Sekra

Just downloaded the server for my Linux system (64-bit Archlinux updated yesterday to be specific) and before even starting it up the following issues came up: 1) installer says version 1.57 2) .tar.bz2 package contains the directory "expansion/battleye" with the battleye.so. This confused the tolower program to not convert Expansion to lowercase until I moved the .so into /Expansion/Battleye and ran tolower again 3) installer removes .dll etc files only from root directory and not from battleye, expansion and expansion/battleye directories 3) readme says 1.58 BETA 4) readme still talks about "Campaigns" and "Bin" directories which do not exist since OFP / Arma1 5) readme first says "server-x.xx.tar.gz" then "server-x.xx.tar.bz2" 6) many typos and distro specific information in the readme In short it is almost easier to do things manually than use the installer and the readme is full of errors, old and distro specific information. I have edited the install script to check battleye, expansion and expansion/battleye directories for *.dll and created a suggestion for a new readme.txt file with more update information and more general instructions. Of course the .dll's will not be removed before tolower is fixed not to skip "Expansion" directory if "expansion" directory exists (easy quick workaround would be to use "Expansion/Battleye" in the .tar.bz2 instead of "expansion/battleye"). The files I edited can be viewed and downloaded from http://codemartyrs.info/linux-dedi. Feel free to use them with the next release. I know a lot of my observations are nitpicking and obvious for anyone with any experience with ArmA and/or half a brain but for someone who might be new to the game and the series it doesn't help to provide erroneous and conflicting information in practically every step in the process and readme.

Ballistic09 pimping his FV-107 Scimitar and wld427 saving Sgt. Mack under fire during last nights test playing PRACS Insurgency:

Tanky tanky tanky... 3 versions of MTLB; MTLB, MTLB with MG and SA-13 Gopher SAM, NOT SA-8.. And I tell ya that thing is LETHAL!

Mission updated along with a updated version of TK Extension. Download the file from the usual location. NOTE! You have to ONLY update TK Extension, not the rest.

More testing today again soon! I removed Isla Duala and Lingor temporarily from the server so if you used to have them enabled, please disable them for the tests from now on. I'm fairly sure I've fixed all the remaining bugs from the mission that I was aware of. After this focus will be on performance tuning. I hope as many as possible can join again tonight!

Next testing session will begin in a couple of hours. Anyone wanting the next PRACS release beforehand, join us in the test and give feedback to make the mod even better than it is already! PM wld427 for access to the testing session. It has been a lot of fun playing but the more the merrier! Just as a side note this will also require you to download the whole PRACS mod again and again a few times as bugs are sorted but the downloads are now on a high speed server. Just so you know.

Must learn to read before learning to write young padawan: So I do believe the idea exactly is to be able to use RACS units in different points in history, not just the modern battlefield. Get well soon Tanky!

Come on guys, intensive MP testing going on for the next few days! Join up!

Just goes to show how much BIS is lacking in their representations of factions. All that is provided is the bare minimum that they wanted for their campaigns and that's it. There's just so many missions you can bare to play where you blow up those Tunguskas. I would gladly exchange any and all campaigns in the ArmA series for even half decent representations of real world military units. Lets face it when it comes to BIS they can scrounge up an almost working engine but the campaigns.. Well let's just say that I haven't seen that much manure in one place other than that power plant using pig excrement in the movie Mad Max 3. What wld427 shows with PRACS is you don't have to have the biggest, brightest nor the prettiest models (although I'm not saying they aren't either!) as long as the addons are free of errors and the different branches are thought out! With PRACS and Takistani Extension, you get two factions that are more complete than the rest of BIS stuff put together.

I saw this kind of a system being used in the Paradox Interactive forums where you can only access the sub-forums of games by being a legitimate user of that game ie. they have a page in your forum profile where you can enter a CD-key for each game they publish and by entering that key and it being verified as a legal copy of the game, you get access to that games forums. I find this as an excellent idea to give legitimate users a feeling that the company actually cares about providing service to their legitimate customers. I believe that a similar system could be adapted on these forums too if not limiting all game sub-forums to legit users but sections like for example with the A2/OA forums you could have "News", "General" and "Questions and answers" open to all users of the forum and "Suggestions", "Troubleshooting", "Beta patch testing" and the rest only open for legitimate users. And even if you would not completely close the forums from others, make it so that only legit users could post there and others would have only read access. I believe this would cut down posts from people who want to just troll and don't even own the game(s), people posting about issues that are related to pirated copies etc. Now I understand that this is by no means an easy or quick system to build BUT since all the games seem to use a cd-key system anyhow this would provide an excellent "extra layer" for the use of these keys and as a paying customer would make me feel more appreciated too when you "gift" me with access to the information that basically would be needed only by people who own the games. On the same note although maybe going a bit too complicated, unifying the forum accounts to BIKI accounts and limiting the BIKI access to legal users only would be an excellent addition of this system. The only thing I see a problem here is the Arma 2: Free users. I don't know how the system works in that for players (do they get cd-keys?) but then again A2: F is in itself limited from most of the stuff that would be limited in the forums anyhow like mods, single player campaigns etc. To end I'd like to point out that I do not see this as trying to control or limit the access to information about the game(s) but rather as a service for paying customers as a thank you for buying the game(s). Your thoughts about a system like this?

I don't see why the size of the community would have anything to do with this. I'm pretty sure the devs value the 10 paying customers more than the 1000 pirates that didn't give a cent to the devs for their hard work during the past years. Also I'm sure the moderators have more than enough places to poke their prying eyes into even by now. And I do believe that is pretty much what I wrote in my post, was it not? I will repeat again for maybe the second or third time now; if not limit also reading the forums then just the capability for a user to post in the game specific sub-forum unless the user has registered the game to his account. People can be arsed to post over 4000 messages here but not write one message that requires only to clone a set of symbols to verify his game purchase? To me this comment sounds more about resisting the idea for the sake of resisting the idea. If the system is properly designed, tested and implemented in an "easy" way like for instance implement first the possibility to link a game to your account without any other additions of the system. Make a transitional period of 6 months for this and then start closing down the forums from those who have not registered.

Think about it like this. If you need to register your cd-key to your forum account to get technical help for example this would only be a service offered to legal users of the game(s) on the forums instead of every pirate too. And since this community greatly helps each others to solve the problems this would help the people who like to help other people be sure that the person(s) they are helping are also legitimate customers. This is a big community offering a lot of help and more content to the game(s) and with this kind of a "authentication system" the community would become a part of what you paid for instead of it helping the pirates too. ---------- Post added at 14:11 ---------- Previous post was at 14:06 ---------- This is nonsense. What kind of a security risk is a database boolean value of "Owner_A2"? which is linked to a forum access template? It would be silly stupid to actually write the cd-key to the account, all you need is following: -Authentication server (already exists) that is sent queries (limit from the forum server IP only so no external access) that contain the cd-key, reply says: "valid", "non-valid", "already linked" -With "valid" response from auth server forum account database sets "owns_a2 = true" -Too many retries to link a key -> lock account for moderator action etc proper protocol for this incident Where is the security risk here?

Care to explain how would posting restrictions limit the amount of customers? "Questions and Answers" section could be open for everyone so any questions by potential buyers (and anyone else for that matter) should go there.

Obvious benefits for the forum moderators: -Troubleshooting section: Only legitimate users can post problems with their game -Every other section: Weed out trolls that only want to cause trouble Like I said in my post if you read it correctly it could just simply be post restrictions and the reading could still be open to everyone. I see no reason for anyone other than legit users to post in the game specific forums for example. And again I see the way in the Paradox Forums as a sign of support from the company for people who buy their games. ---------- Post added at 13:36 ---------- Previous post was at 13:18 ---------- Also it is a cost effective and simple way of the company to tell its customers: "Buy our game and welcome to the community"

RACS Support -> M113 Headquarters

A few more shots

Some screens taken during testing today. Mixed shots of PRACS and TK Extension.

I never did any such thing. You can't prove it. I won't admit it.

Because the community provides every person the tools to rip apart every single piece of code, model, anything in a addon. And because these tools are handed out without regard to who they are give, what is done with them, the community thinks that it is their right to rip apart and reskin, reconfig, update, rape, mutilate and redistribute other peoples work, publicly or within clans or their own communities. The EULA's are disregarded as just a piece of text that means nothing. Sadly the words of Maruk fall to deaf ears in this community: taken from http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=105256

...and I want them back clean and washed!

Looking back at our server traffic stats, it would seem that this thing began on our server somewhere around after first week / middle of june. up until june our server was outputting somewhere around 100gb / month, but on june the end result was 385gb where as in july it is already at 595gb! No more running arma servers without someone actually playing there....

:eek:

Just nitpicking here a bit but its not RTP its RPT........

I think you guys might be on to something here! :cool: :rolleyes: Nice to see it finally out, keep up the good work!

Well like it was posted earlier here (which I read only after posting my last comment naturally) even the smallest of russian manpad missiles are 1.4meters long. I really doubt the russians would spend any of their money or effort for a system like this when they have awesome AA weaponry already, namely the Shilka and Tunguska. ---------- Post added at 04:59 ---------- Previous post was at 04:49 ---------- The main purpose of the tank is to fight other tanks. I see no reason why a ATGM doesnt make sense in a tank. Specially the part where it was already said that the ATGM used in the T90's are split in 2 parts. Now for a tank tube launched AA missile they would have to develop a completely new system, create completely new logistics chain for it and train their tank crews to use yet another hi-tech system. As far as I'm aware one of the main design philosophies of the russians is to make weaponry even conscript farmers can use. If they're going to use manpads missiles, why not use the cheaper manpads then in the first place?