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ACEREP #00011

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This post accompanies the release of ACE3 v3.14.0, the biggest ACE3 update in almost two years with many new features and, as always, many fixes and improvements. Some highlights are vehicle towing, compatibility addons for the S.O.G. Prairie Fire and Global Mobilization Creator DLCs, and a new vehicle damage system.

ACEX Merge

Before we talk about the new things, let’s discuss the merging of ACEX into ACE3. The original goal of ACEX was to be a complementary mod to ACE3 that housed extra, optional features that didn’t quite fit the scope ACE3 itself. However, we feel that ACEX still isn’t large enough to really warrant being its own mod and doesn’t have the benefits it used to have, especially with CBA Settings and the way we now handle optionals in ACE3.

ACEX (or rather ex-ACEX) components will remain entirely optional as they all have settings to disable them. We have tried to maintain as much backwards compatibility as possible with the merge. Settings, items, objects, and public API including variables, functions, events, and config entries remain supported under their original ACEX naming scheme. Going forward, we don’t expect any major complications to arise from this change.

Vehicle Towing

Now, onto the new things. This update adds vehicle towing using new capabilities introduced in Arma 3 version 2.06. Players will now be able to attach a rope from a car or tank to another car or tank in order to tow it. It should be noted that this requires having the necessary length rope item in your inventory. Here is a video of vehicle towing in action:

CDLC Compatibility

This update adds compatibility addons for the S.O.G. Prairie Fire and Global Mobilization Creator DLCs. These components will provide full support for key ACE3 features such as medical, vehicle repair and refueling, explosives, crew served weapons, and fastroping when used alongside their respective CDLCs.

In addition to the features listed above, some other highlights of S.O.G. Prairie Fire compatibility addon include:

  • the ability to dig spider holes using an ACE entrenching tool.
  • proper stab and punch damage when performing melee attacks.
  • punji traps causing stab wounds on the person’s legs and body (for higher reaching ones).
Digging a spider hole in S.O.G. Prairie Fire using the ACE entrenching tool.

Vehicle Damage

The new vehicle damage system enhances vanilla armored vehicle damage simulation by implementing a component-based health system. In essence, a component-based health system means that a vehicle effectively doesn’t have an overall health pool. Instead, a vehicle’s overall health state is determined by its combat effectiveness; you can’t repeatedly shoot at a tank to destroy it, but you can take out its turret to stop it from shooting you. Alternatively, you can take out individual crew members so no one can shoot at you. Additionally, by using a component-based approach, this system more realistically models the consequences of vehicle damage. That is, the part of the vehicle that is hit determines the resulting effects in terms of which crew members are injured and the chance of cooking off. For example, if a gun barrel is hit, there is a chance that the barrel will break, preventing the gun from shooting or traversing. However, a hit to this component will not injure crew members or cause the vehicle to cook-off. As with most ACE3 features, this system is optional and can be disabled through settings.

Alongside the vehicle damage system, a fire system was also added. This system adds the ability to light people and objects on fire, and have it spread. Fire will inflict burn damage and cause intense pain. You can stop, drop, and roll to try and extinguish the flames. Being in contact with water (i.e. in rain or underwater) will put out the fire more quickly. Lastly, there is also an interaction to pat people down if they are on fire.

You can read about the vehicle damage system in greater detail here and the fire system here.

Medical Rewrite Follow Up

The medical rewrite has been released for almost two years now (yes, really). As was our goal with the rewrite, the system is now more approachable and readily supports continued development. In the updates since the rewrite, the medical components have received various improvements, fixes, and new features. For example, ACE3 v3.14.0 introduces indicators for fractures and applied tourniquets and splints over the Stance Indicator. To name another, there is now a public API for saving and restoring the medical state of a unit. Overall, we feel the medical system is in a good place right now and will continue to improve in future updates.

The End Things

The change log for ACE3 v3.14.0 can be found here.

We are still in need for translations for some languages within the ACE3 project. Please have a look at this GitHub issue to track the progress and what languages lack translations. Any and all help with this is very appreciated.

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