STW Armored Spawner — Online Manual

STW suite connection

STW Armored Spawner is made by STW (ScienceTechWorks, sciencetechworks@gmail.com). It uses the vehicle prefabs available to the running scenario and looks for configured faction keys, so it works most naturally in scenarios that provide US and USSR-aligned factions. By default it uses US for US armor and USSR for USSR armor; administrators can supply a different ordered list of faction keys for either side.

The mod is its own server-side population system. Automatic generation, patrols, markers, rearming, and replacements remain self-contained; Armored Support uses the bundled STW Combat Support API provider contract. Its marker presentation follows the STW suite’s approach, including the similar STW Tanks Spawner marker behavior, while configuration remains in this mod’s own folder and files.

Soft dependencies

The vehicle-content mods below are soft dependencies: they may or may not be present on a server. STW Combat Support API is the required shared contract for the optional Armored Support command-wheel feature; it is not a vehicle-content dependency. STW Armored Spawner detects whether a configured vehicle resource is available when it tries to spawn it, and uses available content accordingly. It also detects the configured US and USSR faction keys at runtime; if no matching faction is loaded, a vehicle can still spawn without faction affiliation.

You do not need to install every listed mod to use STW Armored Spawner. Installing an available vehicle mod expands the pool of vehicles the spawner can use; unavailable content is not spawned. Arma Reforger base content is required by the game but is not a separate Workshop dependency, so it is not included in this table.

Mod	Workshop ID	Workshop page
RHS - Status Quo	`595F2BF2F44836FB`	Open Workshop page
RHS - Content Pack 01	`1337C0DE5DABBEEF`	Open Workshop page
RHS - Content Pack 02	`BADC0DEDABBEDA5E`	Open Workshop page
BMP-1 IFV	`5E524E4FEECCA92B`	Open Workshop page
BMP-3 IFV	`5B383D4CB27E0D54`	Open Workshop page
M113 APC	`5E5C154FEE1094BB`	Open Workshop page
M2 Bradley Fighting Vehicle	`63120AE07E6C0966`	Open Workshop page
WCS_Stryker	`5B02128D896F7DE8`	Open Workshop page

What STW Armored Spawner adds

After the server loads a world, the mod reads its configuration, waits for the configured delay, indexes that world’s road network, and builds a mixed armored population. It chooses from armed US and USSR vehicle models, assigns an available configured faction where possible, and seats default AI crews. Vehicles are selected by model first, then by an available variant.

Road-aware placement

Armor is sampled on or beside roads, separated from other accepted placements, checked for slope and local obstacles, and weighted toward military and settlement-related roads. If a map defeats every strict terrain check, a terrain-following road fallback prevents an empty result.

Patrol population

When enabled, part of the generated population receives AI-driven road patrol routes. Patrols travel in legs, may stop, recover from a stuck vehicle, and leave player-occupied vehicles alone for the configured cooldown.

Battlefield support

Optional fuel support periodically refuels registered automatic armor that is empty of players, intact, and below a fuel threshold. A separate optional rearm service restores weapon magazines on its own schedule. Stationary armor receives the normal default crew; patrol vehicles use a dedicated driver group plus turret/passenger crew.

Destroyed-vehicle replacement

Optional replacement scheduling restores destroyed automatic vehicles after a random delay, at a new road location away from players. It preserves whether the vehicle was stationary or a patrol, while selecting a fresh model variant from the same side's catalog.

Current vehicle pool

The built-in catalog currently includes US M113, M2A2, M2A3, LAV-25, M1126 Stryker, M1128 Stryker MGS, and M1296 Stryker Dragoon models, plus USSR BMP-1, BMP-3, BRDM-2, and BTR-70 models. The catalog deliberately excludes unarmed variants. The K17 is presently disabled in the catalog.

For players

Join a server that runs the mod and encounter its armored vehicles as part of that scenario’s world. AI crews operate the vehicles unless a player takes a seat. A group leader can also request the faction’s available automatic armor through Combat Support.

When map markers are enabled by the administrator, open the map and zoom in far enough to see the armored marker. By default the vehicle marker location is deliberately approximate, not an exact vehicle position.
Taking a seat in an AI patrol vehicle pauses its patrol orders. Once it is empty again, the patrol system observes the configured release cooldown before resuming its AI route.
Vehicle allegiance depends on a faction key being available in the loaded scenario. If no configured faction is found, armor can still appear, but without faction affiliation—and cannot answer a faction support request.

Armored Support

Armored Support lets the leader of a player group call one of that faction’s eligible automatic armored vehicles to a selected area. Open the command wheel, choose Combat Support, choose Request Armored Support, and select a map position. The server validates the player, their current faction, group-leader authority, the position, rate limit, and vehicle eligibility; the wheel itself never commands AI directly.

What you will see: every accepted request immediately receives an armored-support marker visible only to the caller’s faction. The marker uses the faction colour. It remains visible while the request waits, travels, and is on station, then is removed when the request ends.

Dispatch and queue

The server picks the nearest eligible same-faction automatic vehicle by horizontal distance, with a stable vehicle ID as the tie-breaker. There is no dispatch-distance limit. A vehicle already supporting another request is never interrupted for a newer call.

Situation	Result
An eligible vehicle is free	It is assigned immediately and travels to the selected area.
All eligible vehicles are busy	The request joins that faction’s FIFO queue. Up to three requests may wait per faction.
Several requests are waiting	The oldest valid server-accepted request is assigned first; the request ID breaks an exact time tie.
The same group submits another request while waiting	Its queued request is replaced with the new position and becomes newly accepted in the queue; no duplicate is created.
The same group already has an assigned or active request	The new request is rejected as already active.

Order states, expiry, and return

Accepted requests move through QUEUED, ASSIGNED, EN_ROUTE, and ON_STATION, then a terminal state or a visible rejection reason. Queued requests expire after eight minutes. A vehicle remains on station for up to two minutes before being released to its normal patrol or idle lifecycle. Cancellation, expiry, assignment failure, vehicle loss, and completion remove the request and its marker on the server.

While serving support, the system keeps the driver and turret operating crew—including commander seats—available to operate the vehicle. Non-operating passengers may dismount. This preserves the vehicle’s ability to move and fight while allowing its ordinary passenger behaviour.

Support dispatch runs only while a queued or active request exists; it does not add a permanent global polling loop. Requests are owned and processed by the multiplayer server, so clients see replicated vehicle movement and markers but cannot force an assignment.

For Game Masters and scenario hosts

STW Armored Spawner starts automatically on the authoritative server for every loaded world; it does not add a Game Master placement tool, menu, or editable configuration entity. A Game Master’s role is therefore to work with the generated vehicles in the live world using normal Arma Reforger controls.

The mod’s placement, patrol, marker, fuel, rearm, faction, and replacement choices are server configuration, not per-vehicle Game Master properties. For a curated scenario, set the server configuration before the session starts. The active world must expose usable road data for automatic placement; the server log reports the indexed-road result and any fallback.

In-game automatic-generation control

Game Masters can change automatic armored generation while the game is running. Open Scenario Properties, select the STW Armored tab (Armored Vehicle icon), and use Automatic static armored vehicles and Automatic dynamic armored vehicles independently. The switches are server-authoritative and session-only. Static controls new stationary armor; dynamic controls new patrol armor. Disabling both stops automatic generation, advances the generation epoch, and removes registered automatic vehicles, their owned crew, and markers. Re-enabling either requests a fresh pass for the enabled population at new locations. The next game returns to the normal server configuration.

Server setup

Install and enable STW Armored Spawner on the server and use the desired scenario/map.
Start the server once. The mod automatically creates $profile:STW/Armored/, generates its five JSON configuration files, validates them, and writes them back in readable form.
Stop the server cleanly, make a backup, edit the settings you need, then restart. Invalid or out-of-range values are corrected during startup and saved back to disk.

Faction readiness: use the faction-key arrays in the main configuration when your scenario has different faction identifiers. The system tries the keys in order. A missing key does not prevent vehicle spawning; it only means no faction affiliation is applied.

Safe editing routine

Stop the server. Do not edit generated JSON while it is running.
Copy the file you are changing to a backup outside the active configuration folder.
Change only documented values and preserve valid JSON punctuation, quotes, and array brackets.
Restart and review the server log. The mod validates all five configuration files and rewrites the validated version.
If the result is not what you intended, stop the server and restore your backup before changing another setting.

Configuration folder and files

All administrator settings live in $profile:STW/Armored/. These files are generated automatically on first server run:

File	What it controls
`STWArmoredConfig.json`	Main population, placement, marker, faction, startup-delay, messaging, and diagnostic settings.
`STWArmoredPatrolConfig.json`	Whether patrols run and how their AI road routes, stops, recovery, and pacing behave.
`STWArmoredFuelSupportConfig.json`	Optional periodic refuelling for registered automatic vehicles.
`STWArmoredRearm.json`	Optional periodic restoration of ammunition in registered automatic vehicles.
`STWArmoredRespawnConfig.json`	Optional replacement of destroyed automatic vehicles, including delay, player safety, and retry settings.

STWArmoredConfig.json

enableChatMessages controls Armored Support radio-chat messages and defaults to true. enableNotificationMessages controls the matching on-screen hint notifications and defaults to false. enableSoundMessages controls radio voice messages and defaults to true. The three settings are independent. combatSupportDiagnostics defaults to false and enables detailed Armored Support server-log diagnostics when needed.

Setting	Default	Meaning
`targetUSArmoredCount`, `targetUSSRArmoredCount`	2, 2	Requested new US and USSR vehicle totals. Zero disables a side. Negative values become zero.
`minimumArmoredSeparation`	500 m	Minimum horizontal distance between accepted generation positions.
`maximumTerrainSlopeDegrees`	8	Maximum sampled slope; clamped to 1–30 degrees.
`terrainSampleDistance`, `obstacleClearanceRadius`, `maximumNearbyVegetation`, `maximumPlacementAttempts`	6 m, 9 m, 2, 40	Terrain/footprint screening. Minimums are 2 m, 4 m, 0 vegetation, and 1 attempt.
`nearRoadDistance`	30 m	Maximum off-road distance beside a road; negative values become zero.
`militaryWeight`, `settlementRoadWeight`	1.25, 1.20	Relative preference for roads near military-related or settlement-related entities. Negative values become zero.
`onRoadProbability`	0.70	Chance for non-patrol armor to be placed directly on a road. Patrols always begin on a road.
`onRoadAlignedProbability`	0.88	Chance for on-road armor to face along the road.
`nearRoadAlignedProbability`, `nearRoadPerpendicularProbability`	0.60, 0.30	Off-road facing distribution. Remaining probability uses a random heading.
`showArmoredMarkers`	true	Creates static armored map markers where the game mode provides a marker manager.
`usePreciseArmoredMarkerPositions`	false	When false, markers are offset up to `maximumArmoredMarkerOffset`; when true, they use the spawn position.
`maximumArmoredMarkerOffset`, `markerZoomThreshold`	250 m, 1.5	Maximum approximate-marker offset and minimum map zoom for visibility. Negative values become zero.
`generationDelaySeconds`	10	Delay before road analysis and generation. Negative values become zero.
`preferredUSFactionKeys`, `preferredUSSRFactionKeys`	[US], [USSR]	Ordered faction keys to try for each side.

STWArmoredPatrolConfig.json

Defaults: enabled=true, patrolProbability=0.5, maximumActivePatrols=2, stops of 30–120 seconds with stopProbability=0.25, a 300-second player release cooldown, 180-second stuck timeout, and 20-second start stagger. It also contains road-route distances: POIs 600–5000 m, legs 300–900 m, and 120 m node spacing; plus a 12-second failed-leg retry and 35-second gate-dismount grace. Stuck-teleport recovery is enabled by default and advances a vehicle 100–200 m on the cached road network, up to eight times per patrol. Probabilities clamp to 0–1; route and timing values are validated to safe minimums.

Recovery setting	Default	Meaning
`maximumRecoveryAttemptsPerRoadLeg`	3	Maximum consecutive movement recoveries for one automatic patrol road leg. At the cap, the patrol makes exactly one fresh route selection from its current position using the cached road network.
`maximumRecoveryAttemptsPerPatrol`	8	Maximum cumulative movement recoveries for one automatic patrol. It is validated to be at least the per-road-leg limit. A failed post-cap route rebuild, or this cumulative cap, cleanly retires the automatic patrol and queues its normal safe replacement; it never creates damage, an explosion, or a wreck.
`failedLegRetrySeconds`	12 seconds	Base delay between movement recovery attempts; minimum 3 seconds.

Player safety: recovery, route rebuilding, retirement, and replacement remain paused while a player occupies the patrol vehicle or is within playerSafeRadiusMeters from STWArmoredRespawnConfig.json. The vehicle and its AI stay in the world unchanged. Once clear, it must remain player-free and outside that radius for playerReleaseCooldownSeconds before recovery can resume. Active Armored Support vehicles are excluded from patrol recovery.

STWArmoredFuelSupportConfig.json

Defaults: enabled=true, a 20-minute check interval, refuelThreshold=0.35, and refills between 45% and 80%. When enabled, any registered automatic vehicle that is intact, empty of players, and below the threshold receives a random refill in that range. Values are expressed as 0–1 fractions and are clamped accordingly.

STWArmoredRearm.json

Defaults: enabled=true and rearmIntervalHours=2. When enabled, the server restores every weapon magazine on each registered, non-destroyed automatic vehicle to its maximum ammunition at that interval. The interval is validated to at least one hour.

STWArmoredRespawnConfig.json

Defaults: enabled=true, minimumRespawnMinutes=15, maximumRespawnMinutes=45, playerSafeRadiusMeters=1500, candidateAttempts=12, and retryDelayMinutes=5. When a registered automatic vehicle is destroyed, its replacement is scheduled after a random delay. The server tries fresh road candidates of the same patrol/stationary type and will not spawn one within the safe radius of a player. If all candidates are unsafe, or a patrol slot is unavailable, it retries after the configured delay. A replacement receives a randomly selected catalog prefab from the destroyed vehicle's US or USSR side; it does not restore the exact destroyed prefab.

Captain Sprocket community

Captain Sprocket

Arma Reforger server: STW Reforger

Community: https://discord.gg/T2AZp6GGMJ

More STW manuals: STW Online Manuals

Heavy Weapons mortar Combat Support compatibility

STW Heavy Weapons uses the same isolated STW Combat Support command-wheel integration pattern as Armored Spawner, without changing vanilla commanding entries. An assigned mortar commander can request Fire, Smoke, or Flares through the Combat Support category. Requests queue while the commander's compatible mortar is busy or cooling down; cooldown messages show the exact remaining seconds when available. Target markers are faction-visible and are removed when the mission resolves, is cancelled, or expires. The Heavy Weapons server setting mortarCombatSupportQueueTimeoutSeconds defaults to 600 seconds and cancels unattended requests after that limit.