Finding myself on the map

[TZANCA HURRICANE]

I know this is going to sound cringe, but.... how can I find myself on the map in any gamemode of this huge game?
oh, God...

[iEatCheapGlue]

Well it should be really obvious with a crosshair and red circle. But, if your difficulty or the server difficulty is raised you may not be able to see yourself on the map, and have to work it out yourself with a GPS and general knowledge of the terrain.

[TZANCA HURRICANE]

Alright, thanks! How can I use my gps?

[M4JORIS♠]

You can press M and open the Map, you will find a circle on the top right corner, click on it and the map jumps on your position. Otherwise learn to read the map.

[NathaN]

Put a shift waypoint on the map and the go back to the game and see how far it is from you and in what direction. Then move it closer until you find yourself.

[Beer Virus]

I figured it out: It's configured under Esc -> Options -> Game -> Difficulty. If you have it preset to e.g. Veteran then a bunch of stuff will be turned off.

The specific setting you're looking for here is at the bottom, under Extended Map Content: enable Friendly. When you show friendlies on the map, then you'll be able to see yourself on the map as well, and it will put a red ring around you.

I strongly recommend at least turning on everything under Personal Awareness. I think every game should have all that enabled, since, unlike IRL, you can't feel or intuitively know your physical status in-game. The Difficulty page you want to try to balance realism with playability imo.

[Lord-Knight Fandragon]

I personally dont go anywhere without GPS. This game is quirky, buggy and bizarre enough that I dont need to also play the "Wheres Waldo" with my soldier. Its hard enough trying to keep track of my squadmates.

[OkayIshGamer]

Okay almost everyone here is talking about changing the difficulty so instead i'm going to tell you how to get your coordinates and using those to get your location.

GPS is your best friend, having one isn't an absolute necessity as you can navigate without one, but you should have one almost always. To open the gps you can either press RCTRL+M, or this key ¨ (for nordic keyboard layout for example) or the bracket keys. This will open up a gps on your screen. It will give you a 6 digit grid coordinate (you can also read the 6 digit grid coordinate from the gps when you open the map). Now next thing you want to do is open up the map and find the coordinates from the gps. Remember to read the x-axis coordinates first and then y-axis.

[Sgt Smash]

Originally posted by M4JORIS♠:

You can press M and open the Map, you will find a circle on the top right corner, click on it and the map jumps on your position. Otherwise learn to read the map.

This is the only efficient answer^

[Sardaukar]

Oh man!

Short answer: you can find a gps and then press right ctrl + M. But you will still have to see the coordinates on the gps and match them on the map to know where you are.

Btw ink marks on the map show up on the GPS. So if you wanna know where you are going. Use ink marks to mark a trail that is easy to follow.

Anyway story time.

Arma 3 taught me how to use a map. Especially when i cranked up the difficulty.

It was a patrol stage in the campaign and i was far from camp. The issue was that i dont have a gps. I got into a fire fight but i was in a car. So i speeded away from it but didnt exactly keep track of where i was going. And i got lost. The problem is that while i was trying to figure out where i was on the map by checking terrain and then trying to find where i am that way....

The sun was setting...

I was in a race against time to figure out where i was before i lost vision of the terrain around me to verify landmarks.

edit: forgot this part. I then proceeded to find a small town to find a squad leader on CSAT. i killed the squad, and thankfully he had a GPS and I finally managed to get back home.

This game made me appreciate all the small things i take for granted in real life.

Compasses.
Watches.
Maps.
Landmarks.

And taught me how to navigate properly.

[Beer Virus]

Originally posted by Sgt Smash:

Originally posted by M4JORIS♠:

You can press M and open the Map, you will find a circle on the top right corner, click on it and the map jumps on your position. Otherwise learn to read the map.

This is the only efficient answer^

It's not an efficient answer without the setting described in my answer, however; with that setting turned off, it will put the map very roughly around where you are but you will still have no idea because you won't see any shapes drawn.

You can look at the GPS coordinates - or look at landmarks and bearings like they show you in the first mission - but that takes time. If your goal is to shoot stuff, you don't really care about doing it all officially. If your goal is to become a master navigator and spend all day playing the game with little action, then use the GPS or landmarks. IRL though you would probably have bothered to memorize the map around your mission and use things like the sun or moon to help keep track of where you are.

[FIREFIST SHINRA]

Originally posted by Beer Virus:

I figured it out: It's configured under Esc -> Options -> Game -> Difficulty. If you have it preset to e.g. Veteran then a bunch of stuff will be turned off.

The specific setting you're looking for here is at the bottom, under Extended Map Content: enable Friendly. When you show friendlies on the map, then you'll be able to see yourself on the map as well, and it will put a red ring around you.

I strongly recommend at least turning on everything under Personal Awareness. I think every game should have all that enabled, since, unlike IRL, you can't feel or intuitively know your physical status in-game. The Difficulty page you want to try to balance realism with playability imo.

Thanks 👍

[Disgruntled Cuttlefish]

I saw the little dipper. You can view it on Altis looking in kind of north-northeast direction I guess, pretty close to the horizon?

Learn how to navigate via the stars, noob. Toss your Garmin into the trash.

Oh but look, this is an old post and they're all grown up now and a cop or something. They're gonna come and beat the ♥♥♥♥ out of me now for calling them a noob and fabricate some bogus charge, like Hunter Biden's gun form debacle.

It's not ok to smoke crack a few times but... it's totally ok to be a piss drunk who gets drunk every day on Bud or whatever. Real responsible gun owners whose favorite pasttimes are watching NASCAR and drinking Bud while listening to Ted Nugent... who probably also do other drugs on the side very often. Obviously though virtually no one goes after anyone for the reason why Biden's son is in court. It does serve as a political distraction away from Trump for the election though.