America's Army Tweak Guide

[Page 5] Important Basics (Pt.2)



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Offline Mode


Even though America's Army is primarily an online game, you can practice offline to gain familiarity with the maps, weapons, and general dynamics of the game, not to mention allowing you the opportunity to thoroughly tweak control, graphics and audio settings at your own pace. It is strongly recommended that you spend some time practicing offline on all of the more complex maps.


To begin offline mode:


1. Start America's Army and open the Console (press the TAB or ~ key).


2. Type "Start mapname" (without quotes) to open a map, where mapname is the name of a particular map (e.g. Pipeline or Sfcsar). All the mapnames can be found in your \America's Army\Maps\ directory.


3. To be able to move around and fire weapons, you will have to choose a character class. Type "Class code" (without quotes), where code is one of the following:


R - Rifleman (M16A2)

RCT - Recruit (no weapons)

SF - Special Forces

SL - Squad Leader

FT - Fireteam Leader

G - Grenadier (M203)

S - Sniper (M82)

B - Shotgun (M870)

D - Door Breacher

S24 - Sniper (M24)

AR - Automatic Rifleman (M249)

M - Rifleman (M4A1)

M4M - Rifleman (Modified M4A1)

M9 - Pistol (M9 Baretta)

BDM - Bunker Defeat Munitions (M141)

AT4 - AT4 Rocket Launcher (M136)

SPR - Special Purpose Rifle (MK12 SPR)

AK - Opfor (AK-47)

AK74SU - Opfor Special Forces (AKS-74U)

GP - Opfor Grenadier (AK-47 / GP-30 launcher)

RPK - Opfor Automatic Rifleman (RPK)

SVD - Opfor Sniper (Dragunov)

MOS - Opfor Sniper (Mosin-Nagant)

RPG - Indigenous Forces Rocket Launcher (RPG-7)

V - Opfor/Indigenous Forces (VSS Vintorez)


To create some basic soldier 'bots' for target practice, type the following command in the console:


summonNPCSoldier


That creates an inanimate opfor soldier who stands with his arms outstretched like a scarecrow. You can shoot him and he won't move or fight back. If you want a bit more of a challenge, open the console and type "Walk" (without quotes). This will animate the dummy - he will start to move around and shoot back (especially if you shoot at him). Be careful as although the dummy has only basic artifical intelligence he can be fairly accurate.


In previous versions of America's Army you can also summon other NPCs (Non-player characters) and objects using commands such as summon agp_characters.NPC_AirborneSoldier or summon agp_inventory.PickupT_M67_Frag. However these do not appear to work in the current version, and I haven't been able to find the correct summon commands so far.


Some useful/fun commands which can be used only in offline mode are provided below:


Fly - Lets your character fly around the map. Use the Walk command to disable

Ghost - Allows you to move through solid objects

Entropy - Toggle invincibility mode on/off

Invisible - Toggles player invisibility

AllAmmo - Give player ammo for all weapons

Wpnrecoil - Toggles weapon recoil on/off

Judas - Toggles perfect weapon accuracy

Switchlevel [mapname] - Goes to the specified map

Viewbots - Views from the next summoned character

Freecamera [0, 1] - Changes the view to a free floating camera (1) or back to the player (0)

SetCameraDist [range]- Set camera distance from the character

Lockcamera - Locks the camera view in one spot and lets the player roam around

Slomo [number] - Lets you change the rate at which time passes

Setspeed [number] - Changes the player's speed

Setjumpz [number] - Sets the player's jump height (325 is default)


For more information on the commands that can be used in offline mode see Appendix D of the Official America's Army Manual, and for more commands used in the console (in both online and offline modes) see the Console Commands section on page 10 of this guide, as well as this extremely comprehensive list of Console Commands, Switches and Keybinds.


Weapon Modifications


Under your Personnel Jacket there is a 'Weapons' button at the top of the screen next to the 'Profile' button. Clicking on this Weapons button takes you to the Weapons Modifications screen, which allows you to customize the SOPMOD M4A1 rifle issued to US Special Forces soldiers, and see the equivalent modifications on the Opfor's AKS-74U SpetsNaz (Russian Special Forces) rifle.


If you've passed the Special Forces Tour (See Training above) and you have 15 or higher Honor, then whenever you join a Special Forces map and select a free Special Forces soldier slot, you will be assigned the SOPMOD M4A1 with the modifications you've chosen for the M4A1 in the Weapon Mod screen. At no other time can you use this modified M4A1.


There are four sections on the M4A1 where you can attach a modification – the Top, Front and Bottom Rails, as well as the Barrel. Each rail has a Heatshield by default, but you can add options like the M203A1 grenade launcher, or M68 Aimpoint sight where available. Some things to note about weapon mods:


  • Some mods cannot be installed with others. For example you cannot install the M203A1 grenade launcher and the Harris Bipod on the same weapon, because they take up the same mod slot. Alternatively some mods override others - e.g. installing the Reflex sight will replace the Acog 4x sight and vice versa.
  • When you join a Special Forces map, your weapon's camouflage will automatically be set according to the map, e.g. white for Arctic maps. You cannot override this.
  • If you have the M4QD Suppressor installed as a mod, you must press a key (default is L) to attach it to your gun at the start of each round. It is not on by default. Note also that using this mod does not affect accuracy or damage.
  • Use of the M203A1 grenade launcher mod requires pressing the Supported Fire key (default is H) to switch to launcher mode - the same as the standard M203 rifle. The same key applies for using the Harris Bipod mod if that is installed instead of the M203A1.


    • Remember, on non-Special Forces maps where the standard M4A1 is used (e.g. Radio Tower) you will not have any of your weapon mods, since you will be using a standard-issue non-SOPMOD M4A1. Only certain Special Forces soldier slots on SF Maps get modifiable M4A1 rifles.


    Deployment


    Once you've created a new account, logged in, completed Basic Training, set up your Weapon Mod and perhaps spent some time practicing offline you can then join other people in playing America's Army online. To do this, click on the Deployment option on the main screen or click the Deployment button on the left of any other menu screen.


    Playing over the Internet: Under the Deployment section click the Internet button at the top and this will show you to the in-game server browser. Before doing anything else, go and make sure there is a tick mark against the 'Enable PunkBuster' setting at the bottom of this screen to enable the PunkBuster anti-cheat software (See PunkBuster section in the Troubleshooting Tips section, and further below). This is strongly recommended since firstly you cannot join most servers unless you enable PunkBuster, and secondly because PunkBuster is one of the best cheat-detection programs available, and playing on PunkBuster-enabled servers means you will be less likely to run into people who are cheating.


    To view a list of available America's Army servers on which you can play, click the Refresh button. You can tell when the game has refreshed all the servers by looking at the progress area at the bottom right of the screen (e.g 256 Servers, 100% complete). Once all the servers have been found, click twice on the 'Ping' column title at the top right of the browser list to sort all the servers by ping from lowest to highest. Now try to find a server with a low Ping (See Network settings under the In-Game Settings section for more details on pings), highlight it, and if there is an open slot you should either double-click on it to join, or press the Join button at the bottom of the screen. Again, note that you may need to complete certain Training missions to join certain maps, such as the Special Forces (SF) maps.


    Note that under the new 'AA browser' server browser pings for some servers may appear unusually low - this should be resolved over time, but if you find that upon joining a new server the ping is higher than you saw, leave the server and use the 'GameSpy Browser' to browse serverss.


    Filtering Servers: If you want to refine the number of servers the browser displays, click on the Filter button, and select which types of servers to hide or display. For example, I personally tick the 'Hide Full Servers' and 'Hide Empty Servers' option to remove a great many servers from the listing which are either full or totally empty at the time of the list being refreshed. This makes sense, since you can't join a full server, and likewise joining an empty server is a bit pointless. If you wish you can also specify the country in which the server is located (to ensure people speak the same language as you, or to guarantee the best ping), or you can only show servers which are running a particular map. The Filter settings are very powerful and will make it much easier to find and play on the server of your choice as quickly as possible. Note that the 'AA Browser' and the 'GameSpy Browser' options each have their own separate Filter settings, so if you're switching between them keep this in mind.


    Once you've set up the Filter options you want, click the 'Save Filter' option and this filter will be applied straight away when the server browser updates its listing, and again every time you view the server browser.


    Finally by default the game uses the new 'AA Browser' server browser to find servers on the Internet. This seems to be a very speedy and useful server browser. However there may be some issues with it (e.g. not displaying server pings correctly). If you want to use another server browser, you can select the 'GameSpy Browser' option at the bottom left to use the original server browser utilized in previous versions of the game, or install and use the All Seeing Eye browser which is popular among AA players.


    Playing on a LAN: If instead of playing online, you want to play with friends across a Local Area Network (LAN), click the LAN button at the top of the Deployment screen. This section works in much the same way as the Internet screen, however obviously it will only work if you are connected to a series of other machines physically connected and configured as a Local Area Network.


    PunkBuster Updates


    PunkBuster is the official anti-cheat software used in America's Army. You can find out more about it on the PunkBuster America's Army Support Site. There is also a America's Army PunkBuster FAQ you can read if you have any basic questions about PunkBuster and how it works in America's Army. For the most part it works in the background and doesn't require any additional action on your part.


    However, whenever you first join a server after launching America's Army you may notice that you cannot start playing because PunkBuster is updating to the latest version. PunkBuster updates are released quite often simply because as cheaters find new ways of cheating, PunkBuster has to update to detect and defeat these new variations. As a result you may find that virtually every time you start AA and connect to play a game online, PB will update at the start of your first match. This updating can effectively take anywhere from 2 to 8 minutes depending on your connection speed, but note that the speed at which it can download to your system is capped, so even the fastest Internet connection will see the update taking several minutes.


    The better alternative is to manually update PunkBuster before starting a game of America's Army. To do this, go to your \America's Army\System\pbsetup\ directory and run (double-click on) the pbsetup.exe file. This will open a series of agreements you must click 'I Agree' to, and then the 'PunkBuster Setup' window. Here you can select to add any game to the list of PunkBuster supported games displayed by clicking the 'Add a game' button. Do so and select 'America's Army' from the Game list, then click the OK button. Now on the main screen listing, click the 'Check for Updates' button. If a new version of PB for America's Army is available, it will be downloaded and applied automatically. The next time you go to play AA online, there will be no need to wait for a lengthy update process to occur - so long as you remember to manually update PB as often as possible. You can also update your other PunkBuster supported games using this utility, so you might want to create a shortcut for it on your desktop (Right-click on the pbsetup.exe file and select 'Send to Desktop').


    As a final note, do not modify any of your America's Army files, either by editing them, or adding or removing them. This can be detected as a cheat by PunkBuster. The only edits allowed are those to the .ini files as described in the Advanced Tweaking section of this guide. Note that recently Punkbuster has also made changing the USArmyMainThemeBoostEQ256.ogg file with another .ogg a cheat as well. So do not add/remove/alter anything in your America's Army directories or have any cheating software installed on your system and you will be perfectly safe. If you are kicked by PunkBuster from a server, you can check this list of reasons for being kicked, to see what the probable cause might be.


    Quick Support


    During a game if you're dead and bored while waiting for a new round, try pressing ESC to get back into the in-game menus, and click the Support button. It contains a range of useful information you can read such as a Glossary of commonly used online terms, and important links under the Links and Help buttons in case you need immediate support - such as if you are banned while playing. Of course while you are dead it is also very wise to spend time watching the experienced players who are still alive, and learning from their strategies.


    A final piece of advice to new players - there's nothing wrong with being new online and your teammates will usually take this into account when they see your Honor. You will find there are many experienced players who are willing to help you out should you need it. But at the same time people generally join public games to play, and not to spend most of their time helping you learn the basics. You will get the most positive response from other players by showing that you've already put in some effort to learn the maps and gameplay as much as possible beforehand.



    The next section covers the In-Game settings and their performance and visual quality impacts in detail.