krzychuzokecia

Howdy! I'm looking for non-torrent source of the old Bush Wars Mod. Sadly armedassault.info gives me 502 errors for the past week. Thanks!

Ah, so that's where those files are, sorry I was looking in wrong folder. There are both mdmp files and rpts - should I upload them to Google Drive? The mdmp files are about 50 megs, I think that's too much for the Feedback Tracker?

64bit Arma, I'm running a 64bit Win7 on a 64bit Xeon X5470 (dated, yes). If the mdmp file is supposed to be in Windows/Minidump/ folder, then I can't see any Arma-related (there's one file there from February 2021). I'll try the older versions! I was using Steam branch, and didn't know that Google link has all the previous versions too, otherwise, I'd try that earlier. Will report any findings.

After one of the last updates to the profiling branch I'm unable to start Arma: after the initial splash screen game crashes to desktop with error message about "unknown software exception (0xc000001d)" (the error address is changing, I guess different each time I try to start game, I've noted two examples: "0x410f44e2" and "0x410b44e2"). There is no .rpt file that I can find (I had error logs turned off, but turned them on after encountering the problem first time) and I validated the game data via Steam. Sad part is that I can't really tell which update may have caused it, as the last time I played Arma was on 12th of March, or earlier. I'm going to try switching to stable branch, but apart from that, is there anything I can do to remedy this problem? Edit: indeed switching to stable allows me to run the game, but obviously there's something wrong with profiling.

Ah, no, according to WRP Tool manual it's bottom left, bottom right, upper left, upper right. WRP Tool manual is bundled with 0.950 patch, available here. Even if you don't plan on using WRP Tool itself, the manual goes into some more generic topics of island editing, useful outside of the Tool itself.

I think you might have confused texture making tool with WRPTool feature to automatically replace "uniform" ground textures with transitions, providing the transition textures are available and correctly named. WRPTool manual even makes a point to note that it won't create the textures by itself

For starters, why not using .png or .tga, since they don't compress the source image as much as .jpg? Also, use TexView 2 for Arma 1, instead of OFP versions of TexView.

Oh, I'm aware. Truth be told, I'm far from being BI fanboy anymore, Contact cured me from that. And while there's huge resentment on BIF against other "communities" - especially Steam forums - I have to say that when it comes to Arma 3, some of the best, argumented, critique against the game I read in those other places. Hey! As self-appointed "immersion anorak" I resemble that remark! :D But yeah, there's a lot of truth to what you said. Thanks for your input on EndGame itself! As for respawning in base, far from action and with no vehs - well, "immersion anorak" (that's lovely term, really :D) would say, maybe that's why you shouldn't have respawn, just revive? Of course that requires the teams to be full at mission start, no JIP. Or just go for the simplest solution of spawning near the team-member, which IIRC is already done in Apex co-op campaign. I may be wrong, but wasn't EndGame introduced with Apex also? No idea why one of them has that feature and other not.

To be fair, that's his standard modus operandi, at least in last few years. He also hosts one of the old OFPR.info FTP backups, and when something went wrong with it, Twitter was the way to get to him.

Congrats on the release, and thanks for the tip about the "civilian" beanie/woolhat!

I need it! How?! Show me the way!

Fair point, but "half-arsed" is kind of the SOP for BI in Arma 3 era. So, as sad as it is, it's not like community is not used to take BI's barely playable ideas and turn them into something worth attention. And then - I really don't know if EndGame is indeed one of such "raw" projects - from very few YT vids/streams I saw, it seemed pretty finished - you got two opposing teams, objective, distinctive phases of gameplay. Pretty simple, I don't know what else is needed, apart maybe from porting it to some popular mods if someone really hates bug-eye Iranians (as if weird CTRG is any better). Hence I say the Arma audience was the one that felt indifferent to the whole idea of "CS-like" game mode. EndGame being one victim of that, good old CTF being the other. And IMO comparison with Warfare is rather wrong, since Warfare is really a clone (fork?) of community-born CTI - heck, IIRC the guy behind Arma 1 Warfare was author of one of the OFP CTI variants. So this is example of BI adopting a community idea, not the other way around (like with EndGame). (Of course don't get me started on why the hell we don't have good CTI in Arma 3 anymore. Warlords kind of sucks, even if it gets rid of some elements I disliked in crCTI, MFCTI and Warfare. And the existing crCTI ports are even worse than Warlords - the clunkiness and bugs just kill them outright) Ah, yes, yes, someone shares my suffering! For me however it was usually some enemy infantry shooting me down - I would love to have armed wingman, but in solo play you're really have to count on yourself when it comes to heli CAS. And yes, it's niche, but even that idea is apparently worth separate game as proven by Heliborne existence (I think that's the source of A3 mode, but I may be wrong). The gameplay loop in Heliborne is virtually identical to A3 version, the only difference is obviously in amount of flyable helis and terrains, but then Arma is not just helicopter-focused game. So lack of interest in this mode in Arma, coupled with apparent interest in this kind of gameplay in the "outside world", again tells me that majority of Arma folks is just not into this kind of PvP stuff. Which (by seeing the fate of "classic" OFP PvP/TvT modes like CTI and CTF, and then it's Arma clones) leads me to the general conclusion that, with exception of KOTH "nuts" (and the good folks at ATC!), Arma folks really went into coop/PvE/PvAI/whatever you wanna call it. ...and that's interesting to hear, and might explain the demise of this mode. Now, I don't want to get into the technical details, but since I never really played EndGame, could you describe (again, without going into the naughty details) how typical abuse looked like? Well, OFP section here is pretty much dead (as most of the Forum these days...), but on the various OFP-focused Discords and Facebook groups one just not simply mention Arma 3 and walks away unscathed! :D

That's because terrain itself is rendered in lower detail at distance. So if enemy player is walking on rough terrain you may see him buried, but if he walks on something flat, he's visible for everyone (even if from his perspective he's in the bush). Everyone is. Nope. But the issue is you may not see some small mounds that are too detailed for you to see from a distance. So it's possible to both achieve hits on almost completely buried enemy, and not being able to hit enemies that are seemingly in the open. Edit: in other words, what already causes distant enemies being buried in the ground (which is terrain LOD) has really nothing to do with the problem OP is describing (which is objects LOD - vegetation to be precise).

If you can include them in their original form, with readmes etc., then I don't see how it's any different than putting the files on Armaholic, or sharing via cloud-based services in vein of Google Drive (which is used to share old addons for OFP and A1/A2). Speaking of OFP and Armaholic - when AH opened the OFP section, Foxhound (may fucks be upon him) asked us specifically to change the way the original addons were packed (archive name, often structure) to better fit AH modus operandi, and no one really had any problems with that. This issue was also discussed when in 2015 the OFPR.info FTP was down, and Kju put forward an idea to host the files on PlayWithSix (which would also require complete repacking of data), and most agreed that for sake of preserving the legacy some concessions have to be made. I don't think Private Partz is going to charge access to those old mods, or secretly change the links so that you end up on some sketchy betting site, so I wouldn't be making much ado about releasing the mission with mods which are no longer available. Unless he wants to put them on Steam Workshop - that's a no-no.

That sounds like a great solution! Civilians can have fancy lifestyle branding :P while military prefers anonymity and trusty plate carrier hidden under the warm gorka!

Personally I tend to prefer non-branded or "Armaverse-branded" items, but "EO Retex" is quite a great pun! Still, with Gorka being a Russian/Soviet invention, and you don't really see the originals with any brands, I'd vote for two versions - with the logo for "modern" scenarios, and without for 1980s pre-hard-bass style. BTW: are you going to keep the Gorkas increased armor?

Never tried EndGame nor Vanguard, but I'd love too (also that heli-only mode) - so if someone knows good server where those modes are played often, lemme know. Problem is not that BI were not believing in those modes, but I think players were not - I never seen anyone playing them except for BI own streams. Warlords is fun and has some player-base, mostly because there really isn't a community straight-forward CTI style of mission like the old crCTI. I mean, yes there's some port of crCTI to Arma 3 but it barely works really, and other community "CTI-style" game modes are focused more on PvE (Liberation for example). KOTH is really "the" Arma 3 PvP mode, since it's "easy to pickup, hard to master" insanity. EndGame... I suppose it's too slow for most of the "casual" players, and "serious" guys would rather play traditional co-ops in mil-sim vein. Of course there's question why traditional CTF/mini-BF died in Arma - my guess is that realistic additions to the player movement and weapon behaviour, while giving players more fluidity and possibilities, also reduced the pure arcade "kinetic" gameplay which made CTF great in good old OFP. Which is funny because many OFP die-hards will argue that OFP is "more realistic" and Arma (especially Arma 3) is for "COD kiddies". One can't be further from truth...

Livonia new toy... Mods: none, just hacky script job.

Yeah, it'd be cool to have that stuff. I remember POLPOX's mod that brought the Argo skins to Arma, it made me chuckle in a positive way. Oh my, I'd love to get my hands on that... Yes, that's Marshall chassis with Rhino turret attached to it. Sadly scripted version sucks...

- Stilgar, do we have plane? - Usul, we have plane the likes of which even God has never seen! Mods and cDLCs: Western Sahara, CUP, CWR3, Serene Skies, DIREONE's Combat Poses pack, Baby Faces by Hautautuja, POLPOX's Artwork Supporter.

Exactly! Anyways, I managed to finish the first task (this time the "Clear Caches") simply by eliminating everything I could with a drone. However I noticed that: the enemy QRF seems to know the player position no matter what - I was 1.5 km away from the target, behind the ridge and only engaging hostiles in the town via drone. But QRF went racing through the town, straight to my position. Maybe that's just Arma though. the rooftop snipers, for some reason, have simulation turned off until player is closer than approx. 700 meters (or rather player controlled unit - drone in this case) - if I was further than that, the snipers were not even playing idle animations, and were not reacting to my shots at all. Also, an issue with returning to base. The "rest/sleep" cutscene kicks in way too fast - I couldn't leave intel in the tent. And despite having no intel collected Collecting intel kinda feels pointless if important events like this happen without player input. Out of curiosity: what AI settings you have in difficulty? Any AI mods like LAMBS? I personally decided to not bother with AI at all in this scenario. There is simply not enough of them to win the fight against double to triple the number of enemies. Placing them on the hill means nothing, since you have to place them in effective range of their weapons... which means, enemies can detect them too. And since I'm on an empty hill, and enemy is in the town, moving from cover to cover... the outcome is obvious. Unless you really did equip your team with .50 cal sniper rifles and Voronas. But with typical non-cheese loadout of 7.62 snipers you have to get inside 600 meter range for AI to make them effective. But that sword (the pun! the pun!) cuts both ways (and again, enemy has advantage of not being in the open). BTW: I still cannot find my account balance anywhere, only the notifications how much I've earned. Also: how to "refuel" the drone? Flexi-tanks on the helipad don't work. ...and another thing I just remembered: it seems it's impossible to enter the gunner position on uparmored .50 cal pickup from the back, I have to get in from the side.

Good to know. Excuse me, but bullshit. The APCs are apparently spawned around the objectives, and sit with engines at idle, so you can't hear them. At least that's what happens in "Clear Area" task. At least you have chance to see those, as opposed to random patrols - you won't hear them "from kilometers away" over the sound of your own engines. Heck, you can try your own virtual training scenario - the APC can be barely heard even 100 meters away when there's object occluding the sound. Anyway - this wouldn't be a problem if player would spawn with bigger, badder squad. At the moment the only option (early game) to fight them is to equip yourself with Vorona at the camp, and hope there isn't more than one APC, since you're going to have a hard time carrying more than one missile. You completely misunderstood me. It's not the travel time*. It's the number of enemy force between you (a 4 man squad) and the objective. And the issue of AI which cannot follow you in second car on a straight road without getting "lost" (more like: stopping in the middle and waiting for player to manually order "move" waypoints to player's position). These two issues make driving to objective either painful, or simply pointless, because you won't reach the destination before the task is failed. Helicopter insertion I haven't tried yet, but with APCs and AAA, I don't think it's worth the risk (extraction when you managed to kill everything? yeah, maybe). *Driving across the dunes is actually really fun and the two time trials are my favorite part of the DLC! The options you talk about may be possible in co-op, but solo? Operating drone makes you rather vulnerable and static. Which is perfectly fine, but... your fate relies on your AI companions. I guess that's why 99% of "use drone" events in Arma singleplayer missions put player in position where he cannot really be attacked by enemy. No such luxury in an "open" scenario. Same about taking a mortar - remember that in singleplayer mode there's only one player who must do all the recon, setting up the mortar and defending against random patrols. Even with team switch - you can't be in two places (persons) at once. Also such approach would make game way way longer than 5 hours, and as you've said: Speaking of which: when talking about allowing player choose tasks, I never meant making it "longer" than whatever it's supposed to take. Rather the opposite: let him know what he is going to fight with (approx. number of enemies, location, possible equipment - like those APCs - they could have etc.). So as he doesn't get into an hour long battle with force he can't beat alone with 3-4 AI comrades. Hell, I personally always go for as smallest number of combat encounters as possible, going far around the towns, trying to sneak in to the objective instead of going in guns blazing. At least, that's what I do in DRO, and "Extraction" really seems like an open-ended DRO. Nothing bad about that, but at least DRO has several things which make you not feel like you're fighting the game (issues of AI, spawns etc.). In "Extraction" just the small number of AIs that player can command make the game way harder, and then there's less intel about enemy force, the very open terrain that makes you huge target in AI eyes even if you can't see them yet and so on. And that's great - to some extent. But when you really have to be a one man army... it's not fun anymore. Anyway, some more observations: I cannot find any way to tell my money balance. Not in map view, not in radio menu - is it some object in the camp? A very weird issue where I couldn't kill a .50 cal gunner on a static uparmored pickup truck from 75 meters away from the side. I clearly saw his head, and put (what it seemed like) pretty accurate 5 shots into this head, before dying. I could have missed, but the rest of my squad couldn't kill him either, until the pickup turned it's rear to us. Now that I think about it, the only times when I killed the gunner on uparmored pickup was when either I hit him from the back, or from the top (downward shots sitting on a mountain/dune). Will test again in editor.

So, I tried the "Extraction" scenario, and well... it's painful, in a bad way. Let's start with the intro that gives you few actual informations about your purpose. Reading briefing is not optional. Random task assignment is not acceptable: my first task was to defend checkpoint which was in the southern part of the map. I lost probably 10 minutes trying to get AIs into the vehicles without them destroying the camp. Then I went southward (having to stop every 30 seconds to wait for other car - Arma thing, but scenario should take it into account) only to get blasted by host nation's APC - which is funny, because intro gives you feeling that you're operating with the host nation approval. After reload I haven't died, but task was marked as failed, because I haven't even got to the checkpoint. Okay, some lessons learned, let's restart. This time I got "destroy weapons caches" task - and it went "kind of" well. "Kind of" because enemy AI (I was fighting rebels, not the regular army) can snipe you from 400 meters with an AK. Again, Arma thing, but scenario should take it into account. Of course the same applies to friendly AI, but... you only start with 3. Since the objective was in the town (with enemies pre-placed in windows, or on rooftops - that's kinda cool) my comrades died in no time, leaving me alone with enemy reinforcements. I fell a hero, under hail of bullets. So, few notes. I don't see (story-wise) why I'd be blasted by Angara army, but maybe there's some explanation further down the quest. However, with me having a small team of PMCs, it's a bad idea even gameplay-wise: you just can't survive any accidental meeting with SFIA. Worst part: since they roll in APCs, they usually see you first. Old Man got it right: CSAT was not bothering you, unless you began bothering them. One of the few things Old Man did right from the start. But even taking on rebels, in singleplayer, is a huge effort due to Arma being Arma. This mission feels a lot like "Dynamic Recon Ops with a story" - however in DRO I usually went into the battle with full 12 person squad, and some armored vehicle that wouldn't die from first .50 cal burst. You can get more contractors in "Extraction", but not early in the game, and I don't see any option for buying vehicles. What can be done, however, is reviving. Especially since you can switch unit after first death - it'd greatly help solo players to have ability to get their squad back on legs after surviving casualties against overwhelming enemy force. Also - going back to the task assignement thing - IMO it would be way better to have player choose tasks, have him evaluate risks, or even possibility to join the fight (it's not fun to hear "you failed" because you were only through half of the way to the target, being busy micromanaging AIs who can't drive on straight road). I'm not done yet with the mission, but... it doesn't look promising. Maybe the "open world" framework doesn't really fit into traditional Arma 3 combat gameplay, and is better left to "walking sims" like Pilgrimage? I dunno. Also, once again in case of A3 paid mods Creator DLCs, it seems that what can make great, innovative mod, is often not enough to make a good product. Quality control issues that I could live with when it comes to mod ("hey, you put so much effort into this, who cares about bugs!"), are hard pill to swallow when one has to pay for them ("looks nice on screenshots, but barely works, 0/10, gimme my money back!"). Western Sahara is fortunately not that expensive as other cDLCs, but that's not enough of consolation when the "main course" of the DLC - the mission - is just not fun.

Just a quick report: the motion detector aspect ratio is borked on 5:4 screen (looks like egg) Time Trial scores are not displayed in the menu

I guess that's better for BISim than being owned by some random investment fund in Florida. ...also probably better than some "random Central European game developer" being bought out by some "random Chinese conglomerate".