Arma2 A.C.E. release announcement!

Sickboy wrote:Yesterday's RC10 == v1.0 Stable.

Sickboy wrote:A.C.E. Mod for ArmA 2, Official Announcement!



It has been nearly 1 year, since the A.C.E. Advanced Combat Environment Mod, for ArmA 1, was released.
Since that release, we have been constantly working on our Mod, to improve it, expand it, and fix the things we could.
In the meantime, ArmA 2 has been released for about 6 months, and our attention has been on the mod for ArmA 2, for at least that long.

Today we would like to announce our plans for a Public Release.
As with ACE1, we have decided to start with a Public Beta Release, planned for the week of 7 December.
We intend to keep updating our Mod on a daily basis in this Public Beta stage.
We do this to get as much feedback and bug reports as possible, as soon as possible, and provide everyone the latest code to test.

Then before the end of the year, we hope to deliver a few promised, finalized features, and fix immediate issues that are found.


What is A.C.E. and what is it not

A.C.E. for ArmA 2 is a full conversion mod and is based on A.C.E. for ArmA 1, which was based on WGL for OFP.
The WGL roots were "When realism matters". We lifted this already a little bit with A.C.E. 1.
And with A.C.E. 2 it is no different. We try to keep a balance between realism and gameplay. We try not to sacrifice either in name of the other.
We try to please as many as possible, but it is simply impossible to please all.
Please feel free to give constructive feedback on our choices.


The Package

The A.C.E. Package for ArmA 2 consists out of 3 building blocks:

• CBA: Community Base Addons
  
• ACE: Core
  
• ACEX: eXtras

CBA and ACE are a requirement, while ACEX is an optional expansion pack.
This way, we hope to support our users who have requested smaller mod size, and ability to concentrate on their type of units/vehicles/weapons for countries they like to play with/against.

Status

Much of the Mod has been rewritten / optimized, and we have based our workflow and tools on CBA methods.

Compatibility

We strive to keep our addons/mods as compatible as possible with others.
Sometimes this is not possible, or there were specific reasons why we had to go some way.
Please feel free to supply feedback on any compatibility issue you might encounter.

Installer, Updater, Patcher

There have been significant changes to the way we distribute our Mod.
Due to the ever growing sizes of content, and thus installers and updates, we have switched to a realtime patching system, called rSync, which is the core tool of the "Six Updater" Suite.
The software, once installed, can be used to install, update, maintain and repair managed modfolders.
It uses smart technologies to minimize the amount of data that needs to be downloaded, and is a very lightweight and fast protocol.

The technology has been in use for several months by the ACE team, and individual testers aswell as communities.
Documentation will be provided, and support delivered where possible.

Our milestone releases will be available in easy mirrorable 7z files, to minimize the stress on the rsync system, and give people casual means to download the initial install.

Mirrors

HTTP / FTP

We are looking for http / ftp mirrors to release our Milestone 7z's on.

Rsync

We are looking for rsync mirrors. An rsync mirror can be setup on any linux or Windows (using Cygwin) server.
Total connections and overal bandwidth can be limited.
More info soon.

Sickboy wrote:Current Mod Sizes:

Code:


Mod        -  Packed - Unpacked
-------------------------------
ACE Core  -  45 MB -  56 MB
ACE eXtras -  516 MB - 605 MB
CBA        -  84 *KB* - 387 *KB*
-------------------------------
TOTAL      ~  561 MB - 661 MB


The compression ratio is low because:
- We use gzip --rsyncable, to make the realtime rsync delta patching work during updating of pre-compressed files
- Some files already have compression applied

Plus you win it back many times over, at every update you install.

Sickboy wrote:Yesterday's RC10 == v1.0 Stable.

Sickboy wrote:
You can't in any easy way. (I could write a tool for it someday though...)
You either stick to Stable version, or stick to Six Updater version. Anyone wanting to use both versions, can install the Stable version as @ACE_v1.0 or alike, next to the Six Updater version

If you deleted the Six Updater version of the Mod you will have to remove/rename your current @ACE folders, so that they can be downloaded from the Updater again.

The Six Updater version (and the AddonSync clones) of the Mod will always be ahead or at the very least in sync with the latest Stable release,
so if you always wanna stay up2date with the latest, it is adviced to simply skip the Stable releases alltogether.