Learn the basics of setting up an ALIVE mission for ARMA3, including the required modules, how to place military AI commanders and get them fighting each other.
thanks for the up to date Tutorial Edward. Some people are very interested in the mod, but don't know where to start. These videos have really got the ball rolling for me, thanks.
My absolute pleasure. Please do spread the word with any other mission makers you know so they can benefit too. Best of luck with learning ALIVE, it's really worth it!
Thanks for this update of ALIVE which was really needed as every ALIVE tutorial I tried to find on UA-cam were grossly out of date. Thanks for taking the time to do this video.
To the people having issues with sides spawning - The marker area has to have something considered a military build ie Baracks, walls , Watch tower etc. I think they have to be a map object
THANKS for this great tutorial. Ive tried ALIVE in the past and seemed to always have issues but with this simple setup I can now enjoy it the way so many other people describe.
cheers buddy, Got this mod the other day, and prepared myself for hours of frustration at not being able to get things quite right. youve saved me hours of screwing around. thanks for taking the time to do this.
this is the only man that tells you how to actually do it others would say go to the website and download some crap for something as simple as this this one finally let me understand gg mate :)
Fantastic tutorial, thank you Edward! Now I've tried all this with IFA, and as soon as I sync an opcom to an enemy mil. placement, that enemy does not spawn anymore. If I dont sync them, they will spawn, but wont attack. Anyways, you wouldn't happen to have a functional template you could share? Thanx alot man!
One thing I've learned in messing with preliminary setup is that it's best to turn all the faction dropdowns to none and then specify the factions manually. Alive Wiki lists the faction names that are supported and what to enter to get them. This solved that problem for me (though I have other problems I'm still working on fixing, lol)
DrunkScout Thank you very much for your feedback, it is greatly appreciated. Am planning on doing a new series soon for the most recent version of Alive. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks :)
@@DrunkScout Haha. I know that feeling well. Around 2 years back I made a persistent campaign on Tanoa for my community (Tier1Ops) and it became seriously addictive. Players were logging on in the middle of the night to just manage supplies back at the base!
@@EdWallitt My buddy who I'm playing coop with started the server, and we're getting the script to run so I can copy his save file and run it myself so that I can do just that... fortify, resupply, and map plan lol. Freaking amazing sandbox milsim.
DrunkScout great! I highly recommend it. When it works it’s one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had. Just can be tricky to setup as we both know :)
My setup is invasion vs invasion, with the required modules synced. The problem is nobody is attacking, the groups are just cycling around their area. How do I make them attack eachother?
Very glad I found this, Nice tut man! So Alive may be what I've always been looking for, a dynamic set of tasks that unfolds over the course of my play sessions eh? I got so hung up on the dynamic experience I took a dive into RAVAGE mod for the past year, good times and amazing mod but I need to put the Zombie thing down for a bit hah
Thanks! You will not be disappointed. You can create some seriously nice single and multi-player dynamic scenarios (and even persistent campaigns) using ALIVE.
I got it all working over the holiday weekend, thanks to your vids man. Good times, I set up a conventional style battle using CSAT then as I got further into the Alive modules ended up making an asymmetric warfare scenario on that Lythium map.
Really clear tutorial Edward my congratualtions. I used with CUP mods on Takistan but i had two issue. First in ALIVE it was impossible to use Takistan insurgent or regulars, only NATO and CSAT. Second, starting the mission in the airbase spawning choppers exploded.
Thanks Mario. It is always tricky using modded factions and non-vanilla maps. It is certainly possible though as long as a) you use the right class name for the unit in the override field in the AI commander and placements and b) the faction(s) and map are supported by ALIVE - see alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Factions. Finally, the exploding chopper thing is a well known indexing bug on Takistan which I believe the team are working on for future releases.
Yes, you can override helicopters and aircraft spawn numbers in the settings on the military placement (mil) module. Also take a look at the Military AI Commander module settings, I think there are some more options there for removing the spawning of empty vehicles in military-type areas e.g. airports.
Yeh ya can :D. Google - "Alive supported factions" It lists all the factions there that you can use instead that are compatible. You can use incompatible units and profile them yourself but I don't know how to do that yet. Anyway in the "force faction" part of your mil/civ placement and the mil commander I would put "rhs_faction_vdv" to spawn russian vdv without the quotation marks. Good luck :D
I tried this and recieved "There are 0 objectives for this [UNIT] OPCOM instance! Please assign Military or Civilian Placement Objectives!" despite me syncing everything together properly. Do you have any idea why this is happening?
I have had this before when I set a placement for a zone that does not have any suitable civilian or military objectives for the opcom. Of course also worth double checking that you have give each placement the current variable name of the zone as shown in the video. If none of that works I would head over to the ALIVE forums and ask there, they really know there stuff there and there are lots of people very willing to help out.
I know it’s been a while but I’m very confused as to why it says 0 obj for opcom instance, I have both AI commanders synced to each others Mil Obj placement. Everything else is working fine but I can’t seem to find anything on it. 😕
Is there a way I could trigger the alive ai commanders to begin commanding. Like I first have to complete a custome mission and at the end of that mission the ai commander for Burford takes over?
How do you set that AI only spawns inside the markers and not anywhere else? In my scenario, AI keeps spawning on the entire map even though I only added two small zones not far away from each other.
Great tut, very clear. However, even though I did it step by step and checked now 3 times to see where I messed up, only blufor spawn in and not opfor and no attacking taking place, any ideas anyone?
Hey i have a issue on chernarus, but in reality in all the map i use. I always play as invader and i put like 4-5 area for each side under the control of the RHS faction, and it works great the first 30 min because the fight begin at the more close ennemy area from our area. But when the first area are taken they stop the massive attack and start fighint each other with small group or they simply start to stop the attck on the other area. For exmple on chernarus my team have their base at the airport on top of the map in the right and we control this airport, the big town on the coast under the base, gorka and a little village close to novy sobor, the ennemi have the big airfield on the center, stary sobor , the little town on the left of thire arifield and chernogorsk and zerlenogorsk. My team always attack stary sobor the little town and the airfield but the ai commander have never send them to cherno and zerlenogorsk. Why ? i have the same issue on other map they are always attacking some of the ennemies area but never all of them, sorry for my english im french
Ok got a question since I am new to this. Setup a mission just as you did, but want the blufor to defend a base. When I go in singleplayer to test, I get some message about no obj or something. Did I miss a step?
Great tutorial! Do you know if its possible for modded factions only to spawn? (such as ifa3/RHS units)? im not getting any options in the spawn faction menu. Thanks!
Hi Lucas. Yes can certainly do that but you need to put the faction class name in the section beneath the dropdowns (Military AI Commander). You can find a list of supported factions over at the ALiVE wiki - alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Factions
thanks for the basics, but i don't want to set up 2 AI factions to attack each other, i want a mission with objectives for me and my team to accomplish.
That is fine. Just make the setting for your faction not spawn units. You can then call all the shots. You can also put the enemy in occupation mode so they will defend key areas for you to attack.
You need to make sure that the military placement modules are assigned to the correct zones. By the sound of it you might have them not assigned correctly.
When filling in the TAOR Marker field in the Mil. Placement Modules, try putting the opposing TAOR marker in the Blacklist field. This should prevent the factions from spawning in each other's TAOR markers.
You can usually find the class name for the factions (including modded ones) on the Alive wiki, or many mods given them to you in their docs, or in the editor.
ASR AI3 also works. You can actually use both as they modify the AI in different ways. You should see a pilot land with both ai mods. It's like it's a player!
IFA3 is on the list of supported factions (alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Factions). Please check that you have the correct class names in the override faction fields on each of the modules as listed at the link. From memory I recall you need to do it for the Military Commander and all the synced military placement modules. They definitely work as I have build ALIVE missions with that mod before. If not pleas ask on the ALIVE forum where they can provide better support.
Here is a good question for you..... Because I'm stuck.. adding a zone to the civ or mill objective now on my editor no longer appears transparent on the in-game map...... like all the pervious ones I placed down. I'm now stuck having to add a color, or texture.. instead of it just not showing up at all on the in game map. No clue how this even happened or what key I hit, or how to undue this. I'm about half done with placing OPF, and OPF_G_F, and haven't even started with BUL_F yet, and now I'm stuck with this issue. Oh, and I have spent about an hour and a half looking for a fix for this and cannot find one.
Really wierd at first I thought I did something wrong but it seems I did it all correct but it says for OPFOR that no unit is set or something? BLUFOR is spawned wierd?
Something must be setup wrong mate. Very difficult to say without looking at your mission file. Please head on over to the alive forums and post your mission there. Lots of lovely people who I am sure would be happy to help.
'militree' is a common way in my dialect of pronouncing 'military', most likely because it rolls off the tongue better. This term is in common usage in the South of England where I am from, even in the Armed Forces.
Yes a number of maps are supported. Take a look at the full list here alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Maps. Although I would check their forum as well as I understand that the list is not always kept up-to-date
thanks for the up to date Tutorial Edward.
Some people are very interested in the mod, but don't know where to start. These videos have really got the ball rolling for me, thanks.
My absolute pleasure. Please do spread the word with any other mission makers you know so they can benefit too. Best of luck with learning ALIVE, it's really worth it!
+1
Thanks for this update of ALIVE which was really needed as every ALIVE tutorial I tried to find on UA-cam were grossly out of date. Thanks for taking the time to do this video.
To the people having issues with sides spawning - The marker area has to have something considered a military build ie Baracks, walls , Watch tower etc. I think they have to be a map object
THANKS for this great tutorial. Ive tried ALIVE in the past and seemed to always have issues but with this simple setup I can now enjoy it the way so many other people describe.
No probs Les. Glad you found it useful, and happy mission making!
this. is the clearest tutorial I've ever seen. Thank you for helping out, keep the good quality!
Thanks for the feedback Gerald. Glad you found it useful.
cheers buddy, Got this mod the other day, and prepared myself for hours of frustration at not being able to get things quite right.
youve saved me hours of screwing around.
thanks for taking the time to do this.
No problem Stu. Let me know if you have any further questions.
Thank you for these fantastic straight-forward tutorials. You really nailed the pacing.
this is the only man that tells you how to actually do it others would say go to the website and download some crap for something as simple as this this one finally let me understand gg mate :)
I'm having a problem: in my case, OPFOR troops do not spawn at all, only BLUFOR :(
I have exactly the same issue even though I did step by step, did you solve the problem, cheers.
Make sure you move the camera over their area. Hope you figured this out!
Same
@@caboosegaming6407 also same
the best of ALIVE tutorials, really helpfull and very well done.
Thanks Johann. Glad you found them helpful.
Thanks a lot. very enjoyable and edifying. Keep them coming. I love this kind of stuff.
Fantastic tutorial, thank you Edward! Now I've tried all this with IFA, and as soon as I sync an opcom to an enemy mil. placement, that enemy does not spawn anymore. If I dont sync them, they will spawn, but wont attack. Anyways, you wouldn't happen to have a functional template you could share? Thanx alot man!
This just doesn't work for me, I did everything step by step, but still only one nation spawns, and most of the time its the wrong one
One thing I've learned in messing with preliminary setup is that it's best to turn all the faction dropdowns to none and then specify the factions manually. Alive Wiki lists the faction names that are supported and what to enter to get them. This solved that problem for me (though I have other problems I'm still working on fixing, lol)
Great video man. New to Arma 3 and Alive of course. Thank you for your great quality videos. I hope you continue them.
DrunkScout Thank you very much for your feedback, it is greatly appreciated. Am planning on doing a new series soon for the most recent version of Alive. Hopefully in the next couple of weeks :)
@@EdWallitt Best news I've had this year! I'm starting to wonder if my addiction is playing the sim, or making the best mission I can lol.
@@DrunkScout Haha. I know that feeling well. Around 2 years back I made a persistent campaign on Tanoa for my community (Tier1Ops) and it became seriously addictive. Players were logging on in the middle of the night to just manage supplies back at the base!
@@EdWallitt My buddy who I'm playing coop with started the server, and we're getting the script to run so I can copy his save file and run it myself so that I can do just that... fortify, resupply, and map plan lol. Freaking amazing sandbox milsim.
DrunkScout great! I highly recommend it. When it works it’s one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had. Just can be tricky to setup as we both know :)
Great tutorial
My setup is invasion vs invasion, with the required modules synced. The problem is nobody is attacking, the groups are just cycling around their area. How do I make them attack eachother?
you need to set objectives via mill.civ
Very useful
Very glad I found this, Nice tut man!
So Alive may be what I've always been looking for, a dynamic set of tasks that unfolds over the course of my play sessions eh? I got so hung up on the dynamic experience I took a dive into RAVAGE mod for the past year, good times and amazing mod but I need to put the Zombie thing down for a bit hah
Thanks! You will not be disappointed. You can create some seriously nice single and multi-player dynamic scenarios (and even persistent campaigns) using ALIVE.
I got it all working over the holiday weekend, thanks to your vids man. Good times, I set up a conventional style battle using CSAT then as I got further into the Alive modules ended up making an asymmetric warfare scenario on that Lythium map.
Great news Zak. Glad you got it all working.
Thank you!
Really clear tutorial Edward my congratualtions. I used with CUP mods on Takistan but i had two issue. First in ALIVE it was impossible to use Takistan insurgent or regulars, only NATO and CSAT. Second, starting the mission in the airbase spawning choppers exploded.
Thanks Mario. It is always tricky using modded factions and non-vanilla maps. It is certainly possible though as long as a) you use the right class name for the unit in the override field in the AI commander and placements and b) the faction(s) and map are supported by ALIVE - see alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Factions. Finally, the exploding chopper thing is a well known indexing bug on Takistan which I believe the team are working on for future releases.
Hi Edward i have another question for you. Is it possible to avoid that ALiVE spawn empty choppers and planes? Thx in advance
Yes, you can override helicopters and aircraft spawn numbers in the settings on the military placement (mil) module. Also take a look at the Military AI Commander module settings, I think there are some more options there for removing the spawning of empty vehicles in military-type areas e.g. airports.
This was needed, thank you
Can you replace csat and nato with ww2 units or are we stuck with vanilla?
Yeh ya can :D. Google - "Alive supported factions" It lists all the factions there that you can use instead that are compatible. You can use incompatible units and profile them yourself but I don't know how to do that yet. Anyway in the "force faction" part of your mil/civ placement and the mil commander I would put "rhs_faction_vdv" to spawn russian vdv without the quotation marks. Good luck :D
@@lullylew9083 thanks for the answer that helped me out too!:)
@@arttheclown9458 You're most welcome.
I tried this and recieved "There are 0 objectives for this [UNIT] OPCOM instance! Please assign Military or Civilian Placement Objectives!" despite me syncing everything together properly. Do you have any idea why this is happening?
I have had this before when I set a placement for a zone that does not have any suitable civilian or military objectives for the opcom. Of course also worth double checking that you have give each placement the current variable name of the zone as shown in the video. If none of that works I would head over to the ALIVE forums and ask there, they really know there stuff there and there are lots of people very willing to help out.
I know it’s been a while but I’m very confused as to why it says 0 obj for opcom instance, I have both AI commanders synced to each others Mil Obj placement. Everything else is working fine but I can’t seem to find anything on it. 😕
I can only get OPFOR to spawn in. Blufor won't spawn in at all. I copied what you said and did, but doesn't work.
are you still making videos? you are awesome
Yes, more coming soon. Thanks.
Cool, what about more alive tutorials?
Is there a way I could trigger the alive ai commanders to begin commanding. Like I first have to complete a custome mission and at the end of that mission the ai commander for Burford takes over?
How do you set that AI only spawns inside the markers and not anywhere else? In my scenario, AI keeps spawning on the entire map even though I only added two small zones not far away from each other.
Great tut, very clear. However, even though I did it step by step and checked now 3 times to see where I messed up, only blufor spawn in and not opfor and no attacking taking place, any ideas anyone?
Hey i have a issue on chernarus, but in reality in all the map i use. I always play as invader and i put like 4-5 area for each side under the control of the RHS faction, and it works great the first 30 min because the fight begin at the more close ennemy area from our area. But when the first area are taken they stop the massive attack and start fighint each other with small group or they simply start to stop the attck on the other area. For exmple on chernarus my team have their base at the airport on top of the map in the right and we control this airport, the big town on the coast under the base, gorka and a little village close to novy sobor, the ennemi have the big airfield on the center, stary sobor , the little town on the left of thire arifield and chernogorsk and zerlenogorsk. My team always attack stary sobor the little town and the airfield but the ai commander have never send them to cherno and zerlenogorsk. Why ? i have the same issue on other map they are always attacking some of the ennemies area but never all of them, sorry for my english im french
Thank you man for this tutorial! One thing is nobody is attacking each other they only patrol any help?
Tnk you!
Do you sync the objective markers to both operation commanders, or do you sync them to the other side's own objective marker?
Amazing video, quick question. Do other players also need the alive mod or can they play vanilla?
Ok got a question since I am new to this. Setup a mission just as you did, but want the blufor to defend a base. When I go in singleplayer to test, I get some message about no obj or something. Did I miss a step?
It keeps spawning, then emediatly deleting enemies, help
Edit: also it keeps spawning animals (snakes and rabbits)
It's saying no I need to add military locations within the toar, can't I just fight on a dessert?
Thanks for the video, it's really helpful! Are you planning to do ALIVE Dedicated Server tutorial ?
Yes, that is on my list of videos to record for the series. It is a relatively complex one unfortunately :(
Awesome tutorial! Got a question though, is there a selection for AI Commanders and Independents for RHS and CUP mods?
There's custom override codes for them on the alive webpage
how can i thank you ! maan you are the best !
Great!
I don’t know why but the AI are not spawning.
THANKS!
Great tutorial! Do you know if its possible for modded factions only to spawn? (such as ifa3/RHS units)? im not getting any options in the spawn faction menu. Thanks!
Hi Lucas. Yes can certainly do that but you need to put the faction class name in the section beneath the dropdowns (Military AI Commander). You can find a list of supported factions over at the ALiVE wiki - alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Factions
I do Everything In The Video But The Cast and Nato Not Spawn in Position Why??
I would double check that you have your zones setup correctly, and all military placement modules assigned to the correct zones.
thanks for the basics, but i don't want to set up 2 AI factions to attack each other, i want a mission with objectives for me and my team to accomplish.
That is fine. Just make the setting for your faction not spawn units. You can then call all the shots. You can also put the enemy in occupation mode so they will defend key areas for you to attack.
Can you make map indexing tutorial
what if i want to use a custom faction
when i sink commanders to other commanders objectives instead of invading each other they both spawn in the same objectives and kill each other.
You need to make sure that the military placement modules are assigned to the correct zones. By the sound of it you might have them not assigned correctly.
When filling in the TAOR Marker field in the Mil. Placement Modules, try putting the opposing TAOR marker in the Blacklist field. This should prevent the factions from spawning in each other's TAOR markers.
What if I am using some 3rd party mod factions, how do I know what their three letter code (such as OPF_F, BLU_F) actually is? Or it doesn't matter?
You can usually find the class name for the factions (including modded ones) on the Alive wiki, or many mods given them to you in their docs, or in the editor.
Would running additional AI mods such as VCOM interfere with how the AI in Alive operates?
No, in my experience VCOM works really well with ALIVE.
ASR AI3 also works. You can actually use both as they modify the AI in different ways. You should see a pilot land with both ai mods. It's like it's a player!
set it up exactly like this, but it seems to just be spawning rabbits and snakes in the TAOR.
That's CSAT for yah 😂
Make sure that the TAOR has either civilian or military building within it (depending on which placement module you are using)
Did everything as shown with IFA3 and they're not spawning.
IFA3 is on the list of supported factions (alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Factions). Please check that you have the correct class names in the override faction fields on each of the modules as listed at the link. From memory I recall you need to do it for the Military Commander and all the synced military placement modules. They definitely work as I have build ALIVE missions with that mod before. If not pleas ask on the ALIVE forum where they can provide better support.
Hey I get a black box with an error stating b_combat_fsm = false;
Hi. Sounds like you have a conflicting mod. Are you by any chance using the bCombat mod? This may not be compatible with ALIVE.
@@EdWallitt holy shit 7 years later I find this tutorial again! Guess I should've tried harder so as not to forget loool
How can you do it with ww2 units
Here is a good question for you..... Because I'm stuck.. adding a zone to the civ or mill objective now on my editor no longer appears transparent on the in-game map...... like all the pervious ones I placed down. I'm now stuck having to add a color, or texture.. instead of it just not showing up at all on the in game map. No clue how this even happened or what key I hit, or how to undue this. I'm about half done with placing OPF, and OPF_G_F, and haven't even started with BUL_F yet, and now I'm stuck with this issue. Oh, and I have spent about an hour and a half looking for a fix for this and cannot find one.
Does this mod support other modded nations like RHS as well?
Good question! Yes it does. I recommend checking the Alive wiki for the correct class names to put in the editor.
Alive lets me do things i dont know how to do lol like setup cas and transport/airlifts
Does it work with modded/addon factions?
yep, the soupported factions are these: alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Factions
Really wierd at first I thought I did something wrong but it seems I did it all correct but it says for OPFOR that no unit is set or something? BLUFOR is spawned wierd?
No groups for OPCOM
Something must be setup wrong mate. Very difficult to say without looking at your mission file. Please head on over to the alive forums and post your mission there. Lots of lovely people who I am sure would be happy to help.
YEAH I GOT THE SAME PROBLEM
Link to mod?
Can the unit respawn ?
ALIVE units do not respawn, they are deducted from the available pool of units available to the AI Commander.
Edward Wallitt ok thank and do you know How to export a create faction with orbat ?
I have found a list of videos on ORBAT from their forums - alivemod.com/forum/2406-orbat-creator-general-faq
Hope they help.
Edward Wallitt already see that but thank :)
It's military, not militree lol. Read slowly, idk how you messed this up since it is the word you see most in Arma.
'militree' is a common way in my dialect of pronouncing 'military', most likely because it rolls off the tongue better. This term is in common usage in the South of England where I am from, even in the Armed Forces.
is this available on non arma original maps, like chernarus, takistan etc.?
Yes a number of maps are supported. Take a look at the full list here alivemod.com/wiki/index.php/Supported_Maps. Although I would check their forum as well as I understand that the list is not always kept up-to-date