British Armed Forces: Bowman Radio System - an ACRE plugin

[tupolov 520]

NEW BETA v0.3 RELEASED 30/1/2013!

BETA v0.1 RELEASED 1/1/2013

Album

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This simple add-on provides the British Army Bowman Radio System for use with British Armed Forces units and vehicles. Using the ACRE system, API and code base this addon can be dropped into any mod folder deemed appropriate. Fully compatible with ACRE of course! ACRE is required.

GENERAL FEATURES

* Three Man Pack ACRE Radios (and new models!) and three Portable ACRE Radios all with fully functioning GUI

UK/PRC-343 Personal Role Radio (v1.4)

UK/PRC-CLR 2W Commanders Lightweight Radio (Harris 7800S-TR)

UK/PRC-354 5W VHF portable radio

UK/PRC-325 15W HF man pack radio (Harris 5800H-MP - similar to PRC117f)

UK/PRC-355 5W man pack radio

UK/PRC-356 16W man pack radio

* One Airborne ACRE Radio

UK/ARC-341 10W VHF airborne radio for air-ground communication (40W amplification)

* BAF, UKF and VCB Vehicles now contain rack mounts and already included radios!

UK/VRC-357 (UK/PRC-355/356 Vehicle Mounts)

UK/VRC-358 (UK/PRC-356 Vehicle Rack (20W))

UK/VRC-359 (UK/PRC-356 Vehicle Rack (50W))

RT/1744 (UK/ARC-341 Airborne Radio (40W) in the Merlin/Chinook/Wildcat /Harrier)

* Dynamic lighting effects on dialog including

Dialog is darker when experiencing low light levels

Dialog includes NVG effect to maintain immersion

Back-lit LED display to enable in low-light environments

* Fully functioning Bowman GUI

Select from 10 preset channels

Select 10 different ComSec keys to secure comms

Select power range

View GPS information

View Time information

Adjustable volume

Turn radio on or off

Rebro functionality for 355/6 when used with Land Rover / Jackal etc

Easter Eggs!

* Increased/realistic pack capacities/weights for man pack radios

CHANGE LOG

v0.3

* NEW! PRC355/6 and PRC325 Manpack Radio Models by Da12thMonkey added

* NEW! Rebro functionality - setup two PRC355/6 radios with a vehicle to create a rebro station (Check Documentation)

* NEW! All Manpack models now compatible with ACE Ruck System - can drop and take manpacks and use them as rucks. (Remove acre_c_bowman_ace.pbo if not using ACE)

* FIXED! PRC355/6, PRC354, PRC325, ARC341 all now share common frequencies (Check Documentation)

KNOWN ISSUES

* UI is only working correctly with 16:9 aspect ratio, 16:10 is slightly off, 4:3 and 5:4 suffer from vertical offset - working on fixing this

* Dynamic lighting isn't always quite correct level of lighting

CREDITS

All CREDIT to Nou, Jaynus and the rest of the ACRE team for an awesome mod. The code is covered by the IDI/ACRE copyright and EULA.

Da12thMonkey at RKSL for the Manpack Radio models!

Thanks to Red, Friznit, Gunny, OREX and VCB for testing/technical advice

REQUIREMENTS

* CBA - Community Base Addons (not included)

. http://dev-heaven.net/wiki/cca

* JayArmA2Lib (Included with ACRE)

. http://dev-heaven.net/projects/jayarma2lib/wiki

* ACRE v1.4

. http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?133891

* NOTE this does NOT replace or affect any current ACRE radios

INSTALLATION

* Unzip folder into your root Arma 2 folder

* Files are installed into @Bowman folder

* TUP.bikey provided for MP server play

Documentation

* Can be found here

BETA FEEDBACK

* Please post any issues to this thread.

* You should note that the radios often require line of sight so please don't post if you are having radio transmission/reception issues etc. Check the documentation for expected ranges (and note these are maximums in best possible conditions with the highest power settings, correct frequencies and line of sight)

DOWNLOAD

* You can download Bowman Radio System v0.3 Beta here

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Edited January 30, 2013 by Tupolov
New Beta released!

[friznit2 350]

Congrats on the release Tup. This is a great addition to the UK Forces equipment and long needed!

[highhead 20]

Nice one, Tup!

Congrats on the release!

[singleton 22]

Very nice! Congrats on release Tup

[sickboy 13]

Congrats on release.

Added to the SIX Updater Network:

http://play.withsix.com/mods/406-bowman

[pero2589 1]

Well done! Definetly worth a try!

[noubernou 77]

Congrats guys! :)

[ravendk 25]

Very nice release, Good work! :)

[domokun 515]

Top quality mate.

[Heaney 11]

Amazing! Will be using this immediately. :)

Btw, you say "realistic pack capacities/weights for man pack radios", but what about the UK/PRC-354 (an item, not man pack). It shows up as 1kg, while in reality it's about 2.5 kg with all equipment attached. Small detail but important.

Also, will you add a mission variable to turn the icon in the top left off? I appreciate the work, but that's a bit annoying.

Thanks again for the great mod!

Edited January 2, 2013 by Heaney

[tupolov 520]

I got 1kg from the manufacturer, assuming its more with additional batteries? Can increase that. (http://www.exelisinc.com/solutions/Centaur-Light-Weight-VHF-Portable-Radio/Pages/default.aspx)

Icon top left, no plans to turn that off.

Thanks for the feedback!

Tup

Edited January 2, 2013 by Tupolov

[Whiskey Tango 10]

nice one Tupolov. They are sexeh!

[toadball 35]

Very nice release, especially well done with the comsec settings and the new interfaces.

Do you plan to get the radios to the point they are fully program-able?

10 nets is rather limited when you get to company sized missions with indirect fires and CAS nets. It also generates issues when you get retrans involved where specifying frequency becomes necessary.

[tupolov 520]

Very nice release, especially well done with the comsec settings and the new interfaces.

Do you plan to get the radios to the point they are fully program-able?

10 nets is rather limited when you get to company sized missions with indirect fires and CAS nets. It also generates issues when you get retrans involved where specifying frequency becomes necessary.

No real plans to provide programmable functionality. The range of frequencies should suffice, include ComSec and you should be fine.

The 325 is programmable and could be used for Fires or section/plt/coy Comms. How many frequencies do you need? The 325 has 100 channels.

My thoughts are:

Inf Section uses UK PRC343 with up to 16 channels available 2.4ghz range (I could implement ComSec here to help)

Section > Platoon uses the 354/355/356 with 10 channels available 30-87mhz

Platoon > Fires/hq uses the 325 with 100 channels available 2-60mhz

Using this mix should be suffice for company level comms.

As an example

Section 1 - 343 channel 1

Section 2 - 343 channel 2

Section 3 - 343 channel 3

Manoeuvre support - 343 channel 4

Mortar/spt - 343 channel 5

Platoon HQ - 343 channel 6

Coy HQ - 343 channel 7

Fires sections - 343 channels 8-10 (assuming some distance from sections)

Other - 343 channels 11-16

Platoon Cmd net - 354/355/356 - channel 3

Mech/motor inf sections - 354/355/356 - channel 7

CAS flights - 341 - channel 10

Sections to CAS - 354/355/356 - channel 10

Sections to fires - 354/355/356 - channel 5

Plt/coy hq to fires - 325 - channel 5

Plt to coy hq - 325 channel 4

Etc etc

You could even use the UK CLR for plt net or mech inf channels

You can also use ComSec to increase the number of frequencies used as a work-around

My first priority is to fix the UI offset issues at aspect ratios other than 16:9.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Tupolov

[Guest]

Release frontpaged on the Armaholic homepage.

British Armed Forces: Bowman Radio System - an ACRE plugin beta 0.1



A.C.R.E - Advanced Combat Radio Environment

Community Base addons

[tupolov 520]

Awesome. Thank you!

[raptor 6 actual 13]

Great job Tup, I'm an American and I'm still trying these things out. Keep up the great work!!

[brightness 12]

Thanks a lot mate, we at UKSF appreciated this release!

[jsmuk 13]

No real plans to provide programmable functionality. The range of frequencies should suffice, include ComSec and you should be fine.

...

You can also use ComSec to increase the number of frequencies used as a work-around

Does this mean the ComSec dial actually does something? I assumed it was just a nice well made interface that looked the part, haven't actually had the chance to test yet.

So how does it work? Does it just change frequency?

[Heaney 11]

Icon top left, no plans to turn that off.

Hmm. How about having it on the radios themselves, such as many addons put their icon on a weapon or a vehicle?

I wouldn't mind the icon on the radio, it's just floating at the top left is very distracting and immersion-breaking.

For example on the 325, replace the Union Flag with the top left icon maybe?

[tupolov 520]

ComSec - read the documentation on how to use, two people (or more) must be using the same encryption key. It works by changing frequencies as ComSec isn't part of ACRE today.

[thechaos 1]

Hey! Thanks for the great work - it's awesome!

I have I little suggestion here.

Is it possible in the future - to make various versions of backpacks for radios? Now, for example, I can't use BAF radios with Cold War Rearmed 2 BAF & SAS Units, because it's not looks in their style :(

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Is it possible in the future - to make various versions of backpacks for radios? Now, for example, I can't use BAF radios with Cold War Rearmed 2 BAF & SAS Units, because it's not looks in their style :(

I'm making a new radio pack model for Tup (based on the Karrimor TECMAC 50 in MTP camo), which should be in future versions of this addon. It's in a fairly advanced state already, but progress is currently hampered by my workload.

Might post a pic at some point.

That said, the whole Bowman system isn't really appropriate for CWR anyway because it's much more modern than the 1985 scenario. Clansman was the comms system used back then.

Edited January 12, 2013 by da12thMonkey

[thechaos 1]

I'm making a new radio pack model for Tup (based on the Karrimor TECMAC 50 in MTP camo), which should be in future versions of this addon. It's in a fairly advanced state already, but progress is currently hampered by my workload.

Might post a pic at some point.

That said, the whole Bowman system isn't really appropriate for CWR anyway because it's much more modern than the 1985 scenario. Clansman was the comms system used back then.

Oh, it's good. It will be great to see some WiP pictures.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Oh, it's good. It will be great to see some WiP pictures.

I've sent Tup a copy of the models to put them in the mod when he returns, but here are a couple of pics in the meantime:

<-click fo hi-res

Ingame1

Ingame2

The antenna's stored as collapsed and folded so that it doesn't become as intrusive in first person view as the full-length one is when lying prone. There's also a model with the antenna on the other side of the pack to differentiate this HF set from the two VHF radio manpacks.