So, as you know getting the mods for the server has always been a bit ... problematic .. well no longer! From now on we'll be useing a neat little tool called swifty. It not only syncs and downloads with a single click, it also allows for easy updates!!

So how do you use it?

Firstly, download Swifty from the website = https://getswifty.net/download.html and install it, it can be installed anywhere.

Once installed you'll see the follow screen



Click the big + sign and the following window will pop up



This is the important window, it where you tell Swifty where to look for the files on our server. Heres a rundown -

Name = Self explanitry, its the name of the repo, i've called it SimHQ Modset.
Address = The file location, this has to be the following http://www.arma3mav.co.uk//downloads/mods
Username and password can be left blank
Default Addon Folder = This is where the mod folders will be stored, this folder can be anywhere on your pc, but as this folder will contain the mods themselves that you have to select via the arma3 launcher I recommend making a "SHQ_Modset" folder in your main arma3
Parameters can be left blank

Click save, if alls gone to plan, you'll see the following screen, if you dont, you've done something wrong!



Click the SimHQ logo and the download window should appear, it should look like the following pic



Now go grab a coffee or go clean your house as this will take a while. Once everythings downloaded it'll say "patching" (or "processing") along the top green bar, let it run its course.

Once its all done it will automaticity close the download screen and send you back to the main swifty page, for good messure its worth clicking the SimHQ image again to make sure everything downloaded ok, it wont download the whole thing again, only anything that got lost in the download!

When thats all done, close down swifty and load up arma3 and enable the mods, they'll be located in the folder you selected to download everything to earlier. For those who use the default aram3 launcher you'll have to click "load local mod" and browse to your download folder and load each mod in turn. Once done, your mod selecting should look like the following screen



for ease i've saved it as a preset, very usefull!

Next up, because it gets updated so often, subscribe to CBA on the steam workshop at the following link http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=450814997

and thats it! from there just load arma3 with the right mods/prest and your good to go From now on you'll be linked into the SimHQ repo and just need to load up swifty and click the SimHQ logo to update the modset!

Also, unsubscribe and delete any previous SimHQ mod folders you may have and any SimHQ specific RHS folders. If you play eleswhere and have subbed to it on the SW then make sure you enable the SimHQ ones in the download folder when you play with us as we dont always update straight away!

So yea, any questions just ask!

Thank you. For all the effort.

Assuming we need to do this before next week's session?

Are there actual changes in the mod set from what is currently used?

I'm aiming for next week, i'll have both sets on the server though just in case.

And yes, a fair amount of changes, nothing broken (hopefully!) but a lot of new things added, along with updated versions of RHS and CUP, the maps and Tanus being added

So this one modest will contain everything we need to play except CBA which I already have? Are we keeping Unsung as well? I can delete my current RHS and 7 part SimHQModPack?

Don't delete Unsung! That's for Saturdays. The mod pack that Meatshield is talking about is for Monday nights.

I would suggest you back it up into another location. We might not switch next week and will need the old modpack.



Hold on to your hollyhocks, guys, it's a 41.7GB download, so you'd better get started.

I think even I can manage this!

Completed the ~42GB download after about 3.5 hours on a 60MB connection.

Word of advice, my download halted a few times during the process. Check for updates several times to make sure you've gotten everything.

I am hopeing everyone gets it done on time, its all via http so it shouldnt be to bad download speed wise.



As saghen says, it contains everything to be able to play on mondays except CBA. As i cant make saturdays i leave it up to those guys to determine which version of unsung they use, so keep whatever version of that you have

As for the old modpack, keep it for now just incase, i'll do a quick poll sunday night to see how many people have gotten it all downloaded and go with the majority, hopefully the new stuff will win out, if it does, feel free to delete any old SimHQ stuff, RHS will depend on if you intend to play elsewhere that uses the most uptodate RHS all the time (the version in the new pack is the most recent one for the record)

Yes, we can DL this first, then worry about deleting old mods/setting up the new ones afterwards.

Still not as handy as the Steam workshop option though.




The Jedi Master

Theres not a whole lot more to do once the initial set up is done though

Soo..How is everybody's download coming? Any problems setting up?

This is a 40GB download. Don't wait until the last minute. :P

Mine is going over nights. I didn't get to double check, but so far it looks to be doing OK.

well mines all done

I'll be downloading it tomorrow for sure. I'll be ready for Monday.

I'll do it tonight if I remember. If not, tomorrow night.

If not, Saturday.

If not, Sunday...



The Jedi Master

Mine is all done and everything appears to work. I'd have to run a mission to be certain, but it looks fine. Thanks for all the work on this Meat.

Hi all. Double checking again to see if all the regulars have gotten the mod pack downloaded and set up?

Please let us know if there are any issues regarding download or setting up, so we can help with them before Monday.

Well, nobody's mentioned any issues with downloading or setting up. I assume we'll be ready to go with the mod pack on Monday night.

Mine is near done. Another session tonight should do it.

Should be set for Monday!

Oh crap.

I will start when I get home tonight, that will give me roughly 2.5 hrs.



The Jedi Master

Are you certain of the address? This worked for me last week but now I just get an error 404.

OK, the address works now but it just hangs on the screen where you enter a "Default Addon Folder" and hit save. Funny, worked ok for me when MAV put this up. I believe the fates are speaking... "Stick with flight sims and consoles, Smokin'!"

What I had to do was to, in addition to uninstalling Swifty, it's temp directory and the SHQ_modset, was to uninstall the Swifty folder @ \AppData\Roaming.

Sorry for the spam

I get the following errors when trying to load ARMA with the SHQ modset:

"Data file too short 'C (yadayadayad)\addons\cup_creatures_people_military_takiinsurgents.pbo'. Expected 174447742 B, got 71086042 B"

Following that I get an "unknown software exception (0x000dead)..."

re-run swifty and tell it to double check the modset, it doesnt always download everything correctly, that should fix it

Yep, that did it. Thanks Meat!

Thanks Meat!

I'm going to need to do that double check on my install, too.

All of these but the SHQ modset can be found on Steam.

yes, however the major headache with steam (and at the same time, its blessing) is that mod authors can update when they want. Theres been a few times where mod authors have updated their mods an hour or so before our play sessions and people havnt been able to play at all because they have no idea till they boot steam up 10 or mins before play and get faced with a 1-2hr download! (specially with CUP, as they always tend to update just before we play). It also avoids the risk of mods being updated and breaking our missions with a unannounced change (like CUP splitting off the CWR maps).

Then theres the fact that dedi servers dont support the workshop, so i first have to download it all my end, then upload it myself to the server, which with upload speeds around my part of the world being 4mbs at BEST .. that takes a while!

so all in all ... a "static" modset is the best for the time being, and were not the only group that does it this way.

I understand the reasoning now. I do think it is annoying to have Steam constantly updating when I want to play.

After three days of downloading, Swifty failed to get everything.

I had to re-run my Swifty, it also missed a few files on the first shot.

There were like 5 files left, and it got them downloaded on the second run.

Mine missed one, but is correcting over 200 others. This is painful on a slow connection like mine. That's why I prefer to use Steam.

Yea, the overall size is pretty big. It took me like 9 or 10 days to get it all. But happily it doesn't change often, and should also support differential updating, going forward.

Without reading through this entire thread, is the file structure still the same once installed? In other words, there's no changes I need to make to my old missions?

I believe you will need to tinker with your new missions. Meat tried to run some previous mod set missions on the first night and they didn't work. I'm not sure what he did to fix them.

I was using the old template to make a mission and I had to open each units attribute and close it, to get rid of some errors.

Ok. I'm not going to download the new pack until tonight so I'll see what happens tomorrow. Hopefully I can get them all working and I'll reupload them.

I'll PM ya the details bonchie

How often should we be running Swifty for updates? Maybe once every couple of weeks?

when i tell ya to basicly

Got it guvnor!

I should of started this thing earlier than this weekend.

Most files are coming down at around 230kbs (my connection is 50mbs) and waking up this morning to check it, there's noway I'll have all 40gb done by this evening.

What does "Error . Repo version mismatch" mean? (Occurs when I hit the little reload prompt over SimHQ in Swifty)

that its not the same, does it recheck it and download anything at all?

No. Doesn't do anything. I thought the repository was wrong...as in wrong address. But that is the same. I'll try to log on tonight when you spool up MM and see if it works. I don't believe you've updated anything since I downloaded successfully a couple of weeks ago.

nope, nothings been updated since i did the first post

After the previous issue a year ago with that radio thingy and now two failed Mondays in a row, I have come to the conclusion that I lack sufficient grey matter to play modded flavors of ARMA with others.

nonsense! they'll be one little thing missing, any chance of a screengrab of your swifty shq settings and of the arma3 launcher? It could be one little typo messing it all up

Yep, smokin, no way. As Meat mentions, post a screenshot and we'll work it out.

I think maybe I got it. For brevity I had used "SHQ" instead of SHQ_Modset as the title for the folder. As in ../common/ARMA/SHQ. That was the case in Shifty as well. I renamed it to "SHQ_Modset" and now the game loads with no "missing this", "missing that" warnings. However, Shifty still shows the "Repo mismatch" warning. So...who knows? Well I am becoming tedious even to myself. I'm like one of those rich people paying $$$ to get Sherpas to "short-rope" them up Everest. Some people should just stay off the mountain.

It defaults it's download into documents/swifty (or did for me). I just had to move that to my mod folder and that was it. It auto added it to the launcher and it worked.

Nothing in documents for me except /Arma and /Arma/Other Profiles.

Can you please take screenshots of your swifty stuff, the directory of arma3 (showing the folders) and the arma 3 launcher where you activate the mods? If you don't supply these, I'm not sure effective we can be in helping you.

that link wont work, due to the way the websites set up you need to have a double '\\' so it reads http://www.arma3mav.co.uk//downloads/mods/ , note the double // after the address

Also for good measure i double checked every server end and thats all as it should be, so its not that.

theres not an actual webpage "page" as such for the link, its a folder withen the public html section that just holds the repo, so the wordpress blog will show a 404.

I wasnt aware swifty had been updated, i'll start again from scratch today and see if i run into the same issues, it may be that i might have to rebuild the repo.

ugh, seems he changed how it worked a little for that latest version, re-upping the config ... will report back.

This'll only effect new users, so those who already have it downloaded dont have to do anything

So is the issue fixed?

And if so, could this also be what was causing trouble for Smokin?

I was just about to come on and tell you to try again, repo finished uploading after i'd gone to bed, glad its all working

now .. the million doller question ..... will everyone on the old swifty have to update their swifty version ?? .... any willing volunteers who know what their doing and dont need walking through it wanna give it a try for us after tonight? (i had to update to re-do the repo!)

Sorry. I've not browsed the ARMA section in some time. Swifty is downloading updates now. I've changed nothing. Of course downloading and playing are very different...

Would successful users of the SHQ/RHS mod (meaning just about all of you) mind posting the version of Swifty you are using? I am using 2.1.5.6 released March 3 and have continued to get the Repo "missmatch" irrespective of what I have tried. Thanks.

Yep, I'll post my version tonight.

I actually can't recall if I've ever updated Swift, I only ever run it if Meat posts that there is a new update. So my version may be a bit old.

the latest version is 2.1.5.8, swifty should auto-update itself if allowed (restart it), however the current build requires a repo re-build my end, which is currently uploading!

and yea, once its all downloaded properly, theres no need to run it before every monday after that, i'll let everyone know when its need to be re-run to download new stuff

So my problem is as simple as that?!

hopefully now it is! (try again, repo is all uploaded, let me know if it doesnt work!)

Downloading now. If I might humbly suggest that the Swifty version be included/updated in the "who, what, when, where" sticky. I had been fighting this for nearly a month. No question it was my bad--I downloaded a new Swifty when I wrongly suspected that this would solve my download hangs. But new users trying to participate are going to potentially hit a wall if they follow the instructions using a newer version of Swifty than that which was used build the repository.

poo i thought i had

Smokin the main reason for newer versions not always is purely because i've missed an update announcement and not updated the repo, and last month wasnt exactly a good month for me in terms of sitting at the pc so that didnt help!

Roger that!

I think I'm in! It works now but only in 32bit. Otherwise it hangs in the "APEX" screen. Thanks for making it happen!

If you are hanging at the APEX screen, I think that's a known issue with the 64 bit version and the Shack Tactical HUD, inside our package.

But running 32 bit should work super!

See you there!

Funny you should say that. I went into the editor (32bit) and flew for a bit. But the whole time there was a black text box in the middle of the screen complaining about the ST Hud. And, I had two huds. So I am guessing we should remove the sthud mod when playing with the SHQ mod. Or is there a better way?

Never mind, that's all answered on the March 20 thread a few lines below this one. Thanks!

Getting a 404 error when trying to connect first time.

thats because its down whilst updates are uploaded