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Comment by klaussilveira

3 days ago

Not only Bohemia Interactive released the code, they cleaned it up and ported to Windows x64 and Linux x64. That's amazing.

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Bohemia Interactive. Their games have always had a charming “designed by a software engineer” feel, which I appreciate.

Also, Operation Flashpoint was the reason I learnt to code and ended up having a career a software engineer, so I owe BI for that. My first real foray into programming was writing scripts, specifically to trigger unguided bomb releases from planes onto moving ground targets using some shoddy trigonometry as a 14 year old kid.

I have a lot of fond memories of that game. I still remember being awed by some of the mods created by this guy: https://kegetys.fi His name has lived rent free in my head for 2 decades now. Legend.

  • An Arma mod on my resume helped me eke out the interview for my first full time tech job. As janky as the engine was, I have a soft spot for it. It's a game/platform that _wants_ the user to customize it and have a stake in its technology.

  • Funny, I had a similar experience. I wrote a script that enabled players to "call in" mortar support, by looking at the target and selecting a distance. Also using shoddy trigonometry and also one of my earliest programming experiences. Very basic from today's perspective, but I was mighty proud back then and so hooked!

  • Same here; I remember playing ARMA 3 during the early-2013 public alpha, which was an eye-opening look at how the gaming sausage is made in real time (and before Early Access was as established a concept as it is now).

    I was rather disappointed when I heard that they had been acquired by BAE Systems, but on further inspection it seems like that was only the BI Simulations arm (responsible for VBS), now rebranded as OneArc. My guess is that a release like this wouldn't have happened were they not still independent.

    • BISim and Bohemia Interactive were separate companies, there was no ownership relationship between them.

Seconded. I applaud BI for doing such a clean open source release. So many things to learn from!

I wish other game studios would release their software so many years after release.

I was a member of the arma 3 on unix (mostly linux) community before Proton was released and somewhat usable. The BI community managers were very forthcoming when we had questions and they also enabled proton support for battleye as soon as it became feasable. Definitely not the worst game studio regarding linux support.