Starting ARMA II with User Missions and Mods - Is there a better way?

[mlenser 10]

With the growing number of User made missions that require mods its getting a pain in the arse starting ARMA II now. Following advice I read somewhere I don't put all the addons in the ?:\ArmA 2\AddOns\ folder but create a new folder for each mod under ?:\ArmA 2\@??????\. This seems a good idea as it doesn't require ARMA II to load all the mods each time it starts but it means the startup parameters can get pretty long and confusing.

So whats the best way to start up ARMA II ready to play with various mods?

I looked at Arma2: Startup Parameters but I can't see how you can call a separate file containing a list of mods at startup.

[randir14 10]

Alpinestar's ArmA 2 Launcher

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6650

[the unknown 0]

Ok these so called mod folders can be called what ever you want most people put a @ infront of it so it sorts them together. These mod folders can contain what ever directory is needed for the mod, your basic mod usually only uses the addons folder so you create that one into your mod folder. Put you pbo files into it and put the following in the target line of your shortcut to arma2.

"X:\wereeverthegameisinstalled\arma2.exe" -mod=@whateveryoucalledyourmodfolder

It could be you need to add " around the @whateveryoucalledyourmodfolder but the last time I used this has been in OFP so I dont remember that well.

O and I almost forgot if you want more folders at the same time loaded put a ; between the folder names.

[mlenser 10]

Alpinestar's ArmA 2 Launcher

http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=6650

Thank you Randir14 that makes it so much easier and it even supports the beta builds!! Just the solution for starting ArmA 2 with/without mods :)

I see that "Alpinestar's ArmA 2 Launcher" has a option page where you can set the priority of the various mods - is there a description anywhere that explains how we should prioritise our mods and why?

[Zipper5 74]

User missions always go in the ...\ArmA 2\Missions folder, otherwise they will not show up.

[thr0tt 12]

Personally I find http://dev-heaven.net/projects/list_files/yoma-addonsync2009 a good all rounder, you can have different mods for different servers, favourites, check who's playing, launch external programs on game start like TeamSpeak etc.

Worth the time to understand how it works and may be a bit more granular than the afore mentioned launcher.

[sparks50 0]

I agree, Addonsynch is a much more powerful tool(and faster to use when operating different mod sets)

It can even automaticly download the needed addons for a server, if the specific server supports this.

Edited August 29, 2009 by sparks50