I'm new and I'm lost / Some help for those new to the fold?

I never played any ArmA game because I never had a good enough computer. But now I do, but to be honest I have no idea how to play this game. I did the infantry show case and I understand the basic controls, however; how do I get into real battles? I tried the multiplayer servers with 40 people, but all the vehicles are laggy and I everyone is complaining about lag. Multilayer seems utterly broken.

So if someone could please help me out, I want to play matches and have realistic firefights but I'm lost in the interface. What is worse is that there is no tutorial to help new players (the field manual is very helpful thu). Also how do I check my fps? What settings should I run the game?

I have:

Processor: Intel® Core i7-3770K CPU @ 3.50GHz (8 CPUs), ~3.5GHz

Memory: 16384MB RAM

Card name: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670

Manufacturer: NVIDIA

Chip type: GeForce GTX 670

DAC type: Integrated RAMDAC

Device Key: Enum\PCI\VEN_10DE&DEV_1189&SUBSYS_84141043&REV_A1

Display Memory: 3751 MB

Dedicated Memory: 4036 MB

Shared Memory: 3810 MB

Sorry if that is confusing I have been out of gaming for a while.

---------- Post added at 03:20 ---------- Previous post was at 03:18 ----------

I probably posted this in the wrong place...

Its an Alpha. It is NOT the full game. The game will be out in Q3 2013 or something. It will probably get delayed, but whatever LoL.

If you want more missions etc try http://www.armaholic.com

To increase performance turn off vsync, set shadows to low and disable vsync and see if that helps.

This Video will get your settings on track. If you listen to Sidestrafe, then you'll do alright. Also, you might lurk around his channel, he has some good stuff on ArmA.

Also, try this link on tactics: http://ttp2.dslyecxi.com/

ArmA has a HUGE learning curve....but once you learn how to play it or edit, then the game is a blast.

mr_hanky, read this:

http://ttp2.dslyecxi.com/

Other then that, play, play and then play some more, you'll soon get the hang of it. :)

EDIT: damn ninjas :o

As infantry, in order to change stance, you can:

Press Ctrl + 'w' key to SWITCH stance higher, multiple times (try it!!!)

Press Ctrl + 's' key to SWITCH stance lower, multiple times (try it!!!)

Press Ctrl + 'a' and 'd' key to 'ADJUST stance to either side (works in combination with ''q' and 'e' key for looking around corners.

Press 'z' key to toggle prone.

Press 'x' key to switch between standing and crouching.

Press 'c' key to switch between walking mode and running mode (not much of a difference it seems, or so is my early impression)

I was new once, and i was lost :(

You will learn :) And you know you're in an Alpha right? Things are broken, and everything is work in progress.

I'm lost in the interface

lol ?

how do I check my fps?

www.fraps.com

Further remind that the main feature of the Armaverse is the EDITOR (and thereby the source for MP and SP missions), not any campaigns, prefigured missions, mods or whatever. The editor is also the best place to learn the game. Put whatever you want onto the map and play around with it and thereby configuring your controls and graphics.

I never played any ArmA game because I never had a good enough computer. But now I do, but to be honest I have no idea how to play this game. I did the infantry show case and I understand the basic controls, however; how do I get into real battles? I tried the multiplayer servers with 40 people, but all the vehicles are laggy and I everyone is complaining about lag. Multilayer seems utterly broken.

The problem here unfortunately is that there isn't a dedicated server binary (i.e. "arma3server.exe") yet... so although there's a workaround of sorts here, it seems that in general people are essentially hosting from their own computers -- even if those aren't up to the task of running smoothly -- hence the shoddy MP scene. And that's even assuming that the mission itself is coded well... which I hear in some cases (i.e. Wasteland variants?) is not the case. :(

So if someone could please help me out, I want to play matches and have realistic firefights but I'm lost in the interface. What is worse is that there is no tutorial to help new players (the field manual is very helpful thu).

What is the aspect that you need a tutorial for?

Instead of saying "the editor, play around with it" :rolleyes: I'll try to be more specific with an example...

From the Editor, double click a spot on land, there'll open a window that'll say stuff like "BLUFOR", "Men", "Rifleman", "Player" -- if you click OK and then click Preview at the top, you'll end up spawning in as a BLUFOR rifleman with a MX assault rifle. If you press Esc and then click Abort, you'll return to the Editor, where you can select the character again (double-click?) and change one of the above attributes -- i.e. "BLUFOR" to "OPFOR" or "Rifleman" to "Marksman", or even "Man" to "Air" (and thus to a helicopter) if you want to try playing as someone else and with their default weapon! This is a basic way to try out the various weapons in Arma 3, although another way is to choose the "Empty" category (should be in SIDE?) and then below that choose a 'box' option, i.e. "BLUFOR Basic Weapons" -- if you place that near your rifleman, then when you spawn in you'll have a crate nearby your rifleman that you can go to and access the inventory contents of (read: rifles to try).

If you prefer video tutorials,

's an example to show you around the Editor, although it takes almost ten minutes of showing off Editor functions before he has the rifleman spawn in. Edited March 9, 2013 by Chortles

I know this is in alpha, so I'm not expecting a tutorial. But I'm struggling to figure out anything. I know it's funny, but I can't even tell who I'm supposed to be shooting and who's on my side. Sometimes, there's a red box around the enemy, but usually not. When I tried that infantry showcase, everyone on my side died very quickly, so I started shooting everyone I saw. But do friendly troops respawn? It really was pretty funny, since I was never sure if I was murdering my own allies.

And I can open up the inventory, but... what then? I can't figure out how to do anything there. When I open the inventory from a dead soldier, I can't even figure out how to take anything (not that I know why I'd want to).

Also, how do I tell how badly I'm wounded? And what can I do about it? My character sounded like he wasn't feeling very well (either that, or he's a real wimp), but that's all I could tell about it. And, apparently, he can't use a first aid kit on himself. (I don't know how you use it at all.)

Finally - for now - could someone explain what those numbers are at the top right of the screen. Yes, I know they have something to do with my weapon and its ammunition, but that's about it. It looks like a lot of information, but most of it doesn't tell me anything. Even when I shift through different weapons (the 'F' key), that doesn't seem to help.

Oh, one more thing: Is there a crouch command? I can figure out how to lie down and how to stand up, but nothing in between. When I'm lying down, I can't see anything but grass. When I stand up, I tend to get shot. :) But maybe crouch isn't implemented yet? There wasn't a key listed in the commands. No problem, if so.

Yeah, I haven't played any of the other Arma games, because I'm really bad at this stuff. (I've set the difficulty to "Recruit," and I'll probably never change that.) But these things might get me started. Thanks.

Learning to ID your target is one skill you'll have to develop. When I first started that was a challenge for me. Just learn to tell the two uniforms apart from each other. No easy way around that.

The inventory is drag and drop. Click on something, hold down the mouse button, and drag it where you want it.

You can tell if you're wounded if your vision starts going blurry and weird, and you'll hear your guy groaning.

Sometimes you'll have a FAK pack (I think that's what it's called) that you can use to heal yourself. Use your scroll wheel on your mouse to scroll through your context menu, highlight the FAK option and press the middle mouse button to perform the action.

The numbers on the top indicate how many rounds you have in your gun, and how many magazines you have left. So a display of "30 / 11" would mean you have 30 rounds in your current mag, and 11 other magazines (Not always full). If you reload your gun after firing rounds, it'll remember how many rounds were in that mag and when you come back to it, you'll only have that many rounds. From what I recall however your guy will always try to reload with the most full mag he has.

The 200m you may see tells you what your sights are sighted in for. Meaning at 200m, your bullet will land at the center of the crosshairs (or reticle). If the target is at say 100m and you're sighted in at 200m, your bullets will land higher, and if the target is beyond 200m, your bullets will land lower.

Crouch and stand are toggled using 'X'. When standing pressing X will crouch. When crouched pressing X will stand. When prone 'Z', I believe X will bring you to crouched.

I commend you on diving in. The Arma series is intimidating at first, but extremely rewarding once you get the hang of it. Stick at it, and welcome to the team.

Also besides the crouch and prone you can also lean left / right with Q / E and change stance with Ctrl+W and Ctrl+S.

Tapatalked.

(I write too slowly)

Ãf it's too hard, you can always try to edit your difficulty settings in Options/Game/Difficulty and decrease the AI Unit Skill.

It can be difficult to tell friends and enemies apart, especially in shadows, tall grass and bushes. Bluefor wears bright tane uniforms, while Opfor's uniforms are darker green/brown. If your target's silhouette is dark, go ahead and light it up.

Inventory confuses both new and old players, you'll find it on the I key, but it's also called gear in your mouse wheel action menu. In ArmA 2 Inventory/gear was bound to G, which is why so many old ArmA players accidentally throws a grenade, when they are trying to open their inventory. When you get close enough to a dead guy or an ammo box, a small icon will replace your cross hair. Use the mouse wheel to select "gear" in the action menu and then you can just drag and drop or right click on items in the inventory.

I guess if you character starts whining, can't walk or can't aim straight, it's time to heal yourself. Most units have a first aid kit in their inventory. If you're injured and have a FAK, select "Treat self[1 faks left]" using the action menu.

In your top right corner you have your weapon UI.

-First you have the weapon/caliber: MX 8.6mm

-Below that you have the 30 Rounds in your current magazines/the number of extra magazines: 30/6

-300 m is the zeroing of your rifle, which means that the sights set to hit targets at 300 meters.

-Then you have the type of grenades HE(high explosive) or white smoke and lastly the number of grenades.

You can switch between grenade types with shift-F(?)

I think the default key for crouch is X, you can also adjust your stance with ctrl-S to go into a lower stance or ctrl-W for a higher stance. Check your controls in Options/Controls/Show>Infantry Movement.

watch the helmet. OPFOR looks more organic!

watch the colours: BLufor is lighter / more sand, while Opfor is brown / darker

and dont shoot so quick. wait a second. when the target is still, you can aim for the chest and get maybe a direct hit / kill which is much more safe than the COD style of shooting stuff the second you see it.....

best way to do is: pretend this is a real simulation. Just behave as you would behave in the real world.

ANd yes it takes some time to get used to.

But when you're in the zone, you hear gunshots and you have the feeling and know where your and where enemy troops are. also there is a difficulty slider (use it at the beginnings there is no shame in that).- all friendlies have then white rectangles around them.

and finally in MP use enemy clothes (helmets so far) to confuse the enemy a bit ;) i died more than once cause I got a mental dissonance in the shock moment when a guy appeared with OPFOR helmet and BLUFOR jacket.. thats the second you need to have or you die ;)

--

also for quick orientation when ingame look at at the guys that dont shoot at you ;) tghese aare friendlies and this is the opposite look of what you should shoot at... or use external view and look at your guy ;) (NUM ENTER)

Also remember to move from cover to cover.

A rock is better than a bush.

A rock is cover, a bush is concealment.

If the AI sees you hide behind a bush, he'll just shoot at the bush, if you hide behind a bush, he'll have to move around to hit you.

Thanks for the replies! I think I understand enough to get me started.

I was using X to stand and Z to lie prone, but I didn't realize that X would take me to crouch if I was already standing - things like that.

And I did have a First Aid Kit in my inventory, but I thought it said I could only use it on someone else. And yeah, my guy was groaning so much it was getting annoying. :) But I didn't think to try scrolling the mouse wheel while I was in inventory (that doesn't seem intuitive, not for me, at least).

I did understand to scroll the mouse wheel to switch weapons, but although I was supposed to have a pistol in inventory, I never seemed to get that as an option. Well, I'll have to play around with that some more.

I'm already playing at the lowest difficulty setting - I'll likely never change that - but I didn't look at the individual settings. So if I can get a white rectangle around friendlies, I'll do it. :)

I'm not sure about that stance stuff. In most games, I'm doing well to walk and shoot at the same time (without hitting anything, usually). I have to look at my notes to remember what key to press, and then look at the keyboard to press it. So for me, the simpler the better. (I'm quite a bit older than the typical gamer, and none of this comes naturally to me.)

But this will be a BIG help. Thanks much!

First thing you need to do is make hold breath and zoom in keys separate. I use TAB for holding breath. Why? Because when you use your real field of view within your monitor (aka "zoom in") you also hold breath by default so after 3 seconds your aim will shake like mad.

So if you will make those keys separate by default you will have a light weapon wavering affected by breathing which is usually fine as it is once you get a hang of it and if that's not enough to make a good shot just press hold breath key whenever you want to make a careful shot.

In your options/controls/weapons there's also a assigned key to switch between rifle/handgun, probably the key right of your L key. In options there's a key to most action, which is why it can be easy to get lost in the controls.

Unfortunately this game penalize you got shooting and moving at the same time. If you don't move from cover to cover and shoot for cover, the game usually punish you for it. Also prone and crouched, just like catching your breath will steady your aim, more than if you're moving or standing. Cltr-S and Cltr-W allows you to access stances in between prone, crouched and standing, which might be helpful, if you're trying to peak over some cover.

I'm in the same position. I managed to finish 3 showcases and I just can't land or shoot targets in the helicopter. I thought Arma 3 was going to be more like regular fps. The gun doesn't move back to its original position after each shot and you need to readjust the aim after each shot. I don't mind the learning curve, but the controls feel very slow and the motion blur is making me sick. I hope the full game release will improve the fluidity of the game and include the option of turning off motion blur.

I thought Arma 3 was going to be more like regular fps

Mistake number one.

You can forget about it ever being a regular fps.

I hope the full game release will improve the fluidity of the game and include the option of turning off motion blur.

PP to very low or off.

you can disable the motion blur by going in teh video option and turning off Post processing

I bought this today. And for the love of god I dont understand what this game is for.

I see you have some stuff called showcase which I assume are simple missions to show what the editor

can do and what you can do yourself. I scratched that off my list of to do things because I dont like playing with

or against AI.

So whats left is multiplayer. I joined up a server, with only a pistol, no objectives or if there was one there was nobody

doing it. I cant tell where anybody is or I see nobody talking on the chat. Hell I presume thats because they cant find the button

to activate normal chat text rather then voice. I still havent lol.

Youve made a huge map, but I havent yet joined a server that would do anything outside of the airbase. Im just sort of wondering

what this huge world is for. And what is this game trying to be.

Any tips on how to play or what to do would be nice. Im new to Arma so I dont really know.

Am I just supposed to join servers, run 1km to an objective, sort of sit there defending it?

I dunno

Not bashing the game. Im sure it has some purpose. I just cant see one yet.

Might be because im crap at it:P

Before you do anything else, watch this:

:)

Ive watched it but I dont really find the game what the video says it is. It says its a military sandbox. Ok fair enough.

So how do I get into GTA mode where I can just explore the whole island without a team, scavaging supplies

to stay alive and occasionally running into enemies?

Ive watched it but I dont really find the game what the video says it is. It says its a military sandbox. Ok fair enough.

So how do I get into GTA mode where I can just explore the whole island without a team, scavaging supplies

to stay alive and occasionally running into enemies?

By creating a mission in the editor.

im assuming thats for the more experienced players. I dont even know how to fully use the controls of my character:P