krzychuzokecia

Yeah, it's not really recon, but no-cover retexture of the helmet evokes the image of Altyn helmet used by various direct-action-focused elements of Russian military and internal forces. In fact, Avery's Russian recon is much more fitting to real-life Russian DA units, especially with them being armed with 7.62x39 guns, which are less effective in long-range applications, but more than adequate in close combat.

As @haleks and @jeza wrote - it's much easier for us to detect a signal from technologicaly advanced spacefaring race, than for them to detect us. And even the 100 lightyears range of our radio signals is very optimistic, because it doesn't take signal fading, and other issues of radio propagation, into account. Popular legend (attributed to Carl Sagan) about 1936 Olympics (and Hitler's speech) being the first signal that reached space is technically true, but that signal barely reached out of Earth atmosphere. Radio installations used to communicate with our Mars probes are very powerful transmitters operating in X band (super high frequency), and yet, the minimal range of those so-called deep space receivers is somewhere between 1-2 lightyears. This makes our cosmic footprint almost non-existent - what we call deep space is merely a backyard. For them to find us, aliens would need to designate all the habitable star systems visible from their locations, and then send probes there, to check for any signs of activity. And pray to their alien god that our Solar system is one of those star systems visible from alien homeworld. On the other hand, our discovery of alien life is based on assumption that alien civilization produces and consumes energy in amounts so vast, that we're able to observe this from planet Earth. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) it may turn out that there are sentient beings in other parts of Universe, but they (just like us) are incapable of interstellar travel, or transmitting signals reaching through space to another world.

2019: The Year We Make Contact Addons used: Contact by @haleks, Original War by @Sumrak

But it still retains damaged doors and bumper of the original car (better visible on other promo screens). I know it's not happening, but I'd love to have non-ravaged (pun intended) versions of civilian cars in A3... Also, I'm wondering - are those all LDF vehicles? I think so, promo screens show exactly these vehicles. I'm now in full day-dreaming mode, but LDF versions of Marshall and Neophron would be cool to have, since real-life equivalents of these vehicles are in use in real-life equivalent of LDF. But I guess devs don't want LDF to be over-powered, especially when compared with minimalistic Spetsnaz faction (wonder if Spetsnaz will get some organic/native means of transportation?).

I'm using Dynamic Recon/Combat Ops by mbrdnm, and I'm afraid that in this particular case there's no other civilian configuration option apart from setting desired faction (which in vanilla game is limited to generic civs or IDAP). On the other hand various mods (namely CUP and CFP) introduce several themed civilian factions (in case of CUP Chernarussian and Takistani), which seems to me like a better, plug and play, idea. Truth be told the issue is not limited to dynamic missions either. It's also annoying when placing civilian vehicles - by default they spawn with Greek crews (or Tanoan in case of Apex vehicles). It's possible to place empty vehicles and crew them with required civs, or use scripts to change identities. However both solutions require quite a bit more of a hassle than just plopping ready to use vehicles, which can be done with CUP (or other mods) civilian factions.

Ah, now I see. I don't think any change would be necessary, afterall if one done messed up (like me leaving the car further away), it just adds to the challenge. However I did see Morgan and Anderson jumping out of car and getting back in - I'll replay the mission and see if it happens again.

While I don't see anything wrong with rails on Mk14 (nowadays it is way more common way to mount optics on M14 type of weapon - even though real hunters would use something different), I'm all for renaming semi-auto variant! Additionally, it'd be great to have both military and civilian variants of this weapon available in all three colours (camo, olive, wood). There's also one thing which isn't really tied to Contact DLC, but would be excellent to see - that is dividing current Civilian faction into language/ethnic-specific ones. Currently various dynamic mission systems tend to spawn civs using a mixture of all available identities/languages. So you can often bump into Chinese on Altis, and Greeks on Tanoa (and so on). With Contact adding yet another radio protocol we're risking creating a true Babel tower and a wrath of God! I'd happily settle on CQB Promet similiar to the one posted by @Glow several pages back... One can dream...

I have a question regarding part two

Regarding question 1 (who'd make best Earth ambassador) I agree with @Rydygier statement. Human kind is quite self-centered, so we assume that sentient alien life is essentially like us - society of humanoids driven by similiar needs and ideas. But sentient alien life, which is capable of interstellar travel, must be a radically different organism than what we are. We already know about several significant problems with humans travelling in space, due to our nature. Issues that are limited not only to our physicality, but to our psyche too. Thus assumption that space-faring civilization is similiar to us (from both biological and psychological points of view) is not only optimistic, but also naive. Which brings me to question 2 - why would sentient aliens visit Earth? For one, not because they want to contact us. Unless they are already in our solar system, they have no idea about our existence (Carl Sagan's romantic tales about aliens picking up our radio signals are just this... tales). And when they learn about us, what we can really give them? Remember - it's a space-fairing civilization, that needs to have technology reaching far beyond our imagination. They will learn nothing from us, but they could learn about us, if they are curious enough - just like we observe all the living species around us (yet, no human ever tried to contact an ant colony in his backyard). Secondly, aliens could visit Earth to exploit it's natural resources - unless aliens invented a perpetuum mobile, they have to fuel their ships with something. Since Universe is built from the same elements, there's high probability that Earth contains alien rocket fuel. And in this case, well, humanity is in bad luck. Afterall, when you're digging a flowerbed in your backyard, do you try to reason with ants which colony you have destroyed? Or do you keep on digging? Hell, maybe aliens don't really want to visit Earth, but just want to build an intergalactic bypass here? That's a very romantic vision, but as someone who works in scientific community I can assure you that scientist are driven by egoism, are afraid of their theories being disproven, and fight actively against it just like every human being. In fact, secpticism (which you treat as something negative), should be the basic trait of a good scientist - one who is not satisfied with his findings, and is still searching for an answer, to such an extent that he tries to disprove his own theories. Unfortunately most of scientist are not like that, and this is especially true in case of pop-culture scientist like Carl Sagan, whose ideas were mentioned several times in this thread. Sagan was probably the first scientist guilty of blurring the lines between science and religion, with dogmatic claims, and evangelisation of masses via popular science books that contain few of actual science, but lots of philosophy and politics (and later expanding to cinema, which seves as a Chic tract to his writings). Scientist (biologist, anthropologist) would be essential to make a first contact with aliens, but only to research and develop the means of communication. It would be wise to enlist help from philosophers, who would judge if alien civilization system of beliefs is similiar to our own, essentially check if we can get along. But actual ambassador, just like ambassadors to other countries, should be a diplomat - politician, who's role is to convince the other side that we're not a threat, and to struck deals beneficial to us. Carl Sagan-like alien lover is a bad idea for an ambassador, because you really don't know if he is loyal to human kind, or not. Novel is great indeed, but I'd argue it's not really on the subject of difficulties in contacting alien beings. In fact, it is not even about aliens.

This method still doesn't let you change models of equipment without external addons. It is possible to replace existing models with ones of different equipment (for example Soviet), however one still needs a separate .pbo with textures representing that equipment (and even then you have a side effect of big mission file size). Without external addons/configs we can only replace BI stuff with something that uses the same textures (and similiar mapping), which in general limits us to the very same equipment. And making higher fidelity models of the same stuff is pointless, because BI models are OK, it's the textures that need a do-over (when it comes to binocs, compass, GPS, etc.).

I'd imagine it working either like revive (so enabled in mission properties) or First Aid/Arty systems (via modules). Anyway, it's a lost cause now, so we can only dream. Not really, in Endgame you essentially move to known point A, learn location of point B, interact with thingy, extract. Proper alien artifact hunt should have a number of artifacts (orange balls) spawn in unknown location, with both teams looking for them using EM/EW equipment. What happens next is up to speculation. If taking example of Endgame (so two phases of operation), then (for example) when one team takes control of 4 out of 7 orange balls, they learn approximate position of blue crystal ship. Arriving at the ship achieves contact and wins, but other team can still track down winning squad (orange balls have to be moved to blue crystal), take over balls and find aliens first. The more balls you have, the more precise you know the location of blue crystal. That's one take at it, I guess (hope) we would see at least one community artifact hunt mode in future.

WW4 (and WW4 Ext) specific units are loaded from addons. But WW4 replacement units (and anims) are loaded from /bin and /dta folders. It looks to me as if you have those two folders missing in your @ww4mod25 folder. Or... you're loading another mod, taking precedence (-mod=@ww4mod25;@AnotherMod), but as you've explained, this is not a case. I'm kinda at loss, maybe you've got angry anitivirus blocking files in /bin and /dta?

Very good idea (I think @haleks was first to propose it in other thread), but unfortunately it seems that there's no new MP gamemode, and (just like CRBN stuff) these assets are also dead outside of campaign (or so says shop page). I wholeheartedly disagree. First off, it wouldn't be the first time when BI introduces a new simulation aspect which kills (or is not compatible with) many community equivalents (first aid/revive, High Command, fatigue/weapon sway, weapon resting, sling-loading, vehicle transport, sensors - remember Mandoble?, etc.). IMHO it's a moot point. Secondly, it would bring another value to the Contact DLC, one that could be appreciated by almost everyone (including hardcore mil-simmers who don't like alien stuff). And (as happened with other BI features/systems) I'd expect that official CBRN system would be moddable, and quickly adapted by community, presenting whole range of options, from complete lack of CBRN simulation, to ACE-like systems with radiation pills and whatnot. I'm saying it now: the deer came from the outer space! (This also explains why Livonia have such a connection to these animals - they literally live above tunnels made by space-deer!)

Trivia: Promet rifle is also based on a prototype of MSBS-B, current bullpup design has changed quite a lot (not a problem for me, in fact I prefer old one). Edit: and another bit of trivia. While I have no idea if there's a Czech word similiar to Promet, but in Poland Romet was a brand of bikes. When Bike DLC? We had those in almost every previous Arma too!

While I agree that for years we haven't had great campaign in Arma (and BTW: Arma 1 should be forgotten for ever!), I disagree that there's some inherent anti-story element in the game. In fact from the day one OFP came with several features and functions which sole purpose was to enhance storytelling aspect of the game. It is interesting what you wrote on the dynamic campaign, because story-focused Cold War Crisis campaign was a direct effect of BI being unable to create completely unlinear, dynamic battlefield. I guess the strength of OFP campaigns came from the fact that story was about what devs experienced and feared, when living their childhood behind Iron Curtain. Also Cold War gone hot scenario is much more politically correct than (for example) showing latest invasion of Iraq or Afghanistan, from the perspective of local population (I can imagine those headlines: this game let's you shoot at US soldiers! Ban it for the children!). And since I've mentioned it, in my opinion there's one big strength of Arma, that's criminally underused. Military relationship with local population. Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not just battles for Fallujah or Wanat. In fact encounters like these were a minority. But what happened every day was trying to win hearts and minds, supporting local population, collecting intelligence on guerrilla activities etc. First mission of Harvest Red gave me a lot of hopes, which were left unfulfilled. Laws of War also scratched this need, but only on the surface. I'm still waiting, but I don't have big hope.

And that's why BI have studios in those countries. Black Element is nothing more than an asset factory - it's not a secret that Far East is full of talented 2D/3D artists who are paid less than their western colleagues. BIS Prague seems to be focused more on the code aspect of the product, and BIS Netherlands is mostly about content such as missions/game modes. Remember that all studios co-operate: from my understanding new art for almost every DLC since Apex (excluding Jets) was made by Black Element (dead BE website contained pictures of assets later used in Apex, DayZ standalone and LoW). I think he refers to the arrest of Mr Buchta and Mr Pezlar. Also I remember BI saying that they went Steam-only way, because Steam provided additional funding and advertisement (and a strict deadline). So it seems that Arma 3 wasn't completely self-published (apparently Valve gives additional perks to those devs who are producing content exclusively for Steam platform).

Well, it's an approximation of how much investment went into the product, and (when comparing with similiar products - in this case Apex expansion) how big gain is expected. Clearly Contact development cost was lower than Apex (due to the mostly reused assets), so BI (pricing it in an Apex range) expects to earn more on a single copy. Why is that, that's point of speculation (maybe because they expect lower sales? I don't know). But bread and movie ticket comparison is cool! (though it's really more about regional differences in price, than price/content ratio) Maybe it's bigger in landmass, because buildings are circa 150% bigger than real ones? I haven't played DayZ standalone, so can't tell, but I have a feeling that buildings were not modified for Contact? At least that's my take, reading feedback threads. As for the Livonians - hard to call them entirely new faction when all that differentiates them from AAF is rifle and camo. Which is a shame - like some other poster noted, even giving them A2 ACR DLC Tatra truck (instead of Zamak) would make them stand out a little. Community made better stuff using retextures and ported assets, than BI did with Livonian faction (Aegis mod being prime example). I prefer to support good products, than blindly follow (presumably) good devs. Afterall, even the best people put out a lemon from time to time, and why I'd waste my time and money for that? Let's hope the campaign will be interesting, that's my fine line in the sand :D Off-topic: But it doesn't have any basis in gameplay - you can take off all helmets/goggles, and game still shows you the same UI. Which is a shame, when A3 was first released devs hinted that what equipment you have on you, will affect how you will see the battlefield. Imagine being hunted by well-equipped CSAT, with you being a lowly guerrilla! IIRC CSAT suit was supposed to provide air conditioning, and even lower thermal signature of soldier. But neither fatigue system, nor actual TI sights, seem to be affected by CSAT uniform. CBRN features are obvious retcon for Contact.

WW4 Extended was never intended to be a replacement mod - WW4 already does it. If your WW4+ECP configuration still uses old BI models, then you either messed something during installation, or you have the mods loading in wrong order - remember to load WW4 (with ECP friendly config) last!

Thing is that: DayZ content (as seen in Livonia feedback thread) is not adapted to Arma use. It's still DayZ content, while Apex used original art. Aside from island Apex brought quite a lot of more to the game (4 vehicles, several weapons, countless objects) - Contact new assets are objects, Promet rifles, shotgun and UGV. The main course (aliens) is unusable outside of campaign (out of the box), and even placed in additional modfolder (making life harder for modders who would like to give them some life). Thus it seems to me that Contact development cost was way lower than in case of Apex. So what justifies it's price? Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that Contact should be as cheap as focused DLCs were. But IMHO it's overpriced for what it brings. We know what people like, and what other people doesn't like when it comes to this DLC. However this is based on emotions, personal preference etc. I would rather prefer to focus on objective things - such as quantifiable ratio of content/price. My very first post in this thread was essentially about this - summing up what content is new, what is reused etc. I came to conclusion that ratio of content/price is not in favor of this DLC (my opinion). But others, who like this DLC, completely skipped this issue, claiming (through some sort of crystal ball) that I'm against sci-fi theme in Arma in general (which is bullcrap). That's why I've said there's no real discussion (and to get things straight - just saying I don't like sci-fi so sod off! is also not real discussion, once again, sci-fi is not a problem for me with Contact, IMO problem is the execution). Well, up until the last page, with price and DayZ assets issues being noticed by more people. I understand what you're saying in other post @x3kj (I'm not interested in other games, so I'll buy it anyway), but I'm personally not interested in games at all. Or rather - I'm not a serious gamer who brows through Kotaku/PC Gamer/Twitch every day, and subscribes for hundreds of streamers. For me to buy a game this pricy, I have to be really amazed by content. Contact is underwhelming from both a hardcore mil-sim gamer, and sci-fi fan points of view. Mil-sim/sandbox content is reused old assets (and few of them at that), and aliens are some scripted objects (that's what the store page says, don't blame me) - thus my jokes about McGuffins, ayy lmaos and mini East Wind. I'd love to be amazed by Contact, but I don't see how I could be. Maybe campaign is great, but I don't have crystal ball, and previous BI campaigns were not inspiring. So, no pre-order for me, and honestly, no Contact at all, until it goes out on the sale (unless post release reviews will say that campaign alone is worth the price of admission). Agreed, but it also shows the previously mentioned issue of communication. The futuristic backlash (that I never agreed with) was so enormous, that you'd expect BI to at least try to explain that everything in game have strong roots in existing military technology (even though it's a military game, not everyone in community is aware of latest army gizmos). Dyslexci's TTP becoming official guide was a move in this direction. But it apparently wasn't enough, and now when BI introduces really futuristic/fictional content, another eruption of no fiction! should not be any surprise.

I'm just open to hear anyone's opinion, and take notice of them. Whether I agree with them, or not, is a secondary thing. Pretending that naysayers don't exist doesn't help anyone. However this Forum seems to have evolved into essentially an echo chamber, with all dissenting opinions being shuned. This thread is perfect example. There are people who are so emotionally invested in BIS and/or alien theme, that they will turn hostile against anyone who doesn't jump on the yesman bandwagon. What seems funny is that people who are strictly opposed to the sci-fi theme are a minority, and not a vocal one. Most of the critique is focused on things like communication between devs and customers, BI company policy in general, and pricing policy regarding Contact DLC. Aliens are not a problem - problem is that Contact aliens are apparently (based on advertising materials) nothing more but a gimmick, designed to distract customers from the fact that this expansion is rather underdeveloped when compared to previous one (Apex) and Arma 3 smaller DLCs. Contact playable content is smaller than most of the focused DLCs (like Marksmen, Helicopters, Jets, Tanks, Laws of War), and most of it is derived from previous art. Platform updates (which IMHO are most important from gameplay perspective) are not to be found. Yet it is still priced almost equally to base game. I wrote all of this several times here, but apart from few people voicing the same issues, nobody have yet tried to have an actual discussion about these issues. And at this moment I believe that nobody will. We'll see what will really happen on release day, but I'm not holding my thumbs for some miracle. I'm sure that what we see is what we get (just like it happened with every previous BI title), and well... What I see is disappointing and not worth the money.

Fix the MP performance, fix optimization, add multicore support etc. Those are most common comments under every Arma 3 announcement on Steam (the main marketing platform of the game). And I don't really have any of those problems, for me game runs amazing. But it is a sign of what people want. However I will tell you what I heard from a guy who, almost every week, hosts MP sessions of OFP/CWA, and who's favorite mods (ones he's promoting, and hosting) are sci-fi, fantasy and horror ones (coutless of them were made for OFP). In his words this expansion is... so-so. And that's exactly what I'm trying to say. There's not enough of sci-fi content to change Arma into a real mil-sim sci-fi, and there's not enough of serious content to justify the price for serious mil-sim players. And before you'll ask: that guy I was talking about is playing A3 too. But for him there's not enough of interesting non-military content in the game (which I don't agree with). This DLC just stands at the crossroads, unable to make decision which way to go. And don't get me wrong - I'm critical of this DLC, but not critical of aliens in Arma idea altogether. I'm a fan of X-COM series, and UFO series (the one which was essentially killed by BIS themselves) and would love to experience this in a proper mil-sim FPS game. But for some reason (technical difficulties? short development time? I don't know) that's not what awaits us in Contact, and we're left with feeling of confusion.

Well, my opinion comes from interactions with and observations of Arma players outside this Forum. Which is very small in fact. And I'm not really that critical of BI latest DLC as those people outside of BIF. Comments on Steam (where game is sold) are... not good, to use an euphemism. Direct quotes from Steam store page: As a soldier deployed to Livonia’s militarized Nadbór region, you will be among the first to study our alien visitors and determine their intentions. However, amid the tension and chaos, armed conflict inevitably unfolds. However, with our very existence in the balance, different interpretations fueled by a region-wide blackout quickly prove to be a surefire way to conflict. I've read so many books, that I can put two and two together. This quotes combined with the fact that aliens (again, as described on the product page) are essentially created from scripted props (no mention of aliens as a playable faction) are telling me quite clearly that fighting will be between humans. Not that we won't have some scripted event where troops are being charged by either orange ball of light, or blue flying crystal, maybe even stealth mission where you have to dodge multiple of this objects. But the hints are leaning heavily towards humans fighting against eachother because cliche writing and engine limitations. Well, OK, maybe we won't fight Russians, but that mafioso-looking guy in leather coat, prominently displayed on one of the screenshots. Oh, you KNOW ALREADY that's a mothership? What if it's just an alien candy for good little ETs? See how this works? The old saying don't knock it if you haven't tried it is not always right. Sometimes we have enough of information, and previous experience, that we can predict what will happen. This is especially true for video games, where we have trailers, screenshots, pre-release streams etc. Store description for Contact is very specific, and up to this date we had no surprises when it comes to BI releases. No, I haven't said that it is all bad. I said that parts of it are dubious, which makes me wary. In fact, I'd like, and probably will, buy this DLC, but after year or two, during sale. Because of these doubts about content I'm not particularly fond of. REALLY?! Me too, welcome to the club. I guess you're very proud of this thinly veiled personal insult. Because if you're weirdo who read books, then other people don't read books, and those people are uneducated, ignorant, etc. I've learned that in books. I've also learned to not bother with people who make such comments. Cya, buddy! Over and out.

Socio-political and philosophical post commences. The realistic way to depict aliens is... to not depict aliens at all. I would like remind you that we don't have any scientific proof of sentient extraterrestrial life, much less of a space travelling civilization. Aliens are fiction so there is no proper and/or realistic way to depict them. However, since we touched on the subject of little green men vs Monolith/Star Child depictions of ETs (the latter of which is BI going for). It's important to note that both of these have their roots in Cold War state of society. Little green men of the 50s are nothing more than symbols of another alien civilization which was USSR. US society was afraid of those aliens invading their land (I hope McCarthyism rings a bell) and this fear was also present in art. Movies of the era usually depict a lone hero, defending a group of hopeless people against a ruthless group of invaders. Westerns are prime example, but the same fear was also present in popular sci-fi of the era. In fact one could say that this xenophobia (fear of strange) formed the basis of ET depictions, coupled with fascination by scientific research (nuclear energy, jet planes, first rockets). The whole UFO phenomenon comes from that. However soon another vision of aliens was born - a sort of enlightened sci-fi. Here ETs are usually depicted as space elders, species far more advanced than humans, with better understanding of universe, and ones that we are hardly capable of understanding. This enlightened sci-fi also came to light in 1950s, but entered mainstream after Kubrick's and Clarke's 2001. It's roots are also tightly connected to McCarthyism, as many of sci-fi writers were left-leaning (or rather more left-leaning than US mainstream), and Red Scare was threatening them personally. Thus they felt the need to explain that not all which is alien is an enemy, and more often it's our own (supposedly) violent nature which leads to conflict (notice how in 2001, the sort-of bad guys are people who commenced the mission and ordered HAL to lie?). In 1960s, with an all-out existential crisis of western society, this genre found a new life. Carl Sagan created a true religion around this idea of God-like-ETs (with movie Contact being essentialy his Chick tract), and it was further evolved (and distorted) by conspiracy theory nuts like late Art Bell, leading to all sorts of ancient astronaut stories. The truth is that both visions of ETs are probably nowhere near what a spacefaring may look like, and how it may behave towards humans. The very idea of ETs having means to conduct interstellar travel puts them way above our technology limits. Due to this fact contacting us is of no value, just like we don't contact animals when observing and learning their lifes. And if they would be hostile (for example to take some Earth resource which is useful for them), then they could either make us all disappear overnight, or just don't worry at all about our puny militaries, collect stuff and sail away. Afterall space travel requires energy and technology so powerful, that our biggest weaponry (nuclear) pales in comparison. And now I'm going back to Arma. You can have both kinds of genres in a video game, but some games work better with one genre, and worse with another. Arma is a mil-sim, so it is naturally more fitting to the fighting little green men idea. And (contrary to @Valken) I don't think that Prey 2017 or X-COM/The Bureau ETs are really that far from little green men. They are still simple foreign invaders who need to be taken out by a few good men with even better guns. The fact that ETs are ethereal and guns fire mind-melding rays changes nothing. BIS is clearly going for the enlightened God ET and (based on previous experience with both Arma gameplay and BI writing) I fail to see how they can succeed. And I've seen some pretty impressive mods done on older, primitive and much harder to work with iteration of RV engine. It takes years of dedication of one individual who wants to really subvert the game nature. When BI claims that we will have a good 'ole gunfight with Russians in Contact, then I can already say something's not right. This DLC seems to be schizophrenic, a mess of some old content lying idle on hard drives, and put together in one last package we will get from BI (cDLCs are not BI).