I am releasing a public beta of my FastGrenade addon so that the community at large can test and experiment with it. This version has been beta-tested both locally and online (on SimHQ's dedicated server) for many weeks. I hope all major bugs have been shaken out.

Please report any issues here so that I may address them before the 1.0 version is released together with ONE. At that time, I will also make this addon generally available, i.e., though Armaholic and the BIS forums. At that time I will also have videos, etc. ready.

Old video that totally doesn't represent the current version:



What is FastGrenade?
FastGrenade is an addon for ArmA 2 which allows players to employ grenades more precisely, efficiently, and realistically than before, especially in urban combat. It changes grenades from an unpredictable teamkill weapon to a lethal addition to the player’s toolkit. It adds the ability to cook grenades, throw them underhand or overhand, and employ them quickly without a length period of cycling weapons. It also allows players to pick up and throw grenades that are already armed.

FastGrenade requires the ACE addon for ArmA 2.

Download:
Tao FastGrenade 0.9beta2
A user guide is included with the download.

Note for server admins:
FastGrenade should be installed on both the server and clients for full compatibility with AI-thrown grenades and to avoid warnings. If you're interested in using this with your community, (you're welcome to and) please get in touch with me!

Acknowledgments:
Based on Dslyecxi's concept video and some of my discussions with him, as well as the input of the SimHQ ArmA community.



This has been a massive project for me, so I look forward to your feedback, suggestions, and ideas.

Just got it set up and played with it for a few minutes... WOW!!!!!

I've seen some of my beta testers using this on the SimHQ server during MM/SS sessions (because it shows an error to everyone who isn't running it when you do).

My question is, did it work fine, i.e., were grenades thrown correctly? Just curious how client-side-only breaks down.

It wasn't I, I use separate shortcuts.

Who's the culprit?

I know it's you, Meatshield.

not me i disabled it!

It was me It worked fine in one map last week but when I tried it again nothing happened.

It has been running on and off on the server, which would explain that.

I may have identified an issue when players use the normal 'Throw' weapon to throw grenades while FastGrenade is active. Gonna look into it.

Ya. I think one of the debug scripts happened when I went to throw it normally. Dont quote me on that though.

- Identified and resolved an issue that caused some visual de-sync when a grenade was thrown the normal way by a player or an AI.
- Fixed animation state when player boards a vehicle while holding a grenade.
- Still haven't fixed ability to pick up AI/'Throw' thrown grenades on a dedicated server. Something doesn't behave according to the documentation, because it works perfectly on an in-game MP server. Gonna keep trying to solve but the first release may simply not support it. You'll never pick up an AI grenade anyway. The angle they throw at means the grenades land with about 0.5 sec left on the fuse.

Known issues (will not fix):
- If player is attachTo'd to something and throws a grenade using FastGrenade, sometimes the grenade will blow up in their face due to unexpected collisions. Scripters should set the appropriate variable to true (included in next version README) when the FastGrenade system should be blocked from working, such as when using attachTo (though sometimes it'll work fine, depends on the collision LOD).
- Severe script or local processing lag can potentially cause the grenade to get caught in your body/hands when you throw it. Can't fix this (I don't think) because there's no way for me to control the ArmA engine's scheduling of commands. Sometimes it will schedule a nice long delay between detach and setVelocity, and I just can't do much about it. Very rare, and signifies a larger problem with the script/system load of the mission IMO.

Next version disables cooking in order to get more consistent grenade throwing behavior under heavy script load. This should prevent incidents like on Sunday, where a grenade exploded in my face due to it being stuck in my hand, cooking. Heh. I will consider re-adding this if I can come up with a suitable control scheme that will avoid this issue.

Expecting to make a release soon, just gotta finish the docs. I'm happy with the current state of things in the code.

Things disabled for now: cooking, picking up AI-thrown grenades. I can't resolve these issues satisfactorily for now, and frankly I want to get a version of this out so people can enjoy it.

This'll be expected for use on the server. If you don't have it installed you'll get the "FastGrenadeRifle missing" error and other people's grenades will be nonexistent (the explosion still will occur though), so it's going to be considered 'Required.'

And also it's really quite useful so I think you'll want it anyway!

P.S. If there is a version included in your download of ONE, delete it. That version has a dangerous bug that can cause a grenade to stick to your hand if you don't click twice when throwing under heavy script lag. Wasn't meant to be released.

I have released a new beta, @tao_fastgrenade-0.9beta2.zip.

I hope this will be the last beta. TBH I'm tired of working on this thing, it's grown way out of control due to some ArmA limitations and bugs. It's very usable in this current state and there are no bugs with throwing or selecting grenades (he says, optimistically). Bugs may still exist with grabbing live grenades -- not sure, it's hard to test in a 'fake' environment.

Changes:
- Disable cooking system due to issue with mouseButtonDown and mouseButtonUp not always being processed quickly enough by the scripting system. Will re-enable as soon as a decent control scheme is possible (i.e., mouse button passthrough bug is fixed by BIS).
- Disable ability to pick up grenades thrown by AI or with the 'Throw' weapon. I am having way too much trouble getting this to work in a predictable way, because of the netcode implementation I am using for smooth flying grenades in multiplayer, which isn't otherwise supported by the engine. You'll never pick up an AI grenade and not die anyway, because of the angle at which they throw them -- they land with a max of 1-2 secs on the timer. I tried many times...

That's right, features lost. *sunglasses on* Deal with it~

In any case, I am approving this version for general use by players on the SimHQ server. That's right, this version is totally clientside-only, though people without it installed will see an error and won't be able to see your grenades until they blow up. We'll get it loaded on the server after some live play with it.