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ACRE or TFAR? - Open Discussion


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Before we start, this is not a rant, nor is it me being whiny, this is simply an open discussion where people can leave their thoughts.

 

ACRE or TFAR? That is the question for this discussion.

 

Recently, we moved to ACRE due to it's radio design, it allowed for better radio sounds and functions which subsequently led to better discipline, though this was good it had to have a negative effect to follow; this effect was that numerous people had issues where their ACRE would not load properly or they had a weird fuzzy effect when they tried to talk or listen.

 

On the other hand, TFAR had a much simpler design which led to more efficient communication between teams and also more realistic radio usage. Negative effects were that it was incredibly easy to use multiple different systems rather than one system which ACRE uses.

 

These systems are the radio frequency systems, two examples for SR radios.

 

Single Frequency System - A system that is possible to use in TFAR and is the only system available in ACRE. This system is, for example: Alpha 1 and 2 both being on the same frequency, usually a fireteam will be close enough to shout to each other so this is a valid system to use, the cons are that radio chatter can be clustered in times of extreme noise or long distance where shouting isn't available.

 

Multi Frequency System - A system that is only possible with TFAR. This system is, for example: Alpha 1 being on a seperate frequency to Alpha 2 while the teamleaders have an additional channel to talk between themselves as well as the SL and Medic. This system works well when fireteams need to split up or for when fireteams need to be used for specific usage, for example; Alpha 1 being the offensive team with a grenadier and assistant auto while Alpha 2 is the defensive with the Marksman.

 

Both mods allow for their own pro's although cons also follow.

 

So, what do you prefer and think would be more efficient?

 

Feel free to leave your points down below.

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The shout function in ACRE seems much better than TFAR's.
And also people in crew seats on tanks and helicopters get their own internal radio over local, so they don't have to use their personal radio or shout unsuccessfully.

 

Other than that, it seems TFAR is much less buggy from what I've heard.

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ACRE doesn't work right now. It's really that simple imo.

 

If it was working properly, it would be my preferred choice, but the fact is that I have never had a mission after switching to ACRE in which 152 and 117f radios haven't bugged out for several people at once, resulting on complete loss of comms between units. Lately I've spent more time trying to troubleshoot and solve those issues while on server than I have actually going to an AO.

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ACRE isn't working right because I don't think it's been implemented properly in Gauntlet.  I'm back at work on my mission this week (hopefully a beta test soon!) and I'll be looking at various approaches on how it should be implemented.

 

Some points:

 

ACRE would not load properly

 

Of course the first major thing is that ACRE doesn't "load you into the Teamspeak channel" like TFAR does.  I'm not super happy with how the current method works (password via a form, etc) but I understand why that approach was taken and I think it's the best option given the way the MOD works.

 

As for TS integration and it not working that way... TFAR had its own share of TS integration headaches and long story short if you could get TFAR working, you should be able to get ACRE working.

 

weird fuzzy effect when they tried to talk or listen.

 

This is by design.  TFAR has full duplex radios, which allow people to transmit while they receive, the downside being that you can talk over one another.  Radios in real life don't really work this way and ACRE tries to replicate that (it doesn, however, have a setting which allows you to give players magic full-duplex radios).

 

In short, if you try to transmit while someone else is transmitting, you'll break the signal and produce the effect you note.  Whether we actually want this to be the case should be up for discussion, as Kenny and BACON have decided for us that half-duplex (realistic) radios should be the standard.

 

Multi Frequency System - A system that is only possible with TFAR. Alpha 1 being on a seperate frequency to Alpha 2 while the teamleaders have an additional channel to talk between themselves as well as the SL and Medic.

 

This isn't true - you can set this up in ACRE.  Just click on the handle on your PRC-343 (the right side of the radio) and it will remove it, allowing you to change the "Block" the radio is on (1 or 2) so that two teams on channel one are speaking on different blocks.  That is to say, a team on channel 1 block 2, will not be able to hear and talk to a team on channel 1 block 1.  Or frankly, you could just put Alpha 1 on channel 1 and Alpha 2 on channel 2.

 

What you're thinking is that Team leaders should be able to talk on a separate sub-frequency on the PRC-343 with a separate button (ie., the alternate transmit button on the TFAR radios), but these radios aren't complicated enough to do that.  Rather the team leaders should have PRC-148s in order to talk to themselves and the squad lead.

 

If it was working properly, it would be my preferred choice, but the fact is that I have never had a mission after switching to ACRE in which 152 and 117f radios haven't bugged out for several people at once

 

That's definitely an issue, and I wonder if the recent upgrade in ACRE has addressed that at all?

 

I don't think it's yet time to abandon ACRE, I just think there needs to be more research on the issue before going back to TFAR.

 

-R

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I m haveing mixed feelings on the issue.

Experienced no issues on Gauntlet missions (thank you Colsta), then i just had a bugfest on the gamenight mission which forced me to abort.

 

I see ACRE's pros, but i'm not sure that they outweight the general instability it causes for, what seems like, at least a good portion of the players.

At least for now i wouldnt mind a rollback to TFAR to get things going.

 

 

First and foremost Gauntlet is now legacy "software" and will not be maintained by me at all, so kudos to the guys who hot-fixed it post 1.54.

 

 

Regards 

Christiansen

AW_Valiant lead coder & EU3 Manager

 

 

I would gladly wait for Valiant with proper ACRE support while in the meantime useing TFAR on Gauntlet.

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Guest hydrog

I am no modder or have any technical arma 3 modding knowledge but from my experience i found tfar too be the easiest too use most tactical and most realistic.

 

And the fact that as a heli pilot i had multiple issues on ACRE while being 100% sure i was on the right frequency.

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As you guys already said, ACRE is superior to TFAR, mimics actual radios a lot better. You were also right, the mission wasn`t properly implemented with ACRE, all of the mission makers are still learning a couple of things about it, so you gotta be patient with us a bit.

 

I personally really liked it on yesterdays game night, beside getting slightly annoyed by some for constantly using radios and interferring with SL. People just have to get used to radios being half-duplex (only 1 person can talk at a time) and actually hold their PTT radio key (or check that TS input thingy).

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If you've got the 64-bit ts3 version installed. Make sure the win64.dll is in there.

If you've got the 32-bit ts3 version - the win32.dll it is.

Run both Ts3 and Arma3 as administrator and make sure your TFAR plugin is off.

I haven't experienced any problems apart from a one time Babel-buggout, which - after BACON looked into it last night - should be fixed now.

Any other stuff, like people not being able to hear a person is most likely cliënt side now; seeing the modules should be fixed.

Might there be any other errors; we still have a Gauntlet feedback thread. Even though it's legacy software; that doesn't mean people have stopped maintaining it.

Sadly, I won't be able to play for a week or so probably. My headset decided to fuck me over by breaking when I calmly put it on my desk :-/.

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unlucky smiley, 

 

Personally i like the way that ACRE works and think it is the more realistic of the 2 mods, if you watch the setup guides that have been posted on threads elsware on the forum then there should be no issues, yes there will be transition issues as we move over from one mod to another but that comes with the nature of the game we play ( a modded version of arma) be patient while the mods are intergrated properly. 

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As far as i know the issues with babel etc were fixed last night so gauntlet should be playable. 

Quite a few people with the alien voice issue simply switched their Babel language every time they opened the ACE interaction menu, as it's the same default key. A simple re-binding solved all of their problems. So was there an actual module problem or did you fix something that wasn't broken?

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Why dont we switch to TFAR at the moment and wait till Acre is fix

I dare to say we are a kind of testers. Going live with ACRE2 ensured a lot of feedback essential for further bugfixes. I believe it wouldn't be so easy and fast if just a few people tested it. I might be wrong though.

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