Comrades in Arms Discussion Board

Hey Comrades,

I've written a small addon that puts the names of players (roughly) under their icon in the command bar. It's not quite as nice as what Arma 3 does, but it should work for most cases.

Features:
- Displays unit number and name of player or "AI"
- Displays team  by colored background.

Limitations/bugs:
- Limited to up to 10 units.
- After team switch, the player name might be wrong. This is a bug in Arma and cannot be fixed.

This is still very early work, so it might cause trouble, although I have tested it a bit and didn't run into any issues. If you want to give it a try, I attached the pbo. You can load it as a normal addon, or copy it into your mk4HudInfo/Addons.

UPDATE: new version released, see the attached archive file.
Make sure to read the readme contained inside.

New features:
- userconfig file for easy customization (well, easy... sort of)
- new for non-leaders: Displays your group name, unit number, and team color (if any)
- More, check the PDF.

UPDATE: Yet another new version, see the attached archive file.

New feature:
- non-leader display can now optionally show a list of all members in a colored team to make it easier to decide whom to run after See the userconfig file to enable/tweak the feature.

UPDATE: Version 1.3 released. This is mostly bugfixing:
- Removed RPT Spam (thanks Horus)
- Fixed an issue where the command bar would stick around when the leader changed
- Minor cosmetic fixes

If this is mostly bug-free, I am going to release it.

Very good Comrade!

Great! And thank you.
I think the names should be presented permanently. It should feel like a part of the command bar and the command bar doesn't come up only when holding space. I guess your mindset was for it to be a kind of extension to mk4 HUD, but  it really should fix Arma 2 flaw of not displaying the player name permanently when a command bar is active.
Also, I think that the bar should be hidden when not leading.

Thumbs up!

(07-18-2013, 07:06 AM)Variable link Wrote: [ -> ]I think the names should be presented permanently. It should feel like a part of the command bar and the command bar doesn't come up only when holding space. I guess your mindset was for it to be a kind of extension to mk4 HUD, but  it really should fix Arma 2 flaw of not displaying the player name permanently when a command bar is active.

I'll see what I can do about that. It's not quite as easy as it may seem, since the process of getting the unit number is pretty hair-raising. I have an idea, I'll need to check that.

Quote:Also, I think that the bar should be hidden when not leading.

Acknowledged, that's easy to do at least

Thumbs up!
[/quote]

Alrighty, here's a new version of the addon. Changes in this version are:

- Now permanently visible
- and only for teamleaders
- Moved the bar a bit up and made it slightly larger to fit two lines of text
- Now highlights selected units. Selected units get their names printed in orange.

What else? I am thinking about the following additions, please comment whether you think them useful or not:

1. Add a "custom control" key (mappable) to toggle between large or small mode. Small mode would look like it is right now, and be the default. Toggling to large mode would add extra info, like primary weapon and unit class.

2. Add a userconfig file to tweak a few things, like the size of the bar (for different interface sizes - I don't think there is any way I can directly find out what interface size is configured). Also could add config for colors there and other stuff. Downside is that the userconfig must be present if used, so installation is slightly more difficult.

Let me know what you think.

I like the sound of number 1 but where on earth could you fit all that info?

As for number 2 I would definitely love that as well, some colours need to change.

White isnt bad until you play winterThirsk, etc etc

I think the CiA community can handle the placing of a user-config file.

I wanted to report something but my mind just went blank...  please bring this up as I may remember later but forget to mention.

New version released, updated first post.

wow! great additions (based on your Skype message, best if you put a changelog here, too)! Very useful for coop. You should release it to public .

Alright, the changelog:
- Added: Userconfig file for external configuration. The options are documented, so it shouldn't be too difficult
- Fixed: Command bar labels no longer visible when in High Command mode.
- Added: Optional Group/Team display (see below)
- Added: Subordinate group display (see below)

Attached screenshot shows the display.
The inset shows what the non-teamleader player sees (can be bound to space key as well). The first part is the group ID, and the unit number (so no more need to confirm with "ROGER"). By default the background is transparent black, but it can turn red, green, blue or yellow if the team leader switches you to a different teamn.

Alwarren, do you intend to do more work on this? If not, I'd say release it, it's very helpful. If it will be on the PwS network we could also add it to our CiA profiles.

(09-30-2013, 09:32 AM)Variable link Wrote: [ -> ]Alwarren, do you intend to do more work on this? If not, I'd say release it, it's very helpful. If it will be on the PwS network we could also add it to our CiA profiles.

Yeah, wanted to add the ability to show the other guys in your colored team (like, press space bar to get the list of all members of your team). After that, I think I'll call it complete.

(09-30-2013, 03:15 PM)Alwarren link Wrote: [ -> ]Yeah, wanted to add the ability to show the other guys in your colored team (like, press space bar to get the list of all members of your team). After that, I think I'll call it complete.

Update: Done. See the first post.

Wow, only just seen this, great job Alwarren. Look at all the cool things you guys get up to whilst I'm away

Regarding adding it to PwS, I guess you can just post in this thread https://getsatisfaction.com/withsix/topi...pt2?page=5

although you might want to start a thread on the BIS forum with a download link first and point to that in your PwS mod addition request, rather than link here (I'm not sure if the link here can be accessed by non-members and you might get a lot of traffic as well!)

If you only want to share the mod with CiA members for now, we can host it on our server and link to that in our PwS profile but I'll have to do some reading on just how to do that because so far our profiles only contain mods that are on the Six Network.

(11-08-2013, 03:04 PM)doveman link Wrote: [ -> ]Regarding adding it to PwS, I guess you can just post in this thread https://getsatisfaction.com/withsix/topi...pt2?page=5

Tried that with my Arma 3 addons several days ago, no reaction, the Accessories and M4 pack on PwS are still age-old version. He seems to be quite random at what he puts up or not.

(11-08-2013, 05:34 PM)Alwarren link Wrote: [ -> ]Tried that with my Arma 3 addons several days ago, no reaction, the Accessories and M4 pack on PwS are still age-old version. He seems to be quite random at what he puts up or not.

Yeah, it can be a bit frustrating but I think it's just he has trouble staying on top of things as it's only one person doing the updates at the moment. Hopefully things will improve on that front soon.

I've posted a comment pointing out that they've overlooked it anyway, so hopefully that will get it some attention