STW Armored Spawner — Online Manual

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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 tries RHS_USAF then US for US armor, and RHS_AFRF then USSR for USSR armor.

The mod is its own server-side population system. It does not require another STW mod for its core behavior. Its marker presentation follows the STW suite’s approach, including the similar STW Tanks Spawner marker behavior, while all configuration and saves remain in this mod’s own folders and files.

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 refills registered patrol vehicles that fall below a threshold. Stationary and restored armor receives the normal default crew; patrol vehicles use a dedicated driver group plus turret/passenger crew.

Current vehicle pool

The built-in catalog currently includes US M113, M2A2, M2A3, and LAV-25 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

There is no player menu or player-side setup. 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.

When map markers are enabled by the administrator, open the map and zoom in far enough to see the armored marker. By default the 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.

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, faction, and persistence 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.

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 three 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 three 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, and persistence settings.
`STWArmoredPatrolConfig.json`	Whether patrols run and how their AI road routes, stops, recovery, and pacing behave.
`STWArmoredFuelSupportConfig.json`	Optional automatic refueling for registered patrol vehicles.

STWArmoredConfig.json

Setting	Default	Meaning
`targetUSArmoredCount`, `targetUSSRArmoredCount`	12, 12	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.
`persistenceEnabled`, `persistenceIntervalMinutes`	true, 15	Enables snapshots and chooses the periodic save interval. An interval below 1 becomes 15.
`generationDelaySeconds`	10	Delay before road analysis and generation. Negative values become zero.
`preferredUSFactionKeys`, `preferredUSSRFactionKeys`	[RHS_USAF, US], [RHS_AFRF, USSR]	Ordered faction keys to try for each side.

STWArmoredPatrolConfig.json

Defaults: enabled=true, patrolProbability=0.9, maximumActivePatrols=64, 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 12-second failed-leg retry and 35-second gate-dismount grace. Probabilities clamp to 0–1; route and timing values are validated to safe minimums.

STWArmoredFuelSupportConfig.json

Defaults: enabled=true, a 20-minute check interval, refuelThreshold=0.35, and refills between 45% and 80%. When enabled, registered patrol vehicles below the threshold receive a random refill in that range. Values are expressed as 0–1 fractions and are clamped accordingly.

Persistence

Persistence is enabled by default. Save files are server-owned and live in $profile:STW/Persistence/. The filename is STW_Armored_<Scenario>_<Map>.json; scenario and map text is sanitized for a safe filename, so each scenario/map combination has its own snapshot.

What is saved—and what is not

The snapshot records the tracked stationary armored vehicles: each record contains the vehicle prefab, faction key, original world position, and yaw. It saves surviving tracked entities at generation completion and again at the configured interval. It does not record current vehicle movement, damage, fuel, inventory, crew state, or patrol route progress. Patrol vehicles are not added to the persistence record when generated.

How recovery works

At the next start of the same scenario/map, the server creates the saved vehicles from their stored prefab, faction, position, and yaw. It then indexes roads and assigns fresh patrol routes to a selection of restored vehicles up to the patrol quota; the remaining restored vehicles receive normal default AI crew and optional markers. The configured US/USSR totals are reduced by restored vehicles with matching resolved factions, then any shortfall is generated.

Reset one scenario/map safely

Stop the server cleanly.
In $profile:STW/Persistence/, find the single matching STW_Armored_<Scenario>_<Map>.json file. The server log reports the exact snapshot path during initialization.
Make a backup of that one file, then delete or move only that snapshot.
Start the server. With no snapshot for that scenario/map, the configured population is generated anew and a new save is written after generation.

Performance and safety: each save touches the tracked population, so extremely high vehicle counts and very short intervals add server work. Keep realistic counts, leave a sensible interval, and never change or remove a snapshot while the server is running. Do not remove the entire $profile:STW/ folder unless you intentionally want to reset configuration and data belonging to other STW mods too.

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