STW Crates — Online Manual

STW suite connection

STW Crates is part of the work published by STW (ScienceTechWorks, sciencetechworks@gmail.com). It is a standalone crate system: its project declares only the base Arma Reforger content dependency, and the crate itself works without another STW mod.

An optional companion project, STW Bases Crates Integration, explicitly depends on both STW Crates and STW Bases Generator. That is an integration add-on, not a requirement for using STW Crates on its own. The public crate API is also available for scenario or add-on authors who deliberately choose to integrate with it.

What STW Crates adds

The mod adds the STW Crate: a blue wooden storage crate that can be placed from the Game Master Entity Browser. Players interact with it using Open Crate at close range. Its storage has a hard limit on top-level items, configurable from 1 to 250; the default is 100.

Persistent storage

When enabled, crates, their placement, capacity, marker choice, and inventory are saved by the server and recovered after restart.

Controlled map markers

A crate can show a static map marker to one scenario faction, every available scenario faction, or no faction. Markers use the crate’s original placement location.

Safe GM management

Capacity and marker faction changes apply immediately. Deleting a crate through Game Master records its deletion so it does not return on the next recovery.

For players

Approach an STW Crate and use the Open Crate action.
Move equipment into or out of its inventory as the scenario permits.
If the Game Master assigned a marker faction that includes your faction, open the map and zoom in far enough to see the crate marker. With the default threshold, markers appear at or above the configured map zoom; they may be intentionally absent.

Players do not configure the crate. The capacity is a limit on the crate’s top-level stored items; it is not a weight setting.

For Game Masters

Place and use a crate

Open the Game Master Entity Browser and search for STW Crate.
Place it in the live world. The crate initializes on the server and becomes persistent when persistence is enabled.
Select an initialized crate and open Edit Properties to manage its settings.

Edit Properties

Property	Choices and result
Capacity	Slider from 1–250, step 1. It immediately changes the enforced maximum number of top-level items. New crates default to 100.
Marker Faction	NONE (no marker), ALL factions, or any faction present in the scenario. A named faction limits visibility to that faction; ALL includes every available scenario faction.

Marker detail: changing a marker faction is saved immediately. A crate marker represents its initial placement position; moving the crate later does not move that marker.

Delete an unwanted crate from Game Master normally. The mod saves a deletion record before allowing the GM deletion, preventing that crate from being restored later.

Server configuration

On the first server start, STW Crates creates and validates its configuration. The folder is created automatically:

$profile:STW/Crates/

File	Purpose
`STWCratesConfig.json`	The only user-edited settings file for the mod. It is generated on first start, then read and written back in validated form on later starts.

Settings in STWCratesConfig.json

Setting	Default	Meaning and valid behaviour
`persistenceEnabled`	`true`	Enables server snapshot saving and recovery. Set `false` to run crates without persistence.
`persistenceIntervalMinutes`	`60`	Autosave interval in minutes. Values below 1 are reset to 60.
`staticMarkersEnabled`	`true`	Allows configured faction markers to be created. When false, crate markers are not created.
`markerZoomThreshold`	`1.5`	Minimum map zoom (pixels per world metre) for markers to show. `0` keeps them visible at every zoom; negative values become 0.
`restoreStartDelayMilliseconds`	`120000`	Delay before recovery begins after the live world is available (two minutes by default). Negative values become 0.
`restoreBatchSize`	`10`	Persisted crates restored per queued batch. Minimum is 1.
`restoreBatchDelayMilliseconds`	`25`	Pause between restore batches. Negative values become 0.

Safe editing routine

Stop the server cleanly before editing.
Make a copy of STWCratesConfig.json.
Edit only the documented setting values; keep the JSON syntax and the generated signature and version fields unchanged.
Start the server and check its log for the STW Crates configuration message. Invalid or incompatible configuration is replaced with defaults, so keep your backup if you need to compare or restore values.

Persistence

Persistence is supported by default and is server-owned. Snapshot files are stored in:

$profile:STW/Persistence/

Each scenario/map pair receives a separate file named STW_Crates_<scenario>_<map>.json. Scenario and map names are converted to filename-safe text. During saving, the mod writes a matching .temporary.json file and renames it into the snapshot.

What is saved

Each snapshot records crates and deletion tombstones. A crate record includes its persistent identity, current position and rotation, original marker position, capacity, marker faction, and its inventory. Inventory recovery preserves item prefabs, storage/slot placement, magazine ammunition, scaled health, and recursive contents of stored containers.

How recovery works

After the configured startup grace period, the server restores saved crates in batches. Restored crates use the Game Master-editable crate prefab, so they remain selectable, editable, and deletable in Game Master. Markers are recreated when enabled and configured. Deleted crate IDs are skipped.

Reset one scenario or map safely

Stop the server.
Back up the specific STW_Crates_<scenario>_<map>.json snapshot in $profile:STW/Persistence/.
Delete that one snapshot (and its same-named .temporary.json, if a leftover exists). Do not remove the whole STW folder unless you intend to reset other STW data too.
Start the server. With no snapshot for that scenario/map, no old STW crates are recovered; a new snapshot is created once crates are saved.

Startup and performance: large inventories or many crates make recovery and saving more work. Increase the startup delay if your world needs longer to settle; reduce batch size or increase the delay between batches to spread recovery across more frames. Avoid changing or deleting snapshot files while the server is running.

For scenario and add-on authors

The editable prefab is registered for Game Master placement. A scenario can also place a crate prefab in the world; crates with automatic initialization enabled are adopted by the server after the crate system is ready.

For deliberate script integration, the public STW_CratesAPI can create a crate at a position, optionally choose a prefab, capacity, faction marker, and initial loadout; it can find a nearby crate, save now, change the marker faction, refresh markers, and permanently delete a crate. API creation is server-side and should wait until the crate system reports ready. This is an author integration surface, not a player setting.

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Arma Reforger server: STW Reforger

Community: https://discord.gg/T2AZp6GGMJ

More STW manuals: STW Online Manuals