LAB6 presents Map Markers

[barren rampart]

Hello guys!

Me and @hidden bluff put this together as we thought it was something that was really missing in the game.

@hidden bluff brought in all his experience in scripting and design, really made it all fit together, huge shout out ❤️ .

For me this was a way to get familiar with scripting, the games API and showed me what the modders experience in using it is.
I learned a lot and will use this experience to improve what I can (RplComponent & streaming API).

[full elk]

Hello

I like this idea but will it be on everys map in the server ?

[frosty knoll]

Question, I was thinking about adding map markers that show unconscious teammates, but since you already made this, could you add so that it shows a different icon if they are unconscious. Like a health symbol or something.

[glacial granite]

@barren rampart Brilliant contribution. I had 1 question. Is it configurable to turn off marking friendlies on the map and only use the mod for custom markers? Thanks

[tropic jungle]

@barren rampart I know this is probably going to be bothering you but do you have plans on adding a way for controllers to have access to custom markers?

[barren rampart]

Streaming is not an obstacle for our approach, so you can see an icon of somebody even if they are not streamed in.
You can only see your team, and its vehicles.
You can make markers for your team or for everyone.
Everyone can delete marker they can see.
GM can see everything.

[full elk]

That's awesome

Much appreciated

[barren rampart]

We are currently looking in to the best way to make it configurable, be that via some GM menu or a config file, keep an eye out for updates.

[full elk]

Will do for sure

[obsidian solar]

any plans for area/zone type markers? red/green/blue transparent diamonds, circles, rectangles

also, differentiate types of vehicles? at least between APCs and other vehicles

for config I would indeed appreciate GM attributes so I can turn it off when people start spamming junk on the map (along with turning off positions of players/vehicles)

[hidden bluff]

for config I would indeed appreciate GM attributes so I can turn it off when people start spamming junk on the map
was it ever needed for arma 3?

[obsidian solar]

I don't know, I don't play arma 3, but I do know people will spam the map and I'd rather have them not

[hidden bluff]

it was all right, sure sometimes I saw people drawing nasty things on the map but it can be deleted by anyone, and the offender can be punished 👿

[obsidian solar]

does the mod display who made the marker?

[hidden bluff]

yeah

when you hover a cursor

[obsidian solar]

that should be enough then, great

[hidden bluff]

It takes a huge amount of time to find usable controls for gamepad and design a UI which is both mouse and gamepad friendly, so for now it was done the easiest way. We can't guarantee controller support for marker placement in the future, sorry.

[tropic jungle]

It’s fine I was just curious. Thanks for answering my question

[obsidian solar]

aside for typing in the text, the menu in the screenshot can just be navigated using the dpad

[hidden bluff]

Once unconsciousness feature exists in base game, it will definitely be reflected on the map 🙂

[obsidian solar]

it does exist in base game

[hidden bluff]

without mod?

[obsidian solar]

ah fair the mods just set a false to true, hopefully it's enabled by default soon

is there gameplay value in seeing unconscious teammates on a map? I usually don't have my map open in combat

[hidden bluff]

in my experience, once there is a UI which works with mouse&kb, it never works with gamepad without considerable effort.
Rules about settings focus on a widget need to be carefully adjusted to ensure that it doesn't focus on something you never intended to, doesn't get lost, and that it doesn't get stuck on some element out of which you can't navigate.

[obsidian solar]

that's a bummer, seems like a thing with reforger right now, then? maybe in the future it'll be more easy to manage

but also I heard someone talking about having mouse and keyboard connected to their xbox for reforger, so maybe they can use that at least (no clue if it works or not)

[hidden bluff]

that's a bummer, seems like a thing with reforger right now, then?
No it's not really issue of engine, it can't know the meaning behind the UI layouts designer has made. Just design of UI for gamepad is a hard thing and should be considered from start 🙂

[obsidian solar]

I'm sure it's harder to make widgets that work on both, but failing that the gamepad marker placement can have different UI, though that brings in its own set of issues I'm sure

[frosty knoll]

My mod only changes existing features. There is for example a function in the character controller that returns a bool value if a character is unconscious. It’s called IsUnconscious()

[hidden bluff]

Hmmm then maybe we can do that somehow 🤔 if it's so straightfordard

[tropic jungle]

I connected a mouse to my Xbox it works flawlessly so as long as you have a mouse you can mark what you need where you need it

[obsidian solar]

you can have support for it even before the game turns it on hahaha

yeah it should be just that check, I think

[tropic jungle]

Now deleting it is something I’m having issues with because I don’t have a delete key since I have only a mouse but it can plug my key board and it’ll work fine that I’m sure of

Maybe a way to click it then the prompt shows up would be good but overall just glad I can place them

[daring gate]

YESSS!!!!

[broken charm]

cries in xbox

dope mod tho

[tropic jungle]

Me too pal me too

[daring gate]

I said my yes too early 😭 mans gotta wait for gamepad support

[cerulean granite]

It works but controller support would be nice

[hidden bluff]

so which button would you suggest for it to replace double click? tbh I don't know how to control the map with gamepad

[obsidian solar]

if I liked working with UI in reforger I would consider prototyping something

to open the menu? you can just use A

actually A does something, but X and Y don't

[cerulean granite]

Double tap A, use d-pad to navigate, X to delete would be my suggestion

[hidden bluff]

hmm in worst case I can assign it to double-press something

ok I'll see how hard it will be to make it work 👍

[obsidian solar]

lines can be placed with A once you activate the drawing mode

[cerulean granite]

Xbox also has a built in keyboard system so typing shouldn’t be a problem

Might not even need to use the d-pad to navigate. The map on Xbox already has a cursor

[obsidian solar]

yeah

click the thing then

if you make the UI large enough you can probably just aim at the things and press A or whatever

[daring gate]

Click left thumbstick to replace double click for map icons n such if i may put in my 2 cents

[hidden bluff]

yeah there are quite many options as I've found

• Left/right thumbstick click
• X/Y
• Right bumper + X/Y

I personally like RB+X to place, RB+Y to delete

that one seams very reasonable too:

Double tap A, use d-pad to navigate, X to delete
So Double-tap A opens the marker tool, then you press A to place it as it's auto focused on 'Ok'.
So you can place many markers quickly.

[daring gate]

Are we able to test which ones work best? By your account to ours?

I'll try and get it server side on my end as well

I do believe this is one of those key additions that is desperately needed for pre planning or bluefor tracking

[hidden bluff]

We'll see when I get it working first 😅

Maybe if someone has a PC and a controller, I can send the mod directly, so we can try different variants.
I don't play with controller and such feedback would be much needed, but I don't know how we can iterate on the controls easily.

[fair mantle]

The in map system for activation of the compass, Watch, and other tools exist, can you use that system? Have a box you click that brings the data up to click and drag items and add text through the in xbox chat? Right now we press a and the move it with then a again to place.

[hidden bluff]

I am not sure, I'd rather try my first controller implementation first, I think it should be good enough

[hidden bluff]

Gamepad support has been added:
Press left stick - Add marker
X - Delete marker
Also it's shown in the control hints.

It went more smooth than I expected, although not without issues.
I think current controls are ok for now, you can press left stick and then A to quickly deploy lots of same markers.
I tried double-press A but wasn't able to make it work, as it conflicted with single-press A.

Please try it and let me know if the edit box works on XBox, because it's the only thing which is platform dependent which I can't test 😄

[cerulean granite]

Everything looks good works well both in and out of gm. Kinda wish we could change the size of the icons though.

[hidden bluff]

Did you try it on Xbox?

[cerulean granite]

Yup

[hidden bluff]

Awesome thanks for the test 👍

[cerulean granite]

No problem

[daring gate]

It works! Amazing!

I appreciate you fam

[pseudo aspen]

works really good on xbox... is there a way to hide enemies thou?

[hidden bluff]

If you're game master, you see everyone. So I assume you are game master?

[pseudo aspen]

ok and if your not then you cant got it will test it more on the server i was in my personally one thank you so that probably why

[brittle sonnet]

One step closer to a BLUFOR tracker like the ATAK🙏🙏

Permissions to have the ability to mark would be dope too. Keeping the map from having 500 marks

[jovial dragon]

@barren rampart could you add this to the showcase lol; my unit is hyped over this and would like to follow your work

[lament linden]

Add Game Master options, so that certain systems can be toggled on and off at will
That way things like custom enemy position markers and stuff can be turned on and off without disabling/enabling the rest of the features

[daring gate]

There is some talk that adding a good amount of markers starts to delay entity spawn. Is there a way to fix it?

[hidden bluff]

Haven't heard of it, can you provide more info? Or where is the 'some talk'?

[daring gate]

Yes, according to members of the 1st Rangers Battalion putting map icons on the map as a GM then placing assets/entities causes a significant delay to spawn. Example: A border spanning across the middle of everon (Lamentin to Fishermans Bay military Base) and spawn in entities afterwards you'll notice the delay

It has since been removed from the server

[lament linden]

I noticed that same bug in the Arma WW3 discord before the map mod was added

Its not a thing with the maps its some other mod issue

[daring gate]

Would i be able to get to the bottom of what the issue is? The map mod isn't getting its dues and its a great mod in my eyes

[lament linden]

People playing reforger are hardcore
Every time I ask if they can add it I hear the same response
"What, you cant read a map? The new players clueless at spawn cant read a map either? thats a them problem and they should get better"

Hence why I asked for the option to toggle aspects of it on and off

[daring gate]

They probably don't know about modern technology like blufor link where that is possible despite the ability to read a map

[daring gate]

Wont stop them for succumbing to their injuries

[lament linden]

Thats what I was gonna tell them
They want realism and immersion - realism and immersion is knowing exactly where your dudes are thanks to their helmet cams and shit

[tough wave]

In the ideal scenario maybe, if we look at current and recent conflicts we can see that this often isn't the case in practice - definitely not in the decade Reforger plays in.
That said, I do think that often, a compromise between gameplay and realism has to be made, and map markers can be part of that.

[lament linden]

Most realism servers wanna play with modern mods, so modern GPS systems should be used

[tough wave]

I would actually like to make a suggestion though, if it's not too hard to implement:

1. Add a "Just me" option to the "Visible to" selection
2. Add an optional server-side config option that makes map syncing a local thing, so that when you e. g. draw something into the "My Faction" channel, only those near you will see it on their map. This resolves the issue with balance / realism.

[lament linden]

That map mod brings vanilla features from Arma 3 to the game

All that stuff is Vanilla Arma 3

[tough wave]

I know, it would still be a good feature.

[barren rampart]

This is not to do with the mod itself, its to do with streaming speed presets on the server, you can adjust them, there is a going to be an adjustment of these defaults in the next patch.

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_Reforger:Startup_Parameters#Network_Tuning

[lament linden]

Xbox players have issues with it, and it live marks all AI on the map - any chance of fixing that and making it togglable?

[arctic hemlock]

I wonder. Does Reforger support RGBA as marker colour or are we again stuck with fixed values?

[hidden bluff]

It's RGBA 🙂

[hidden bluff]

What's the issue, and how is it specific to xbox, I don't get it? You see all AI on the map?

[arctic hemlock]

So instead of only having fixed colors we could also have a color palette?

[hidden bluff]

you just call SetColor and provide to the marker an RGBA Color, a Color class object

[arctic hemlock]

That's cool.

[lament linden]

Xbox players can't place markers, and AI showing up makes it too immersion breaking for milsimmers

[hidden bluff]

why can't they place markers?

[lament linden]

.... Because controller isn't mouse and keyboard?

[hidden bluff]

But we've added controller support
#1066377958832480348 message

AI showing up makes it too immersion breaking for milsimmers
their own AI? or enemy AI?

[lament linden]

Enemy AI

And I'll let them know it has been patched

[hidden bluff]

Enemy AI is only seen to game master, or does it not work?

[lament linden]

I've been told it live marks all AI

The owner of the server I moderate tried it out and said that it doesn't work on controller and that it live marks all AI

And like, that's fine and all, but at least give Game Masters the option to toggle it

[hidden bluff]

Two persons here confirmed that it works on xbox, well I also tried with my controller 🤷
#1066377958832480348 message
Maybe that server owner has outdated mod version?

[lament linden]

What are the buttons?

I'll forward em to my friend

[hidden bluff]

#1066377958832480348 message

[tropic jungle]

Double left thumb stick or bumper and d-pad to navigate. It works for us just fine so idk what your having issues with other than either outdated version or he has a broken controller

[daring gate]

Xbox users can place makers with the left rhumbstick toggle and create with A button

[lament linden]

They said they have a problem choosing colors and icon

I told him to use the DPAD and his issue miraculously went away

[tropic jungle]

Happens to the best of us

[versed owl]

(Xbox player) can confirm that this mod works on Xbox using the game pad using the d pad to select what you want then selecting ok on the menus to place marker w/without text can also confirm that GM can see all blue and red marks and none GM can only see their team marks unless a mark is selected to the everyone value

Been seeing a lot of people saying it dosnt work if you have a tutorial you could link to the mod for support?

[daring gate]

Awesome! Will relay to the guys n gals. Appreciate it fam

[hazy sedge]

great work !
Now @barren rampart pull this changes to the main branch of game 😛

[compact acorn]

Great work, I would also like "area zone markers" as Bacon suggested.
Maybe some configuration options could be added to the PR_ActiveMapIconManagerComponent. Is it possible to move markers once placed?

[hidden bluff]

No you can't move them, but you can delete them.

Maybe some configuration options could be added to the PR_ActiveMapIconManagerComponent
What configuration options do you mean? Modding prefab is only for those who can mod a prefab anyway, it's not for regular player.

[compact acorn]

I was talking for mission makers, within workbench to restrict or enable certain markers , e.g :
x makers for vehicles
x markers for squad only
Or just enable markers for certain vehicles?

[hidden bluff]

ok I get it, for mission makers it would be beneficial 👍

I think that if you place a vehicle prefab, you can disable the icon informer component on it, which should disable its icon.

[compact acorn]

Thank-you, you answered my next question in part, is there anyway to disable all and only enable on the units I require?
As I see it at the moment I would have disable everything I don't want, maybe override/duplicate Prefabs/Vehicles/Core/Vehicle_Base.et
Prefabs/Characters/Core/DefaultPlayerController.et
in my mod/mission, would you suggest an easier way?

[hidden bluff]

I don't think there's a better way now. Also we didn't consider yet what will be the final way to configure those for mission makers, or if there ever will ever be a way to do so besides changing values in prefabs. It's just first mod release.

[compact acorn]

👍 Thank-you for your help.

[merry jewel]

Nice mod but it seems to just mark all enemies everywhere which is a bit jank.

Have only tested in private gm so may be wrong???

[cerulean granite]

If I remember correctly Gm can see all infantry and vehicles. If you’re not gm you can only see your squad

[merry jewel]

Ohhhh

[hidden bluff]

yeah I think it's fair if GM can see all the things he has placed?

[merry jewel]

Makes sense yeah

[sharp berry]

I like the mod, but sometimes I feel that new players should also learn how to actually READ A Map and not simply LOOK for their name on it.
Adding a togglable option as admin/gamemaster could be welcome

[tropic jungle]

They can look in the in game manual on how to read the map

[lament linden]

A good team leader will teach their team players how to read one

If youre in a milsim its still good to play some conflict together with your squad here and there to learn the games systems and get a better feel for the gunplay

[hidden bluff]

I like the mod, but sometimes I feel that new players should also learn how to actually READ A Map and not simply LOOK for their name on it.
so you can ask people not to use the mod
Adding a togglable option as admin/gamemaster could be welcome
option for what exactly? disable all markers? disable marker of player for that player?

[lament linden]

Disable select markers
Such as keeping map markers enabled but disabling friendly position markers

[hidden bluff]

I was thinking what if I could see others on the map but couldn't see myself. Or what if I could see only friendly squad leads on the map. 🤔

[merry jewel]

Honestly squad leads would probably be the best way to go

[daring gate]

In addition, if it were tied in with the squad/group you create so for team leads/squad members can look at a more spacious map

[hidden bluff]

if it were tied in with the squad/group you create so for team leads/squad members can look at a more spacious map
I don't quite get what you mean 🤔

[daring gate]

If one was able to create a squad and let's say 6/8 people join the squad, those 6 players will be seen by only Squad lead or GM. If a separate party/group also did the same thing only the Squad lead will be seen by the other teams.

Hopefully make the team name display as opposed to every player name on map

Just a thought I've had

[sharp berry]

What I meant by the fact that you could see all friendlies in the map is that kinda kills the beauty of a communication as it follows:
-"bravo 01 to bravo 06,what is your location?"
-"bravo06 here, my location is..."

This process isn't needed anymore with Every single player shown in the map. My advice is not to remove from the mod, because some people might like to see everything.
But all I'm saying is that having an option to be able as gamemaster to disable this for everyone in the server could open more options to players.

[sharp berry]

This one is also good

[bleak dagger]

If we could decide what can and can't be seen on the map would be awesome
also if we can have separate maps for each faction each with there own marks on

Then people could loot dead bodies check out the enemy's map marks
Becomes valuable Intel

[quaint crescent]

Some sad news..my Milsim group consisting on 80+ members have been using the Map Marker mod for a while now and have found it causes extreme latency with spawning groups, objects, ext.

We have found a direct correlation to the latency and mod.

[broken charm]

Yes same here, it truly is sad 😔

[daring gate]

#1066377958832480348 message apparently streaming speed will be updated next patch. It is sad we haven't been able to fully utilize the mod as intended

Hopefully whenever the next patch drops, streaming speed will be increased

[broken charm]

You can also fix it by increasing the streaming budget in the server files. Although nitrado doesn’t allow this

[daring gate]

Sounds about right

[hidden bluff]

So what's the use case roughly? How many players do you have connected when this happens?

[quaint crescent]

We have anywhere from 10-32 players. We use it for all are operations to mark: ORPs, CP, SBFs, ext. Typically 10+ placed marks. We have now gotten rid of the mod and do not have a latency issue. Would you like the server logs?

[hidden bluff]

It might help but I doubt it, I am also not sure what could cause it tbh. But if you have a log please send, maybe there will be something which can help us.

[quaint crescent]

@hidden bluff I DM’ed you them 👍

[hidden bluff]

Well there are lots of script errors like

Scripts/Game/Editor/Components/Editor/SCR_PlacingEditorComponent.c:390 Function CreateEntityServer
22:05:02:898 rpl::Pip::FixedStep
22:05:02:898  ENTITY       : SpawnEntityPrefab @"{84B40583F4D1B7A3}Prefabs/Characters/Factions/INDFOR/FIA/Character_FIA_Rifleman.et"
22:05:02:898   ENTITY       : Create entity @"ENTITY:4611686018427394801" ('SCR_ChimeraCharacter','Assets/Characters/Basebody/Basebody_Male_01.xob') at <4570.411621 15.372683 10427.863281> @"{84B40583F4D1B7A3}Prefabs/Characters/Factions/INDFOR/FIA/Character_FIA_Rifleman.et"
22:05:02:899    SCRIPT    (E): NULL pointer to instance
Class:      'SCR_InventoryStorageManagerComponent'
Function: 'SCR_InventoryStorageManagerComponent'

Which are either a failure of game master or inventory.
Could you send a log without the marker mod so we can see if it also happens without the mod?

[quaint crescent]

I will have to ask tomorrow as it’s late for him

It caused latency’s within game master and not game master: Not being able to spawn entities in (takes 5+ min) and not GM troops on the ground not being able to see vehicles or people. Like today in a operation of 20ish ppl half couldn’t see the other half when they were right next to each other

He tried to place multiple FIA groups and singler persons down and it just wouldn’t place down. It would go invisible once placed down

[hidden bluff]

it could be due to that script error which seems totally unrelated to our code 🤔

[quaint crescent]

But why would it only be happing with your mod as well as others having the issue.

Could you mod be reacting with other scrips in which this reacted scrips causing the errors

So a secondary thing?

[hidden bluff]

Due to how code is written, i highly doubt, as it doesn't interact with anything else, but I'll try to have a look why it could happen

[barren rampart]

It's hard to say, we will profile the mod just in case but it only ticks once a second, and only does so for things which are relevant (your team's icon for example), and with very minimal data usage.

[quaint crescent]

Would us being on Xbox be a factor (probably should have mentioned that sooner)

[barren rampart]

Not really, it's a very light mod performance wise. But reading about the things you describe, mainly the GM delay, there is a few things coming in the next patch for it.

[sharp berry]

I can Confirm that by using the mod LAB6 with more than 15 people it'll start creating heavy lag for gamemaster and making other. Players as well invisibile.

I've tried to run a full milsim session with MANY heavy constructions around the map and lots of vehicle usage without LAB6 and I had a minor delay at some point of around 10 seconds at the beginning . But it went away fast and the delay was gone.

My theory is that the mod even if it's light... It is giving the gamemaster A LOT of additional Intel to archive due to every single entity in the map being visible to gamemasters.
In fact, most of the time players and other entities might be invisible for gamemasters when switching for gm to their character and vice-versa.

I strongly believe that by reducing the amount of icons available to see as a gamemaster would strongly improve performance.
(by those icons I mean maybe vehicle icons could be removed to be shown ONLY when a friendly actually gets inside, and maybe not showing AI but ONLY PLAYERS).
Even tho I would appreciate a version of this mod without without any sorts of makers showing teammates

Again this is just a theory, but I've tested and it is the only theory that makes sense TO ME

[sharp berry]

https://tenor.com/view/travolta-desert-dry-drought-gif-20765263

[tropic jungle]

https://tenor.com/view/skull-skull-crowd-skull-reaction-gif-25078176

[daring gate]

Waiting for streaming speed to be increased so we can use this mod

[tropic jungle]

Well they gotta fix people being invisible first along with other things. But then again that just might be the fix they need. I ain’t a modder tho so I got no clue

[daring gate]

That was told to me by the devs themselves as to why it's not working as intended

Nothing wrong with the mod itself

Hopefully after the patch they can increase the necessary things

[hidden bluff]

So as bi_petanjek said, the entities disappearing for Game Master will be hopefully resolved in next game update:
#1066377958832480348 message
Also we checked the mod and we were not able to find anything suspicious in the mod itself.

So for now we can just wait. If someone is playing the experimental branch, I could try to upload the mod to experimental branch workshop if you want to try, but I heard not so many people play it, so probably it's not worth it.

[daring gate]

I will have to figure out a way to download xbox experimental then I'll attempt to see what's what

[hidden bluff]

So let us know if it works better in the new game version or not

[daring gate]

Wilco

[quaint crescent]

What did this v. 1.0.11 to the LAB6 Markers add or do?

@hidden bluff

[hidden bluff]

I was about to write

Small update

• Player character is highlighted with special marker, so it's easier to find yourself

Also strangely for me the new icon only worked after I redownloaded the mod 🤔 So I recommend to redownload the mod if possible.

[quaint crescent]

@daring gate have you found if it is stable or not?

[bleak dagger]

Any way of turning off just the player position marker?

[tropic jungle]

??

[hidden bluff]

So you'd like to not show this big thing for your player and show only the blue dot? Or to hide both?

Or to hide positions of all players including yours?

[tropic jungle]

What would the point of the mod be then if you did that?

[hidden bluff]

Well some people wanted exactly that so they can place markers manually but don't see their friendlies on the map

[tropic jungle]

Ok if that be the case it could be a toggle for GM when they pull up the menu. Tho I understand that would be very hard to implement for you all.

Or just a toggle for everyone so they can customize their own map experience that way no one is getting butt hurt about having nothing they want.

[pseudo aspen]

would be nice not to have the cone and just the blue dot

[hidden bluff]

Well atm there is no configuration available.
The cone was added since it was quite hard to find the marker of own character among many other players.

[daring gate]

Still trying to convince my server to download. If anything I'll download to my own private server n check it out myself

[glad hornet]

@half ruin 🤔

[half ruin]

Lag issues

[glad hornet]

Ah.

[bleak dagger]

Just to hide players position it can kill off the immersion a little bit

[sharp berry]

Yeah, the mod it's great and everything about it its amazing considering what we have available at the moment, but being able to see all players and even NON PLAYERS on the map it's a bit too much data.
Like I've said before, even gamemaster seems to be overly charged with so many markers, if you have only 5 people might not seem like a problem x but for groups like mine around 20 people, I also need to put more bots around the map, then gamemaster seems to have too much imo

• breaking immersion for players

[bleak dagger]

Anybody no if it still causes a slight input delay for the GM ?

[sharp berry]

I've tried yesterday and I had no issues, only had like 8 people in the server, gotta run more tests to be sure

[sharp berry]

I can confirm now, 16+ players no delay at all with many stuff happening all around. They've improved the game finally

[bleak dagger]

👍 cheers buddy

[daring gate]

How many markers?

[hidden bluff]

We are thinking of making a second mod which simply disables markers for characters and vehicles.
Would that be useful for anyone?
It's fairly easy to do, whereas adding options to toggle visibility at run time is a lot more work, we don't have time to do that now.

[daring gate]

That would work

[sharp berry]

Definetly useful

[hidden bluff]

You can use this mod to hide all characters and vehicles on the map:
https://reforger.armaplatform.com/workshop/5CB16584BACB2D5D-LAB6MARKERS-HideCharacters
As a result only the manually placed map markers remain when this mod is active.
Note that the character/vehicle icons are hidden for everyone including Game Master.

[bleak dagger]

OH YEAH!!✌

[daring gate]

Hey man how've you been? I do have a question pertaining to your map markers mod

[barren rampart]

Yeah, just ask any questions here, we will answer.

[daring gate]

Understood
The server we've been running is massively enjoying the map markers!

A few of the guys and I were wondering if it were viable to have the squad lead locations via groups would be able to be implemented

[sharp berry]

My group and I are enjoying this one

[daring gate]

Query
You're using the original map markers or with hidden icons

[sharp berry]

Hidden one. It's perfectly fine that for our milsim group

[daring gate]

I'm using the same one.
I'm more so referring to the original considering the streaming speed is a bit of a ? on xbox

More so prioritizing squad lead elements and vics rather than all entities

[barren rampart]

Can you please clarify I'm not sure I understand what you would like.

[daring gate]

#1066377958832480348 message

The icons presenting solely squad leads and vehicles instead of all troops

Perhaps a way to turn on/off specific settings (i.e editing scenario properties to only preview group lead & vehicles/ All players & vehicles)

[barren rampart]

We have a guy attempting to do some sort of config, but he isn't so active and we are a bit busy with another project, at least for the next couple of months.
If you want it sooner, best way to do it would be to mod it yourself, you can make a mod of a mod and make special rules for displaying.

[hidden bluff]

Hi, I've just noticed that I can't place markers as client, the marker placement GUI doesn't get shown, does it also happen to anyone? or does it still work for you?
What's most weird, it works perfectly in Workbench.

[daring gate]

So far so good on my end (MP) we were using it not too long ago

[hidden bluff]

Thanks, it might be problem on my side then.

[sharp berry]

Would it be possible to add possibility to increase size of existing signs? Like for example if I'd like to circle a town I would like to use a circle or maybe to highlight a whole quadrant km² because right now when I zoom in the symbols get very small and the can be sometimes a bit unprecise, so I need to always use more than one to. Create a simple. Communication on the map. Maybe the ability to trace down even straight lines could help

[hidden bluff]

If you want to put circle which would have its size attached to actual physical object on the map, I don't even know if it's possible to do now. It will be closer to drawing vectors on the map than placing individual icons, which we are not planning to do right now.

[pure spruce]

anyone know what would cause thousands of rpl errors for clients when loading this with my custom conflict scenario?

[barren rampart]

custom conflict scenario

We've been running it almost every single day since the new patch, haven't seen this type of behavior, I can take a look at the logs.

[pure spruce]

that would be amazing! Its frustrating to see this mod run fine on other servers but as soon as i put it on mine, the server boots fine, only clients have issues with replication kicks, i get almost 14,000 lines of this: 08:21:21.466 rpl::Pip::ProcessNetToGame 08:21:21.466 RPL (E): IReplication::JIPError: Inconsistent item table on Slave connection. Item is missing or different item was loaded in its place. (item=0x4002340C layout=ScriptComponent) 08:21:21.466 RPL (E): Expected: 08:21:21.466 RPL (E): cpp_layout=_GenericEntity_Layout 08:21:21.466 RPL (E): s_layout=script::Game::PR_ActiveMapIconVehicle 08:21:21.466 RPL (E): IReplication::JIPError: Inconsistent item table on Slave connection. Item is missing or different item was loaded in its place. (item=0x4002340D layout=ScriptComponent) 08:21:21.466 RPL (E): Expected: 08:21:21.466 RPL (E): cpp_layout=_RplComponent_Layout 08:21:21.466 RPL (E): s_layout=script::Game::RplComponentthen my client is booted from the server. The server spits 3400 lines of this out: 08:21:21.602 RPL (E): IReplication::JIPError: Inconsistent item table on Slave connection. Item is missing or different item was loaded in its place. (item=0x4002340C layout=script::Game::PR_ActiveMapIconVehicle con=0x0) 08:21:21.602 RPL (E): IReplication::JIPError: Inconsistent item table on Slave connection. Item is missing or different item was loaded in its place. (item=0x4002340D layout=script::Game::RplComponent con=0x0)

followed by: 08:21:22.604 RPL (E): IReplication::JIPError: Terminating connection. (identity=0x00000000) 08:21:22.711 NETWORK : Player disconnected: connectionID=0 08:21:22.711 NETWORK : Total number of players: 1 08:21:27.630 RPL : ServerImpl event: authenticating (identity=0x00000000, address=127.0.0.1:52689) 08:21:27.630 RPL : ServerImpl event: connected (identity=0x00000000) 08:21:27.648 NETWORK (E): Trying to register connection of possibly unauthorized client. 08:21:27.728 rpl::Pip::ProcessNetToGame 08:21:27.728 NETWORK (E): RplConnection::ValidationError remote script source code checksum does not match! local=0xb40ee191 remote=0xc23d3b27 08:21:27.728 DEFAULT : Disconnecting identity=0x00000000: group=4 reason=2

[hidden bluff]

v1.0.12 was released

• Minor fixes, no significant changes

this doesn't address your issue Gramps, I don't know why this happens

[pure spruce]

I thought I read somewhere maybe that it could be related to placed objects in the world?

[hidden bluff]

But, when developing something else, I had this issue once, but it was in Workbench. I ended up cleaning my windows registry entries for Workbench and it helped. But I doubt that it't related, since it wasn't complaining about markers at that time.

[hidden bluff]

As I've heard, this might happen if you have a static entity placed in the world, which creates an entity during its own initialization 🤔

[pure spruce]

yeah I have a lot of static entities placed in the world... 😦

the thing that gets me is its just this mod that causes these crashes. clients can join just fine without it running on the server

Ive downloaded it multiple times, even using the exact same copy that works on my client (and other servers) copied to the server.

so i dont think its any kind of mod corruption

something with RPCs maybe? they are replication errors after all

I just learned those so im prob not much help there

[hidden bluff]

I think I can reproduce it now, I just placed some vehicles statically in my world and connected with client to workbench server.

and indeed we create entities through EOnInit, I thought we fixed it though, @barren rampart maybe you remember?

PR_ActiveMapIcon ServerRegister(ScriptComponent target,ResourceName m_ActiveMapIconPrefab)
    {    
        PR_ActiveMapIcon activeMapIcon = PR_ActiveMapIcon.Cast(GetGame().SpawnEntityPrefab(Resource.Load(m_ActiveMapIconPrefab)));

[pure spruce]

is the mod trying to display those placed items on the map?

[hidden bluff]

yeah it spawns a marker entity through EOnInit, but I was pretty sure that we've fixed it

[pure spruce]

fixed in this most recent update? o.O 🤣

[hidden bluff]

no no I can still reproduce it, I just remember we went through this problem already long time ago

just wait a bit we'll investigate how to resolve this

[barren rampart]

Yeah it must be replicated entities placed in map

Anyway such placement is a broken concept because one hierarchy change will break it.

if you are placing vehicles, or god forbid characters in map without rploverride set to runtime, don't..

[pure spruce]

ok, I did spawn a couple vehicles, Ill have to check on that. Thanks for the info!

does that matter for static objects like towers or sandbag walls as well? If its a static objet it shouldnt even need a replication component right? I did move one of the remnants supply points and i noticed all those had the component, but "none" for rplOverrides

[barren rampart]

If you place a replicated prefab in to map, what will happen is that once it's streamed in, it will be loaded from disk and put in the map where you put it. If you made any changes to the instance, they will not be replicated, for this you need another prefab. If you make any hierarchy changes during runtime, they will not be replicated.

[pure spruce]

so all my vehicles are set to runtime overrides, and i didnt spawn any characters, just additional CampaignRemnantsSpawnPointEntity's. Im still unclear what to do about static objects, do they even need replication components? Ive only seen one thing complain about not having a rplcomponent so far, a tower with ladder attached. Im still getting these errors though... remove your mod and its fine. 🤷‍♂️ very frustrating!

[barren rampart]

what to do about static objects, do they even need replication components?
If they don't change hierarchy, have inventory or need interaction, then no, you don't need it.

[hidden bluff]

we have a solution half-done, just need to test it

very frustrating!
as I said, #1066377958832480348 message

[pure spruce]

Thanks for looking into this guys, much appreciation! I was thinking it was something wrong I was doing in my scenario.

[barren rampart]

Yeah, it will be published soon, but keep in mind it will not work for things which don't have rpl override to runtime, there is no way to support these, in the mod or the engine overall 😄

[pure spruce]

the only things i saw yesterday when going through all the stuff added were vanilla checkpoints that had a rplComponent, had streaming disabled and no override, and the remnants supply depots have a component as well but with streaming enabled, no override. Are those ok like that? I assume so since i didnt place them, but I noticed that going through everything yesterday.

[hidden bluff]

We've uploaded an update, version 1.0.13, which should fix the issue for statically placed entities.
Please let us know if it works.

[pure spruce]

So its letting me join my server now! 🙂 However, it is showing me all factions on the map, not just my own.

[hidden bluff]

if you're game master then you see everything, it's intended
and it toggles as soon as you get admin role (and game master role together with it)

[pure spruce]

Im only seeing my own team in vanilla conflict! Im thinking it may be conflicting with my mod that does mess with some faction stuff

[hidden bluff]

I've just tested it in stock game master with my mod and on client I can see only my team :/

[pure spruce]

yup vanilla is fine so it has to be one of my mods

[hidden bluff]

hmm well one thing to check, is faction of those units shown correctly in GM or not 🤔 about the rest I don't know, because we simply read faction of the entity, and your own faction, to decide whether you should see that or not

[pure spruce]

when i go into GM in conflict game mode it does show the FIA as green and they do shoot at me as US faction. When do you guys read the faction? It must be something in my scenario, i removed my mod that does faction stuff and its still showing me everything.

[pure spruce]

ok i used the client in peer tool and it appears to be working! Im running the admin tool on my server as well so it automatically gives me GM when logging in, thats why i was seeing everything lol Thanks again for all your guys' hard work! 😎

[pure spruce]

So I had another thing where vehicles were showing all across the map, and i found a rather simple solution: LAB6 No Vehicles mod lol ```c
modded class PR_ActiveMapIconVehicle
{
override protected void UpdateFromReplicatedState(){}
override protected void UpdateFaction(FactionAffiliationComponent factionAffiliationComponent, bool init){}
}

[barren rampart]

Are you sure those are not dynamically spawned by Conflict?

[hidden bluff]

I can't guarantee that it will work fine.
Instead of this, check how this mod is made.
https://reforger.armaplatform.com/workshop/5CB16584BACB2D5D-LAB6MARKERS-HideCharacters
You simply need to override vehicle_base.et prefab in your mod, find PR_ActiveMapIconInformerComponent component on it and disable it (set Enabled to false).
And that's it really, then you can also override it on Character_Base.et. It's exactly same in the mod above and nothing else.

[hidden bluff]

also overall any override in prefab is preferable to code override, because I can change the method signature of UpdateFaction method any time and your solution will need adjustment or it won't be able to compile

[pure spruce]

They are static objects that the AI spawn near when players are close enough. I see them in game master all across the map spawned in from server start.

[pure spruce]

Thanks for the advice! I assume you guys don't mind me making and publishing that then? 😎

[hidden bluff]

it's fine, just do it through prefab please

later we might have a system to configure the rule set, it's in development now

[pure spruce]

Nice! Like a Json file for server?

[hidden bluff]

Yeah that's the idea, add data to mission header

[pure spruce]

Very cool! Looking forward to that! 😎

[pure spruce]

All done and available if anyone else wants no vehicles as well! Thanks for all the help guys, y'all rock! 🤘 (link removed)

[hidden bluff]

It's cool but could you please change the name and thumbnail so it doesn't look like a release made by us, since we don't own it and can't maintain it. Maybe you could name it 'Patch for Lab6 Markers ...' or in similar way.

[pure spruce]

Yeah no worries, was just trying to match your naming convention. Away from pc atm, but I'll remove it and reupload under a different name here in the next hour or two!

[pure spruce]

There we go! 🙂 https://reforger.armaplatform.com/workshop/5D91204767A4C6A5-NoVehiclesPatchForLAB6Markers

[hidden bluff]

Haha perfect logo 😄

[lament linden]

I havent kept up with this mod for a little while. I remember there being an issue regarding Game Masters, where the map markers would cause immense lag and considerate delay between placing an item and it spawning
Has that been rectified?

[barren rampart]

It was not mod related issue, but yes, in the game overall it should be fixed.

[lament linden]

Gotcha! Thank you so much

[pure spruce]

could this be related to a client frame drop? ```
08:17:22.343 SCRIPT (E): NULL pointer to instance
Class: 'PR_ActiveMapIconCharacter'
Entity id:4611686018427407288

Function: 'SetTransformFromPosAndDirProp'
Stack trace:
scripts/Game/ProjectRefineMap/Map/PR_ActiveMapIcon.c:272 Function SetTransformFromPosAndDirProp
scripts/Game/ProjectRefineMap/Map/PR_ActiveMapIcon.c:131 Function UpdateFromReplicatedState
scripts/Game/ProjectRefineMap/Map/PR_ActiveMapIconCharacter.c:73 Function UpdateFromReplicatedState

[pure spruce]

nope i dont think its related after all

[hidden bluff]

if it were spammed every frame it would degrade frame rate, from file system access

so does it happen often?

[pure spruce]

i removed the mod and still get it, so its for sure not coming from this mod. Only mentioned it because i got that error around the time of the frame drop i had.

[hidden bluff]

WIP Experimental icon for unconsciousness 🤔

[pure spruce]

I tried looking into this mod last night and it looks like it will need a pretty good amount of work rewriting some code?

[hidden bluff]

We'll get to fixing this soon don't worry

[pure spruce]

I almost had a fix, just getting a null pointer in some vanilla function i think after fixing all the moved/changed functions

[hidden bluff]

The version at Workshop has been updated:

• 0.9.9 compatibility
• Special icon for unconscious characters

[bleak dagger]

Is this update for the hide characters one aswell mate?

[hidden bluff]

the character hiding mod should work same, it just disables some components on prefab without scripting

[bleak dagger]

Okay good stuff mate 👍

[orchid root]

Is adding the ability to draw lines possible? Was watching some Arma 3 clips and noticed that was a cool feature. Could be very useful for making routes etc….

[daring gate]

I was also wondering if for future reference if there is a plan to turn off individual player blips (transponders) in some fashion? To simulate soldiers MIA and such

[sharp berry]

This feature is a must have... I think having ability to pin point a starting point and draw a straight line to another ending point would be very utilized in most cases.

The vanilla system already has this feature, only issue is the lines we draw are only visible to the player himself...

[sharp berry]

Hello, I have a question/idea...

I've used the mod a lot since it came out and I love it, but sometimes when playing with many people teamleaders might want to place markers visible only to their squad to specifically have their focus and not interfere with others plans. The only options available right now are MY FACTION/ EVERYONE. Maybe adding an option [GROUP] could be useful

[pure spruce]

If i wanted to turn off the markers for AI characters only, where would be the best place to do that?

[pure spruce]

I think I figured it out, just added it as a dependency and removed the component on the AI units! 🙂

[barren rampart]

Hello, our map markers mod is slowly being implemented in to the game!
You can check them out in the newest experimental release.
It will be upgraded in future updates, with its own design decisions, optimizations and proper support.
Allowing for easy modding and so on.

[lament linden]

This is neat to see

[daring gate]

I'm ecstatic

The future of arma shines brighter week by week

[merry jewel]

Out of curiosity will it include the player markers when implemented?

[barren rampart]

They will have their own custom per game mode logic for this as far as I am aware, the design is not yet final so I can't comment.

[merry jewel]

Ah ok

[orchid root]

Could y’all change the keybind to “Y” on controller? Currently it conflicts with the native marker system

[barren rampart]

The mod has been made obsolete with the games recent implementation, feel free to leave feedback about changes you want in #reforger_feedback .

[daring gate]

Bet! I have a few ideas i can toss your way

[lament linden]

Change the button to add map markers cause the mod is 1,000% better than Vanilla

In vanilla you can only place 5 markers per person

[pure spruce]

I also like this mod better