Vehicle inventory modding

Hi,

I am very frustrated with the vehicle capacities that BIS gave us in Arma 3, totally ridiculous. I've tried looking for something that mods some sense into them to no avail. Then I started looking for a way to do it myself, or at least find out why is it nobody came up with such a mod, I can't be the only one suffering from thid.

So I checked the wiki, and apparently the max inventory sizes are defined by two parameters:

transportMaxMagazines = 50; //car

transportMaxWeapons = 10;

<...>

transportMaxMagazines = 100; // apc

transportMaxWeapons = 20;

[i wonder if anybody could ever put 20 weapon in their Hunter]

There is also "transportMaxBackpacks" apparently introduced in A2:OA.

I dePBO'ed soft_f.pbo which contains the 3 "Hunter" NATO MRAPs {"B_MRAP_01_F","B_MRAP_01_hmg_F","B_MRAP_01_gmg_F"}. The config.bin contains:

transportMaxBackpacks = 5;

So before going any further I needed to check how many items the actual Hunter can carry. I fired up the editor and spawned some Hunters and supply crates. The results were strange, with vanilla A3 a Hunter can carry:

1. 9 assault rifles, or any other combination of 9 rifle/launchers; no backpacks can be added

2. 9 of the above plus 1 pistol; no backpacks can be added

3. 18 (!) backpacks or backpack/carrier gear combinations. No weapons can be added, and the game sees weapons inside backpacks (so it won't accept an 18th backpack with a rifle inside)

You can add a few magazines and other small items to this. Also it appears that 1 rifle = 8 grenades = 1 launcher rocket = 11 medikits (I stopped there :) ). This explains a little why, with the mix of medkits, ammo, rockets and stuff I usually carry I only have room for about 3 weapons.

So maybe these transportMax variables mean nothing, and each item has an encumbrance or weight value, with the Hunter being able to carry the equivalent of 9x rifles + 3x grenades? The fact that the game sees weapons inside backpacks seems to point towards this.

Can anybody shed some light onto that? I can't mod what I don't understand :).

So maybe these transportMax variables mean nothing, and each item has an encumbrance or weight value

Did some tests with modifying "transportMax" for Hunter and seems, these three indeed do nothing. I can set any values here, 1 or 100 - capacity stays same and working like you described. So indeed - these three look like obsolete. Problem is, although I read all config entries of Hunter class, didn't noticed any other entry, that looks like something controlling trunk capacity. Question arises, if this value is configurable by config at all currently?

Probably I found it - it is "maximumLoad" entry, not present in the config of vanilla vehicles, but used for backpacks. I made very simple addon making Hunter "a backpack" with such config.cpp:

class CfgPatches
{
class RYD_BT
{
	units[] = {};
	weapons[] = {};
	requiredVersion = 1.0;
	requiredAddons[] = {"A3_Soft_F_MRAP_01"};
};
};
class CfgVehicles
{
class MRAP_01_base_F;

class B_MRAP_01_F: MRAP_01_base_F
{
maximumLoad = 100000;
};
};

And I was able to load 909th MX rifle to the Hunter's trunk, where was already 908 such rifles. :)

Now only determine, why 909 (what controls place taken by an item in the trunk), decide, how much which vehicle should take and spend all workhours needed to alter properly config of every vanilla vehicle, perhaps much faster by altering "mother classes" at once, but then many/all vehicles will get same trunk capacity.

EDIT: there is mass entry, for magazines directly in the class, for weapons seems, it is under weaponSlotInfo. To the weapon mass (100 for MX) attachements' mass is added apparently (I was able to store MX without of attachements in the number of 1000).

Here is experimental version of such addon:

Bigger Trunk addon

It doesn't overwrite any vanilla config entry, but adds new entry, in vanilla used for backpack "vehicles" and not for real vehicles, that may be overwritten by any mod using it too or future vanilla changes including this entry.

The code:

class CfgPatches
{
class RYD_BT
	{
	units[] = {};
	weapons[] = {};
	requiredVersion = 1.0;
	requiredAddons[] = {};
	};
};

class CfgVehicles
{
class Helicopter;
class Tank;
class Car;
class Ship_F;

class Car_F: Car
	{
	maximumLoad = 10000;
	};

class Wheeled_APC_F: Car_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 30000;
	};

class Truck_F: Car_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 300000;
	};

class Truck_02_base_F: Truck_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 200000;
	};

class Van_01_base_F: Truck_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 100000;
	};

class MRAP_01_base_F: Car_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 20000;
	};	

class MRAP_02_base_F: Car_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 20000;
	};

class MRAP_03_base_F: Car_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 20000;
	};

class Quadbike_01_base_F : Car_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 3000;
	};

class Tank_F: Tank
	{
	maximumLoad = 15000;
	};

class Boat_F: Ship_F
	{
	maximumLoad = 5000;
	};

class Helicopter_Base_F : Helicopter
	{
	maximumLoad = 20000;
	};
};

Are these values realistic? I doubt it. I tried to guesstimate basing a bit on the internet data about the payload (mass factor), but room (volume factor) is guessed blindly at best. It is also simplified, so for example all choppers shares same capacity. If there is any interest with making this better/more realistic, please, tell me and provide more realistic data to implement.

Current changes:

Quadbikes: 30 basic MX rifles (approx 105 kg);

Boats: 50 rifles (175 kg);

Passenger cars: 100 rifles (350 kg);

Tracked vehicles: 150 rifles (525 kg);

MRAPs: 200 rifles (700 kg);

Helicopters: 200 rifles (700 kg);

Wheeled APCs: 300 rifles (1050 kg);

Civilian Vans: 1000 rifles (3500 kg);

Kamaz trucks: 2000 rifles (7000 kg);

HEMTT/Typhoons: 3000 rifles (10500 kg);

Planes: not touched.

Good work, I think these values are fine. Maybe half the numbers would suffice, but I can't imagine any game balance problems arising from a too high value. We only know that a too low number is not good at all...