Thanks for the clarification on Asymmetric and for the response :). If anyone ever thinks it's a good idea for a bluefor integration for it, consider this a wishlist item :)

I'm using a dedicated server in autoinit mode, so its on without anyone there and starts automatically. The Server "Save and exit" button - Last time I pressed it, didn't exit, is it designed to work in dedicated persistent mode? Or is it only going to work if it actually exits the mission? Presume logged in as admin too. I saw someone had added some code to run saving from a script for server (not player), has anyone designed a scheduler for this or do we think saving server mission progress is not a good design to be automated?

Thank you for your response :)

Hi folks, been in Arma3 Hiatus and noticed some changes, looking to come up to speed on ALiVE.

Question...I see an option for 'local database', but nothing on how to set it up, or if even you do. Could someone just outline the changes around persistence in the last 12-18 months, please?

Also, Asymetric warfare. Seems designed to be as an opfor, since I get tasks to destroy caches my side made and they appear as red and i get options to destroy a recruitment centre on my own side.. Is this by design or can the game be played as supporting the Insurgents? It might have been in the setup.

Good work on the Orbat thing, getting factions to work with Alive can be troublesome. It doesn't seem easy, but has to be better than getting another mod to cover something silly like a blue based opfor or some other silly limitation. The video was farily quick and needed a little explanation extra.

Nice to see ALiVE is...still kicking :)

Looking forward to this, I always wanted Alive to work locally. I gave up somewhat with Alive as it's use case was slightly different from what i thought it was at first. I was hoping (and don't get me wrong, ALive still is my favourite all time mod for Arma and I thank the team) that it would support JIP play on a 24/7 persistent server that was capable of restarts.

So a bit like what the RP servers have with iniDB and their alternatives. A such, Alive is an Admin only save function which means sessions have to be attended by an admin to be saved and thats a huge limitation on server administration capability.

The (my) end goal would be to run ALiVE, save units, do its awesome virtual saving thing without me having to be online. Thus we could get campaigns that lasted for days running.

If this manages that, i think we have Nirvana.

Will the server save always end the mission and be in the foregorund, can it never be automated to run silently? If not then i can stop trying to get the unattended server save and look at database saving instead via IniDB.

Unfortunately, Bercon and Rcon don't run Arma scripting commands, they integrate with chat or they can run a batch restart script (taskkill lol) but I can't seemingly parse the [server] command linked to me in another thread. Which is a shame. It's likely not a (commonly) requested feature.

Spent the morning looking at remote commands and https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Remote_Execution but its not the thing i need.

I think its a shame that the one use case of virtual AI that is really great can't be used unattended. What about working backwards the opposite way and providing the ability to save virtual AI to iniDB? I think I've given up with the server save, it's too restrictive to use.

I tested it, it works, from the debug console anyway. I'll need to Google RCON and see what it is.

Hi Tupolev, reason for saving a state whilst 'in persistence' is so you can reboot the box on a schedule using Windows Scheduled Tasks and have it come up and load back into the same mission again, or if there is a crash (small chance but its been known) without any interactions at all. I can currently achieve this and I do - I don't touch the box all week, it loads an alive mission, reboots the box every night but cannot hold persistent maps. To do this I need to send a save state inside the mission on a scheduled time period. I've already asked for that enhancement and I understand that ALiVE can't do that currently. I could probably script something but I'm not sure how to either a) access the game scripting from outside in the Windows environment or b) access the Windows environment from inside the gaming scripting environment - I'm not sure these are possible as developers usually design safety mechanisms to prevent it as its a security risk.

You can't use ALiVE persistence without a server admin initiating a save so we are looking at organised group play, with a start time and an end time. That's a completely different style of gameplay to running a server 24/7 with restarts scheduled. These are fundamentally different approaches and solve different problems, just in this case not mine.

I hope this explains what i'm trying to achieve and why, i don't think anyone is really understanding it because they don't play in the same way. The benefit of this different style is leveraging persistence (proper persistance over days and restarts - unattended) with large scale conflict in order to have quite large ongoing full map campaigns that continue to play themselves out whether there is one player, a dozen players or no players. It allows a solo player to still do key things like moving supplies, setting up mortar pits and defences with ACE and marking the map with these new positions, then later perhaps the main group come on and log (after say a reboot) and then utilise whats been left behind. It allows reconnaisance and preparation to be done in a day/night cycle, sniper teams can attrit, we can have longer logistics resupply timings. And finally, it allows the admin (me) to take absolutely no part in it unless i want to, certainly not to have to turn up, save the map and close up the session when they are done.

If you can see a way to make that happen we can leverage ALiVE to run outside the gameplay session and extend into a proper war with logistics lasting some time without having to be logged into every four hours to manually save and exit form the game and then reboot it, clear up memory, patch server, check security software has latest definitions etc.

Now if I've missed something in my understanding on how to get this to work I would be delighted to be shown the way so I can achieve that.

I think a problem is that i'm trying not to use it as it was designed based on what you said. I was heading for a JIP persistence similar to an exile/altis life type affair that would run the 'mission' without anyone present but use the "disable AI" to reduce CPU load. The ALiVE concept seems to be based around someone being there. Has anyone here tested with IniDB to get the persistence whilst only using ALiVE persistence for the logistics? My main issue with mixing the types is that traditional databases cannot capture the virtual AI system and the virtual AI system is the key to large scale conflict. So there's not a solution that fits my needs as far as I know :/ Which is kind of crushing. I'll still see if i can isolate the issue but without a way to fit my needs my heart isn't really in using this going forward. Thanks for your help.

OK it works exactly how you describe, theres some differences in server setup between this and mine, but we get a server save as is designed. As mentioned I got player save in session so its around the server save and restart theres something happening. Here's the differences Ive got so far:

1. Respawning is completely different, I need to check your description.ext and see if it works with my types which is the classic respawn point after timer. I suspect this is not a factor.
2. When doing a server save, the quickstart mission actually exits and stops and returns to the mission select screen. In mine it does not. see 3 below...
3. Autoinit is not present in your test so there is no autoloading of mission, in fact you can't have a persistent mission with the Quickstart because the mission wont run initially unless someone is connected. I wonder if this is the culprit?

3a. Theres a fairly sizeable difference in my server.cfg when I did this test. I cut out a lot of options.

1. I've got ACE3 and some unit mods like CUP and BAF added. Should be easy to rule out.
2. My mission is a lot larger on Altis. It would not surprise me if that breaks something.
3. There's possibly some funcitonal differences in the misisons anyway betweeen Alive modules and settings, I will have a peek at the quickstart mission tonight now its saved in my cache.

What I plan to do is add the differences in layers and see where it breaks and find out what breaks it. It's enough to say that ALiVE can be broken right now, even when loaded as per the instructions provided, so I'm sure this is of interest to you guys.

Fingers crossed for a solution and something to be gained for everyone out of this...

I need to do some config changes for mine then as I use autoinit to get the game auto load, thanks for the walk through will see how it goes.

...

I'm going to assume i'm being stupid again. But I think you've assumed i'm running a client.

How do you get to the PBO of a mission that's embedded into the pbo of your mod? Your quickstart is available as SHOWCASE from the Arma3 UI. I'm running a dedicated server from a commandline. I need to write the mission name to server config and have it in the MP folder for it to be able to be tested on the dedicated server, I don't have access to a UI and there is no point in trying to test on a hybrid or fat client if i'm reporting an issue with a dedicated server.

Are you guys not testing the software on dedicated servers?