With the Make Arma Not War 2025 modding competition now concluded, we’re excited to speak with the talented creators who claimed the top spots in each category. Up next, we have three of the developers of ACE Anvil, the winner of the competition’s Wildcard category.
BIO
Nicknames:
BaerMitUmlaut
Kex
veteran29
Nationalities:
BaerMitUmlaut: German
Kex: Swiss
veteran29: Polish
Random facts about yourselves:
BaerMitUmlaut: After getting fed up with sorting black socks, I bought 30 identical pairs and threw away all others. One of the best decisions of my life.
Kex: My mother tongue is one of the most difficult Swiss dialects to understand, even for other nationals.
veteran29: I did my first fully successful install/format of Windows 98 around the age of 7. Afterwards I realized I did not have any backups and was very sad that all my games and saves were gone. It was a learning experience!
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Can you tell us a bit about yourselves?
BaerMitUmlaut: I’m a software engineer in the legal tech sector and in my private life I love fixing things and drinking coffee that is too expensive.
Kex: I was born in the alpine region of Switzerland. After high school, I served ten months in the Swiss Armed Forces as a microwave systems operator. Our job was to set up and maintain military telecommunications via parabolic antennas. I went on studying Chemistry and became a computational chemist, investigating mechanisms of chemical reactions by means of simulations.
veteran29: I play an unhealthy amount of video games, collect Warhammer minis (the grey pile of shame is getting only bigger) and play Arma from time to time.
How did you all first get involved with Arma and modding?
BaerMitUmlaut: I wanted to make a mission for some friends I played DayZ with that required a little bit of scripting - nothing crazy, just end conditions, sounds, etc. Making your own missions with fancy features got addictive really quick and it all went downhill from there. I fanboyed a bit for AGM and wanted to contribute, but failed to make something that I felt was good enough. When ACE3 was announced, there were many small things that needed to be taken care of, and I thought that was just the job for me.
Kex: My brother got me into Arma 2: Free, but I didn’t really create anything back then other than tweaking existing missions in the 2D editor. When I transitioned to Arma 3, I was fascinated by Zeus, but I felt it was too limited. Another scripter by the name Talya introduced me to Ares mod and its framework for building custom modules, which eventually led to the creation of Achilles in 2016.
veteran29: I’ve played the series for the first time around 2002, I was very young at the time and I did not create anything more than a few simple missions.
It was April 2017 when I actually started modding and contributing to the Arma modding community. At the time I was playing a lot of the highly popular KP Liberation gamemode for Arma 3 with my friend, most of the play sessions ended with me wanting to fix some small bugs or do minor improvements to the gameplay. This led to me eventually joining Wyqer as one of developers for the gamemode and later on thanks to his recommendation got me an invitation to work on S.O.G. Prairie Fire.
Can you give us an introduction to your winning creation?
ACE Anvil is a successor to ACE3, the most popular realism mod for Arma 3.
Similarly to its predecessors, it focuses on making Arma combat simulation more realistic while still keeping it fun. The design philosophy of the mod is to encourage and reward real-life tactics by giving players tools and gameplay mechanics that support them to the fullest in a fun and meaningful way. ACE is not a monolith, but a modular collection of various addons that enables communities to tailor the experience to the degree of realism that fits their desired playstyle.
Can you tell us how the concept for ACE Anvil began and what inspired the creation?
We followed the initial release of Arma Reforger with great interest. While we were quite excited to experiment with the new Enfusion Engine, we ultimately felt that the game was not mature enough at the time for our modding endeavours and most of our team members were also busy with other projects.
That changed with the 1.0 Update. At that point, we decided to begin work on ACE Anvil for Reforger, the GitHub repository was created in November 2023 by BaerMitUmlaut and work on the mod was officially kickstarted.
The development of the mod really picked up pace when veteran29 reached out to Kex and invited him to the team. Kex at the time was maintaining the very popular CEN - Carrier System, which was merged as ACE Carrying afterwards; it was the first “meaningful” feature added to the mod. Shortly after that, the staple feature of ACE from previous Arma titles was added, the medical system.
In terms of inspiration, it primarily comes from all previous ACE mods across the Arma series. Advanced Combat Environment represents a long-standing legacy of collaborative modding that dates all the way back to Operation Flashpoint where it all started with WGL (Wargames) mod.
Our main source of ideas today is, of course, our largest and most popular mod, ACE3, built upon the foundations of AGM and CSE, which were in turn inspired by ACE2.
Kex: I created several quality of life mods, sometimes in collaboration with other modders. Usually features from Arma 3 and its modifications that we missed in Reforger. This led to mods like carrying casualties, chopping trees ,and pinging positions, which all ended up in the initial version of ACE Anvil.
Can you give us any insight into the development process for the mod? Are there any interesting anecdotes you can share?
Kex: There are often a lot of preliminary investigations involved, especially for the more complex features like advanced medical and overheating of rifles. It usually starts with studying ACE3’s approach by compiling the mathematical equations, activities, and conditions. This also opens the opportunity for reevaluating them by improving them or experimenting with alternatives. For instance, for medication, we switched to a new model derived from differential equations that are used for modeling real problems in chemical kinetics. Finally, we must find the right entry points in the base game code and come up with the structure for the new implementation, as enforce script and SQF are just way too different.
veteran29: While realism might be the main focus of the mod, the fine balance between the realism factor and fun gameplay is always taken into consideration regarding our designs. Freedom to configure the game to the player's liking and needs is also very important to us and is reflected in the modular nature of mod and vast configuration options available to the user.
Can you tell us about any future updates that might be coming to ACE Anvil?
Kex: As always, we don’t have a roadmap. Our entire code base is available on GitHub, so you can have a look at ongoing pull requests. Some are already available in dev mods like cook-off in burning vehicles or a pocket weather meter. ACE3 and KAM are also good sources for potential new features. Sometimes we also add something entirely new, like the handheld periscope that can increase survival on first person only servers.
veteran29: We don't do any long term planning, however I can highly recommend keeping an eye on our GitHub repository.
What is your favorite piece of Arma user-created content (mod, addon, scenario, game mode, tool) and why?
BaerMitUmlaut: HEMTT has revolutionized how we build mods for Arma 3. Not only is it blazingly fast, it also automatically detects problems with our code, which is a massive help when you’re working with over 300 contributors. I hope we will see similar tools for future Arma titles.
Kex: This is always a difficult question, as there are many great mods and scenarios out there, but one that will always have a special place in my heart is Mike Force for Arma 3’s S.O.G. Prairie Fire CDLC. It’s a PvE game mode where you have to seek and destroy installations and subsequently capture and hold locations. You can take on different roles from ACAV to Spike Teams, and together with the Vietnam setting it has a unique vibe. I wouldn’t be surprised if it inspired features like supplies and base building in Conflict. It in fact did inspire mods like ACE Chopping.
veteran29: If I had to pick only one it would obviously (not biased answer 😉) be the ACE3 mod, thanks to all of its great features I had a chance to be part of many very fun, rich and rewarding mil-sim missions for thousands of hours of great gameplay.
With the popularity of Arma Reforger and the potential of Enfusion Engine and Workbench, what are you looking forward to with the franchise as we move along the road to Arma 4?
BaerMitUmlaut: I’m a big fan of armored warfare and think there is still a lot of potential on what could be done for both tracked and wheeled vehicles. Tanks should be scary, but also require a lot of skill from the crew to operate them effectively. It requires teamwork, coordination and communication - exactly what differentiates Arma from other titles.
Kex: Mostly what new features you will be introducing in Arma 4 and how we can give a new spin on them or complement them with ACE.
veteran29: While I recognize that some of ACE’s more realistic features aren’t for everyone, I hope that as many of its quality of life improvements as possible could be integrated into the base game. This would allow us to focus our efforts on elevating the realism gameplay experience even further.
BONUS
What is your most remarkable “Arma” moment?
BaerMitUmlaut: I once played a TvT mission as a spotter for a sniper, overwatching a town built entirely by the mission maker (so we had no experience of what the town looked like, where the enemy force was, or where we should go to get a good view on everything without being too far away). We were able to test two spots and had enough time to preplan shot solutions for various buildings and streets. I even made a quick sketch of the town to make things easier for me.
The plan of the rest of my team quickly went south. After entering the town, we lost radio contact and had to take action. Due to the extensive planning we were able to significantly delay the opposing force and threw a big wrench into their attack. Normally I don’t even like sniper gameplay, but this experience was something that I’ve never seen in any other game.
Kex: The first time I played Arma 2: Free. We were on a server that ran Xeno’s The Longest Day. We were inserted near Solnechny by helo and were supposed to destroy an ammunition factory up north. From the very beginning this game felt very different from any shooter I’ve played before. I got downed and revived many times before I even started realizing where the enemy was. Ultimately, figuring out the best approach and honing your situational awareness was very rewarding.
veteran29: Once with my crew mates we managed to backflip an M1A1 Abrams over a small curb right on top of a house, giving us a great overwatch position to cover our friends. This was a moment where we got truly “Arma’d.”
What advice do you have for people who want to start modding?
BaerMitUmlaut: It’s best to pick a small project to start, even if you think you have the skills to implement a great idea you had that will “only take a bit of time.” I have unfortunately witnessed too many people think of grand features that will never be finished. The problem isn’t the knowhow of the modder, the problem is the motivation you need to finish something big. If you split your idea into smaller chunks or iterations which can be finished and released faster, you get a gratification loop which is intensely motivating without burning you out.
Kex: Definitely have a look at the Arma Reforger Modding Boot Camp YouTube series, which provides overviews to various kinds of modding. Also don’t shy away from asking on Arma Discord if you are stuck with a problem. There are many talented modders and devs around that may be able to help.
veteran29: Don’t get too focused on making your creation perfect. It’s better to release an unpolished mod early and start gathering player feedback than to keep it in “the dungeon” for months and risk never releasing it at all due to project burnout. Trust me, I’ve been guilty of this more times than I can count. Get it working first and you can make it pretty later.
