Dear friends,

Some of you get surprised because you see a different Antistasi.

Some of you know the version has been just changed to a port from Warlords of the Pacific.

Some of you are happy, and some of you may have hard time getting used to this.

For this last group I will explain what happened, how and why.

What happened? You just have a better, more bug free, with more features and performance wise is just.. another story. Let me list a few differences that come to my mind:

- MUCH MUCH less bugs.
- Better / smoother spawning system, which combines spawning with disable simulation so the FPS will run smoother while planes fly by the whole island.
- Removed loops as much as possible, which sometimes were eating your CPU resources for nothing.
- Added a dynamic and really functional Headless Client support which allows you to have unlimited HCs which will provide the best AI experience on earth (if you have the money to rent them).
- The in built revive is another story, with total AI integration which carries their comrades bodies, covers them.
- Better tactical AI regarding reinforcements, QRFs, cover use, smoke use, suppression use, where to disembark from transports, bombstrikes... A whole different story. I could write a whole post talking only about this.
- Garrison caches: go to an airport, kill an AT man, go back to HQ, go back to the airport, the AT man does not spawn.
- AI reinforces places dynamically and sends REAL reinforcements that can be intercepted, sometimes secretly, sometimes in big convoys.
- Arsenal unlocks are back again.
- Better interaction with AI squadmates with autoLoot and autoRearm functionalities. Some AI squads now assemble and dissassemble statics when they are ready.
- Better static weapon use for enemies, now they assemble them if they feel they need it and use them against you.
- PvP Element in MP your friends may join NATO and fight against rebels, extremely funny on our tests and a whole different story in MP.
- 3v3 CTI, adding a different experience and more tiered progression while Redfor advances.
- Major attacks are now waved, instead of "good, we destroyed the 4 apcs and 4 helis, we won" you will never know if AI has something more for you.
- Roadblocks can be garrisoned.
- Easier port and mod integration.
- Engineers (AI or human) can construct basic dynamic type defenses.
- More battles in cities, not necessary punishments.
- Outposts may be origin of QRFs.
- A whole set of contact notifications.
- Task menu bugs are much less frequent (still happens, BIS fault).
- In MP ambient civilians dont eat server / HC cpu as they are managed by players PC.

What is not:

- Language support. Sorry we missed that. It is on roadmap.
- Sketchy Irishman. It wasnt a great addition and won't be implemented.
- Some sidemission port is under study, but ATM I disagree on all those that allowed you to select on which city provide support.
- PDA and progress bars: We need to ask for permission of the author.
- Powerplants: Radio Towers are the new powerplants, did you know?
- Camps: Instead of that you have the cheap Observation Posts which do the trick. Yes, not as fancy and nice than the old ones. In future we will study to add those fancy templates and names.
(sorry if I miss something important).

How we have come to this? Short story: When because of personal affairs I had to leave Antistasi coding some other people took the relief and started doing the planned improvements at first, but later on, they modified the whole mission in a way it was very difficult for me to continue the job. So I just abandoned the project to focus on Warlords of the Pacific. At some point those people abandoned suddenly the project and the current team and myself we were not able to put our hands on this properly and fix the whole thing.

Thats why at some point (WotP taking real shape and Altis just stuck) after the number xxxxx discussion of an Altis bug, we decided to go on the easier way: port a version which has all those advantages was easier and was about to become 1.0

And now we are here.

Why we just didnt left 1.8 here, abandoned and focused in the current versions?

Well first of all, lets say once again 1.8 is still on github if you are nostalgic enough, but it will become unsupprted by the official team and not runned in official servers.

Remember my friends that mission developing requires providing support, specially in the cases of this BIG projects.

Because yes, I must say proudly that Antistasi is the biggest project in the Armaverse, even bigger than any other mod or mission, not in terms of GB of code, but in terms of heavy interaction of about 600 scripts that compose this puzzle which, in the end, amazingly, works!

A "broken product" requires more time for the people involved on fixing it, and as our time is limited, spending time on bugfixing what others made and is hard to understand is time wasted instead of spent on making improvements that increase player experience (and yes, our egos).

With this explained (and to be honest, if you are not happy with this explanation, you you have no heart) I must just say: Thank you for reading this, and have fun.

Is the change to hard for you? Just try, you wont regret. ALL the people that spends time in the new version in the end, loves it.

See you in the battlefield!