idea for more helpful mod navigation

[cannibalmerk 4]

Hi everyone, a fresh Bambi here. Been playing Arma 3 for almost a year now (nobody told me about this haven of awesome before). I started my own server last weekend and immediately felt the weight of Altis slam down on my face (I was sold by lines of "easy, one click setup"). I came here looking for guidance, instructions and help and I've definitely gotten mixed results. I'll say first that when you get help, it's with good intentions and they seem very knowledgeable. Granted, my major communication issue results from just not understanding the scripting language and terminology as well as many on here. And sometimes, I post something and it just sits there. I understand this forum isn't here at my beckon call and everyone here has lives of their own so I don't hold it against anyone. But on to my original point.

 

My suggestion/wish/idea is to have a section of EXTREMELY basic tutorials for people to follow. Maybe populate it from the bugs/tech talk sections once they've been closed. Once I started looking into installing mods on my server I did what any reasonable person would do. I would read the install instructions for he mod, have no clear understanding of what it said, where to go, how to specifically do it or how to verify it was done correctly. So I moved to googling "exile arma installing advanced towing" or something similar. I would get 4 or 5, sometimes more links to this very forum. I'd think "HOORAY! info and help" Then I'd look through the posts and comments.... nothing useful. Several answers would be "read the install instructions and do that".... great.... back to square one. Or answers like "go into the configsqf and call X file from root position blah blah blah. add in this line of code in the file and poof! you're working"...... yay... an even more complicated explanation than the first one I didn't understand. The worst were ones that ask the exact question I have and there's either no comments at all, or just "Got it working". I know it would be a lot of work, but if there was a section for actually solved issues with clearly defined help/instructions in the comments you could go to that would be amazing and hopefully reduce the amount of blindly fumbling through the forums, getting frustrated. 

I understand that scripting and server admin has a hella steep learning curve and people need to know when they're out of their depth. But I'd urge everyone to remember that you were in the noob shoes at one point too and those of us in them now are looking for he same help you did. And the more we know and can help, the less everyone has to rely on you for it. It's just my thoughts, sorry for the rant. Hope everyone has a great day.

[Riker2335 171]

My first feeling to this rant is that maybe you bit off more than you could chew with your server. I was a 'first time admin' 18 months ago and therefore remember the experience well. I had never done anything other than played on Exile and DayZ OP servers prior to that and I had no C++ coding knowledge nor any ARMA server knowledge.

When I decided to give a server a go, I spent about 2 months reading these forums every opportunity I had and reading code snippits trying to understand how everything hung together as well as familiarising myself with the C programming language. Once I had some grasp of this, I set up an Altis server on my own PC and did some basic loot table and mission customisation to make sure I understood what I was doing at a basic level. I then ramped up my tinkering bit by bit, not taking on any mods that were too far beyond my knowledge each time so that I could learn gradually and at my own pace. I also took detailed notes of things I did and things I learned so that I could apply that knowledge when setting up other mods.

The reason some people get a bit grumpy and give blunt answers is that the answer (more often than not) is on the forum already and asked numerous times. They are also often replying from a mobile device or quickly while at work, hence the abruptness. There's no point reading too much into this as sometimes people are just trying to give you a bit of an idea where you should be looking, not provide an exact answer.

My last point is just that we all know it's not easy and doesn't come naturally to everyone but the resources available on these forums and the BI forums is extensive and yes it's hard to learn but learning the basics of the C programming language will help as that's what it's based upon.

[cannibalmerk 4]

I agree that I got in faster than I probably should have. Luckily the server came up and running exile with super easy zombie/mission/occupation installation. I've been going through the basic sqf's ad learning how things work, adjusting a few variables here and there. Making small preferential tweaks basically.  I also don't doubt that pretty much anything you would want or need to know is somewhere on this forum. The issue is, this forum has 24 main sections and 65 sub-sections. Granted, you could easily remove at least half of those depending on what you're looking for. Another thing I'm finding is the Op is over 2 years old and when you go to the actual mod download you find out they've released 6 or 7 updates with all new features and updated installation instructions. So is that older post no longer  relevant? is it partially relevant? What parts? Yes the info is technically here. but there's no way of actually knowing that that particular info from a year and a half ago is the correct, up to date info and the info you actually need isn't buried deep in another thread. 

[Riker2335 171]

On 10/08/2017 at 9:34 PM, cannibalmerk said:

Luckily the server came up and running exile with super easy zombie/mission/occupation installation

This is good from a time saving perspective but not from a learning perspective. The zombie and occupation setup are simple installations that really help you understand how these things work. EBM is also a good one to introduce you to code overrides for example.... if they are being handed to you pre-installed then you aren't having the opportunity to learn these basic mod installs so you are then left with the more complex ones to figure out with no grounding knowledge.

It's why most people on these forums (when asked) always tell people to start the environment up on their own PC or a spare PC at home first and move to hosting later. That gives you the ability to iterate things quickly and also learn the process and integration of all components from the start rather than having something handed to you and then having to reverse engineer it to figure out how it works.