ARMA 3

I love the way both terrain and objects fade out in the distance. The three tree covered hills in this shot have a more and more faded appearance, and I love how that looks.

BNOZ1tn.jpg
 
We can finally say good riddance to the hovering mountain range skyboxes of Arma2.
 
precious cardboard "skyboxes" are being RIPPED away from gaming and you guys don't seem to care AT. ALL.
 
People have already ported Chernarus and Takistan to the Alpha. Obviously the assets are older, but it's still cool that the existing library of vehicle and weapon mods will be transferable with little effort.

 
That's pretty cool. The weapons in particular I'd be happy to see ported... except they need to replace their default sounds.
 
Is it possible to further zoom in the gunner seat view in the armored vehicle in showcase 3 and/or switch the thermal view to something else?

I completed the mission basically driving past everyone and destroying the target vehicles by driving right up next to them, because I can barely see anything with that thing. Command (or a tip, can't remember) suggests I destroy the vehicles from a distance, but I couldn't see them in the thermal view from further than a few meters away.

I also seem to get a performance hit in that view, so the fps drop to around 25fps but it feel even lower and makes the input slightly laggy.

Also, a funny thing happened when I drove next to the radio tower I was supposed to sabotage. Up until that point in the mission I was taking small arms fire that didn't do anything to me, but as I was trying to figure out whether I can destroy the tower by shooting it or if I had to stick explosives underneath it, I started taking heavy fire as the enemy started grenading my position. The vehicle started burning so I got out and it almost immediately blew up, wounding me, but 'sabotaging' the radio tower in the process. Luckily somehow I was in a position where the enemy didn't have a visual on me (even though I was in a crossfire seconds before), so I just ran downhill to the extraction point.
 
Unfocused said:
Is it possible to further zoom in the gunner seat view in the armored vehicle in showcase 3 and/or switch the thermal view to something else?
Click to expand...
Your view of the monitor when switching to gunner is just your default view, in which you can look around the vehicle and out the window. You hit num 0 to go into the gun sights, which maximizes the screen's view to your own. Hit N to cycle between vision modes once in this view.
 
Neat suggestion for rebinding grenades I saw on the forums:

Rebind grenade throw to ctrl+G
Rebind switch grenade type to ctrl+R
Rebind gear back to G

I'm sure I'd get used to the new grenade binding eventually, but this is a nice failsafe and also I just like having the gear button closer. I is a bit awkward especially now you can switch attachments out on the fly.

Also, don't know if this was true of A2 as well, but switching between sights can now be done with ctrl+right click by default. Pretty handy, num slash isn't ideal in a pinch.
 
I have grenade on space and switching on ctrl space.
 
HOME SWEET HOME. I actually completed the mission doing this. (This was taken after I'd bounced once already).
DrNO54g.jpg
 
SITREP #00001

reported
by Joris-Jan van 't Land
on Wednesday 6th March 2013
FROM: Project Lead
TO: Alpha Users
PRECEDENCE: Flash
SITUATION

The Arma 3 Alpha was released, and our team is actively monitoring all feedback flooding in. We’re prioritizing and starting work on fixes deployed onto the Steam Development branch.
INTELLIGENCE

There were unfortunate issues with Store.bistudio.com during the release, and getting access codes to people took far too long. Our apologies! We are very happy on the other side to read the many positive reports regarding performance and the fluidity of movement, and the Alpha in general.
OPERATIONS

Store support is still working through remaining requests and will focus on solving the issues for everyone. Read the updated statement on that here. We are evaluating how to best handle the ‘first 500’ situation, but will not ignore many of you were not able to get to the Store due to no fault of your own.
LOGISTICS

Store.bistudio.com is up and running again, and all editions are available there. The Alpha and Digital Deluxe Edition are also available from Steam. Your feedback is most welcome in the Feedback Tracker. Check out the Known Issues page for some workarounds.
Click to expand...

Also don't forget to keep an eye on the bug tracker and shit. Remember, this is an Alpha. Report bugs. I'm looking at you Morgs.
http://alpha.arma3.com/known-issues
 
One thing that isn't on the known issues page but a thread exists on it and a dev replied saying it would be fixed, is the loading time.

You'll notice that there's a quick loading bar, and then a longer one which seems to go at a steady rate, slowly filling the bar. This is actually not what's supposed to happen. The cause of it was found to be playing any mission where the blufor rifle is used. If you make a mission in the editor without that rifle, the game loads significantly faster, especially if you already have the island precached (not first run). This is great because the game already loads quite fast, even with that artificially inflated time.

Anyway, Dslyecxi is making a new series of videos explaining Arma 3 to people who might not know what the game and the series are all about. The first video is up and it's really cool. A good watch for anyone who doesn't "get" arma.


 
Vegeta897 said:
Your view of the monitor when switching to gunner is just your default view, in which you can look around the vehicle and out the window. You hit num 0 to go into the gun sights, which maximizes the screen's view to your own. Hit N to cycle between vision modes once in this view.
Click to expand...

Thanks :) Also, I'll definitely watch the 'community guide' video you posted - I've pretty much only played ARMA II in SP (aside from DayZ) and it seems confusing what's what - for instance it seems there's a lot of custom game modes and I can't tell what's using official content and what's not. Then again, it seems playing with random people is pointless.

How's the performance for you guys? It auto-detected something around the 'very high' preset for me (GTX570, i2500k, 8GB RAM), but that was slightly uncomfortable I had to turn it down to 'high' with disabled vsync and I was OK with how the first 3 showcases ran for me (30-50fps). However in the 4th one, as soon as I look towards the hills I get around 25fps and it starts getting uncomfortable (I think view distance is 3k) and when I fly the chopper it sometimes goes down to ~17 fps.

Then I joined a server with around 20 people (I guess) and 15-20 fps seemed to be the average near a town with players fighting, which is kind of crap. The thing is, as was the case with ARMA II for me, changing the video options doesn't do much to remedy this - apparently the CPU is bottlenecking :|
 
Make sure your AA mode is set to FXAA, and I found going higher than 4x was a significant drop in FPS and response time. I also have my post process set to very low.
 
Okay, I'm pretty much on the fence right now about getting this. How often do you guys play and at what time? It looks awesome, but having people to play with is key for me. I'm Eastern Time btw.
 
Wanted Bob said:
Okay, I'm pretty much on the fence right now about getting this. How often do you guys play and at what time? It looks awesome, but having people to play with is key for me. I'm Eastern Time btw.
Click to expand...
Me and Veg are both EST too. We play nights usually, but actual time varies quite a bit. It also usually goes on for a long time, I think on tuesday we started around like 11pm or so, and we were playing until 4am EST. Thats why I can usually only play weekends, but on weekend's we often start earlier too. Its just a matter of when everybody happens to be on.

Good to hear about the load times, but I dont think I'll even notice a difference, when we were playing on tuesday I loaded the map in probably less than 10 seconds (game is installed on a SSD Drive which is probably why).
 
Krynn72 said:
Good to hear about the load times, but I dont think I'll even notice a difference, when we were playing on tuesday I loaded the map in probably less than 10 seconds (game is installed on a SSD Drive which is probably why).
Click to expand...
The SSD is irrelevant for the part where it loads artificially. I've got A3 on SSD as well. Watch the next time you load, the second bar goes in like 1second jumps about 12 segments across the screen.
 
I'll have to watch it close then. I don't recall that happening for me, but then it wouldn't have caught my eye anyways since it loads so fast anyways.
 
I've noticed the second loading bar, it always makes me think it's loaded quickly.
 


Everybody should get this. Contact me on Steam if you need help. This mod is highly recommended.

Download PlaywithSIX here: http://play.withsix.com/download
Once installed, get CBA here (required module for many mods) http://play.withsix.com/mods/433-cba_a3
Then get the hud mod itself here: http://play.withsix.com/mods/441-sthud_a3

Clicking the magnet URLs will add the mods to your PlaywithSIX mod list, and you just click on them to install them. They will be downloaded to your Documents by default, so move them to your arma 3 folder. Then add this to your launch options: -mod=@CBA_A3;@sthud_a3
 
Alright, I caved and bought it. I likely won't get much of a chance to give it a whirl until the weekend, but I'll keep an eye on this and the VT.net group. Do you guys have another group you use to coordinate sessions?
 
There's a VT.net ArmA 3 steam group somewhere, we haven't used that yet though. The best thing to do would probably be to come into VT steam chat and just ask if there's anything planned.
 
Still with six updater? Call me when its going through steam workshop.


I've already installed it and the mods, so shut up already vegeta
 
I would download that, but I don't want to have to worry about clashes if/when ACE comes out.
 
The compass is a little too big with that mod, actually. Instead of just increasing the size, it actually replaces it with the full model you see in the map view with the top open. Goes right up past the crosshair.
 
morgs said:
I would download that, but I don't want to have to worry about clashes if/when ACE comes out.
Click to expand...
What do you mean worry? So you just take it out when ACE implements it. Better than living with a barely readable compass. I don't know how soon you think ACE is going to be out.
Bad^Hat said:
The compass is a little too big with that mod, actually. Instead of just increasing the size, it actually replaces it with the full model you see in the map view with the top open. Goes right up past the crosshair.
Click to expand...
It's supposed to use that model, so you can use the thread to get exact angles. ACE 2 does as well, and it's even larger. It's not like you need to aim your gun when you're using the compass. The thread is near the crosshair so you don't have to move it up to line it up.
 
This game is just as fun to **** around in as Arma 2 was. I'll be posting a hilarious video tomorrow.
 
Two videos from our play sessions:



Also, someone made a stance indicator mod. It's not the greatest but it may be helpful. I think I'm going to pass, though. I don't have much problem with needing to know what stance I'm in, it's getting easier and easier to tell.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

TechnoHippyChic
EA games returning to Steam
Replies
0
Views
1K
TechnoHippyChic
TechnoHippyChic
-smash-
Valve at GDC 2019
Replies
0
Views
25K
-smash-
-smash-
-smash-
ARG or Easter Egg found inside Danger Zone update
Replies
2
Views
19K
BabyHeadCrab
BabyHeadCrab
bbson john
Hi everyone. I am new to this forum!
Replies
11
Views
6K
Tollbooth Willie
Tollbooth Willie
B
Half-Life's lost feature, Timeline
Replies
0
Views
5K
Barnz
B
Back
Top