One of the most annoying and painfull experiences when you take any kind of leadership or communication role is managing all the radios you have from the small and simple 343 to the big 117. The default ACRE keys will most of the times prevents you from moving or doing other things for the simple reason that it makes you press a combination of 3 keys just to change radio or open it, the intent of this tutorial is to simplify ACRE in a way that you can do the most basic things as quickly as possible. Keep in mind that this is just my suggestion feel free to use any other method or keys.

From my own experience I have come to a conclusion that the most important keys in ACRE are the quick switch keys for radios, these by default are:

• CTRL+SHIFT+ARROWs – To switch between radios.
• CTRL+SHIFT+X – To open the radio dialog.

To make things more easier we’ll utilize the numpad since it serves no purpose in Arma 2 besides looking around. Here’s my suggestion:

• Numpad 4 & Numpad 6 – To switch between radios.
• Numpad 5 – To open the radio dialog.

Before we change the ACRE keys make sure you unbind Numpad 4, Numpad 6 and Numpad 5 or any other key that you’re using from the Arma 2 controls:

 

Afterwards go to your mods folder (Arma 2 OA folder by default) and open the userconfig folder, in there you’ll see a file called acre_keys.hpp, open it with your notepad (I’m using Notepad ++) or whatever software you use and change the following lines:

You can find a list of keys at the bottom or alternatively you can use the BI key code list. After changing the keys save the file and restart or open up your game and it should be working. You can now change or open your radios in much more simple and fast way.