A Breakthrough Game
Operation Flashpoint (OFP), released in 2001, was Bohemia Interactive’s first game. Today it is sold as Arma: Cold War Assault. It was groundbreaking in scope and gameplay, and it was completely customizable, with a mission editor and an in-game scripting language. A modding community formed around it online almost immediately.
General Barron’s Mods
Working under the handle General Barron, I made missions, addons, scripts and tutorials for the game. My focus was on high-quality missions, new gameplay systems and the back-end scripts behind them, from a hand signals AI command system to voting consoles to vampires. I later worked with a group making a mod called the Enhanced Configuration Project (ECP).
What’s in the Download
The download pack (about 22 MB) collects most of what I released for Operation Flashpoint, now Arma: Cold War Assault:
- Hand Signals Command system. Command your squad with hand signals and voice. Version 1.0, plus version 1.1, which needs the Fwatch utility (both the original and Faguss’ updated Fwatch are included).
- Realistic Combat Patrol. A single-player mission.
- Vampires. Yes, vampires.
- Mission editor update. Additions to the in-game editor.
- Scripts. AI surrender, multiplayer map-click, first aid kits, simple AI cover, fire effects, ammo crates and an AI artillery script for Chain of Command’s Unified Artillery.
- Functions library. Reusable functions for finding units, giving squad orders, finding the nearest object and more.
A few releases aren’t in the pack, including the multiplayer voting and admin console. The pack’s ReadMe links to where they were originally posted.
From Mods to Military Simulation
Operation Flashpoint’s mod community helped start an industry. One of the ECP team members was an OFP modding pioneer known as snYpir, whose real name is Pete Morrison. He went on to help found Bohemia Interactive Simulations, and the ECP mod became the backbone of its first product, Virtual Battlespace 1 (VBS1). Many of the early developers of VBS2 came from the same community.
My Role
I made these mods from Seattle between 2002 and 2006. When Bohemia Interactive Simulations began planning VBS2, Pete reached out with an offer to move to Australia and help build it.