foffy

Maybe it's PumpkinZ? A post apocalyptic vegetation conflict. ;)

I said it in the Tanks DLC thread, and maybe needs to be said here, presuming that the ArmA III Roadmap implies this is the next thing coming. I would like playable content with the DLC. What we've largely been getting via these DLCs is playable assets. Please feature a mini-campaign or at least a mission pack that emphasizes the jets. A Showcase isn't enough if you want people to buy it for its content, not its assets. I was able to forgive the earlier model for ArmA III and bought the DLC out of respect for Bohemia's approach, but when Apex kind of skipped on content too for a contested, short campaign, I have a hard time paying money for something that seems like it is just toys for multiplayer. What would make any of the new jets more interesting or more engaging than what we already have, officially or otherwise? What usually helped incentivize it would be the content that came with it, for not many people in the community make scenarios or campaigns that rival Bohemia's works. Pitch the official work more than what the community can come up with. "Three jets!" isn't something a modder couldn't do, for example. Three jets and a well designed bombing mission with it is actually much further than the community would go with. If you want people to support the DLC, make it more than assets. Give us scenarios where we're the Super Omega Delta Squad and have to deal with an aviation skirmish or something. Make it something where the premium content actually comes with a premium experience.

I would like to agree with the calls to content packs. I think if the coming DLCs are not going to have campaigns like ArmA II did, the least they can be are mission packs. Showcase missions are ingame tutorials, and not enough. That said, I am very happy this campaign is being converted. I do wonder what they'll change though. If it's adding AI and making it follow SP rules...couldn't someone actually mod this to to be so right now? I didn't get too far in the game because I disliked the forced solo play and respawns, so I only got up to mission two. I understand the campaign is short and was designed this way, so I am happy to see they've taken the time out to try and design the campaign for players in the formula they've had with prior campaigns. I can't see too much being added, for I don't know what they could add. Customizable loadouts for all blufor elements on your squad seems like the only big change I can think of...

I'm not sure I am giving feedback, but instead putting the question out there: Would BI be making any meaningful content focused on whatever they make as this DLC? One of the things I have found a bit upsetting about the way they've done premium playable content this time around is that the scenarios made in-house have been slim pickings. Looking at ArmA II's DLCs, each DLC was focused on an army, and each came with content - typically campaigns - that tried to emphasize the experience intended by it. PMC, for example, gave you content that made you feel like a contractor, and both the Campaign and Scenarios emphasized this. Each had a theme, a purpose, and had enough content to play with that you were able to get a good vibe for the scope of the content. I have felt with ArmA III's DLCs that this experience has been lacking, and has almost been handwaved to the multiplayer to try and get to. Marksman only had two scenarios IIRC, and one of them had nothing to do with sniping, whereas Helicopters really only had flying time trials and multiplayer scenarios that were essentially the same thing but with a pick-up/deploy system for transport troops. Would it be too much to ask for something like a campaign or a series of missions to help give the themes of the content more weight and significance? Showcases help people learn of the mechanics, but learning the systems and refinements added may also happen with a campaign. After all, if you give people a jet mission, what exactly makes that more interesting than the one already in the game as I write this? What would a new tank scenario really add that players of ArmA III didn't get from the Beta release? Maybe a series of missions focusing on jet gameplay - a bombing mission, a mission dealing with other jets, even a mission where one gets bombed from the sky and has to escape/survival ala Cold War Crisis - would deeply enhance the experience intended with these DLCs. The same absolutely applies to tanks, as both jets and tanks have been lacking in the game overall. For most of what BI has put out, it's been about infantry and maybe 1% something else. Premium content to play with as toys is fine. But I'd like to have premium content to offer an experience as well, if that's possible. The best offering of the DLCs so far to do this was that one mission from Marksman that actually forced you be a marksman. Because of its immersion, its emphasis on getting the systems and new gameplay features right or else you wouldn't be able to complete the mission successfully, the experience of sniping helped hook the systems and purposes of mechanics into me as a player in a deeper way than simply remembering button combinations to deploy my weapon or zoom my scope. I would like a more substantial taste of this moving with tanks and jets, for these have been sorely lacked in similar manners for almost the entirety of ArmA III's existence. Those are presently arenas where you learn mechanics in mutilplayer.

The biggest complaint Apex Protocol had was it was a co-op centric campaign. As such, many of its designs were not happily accepting by milsim players, because many systems were "dumbed down" for the ease of play a drop-in-drop-out system was. Respawn systems work for a co-op session, but for those who wanted a milsim session were absolutely boned. I am someone who put in over 900 hours into the franchise, with nearly 300 in ArmA III. None of that was online. I never even bothered to finish the second mission in Apex Protocol, because I didn't like how I was an endlessly cloned super soldier who had to Rambo the whole game. I stopped right after completing the objective where you had to bomb a convoy. That should tell you I didn't get far at all. The fact BI listened to this niche base of players shows they at least have to be mindful of the more glaring problems, like performance. They will hopefully tackle performance with updates here, but I think it's fair to say your best bet of a boost is from their next project. The Enfusion Engine looks to be their base for new projects, so all I ask of it is it supports similar mod tools ArmA already has; you don't want people who've made ACE have to work with an entirely alien system, for example. After all, what's an easier bubble to pop and fix: a campaign that people want to play in a certain way, or core engine and design decisions that play a role in performance?

That would make sense why this time, of all times, they felt the need to detach the AI commanding system from the experience. They designed a system - the revive jazz - which presently doesn't work with AI.

Finished? Have they made a claim that neither component is 'finished' for Apex?

You know, this post kind of made me realize Bohemia has not really tried to ever focus on police/counterterrorist efforts in their games, despite leaving assets for them in at least two games. Take on Helicopters had a mission where you worked on a SWAT raid, and ArmA III only had a fire drill mission with a hostage scenario. Apex now has a faction (Gendarmerie) focused on them, and yet they're just..there. If they wanted to make a more casual co-op campaign, I think using the police faction as the base would have made more sense. They're focused on "low-tier" weaponry, much like Syndikat is. It would probably have had better room to justify cops respawning without lore issues when compared to a small team of special forces.

Could you explain could snatch a tank in Bingo Fuel? I know the mission is considered the hardest of the East Wind campaign, and I imagine it is due to the fact infantry vs. armor is always favored to armor, especially considering the mission has at least four armored vehicles against your squad.

This only stands out more, because two-thirds of ArmA III's main campaign literally allowed this. They literally have an example of doing this in the base game, so to see it not in the expansion's campaign is bizarre.

I assumed that this would have been like the Harvest Red campaign: you have a team of four, each as unique characters, with players able to choose which they were in co-op. Instead, it's essentially a campaign where you are a nameless soldier, and if you play offline, you're caught in Red Hammer-esqe Rambo missions? That already sounds disappointing. Perhaps one can use mods in single player to add three AI allies and force saves, like a few mods did for the mission Game Over. Then you can kind of force it into a more traditional single player experience. Regardless, though, I do wish to praise Bohemia for being ambitious with Apex Protocol, if only because they said they wanted to make a co-op campaign, and they actually did. They marketed the campaign first and foremost as a co-op campaign, but I wish it would add some things to make it more serviceable for single player fans like myself.

I too have noticed this problem, but I would guess it has to involve further complexity in missions or coding. If you were to make a mission in the editor with an AT guy with the Titan at a basic tank/APC, it works flawlessly. However, to give the specifics of how it got bugged for me, the weapon makes a firing noise but nothing happens in the mission Bingo Fuel, which I needed to bring a Titan in for. Maybe something in either the base code or one of the mods is essentially not running fully? Using the tube RPG that runs out in one use which also locks on (the name escapes me) appears to work fine in that exact same mission. I swapped between the two on the fly and the Titan simply doesn't work when fired. I thought my issue may have been another mod or something I altered via a single player cheat mod so I restarted the whole mission, but this issue happens without those variables in play.

Quick, albeit dumb question. Does JSRS4 APEX make JSRS3 DragonFyre EDEN obsolete, or are they used in combination? I ask because I haven't a clue if this sound mod is just for Tanoa stuff, while the other was for Altis/Stratis stuff. I also ask because unless I've been out of the loop for a while now, DragonFyre EDEN was updated just a few weeks ago..

I imagine compromises are made because of the scope of the game. Because it's trying to cover all aspects of military combat while still being a consumer product, it will obviously have omissions. The plus side is if anybody seems to have desires dealing with omissions regarding the game, one can try to mod them in. This is how we've gotten AI enhancement mods, sound enhancement mods, damage system mods, etc.

Isn't Miller, next to Reynolds from ArmA II PMC/ToH, the only other living 'antagonist' between games?

Doesn't upgrading offices mean you can hire more people? Not just new types. Upgrading offices and barracks allows you to have more elements to set out on missions, IIRC.

This cannot be repeated loudly enough. Consider how in pre-ArmA II games, you couldn't reload while moving. Going back to the old games as old games is rather janky.

Have they stated what playable content will launch with Apex? I don't mean assets and islands to play content with. I mean playable content out of the box. I am only aware of Apex Protocol, a main campaign for Apex. Have they said anything on Showcases/Missions in addition to that?

I see. Interestin'. What would need to be changed with that script to make it apply to all units if one starts pre-made content, like as alluded to, the campaign? I'm not an decent coder in the slightest, but from what I can grasp at that script, it seems to be designed to be used as an init to a specific unit. How can one make it general to all active elements in a mission? I'm quite sure the above is a pretty dumb question. :P

Sorry to bump this, but I'm currently replaying The East Wind in preparation for Apex, and I was curious about something regarding this post. Is there a way to alter that script to allow the AI to self-heal? Because what I gather from the post, only humans and AI medics can heal, and that kinda leaves out the regular dudes. :P

Hi friends, I figure I would ask and inquire here. Does anyone know what addon overrides the vanilla weather system? I ask because when playing missions that have rain - say for example, the last Time Trial for the Helicopters DLC for something from vanilla - there is supposed to be rain, but when ACE is active, the rain only lasts for about one second, and instantly vanishes. I assume it's ACE_Weather, but what would removing that pbo do to the game outside of giving me vanilla weather options? Does it only remove the ability to check the wind and the way it blows with Shift + K?

Greetings, friends. I've been out of the loop for ArmA III for quite a while, so I wanted to ask if there are any mods that autozoom your weapons. I know there was one in a Mao collection of addons, but that was made ages ago; most of the DLC weapons made for ArmA III were not supported, and I can only imagine the same will apply to all Apex weapons.

I assume at minimum they're sticking with ArmA III's engine, and taking any ideas from other projects into consideration. I also think it's too early to talk about ArmA IV. I know the last time BI talked about it - it was before ArmA III launched - that it might be a 2017 project. The fact they've said nothing about it now confirms it's a long way off. As an aside, has BI ever confirmed if the Apex is the last major update coming to ArmA III? ArmA II was supported with official content, DLCs, and expansion from launch to 2012, which was about four years, and some of that came out after the expansion did. I was curious if III will get similar support.

I was able to test the above by applying this to an init, and it seems to be working, at least for infantry. For tanks and air units, it is apparently not working at all. I realized the above script wasn't ideal, so it had to essentially match your first script and merely replace the value being referenced. You have to essentially repeat it three times. It seems to be working for me, though as I said, I would like to figure out how to set this up as a setup beyond editing the missions themselves. Say if I want to play CWR2, ArmA Rearmed 2, and all of ArmA II's campaigns, that's a lot of adding this in. :P Thank you for helping me this much, at the very least. You've really helped a problem I had with the game for months. I have a pbo of it here, for those interested.

Thanks. Though, is there a way to try and set up a script like an addon, so I essentially don't have to edit every ArmA II campaign I wanna play? I can do it manually, but that's a lot of work. :P And assuming I can mix the two scripts you posted before to get what I want, would this be an ideal result? I want two large bandages and one morphine to emulate ACE 3, as well as to work around the ACE 2 bug that's plagued ArmA II since last year; items have to be added to an AI's inventory or the AI has to be personally inspected for them to realize they have these items. It used to auto-add and auto-initialize as long as ACE Wounds was on, but now they have to be manually added to AI inventory, hence why I asked for a scripting workaround.