Welcome to the Armed Assault Wiki!
There aren't many strict rules to follow when editing anything on this Wikia. However, please try to at least adhere to the following guidelines when making edits or creating new pages.
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ArmA vs. Arma/ARMA
All games in the series are officially titled as Arma (with a lowercase "a"). However, for consistency reasons please stick to naming such articles as ArmA (with an uppercase "a" as opposed to Arma/ARMA).
Isn't this counterproductive?
Due to the Wikia's initial setup, the ArmA naming was used instead. As it is simply too late to refactor this to its correct stylisation (not to mention the problem of breaking more than just a few pages), ArmA will be used for the foreseeable future.
Relation to other Wikis
This Wikia IS NOT affiliated to similarly named FANDOM Wikias set up in other languages (i.e. Chinese [.zh] or Russian [.ru]) and retains no administrative control over their content.
This is also not the official Wiki for content from the Arma series. Please refer to the official Bohemia Interactive Community Wiki for technical information related to mission making, server maintenance and/or in-game scripting commands.
Canon vs. non-canon information
Everything listed in the official Armaverse Timeline is considered canon.
All information shown on in-game materials and content is considered canon.
The events of the Red Hammer campaign for Operation Flashpoint: Cold War Crisis / Resistance is considered as non-canon and should NOT be shown on the wiki (e.g. the Red Hammer protagonist Dimitri Lukin).
Eagle Wing is considered non-canon in the timeline BUT its events and related information is still relevant due to being an official product.
Of the three main endings to Old Man, it is not clear as to which of the endings is considered to be canonical. Due to this uncertainty, the ambiguous template should be applied as a disclaimer wherever it is appropriate to do so.
State Scarlet is non-canon as it is a spin-off campaign that comes from a Creator DLC that was not developed by Bohemia Interactive.
S.O.G. Prairie Fire is non-canon as it is also a spin-off campaign that comes from another third party-developed Creator DLC.
The Extraction mini-campaign/scenario from Western Sahara is considered to be non-canon due to the DLC's third party status.
The Air Control mini-campaign/scenario from Reaction Forces is considered to be non-canon due to the DLC's third party status.
First Contact is non-canon as Contact is a spin-off expansion pack. However, the events that preclude it (i.e. Exercise Electron-39) are canon.
ARMA Reforger's events depicting a war between the United States and Soviet Union in 1989 is non-canon as per the Armaverse Timeline. Only the general depiction of the Armaverse outside of the non-canonical Conflict mode as shown in Reforger is canonical.
Unless otherwise stated by Bohemia Interactive, all campaign endings follow the "best" or neutral endings (e.g. War That Never Was for ArmA 2's Operation Harvest Red campaign). The sole exceptions to this are for Royal Flush and Operation Black Gauntlet's endings, which follow the events of Escape and Deception (respectively).
A character is considered to be alive unless stated otherwise by Bohemia Interactive. If their fates are uncertain following the events of a campaign (e.g. Aleksei Guba in Cold War Crisis), then they should have their status listed as either Determinant or Unknown.
Spelling
American English vs. British English
Use British English spellings when writing or editing an article. This means:
- Avoiding use of American English spelling where possible. Words that end with an -ize should always be suffixed with s instead of z (example: analyze being spelt as analyse), or the unit of distance meter being written as metre.
- Additionally, this also applies to words such as color (American English) being spelt as colour instead.
The sole exception to this rule is when it comes to names that are officially written by Bohemia Interactive themselves in-game or on official material with American English spellings (usually proper nouns). A prime example of this can be seen with ORBAT units being called Mechanized as opposed to Mechanised (British English).
Grammar
Everyone makes errors when writing stuff for articles. Don't be too fussed if you accidentally spell something incorrectly by mistake; just quickly correct it and move on.
However, there is an exception for this when it comes to in-game material; Field Manual or Armoury Description entries for weapons or vehicles from each game being prime examples. Copy and paste the exact content from the game itself. Don't correct any spelling mistakes or errors from the source.
A good instance of this is in practice is the L110A1 light machine gun from ArmA 2's British Armed Forces DLC. Its in-game Armoury Description incorrectly spells "5.56mm" as follows (highlighted):
| « | The L110A1 is a British designation for a Belgian 5.m56mm light machine gun Minimi Para. It is an air-cooled weapon, capable of fully automatic fire only, and it is adjusted to be used as paratroopers weapon. This rifle features the red-dot Aimpoint gunsight and the AN/PEQ-2 laser pointer. Armoury Description
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"5.m56mm" is obviously the incorrect spelling for "5.56mm". However, just leave it as it is. There is no need to adjust it as this is how it's officially displayed in-game.
Military ranks
For the majority of factions, refer to the following stylisations whenever a person's rank is brought up and/or is abbreviated:
| Rank title | Abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Private | Pvt. |
| Corporal | Cpl. |
| Sergeant | Sgt. |
| Lieutenant | Lt. |
| Captain | Capt. OR Cpt. |
| Major | Maj. |
| Colonel | Col. |
| General | Gen. |
The only exception to the above table is for United States Army and United States Navy personnel. Stylisation for their abbreviated ranks follows the United States Department of Defense (DOD) convention which has them capitalised with no period:
| Rank title | Abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Private | PVT |
| Corporal | CPL |
| Sergeant | SGT |
| Lieutenant | LT |
| Captain | CPT |
| Major | MAJ |
| Colonel | COL |
| General | GEN |
For ranks not listed above, refer to their official stylisation wherever applicable (i.e. 3LT for a U.S. Army Third Lieutenant, LtCol. for a U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, ADM for a U.S. Navy Admiral, etc.).
Content removal
Any sections, videos or images which contain information deemed unrelated/outdated/invalid can be subjected to immediate removal by any of the administrators or bureaucrats. Reasoning should usually be provided in the article's Talk page, or a comment left behind prior to the edit's commit.
Prime examples of content removal include topics or in-game data which cannot be verified properly in the latest patches. Alternately, the original editor who wrote the section is no longer present to update the information.
If a non-admin editor wishes to dispute the removal, they should start a thread in the article's Talk page to justify why said content should be restored.
Categories
Always tag your article with the right categories.
A weapon like the M4A1 carbine from ArmA 2 for instance, should always be tagged with the Weapons (ArmA 2) category. On the other hand, a ground vehicle like the Hunter MRAP from ArmA 3 will go into the Vehicles (ArmA 3) category instead.
If the category does not exist, then you can create one. Just make sure to check whether one already exists first, and ensure that the created category is parented to a related higher category (i.e. Weapons (ArmA 3) would obviously be a subcategory of the Weapons category).
Images
Licencing
Ensure that images are properly labelled with the correct licence when uploading them onto the Wikia. Examples being official material from Bohemia Interactive using the Fair use licencing (as the image is owned by BI).
If the image was made by yourself or is not owned by a particular entity, then you can leave the licencing section blank or with whatever append is most suitable.
Quality
Turn up the video settings of your game; especially anti-aliasing and texture quality. Remember, your FPS (Frames Per Second) isn't important when you're taking a non-animated screenshot. Aesthetics take precedence over performance in this case.
On the other hand when adding images to an article, try to make sure that it uses the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file format as opposed to a lossy format such as JPEG.
If the image comes from an official source and is in JPEG by default (which is again, exclusive to media released by Bohemia Interactive), then the image is permitted to stay that way. Likewise, exceptions are permitted in the case of image resolutions that are larger than 1080p (i.e. 1440p) as their file sizes would exceed 5 MB, or composite images that combine one or more 1080p-sized pictures.
This isn't strictly enforced, so don't be too worried if you lack an image editing program to alter the format or can't be bothered to do so.
Naming
Try to avoid using generic or serialised names. Uploading something called ARMA3-251521-123531-12.jpg isn't particularly neat or helpful, so the format for filenames should always be as follows:
- GAME:
- Arma4 for ARMA 4 and its DLCs
- Reforger for ARMA Reforger
- Arma3 for ArmA 3 and its DLCs
- Arma2 for ArmA 2 and its DLCs
- Arma1 for ArmA: Armed Assault and the Queen's Gambit expansion pack
- OFP for ArmA: Cold War Assault
- MobileOps for ArmA: Mobile Ops
- Tactics for ArmA Tactics
- CONTENT
- Is it for a vehicle, weapon, character, or object? If so, then name it as such for the respective article name (a shortened version is fine too). Examples being:
- Arma2-character-portrait-maddox.png for a named character from ArmA 2; in this case for Lieutenant Maddox from ArmA 2's Operation Harvest Red campaign.
- Is it for a vehicle, weapon, character, or object? If so, then name it as such for the respective article name (a shortened version is fine too). Examples being:
- NUMBER
- Suffix your images with a number beginning with 00, and increment it with each subsequent image related to the article.
Beginning with ArmA 3, Creator DLCs also need their own prefixes applied when uploading their image. For instance, an asset added in a CDLC like Global Mobilization - Cold War Germany needs its abbreviation applied after the GAME and CONTENT have been defined as follows:
- Arma3-helmet-gmcwghelmetwz67-00.png for a screenshot used by the Helmet wz. 67.
Galleries
Going back to the Maddox character from ArmA 2, an example for an image placed in the Gallery section would be called like this Arma2-character-maddox-00.png.
An officially sourced image on the other hand such as for the Tanks DLC in ArmA 3, would be named as follows: Arma3-dlc-tanks-04.jpg (the fourth picture in a series of DLC promotional images).
Infoboxes
Images placed in infoboxes are more specific, and should always be named with the following:
- icon for weapons and their accessories (i.e. Arma3-icon-car95.png for the CAR-95 bullpup in ArmA 3's Apex expansion pack)
- render for vehicles, aircraft, boats, and other objects (i.e. OFP-render-lst.png for the LST troopship in ArmA: Cold War Assault)
- portrait for a character's face (i.e. Arma2-character-portrait-brianfrost for Brian Frost from ArmA 2's British Armed Forces DLC)
Image categorisation
Unlike for article pages, this isn't too important to have.
However, do try to categorise your images with an appropriately matching one where possible. Examples being Ben Kerry's portrait (a character from ArmA 3) being placed into the Character images (ArmA 3) category. This will make it easier for future editors to find the image should they need to.
Description
Nice to have but is optional. This isn't required for images, but can be added if you feel the need to do so.
Game interface
Unless the image is from an official source which already has the in-game player interface displayed (examples being one of the OPREP images for the ZSU-39 Tigris article), don't upload images with the HUD shown. Such images will either be removed or cause the article edit to be reverted if found.
That being said, screenshots uploaded specifically for use in mission walkthroughs/guides are fine. This is the only other occasion where an exception will be made.
Modded content
Except in very specific circumstances, DO NOT include images that contain modded content that is not officially available from Bohemia Interactive. Any images that contain unofficial content in them will be subject to immediate deletion.
As noted, exceptions will only apply if the image is of particularly notable quality and the modded content is not visibly identifiable from a casual glance. A good example of this is the Design block image used for the T-140K Angara article, or those that add custom character faces.
In these cases, images will be judged on a case-by-case basis instead. That being said, keep expectations low and don't get your hopes up immediately just because your image falls into this category.
Unit measurement
Metric vs. Imperial
Please don't use the Imperial System when listing values for any unit of measurement. Only use the Metric System equivalent for this purpose. Examples would be:
- km/h (kilometres per hour - Metric) instead of mp/h (miles per hour - Imperial) for vehicle speeds
- kg (kilograms - Metric) instead of lbs (pounds - Imperial) for weight values
...and so on.
You can suffix the converted Imperial values in brackets, but don't use it as the actual display value.
Once again, the only exception to this rule is if the Imperial unit of measurement is specifically used in-game instead.
Rate of fire
For weapons, only list the cyclic (number of projectiles per minute) and not the sustained/effective rate of fire.
You do not need to list this if the weapon is single shot only; good examples being the RPG-42 Alamut rocket launcher from ArmA 3.
External sources
Whenever posting a link to an external source, please try to exclusively use the English Wikipedia whenever possible in lieu of manufacturer websites, specific product pages or non-Wikipedia encyclopaedias. You can generate a link to Wikipedia using the WikipediaLink template and inputting the URL of the article.
As for products from Bohemia Interactive (i.e. DLCs/expansion packs), only links to either the Steam Store or the Bohemia Interactive Store are permissible.
Other officially approved resellers include:
- Google Play and the Apple App Store (for mobile spin-off titles)
- The official Microsoft Store and PlayStation Store (as of ARMA Reforger)
- GOG.com (for older titles in the series that are DRM-free)
Do not post links to third party sellers that are not officially sanctioned by BI.
Why shouldn't X, Y, Z link to website be used?
Manufacturer websites - especially for their products that are either discontinued or rebranded, tend to remove linked pages from their website without leaving a redirect behind. This can cause issues for readers who may attempt to click on the link expecting to see the referenced content, only to end up at a 404 page.
What if there aren't Wikipedia articles for X asset?
In the event this is the case, then linking to a non-Wikipedia article is acceptable. However, if an article on Wikipedia is ever made available for it in the future, then it should be replaced by a link to its corresponding article.
Humour
Sarcastic captions and snarky commentary is welcome on most articles; aside from main games and other non-fiction articles (i.e. Bohemia Interactive's page).
Try not to go too overboard. Well...unless it's about a topic that is clearly intended to be humorous.
Conclusion
...and that's all there is!
If you need clarification on anything specific, don't hesitate to contact an administrator for assistance. Drop a message on their wall as needed, and we'll try to get back to you ASAP.
Have fun editing!