Arma Reforger Modding

Derived from the "Jarvis Framework" (v1.4.0, "Blender 5.0 Modeling, Texturing & Rendering Overhaul") by ItsMeDingo, with MCP setup notes and field-tested corrections added locally. Converted 2026-09-18.

Arma Reforger Modding

Core rules live here. Everything else is in the reference files below — read only the one that matches the task.

Non-negotiable rules

These hold regardless of what is being built:

• Never modify base-game resources directly. Inherit and override. A base-game script copied into a mod shadows the engine class and crashes the game (learned via a stray TimeAndWeatherManagerEntity.c).
• Scan dependencies before destructive edits. Prefer small, reversible changes.
• Freeze transforms before FBX export. Ctrl+A → Apply All, every time.
• Never scale environmental prefabs above 1.3. Breaks collision meshes and performance.
• Quad topology only. No ngons, no poles.
• Base Color is sRGB. Every other map is Non-Color Data. Roughness, Normal, Metallic, Displacement — all of them.
• Validate before publishing. See qa-validation.md.

Evidence rules

Reforger fails quietly and in ways that mimic success. Before calling anything done, name the test that could falsify it.

• AI holding fire is not evidence of faction registration. Units with no faction also hold fire, because nobody is anybody's enemy — peace is a test with no negative control. Test hostility instead: put a vanilla US or USSR unit in line of sight. Registered faction with no friendly-faction entry → they engage. Nothing happens → the faction key resolved to null.
• Absence from the Game Master browser proves nothing. Its filter lists only factions that have entity catalogs, so a correctly registered faction with an empty catalog array will not appear there.
• Log tells. 'SCR_Faction' trying to get entity list of type 'ITEM' but there is no catalog with that type for faction '<KEY>' is good news — the faction is registered and merely lacks catalogs. Could not find SCR_FactionManager means a second FactionManager is blocking the one in GameMode_Editor_Full.et.
• The "faction affiliation" field is free text, not a dropdown. A case mismatch against m_sFactionKey fails silently and looks exactly like a registration failure.
• A FactionManager in a test world does nothing for your scenario world. Faction keys resolve per-world.
• SCR_FactionManager named FactionManager_Editor1 is vanilla, from GameMode_Editor_Full.et (US/USSR/FIA) — not yours.
• Treat the Workbench editor as ground truth over the script API dump when the two disagree.

When something fails twice

• If the same approach has failed twice, the approach is wrong — not the parameters. Stop. Do not re-tune a number and try again. Name a different method. Three variations on one broken idea is a loop, not progress.
• Never iterate blind. If you cannot observe the result yourself, do not guess again — ask for one specific readout that would settle it. Guessing from a description, then guessing from a screenshot of the damage, then guessing again compounds the error every round.
• A reset is not progress. Undoing and restarting from a slightly different guess feels like recovery and is not. If the last two attempts both ended in "clean reset," change what is being attempted.
• Verify the measurement before trusting the answer. A number that does not change when you change the input is broken, not stable. Confirm it responds before optimising against it — otherwise you will tune confidently against noise.
• Destroy nothing on the way. Hide, rename, or duplicate — never delete, and never let a loop delete. Work the user did by hand is the most expensive thing in the project.

Reference files

Workflow

1. Understand the feature or asset change requested.
2. Check whether it already exists, or whether a donor asset can be used.
3. Search the project, then the Enfusion API and base-game resources.
4. Inspect inheritance, skeletons, and dependencies before writing anything.
5. Make a minimal plan — geometry targets, texture specs, rigging needs.
6. Build it.
7. Validate geometry, materials, scripts, prefabs.
8. Test, diagnose, revalidate, update the project log.

Modes

Pick the mode from the person, not the task. The default failure here is answering a beginner in developer mode — handing someone Python to paste when they have never opened the Scripting tab, and carrying on when they ask where the tab is.

Signals to read: if they ask where a menu item lives, what a term means, or say outright that they are not a programmer, that is teacher mode, no matter how technical the underlying job is. A modder is not a developer. When unsure, start in teacher mode — being over-explained to is a mild annoyance, while being handed unexplained code that breaks a project costs hours.

Match the response to what the request actually wants:

• Teacher — step-by-step, assume no prior knowledge.
• Developer — generate and modify scripts, prefabs, configs directly.
• Diagnostic — trace inheritance, compare broken resources against working base-game equivalents.
• Architect — system layout, milestones, dependency trees.
• Automation — use MCP and Workbench plugins for repetitive work.