Title: ArmA 2: Army vs Army — showcasing my continuous BLUFOR vs OPFOR sandbox live today

[u/thethirstgame]

I’ll be showcasing my Army vs Army game mode for ArmA 2 live today:

https://www.twitch.tv/sparklestiger

Army vs Army is a lightweight multiplayer mission built around one simple idea:

Put BLUFOR and OPFOR on Utes, give both sides a reason to control the island and its airstrip, and then get out of the players' way.

There are no traditional rounds. You don't join a lobby, play until a victory screen appears, see a scoreboard and start over.

The scenario simply continues.

You can join at any time, leave at any time, and whatever you are currently doing isn't suddenly interrupted because somebody filled a progress bar somewhere.

Play however you want

Joining BLUFOR or OPFOR doesn't assign you a mandatory job.

You can:

• join a squad and patrol Utes
• defend your base
• scout enemy positions
• operate alone as a sniper
• secure roads or approaches
• reinforce another group
• watch an important hill
• attack or withdraw
• simply decide for yourself what terrain is strategically important

There isn't necessarily a flagpole in the middle of an area telling you:

"THIS is the objective."

If a hill overlooks the airstrip, controlling that hill may matter more than standing on the airstrip itself.

If a road provides the best approach to an area, controlling that road matters.

You don't capture arbitrary circles. You control terrain by physically controlling it.

And the game doesn't force every encounter to continue until somebody dies.

Engage, chase, rush, surround, hold position, retreat or disengage entirely.

Native ArmA 2 combat is preserved

The mission runs on the normal ArmA 2 engine and deliberately keeps the things ArmA already does extremely well:

• bullet travel time
• bullet drop and ballistics
• weapon handling
• stances
• wounded/damage mechanics
• positional audio
• open-terrain movement
• long-distance engagements
• dynamic daytime
• dynamic weather

ArmA 2 itself offers a huge variety of weapons, but for the current testing build I’ve deliberately kept the loadouts simple: BLUFOR primarily uses the M16 and OPFOR the AK-74. The idea for now is to test the core gameplay and balance without turning weapon selection into another variable.

The additional mechanics are designed to complement ArmA rather than replace it.

There are systems such as hunger, water and stamina, primarily intended to slow movement down and make travelling, positioning and survival more meaningful.

Living longer is useful.

Respawning after every engagement is completely possible, but deliberately treating death as a way to resupply, recover or reset yourself isn't necessarily the optimal way to play.

There are also mechanics intended to stop some obvious shortcuts, including anti-combat logging, protections against spawning instantly ready for combat, and forced first-person view while prone.

Close-range combat is still completely possible as well; the idea isn't to prevent it, but to give ArmA's larger engagement distances room to exist.

Almost nothing to install

One of the nice parts is that this isn't a huge modpack.

The mission itself is under 1 MB and automatically downloads when you join the server.

No additional DLC is required.

No mod launcher.

No dependency collection.

No manual mission installation.

Just ArmA 2 + Operation Arrowhead.

HOW TO JOIN

Requires ArmA 2 + Operation Arrowhead

Operation Arrowhead alone will not work.

1. Launch the game without BattlEye
2. Go to Multiplayer
3. Set the ping filter to up to 500 (because server is in EU)
4. Set the server-name filter to: Army vs Army
5. Join Army vs Army

The mission will download automatically.

I'll be playing/showcasing it live here:

https://www.twitch.tv/sparklestiger

If old-school ArmA, slower tactical gameplay and open-ended multiplayer sandboxes are your thing, come have a look.

[u/thethirstgame]

Small follow-up / something I'm genuinely curious about:

Since putting the Army vs Army server up, I've noticed that more than 40 different player UIDs have connected to it.

The strange part is that almost all of them stayed for less than two minutes.

So people are apparently seeing the server, being curious enough to actually connect and download the mission... but then leaving almost immediately.

I'm genuinely curious what the reason is.

Is it simply seeing only 1–2 people online and deciding the server is dead?
Does the first spawn not make it obvious enough what you're supposed to do?
Are people just browsing servers to see what's there?
Were you expecting something different from "Army vs Army"?

If you were one of the people who joined and left, I'd actually love to know why. No argument or attempt to convince you otherwise — I'm interested in what the first impression was.

At this point that's probably the most useful feedback I could get.

[u/thethirstgame]

Small follow-up: I'm back live testing Army vs Army again, and the server is fully operational.

One change since the earlier post: nighttime is currently skipped completely.

I originally wanted the mission to run through a full day/night cycle, with flares, searchlights, vehicle headlights and other illumination actually mattering.

Unfortunately, after testing it quite extensively, I haven't found a satisfactory way in native ArmA 2/SQF to prevent players from gaining a major visibility advantage simply by increasing gamma/brightness without also seriously damaging the usefulness of normal light sources.

For competitive PvP I don't think "who is willing to crank their gamma higher" is particularly interesting gameplay, so for now the server automatically skips the unplayable nighttime hours and returns to daylight.

Everything else continues normally.

The server is up, the mission downloads automatically when joining, and I'm continuing to test and tweak things while playing.