ALiVE on an Arma 3 Dedicated Server: Mods, Persistence and Saves

ALiVE (Advanced Light Infantry Virtual Environment) is the Arma 3 mission framework that simulates a whole war across a map: thousands of "virtual" AI groups that keep moving and fighting when no player is near, an AI commander that picks objectives, logistics, and a persistent campaign that survives server restarts. This guide covers running ALiVE on an Arma 3 dedicated server at GameServerKings (GSK): the mods to load, which persistence mode works on a Linux server, the server.cfg setting persistence needs, and how to keep a campaign from being lost.

ALiVE is a framework, not a mission. It does nothing until a mission built with ALiVE's editor modules is running. Writing that mission is out of scope here. This guide covers the server side.

What the Server Needs to Load

ALiVE's own install notes list two mods for players and a third for dedicated servers:

For a normal ALiVE server, set Additional Mods in the panel's Startup tab to:

@450814997;@620260972;

and restart with Automatic Updates on. The GSK image then downloads both mods, lowercases their files and copies their keys into keys/. Those Workshop downloads only work when the Steam account set on your server owns Arma 3. The login fields are hidden in your panel, so contact support if the mods don't download and we'll help, or upload the mod folders yourself. Add any faction or map mods your mission uses to the same field. See Arma 3 Mods on a Dedicated Server: Workshop IDs, -mod, -serverMod and Keys for how the mod variables work.

Lowercase matters more than usual here: Bohemia's Linux server notes name @ALiVE as one of the mods that "will not function if there are capital letters in any of their file names". Workshop downloads are handled automatically. If you upload ALiVE yourself (for example a GitHub pre-release), run one boot with [Repair] Make Mod Files Lowercase set to 1.

Local vs Cloud Persistence: Use Local

ALiVE can store a campaign in two places, chosen by the Database Source option of the ALiVE Data module in the mission:

• Local saves "mission persistence data to the host machine". It needs no account and no extra mod.
• Cloud saves to ALiVE's War Room at alivemod.com. It needs a registered group and server, and the @ALiVEServer mod, which you download from your War Room server page.

On GSK, use Local. GSK's Arma 3 servers run the Linux server binary, and ALiVE's own issue tracker documents that Cloud persistence is broken there. Issue #741 (2021) reports that there is no 64-bit Linux build of ALiVE's server plugin and that the Linux plugin "sends invalidly encoded json string to your cloud". The issue was closed in 2023 without a fix. Local persistence goes through Arma's own profile storage (ALiVE's ProfileNameSpace save functions), so it doesn't need the plugin at all.

Mission makers: this is a mission setting

Database Source is set on the ALiVE Data module inside the mission, not on the server. If you run someone else's ALiVE mission and it's set to Cloud, open it in the Eden editor, switch the module to Local and re-export the mission.

Turning Persistence On

Persistence is "OFF by default" in ALiVE, and you turn it on per module in the mission:

• Virtual AI System: positions and strength of every virtual AI group.
• Military AI Commander: the commander's current orders per objective.
• Military CQB: which town sectors are still occupied.
• Player: location, medical state and equipment of each player.
• Player Logistics (on by default): vehicles and objects moved with ALiVE Logistics.

The ALiVE persistence checklist also asks for this in server.cfg:

persistent = 1;

The GSK default server.cfg has persistent = 0;. Change it through Files and restart. With persistent = 1, the mission keeps running when everyone disconnects, which is what a campaign server should do.

Installing the Mission

Upload the mission .pbo (for example MyOperation.Altis.pbo) to mpmissions/ in the server root over SFTP. Then point the mission cycle at it in server.cfg. The template is the file name without .pbo:

class Missions
{
    class ALiVECampaign
    {
        template = "MyOperation.Altis";
        difficulty = "Regular";
    };
};

Replace the two Zeus missions that the GSK default file rotates, and keep the word class lowercase, because Bohemia's parser rejects anything else.

The file name is the save slot

ALiVE "uses the mission.pbo filename as a unique id for saving persistent states". Rename the .pbo (a new version number, for example) and the campaign starts from scratch. To update a mission without losing the war, upload the new build under the same file name. To deliberately reset, change the name.

Saving and Shutting Down Safely

ALiVE writes persistent data when the mission is saved, not continuously:

• Players should leave with ALiVE's Player Save & Exit option. ALiVE warns that quitting with the normal Abort button "may cause persistent data to fail".
• Before a restart, an admin should end the mission with Server Save & Exit. Stopping the server from the panel without it risks losing everything since the last save.
• If you schedule restarts with Schedules, give admins a fixed time to run Server Save & Exit first, or schedule them for times when nobody is online.

Local persistence is stored in the server's Arma profile. With the GSK egg that is under serverprofile/ (the main profile is serverprofile/home/Player). Include that folder in every backup.

Performance Notes

ALiVE's virtual AI is designed to be light, but big missions still load the server. Two egg settings help:

• Server Binary should stay on arma3server_x64 (the default).
• [Advanced] Headless Clients (HC) can take AI off the main server, but only if the mission is built for headless clients. The egg calls this "only recommended for advanced users", and each headless client uses more of your plan's memory.

Quick Troubleshooting

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