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FA, Contact, and you

Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 9:18 pm
by NikkoJT
Hello comrades!

It is expansion season in Arma 3! On the 25th of July, Bohemia Interactive will release the second major expansion for Arma 3: Contact. Contact introduces new equipment, assets, and a complete new terrain, Livonia. It also has a campaign, but as you know, FA is a team effort, not single-player.

So what does this mean for me?
As with the current version of the Apex expansion, you will automatically download all assets other than the map and certain items used in the single-player campaign. Guns, uniforms, vehicles, props - all available, with the same restrictions that currently apply to Apex equipment for non-Apex-owners (watermarks and being unable to drive or gun vehicles).

Yes, but what does this mean for me in session?
Immediately: nothing. You should be able to access Contact equipment from presession arsenals if you own the expansion, and you might see hosts with Promets. It will be a couple of weeks before any missions utilising Contact assets arrive in our sessions.

Once we have missions ready, we will use a policy similar to our previous Apex policy. Missions on Livonia or making heavy use of Contact equipment will not be played as the first mission in a session, and you can expect to see only one such mission, or none at all, per session.

This policy will be in effect for about a month. After this, we will begin to lift our restrictions on the use of Contact content and the Livonia terrain. At this point, it will become strongly recommended to own the Contact expansion to play with Folk ARPS.

Why are you going to use Livonia? I don't want to pay for the expansion to play.
Livonia is a high-quality official terrain. As with the previous Apex expansion and Tanoa, we need that content. I've seen the map; it's real good.

Contact will never be outright required to play with FA. Livonia is not going to completely replace Altis, Stratis, Malden, and Tanoa. But we can't pass on the massive expansion to the stuff we can play with.

You can pre-order Contact now on the Bohemia and Steam stores. On the Steam store, there is an Arma 3 Ultimate Edition bundle which automatically reduces in price if you already own some items; this is the best current option for picking up Arma 3 DLCs including Contact, and Contact is actually cheaper through this bundle if you already own everything else.

Short version:
- Contact expansion: 25th of July
- 2-3 week period with no Contact missions
- 1 month of light Contact use, where Livonia is never the first mission
- Mid-September: It is strongly recommended to own Contact to play with FA. Livonia use is unrestricted.


Thank you for reading, and see you on Livonia!

Update:
Please note: if you own the Contact DLC, you will need to make sure you have the Contact Optional Component unloaded in the DLC tab in the launcher. You cannot connect to the server with the Optional Component loaded.