2041

Nope, it’s a package with lots of options. Take the pbo files from either the tfor or cfor zip files (for the takistan or chernarus maps resepectively) and place them in your/arma 2 operation arrowhead/Missions folder for singleplayer or MPMissions for coop/multi. The other zips are for ACE and the duala island mod. The “mission” folders inside are for editing. Put the individual subfolders in the mission folder in your documents/Arma 2/missions folder if you want to play with Force in the editor, but that’s not necessary just to play.

Unless a mission requires a mod it is typically only a pbo file you need to think about. The prefix of letters and number describes what kind of mission it is (i.e. co20_ is a coop capable mission for up to 20 players.)

It also mentions that I may need:

  • Advanced Combat Environment 2 - Core (optional)
  • Advanced Combat Environment 2 - eXtras (optional)

Are those required to get the random patrols and combats to occur that the mod mentions it has?

You don’t need them, they are only optional.
ACE is Advanced Combat Environment, a nearly ubiquitous mod. It is not necessary to enjoy ArmA by yourself or on LAN, but many servers require it. Don’t worry about it until you get comfortable with the game.

edit:
Actually, I’m guessing that you’re not really dabbling with mission design, but rather looking for some instant action scenarios?
If so, check out the Flashpoint series of missions. Completely random, rather chaotic, but great fun.

2042

Ok, I got Takistan Force up and running in single player. Looks really fun.

A few questions. At the baracks, I can only recruit riflemen and engineers. I think I need a pilot if I want to use one of the blackhawks for insertion, but can’t figure out how.

Also, how do you build artillery? The readme hints that it can be built, but I don’t see it under the “construction” menu.

2043

Takistan Force is a multiplayer mission, i don’t think it can be played properly in single player. You need another human so he can take the pilot slot, another one so he can take the commander slot (he can build the artillery), etc.

2044

That’s really too bad. I can see this being perfectly playable if the game just let me recruit a damn pilot. The mod page even says it’s playable single player.

I tried starting a local LAN game and it let me select my initial class. I selected Pilot, but when I went to the recruitment tent, I could only recruit other pilots. If I made myself commander, I could only recruit riflemen and engineers.

One of the strange things I noticed is that if you start the game single player, there are a ton of guys standing at attention where you spawn, several of them are pilots. Can I somehow interact with these guys and take them with me?

In multiplayer, this large mass of soldiers isn’t there.

2045

You can recruit AI soldiers in that mission. But it works like this: human infantry can recruit ai infantry, snipers can recruit ai snipers, pilots can recruit ai pilots, etc. So you wouldn need to take the pilot slot to recruit ai pilots… in detriment of the other classes.

The guys that appear at the beginning i suppose are the AI filling all the player slots (it can be changed to open, locked, and occupied by ai). But no, as every soldier is a independent squad, you can’t order them around.

2046

You can play singleplayer but you have to do the Battlefield switching seats in the tank thing. Since flying without a gunner isn’t much fun in ArmA you’ll probably want to stick to the ground. The reason why all those guys are there in singleplayer is so that you can switch to them in the respawn menu. That’s obviously not necessary in multiplayer. You might be able to attach co-pilots to each of the pilots in the editor and make your own custom version, but I’m not sure, I haven’t looked at tforce in the editor before.

2047

Does anyone know of some online servers that don’t require you to play regularly but still have some feel of community to them?

I used to play with one crowd, but they expected people to play particular days and that didn’t suit. But I much prefer playing Arma online, even if I’m only good enough to be a rifleman.

I have Arma 2 and Operation Arrowhead, but none of the expansions.

2048

I’ve been playing a lot on the “Task Force Blackjack Charlie - Domination” server lately, since it always seems to have at least a few people on (and often 20-30 people) and I like Domination. The regulars are fairly helpful and generally tolerant of noobs, though some can come across a bit “know-it-all-y”. The only real rule they have is that to fly helos/planes you have to be in their Teamspeak channel, which is fair since some of the regulars who play pilots are very, very good at flying and don’t want their choppers flown into the ground by morons.

2049

That seems entirely reasonable given the asshats Ive flown with in other MP FPSs. Now just need to find a group based in Asia or perhaps Aus that are understanding towards newbies.

2050

Arma2.com was “hacked” the other day. But it’s all really a ARG.

1st attack http://www.aan-online.com/en/news/5-world/31-hackers-attack.html

2nd attack http://www.aan-online.com/en/news/5-world/32-continued-digital-attack.html

From the first one, they put this image on the site
http://www.aan-online.com/arma2-hacked-page/

This is no stupid game! You’re dealing with p3R51An 8lacK Hat5 8oy5 and every 42 hours we’ll give you something to keep you aware. Keep you wondering. We know you found Spukayev’s files back in 2009, and that they bought you a way out of that mess. But that’s not everything the old crook had been hiding. The stash is still buried there.

Spukayev’s files were some secret documents from the russian from the Arma 2 campaign, Harvest Red. Thing is, people already knows the czech area from RL which was used for reference for designing Chernarus, with time they have found the RL locations of some cool spots of the game.

First they found the first crossroad in game
http://i613.photobucket.com/albums/tt214/niall00/arma22011-05-0214-22-21-21.jpg
http://i613.photobucket.com/albums/tt214/niall00/arma22011-05-0214-22-26-75.jpg

then they found the general RL correspondence, bit a bit.
http://shareimage.org/viewer.php?file=tbtv43csh0ff91zvvnf5.jpg
(Spukayev’s house)http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/859/arma2oa2011050217050350.png/
http://img859.imageshack.us/i/arma2oa2011050217050350.png/

http://www.arma2.nl/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/chernarus_compare.jpg => Chernarus to RL

and from there, here
http://maps.google.nl/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=nl&geocode=&q=Strekov&aq=&sll=50.05273,14.507446&sspn=0.349619,1.056747&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Ústí+nad+Labem,+Tsjechische+Republiek&ll=50.762604,14.155712&spn=0.021635,0.066047&t=h&z=15
(real life place of the same city in game)

The images from the crossroad are very very close to the “Spukayev’s house”:

Hmm, the house is in 104, 028. There is a crossroad (106, 029) just before it, west - outside of Krasnostav. The road leads to Ostry hill.

Looking closely to the images of the hacked site, it’s a sequence, from left to right, from the first row to the second. Look
http://www.picdrop.net/images/mbz2bg.jpg
In fact from the metadata we know the photos were done with only one minute of difference.
It goes from the crossroad to the place it should be the house location IRL (but it only exist in the game… or as one member from BI forums has pointed: you destroyed the house with a satchel in the game, of course there is no house now!).

It all aims to the last image in the corner. Looks like the ground has been moved.
“The stash is still buried there”, said the hacker’s message

Closer… http://www.picdrop.net/images/oiMBu.jpg
http://www.picdrop.net/images/GhW6MA.jpg
http://www.picdrop.net/images/QV5qi7.jpg

A guy* went to the real life area and found a stash
*: i think it was all an hoax, it was a BIS employee

recognise thies? http://unuldor.ic.cz/arma/6.jpg http://unuldor.ic.cz/arma/3.jpg

no BIS snipers… i hope http://unuldor.ic.cz/arma/4.jpg http://unuldor.ic.cz/arma/5.jpg

Gues what popped out of the hole http://unuldor.ic.cz/arma/2.jpg

i opened it http://unuldor.ic.cz/arma/1.jpg

AND THIS WAS IN THE BOX (box contained no marks) http://unuldor.ic.cz/arma/a.jpg

… WW3 plans?

The second hacking attack put this image as background
http://aan-online.com/Background.jpg

Which have hidden roman numerals. Doing some photoshop analysis, they found more
http://unuldor.ic.cz/51gorgvd.png


https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0BxYVxK3dA0wFN2JjMzBiZTAtYzdmOS00MmE3LWFjNGEtNTFjNTQ2NjQ5NGJi&hl=en&authkey=CNuz4-QG

And if you join the roman numbers…
http://aryarya.net/up/img/5405.jpg (submarine!??)
There are a few letters which aren’t used… but together, they make the word astute.

HMS “ASTUTE” is a type ship of latest SSN class in Royal Navy.

reference thread (100k reads in three days!):

2051

Thanks for the summary Naeblis.

2052

Well… i was doing time while S8 Prejudice was finishing the download. :)

2053

ARMA3 with a WW3 Scenario in Europe would be great. Just hope the ‘campaign’ AI can be improved.

/em already imagines a WW2-Online type gameplay set in the modern era covering all of Europe drool

I played some online ARMA2 yesterday, on Veterans Gaming COOP server. Think there was around 30 of us, fighting to recover information caches from AI opponents (with some players helping). Was really awesome being on a mountaintop with my sniper rifle taking out badguys who are in a firefight with my squad, when suddenly an A10 flies overhead and drops some GBU’s on the city centre. Moments that like that justifies all the quirks that’s been in the Opf/ARMA games since the OpF Demo we waited on IRC for, years ago.

2054

So I picked this up on the Steam sale a week or so ago and it’s a mess. I tried the tutorial but can’t complete the very first step - go over to the ammo box, the cursor changes, but clicking does nothing. I get no gun or ammo. After trying a couple times I decide to forgo the tutorial and jump into the gameplay. Attempt to start a new campaign and it freezes/crashes while loading. Am I missing something?

2055

Clicking what… What are you clicking? left click? It middle click to use the action selected in the action menu (like rearm in box).
You have to go over the ammo box and press g to open the inventory gear, then pass the ammo, i think.

About crahes, i can’t help, it’s very stable on my machine.

2056

This game has one of the most non-intuitive UIs in modern gaming. Most likely you need to middle click. However, and here’s where it gets real weird- if you have your cross hair over something, and it changes to and interact icon, you have to scroll the mouse wheel before clicking it to see other options that can be performed on an object. Then click the middle mouse when you selected the one you want. You will definitely need to do this to plant charges on something or to use UAV terminals.

This is never explained in any tutorial. It is buried in the manual, however.

2057

Biggest reason I can’t bother with the campaigns in this game, immersion is shattered when every fifteen minutes they tell me to do something and I have to hunt in forums to figure out how to find the right gui.

Arrowhead was no better… use the Drone camera! really, how? Oh, I have to get out of my tank, go to the back of the bradley which is stuck behind a rock 3 clicks away and rummage in the glove compartment to find the menu option. F that… just go to the mission editor, stage a giant battle and shoot at things.

2058

I just went through the tutorials. It explains the interact menu, specifically telling you what keys/buttons to press. This is in OA though, maybe its different.

Still, flyinj’s statement stands: this game has a god awful UI.

2059

OA tutorials are new, better than the original one.

2060

We had this discussion a few pages ago. Yes ArmA takes a little getting used to, but nobody can suggest a better alternative. And flyinj stops reading manuals before page 3.