Inkompetent

For an immense source of scripting help and tutorials I recommend www.ofpec.com Simply using the search function on those forums can get you VERY far since there are tons and tons of code there that people have got help with. Before reaching quite complex scripts you can be 99% sure someone has already asked the same question before, and that there exists and answer :)

I refer you to http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Description.ext#Weapons_and_Magazines However the actual list of class names is a bit lackluster at the moment. The best suggestion I can give is to get Kegety's tools for ArmA, un-PBO the .pbo files (i.e. extract them), unbinarize the config.bin file, and then use Notepad++ (free program that's generally handy for all kinds of coding with syntax highlights, tabs for multiple documents open simultanously, and it formats the text a million times better than normal Notepad) to open the CfgWhatever.hpp files to get the class name for magazines and weapons. However it seems to be a distinct lack of class names for Russian weapons (AKs and Bizons and stuff) which I'm not sure where in the files they are. o0

You can only have (and must have) one 'player' unit in the whole mission. All units you want to be playable (by either side) must be set to 'playable'. To respawn into remaining 'playable' AI units you need to find your mission folder in My Documents/ArmA2 (or ArmA2 Other Profiles if you don't use the default profile)/missions. Inside your mission folder, create a file called Description.ext and add the two following lines to it: Respawn = "SIDE"; RespawnDelay = X; (where X is the delay in seconds) And yes - if a player leaves a slot the AI will take over, assuming that AI control of units wasn't disabled in the slot selection screen at mission start.

Are the AI units set to 'playable'? If they are not playable I don't think you can spawn into them. Secondly, make sure to disable the 'hide known file type extensions' in Windows Explorer so that you are sure that the file is named Description.ext and not Description.ext.txt

Wow. Looks incredibly complex, and equally lovely! Looking forward to 'em!

When you play the campaign coop, go into singleplayer (a bit confusing, I know) and choose 'Host'. That way you actually play the campaign in multiplayer, instead of playing separate missions from the campaign in multiplayer :)

Also, don't be afraid of high pings, people. Unless you play one of those wardrobe-sized paintball arena missions then 150-200 ping is a breeze to play with. ArmA is so slow-paced and battles fought over such a distance that you don't need the same kind of super-good ping and twelve thousand FPS like when playing UT, Quake or CS. 30fps and 150 ping and you'll do fine :)

ACE2 is not yet released, but if it's half as good as ACE to ArmA1 it'll be a blast! Other than that I guess there are some voice reducing addons, blur-removing ones, and chat UI-fixing ones (if you check the 'Addons & Mods: Completed' forum). Quite nice client-side things that can make the gaming experience more enjoyable if one think one of the above needs fixing ^^

Heck, I actually hate CTI. If I want to play PvP I don't want human-controlled AI squads to screw me over (partially because I HATE controlling AI myself). It's just that at the moment there's a distinct lack of other PvP missions (played some good ones on ATOW though). Can't make missions at the moment since I'm over 700km from my ArmA2, or I definitely would.

swe, you shouldn't be angry at the game or the makers of it for that server admins choose to run maps with unlimited respawns. Be angry at the server admins instead ;)

Very good thread! More stuff like this! And indeed lots of pilots need to not only practice landing, but to actually use terrain masking. Playing 'The Longest Day' I see three out of four helicopters get shot down because the pilots are too dumb to stay out of line of sight of the Tunguskas, which at 2+ km, often more, will shoot them down simply because they fly OVER the hills instead of AROUND them. All AA platforms are to be feared and respected. A Tunguska, Shilka, ZU-23 gun, Avenger or MANPAD (Strela/Igla/Stinger) make short work of ANY AND ALL HELICOPTERS within line of sight in a radius of 2km. If they have upped skill levels they might shoot you at as far as 5km away, so stay down behind all terrain you can find. Using VOIP (or text chat in lack of voice comms), let the passengers know that they'll have 5 seconds to get off the helicopter if you know you are landing in a hot LZ. Then take off whether everyone has left the helicopter or not. The part about planning is also really important. Some parts of Chernarus are quite flat or has no terrain masking with 2-3km of an objective from certain directions. Make sure before you take off where you are to drop off the passengers, and plan a route assuming that the enemy has AAA or SAMs. Always best to be on the safe side. Also can't put enough emphasis on practicing offline in the editor! You'll get nothing else than a bad reputation if you keep killing people because you don't understand the basics of piloting, or haven't learned to properly control the aircraft in ArmA2. It can even lead to beign banned from servers because you waste everyone else's time.

Ehhh.. And what if I prefer small PvP missions over large ones, and prefer large coops (at least platoon size) over small ones, how do I vote then? I'd love to play large PvP missions, but I've only ever played one good one (SimHQ, ShackTac and TacticalGamer get-together in ArmA1), and generally find them either being a chaotic mess, or being tournament-style with such levels of dedication and commitment needed it instantly kills the fun.

You can just create a new profile in the game. However that profile won't inherit all your settings from the default profile, so R.Reagan's way is prefered since you won't have to set up all the graphics and control settings again.

Quite a good in-between option in my eyes is 'limited team respawn' which gives the best of both worlds. I.e. your team has X numbers of respawns available. Die too much and your team will run out of respawns before the enemy team does, and you'll lose. However it still has *some* respawning, so if you die early you'll get at least one more chance. I personally enjoy all kinds: no respawn, limited respawn, unlimited respawn. It simply depends on how the mission is made. And swe, you CONSTANTLY talk like ArmA2 = unlimited respawn. That's 99% wrong, since it all varies with the missions.

You can be 100% sure it's been noted by BIS, considering the number of times it's been mentioned. Quite sure it's added to the bugtracker :)

Uhm... How can OPTIONAL respawns doom the game? The mission-makers decide if to have respawn in a specific mission or not. Sometimes it can bet set up when starting the mission if it should be enabled or not (if the mission is designed so). It would be like saying BF2 is a terrible game because 'infantry only'-mode isn't feasible on many of the maps, and it CAN be played on all maps (not said that it IS played on most maps)

I bet many are working on new missions. However lots of them are for in-house gaming at specific clan/community servers. We can just hope that more communities follows the quite popular example of SimHQ that released their missions in a bundle to the public, which were quite simple (don't confuse that with 'easy') and straightforward no-respawn co-op missions. Easy to get into and understand, good briefings, and played at quite a few servers. A big reason that I think Evo, Domination and The Longest Day are so popular are simply because they last so long and allow for lots of variety, which are very welcome attributes in a time where there's a dramatic lack of shorter easy-to-get-into missions (which the SimHQ package offered)

TAKEN or IMITATED? Quite a huuuuuuge and very important difference.

I don't think any server out there has only one mission on it, Skategodindy. Either vote someone to an admin (with the '#vote admin nameoftheperson' command) or vote for a new mission vote (with the '#vote missions' command). I can't recall how many need to run a command for it to go through, but I think it's at least 75% of the people on the server.

The editor has it all, as long as you are willing to work with scripts as well. The editor is built around the assumption that you will use script-like code both inside the editor, and having external scripts in the mission (that you write outside of the game). I agree that the editor isn't very awesome without that kind of code, but with it you probably have the most powerful mission editor for any existing game.

Heck, Xeno, Domination is a good mission. But due to the simplicity and forgiviness it attracts tons of people 'less favoured by natural selection'. I think it's so popular that it is counterproductive since so many new players think that it is what ArmA co-op is. I'm more yelling at server admins for running the default (and in my eyes too casual-friendly version) of Domination than for the fact they run it at all. Like all missions how good they are depend on who you play them with. I've played Domination and Evolution with more organized and serious people and it was a blast. However on public servers running Domination and Evolution it is a rare thing indeed to find more than a couple of people in a more structured, serious mind. That is what makes the missions 'bad' in my eyes, and why I don't want to see them on many servers. Not because the missions are bad, but because they actively attract people that make them bad, simply through the accessibility and forgiviness on careless and stupid playing.

I'd actually love to see a dramatic decrease in the amount of available weapons. Instead of having both the HK416, HK417, CAR-L and CAR-H, have only the HK416 and the CAR-H for example. Fills both the low and medium calibre roles, but for half the HDD space/download size. Also I see no point in five hundred different optics. One ironsight, one holographic, one ACOG and one with some kind of sniper rifle scope per weapon (to the degree they are used). If there is both EOTech, C-More and Aimpoint optics generally used for one weapon system (like the M4A1), then stick to one for that weapon. For example Aimpoint for the M4A1, and EOTech for the HK416. Variation is nice, but the complete orgy in weapons and weapon attachments in the first ACE was more counterproductive than beneficial in my eyes.

That's 'ArmA release-sickness' for ya. Lots of people buying the game because it has good graphics and the word 'realism' on the DVD box, even though they shouldn't have bought the game at all to start with since they don't have the slightest intention of teamwork. Bear with them though. Since they buy the game they give BIS money so that they can support the game and make it into what has made plenty of us stick with them since the first release of OFP. Soon enough plenty of those players will be bored with ArmA2, and you'll see more and more clan and community servers pop up that will whack anyone with bad behaviour with the big Ban-Hammerâ„¢. Also when there are more proper missions around the general environment will be better. Evolution and Domination are moron-magnets, but at the moment it is (unfortunately) what most servers seem to run.

I too agree that Evo and Domination are a cancer and a plague of the ArmA community. Not because they are bad (I think they are, but obviously many don't), but because so terribly many servers keep running these missions even after hundreds of alternatives are present. At the moment there is a lack of missions for ArmA2, so it's understandable. I just hope that many server admins remove those missions from their servers once more alternatives become available to show people that you don't have to be in a private/clan server to get good coop.

How you get jets and if there are jets at all is up to each specific mission. Superpowers, Domination, Evolution, Warfare... All got it done in their own way.