Mod

Developer reference for the mod. Covers every prefab, script, material, and asset — where it lives, what it does, how it plugs into the growing loop, and how to tune or extend it.

For end-user gameplay docs see the root README.md. For the specific mechanism behind the shovel dig animation see docs/DIGGING_ANIMATION.md.

1. High-level design

The mod is a self-contained growing loop. No dependencies beyond the base game (Arma Reforger Data).

Gameplay flow:

1. Empty pot picked up from the world → carried in the player's backpack.
2. Empty pot placed on the ground → Fill with Dirt action (requires shovel in hands) transforms it into a filled pot.
3. Filled pot + seed item in inventory + shovel in hands → Plant Sativa / Indica Seed action consumes one seed and swaps the pot for a Stage 1 seedling.
4. Growth cycle: GW_GrowthComponent on each stage tracks in-game hours and, when the threshold is met, replaces the entity with the next stage's prefab. Chain: Stage 1 → Stage 2 → Stage 3 (mature). Runs server-authoritative.
5. Mature (Stage 3) plant → Harvest Cannabis action (bare-handed) yields 2–4 species-specific cannabis top items and swaps the plant for a filled pot ready to replant.
6. Uproot Plant action (any stage, shovel required) removes the plant entirely.
7. Check Growth action (any stage) displays the current progress in percent

Both species (Sativa and Indica) share the same scripts and pipeline; they differ only in mesh, texture tint, and prefab references.

2. Directory layout

Growing Weed/
├── addon.gproj                          # Reforger project file (dependency: base game only)
├── README.md                            # Player-facing overview + credits
├── INTEGRATION.md                       # Notes for other mods integrating with this one
├── docs/
│   ├── ARCHITECTURE.md                  # This file
│   └── DIGGING_ANIMATION.md             # How the shovel dig loop is bound
├── Scripts/Game/GrowingWeed/            # All mod-owned Enforce scripts
│   ├── GW_GrowthComponent.c
│   ├── GW_CheckGrowthAction.c
│   ├── GW_ToolAnimAction.c
│   ├── GW_ShovelRequiredAction.c
│   ├── GW_FillPotAction.c
│   ├── GW_PlantAction.c
│   ├── GW_HarvestAction.c
│   ├── GW_UprootAction.c
│   └── GW_PickUpAction.c
├── Prefabs/
│   ├── Items/                           # Carryable / world-placeable items
│   │   ├── GW_PotItem_Empty.et
│   │   ├── GW_PotItem_Filled.et
│   │   ├── GW_SeedsSativa.et
│   │   ├── GW_SeedsIndica.et
│   │   ├── GW_CannabisTop_Sativa.et
│   │   └── GW_CannabisTop_Indica.et
│   └── Plants/                          # Growing plant stages
│       ├── GW_WeedPlant_Sativa_Stage1.et  # Seedling
│       ├── GW_WeedPlant_Sativa_Stage2.et  # Vegetative
│       ├── GW_WeedPlant_Sativa_Stage3.et  # Mature (harvestable)
│       ├── GW_WeedPlant_Indica_Stage1.et
│       ├── GW_WeedPlant_Indica_Stage2.et
│       └── GW_WeedPlant_Indica_Stage3.et
├── Models/
│   ├── Plants/                          # Six FBX plant meshes + shared materials
│   │   ├── Stage1{Species}.fbx          # Seedling meshes
│   │   ├── Vegetation2{Species}.fbx     # Mid-growth meshes (Stage 2)
│   │   ├── Flowering{Species}.fbx       # Mature meshes with buds baked in (Stage 3)
│   │   ├── Data/                        # Shared materials
│   │   │   ├── Weed.emat                # Cannabis leaf material (Weed_co + Weed_nohq)
│   │   │   ├── BabyLeaf.emat            # Seedling leaf material (BabyLeaf_co + …)
│   │   │   ├── BabySprout.emat          # Seedling sprout tint
│   │   │   ├── Stem.emat                # Branch / trunk (solid color placeholder)
│   │   │   ├── CannabisBud.emat         # Green bud (Sativa)
│   │   │   └── CannabisBudIndica.emat   # Purple bud (Indica)
│   │   └── _workfiles/                  # Blender source files for bud placement
│   │       ├── FloweringSativa_editable.blend
│   │       └── FloweringIndica_editable.blend
│   └── Items/                           # Pot + bud meshes
│       ├── Pot_Empty.fbx
│       ├── Pot_Filled.fbx
│       ├── CannabisBud.fbx / CannabisBud_Indica.fbx  # Standalone bud items
│       └── Data/                        # Item materials
│           ├── PotClay.emat
│           ├── Plant_Pot_var1.emat      # Auto-created variant used by filled pot
│           ├── CannabisBud.emat
│           └── CannabisBudIndica.emat
├── Textures/
│   ├── Plants/                          # Cannabis leaf atlases (from CGTrader)
│   │   ├── Weed_co.tga / Weed_nohq.tga / Weed_ca.tga
│   │   └── BabyLeaf_co.tga / _nohq.tga / _ca.tga
│   ├── Items/                           # Pot + bud PBR textures
│   │   ├── PotClay_co.png / PotClay_nohq.png
│   │   ├── CannabisBud_co.png / CannabisBud_nohq.png
│   │   └── CannabisBudIndica_co.png     # Same normal as Sativa
│   └── Item icons/
│       └── weed_seeds.edds              # Inventory icon shared by both seed items
├── Configs/
│   └── EntityCatalog/                   # Faction inventory catalog entries
│       ├── CIV/InventoryItems_EntityCatalog_CIV.conf

Note: .xob, .txo, .edds, and resourceDatabase.rdb are runtime build artifacts and gitignored — Workbench regenerates them on import.

3. Scripts

All scripts live under Scripts/Game/GrowingWeed/. Class prefix is GW_.

GW_GrowthComponent

Attaches to each plant stage prefab. Server-authoritative timer that advances the plant.

Attributes:

Runtime behavior:

• Ticks once per real-time second via GetGame().GetCallqueue().CallLater(this.Tick, 1000, true, owner).
• Reads current in-game time from ChimeraWorld.GetTimeAndWeatherManager(). Uses continuous "absolute hour" (day * 24 + timeOfDay) so midnight wrap doesn't reset the timer.
• When m_fElapsedInGameHours >= m_fGrowInGameHours:
  • Loads m_rNextStagePrefab as a Resource.
  • Spawns it at the current entity's world transform via GetGame().SpawnEntityPrefab.
  • Deletes the current entity with SCR_EntityHelper.DeleteEntityAndChildren.
• Provides GetProgressPercent() and GetRemainingInGameHours() for other scripts (used by GW_CheckGrowthAction).

Growth pauses when the game is paused. Fast-forwarding time in Game Master advances growth proportionally because Reforger's Time & Weather manager continues to update.

GW_ToolAnimAction (base class)

Reusable base for any action that should drive a tool animation on the character while it holds. See docs/DIGGING_ANIMATION.md for the mechanism.

Attributes:

Lifecycle:

• OnActionStart: looks up the held gadget via SCR_GadgetManagerComponent.GetHeldGadget() (falls back to BaseWeaponManagerComponent.GetCurrent()), then binds CMD_Item_Action and calls TryUseItemOverrideParams with the held item as the tool entity.
• OnActionCanceled / OnConfirmed / destructor: calls FinishItemUse(true) on the character's command handler to end the loop cleanly.

If no matching item is held, no animation plays but the action still runs — subclasses may still gate on the held item via GW_ShovelRequiredAction.

GW_ShovelRequiredAction extends GW_ToolAnimAction

Adds a gate: only allowed when the held item's prefab name matches one of the configured patterns.

Attributes:

Used as the base for GW_FillPotAction, GW_PlantAction, and GW_UprootAction.

GW_FillPotAction extends GW_ShovelRequiredAction

Attaches to GW_PotItem_Empty. Replaces the empty pot with a filled pot on completion.

Attributes:

Uses m_iAnimMode 1 (build/dig-down) by default in its prefab entry.

GW_PlantAction extends GW_ShovelRequiredAction

Attaches to GW_PotItem_Filled. Gates on both shovel-in-hand AND a specific seed in inventory. Consumes one seed on completion and replaces the pot with the target seedling.

Attributes:

Two GW_PlantAction instances are placed on the filled pot — one for each species — so both plant actions appear when the player has the matching seed. Each instance points to its own seedling and seed prefab.

GW_HarvestAction (plain ScriptedUserAction)

Attaches to Stage 3 plants only. Bare-handed (no shovel gate) so anyone can pluck a mature bud.

Attributes:

Deliberately does not inherit GW_ToolAnimAction — a bare-handed pluck can't drive CMD_Item_Action without a tool entity, and the animation editor doesn't expose a command for the "pick from ground" clip we would want.

GW_UprootAction extends GW_ShovelRequiredAction

Attaches to every plant stage. Removes the plant entirely. m_iAnimMode 2 (demolition/dig-out) in each prefab entry.

Attributes:

GW_CheckGrowthAction (plain ScriptedUserAction)

Attaches to every plant stage. Shows a hint with progress percent and remaining hours.

Uses SCR_HintManagerComponent.GetInstance().ShowCustomHint(msg, "Growing Weed", 4). Terminal stages report "This plant is fully grown."

GW_PickUpAction (plain ScriptedUserAction)

Attached to items on the ground: empty pot, both seed packs, both cannabis top items. Moves the entity into the player's inventory via SCR_InventoryStorageManagerComponent.TryInsertItem.

CanBePerformedScript returns false if the user lacks an inventory manager (rare, but avoids no-op action showing up for spectators/vehicles).

4. Prefabs

Item prefabs (Prefabs/Items/)

All items are standalone GenericEntity prefabs (no base game inheritance) because Reforger's inheritance system was overwriting our overrides on save during development.

The empty pot, both seed packs, and both cannabis top items are pre-wired into every the CIV arsenal catalog (Configs/EntityCatalog/CIV/InventoryItems_EntityCatalog_*.conf), so the vanilla civillian (CIV) arsenal in the game exposes these items without additional mod-side wiring. Custom arsenals in game modes need to add the prefab GUIDs manually or inherit from the vanilla arsenal. Each has:

• MeshObject pointing at the corresponding .xob
• RplComponent (mandatory for entity init and replication)
• RigidBody (Dynamic, low mass; enables drop / pickup physics)
• InventoryItemComponent with SCR_ItemAttributeCollection (display name, description, weight, size slot, icon)
• SCR_ConsumableItemComponent with m_bCanBeHeld 0 (not equippable in hands like a weapon)
• ActionsManagerComponent with:
  • One UserActionContext defining the interaction context ("PotContext" for pots, "ItemContext" for seeds/buds)
  • additionalActions containing the actions valid on this item

Prefab responsibilities:

Plant stage prefabs (Prefabs/Plants/)

Every stage prefab has the same skeleton:

GenericEntity {
 ID "..."
 components {
  RplComponent { }
  MeshObject { Object "…Models/Plants/{StageName}.xob" }
  GW_GrowthComponent {
   m_fGrowInGameHours <hours>
   m_rNextStagePrefab "…next stage .et or empty…"
   m_bDebugLogs 0
  }
  ActionsManagerComponent {
   ActionContexts { UserActionContext ContextName "CheckContext" … }
   additionalActions {
    GW_CheckGrowthAction  (parent: CheckContext)
    GW_UprootAction       (parent: CheckContext, Duration 3.0, m_iAnimMode 2)
    GW_HarvestAction      (parent: CheckContext, Duration 2.0)   // Stage 3 only
   }
  }
 }
}

Growth chain wiring:

Stage 3 additionally binds:

• GW_HarvestAction.m_rYieldPrefab to the matching GW_CannabisTop_{Species}.et
• GW_HarvestAction.m_rReplacementPrefab to GW_PotItem_Filled.et

5. Materials and textures

Plant materials (Models/Plants/Data/)

All MatPBRBasic. Textures use Enfusion suffix conventions (_co for base color, _nohq for normal, _ca for alpha mask) so Workbench auto-detects color space and compression.

Item materials (Models/Items/Data/)

Assets

Third-party assets (per README.md Credits):

• CGTrader "Cannabis Growth Stages Pack — Sativa and Indica" — plant meshes (royalty-free license, allows commercial use and remixing inside a game).
• Sketchfab "Terracotta Pots" — pot mesh.
• Sketchfab "Weed Nug" by Skyler Young (CC BY 4.0) — cannabis bud mesh. The attribution line in README.md is legally required.

6. Mesh pipeline

Each plant / pot / bud went through the same conceptual pipeline in Blender before FBX export:

1. Import the source model.
2. Decimate high-poly source (typically ratio 0.15) so the mesh fits a game-object budget (~5–20 k tris).
3. Scale to sensible in-game dimensions (plants ~1.2–1.5 m tall, pot ~16 cm, buds ~6 cm).
4. Center on the XY origin. Pot base sits at Z=0, plant stem base at Z=0.13 (slightly into the pot rim at Z=0.16 so the plant looks rooted).
5. Combine pot + soil disc + plant into a single mesh so it renders as one entity.
6. Materials: strip Blender's .001+ suffix duplicates and remap polygons to the first slot for each base name so shared materials end up in a single slot per mesh.
7. Export as FBX with apply_scale_options='FBX_SCALE_ALL', -Z forward, Y up.

Stage-specific extras:

• Vegetation2 (Stage 2): an 8-sided cylinder (radius 2 cm) is added as the main trunk, replacing the flat card stems that read as spikes in solid view. Branch geometry (stem faces outside the central 4 cm radius) is preserved.
• Flowering (Stage 3): reuses the Vegetation2 mesh as a base, then 14 decimated bud clones (~470 tris each) are placed on branches manually in Blender. The .blend workfiles under Models/Plants/_workfiles/ hold the bud placements so future edits don't lose them.

Bud material coloring

The Sativa bud uses the raw color texture from the metascan source. The Indica bud uses a saturation-boosted, red/blue-shifted variant generated via Pillow (see the reproducer at Textures/Items/CannabisBudIndica_co.png) so both species share the same mesh but read as different strains.

7. Configuration and tuning

Everything gameplay-facing is exposed as prefab attributes. No script edits should be needed for typical tuning.

Growth times

Open the corresponding stage prefab and change GW_GrowthComponent.m_fGrowInGameHours. Defaults: 6 h → Stage 2, 8 h → Stage 3.

Growth uses the world's in-game clock, so a server that ticks time faster (accelerated day/night in Conflict, or manual jumps in Game Master) advances plants faster. Realtime players see plants grow over multiple in-game days.

Harvest yields

On each Stage 3 prefab, the GW_HarvestAction exposes m_iYieldMin / m_iYieldMax. Default range 2–4. To make Indica higher-yield, bump its max to 5 or 6.

Shovel compatibility

GW_ShovelRequiredAction.m_sShovelNamePatterns is a semicolon-separated substring list. Defaults cover the vanilla US ETool and Soviet MPL50. If a shovel mod ships items whose prefab names don't match, add the substring here (e.g. "…;dsm;klappspaten").

Action durations

Duration on each ScriptedUserAction instance — how long the player must hold the interaction key. Defaults: 3 s for shovel actions, 2 s for harvest.

Seed requirements

To allow planting without a specific seed (e.g. for a testing setup), clear GW_PlantAction.m_rRequiredSeedItem on the filled pot prefab. To disable seed consumption, set m_bConsumeSeed 0.

8. Extending the mod

Adding a new species

1. Duplicate an existing seed prefab (e.g. GW_SeedsSativa.et → GW_SeedsHybrid.et), update display name and description.
2. Duplicate an existing bud item prefab (e.g. GW_CannabisTop_Sativa.et → GW_CannabisTop_Hybrid.et).
3. Provide new meshes / textures for the three growth stages if you want a distinct visual, or reuse an existing species' meshes if you just want a scripted-only variant.
4. Duplicate the three stage prefabs (Stage 1/2/3) and update:
   • MeshObject.Object for each stage
   • GW_GrowthComponent.m_rNextStagePrefab chain
   • GW_HarvestAction.m_rYieldPrefab on Stage 3 → the new bud item
5. Add a third GW_PlantAction to GW_PotItem_Filled.et pointing at the new seedling and seed.

Adding a fourth growth stage

Insert a new stage prefab between the existing ones and rewire the m_rNextStagePrefab chain. GW_GrowthComponent doesn't care how many stages there are — it just spawns whatever prefab you point at.

Custom yield item

GW_HarvestAction.m_rYieldPrefab accepts any .et — you can point it at a joint, a bag of dried leaves, a currency token, whatever. Set m_iYieldMin and m_iYieldMax to control the drop count.

Wiring into a game mode

Prefabs are usable directly by any game mode. Spawn GW_PotItem_Empty.et in a shop's stock, in a loot table, at a scenario objective, or hand it to a character on spawn — no additional wiring is needed. Same for the seeds and buds.

For criminality / heat systems: subclass GW_HarvestAction in your own mod and override PerformAction to notify your heat manager before calling super.PerformAction. Then create inherited variants of the Stage 3 prefabs that use your subclass.

9. Known quirks

• The Stem.emat placeholder is a solid olive color. Replacing it with a bark texture is on the tuning-todo list (see MEMORY.md in the developer's private notes if applicable).
• Plant_Pot_var1.emat and PotClay.emat are two near-identical pot materials. Both are used by different meshes because Workbench auto-created one during a specific import; consolidating them is possible but low priority since they behave the same.
• The FloweringSativa mesh had many free-floating leaf-tip triangles from the source model that were cleaned up by deleting island fragments with small XY extent or ≤2 faces. If a future re-export shows the same artifacts, apply the same filter (see git history for the exact script).
• Vegetation2Indica is Stage 2 for Indica but uses the source model's "Vegetation2" variant. The naming is a leftover from earlier iterations; changing it would require updating the MeshObject.Object reference and re-registering the resource. Not worth the churn.