TFO_Arsenal_Preload

ARSENAL OPENS WITH A FREEZE? NOT ANYMORE.

Made by Task Force Orange for our own Arma Reforger server and shared with everyone who has the same problem.

When you open an arsenal with a large item catalog (modded weapons, clothing, attachments), the vanilla inventory UI builds the previews for every item in a single frame. With a few hundred items this causes a freeze of about a second. This mod spreads that work out in the background, so it is already done by the time you open the arsenal.

HOW IT WORKS
- Shortly after an arsenal is initialized, the mod collects its item list.
- Item previews are resolved in small slices (about 4 ms per tick) instead of all at once.
- When you open the arsenal, the previews are already cached and the expensive step is skipped.
- Runs on clients with a UI only. On a dedicated server it does nothing.

PERFORMANCE
Measured in Workbench with one arsenal of 674 items, using script timings:

Resolving item previews: ~721 ms (vanilla, cold) -> below 20 ms (with this mod)
Building the slots: ~173 ms -> ~110-150 ms
Total freeze: ~0.9 s -> ~0.15 s

That is roughly 80% less. Smaller arsenals are faster still. Results vary with hardware and catalog size.

FEATURES
- No gameplay, UI or layout changes
- No dependencies besides vanilla
- Does not touch factions, catalogs or arsenal contents
- Works with modded items, because it uses whatever the arsenal lists
- Client-side only, zero cost on a dedicated server

FAQ
Do I need to install it on the server? Add it to your server's mod list so clients download it automatically. It does no work on the server itself.
Will it conflict with my arsenal mod? It only adds a preload step. It overrides SCR_ArsenalComponent.EOnInit as a modded class, so only mods overriding the same method may conflict.
Does it change which items are in the arsenal? No.

KNOWN LIMITATIONS
- Opening an arsenal within ~30 seconds of loading in may still give a short hitch, because part of the cache is cold.
- Building the slot widgets still takes ~100-150 ms per opening. A fully lag-free version would need category filtering, which this mod does not include. Maybe in the near future :-)
- Preloaded previews stay in memory, so expect higher RAM use with very large catalogs.
- Items with broken texture references in other mods ("Wrong GUID" errors) still cost extra time. This mod does not fix them.

ABOUT TASK FORCE ORANGE
Task Force Orange is an Arma Reforger community running its own server. Want to play with us, report a bug or suggest an improvement? Join our Discord:
https://discord.gg/wq4N8NwWfx