Terremer

not related to mods, but my favorite thing to do in Stratis is to cruise around the coasts just above the water in a little bird. After flying over desert so much I really enjoy the island geography.

I havent played arma3 much lately but ive been playing loads of arma 2 (all the missions and mods are hard to get away from). I had the same thing when I first started playing arma2, always being lost and not really knowing how to do anything. Learning all of the controls and weapon/vehicle systems comes with time, the best way to learn is to just experiment with all the weapons, attachments, etc and see how it all works. I've gotten used to the scope selection hotkey being a toggle, but it is kind of weird at first. You just have to remember what scope you are active with and toggle before you need to use it. The hard part is remembering which scope, sometimes i shoulder my weapon in a building to have my magnified optics selected and cant see shit, lol. If you want to look into it, there's mods in place to do some of the small things you said, like add a stance indicator, and there's the glorious Shacktac hud that shows a small 'radar' at the bottom of the screen that shows your nearby squad mates and their orientation using markers like on the map. The problem with mods is that you usually have to play on the same server or group of servers that allow said mods, or else you get kicked for mod mismatch. You should try to familiarize yourself with your squad members in the mission screen before you join, and in game I beleive you can open your map and theres buttons for players, tasks, etc, where one should have your squad (i know you can in arma2 at least). Also, you should be able to see green diamond markers on your squadmates depending on the mission and mission difficulty. The marker with the chevrons is the squad leader. As far as orders, using your Group voice chat is extremely useful, it only transmits to your squad so you can ask a bunch of questions without bothering the entire team. if you type instead while group channel is selected it will send a message to only your squad as well. you can change chat channels with the ,. keys. Direct is a local channel that simulates voice, so only close people can hear and it is directional. Voice over all channels is also direct(i believe, at least it is in arma2/mods), so even if you talk into global chat nearby people can still hear (this is very important to know if you ever play a PvP match!). I;ve found that most people are pretty friendly and helpful, and as long as you show youre willing to learn people will try to help out. If they complain about you being new or are just generally rude, you dont want to be in that squad anyways. This is starting to get extremely long, oh well. The last thing i wanted to say is that you should use your map quite a bit at first to get your orientation, and to see where your team is. Again depending on the mission and settings, you can either see the entire team cross map, or only your squad, or only close teammates. Enemies that have been spotted or are close enough will show on the map(again kinda depends on mission/settings/mods), so you have a general idea of where the action is. An extremely useful thing to know is that you can shift-left click the map to put a marker there, that you can see on the map as well as in game. So you can put a marker at a town you are going to attack, and you get a 3d marker in game to see where it is and how far away (VERY useful for driving/flying where you cant exactly open the map all the time.). Other than that just play around and have fun, and although it is a 'serious' game, it doesnt have to be taken completely seriously. The only time we play serious missions is when we plan an operation weeks in advance and set up squads and tactics ahead of time. Just try to stick with your squad or at least other friendlies if you cant find your squad, and just explore and have fun. Some of the best moments i've had in arma are from getting completely wasted by the enemy, such as wandering through a town and getting artillery'd or driving around in a light vehicle and running into a a few enemy tanks. The variety of encounters in the game is vast, and it throws you into so many different situations. Hope this giant wall of text helps you out in some way or another. The beta hype is wanting me to get back into the game, as well as everyone trying to relive all these awesome arma2 missions and mods while we wait...