Arma 3 Altis Life Server Hosting

What Altis Life Is

Altis Life is a roleplay mission for Arma 3. It was first written by TAW_Tonic, whose name, Bryan 'Tonic' Boardwine, still heads many of its scripts, and it is maintained today on GitHub as the AsYetUntitled framework, formerly known as Altis Life RPG. Instead of a military operation, players live on the island of Altis as police officers, medics or civilians. Civilians earn money from legal jobs or from crime, the police chase them, medics revive the wounded, and money, licences, houses, gangs and cars all carry over from one session to the next.

That persistence is what sets Altis Life apart from an ordinary Arma 3 mission, and it shapes how you host it. The game server runs the mission, but everything a player owns lives in a MySQL database, which the server reads and writes through an extension called extDB3. A working city needs three parts to cooperate: the Arma 3 server, the database and the link between them.

If your community wants military operations rather than a city, our Arma 3 server hosting page covers missions, Zeus and Creator DLC. For persistent survival with bases and traders instead of roleplay, see Arma 3 Epoch server hosting. And if your city should live in Los Santos instead of on Altis, FiveM server hosting runs GTA V roleplay servers on the same network.

The Parts of an Altis Life Server

The framework's repository is laid out by job. Knowing which part does what saves a lot of guessing when something stops working.

The repository also ships ready-made mission.sqm files for Altis and Tanoa in its SQMs folder, and the mission folder includes SpyGlass, the framework's own anti-cheat scripts. The database name the server looks for is set in the mission's description.ext as DatabaseName, altislife by default.

Inside the Altis Life Database

The altislife.sql file creates a database called altislife, written for MySQL 5.5 or newer and the utf8mb4 character set. Six tables hold the city:

• players: cash, bank balance, licences, gear and stats for each faction, the cop, medic, admin and donor levels, arrests, blacklisting and play time
• vehicles: each owned vehicle with its side, class, plate, colour, inventory, fuel and damage, and whether it is out in the world or destroyed
• houses: which player owns which house, and whether it has a garage
• gangs: the gang's name, owner, members, member limit and gang bank
• containers: storage players have placed, with its contents
• wanted: the persistent wanted list the police work from

It also adds stored procedures that keep the city tidy: resetLifeVehicles, deleteDeadVehicles, deleteOldHouses, deleteOldGangs, deleteOldContainers and deleteOldWanted. On our servers you reach all of it in the browser. Install phpMyAdmin from the Mod Manager's Tools section, read the login from the Database Details button and log in with the phpMyAdmin button.

Whitelisting Police and Medics

Altis Life whitelists in the database rather than in a config file. When a player picks a police slot, the mission reads their coplevel. On any police slot except the first four, cop_1 to cop_4, a coplevel of 0 ends the session with a Not Whitelisted message unless the player is an admin. Medic slots work the same way with mediclevel, and a blacklisted player is turned away from police slots altogether.

To change a value, open the players table in phpMyAdmin, search for the player's name or 17 digit Steam ID, edit the column and save. The player gets the new level the next time they load in, so ask them to reconnect.

Choosing Slots and RAM for a Roleplay City

The stock Altis mission in the repository has 125 playable roles: 19 police, 100 civilians and 6 medics. Your server's slot count is how many players can be connected at once, so a 60 slot server fills 60 of those roles. Our plans run from 20 slots, enough to build and test the city with a small team, to 120, close to the whole mission.

Altis Life asks more of a server than a plain Arma 3 mission. It keeps many player-owned vehicles in the world, runs scripts for jobs, shops and the economy, and writes to the database as people play. That is why each bigger plan comes with more memory: 5GB on 20 slots, 8GB on 40, 12GB on 60, 16GB on 80 and 20GB on 120. If the memory graph sits near the limit on your busiest evening, move up a tier; the order form goes up to 32GB.

Tuning the Economy in Config_Master

Most of the city's rules live in the mission's config/Config_Master.hpp. A few of the stock values show how the economy is meant to start:

Other switches decide how forgiving the city is, for example whether civilians keep their weapons and position between sessions (save_civilian_weapons and save_civilian_position are off in the stock file) and whether Arma's fatigue system is on (enable_fatigue). Change one thing at a time, restart, and see how players react before you touch the next.

Headless Client and a Smooth City

The framework includes a life_hc addon and a HeadlessSupport switch in the mission's description.ext. With support enabled, the server runs normally when no headless client is connected and hands over part of its work when one is. We sell the Arma 3 Headless Client as a separate server, and our knowledge base explains how to configure it.

Even without one, a few habits keep a city running well. Restart at least twice a day from the Scheduler and warn players first with the Server Messages plugin. Use the framework's clean-up procedures so destroyed vehicles and abandoned houses do not pile up in the database. And keep your Workshop mod list short: every mod is something each player has to download and the server has to load.

Updates, Backups and Wipes

Two things update on their own schedules: Arma 3, which Bohemia still patches, and your copy of the framework, which only changes when you change it. After an Arma 3 update, run Steam Update, restart and read the log to confirm that the mission, life_server and extDB3 all load. If extDB3 needs a newer DLL, open a ticket, because DLL files cannot be uploaded over SFTP.

Back up before every change. A backup in the panel protects your files, and an export from phpMyAdmin protects the database. When a community wants a fresh start, a wipe is a database job: empty the tables you want to reset, keep the players table if ranks and whitelists should survive, and restart the server.

What to Compare Before You Rent an Arma 3 Altis Life Server

Altis Life hosting looks similar from host to host until the first database problem. These are the details that matter by month two.

1. A database you can reachAltis Life cannot run without MySQL. Check that it comes with the server and that you can open it yourself.
2. File access for the missionYou will edit the mission and its configs often, so look for a file manager and SFTP.
3. How DLLs are handledextDB3 is a DLL. Ask how the host adds or replaces DLL files before you need one.
4. RAM that grows with the cityCheck how much memory the base price includes and what each extra tier costs.
5. A headless client optionBig cities benefit from moving work off the server; see whether the host offers one.
6. Backups of files and dataFind out whether you can restore files yourself and how you export the database.
7. Billing termsCompare monthly and longer cycles, and look for setup fees or minimum terms.

Altis Life Server Glossary

Altis Life

A roleplay mission framework for Arma 3, maintained on GitHub as AsYetUntitled.

extDB3

The Arma 3 extension the framework uses to talk to its MySQL database.

life_server

The framework's server-side addon, which does the database work.

Headless client

An extra Arma 3 client without graphics that takes over part of the server's work.

coplevel

The players-table column that whitelists and ranks police officers, from 0 to 7.

mediclevel

The players-table column that whitelists medics, from 0 to 5.

phpMyAdmin

A browser tool for viewing and editing a MySQL database, installed from our Mod Manager.

SpyGlass

The anti-cheat scripts that come with the framework's mission.

Wipe

Emptying some or all database tables to reset the city's economy.

Altis Life Server Help and Next Steps

Useful pages for setting up and running your city.

• The AsYetUntitled framework on GitHubThe framework itself, its wiki and its releases.
• Our Arma 3 server setup guideServer.cfg, the launch line and mods for any Arma 3 server.
• How to connect to your server MySQL database with phpMyAdminOur step-by-step article.
• How to configure your Headless ClientFor cities that outgrow one server.
• Contact support24/7 help with the database, DLL files and moving a city.