Sorry for the wall of text, I'll aim to add pictures soon.

Hello everyone and thanks for reading my guide, My name is Jake. I occasionally make things such Guide like this to help people and things such as youtube videos, Generally what I feel like in my spare time. Feel free to check out my Youtube or other work if you have time!

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_VhZ1zHLzmexkpB3iBaZmQ
Steam: http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/id/Jake-PurePixel/

List of Guides I have created so far which to date have become obselite / I have removed but my Previous Altis life guide is still available:
ARMA 3 - A Simple guide to Altis Life (This is my origonal guide which goes in to less detail and is slightly outdated) http://gtm.steamproxy.vip/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=225716527

Also in this guide I recieve some help from a friend That_SpyStaples! who I met through ARMA 3 so i'd like to thank him for his contribution to the guide :D

Altis life is simply an RP mod for ARMA 3 based on the island of Altis, so you can see where it got its name from.

There consists of 2-3 main factions:
.Civilians (These can either be just Civilians or Rebels)
.Police Officers (These are here to make sure laws are not broken and those who do break laws are punished)
.PMCs/Medics (These are either here to carry out things such as hits or assist / be a nuisance to Police or just to assist in healing people but are not available on all servers and vary largely)

The aim of this RP mod is to RP as one of these roles which often involves the pursuit of money in order to obtain better gear such as the aim of many Civilians to become rebels to obtain the greatest guns etc.

You must note that all Figures I quote will be taken from the current server which I played on and will be updated as I find out about others so feel free to comment information.

Again as above this may change server to server but should work on most, I am quoting from the server that I play on.

Y - This opens your Altis Life inventory showing things such as your current money, items you have on your person and licences while allowing you to access other things such as your cell phone and key chain

U - This will unlock the vehicle you are close to (Within about 2-3m) as long as you have the key

T - This will access the trunk of the vehicle near you, that you are looking it as long as it is either unlocked or you have the keys

Custom Control 10 (Default - Left Windows key) - This will open an interaction menu allowing you to complete actions such as repairing vehicles and flipping vehicles, if you are a police officer you gain more options


Shift + R - If you are a police officer this will restrain the person infront of you so that they cannot move of do anything other than interact with Scroll Wheel (So be careful they can escape if a car is near enough)

Rp - Role Play

Cl - Combat Log (This is logging out to avoid being killed/arrested/losing gear, this is a ban-able offence)

NLR - New Life Rule (When you die you may not go within a certain distance of the area you died for a certain amount of time, server specific values)

RDM - Random Death Match (This is randomly killing killing a person for no valid Rp reason and is often a ban-able offence)

VDM - Vehicle Death Match (This is using your Vehicle as a weapon either to kill someone or destroy a vehicle/property)

Now the first thing before anything on a server that you need to do is read through all the rules, Especially if you are new to Altis Life as there are a large amount of things to learn, these can be accessed by going into the map (M) and these will be a series of menus on the top left where the rules etc. are organised into categories.

So when you have joined a new server what you do depends on the starting money and wage, you usually have 2 types of servers Low money and High money. Low money servers you have to work more for everything but this in turn means less people have access to it whereas high money servers thing will often cost a little more but be easier to access.

Low money servers:
On these servers you will start with variant amounts but below 20k and have a wage usually below 1k.

So to begin on these servers your best option is fruit picking as if you spawn in Kavala there are 2 fruit field near. To do this I recommend getting a large backpack, Drivers License and Quad bike. Of both fruits I recommend picking peaches as they earn you a slight bit more than apples and the drive is quicker, so you need to drive to the peach field then walk up to a tree and use the scroll wheel and 'Collect Peaches' it will do an animation and then they will be in your Altis Inventory. When your backpack and vehicle drive back to the Market and there you can sell your fruit to the vendor and rinse and repeat until you can afford to begin the next stage (High money server start)

TLDR: Backpack, Get Driving License, Quad, Pick peaches, Sell at market

High money servers:
On these servers you will start with an amount around 100k and have a wage between 2 and 4k.

To begin on these servers you are best skipping fruit farming as you can afford to do something better such as copper. Of the legal methods (I shall detail all later) copper is arguably the safest as it is one of the shortest drives, is all on the eastern (police controlled side of the map) and you can start straight away. You need to be careful on these servers not to be VDM'd or killed and lose this you will need to draw out all your money from a cashpoint, get a backpack at the clothing store and a pickaxe from the market, buy a truck licence from the DMV then go to the truck store and buy a Box truck. Now you will need to keep all your money remaining on you to buy a copper processing licence at the copper processing but for now you need to head to the Copper mine located just outside of Kavala. When you reach the mine you need to exit your vehicle, Open the Altis inventory, Select your pickaxe and click use, you will now be mining copper fill you inventory and your trucks trunk then you need to head to the Copper processing NPC buy a licence then process all of your copper. Finally you need to head to the Copper Trader so that you can sell your copper and make some money, continue with this and collect money so you can proceed in doing what you want.

TLDR: Get Backpack, Truck License, Truck, Mine copper, Get Processing License, Process Copper, Sell to Copper Trader

There are a few ways to make money Legaly as a civilian on altis. This is either done through fruit picking or mining and processing resources.

Fruits to pick: (Basic servers, there may be more)
.Peaches
.Apples

Fruit picking is often something you do when starting the game as it is a short distance from most towns and can be traveled to and sold relativly fast compared to other methods. However it yields little money so is not very affective when playing later on in the game. If you have a choice peaches are often more profitable than apples.

Resources to mine: (There may be more or less)
.Copper
.Sand
.Salt
.Iron
.Diamond
.Oil

Mining is a step up from fruit picking you get much more money but it often required the greatest amount of time and some threat may be involved with higher tier resources. Mining mainly depends on the locations on your servers as you want to find a route you can take from the Mining to processing to sales as fast as possible. In order to mine you will need a pickaxe and use it from your inventory and also a processing license that can be purchased from the processor him/herself at the location so the first time you will need to carry money, they prices of these vay per server from as low as 5k for copper to 100k for a diamond license.

Copper is most commonly the basic resource this will yield the least amount of money (while still being a reasonable amount) so is the resource you will want to start with, this can be done with a basic vehicle such as a pick up truck or the first tier truck and be worth it. From here you move up the tiers which can be very variable, at the top if often diamond which takes up a high amount of inventory space before processed and sells for a lot of money but you may encounter bandits on this run as diamonds is very lucrative. Also your alternate option is sand/salt which people with good gear often do (this may be friendlier) as you can take large trucks out onto an open plane and harvest this so you are safe and the route to drive is not exceptionally long while having a good payout. By the time you are at one of the hier tier resources you want a large truck and a basic legal gun like an smg or rifle if you are able on your server just so you have some protection.

Illegal money making is where the rewards become greater as drug runs can bring large amounts of money but are often very risky.

Methods of Illegal money making:
Cocaine
Heroin
Weed
Turtles (Mostly unprofitable, not on all servers)

Each drug yields different amounts of money on servers which can vary but typicaly weed is the least expensive and cocain the most expensive with risk scaling for each. However you must take note on drug runs there is a high chance any other person will have a gun and you require a gang to be safe doing this or to be cautious at night time.

Police also add a greater risk on drug runs as with enough officers they are able to raid drug fields, processors and dealers, while also being able to search trucks if they think anything is suspicous or in a big convoy this means as groups you should try to stay close or split up and avoid police at all cost you dont want to end up in a 4 truck escape from 10 police officers with cars (as I have experienced). If police find you, try to ditch the drugs or one of a group distract them and do this so you guys can escape, as long as police dont find drugs on you or in your vehicle you are safe if they do it will be inpounded and you most likely arrested.

Before you start doing illegal methods as above you want weapons and a group, the best idea is to do something legal till one of you can get a rebel license and then give them money to buy guns and camo outfits along with having a number of larger trucks so you can take large amounts. Again this is risk vs reward, it can be very lucrative but you are likely to see people and die losing gear so do not waste money use as little as you can.

As a police officer money making is seperate from your civilian account and it is very simple. If someone has a bounty on their head then you will get a proportion (or all) if you arrest them and up to half if you kill them. However for ticketing someone you often get nothing to avoid abuse. To make it for the difficulty in money making police start with basic gear, get a larger paycheck and have cheap cars.

As a rebel you are most likely going to be going drugs to get most of your money but when you aren't there are also other methods. All of these methods are very risky!

Rebel methods:
.Police Ransom
.Federal Reserve
.Robbery

Police ransoms can be very difficult and require a number of people but if enough people have guns on a police officer he has to surrender due to rp rules, this is the most RP thing to do and may often lead to no money. You need to take the officers communications (at least say) and text the police demanding money (this works best if more senior officers are online with money) and they may payout for the officer. However when there are often larger groups of police they will try end it with a gunfight to save the officer or just do something sneaky so you need to watch out. The aim here is to capture someone important / multiple officers and you might get money but often not.

Federal reserve is the most common this for rebels in an organised group. This can either be done directly by just going to the reserve when there are 4 or more officers (May be more or less) or may require tools and there maybe be multiple layers of protection such as doors that need bolt cutters and a door that needs a blasting charge. For doing this you will face the entire police force so need to be well armed, in a group and prepared for the escape but this will get a large amount of money, usually you collect gold bars (that give 100k upwards per bar but weigh a lot, this really will vary a large amount) so you need to transport these so that you can sell them or on other servers there is a time that it takes to open the 'vault' and gives you money directly to the player opening it.

Robbery is only available on some servers, this can be done if you have a weapon at which point you can run up to someone and press the bind and the person will be knocked out on the ground where you can scroll and rob them. This will give you some of the money they have on their person so often gives little / no money so its not really worth it, although it can be with a cheap weapon.

ALWAYS check the server rules (often on the map) when you start a server as many rules and general thing vary.

Do not VDM (Vehicle death match - Running over people) as this is a banable offence on the majority of servers if done repeatedly or used in combat situations.

Do not RDM (Random death match - Randomly kill people) as this again is ban able and not allowed on all servers.

Try to stay in RP (Role play) in player interactions as being out of RP can be disallowed e.g. with Cops and if you rob someone don't just shoot them if they say now (just most general interactions).

Follow NLR (New Life Rule) which means if you die you cannot go back to where you died for 5 - 15 minutes (always check) this is again another banable offence.

This will be updated with any common questions people have about Altis life.