[Help!] Newbie wants to help create scripts for PR:Arma2

[DoomPirate]

Hi,
I want to help advance this project by making scripts/or whatever that improve the experience of the game for players. I am a software engineer, so I am a code junkie.

A starter project I am interested in doing is making grenade launchers have adjustable ranges. I am really bothered by the fact that you cannot adjust ranges on the grenade launcher.

part1. What can I do to learn how to make PR:Arma2 level quality scripts.
part2. Could I learn from some other PR:Arma2 scripts that people have written?
part3. Will scripts be used to make the grenade launchers adjustable? and is this project worthwhile for me to pursue?

I want to make other modifications/scripts to improve PR as well.

Thanks,
DoomPirate

[DoomPirate]

Actually, I dont think any of the grenade launchers used in PR:Arma2 0.1 have adjustable ranges.

But, I mean, the point of this post is to demonstrate that I want to help improve this game.

[[R-CON]Psyrus]

This should be relevant to you:

ArmA 2 & OA : ADDONS - Configs & Scripting - Bohemia Interactive Forums

Also apparently most scripts are easily readable when you download/install them, and most people learn by reverse engineering others' scripts to suit themselves. Or so I'm told... I can't find a large tutorial set like there is for BF2, so I'm guessing that really is the case.

Here's something though

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=130062

[galzohar]

Adjustable grenade launchers takes more than just plain scripts. You need to mess with the config files of the weapons, as well. Unfortunately I can't help you much there, as my experience is basically only with scripting missions.

If you do have a programming background, you should have a much easier time finding your way around the wiki:
community.bistudio.com

Of course it's a bit difficult to search, but try going to the "scripting commands by functionality" page (sorry the site isn't loading for me at the moment, or I would've given a link, but it's easy to find in search) which includes most of the useful commands. After that, if you still have trouble, just ask on the BIS forums, and if it's simple enough with a known solution, you'll get a pretty quick answer.

You can learn by opening other people's missions (and mods, but that area is more difficult), and seeing what they did, however doing so with a large mission with lots of long scripts may prove difficult. Try starting by reverse-engineering small missions (or mods) that don't have a lot of code, so you can easily test out changes you are making.

Of course, learning to make more complicated stuff like UI menus and whatnot takes a lot more effort, and there are a lot less people who actually know how to do it therefore getting any help is much more difficult.