Addons

What are Addons

Addons are content additions to the game engine. Addons can take on many forms such weapons, buildings, vehicles to name a few, are developed and released by members of the BI community or by Bohemia Interactive themselves.

An addon is an archive (pbo) of files that the game loads at interrupts. Generally when most people think of addons, they immediately think of a new unit, or a new island, but in some cases an addon can contain only a config.cpp file and a few scripts, or some images.

Installing Addons

There comes a time when you've downloaded so many addons from the Internet and plunked them in your ~\addons folder, that eventually, can cause a clash between one addon and another. What BI has done is introduced mod folders to separate addons into different folders. The mod folders is the method you should be using when testing out new addons.

Always review the included ReadMe file for further information about the installation of an addon.

Arma 2 & Arma 3

• Addons
  must be installed into a custom modfolder. It is not recommended to place addons into the original Addons folder.

Arma

• Addons
  must be installed to "Addons" or "ArmA\Addons" or into a custom modfolder. It is not recommended to place addons into the original Addons folder.

Operation Flashpoint

• Addons
  must be installed to "...directory\Operation Flashpoint\Addons" or "...directory\Operation Flashpoint\Res\Addons" or into a custom modfolder.

• Custom Animations
  must be installed to "...directory\Operation Flashpoint\dta\" (overwrite existing Anim.pbo) or "...directory\Operation Flashpoint\Res\dta\" (overwrite existing Anim.pbo) or into a custom modfolder ("...directory\Operation Flashpoint\modfolder\dta\").
  The original Anim.pbo can be restored from the Resistance CD.

• Custom Campaigns
  must be installed to "...directory\Operation Flashpoint\Campaigns\" or "...directory\Operation Flashpoint\Res\Campaigns\" or into a custom modfolder ("...directory\Operation Flashpoint\modfolder\Campaigns\").
  This only works with campaigns. Single missions have to be installed to "...directory\Operation Flashpoint\Missions\".

• Mods
  mostly come with an installer and create their own modfolder.

• Custom Skies
  mostly come with an installer and create their own modfolder.

Steam Workshop

Arma 3 has introduced a new way of publishing, browsing and installing mods: Steam Workshop. There are two main parts to using Workshop: Publisher to publish addons into Steam Cloud and Arma 3 Launcher to download and/or update mods and launch the game with a selected set.

A typical use for mods case is:

• Creator publishes file to Steam Workshop using Publisher. He adds a tag mod to the published file.

• User browses Steam Workshop and subscribes to content he likes.

• Arma 3 Launcher downloads and updates the subscribed mods (it only shows files with a steam tag mod).

• User can select which mods to load into the game.

A typical use for scenarios is:

• Creator publishes a scenario from in-game editor. Editor auto-adds the tag scenarios.

• User browses Steam Workshop and subscribes to content he likes.

• Steam downloads and updates the subscribed scenarios. They are accessible in-game from Play/Scenarios/Steam subscribed content (only content with a tag scenario is displayed here).

Finding A Specific Addon

Arma & Arma 2 & Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead

• Armed Assault.info, ArmA site by the OFP.info makers
• Armaholic, a very good addon folder structure
• Armed Assault.de German site
• ArmA2base.de
• arma.at.ua, Russian site
• flashpoint.ru, Russian site
• Bohemia Interactive forum.

Arma 3

• Armaholic
• Steam Workshop
• Bohemia Interactive forum

Creating Addons

For topics about creating addons for each of the Bohemia Interactive games is available from the appropriate link below.

• ArmA: Addon Editing
• Arma 2: Editing
• Arma 2: Editing
• Arma 3: Editing