INTRODUCTION

Since its release over ten years ago, Arma 3 has been a major platform for mod developers and content creators. 140,000+ mods are currently available for the public on the Arma 3 Steam Workshop, an impressive amount of free additional content available for players.

We recognize the amazing impact our modding community has had on our series over the years, and we greatly appreciate those who have dedicated thousands of hours of development for helping make the Arma 3 platform what it is today. The mods they have created can provide a completely new, expanded, and customizable Arma 3 experience.

For new players looking to step into modded gameplay for the first time, we’ve created a list of some mods that are core staples of many community veterans and units.

We believe these mods provide a significant amount of content and expanded game mechanics that will enhance your Arma 3 experience and give you countless hours of immersive mil-sim gameplay.

Prepare your hard drives!

ACE3

Advanced Combat Environment 3 is a mod suite that completely overhauls the player interaction. The level of immersion and depth ACE3 adds to the Arma simulation sandbox is incredible.

To highlight only a portion of what ACE3 provides, these modules include, but are not limited to:

• A heavily modifiable player HUD
• Overhauled player stamina
• Food and water ration system tied to player stamina
• A highly involved medical system
• A captivity system
• An overhauled logistics system for vehicles
• Carrying and dragging of objects and bodies
• Combat deafness simulation
• Realistic weapon heating
• Magazine repacking
• Reworked Night and Thermal vision modes
• Expanded map tools
• Expanded ballistic and fragmentation simulation
• Adjustable sniper scopes as well as wind and weather measuring devices and ballistic calculators
• Back-blast and over-pressure simulation
• Expanded crew-served weapon mechanics
• Advanced missile guidance and laser designation
• Dynamic weather simulation

There is an extreme level of customization of each individual module to fit your ideal level of simulation and realism. The vast majority of Arma 3 Units play with ACE3, and their own subjective idea of what each module's settings should be - from more casual to as hardcore of a simulated battlespace as possible. As you play around with the different module's settings, you will get an idea of what configuration is best for how you want to play the game.

To learn more about ACE3 and all of its features, visit the ACE3 Wiki.

If you wish to expand on ACE3 even further, we recommend the KAT - Advanced Medical mod, which adds more functionality and depth to the medical system for those who want it. This includes several new features and items related to airway management, blood circulation, and more. To learn more about KAT - Advanced Medical, join their Community Discord Server.

Some mods, as well as Creator DLCs, have compatibility patches that allow them to use ACE3 functions. This is something to check for in a mod's Steam Workshop page description, as the added functionality adds a lot to the player experience.

ACRE2 AND TFAR

There are two major radio and 3D positional voice communication mods available to the Arma playerbase. Both use TeamSpeak 3 with custom plugins, and have their own strengths and elements that make them unique from each other, while their core functionality serves the same purpose. Which one you use will ultimately come down to preference, and which one you feel provides the voice communications experience you are looking for. We suggest trying out both and seeing which one is right for you. Either one will provide immersive and user-friendly voice communications to your multiplayer sessions.

With ACRE2: Advanced Combat Radio Environment, you have a fully customizable audio communications suite at your fingertips. Some features include:

• Accurate simulations of real-world NATO field radios and vehicle racks
• Highly detailed radio signal simulation
• Vehicle intercom system
• Real time voice occlusion for world objects, including buildings
• "Babel" virtual language system that allows you to implement language barriers between players
• Multi-channel audio, allowing people on the radio to be heard locally as well
• Radios with external speakers
• Possibility to share owned radios with other players
• Ground spike antenna for improved signal quality.

Like ACE3, ACRE2 has a a high level of customization with documented framework for those wishing to expand upon ACRE2's functionality - be it to add new radios, integration with a new game mode or mod assets, or predefined radio presets. You can find ACRE2's documentation here.

With the Make Arma Not War winning Addon Task Force Arrowhead Radio, you have a similar suite of features for in-game voice communication.

• Both radio and direct speech (3D positional)
• Voice volume system
• Radio volume control
• A variety of rifleman, personal, manpack, and airborne radios, divided by faction type (West, East, Independent)
• Wearable manpack models
• Multi-band radios
• Stereo channels for radios
• Speakers on radios
• Encryption codes for radios
• Day and night radio interfaces
• Underwater speech and radio communications
• Signal interference depending on distance and ground surface
• Vehicles sound occlusion
• Zeus compatible
• Spectator mode
• PvP and PvE applications
• Ability to pick up radios from killed enemies

A beta version of TFAR adds more features, including vehicle intercoms. Most units that use TFAR run this beta version, as it is more current and still occasionally receives updates.

To learn more about TFAR, visit their GitHub documentation page.

CUP (WEAPONS, VEHICLES, UNITS} AND COMMUNITY FACTIONS PROJECT

The mods that make up the expansive Community Upgrade Project are some of the most downloaded on the Steam Workshop - and for good reason. Between the interconnected CUP Weapons, Vehicles, and Units mods, you have the largest and most comprehensive set of assets for use in the game.

CUP began as a project to bring assets from Arma 2 and earlier (released as licensed data packs for modders by Bohemia Interactive) as well as Take On Helicopters into Arma 3 at a high level of quality, functionality, and optimization. Complimenting these assets are wholly original donated models, textures, and more from the Arma community. As of CUP version 1.18.1, the all-in-one collection boasts more than 870+ weapons and items, and 960+ vehicles and units from 18 unique BLUFOR, REDFOR, INDIFOR, and Civilian factions.

That is an incredible amount of content, but if you want even more, you can augment CUP with the Community Factions Project. This mod uses CUP as a basis as well as 900+ original custom helmets, vests, uniforms, rucks and more to add an additional 73 new factions to the game. Existing CUP factions are also replaced with theatre specific variants (i.e. Arid/Desert, Woodland/Jungle, Artic/Snow, etc.). The units for these factions uses randomization scripting that provides variation of gear and equipment to appropriate units and vehicles resulting in hundreds of possible civilian, insurgent, PMC, clandestine operative, and special forces units and vehicles combinations.

Between CUP and CFP, you will have 1,770+ items, nearly 1000 vehicles, and 91 factions at your disposal. You could spend hours in alone the Virtual Arsenal or Eden Editor just previewing the units and assets from these mods, and still not have scratched the surface of what is available.

If you wish to try your hand at re-texturing CUP assets, or need to know specific classnames for scenario scripts, check out the CUP Public Repo and Wiki. You can also visit CUP's Discord Server to learn more about the project. To learn more about the Community Factions Project, visit their GitHub page here.

RHS, PROJECT OPFOR, AND 3CB FACTIONS

Another incredibly popular set of faction mods are the ones developed by Red Hammer Studios. Between RHS: US Armed Forces, RHS: Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and RHS: Green Forces, you will have hundreds of contemporary weapons, items, vehicles, aircraft, and units to play with in the Arma 3 sandbox. All of these assets have been developed to an incredibly high standard, and include a number of unique features and depth of functionality that some other faction mods do not have. RHS US Armed Forces is particularly popular as a baseline mod among the numerous US Army and US Marine based Mil-sim units in the community. We definitely recommend checking out the work of Red Hammer Studios and experiencing some of the highest quality faction mods available to the community.

There are two additional community mods that expand upon and compliment RHS; they are Project OPFOR and 3CB Factions.

Project OPFOR adds 32 new factions from around the globe, with 320+ new uniforms, 100+ new vehicle variants, five entirely new vehicle models, and 170+ new pieces of equipment. 3CB Factions adds 44 BLUFOR, 38 REDFOR, 37 INDIFOR, and four civilian factions. There are also reskins and additional vehicles added to unit trees of existing vanilla and RHS factions. You can learn more about 3CB Factions here.

With RHS, Project OPFOR and/or 3CB Factions, you will have a significant amount of additional content for use in Arma 3. There is some overlap between Project OPFOR and 3CB Factions, especially with factions based on Armaverse nations and groups, but there is nothing but personal preference and available storage space stopping you from running both mods in tandem, as there are are variety of strengths in each mod.

ARMA 3 AEGIS AND EXPANSIONS

For those who are fans of Arma 3's unique 2035 "Futura" setting, the Arma 3 Aegis mod series is one you will definitely want to check out. Much like the Western Sahara and Reaction Forces Creator DLCs by third-party studio Rotator's Collective, the Aegis collection of mods expands the scope of existing Arma 3 factions with new vehicles, weapons, and equipment, while also adding new factions designed to seamlessly fit in with the established narrative and timeline of the "Futura" setting.

Arma 3 Aegis feature list includes:

• Argana, British Armed Forces, Russia, Raven Security, LDF Arid and LDF BLUFOR factions introducing their own selection of weapons, gear, and vehicles
• New aircraft, including rotary air like the AH-1 Navajo, Merlin HC5 and Mi-35, and the fixed wing F-38 and C/L-192
• New pylon armaments including AGM-154C JSOWs, Vikhr AT / AA missiles, etc.
• BTR-100 - a BTR-90 modernized by the addition of an unmanned turret
• A large variety of new weapons and attachments, such as the AK-74 / 103 family, M4A1, L85A3, MP7, BK-153, Mk26, and more
• New gear, including 150+ headgear, vests, uniforms, facewear, and backpacks
• Numerous quality-of-life fixes and improved particle effects

Arma 3 Atlas is an expansion to Aegis, and includes:

• Belarus, Bundeswehr, Australian Defence Force, HIMF, IDF, Legionnaires, Takistani Army, as well as Sahrani and Chernarussian United Nations Observers factions introducing their own selection of equipment and vehicles
• Marar, a fanon BLUFOR Armaverse faction representing a western-aligned Arabic nation
• CSAT Iranian Regulars and Chinese Marines as subcategories of their parent factions, representing more conventionally equipped sections of CSAT's forces
• LDF Reservists as a subcategory of their parent faction - sporting lighter and older equipment than their regular counterparts
• New infantry gear and weapons like the AUR 90, G36K / G36C, and FAMAS, plus various re-textures of existing equipment

Rounding out the Aegis suite are Arma 3 Aegis - Police, which adds a generic 2035 era police force with appropriate assets; Arma 3 Aegis - Marines, which adds a 2035 version of the US Marines; Arma 3 Atlas - Opposing Forces, which adds irregular militias and and paramilitary forces; Arma 3 Athena, which adds 2035 Greek and Turkish factions; and Arma 3 Revolución, which adds numerous factions and assets based around a conflict in the fictional South American country of Baracas.

Any combination of the these Aegis mods will greatly enhance the experience and asset pool for players looking to play content within the 2035 "Futura" setting, and we recommend downloading them all and trying them out in the Eden Editor and Virtual Arsenal!

CUP TERRAINS

The CUP Team hasn't only brought a wealth of forward-ported and original weapons, vehicles, and units into Arma 3. They have also brought iconic terrains from ARMA: Cold War Assault, ARMA: Gold Edition, and Arma 2 back in all their glory.

With CUP Terrains - Core, CUP Terrains - Maps, and CUP Terrains - CWA enabled, you will be able to experience a great variety of combat scenarios during different seasonal conditions in dense urban settings, the rolling hills and villages of rural regions, thick temperate forests, vast deserts, steep mountains, and coastal areas. Combined, you will have thousands of square kilometres to play within.

There is also CUP Terrains - Maps 2.0, which currently only includes Chernarus 2020 - a more modern rework of the classic terrain that has it using structures and assets from the Arma 3 Contact Expansion.

3DEN ENHANCED

3den Enhanced is an essential mod for anyone creating scenarios in the Eden Editor. Many new functions in Eden are made available to mission designers, such as the addition of myriad new options for scenario, object, and unit "attributes." There is also the inclusion of a context menu and changes to the existing editor UI, custom GUIs, and a mission.sqm backup system.

3den Enhanced is only required to be enabled for those creating scenarios, as it does not generate a dependency for those who will ultimately be playing the content, or for dedicated servers that will be running it.

You can read more about 3den Enhanced with its documentation here.

ZEUS ENHANCED

Zeus Enhanced (also known as ZEN) is a mod that greatly expands the functionality of Zeus Game Master. With this mod, curators have a powerful suite of tools to create dynamic scenarios on the fly for players. Once you have used Zeus Enhanced as a Game Master, it will be impossible to go back.

ZEN's tool suite includes:

• A context menu that provides quick access to common Zeus actions
• Settings to control Zeus camera properties such as speed and available vision modes
• A Zeus camera flashlight for easier editing during night scenarios
• Settings to customize the Zeus display (move display to edge, remove watermark, etc.)
• Completely rewritten attributes system available for all objects and units
• Placement preview that enables precise object placement on surfaces
• The ability to create and save custom compositions through Zeus
• Vehicle customization garage made specifically for Zeus
• Expanded AI commands, such as target cursor, fire weapon, or suppress target and rewritten faster remote-controlling of units
• New waypoint types, such as paradrop, available through Zeus
• Player visibility indicator to help ensure mission adjustments are not made in view of players
• Numerous effect modules, like custom fires

You can view the full list of ZEN modules here, while the mod's full documentation is available here. You can also join the ZEN Discord Server to learn more.

DYNAMIC RECON OPS

To jump right into the action with your newly download modsets, the ever popular Dynamic Recon Ops scenario provides an easy to use framework to host multiplayer sessions for a small group. Using in-game menus at the start of a session, you can select your faction, the enemy faction, civilian faction, and a list of potential objectives as well as a specific or random starting location to procedurally generate a multi-objective mission for you and your friends to complete. The Virtual Arsenal is also available for players to customize their loadouts before deploying. Sessions might last thirty minutes, or they could take hours to complete - but no two missions are the same, making Dynamic Recon Ops one of the best frameworks for showing off the potential of the Arma 3 sandbox with and without mods enabled.

With compatibility with numerous faction mods and versions of the scenario ported to a vast amount of community made terrains, Dynamic Recon Ops is a great starting point for new players to experience the mod scene with friends, and can even be an excellent experience for veteran players alike.

CONCLUSION

With this article, we aimed to provide new Arma 3 players with a list of some of the most popular mods available on the Steam Workshop to give them a comprehensive and varied starting point to expanding their experience with the sandbox. Obviously, for veteran Arma 3 players, this list is one of community staples that they have likely spent countless hours using over the years.

For these veteran players, we will be releasing further articles detailing the Arma 3 mod scene over the coming months. These will be thematic in nature, with articles detailing some of the best aircraft, vehicle, weapon, faction, terrain, equipment, function, and total conversion mods available to the community. With these articles, we hope to showcase not only mods that you have heard of and have used, but maybe some hidden gems that will give you some fresh content to try out in the sandbox. With 140,000+ uploads on the Steam Workshop - there is bound to be something you haven't experienced yet!

Thank you for reading!

As always, for more information about Arma 3, please visit www.arma3.com. To keep track of all the latest news, be sure to follow @ArmaPlatform on Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), YouTube, and Steam.