ALiVE.OS · ALiVE 3 Development
ALiVE Addon Options
Your own ALiVE preferences, set once in Arma's Addon Options and kept in your profile.
In development · ALiVE 3
ALiVE 3 is in active development. This briefing describes work in progress, and the behaviour it covers is subject to change as testing continues. Check the changelog at the foot of the page for what has moved recently.
On this page
Overview
Your own ALiVE settings
ALiVE has its own entry in Arma's Addon Options, the settings window that CBA adds. It holds preferences that are yours alone: how ALiVE's module windows behave in Eden, and a few things about how a mission looks and feels on your screen, including the colour of ALiVE's scroll-wheel actions.
None of these options changes the mission for anyone else, and none lets you past a limit the mission maker set. A view distance you choose stays inside the mission's minimum and maximum, and a player tag distance can only be shorter than the mission's. Mission-wide behaviour stays on the modules.
In short
Four things to know
- Open Addon Options: in Eden from Settings > Addon Options, or outside Eden from the Options menu, where CBA adds an Addon Options entry.
- Pick ALiVE from the ADDON list at the top.
- Change what you like under Eden Editor and Game, then press OK.
- Your choices are saved in your Arma profile and carry over to every mission.
Settings
Every setting, and what it does
The options, in the order Addon Options shows them. The Eden Editor ones apply the next time you open a module's settings window. In the Game group, Task and radio updates change straight away; the others are applied when a mission starts, so a change made during a mission takes effect from the next one.
Eden Editor
4 settings
Choices: Closes the other open sections / Leaves the other sections open
What happens to a module's other open sections when you open one in Eden's attributes window. Closing them keeps one section open at a time.
Choices: First section open / All closed / All open
Which sections are open the first time you open a placed module's settings. After that, each placed module remembers the sections you left open.
Choices: 4 rows / 6 rows / 8 rows
How many rows the tick lists in ALiVE's module settings show before they scroll, such as factions, compositions and installation interiors.
Choices: On / Off
Shows the ALiVE logo and the module's own icon above an ALiVE module's settings. Off starts the settings straight under the module's title.
Game
15 settings
Choices: 0 to 20000 m
Your view distance when a mission with the ALiVE Player Options module starts. 0 keeps the game's own setting.
AffectsAlways kept inside the minimum and maximum view distance the mission maker set on Player Options.
Choices: As the mission sets / 1 - Low to 5 - Ultra
Your terrain detail when a mission with the ALiVE Player Options module starts. Higher detail shows the ground's shape further out, at some cost to frame rate. As the mission sets keeps the mission's own starting level.
AffectsAlways kept inside the minimum and maximum the mission maker set on the View Distance module.
Choices: On / Off
Hides ALiVE's player name tags on your screen, whatever the mission sets.
Choices: 0 to 100 m
Shows player tags only this close. 0 uses the mission's distance.
AffectsCan shorten the mission's tag distance but never lengthen it.
Choices: As the mission sets / Right / Left / Off
Where ALiVE's vehicle crew list sits on your screen, or off.
AffectsIf the mission turns the crew list off, it stays off.
Choices: Subtitles / Hints / Chat lines
How C2ISTAR task updates, the countdown while you hold an area for a Hearts and Minds task, and Combat Support's radio messages reach you. Hints show in ALiVE's own hint box. Chat lines keep the radio in side chat.
AffectsThere's no Off: during a hold, the countdown is your only word on how it's going. As subtitles or hints, radio lines that arrive together show one after another.
Choices: On / Off
Puts target tasks of one kind (air defences to suppress, high-value targets, vehicles, infantry, insurgent assets) under one entry in your task list, each target a task under it with the town it's near or its grid. Assigning the entry hands you its first open target.
AffectsOff gives every target its own entry. Tasks you already have stay where they are.
Choices: Arma default / ALiVE pins
How ALiVE's markers look on the map: tasks (also in the task list), units, FOBs, rally points and soldiers' reports. ALiVE pins show Arma's own icon for each kind of task, place or unit in white on your side's NATO frame: a blue box for BLUFOR, a red diamond for OPFOR, a green square for Independent and a purple box for civilians. Arma default uses the game's own markers.
AffectsPins that mark the enemy, such as a threat or an ambush, use the enemy's frame. Tasks you already have keep their pin until they change.
Choices: On / Off
Makes the list of tasks, notes and log pages on the map screen wider, so long task names aren't cut off. The text beside it moves right to make room.
AffectsTurn it off if another mod also rearranges the map screen.
Choices: On / Off
ALiVE writes the names of its own map markers (FOBs, rally points, tasks) itself and moves each to a free spot beside its marker, so names don't print over each other. A name with no room waits until you zoom in, apart from FOBs, which always keep theirs.
AffectsFOBs and rally points use ALiVE's pins only with this on. Off shows them the way Arma draws them.
Choices: 20 to 100
How solid ALiVE's pins and unit markers look on the map. Lower lets more of the terrain show through; their names stay fully readable.
Choices: As the mission sets / Scroll wheel / ACE interaction menu / Both
Scroll wheel, ACE interaction menu or both, for rally points, talking to soldiers and FOBs.
AffectsACE without ACE loaded falls back to the scroll wheel.
Choices: Ticked / not ticked
Shows ALiVE's scroll-wheel actions in the colour below, so they stand out from the game's and other mods' actions. Actions that already have their own colour keep it, like Disarm IED in red.
AffectsApplies to actions added after the change, so after a respawn or at the next mission.
Choices: Any colour from the picker
The colour used when Colour ALiVE actions is ticked.
AffectsNothing while the tick box is off.
Choices: As the mission sets / Modern / Cold War / Vietnam / WW2
The look of ALiVE's tablets on your own screen. As the mission sets uses the ALiVE (Required) module's choice; if that is Automatic, the tablet is picked by scenario: Vietnam for S.O.G. Prairie Fire, WW2 for Spearhead 1944, Cold War for CUP, Global Mobilization and CSLA terrains, Modern anywhere else. Pick one to always see that one.
AffectsOnly your screen. Modern uses a wider tablet where your monitor has room for it.
Good to know
What these options don't change
Anything that changes the mission itself stays a mission maker's choice on the modules.
- Recruitment's window or scroll-wheel actions, and the civilian interaction menu, are set on their modules for everyone. The civilian menu's mode decides which civilian system runs, so it can't safely differ between players.
- A server or a mission can set its own starting value for any of these in the Server or Mission tab, and can choose to override players' choices. The limits above still hold whatever is set there: a view distance stays inside the mission's range and a tag distance can't grow past the mission's.
Worth knowing
Before you build on this
- Everything here describes the current development build and can change between builds.
- Addon Options needs CBA A3, which ALiVE already requires.
Something here wrong or missing? Please raise it on the ALiVE issue tracker on GitHub, with your RPT log. This page is written from the code in the current development build, and it can change between builds.
Changelog
Updates to this page
- 2026-10-30New Wider task list setting under Game, on by default: the map screen's list of tasks, notes and log pages is wider so long task names fit.
- 2026-10-27New Tablet style setting under Game: As the mission sets (the default) picks the tablet from the mission's war; Modern, Cold War, Vietnam or WW2 always uses that one.
- 2026-10-24New Game option Group target tasks, on by default, puts target tasks of one kind under one entry in your task list. Off gives every target its own entry.
- 2026-10-24Task updates is now Task and radio updates, and covers Combat Support's radio messages too. Chat lines keeps the radio in side chat.
- 2026-10-24Map pins and markers now has two choices, ALiVE pins (the default) and Arma default. ALiVE pins are Arma's own icons on your side's NATO frame. Map pin opacity (%) fades them while their names stay solid.
- 2026-10-24New Game option Starting terrain detail sets the terrain detail you start a mission with, from 1 - Low to 5 - Ultra, inside the mission's minimum and maximum.
- 2026-10-15Two new Game options: Colour ALiVE actions (off by default) and Action colour. ALiVE's scroll-wheel actions show in the colour you pick; actions with their own colour keep it.