Halcyon's Guide on Loadouts and Fatigue

In this guide, I'll give some tips on general gear loadouts, and how weight affects your fatigue level.

Features:

• Cool pictures!
  
• Hopefully interesting content!
  
• Neat tips and tricks!
  
• Unnecessary in-depth sections!
  
• Eventually gets off-topic!

Introduction

***EDIT: They've edited stamina since this guide was made, so some of it doesn't necessarily apply to the game as it is today.***

You can still probably get a pretty good idea of what type of gear to bring, however.


The focus of this guide is to give an in-depth idea of how gear works, and how that gear might affect your fatigue. But in the end, the whole point is customization. There's practically a limitless amount of loadout configurations, so I encourage you to experiment. This guide gives you a better idea on the uses of certain items. You might find it to be common knowledge, or you might learn something new.

Either way I hope this guide helps someone.

This is also assuming the mission you're playing has access to the Virtual Arsenal. If this isn't the case, the guide will still work for missions where you have a preset loadout, or where you have to loot gear off of dead enemies.
Oh, and there's some images involved. If you can't really see an image too well, you can click it and it'll be larger.

The guide will be divided into these sections:

1. Fatigue in Arma 3
   
2. Basic Infantry Loadout
   
3. Specialized Loadouts
   
4. Addendum: What you don't bring to a firefight

At the end of each section, there will be a brief summary. Basically, a TL;DR kind of thing.
(TL;DR means Too Long; Didn't Read)

Now, let's begin with the actual guide.

Fatigue in Arma 3

As we're on the topic of Fatigue, compared to other games in the Arma series, Arma 3 has, by far, the most refined Fatigue system in the series. This section explains gear weight, and the effect of that on your stamina. So how exactly does fatigue work in Arma 3? Read below.

Some people will say it's unfair, but I disagree. In most cases it's relatively balanced, so you can't run for a kilometer with a bunch of heavy weapons. It makes for slower paced battles.

As reddit user "TheronNett" said:

Originally posted by TheronNett:

"In my honest opinion after 6 years Army and 2 of those in Deployment. The Fatigue system is pretty realistic. Try running 300 meters at dead sprint in Full Battle Rattle and not feel like you're going to turn over and die. Even the most physically fit are dying after a sprint like that."

Anyways, carry weight isn't measured in pounds or grams or anything of the sort, not that I can really see up-front, in the Arsenal it's simply measured in percentage. For example, one piece of equipment might take up 3% of the entire 100% bar.

When you're testing your loadout in the Virtual Arsenal, you might notice a few bars to the lower right. The two bars depicted are the Load bar and the Fatigue bar.
(the other two being your speed, and the distance of the target you're looking at.)

Load, as is obvious, represents the overall weight of the gear you're carrying. At 20% everything is pretty much fine. At 45% you can slow-jog (NOT SPRINTING!) for about a minute or so. At around 80%, even changing your weapon or going prone fatigues you a bit.

You can test this for yourself in the Arsenal. In my personal opinion, limit the gear you're carrying to 50%. You'll usually find this limit, whether intentional or not, in most default loadouts in the game. In my own field tests, it works pretty well. Everything you might need can be put into your loadout without surpassing this limit, and you can go great distances and only be fatigued a little bit, going prone after moving remedies this immediately.
The Arsenal is a wonderful addition to the game.

When you aren't in the Arsenal, you can get a rough idea of what your carry weight is by looking at the white bar at the bottom of the gear menu. (depicted below, roughly circled in red)



TL;DR: pay attention to your gear. if you're carrying a bunch of stuff you don't really need, and can afford to lose, drop it. the less gear possible, the longer you're combat effective.

Basic Infantry Loadout

This section of the guide is meant to give an in-depth look into the ideal items you might need. We'll talk about vests, uniforms, weapons, and smaller stuff. Like smoke grenades and hats.
In the end, it all boils down to what you want. This just gives you an idea of what you should have. Experiment with weapons and gear, and find which one suits you the best.


Alright, the image below is a picture of one of my loadouts, we'll use it as an example. We're going to disect it and talk about what items are there, and their purposes.
It's based on the default NATO Rifleman. So, from there, it's based on every faction's rifleman.
You'll always have a standard-issue rifle, a sidearm, NV Goggles, and whatever vest and uniform is native to your faction, assuming you don't have access to the Arsenal.


Overall I have an MTP Uniform, default for NATO, the faction I'm ususally playing. A "Carrier Lite" vest, in black, it offers pretty good armor and carrying capacity.
The thing is about vests though, if it gives more protection, it probably is heavier.
A neat thing that isn't in a lot of games, is that Vests in Arma only protect the areas they cover. So if you're shot in the shoulder, and you have pauldrons, you won't take as much damage there. Damage is also localized to where you're hit. If you're hit in the leg, you can only walk, or sometimes you can only crawl. If you're hit in the arm, your aim will be off. This same mechanic works for helmets as well.

I also have an empty backpack, just in case.

The helmet I use is a standard NATO ECH Helmet. It's pretty light and offers good protection. I also have a rangefinder, which is good for quick target aquisition, and when used in a group, it makes it easier for the entire group to engage in the quickest time possible. It's basically an enhanced pair of binoculars.

The weapon I use is a black variant of the MX 6.5mm rifle, with an MRCO scope and rail-mounted laser pointer. The MX is a pretty universal weapon, and the MRCO scope allows for either close range or long range engagements. The laser pointer is just basically cosmetic.

Below is a list of items in the uniform and the vest, and their use.

In the Uniform

• 2 First Aid Kits. One for you, one for a buddy. Or both for you, if the situation demands.
  
• 2 magazines for the sidearm.
  
• 2 Colored Chemlights. Good for illumination, or changing the color of smoke during the night.
  
  pictured: a yellow chemlight combined with white smoke ends up illuminating the smoke
  

  In the Vest

• 2 white smoke grenades. Useful for quick concealment.
  
  pictured: a COXHOUND soldier using smoke to cross a street
  
• 1 colored smoke grenade, can be used to mark your position, either for friendlies or helis.
  
• 8 magazines for the main weapon. For the MX, each magazine takes up 1% of your carryweight, and sidearm magazines are usually 0.5%
  
• 2 RGN grenades. RGN grenades have a lower explosion/shrapnel radius, but they're lightweight. 2 RGN grenades count for 1 RGO grenade if you want to change this, and RGN is better for indoor settings. RGO is the opposite.

Two other useful items are IR Strobes and Laser Designators.

IR strobes, when thrown, will show up as a blinking light on everyone's nightvision. When fighting an enemy without nightvision, it can be useful to mark your position covertly.
Keep in mind, though, that IR Strobes can be locked on-to by bombs and missiles, therefore, they are very situational items.

Now, Laser Designators are also pretty self-explanatory. You can use them to mark targets for air support from afar. The downside is that they require Laser Designator Batteries. The problem here is when you're in the Arsenal, and you load a loadout that has batteries, they won't show up for some reason. So, every time you equip an Arsenal loadout with a Laser Designator, remember to add batteries.

Like I said, this is just a basis. Experiment with the Arsenal and find the loadout that suits you the best. This loadout works pretty well for me, and may work well for you. Stuff like glasses and ski-masks are cosmetic and don't really effect anything, too.

TL;DR most loadouts are based on the Rifleman unit, the more armor a vest has, it's probably heavier, damage is localized to where you're hit, and masks and glasses don't do anything except make you look cool

If you would rather take out armored vehicles, or snipe from afar, that's what this next section is about.

Specialized Loadouts

The concept of "Specialized Loadouts", I would define, is really just loadouts created for some special purpose. Whether it be to take out tanks, or specifically just to act as a medic, they're all created for their own purpose.

Basically, if you have a rocket launcher, you'll ideally focus on armor, and not infantry. The Fatigue system prevents you from creating a "jack of all trades" loadout, so it's balanced as far as preventing you from being overpowered, and it allows for longer battles.
Knowing this, don't worry too much about weight limits, a few of these loadouts have heavy equipment.
All of this is pretty much based on the "Basic Infantry Loadout" section, so it most cases you'll still have smoke grenades and night vision and related stuff.

What types of loadouts would you call "Specialized"?
Here's a few examples:

• Medical loadouts
  
• Sniping-based loadouts
  
• Anti-Vehicle-based loadouts
  
• Machinegunner loadouts

Featured below is a bunch of sub-sections that gives you an idea of these "Specialized Loadouts", what they bring to the fight, and what they should do.

Medical Loadouts

The obvious focus for people playing as a medic is to treat the wounded. Default medic units generally have a backpack with 10 FAKs, and a Medikit.
The medikit can heal pretty much all wounds, and the reason there's 10 FAKs is so you can distribute them to your team.

In the end you can still engage enemies, but your primary goal should be to heal people. Some servers have scripts that enable people to go into an incapacitated state when they die, so they're lying on the battlefield. From there, you can drag them out of a firefight, so it's good to pack some smoke grenades in addition to cover yourself while you do that.

Sniping Loadouts

When you're sniping, you aren't going to be up-front with the enemy. You're going to be far away on some hill, away from the intense fighting. This way, you don't draw attention to yourself.

The uniform you'll want to bring is a Ghillie Suit. If you have the Marksmen DLC, even better, because you can customize the pattern of the suit for the environment you're in.

This video by Youtube user "M Breeze" displays why Ghillie Suits work pretty well.

Continuing, you'll obviously want a long-range rifle of some sort. The scope you'll want is also dependent on the situation. Is it broad daylight? Bring the LRPS. Is your visibility low? Bring the Nightstalker.

Another tip is to move as much as possible between shots. Don't stand straight up, though, stay as low as possible. When you're moving, try in stay with in a 100 meter radius of your original location. If you're close to the target, stay prone. If you're pretty far away, crouch. The reason you're moving between shots is so it's harder for the enemy to get a general location of where you are.

Also, if you've ever played Sniper Elite, one feature that's in the game is the ability to mask the sound of your shot with the environment. This can be used in Arma, too. Let's say your enemy is standing next to a running vehicle. Or maybe a helicopter that's about to take off. Use your environment to your advantage.

Anti-Vehicle loadouts

It's kind of hard to balance out ammunition and carryweight, so normally I just say this:
"Screw it, let's just take a bag full of rockets."

Turns out that tactic works pretty well. You burn through Launcher ammunition like wildfire, and if you have a buddy carrying ammo, you're a pretty deadly pair.
If you're in a small-scale fight and there's a small amount of enemy vehicles, bring a rocket launcher. The only rocket launcher in the game is the RPG-42. The PCML, and Titan launchers, fire Missiles. Missiles are guided, meaning they can lock onto targets, but rockets are unguided, so they can't lock onto anyone.

If you're in a large battle, you'll probably need to take out armor as fast as you can. Bring a Titan. There's two versions of the Titan launcher, depicted below.
The Compact version of the Titan can fire Anti-Tank and Anti-Personnel, and it's bigger brother, the Launcher variant, can fire Anti-Air. AP missiles are lighter than AT and AA, AT and AA are equal weight, for some reason. The images below, in order, are the Titan Compact, the Titan Launcher, and their ammunition.
pictured: Titan MPRL Compact - fires AT and AP
pictured: Titan MPRL Launcher - fires AA
pictured: the physics defying properties of the Titan Missiles - AP, AT, and AA, from left to right

Machinegunner Loadouts

With the Marksmen DLC update, Suppression was added as a feature to the game. Though, technically it was already in, it didn't actually work, and the AI didn't normally respond to suppressive fire.

Thankfully that's fixed now.

Anyways, the point of suppressive fire is to hold the enemy at a specific area. You're pinning them down so they can't move a lot. The thing is though, you don't have a direct line of continuous fire. You fire a short burst every few seconds, and maybe a longer pause to give them a false sense of security, and lure them out. While you have an enemy unit pinned down, it's harder for them to return fire, and while they're focusing on what to do, you can have another element move in and flank them. It's a pretty good tactic, when employed correctly.

You'll obviously want to use a LMG. I usually go for the MX SW. It's pretty light compared to the CSAT Zafir and the AAF Mk 200. I'll elaborate, and I'll list the differences below

Weapon	Capacity	Caliber
Zafir	150	7.62mm
MX SW	100	6.5mm
Mk 200	200	6.5mm

The Zafir fires 7.62mm, but it's heavier. It's also selective fire and has a built-in bipod.
The MX SW fires 6.5mm, it's the lightest of them all, and the magazines for it are lightweight too.
The Mk 200 also fires 6.5mm, but considering it's ammo capacity, you'll be lugging around heavy stuff.

If you own the Marksmen DLC, you also have access to MMG's, which are the CSAT Navid 9.3mm and the NATO SPMG .338. They're both pretty heavy weapons, and they're almost equal, but the Navid can fire in either burst, or automatic modes.


TL;DR some units only work for a specific purpose, so for example a sniper won't be on the frontlines. if you have a heavy weapon such as a launcher or a LMG, if you have a buddy with you carrying ammo, you'll be deadly. use suppressive fire to keep an enemy pinned down, and have another element move into flank them

Addendum: What you don't bring to a firefight

In this short epilogue kind of thing, I will tell you the things you generally shouldn't bring to a direct firefight. If you frequently play online you might notice people bringing ghillie suits and sniper rifles to a relatively close-quarters and upfront battle. Below is an example of impractical gear.

An example:
Context: Our objective was to capture an enemy-controlled town, we had encountered light armor, and most of our attacking force was centered along a hillside
(click to enlarge)

What is wrong with this image? Well, I'll point out some things I thought were wrong when I encountered this guy.

• He brought a ghillie suit to a battlefield, in broad daylight, and he was on the frontlines.
  If you're going to snipe, do it away from the frontlines, far enough so the enemy doesn't immediately spot a walking bush running across a hill.
  
• He had little to no armor whatsoever. The aforementioned ghillie suit offers no real protection, and he was wearing the CSAT LBV Harness, which doesn't have any real protection either. (How do I know? You can tell because of the fanny-pack.)
  
• He was bringing heavy equipment to a relatively small fight. Two other elements were also already bringing AT. He also had a thermal scope on his sniper rifle, which by some is considered a clutch.
  
• All of this heavy equipment means you'll be fatigued relatively fast.

You can also observe that he has a Carryall Backpack. It says in the action menu, in the image.
What was packed we can only assume, and I would say it was probably rockets. I tried this out in the Arsenal and the Weight percentage was at 90%. At this point, even changing weapons fatigues you a little bit.

One thing I'd like to assume he did get right though, and this sort of contradicts what I said, but he sacrificed his armor for increased carrying capacity. If you're bringing the "Carrier GL Rig" vest, it gives considerably more armor protection than the LBV Harness, but it also weighs a lot more. If you're bringing Anti-Tank weapons, too, you'll drain through the ammunition pretty fast. Therefore, over time, the stuff you're carrying decreases.


Am I insulting him? Am I calling him out on pretty much irrelevant stuff? Nah. I'm just poking fun.
He probably had good intentions choosing his loadout. Maybe he just wanted to screw around for a bit, or maybe he was dedicated on taking out enemies so that the rest of the team could move up. Either way, if your goal is for the objective, don't bring this sort of loadout.

Speaking of objectives, you should be focusing on what that is, rather than solely focusing on getting kills. Unless, of course, that IS what your objective is.



Oh, and as another joke, here's an image of a guy wearing the wrong uniform.

pictured: an idiot


The entire server was on the NATO faction, and we were fighting CSAT.
Make sure you're wearing the appropriate uniform, and not one of the of the opposing force's uniforms. Otherwise, you'll probably get fragged.

Finishing Notes

So, if you managed to read this far without getting bored, you're pretty good.
I wrote this primarily because I see all these guys carrying a bunch of heavy gear, and after holding sprint for a minute straight, they ask "Why can't I aim straight? FIX YOUR BROKEN GAME BOHEMIA!"

I hope you enjoyed this guide, and I hope that in the end you learned something new. If you liked it, please rate it up!
If you see any mistakes, or if you think I left something out, please let me know!

Credits:
COXHOUND for being a pretty good Arma group.
Bohemia Interactive for making a pretty good game.
Reddit user "TheronNett" for making a pretty good quote.
Youtube user "M Breeze" for making a pretty good video.

[Kellykeli]

Me, an inexperienced ArmA player:

"And I'll bring [insert ridiculously large number] of [insert the wrong ammo type] juuuuuuuuust in case!"

[ærømagnetica]

wuh

[Captain Roman S'Jet]

Fuck off, weeb.

[Phantom Legend]

This was a pretty good guide.

[Dragon (Nick) | xdragon.xyz]

That guy in the ghillie suit got lucky lol, I'd say that was more due to a unexperienced ArmA player. Good guide anyhow :)

[[TIL] JesterGorky]

Nice guide, has helped me understand a bit more about it. Also when moving lower your gun (ctrlx2). @Halcyons think we might need a highlander battle here!

[|KAISER|]

Another thign i noticed right now: the magazines in your weapons doesnt count as weight in the gear; If u have a rocket loaded in the RPG42 f.e. it doesnt weight in your soldier, if unload it and move it to the backpack u will see the white bar incrasing... NEVER TRAVEL WITH YOUR ROCKET/ MISSILE LAUNCHER EMPTY!!!

[|KAISER|]

Ttricks u didnt mention: If u took a GPS; trash the compass, the map and the clock, you have all this functions 3 in 1 in the GPS.
Didnt know the IR nades could be used for jets to gide bombs, awesome. Allways i raged for carry it in the default a3 rifleman. Another thing that I allways throw is the chems, has no sense when u have NVG, not mentioning the nice yellow smoke at night =)

Kind Regard

[Oatmeal II]

there can be only one

[ærømagnetica]

Woah... this is creepy.