Blake's PRADAR (Player Radar) V1.0 Alpha

Introduction:
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One of the things I found frustrating at times was my situational awareness, involving both my group members as well as my ability to interact with other groups effectively. The more visual clues that are available help reduce the critical communications channels to more important transmissions. Rather than the usual who's that or where are you etc. This was even more valuable to me when leading a group. Knowing quickly where players are helps you to quickly issue orders more effectively. Espessially in time critical moments.
Using mods that highlighted names helped, but generally required you to focus your cursor over them. That is if you have one visible.
I like a minimal information display ideally, the more data presented constantly makes me feel more like a terminator visual interface than a basic grunt on the ground. Bright red names like neon signs really didn't help the immersion for me personally.
I also wanted a better sense of player distances to me of those units behind me. In the real world you would have many cues that somebody was close behind you. In arma generally it was only when you quickly tried to duck back into a doorway as a tank came round the corner, and suddenly you find yourself moon walking on the spot.


Requirements:
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PRADAR requires extended event handlers found in Community Base Addons.
http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?t=103871

Installation:

Install as you would any other addon. (Check the BIS forums if unsure!). This addon is client side only. 


Usage:

PRADAR automatically activates if the addon is installed correctly. 
To help reduce any conflict with mission designer introductions, the display will not commence until the player starts moving forward.


Description of information presented by PRADAR:

Primary role is to present an emulation of a persons senses outside of the players vision. Eg peripheral vision, sound, smell etc. Specific to the players side.

It will only display the eight closest friendly contacts, for each component names and dots.

All visuals fade with distance as things are harder to track with secondary senses, or are harder to id who is who at greater distances generally.

This information is presented as coloured dots around the edge of the screen.

Small dot = Man character.
Large dot = vehicle.
Green dot = Non group member, or group member that has not been viewed for a while.
Blue dot = Group member who you have resently viewed.
Red dot =  Non group member, or group member that has not been viewed for a while that is very close.
Purple dot = Group member who you have resently viewed who is very close.

Force Commanding (FC) key:

If the menu item show group list is selected default is "showing".

By default the short names stay on. Selecting to hide them only shows them while holding force commanding.
While holding down then FC if you hold down lean left and right simultaneously will display a list of group members weapons or their vehicle position.
While holding all three of these keys down, using the zoom in, zoom out, look left and look right keys (default Num +,-,4 and 6) will change the size and relative left and right position of the group icon labels to allow better alignment for different users.


Menus:

To reduce cluttering the action menu, the PRADAR options will only be visible to the player while they hold down both the lean left and lean right keys simultaneously.

Choices:

Two brightness levels.
PRADAR High, PRADAR Low 

PRADAR dots on/off
(Default value Off)
While off is selected, dots will appear when the player holds the force commanding key at their current brightness setting.

Toggle group names.
Turns on and off the display of the group list when force commanding is pressed. When off they only appear if the forcecommanding(space) is being held.

View Group Details
While holding down the force commanding key (space), if you hold down both the lean left and right keys, pradar will display a list of your group showing each members current primary and secondary weapons.

Join Group.
If you hover your cursor over a person from another group and are close enough to them, you will be given the option to join that persons group.

Make Leader.
If you are the current leader of a group you have the option to give command to another person while holding your cursor over them and are close enough to them.

In single player if you wanted to view the group and leader options place this in the editor.
Blakes_PRADAR_Debug = 1;

History:

1.0
Fixed a logic error where unless there were people that created a dot(outside of view), the names wouldn't appear until there was somebody.
Increased the view distance by 10m.
Turned the dots off unless force commanding held to be the default starting option.
Rewrote the code to increase the robust nature of PRADAR, where the limited number of layers with displays will always be a source of conflict between scripts and addons that use displays. Now each time you engage the force commanding button it reloads the pradar display.
Removed the reboot menu option, no longer required because of the above changed.
Slightly optimised the code.
Removed the background of the brief names that appear under the leaders icon. Sacrificed clarity as I found the bar a little annoying. 

0.1.4.3a
Fixed problem where a report file error "Bad conversion: scalar" occurred if a player had a short name. (Thanks to Variables friend Mike for the find!) 

0.1.4.2a
Fixed stray dot if only one friendly present at start of mission.

0.1.4.1a
Changed Menu variable initialisation to span multiple missions. 
0.1.4a
Changed how I store the menu options so players only need to set once per mission. Values are retained through respawning. Thanks to Variable's friend Mike on the how to for that.
Changed the short names below the icons to be either permanent on, or shown while force commanding pressed. If the equipment list stays visible when changing the setting tap force commanding again to remove it.

0.1.3a
Fixed Menu items not properly resetting after rebooting PRADAR.
Changed code to hopefully eliminate PRADAR not functioning after exiting a vehicle.
Remove group numbering which didn't work if custom names were used.
Moved Icon label position to below the icons.
Added the ability to alter the group names positions.
Added a quick abbreviated list of groups primary and secondary weapons.
Added menu item to toggle group labels and list on and off.
Added option to allow Labels while in a vehicle.
Added menu item to toggle labels on and off while in a vehicle. Menu not available in vehicle need to select prior to boarding.
 

0.1.2a
Changed menus to allow dot visibility setting to remain whether dot are set to visible or only when names are displayed.
Created a list of the group names with their corresponding group number to match the icons the leaders have at the botton of the screen.
Created a menu item that toggles whether the group list is displayed when pressing force commanding.

0.1.1a 
Fixed problem where all vehicles were tracked at the sides instead of friendly manned vehicles.

0.1a
Initial release.

Disclaimer:


Unless stated otherwise, this item free of charge. If you paid for it, then you got screwed.

As well, all software is provided on an "as is" basis without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

Under no circumstances and under no legal theory, whether in tort, contract, or otherwise, shall I be liable to you or to any other person for any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any character including, without limitation, damages for loss of goodwill, work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or for any and all other damages or losses.

If you do not agree with these terms, then you you are advised to not use this item.
