twangydave

Icarus Burns by Twangydave's House of Blues - Version 0.13 - Alpha A single player British Special Forces mission loosely based on Operation Mikado, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mikado and taking some inspiration from Operation Entebbe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entebbe_Raid Features: Story driven and structured mission ideal for newer players or Arma veterans wanting some old fashioned entertainment. Play as British SAS troops with accurately modelled uniforms and weapons. Set piece battles featuring over 350 AI. Combat includes building clearance, long range engagements in mountainous terrain and urban fire fights involving house to house fighting. Random outcomes influence the mission meaning each play through is different. Troop transport aircraft can be damaged or destroyed as can Close Air Support aircraft, re-enforcement choppers and other vehicles. The ability of friendlies to complete their objectives and stay alive will have a bearing on the difficulty of your own tasks. Realistic ammo loads. Further ammunition must be scavenged from the fallen or taken from squad mates. Airborne re-enforcements. Auto-saves at key points with a further user save available if needed. Group menu included to allow you to join and lead a new squad if yours is killed or lacks enough manpower to complete the task. Voice acting by Twangydave and original music by Josh Woodward - http://www.joshwoodward.com Dependencies: You must download and run these mods in order to play the mission. I'll probably do a Vanilla version soon, so wait for that if you don't like mods. play withSix is one of the easiest and quickest way to install them. http://play.withsix.com/ You'll need Community Base Addons installed. http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=18767 United States Air Force mod by fullerpj,Peral, Randomslap, Dezkit and Sig http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=25513 UK Special Forces Mod by massi http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=19346 NATO SF and Russian Spetsnaz Weapons mod by massi http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=21912 Optional sound and vision enhancements: You don't need these to play the mission but they will really enhance the experience. If you get too much slow down by using them then just disable them. Blastcore A3 by Opticalsnare http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=23899 J.S.R.S 2.2 Sound mod by Lord Jarhead http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=22150 How to install: Extract the .pbo file(s) to your Steam/SteamApps/common/ArmA 3/Missions folder. Downloads: Dropbox: http://www.dropbox.com/s/4ammv36p2ysbmfw/Icarus_Burns.Stratis.pbo?dl=0 Armaholic: Icarus Burns (@) Steam Workshop: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=302503352&searchtext= Disclaimer: This project is in the ALPHA state. It may contain errors or lack certain features. The story as well as mission design are subject of change. Feedback is much appreciated. Known issues: Missing sound files: Some weapon sound files can pop up as missing as a result of the last official BI update. They'll be fixed in time and do not effect the mission – just click to continue. Stuck Choppers: Both the pilots of the AH-99's are fond of taking a breather half way through the action. They do remember their way-points after a while and it doesn't really have any bearing on the outcome of the mission. I will be looking into it further. The C130/A164/Merlin/AH99/Ghosthawk pilot flew into a mountain! It happens, a mission like this would be highly likely to lose aircraft and teams due to the hazardous nature of flying low altitude at night in enemy airspace. Revert to an earlier save if you find yourself unable to complete the mission or start again. Those are the fortunes of war! License: Content created by Twangydave's House of Blues is published under the "Arma Public License Share Alike (APL-SA)". You are free to take or change anything you can use, just give me a mention in the credits. Background: Following the successful CSAT invasions of Stratis and Altis, NATO retreated behind a defensive air perimeter to lick its wounds. As the months passed, CSAT's brutal rule of the islands stoked the fires of insurgency and young men fled from the towns in their hundreds to join with the FIA in their mountain bases. Lacking both the manpower and political will to mount a re-invasion, NATO continued to assist the FIA struggle with Special Forces and drone strikes. The FIA fought hard but began to lose traction in the face of sustained air strikes that threatened to destroyed their ability to resist. The FIA reached out to London and begged for a raid that could significantly degrade CSAT's air superiority. Given assurances that such an outcome might trigger a wider uprising in the Aegean region, NATO decided to roll the dice. Somewhere in Hereford a phone was ringing......... Performance: My computer is almost 3 years old now and it runs everything very smoothly with the base game and the dependencies needed for the mission. There is just the tiniest bit of slow down in the busiest sections when I'm also running Blastcore A3 and J.S.R.S 2.2. I'm hoping that means most people will be able to play the mission smoothly but I do have an over clocked processor and lots of RAM so this one might be best avoided if your system is very modest. My specs: Intel Core i5 2500K Processor Overclocked to up to 4.6GHz Asus P8Z68-V LE Motherboard 12GB PC3-10666 1333MHz DDR3 Memory (3 x 4GB sticks) AMD Radeon HD 6850 1024MB Graphics Card 1000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps Thanks and credits: Bohemia Interactive and the awesome community. United States Air Force mod by fullerpj, Peral, Randomslap, Dezkit and Sig. UK Special Forces Mod by massi. NATO SF and Russian Spetsnaz Weapons mod by massi. Zuff's Group Managment Script 1.1 by Zuff. AI Spawn Script Pack 0.90 by fdsspun. I Want to Destroy Something Beautiful by Josh Woodward - http://www.joshwoodward.com Cherubs by Josh Woodward - http://www.joshwoodward.com Dedicated to the bravery of the men, women and animals of UKSF.

Hey guys! Charlie release is awesome. What is amazing about this mod is the atmosphere that it has, it really feels RIGHT! I know some people are hoping for more SP missions, I'm working on one which I hope will be a goodie, now Charlie release is out I'm confident that I can be finished by the end of the month. Hope you don't mind me posting a video of some early WIP stuff, keep up the great work guys, this is one of the best things to ever come to Arma3.

Twangydave's House of Blues present 'City of Death'. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcHKfDMaiKs&feature=youtu.be How to install: Extract the .pbo file(s) to your Steam/SteamApps/common/ArmA 3/Missions folder. Downloads: Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/edp96cgfp38ji63/City_of_Death.Altis.pbo?dl=0 Steam Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=599979823&searchtext= Armaholic: http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=30208 Much of the historic and beautiful city of Kavala has recently been destroyed by an earthquake. Following the disaster, the government and military of Altis struggled to maintain order and looting and wholesale violence soon broke out in the streets of the capital. Arguing the need to return order to the region, but against the wishes of the Altean government, CSAT moved a small force onto the island and declared martial law. The aim of CSAT is clear, to bolster their military grip on the region while defending their actions as humanitarian relief efforts for the stricken island. The government of Altis was horrified to see foreign troops on their soil but their diminished and weakened armed forces were powerless to resist. Knowing that they must act before CSAT can establish a stranglehold on the island, they have contacted NATO and requested that a Quick Reaction Force be landed at Neri to clear CSAT troops from the island. As would be expected a full range of support is available to you including artillery strikes, helicopter support and close air support. If you are struggling, use the resources available to you to destroy the bulk of the enemy and then mop up with your infantry. There are multiple save points provided and also a number of troop re-enforcement spots (marked on the map), these will add up to an extra 5 men to your squad but use them wisely as they only work once. Supplies are also available to allow you to tackle the mission any way you want to. A full range of sniper rifles, launchers and explosives are available at the marked locations. There are no vehicles, this is a long range patrol mission for infantry. THIS MISSION REQUIRES NO MODS and is designed for vanilla Arma 3. For your immersion, I would suggest that you run the following as they are worth their weight in gold in terms of sound, visuals and immersion. Blastcore A5 Blastcore: Phoenix Blastcore Skies JSRS: Dragonfyre 2.01 Unit SFX Thanks and credits: Bohemia Interactive and the awesome community. AI Spawn Script Pack 0.90 by fdsspun.

Hello mate, I noticed that no one has posted any footage yet so I thought I'd pop some up of a quick chopper tour. The island is staggering in terms of its size and a monumental acheivement on your behalf. I could imagine that long range land rover patrols of the type undertaken by the LRDG during WW11 could be run with ease on this map and could easily cover many hours or days of immersive and compelling game play. I think this map is a big winner - great work!

Hi EgilSandfeld, The Island is beautiful and a great playground! I got the idea to re-create this old classic video on Bornholm as it looks very similar this was my effort, hope you like seeing your work flashing by the canopy! Sadly, YouTube still blurs Arma 3 grass so the video has lost a lot of clarity and some FPS from the original but watched in full HD it still has some nice moments. Thanks again, I'll be playing with this Island for some time!

Hey GrumpyRhino! These Hueys are lovely, I've just started working on a 1960's themed mission/scenario loosely based on Operation Dragon Rouge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Dragon_Rouge and these brilliant choppers will feature heavily. I thought I'd just post a little teaser as the helicopters look particular lovely in the African sunshine! The vid won't play in USA sadly due to copyright issues with the Wagner music but I'm uploading to my dropbox and will add a link. Thanks again for these great vehicles! Edit: Dropbox link for USA viewers - watch in preview to view directly rather than download https://www.dropbox.com/s/vy1f8hfv7ag83fz/Charlie_Don%27t_Surf.avi?dl=0

The islands are not big enough for fast air, the solution seems to have been to make the planes fly really slowly which just looks silly. Having the AI planes fly at authentic speed would be good so they quite literally scream over your head and disappear in scant seconds but currently it's all a bit wrong. What I could see working as a paid DLC is one really well done carrier which is superbly detailed with correct lifts, internal briefing areas, command and control and authentic comms, maps and navigation and realistic personnel numbers with the area of operations being huge open seas (needing low resources?) which would allow a flight time of 20-30 minutes before reaching Altis or other island. This could recreate a 'Falklands' style scenario where your time over the island would be very (realistically) short and your combat air patrols or bombing run missions would be subject to the constraints of fuel and weather. With enemy forces seeing your carrier as the main target, scenarios would be open where the main engagements with the enemy aircraft would be over the ocean as you sought to protect and they sought to attack, negating the need for being over resource hungry land terrain. A massive job I'd guess which would need a flight model for jets, a huge map, mid air re-fuelling mechanisms etc so probably beyond the scope of Arma. I'd love it if they just did a period correct Falklands for the next island to be honest. I wouldn't need the naval stuff, just a great terrain, all the right units and weapons and a few choppers for the Brits!

Just install Ewk_Cigs by MrEwok http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?187919-Ewk_cigs ---------- Post added at 23:55 ---------- Previous post was at 23:44 ---------- Ha! Not sure what strain is growing in the compound, you'll have to ask the Project Reality guys! I have damage turned off for my character on the videos as it means no stoppages that need to be edited out of the videos. The idea is to showcase the map and the mods, not my skills playing as I'm really bad and get killed constantly when playing for real or just lie in a ditch and wait for the shooting to stop!! Hopefully my video (though it is a bit unrealistic) gives some inspiration of how this great map can be used for real Arma 3 missions and shows what a terrific terrain it is and how much hard work has gone into making it.

Hi guys! Map is looking really great, I've had chance to do a little video in another area, showcasing some foot patrolling and compound clearing, watch in HD if you can!

Thanks for the units EvroMalarkey! They get top billing in my latest video but they do mostly get shot!!

The SpookWarCom -- Darker Immersion & Spec-Ops Gameplay link that I posted makes it easy to set up the types of scenarios that you want to play in the Editor. I haven't used it yet but will be doing so in the future. If you haven't messed around with the editor yet then I strongly recommend you give it a go, it's one of Arma 3's best features. It's really simple to use and, with mods engaged, you can produce exactly what it is you want without the shortcomings of the official content. The greatest thing BI did was to give us the tools to make the game the way we want to play it. I, like you, enjoy the spec ops stuff, here's an example of a scenario I've just finished which showcases UKSF. AS you can see, you can do pretty much what you want! Following the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, 2003 it has been reported that an SAS Squadron has been assigned to a joint US/UK group of Special Operations units operating in the country, known previously as Task Force 145 (TF-145). Now reportedly renamed to TF-88, this cream of Western Special Operators consists of several elements: •TF Black - - made up of an SAS sabre squadron, supported by a Company of SFSG (TF Maroon). Some SBS operators are thought to be attached to TF Black. Takistan is a lawless and remote kingdom whose rulers ignore the poverty of their people and instead fill their pockets by supplying opium to the world-wide drugs trade and by providing a safe haven for international terrorism. Intelligence reports reach Western agencies and alert them to the fact that leading figures in the many disparate terrorist cells that ply their trade in the region are due to meet in the militarised town of Rasman to discuss co-ordinated action against NATO forces. Wanting to 'cut the head off the snake', military planners begin to formulate a mission to assault Rasman during the meeting and kill or capture the terrorist leaders. Their plans soon hit a brick wall as Takistan is spectacularly inaccessible and the few mountain passes that lead into the country are narrow, mined with explosives and so heavily defended that they are effectively impregnable. The operators of United Kingdom Special Forces (Task Force Black) come up with an audacious plan to assault Rasman from the air, taking their famous Land Rovers with them slung underneath the Chinooks that will be transporting the troops. They will launch the raid from a covert CIA air base that lies to the South of Takistan in a friendly country. Fast air will also fly out of the base to support the assault and protect the helicopters. Several specialist teams of saboteurs, Forward Air Controllers and demolitions experts are infiltrated into the country before the assault launches. Their job will be to cripple the logistics and vehicles at Rasman Airbase so the Takistani Air Force cannot launch its few jets, they will also designate targets for the fast air. Once the assault begins, local resistance forces will secure the roads out of Rasman and prevent anyone escaping. Once troops are clear, explosives will be set on the towns infrastructure and detonated. Amazing Mods by the following hard working and inspirational authors: Takistani Army by EvroMalarkey All in Arma Terrain Pack by Kju Blastcore A3 by OpticalSnare UK Special Forces by Massi Nato SF and Russian Spetsnaz Vehicles by Massi Nato SF and Russian Weapons by MassiCAF Aggressors by Ohalley JSRS 3 DragonFyre by Lord Jarhead Lifter for Arma 3 by Raven Boeing/SOAR MH-47E by konyo Arma 2 Mil Mi-24 Hind Port by Chairborne bCombat AI Mod by fabrizio_T Blood Mist by Lao Fei Mao Death Screams by LAxeman Community Base Addons by CBA Team Community Upgrade Project by kju East Tank Pack by Reyhard F-16C Fighting Falcon by Firewill Joint Rails by Robalo Middle East Conflict Mod by Drongo69 RDS East Static Weapons Pack by Reyhard RHS: Armed Forces of the Russian Federation by Red Hammer Studios STI A-10A A3 by Stiltman Tactical Beards by Interbred TMR Modular Realism by Taosenai F/A-18 Super Hornet and Su-35S Flanker E by John_Spartan and Saul I think that's everyone but apologies if I missed anyone!

There's masses of really good SF type missions available through Steam Workshop, here, Armaholic etc - have you looked around much? I'd be surprised if you can't find stuff you'd like. There is also a staggering amount of high quality mods that will give you any of the SF units or equipment you need to create your own scenarios and run with friends. As a first point of call, look at some of the stuff in the Make Arma Not War contest, a lot of that stuff is up to commercial standard. How about this?: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?186690-SpookWarCom-Darker-Immersion-amp-Spec-Ops-Gameplay

Hi Brendan, The best way to get started on this is just plonk yourself down with a quad bike on a map and start looking around. Make sure you have binos or a range finder and then have at it. It's one of my most favourite parts of planning a scenario or mission particularly when a new map comes out and it's surprising how the topography of a location can have a big influence on how your scenario pans out. From a narrative point of view, I found it was easier to build a structure for my scenarios if I thought in terms of the landscape supporting different points of the mission i.e. Insertion, travel to objective and then extraction. So, for example if I was using a small team inserting by fast boat, I'd look for a nice looking beach/cove for the boats to land, perhaps then a dramatic cliff to climb that I could place defences at the top of that needed to be knocked out, then say an industrial area within easy march that could be the objective location and then a flat area beyond this that could be used for helicopter extraction. Having an idea of what sort of mission you want to plan will help you look for the right location. Best of luck!

I've got blurred grass in my latest videos, not found a fix yet.

Splendid! Look forward to the update!

Awesome map guys, what you've already done is excellent and it's brilliant that's there's so much more to come. The map feels really authentic and dusty and I love the expansiveness of the horizon and how everything feels BIG and WIDE, the undulations and terrain are spot on and very immersive. I hope you don't mind but I've done a little video of me running a scenario on the map and I've made sure to only show the stuff that has been mostly completed. Hopefully it will help to get some people enthused about the possibilities of the map. Great work guys!

Huge kudos to Silola, Atsche, Hotzenplotz, Sky, t-800a, MCPXXL, poolpunk and Heros for this incredible work of art. I hope you won't mind me posting this here, my intention being to demonstrate that, not only is the map beautiful and detailed, it is also a really well designed Arma map that is great to play the game on. I've had to reduce the 'beauty' a little and I hope you forgive me for that, but I hope the video shows that small unit combat can be done on this map and can be really good. This particular fight really reminded me of the days after D-Day as the Allies were fighting door to door through beautiful French towns and countryside. Indeed, as you come from the West of West City you pass through vineyards and past châteaux into a distinctly French looking area of wide streets, leafy suburbs and grand houses. Watch in HD.

I accept the points you guys have made and everyone accepts that improvements to both engine performance and AI behaviour are both desired and needed. But the fact is they are unlikely to happen in this version of Arma. Is the game effectively unplayable with large numbers of AI active as some are suggesting? No, I don't accept that. Asked to provide evidence of large numbers of AI operating without significant lag, I've provided one mission vid with 200 active AI and multiple vehicles and when this was said to be insufficient and inaccurate, I've provided another with all the AI in action at the same time. I can't keep making videos to demonstrate that the game runs fine for me, those with AI and performance issues (perceived or actual) will continue to have them regardless of my input. I agree that doing more complex and involving things with AI would be great but I suspect that all that stuff is further down the line and beyond the allowed reach of community modders. Making AI just stay in buildings seems almost impossible without disabling their simulations - everything else mentioned would surely be at a level of complexity way beyond that simple task and most likely within code that is not accessible to the community. I accept the game is not 'optimised' either in the sense of its performance or AI behaviour but I don't see that as an impediment to enjoying the things it does offer. Although I'm fairly new to the Arma series my impression is that the game has never been perfect and everyone who interfaces with it does so with an acceptance and understanding of its obvious flaws. TL;DR Hope for better in Arma 4 - enjoy Arma 3 as you can.

As promised, 160 ai fire fight where they all engage at once. No 'lag' that I felt would spoil your enjoyment, no delay on firing guns etc My computer is 3 years old and my graphics card is modest so I'm not running with maximum eye candy and my own opinion is that I'd rather have a lower level of detail with more action. I stick to the opinion that with 160 active ai, (plus some scripting to clean up bodies and destroyed vehicles and some scripting to spawn additional replacement ai) I can do most things that I want to do in Arma 3.

Making videos creates a lot of lag so FPS in videos are not always a great guide. Have a look at this video of a mission that I produced recently When this mission initialises there are 205 active AI, not all engage at the same time but they are all active on the map. In addition to the AI, there are lots of unmanned vehicles, loads of IED type explosions and active manned vehicles performing tasks including:- 2 x A164 and pilots 2 x AH99 and pilots 2 x HC3 Merlin and crew 1 x UH80 and crew I'm also running Blastcore and JSRS 2.2 in the video. My specs are:- Intel Core i5 2500K Processor Overclocked to up to 4.6GHz Asus P8Z68-V LE Motherboard 12GB PC3-10666 1333MHz DDR3 Memory (3 x 4GB sticks) AMD Radeon HD 6850 1024MB Graphics Card 1000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps I have had some people complain that the mission was running at 6-7 FPS, but when I've checked, they have always had really outdated hardware. Arma needs good computers and plenty of RAM. Obviously everything is not visible in the video but feel free to un-PBO the mission and check it if you want. I'll also happily set up a 75 v 75 infantry fight in broad daylight for you and video it and add it to this thread. Might be able to do that on Monday, will get back to you. ---------- Post added at 21:28 ---------- Previous post was at 20:36 ---------- I've just done a quick 80 v 80 fire fight at the airport on the big island. No performance problems that I noticed. I will video and post as soon as I am able.

I look around and see so much user created content that is amazing. The best stuff IS optimised by authors spawning AI only on player approach, caching and dead body/vehicle clear-up. All systems do and will have limitations and working successfully within these constraints is what separates those that can and those that cannot. The authors of these great mods, campaigns and missions do not sit on their hands waiting for the game to be 'fixed' before they engage with it, they excel even with the limitations and constraints that are the current reality. Arma 3 needs a decent computer, that much is true and it's unlikely to be optimised that it will run great on older systems. Some say that the game is badly designed and poorly engineered to the extent that even really good computers fail to make it really whizzy. I don't know about that stuff. It runs great on my PC and I think there is a lot to enjoy. As far as active AI is concerned, my performance is great up to about 150 AI and then starts to crap out after that. That seems like a good number to me, bear in mind that if BI give stable 300 v 300 fights then people will question why they can't get a 400 v 400 fight to run smoothly. That's the way it's always been, people are never content with performance, they always want more.

I think that someone your age getting stuck into this project is brilliant and you have a very bright future if you can pull all this off. But you do have to be careful when using other people's hard work. If you are just 'tweaking' an existing mod perhaps it would be best to list it as such rather than something released under your own name. Plenty of people have updated, expanded or 'tweaked' other stuff when the original authors lose interest or can't work on it any more but they tend to describe it as an extension of the original authors work. I wish you the very best of luck, but I (like others) have found your descriptions a little confusing. Get that stuff cleared up and I'm sure everybody can get behind supporting the work you are doing. Edit: wrote this before seeing Stiltman's post.

Congrats on the new members! I think I read something from a rude man earlier in the thread - but I'm pretending I didn't see it. Trust me when I say that anyone who has created content for this game understands the massive time effort and commitment that goes into producing something great like this. We are very grateful!