Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

I have prepared a short explanatory video in order to demonstrate how Blake's PRADAR (Player Radar) may assist in team leading, making it flow more easily and more realistically, allowing to quickly issue orders more effectively, and enhancing the overall leading experience.

The main PRADAR feature I use is the command bar name tags. PRADAR adds the name of each player in two places, below the corresponding symbol on the leader command bar and below the actual player. This allows the team leader to associate between each role (as represented by the command bar) to an actual player name. From now on, no need to ask "Who is number 2?", "Who is the medic"?, or "Who has the AT". Just hold space bar and the names will show under each soldier symbol of the command bar.
This will allow you, Zwobot, to ditch your pen and paper on which you write down each player's number and role when leading  .

In Arma 2, unless you see the player's face directly, you won't recognize him even if he is close to you, but with his back turned, which is rather absurd considering the fact that in real life it's rather easy to see who stands next to you, or even a few meters away, even if their faces are not completely revealed. Blake's PRADAR now makes it easier to associate between each player and his character in-game. All of that is performed on request only (holding space bar) and using a somewhat transparent blueish text to maintain immersion. Only units that in close proximity will show the name under them to keep it realistic.

The PRADAR also includes peripheral dots indicating nearby units. Personally I feel that the dots are more of an immersion killer so I just turn them off at the beginning of every mission.

When I compare it to the the ShackTac Fireteam HUD I feel that the PRADAR kills less immersion, and allows more stuff that is available in real life which is knowing who the hell is the guy standing next to you without necessary looking at his face . This reason alone makes this addon a great addition even when not leading.

BI forums Discussion link: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=125418
Armaholic Download link (version 0.3 Alpha): http://www.armaholic.com/page.php?id=15334

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Looks good, I'm going to evaluate it tonight.

Edit: I see it requires the CBA addon. Won't this cause trouble in the long run if we introduce a more strict addon policy on the server, like equalmodsrequired? What about using it on other servers - I'm thinking of joint coops on other servers which might not allow client addons?

I don't want to get 'spoiled' by an addon like this which would make it harder for me to revert back to normal.

(11-06-2011, 10:20 AM)Zwobot link Wrote:Looks good, I'm going to evaluate it tonight.
Edit: I see it requires the CBA addon. Won't this cause trouble in the long run if we introduce a more strict addon policy on the server, like equalmodsrequired?

I don't see a reason not to allow CBA in any future addon regulation policy. It's used thoroughly throughout the community and is required for many other good and solid addons that we might want to include.

(11-06-2011, 10:20 AM)Zwobot link Wrote:What about using it on other servers - I'm thinking of joint coops on other servers which might not allow client addons?
I don't want to get 'spoiled' by an addon like this which would make it harder for me to revert back to normal.

As far as Kyllikki and Folk are concerned, they allow using client side addons and do not have equalmod enabled.

equalmodsrequired is a bit too strict right, it requires an identical modline as the server? A better way to limit addons is through signatures (although it's a bitch to manage).

But nice addon blake. A while ago i made something similar but never really could be arsed finishing it. It also was tied to the spacebar. Here are some pics:
http://i.imgur.com/BDpT4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/SSYm2.jpg

(11-06-2011, 04:55 PM)mikey link Wrote:equalmodsrequired is a bit too strict right, it requires an identical modline as the server? A better way to limit addons is through signatures (although it's a bitch to manage).

But nice addon blake. A while ago i made something similar but never really could be arsed finishing it. It also was tied to the spacebar. Here are some pics:
http://i.imgur.com/BDpT4.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/SSYm2.jpg

Nice Mike, I guess where it says "AI" will show the player name if human controlled?

Yup, here's a short video i made of it

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There's a new PRADAR version. It makes the bottom name list permanent by default and thanks to Mike's advice the preferences are saved throughout the whole Arma 2 session, until the game is shut down. This means that even if we play 20 missions a night, you will have to turn off the dots (for example) only once.
Get the latest version from here:
https://rapidshare.com/files/505947950/B...0_4_1a.rar

BI discussion: http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=125418

Bug report:

Bad conversion: scalar spam in the rpt is being caused by supplying toString with wrong data type.

shortNames.sqf:
_buni = _buni +[" "] + [" "];
...
_bname = tostring _buni;


Since toString only accepts numeric representations of letters (ascii or unicode), it doesn't know what to do when you supply it " ", so it sends a warning to the rpt that it can't convert " ".

Fix:
_buni = _buni +[32] + [32]; // 32 is a space in ascii
...
_bname = tostring _buni;

Now when the function is called with "mike" it will return actually "mk  ", and with the bug it returned "mk".

The bug is fixed and a new version is ready:
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?p=2055602

Thanks to mike!