanks for the update, I just wanted to report an imbalance of new weapon, that seems to me.

 

It seems to me that the AA-40 12G shotgun has an imbalance in its capabilities. For this reason It looks like an super-strong and super universal weapon .

I noticed that the Slug ammunition type can kills with one hit, even into limb and it type ammo pierces all body armor the first time. When player using a sniper scope, such a shotgun turns into a sniper rifle, because his bullet (Slug) does not have a close fall, at long distances. 

It flies almost like a sniper rifle bullet!

Also, when I using HE Ammo, such ammo can kills with one hit several opponents, within a radius of several meters!!! It seems that he kills even in a radius of more than 3 meters!

For these reasons, such a weapon looks like a universal, superior, against the background of other types of weapons, it looks like an Imbalanced wapon.

 

I would prefer HE ammo types not to kill at non-direct hits, but only cripple enemies. 

Yes, maybe he should kill without armored soldiers, but as seems to me only at a very close hit (<1 m, not more), in other cases, it should only hurt(random degrees), but not kill.

Also, the Slugs ammo type should have fewer armor damage impact, smaller balistic range.

 

Thanks for your continued work.  I hope to see a new, much larger map in future updates.

[Ex3B 266]

On 9/28/2022 at 9:19 PM, Ex3B said:

Insert plug for hexacopter drones with shorter ranged weapons: lim-85, Adr-97, etc

And my hopes were not in vain, awesome

 

Also looks like we got new armored vehicle variants, but while they are good, I am slightly disappointed.

 

The BTR-T fills the same role as the BTR-K, but it looks better and doesn't reuse the gorgon turret

 

The new Marids fill the same role as the old ones, just a different turret look (but still an HMG). An upgunned marid would have been nice and performed a new role

[Shashmurin 3]

Love the new update! It seems like the IED-UAV's 58mm AT grenades suffer from the lack of submunitions and thus do not perform their intended function. Hope this can be fixed like it was with SLR!

[the_one_and_only_Venator 163]

9 hours ago, Ex3B said:

And my hopes were not in vain, awesome

 

Also looks like we got new armored vehicle variants, but while they are good, I am slightly disappointed.

 

The BTR-T fills the same role as the BTR-K, but it looks better and doesn't reuse the gorgon turret

 

The new Marids fill the same role as the old ones, just a different turret look (but still an HMG). An upgunned marid would have been nice and performed a new role

I really like the look of the new BTR-T.

 

Upgunned Marid and Panther/ Namer with proper turrets are definitely on my wishlist though. 

[Ex3B 266]

On 10/5/2022 at 12:22 AM, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

I really like the look of the new BTR-T.

Oh yeah, aesthetics are much better, as is gameplay by not having the same turret profile as a gorgon

It's just that the role is redundant 

On 10/5/2022 at 12:22 AM, the_one_and_only_Venator said:

 

Upgunned Marid and Panther/ Namer with proper turrets are definitely on my wishlist though. 

Oh yeah... Although I can get by without the namer/ panther by giving the mora a NATO skin.

An upgunned marid should also be configured with slingload points, so that those with the desire can use the setMass command to allow them to be slingloaded for a specific scenario