I have an account, but we play on a public server. Would it still work and if so, do I just install the @alive server on my personal computer instead of on a dedicated server?

@Friznit The recommended approach, and the one a lot of us use for testing, is setting up a "local dedicated server". If your run arma3server.exe with the exact same mod line as your game but including @aliveserver as well, you can then join this from your normal game client.

Then you can add the details to War Room using your servername and IP address and benefit from all the persistence, maps, AAR and showing off your shiny stats on the profile, and make use of the automated performance data. Just be sure to check your IP address is the same each time you run it up (if you don't have a static IP from your ISP).

BI Community Wiki has lots of details about how to set up dedi servers with server.cfg etc.

Not to sound dumb, but can you lay this method out, step by step as if I'm going from playing ARMA on a public server, to setting up a "local dedicated server" on the exact same computer? I'd like to get this set up so my small group can run persistent missions on our personal setup. No dedicated server outside of my own PC

I find it easiest to use a server tool such as TADST to setup my server. Just download and throw the .exe in your Arma main directory. You can then specify basic settings, pick a folder(s) to detect mods from, enable whatever mods need to be ran on the server, pick a mission to play and then start it up. Pretty easy once you get the hang of it and has different savable presets you can make.

Also when running the server on the same PC as your client make sure you assign 2 cores to the server .exe and 2 (or more) different cores to the client .exe

There is an excellent guide on the BIS forums by Terox on setting up a dedi but as Spyder mentioned for what you are doing TADST is probably your best bet.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?147537-Tutorial-How-to-run-ArmA3-on-a-dedicated-server

Yeah I used TADST and it worked like a charm. It's just the communication to the War Room is where I'm having the issue. (See other thread on this).

Is the assigning of the cores necessary if I'm already using TADST?

We were able to get in and play the game no problem last night. Just had difficulty getting data to save to War Room.

Not sure if TADST auto-assigns cores I've never used it myself.

How could I check that?

You can check outside of TADST -

open task manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del select Task Manager or Ctrl-Shift-ESC)
Goto processes tab
Right-click on arma3server.exe and select Set Affinity
Right-click on arma3.exe and setect Set Affinity

Assign server 2 cores (1 and 2 if you have more than 4.. .leave 0 out of the equation if possible) then your client the rest.

So I assign server.exe 1and 2 and I assign arma3.exe cores 3 and 4. Is that correct (I have quad core)

Yes correct (or more accurately server.exe gets 0 and 1, client.exe gets 2 and 3)

All 4 cores are assigned to both of them. Still can't connect to War Room.

Every requirement I need I have installed. I've even tried creating the ALiVE folder in the local app data and moving the alive.cfg there.....moving the alive.cfg to the Arma 3 root...

Nothing is working.

This is terribly frustrating.

Is this the entire alive.cfg file?

# ALiVE War Room config
JSON,6azy9yqowu7o2i3edupigotora6iwyro,nuge2o8e5uqe6izexita2yvymuzu2i6a,OSTACT

No stats, etc are going across and the War Room doesn't show me as playing any missions.

One of our team members did the exact same setup...with TADST...and he's getting the exact same issue.

Server runs great, no problems starting, joining...but hitting Server save and Exit....nothing. Just sits there saying "Saving...Please wait" and no record of his game on War Room.

There has to be a step that is missing for folks who are running the dedicated server via TADST on the one computer.