Setting Up The Mod

How to Properly Set Up Dead's Overthrow

While it is entirely possible to play the mod locally in ARMA 3, there is a large flaw that may heavily detract from the play experience:

Arma3's spawning, AI calculations, and garbage collection algorithms run thousands of times slower on a client than on a server instance, because these are used constantly in Overthrow (due to poor programming decisions), the performance while running the scenario on the client will most likely be less than desirable. Running it on server, on the exact same computer, will always give SIGNIFICANTLY better performance.

Running the mod on a server, and connecting to it as a client, even in single-player, is almost essential to get a playable frame-rate. NOTE: The following guide assumes you are using Windows

Luckily, setting up this mission, or any mission in fact, is not that hard to do. To emphasis the point, running the mod locally on my high-end gaming PC will frequently drop to ~20fps just by driving around, and even enter the single digits in the major towns. However, when playing the mod with a friend who was hosting the server on his low-mid range gaming PC (and playing on the same computer) neither of us reported any noticeable frame rate drops during our 8+ hours of play!

By using a server management tool, my personal recommendation is FASTER, the process is almost painless, and can be done without needing to manually use the Steam Terminal, or an extra directory, in case disk space is limited.

The only things you need to set up a server for the mission are

• A copy of the deadsotrhs.[map] file (which can be obtained from this GitHub, or the google drive in the mod page description
• The steam links of all the mods you wish to install here is a handy file you can use instead

Steps to set up a Dead's Overthrow server

This guide assumes you're going to be playing Arma 3 (the client) on the same computer you plan on running the server

1. Log in to your steam account (FASTER is entirely open source if you don't trust it, so you can examine every line of code yourself). Create a server profile by clicking the + in the middle left panel, name it whatever you'd like.

2. Select the "Mods" page in the top left, then either press the first "Add Steam Mod" button and add every mod you plan on using individually. Alternatively, you can use the ARMA 3 launcher to export the list of mods as an HTML file, and click the third "Import From Arma 3 Launcher File" (or use the file provided earlier). The files should show up as 0 Bytes large. Click "Check For Updates", and then "Update All." This will download all the steam workshop mods you added, so prepare for a large download.

Alternatively you can turn on "Show Hidden Folders" and import your client mods for the server to use, so you only need one copy of each mod. They should start with an @ symbol and be located in Arma3 game directory.

3. Go back to the Main/Updater page, make sure to tick any ARMA 3 cDLC you plan on using (the files needed for the server are different from the version clients use.) Then click "Update", this will download all the DLC the server needs.

4. Once the mods are finished downloading, go back to the "Deployment" page (beneath the Mods button), In the top right click "Deploy All."

5. Now click on the name of the server profile you made earlier. Select "Server + Client" for all the mods, this will require that all players joining also need these mods. Click the "DLCs" drop down menu, select the DLCs you downloaded.

6. Minimize FASTER and get the deadsothrhs[map].[map] file ready. (should actually be a folder. Ex. deadsotrhsaltis.altis) Go to your ARMA 3 game install directory and go to MPMissions. Copy and paste the mission folder into this directory. Maximize FASTER and click the "Missions" tab, next to "Profile" which should currently be selected. Click the refresh icon, and if everything is set up correctly so far, the name of the mission folder you just copy-paste should appear. Check the box next to the folder name. Make sure "difficulty" is set to "Custom", check "Persistent Battlefield" and then "AutoInit."

7. THIS PART IS VERY IMPORTANT It involves setting the parameters for the mission, some of these can interact with the mission in unexpected ways, so it is important to properly understand what they do. Most of them are up to personal preference and are self explanatory, however,

   • Make sure "Reduced Damage" is disabled, this can have weird effects with ACE Medical, and how the mod modifies certain medical values.
   • Make sure "Multiple Saves" is disabled, the mod uses its own saving feature.
   • It is recommended to disable Map Content Enemy, as the mod has its own feature for showing enemies on the map in a more balanced way.
   • Make sure "Forced Difficulty" is set to "Custom"
   • THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART For AI Skill and AI Precision, these values should be set very low. The reason is these values get ADDED onto the values assigned by ASRAI. Ex. the mod may give a basic solider a skill and accuracy value of 0.35, setting AI precision to 0.5 would result in an accuracy of 0.85, which is near perfect, and may give the AI the appearance of being "laser accurate." I recommend a value of 0.1 for both.

8. Onto the "Server" tab, if you're trying to play single player, you can completely ignore this. Just make sure the "BattlEye" setting is enabled if you play with BattlEye on. If you are trying to play cooperatively with friends (I.e security does not matter) I recommend turning BattlEye off, it may save you a headache. Turn off VON if you're using an outside program to communicate (I.e Discord). If people are unable to connect, or disconnecting randomly, you may need to go back and tick "UPNP" on. If you plan on exposing this as a public server, I highly recommend learning what each setting does, especially those under "Server Advanced"

9. Lastly go to "Performance", most of this is unimportant, except "Server View Distance". This setting, confusingly, does not affect the server at all. It sets the maximum view distance for clients (it may do other things for other missions, keep that in mind) so your best-off setting it as high as it goes, and letting each client limit their own view distance. (This feature is mainly to prevent players with better PCs and running with higher view distances from having an advantage over others that can't run such settings.)

It may be useful to play around with the "Force CPU Count" and "Force Maximum Memory" options, especially if your ARMA 3 client is running poorly. I'd start with setting each to half the amount of CPU cores, and RAM on your machine.

10. Almost ready, it is useful to know you can monitor the server statistics from the "Server Status" page. If your logged in as a server admin, you can also see the server statistics in game. The single most important factor is the servers current frame-rate, this effectively will tell you how "laggy" (What you may perceive as "high ping") the server is. Anything below 15 FPS is unplayable, below 20 FPS there will be noticeable delay to most things (Physics, AI, Interactions). The max FPS is 50, but you should aim to keep it at 30. (More may start consuming resources that will lower your clients FPS.)

11. Finally, in the bottom left click the save icon, this will forewarn you of any errors. If none occur, you can click the start arrow, run the server and connect. (However, you shouldn't start playing just yet) Note: make sure you start the ARMA 3 client first, than the server, otherwise steam will shut down the server when you try to launch the server.

12. Once you connect and, in the mission, log in as an admin, open the ESC menu, and click OPTIONS/ADDON OPTIONS and make sure your under "SERVER." In this menu quickly go through each page and make sure no options have "Overwrite Mission" enabled. Certain settings may have unintended effects on the game play. Optionally save the settings as a preset, then apply them to server, and restart the server if warned to. You can now properly play the mod, Enjoy!

In order to have other people to be able to join your server, you will either need to port forward the port set in the Profile/Port setting. There are guides on how to port forward essentially every router to ever exist. Alternatively, if port forwarding isn't an option, you can use a tool such as Hamachi to set up a private VPN and bypass your router. (Note: Using a service such as Hamachi may violate your ISP contract and should only be used with people you absolutely trust, as it presents an existential vulnerability to your home network while active.) You can find guides online on how to use Hamachi with Arma 3.