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Modpack, Addons, Templates Update 06MAR2020

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Our long awaited modpack update has just been released and is now available for download in our Arma3Sync repository. At around 11.5GB in size this update encompasses a huge number of changes and updates across the board. Some changes in this update may cause some initial confusion, so please make sure to read the details below.

The changelog for this update is probably the longest we have ever had. As such, this news post will only cover the most important or potentially confusing aspects of the update. See the changelogs listed at the bottom for the full list of changes.

Update ACRE3 Teamspeak 3 Plugin

Before we get into the specifics of this update, a reminder. Once you have downloaded the update make sure to start Arma 3 once without Teamspeak 3 running, so that ACRE can update its plugin for you. If the update does not occur automatically, the prompt displayed should explain where to copy the plugin files and to.

ACE and ACRE Setting Changes

With the update to ACE a number of client settings that are frequently used by members to customize their experience have been renamed. As a result, these settings may have reverted back to their default values. If you customized your ACE interaction and self-interaction menu settings, changed the scaling of the inventory display, or used ACE View Distance to manage graphics performance, please be sure to check your Addon Options.

Additionally, ACRE have added a number of new settings for customizing the colour of the radio UI based on the device in use.

ACE Medical

We have been using a customized build of the rewrite for some time now (thanks Redbery), but with this update we are now close to using the standard ACE build again. While there have been a lot of minor changes and fixes, there are some new additions that members need to be particularly aware of:

  • Fractures have now been added. Fractured legs will cause players to limp, and fractured arms will cause weapon sway.
  • Limping and weapon sway can still occur without fractures. In this case, check for open wounds!
  • Fractures can be partially fixed with the new splint object, and can be fully healed with surgery. Our custom "elastic bandage splints for healing limps" system has been removed in favour of the system now built-in to ACE.
  • Epinephrine now increases the chance of a stable-but-unconcious casualty waking from 15% every 15 seconds to 15% every 3 seconds. So corpsmen should make sure to give patients an epinephrine once they are stable and ready to wake.
  • Wounds to the head or torso increase the chances of the next wound knocking the player out, or even killing them. Get wounds treated by a corpsman to avoid this.

New Content and Factions

With the updates to RHS and 3CB Factions, a decent number of new vehicles and weapons have been added, such as the M1126 Stryker and FN-SCAR-H. Thanks to a lot of hard work by Diva, we have added 23 new factions to BWI Armory and Motorpool to take advantage of this new content. We hope you'll enjoy the many new factions that have been added. You can find the full list in detail in our factions spreadsheet.

Amongst the new factions are a set of 1986 factions, utilising Cold War weapons, uniforms and vehicles added by 3CB Factions in their last update. Which leads us to...

Radios and GPS

Talking of old factions, we now have factions that use old radios. In order to help facilitate this BWI Armory's radio handling has been updated to configure all radios, including those in vehicles, with a common set of channels and frequencies. This means that what role you take or vehicle you hop into, it will be able to communicate with any other radios in the platoon.

One thing to be aware of with old radios, is that not all radios support channels. For those unfamiliar, the AN/PRC-77 has a single channel that you must manually change to the frequency you want. In order to make this easier to work with, the CommCard will now display the frequency for any radios that do not have a clear channel display. Don't forget to check your frequencies before briefing!

GPS distribution has also been updated, with the ACE DAGR replacing the ACE MicroDAGR and standard GPS in all pre-2010 loadouts. Pre-2000 and low-tech factions have no GPS at all, so now is a good time to brush up on those Land Nav skills.

Role Adjustments

Many roles have received minor tweaks, but a couple stand out.

The vehicle mechanics job is now going to be more rewarding with us disabling the "Full Repair" option. Vehicle mechanics will now have to be repaired component by component.

For those who enjoy artillery, the "towed" howitzers now have manual ranging enabled on them, meaning that players will need to manually calculate their shots the same way they do for the mortars. Be aware that unlike the mortar, these shots are not affected by wind. To offset this, they have been dropped to Class IV and reduced in price. Self-propelled howitzers and rocket artillery both retain their artillery computers, and remain at Class V.

Additionally, Special Forces and Light Recon elements have been given a stamina boost to make their roles more unique.

Total Rebalance

With all of the new factions and vehicles added, we have done a complete rebalance of vehicle costs in the motorpool. Details of specific costs can be found in the factions spreadsheet linked above. The spreadsheet also includes a table of "Recommended Funding Levels" that Zeuses can use to figure out how many funds to give Platoon Leaders in operations.

Aircraft have also had their pylon loadouts remade from scratch to try and provide both an better balance and hopefully an improved representation of their real world counterparts.

Staging, Constructions and COPs

Every staging area now includes a new option on the flagpole - Emergency Medic. This option can be used by a Platoon Leader or Logistics Sergeant to temporarily assign themselves medic status, in the event that the Corpsman should be incapacitated. This will only last as long as they remain within 25m of the flagpole though, so stay close!

Additionally, the construction system now has tiers of exclusion zone radii. We are only using two tiers for now. COPs retain the previous minimum distance of 3km, while all other constructions have been lowered to a 1km minimum distance.

Talking of COPs, the "Mobile FOB" system from the old modpack has made a return for both the C-130 and AN-2, making airborne operations easier to handle logistically.

Finally, boats can now be repaired, refueled and rearmed in their docks, using the same system already available to aircraft.

New Maps and Templates

For the last highlight, we have added four new terrains - Kujari, Suursaari, Vinjesvingen and Virolahti. We think all four of these terrains brings something unique, and are very much looking forward to operations in these new environments.

In order to facilitate this humungous list of changes we have updated all templates. The old templates should be deleted and new ones downloaded from our Gitlab templates repository. Please do not attempt to use old templates or missions built with them, as they are likely to cause significant problems.

Thanks

Thanks to everyone on the tech team who put a lot of effort into getting this update finished. The evidence of everybody's hard work can be found in the extensive changelogs for this update, which can be found at the links below: