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skruis

Athena - An ARMA 2nd Screen Application

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What kind of extra info?

As far as units go: Ok, I get it. I wanted to get a little more detailed with units in the future ... like, basing their 2/3 letter description (AR,AAR,M, etc.) on what weapon they're carrying...that kind of stuff. So, the units were gonna get some 'love' but I'll have to figure out an interface for it.

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Skruis, I'm picking this up again today... how it's changed since we last fiddled with it. :0

Question.. the mod itself, should/can that be run on a remote server and if so, can the desktop app get its data from that?

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Tank, its all local now. The win8 app has essentially died but will be reborn w win10. There have been a a lot of improvements to the app including ink supprt, multiink, et,.

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What kind of extra info?

As far as units go: Ok, I get it. I wanted to get a little more detailed with units in the future ... like, basing their 2/3 letter description (AR,AAR,M, etc.) on what weapon they're carrying...that kind of stuff. So, the units were gonna get some 'love' but I'll have to figure out an interface for it.

The Marker text would say "Enemy Infantry" or "EI" as short hand. Additional info include be possible weapons, number of enemy, uniforms, etc

For things like resupply drops, the "Drop" can be marked and additional information would be what ammo, equipment and weapons might be available

Plenty of other applications I'm sure I'll never come up with ;) haha

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Am I to assume that you (skruis) will have to whitelist your extension with BattlEye according to the guidelines found at http://dev.arma3.com/post/sitrep-00109 in the Logistics section?

Since Arma 2: Operation Arrowhead it is possible to expand the game's functionality via custom DLL extensions. These offer powerful features to the creative mod(e) out there, but can also open the game to attack. The enhanced BattlEye protection in 1.46 will require extensions to be white-listed, or their access to the game's processes will be blocked. In order to get your extension white-listed, please contact BattlEye support via its web form or support[at]battleye.com. Be sure to include the file name, a description and possibly a download link. You may also contact Online Services Consultant David Foltýn via his Twitter or the forums to speed things along. We are discussing ways of dealing with fast-moving extension development within communities, as well as a more robust extension framework generally.

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Blunts: Most likely. I contacted BE support like they suggested and the feedback I got was that I should try it in the RC, see if it's blocked and then let them know. I guess all 'blocks' are logged so it's easy for them to look it up and identify the reason and/or whitelist. The response was fairly quick but I wasn't able to test it because I had an event I had to prep for. I plan to test it in the RC early next week. Now, what concerns me is how they're 'discussing' ways to deal with fast-moving extension development. I would say Athena qualifies so I'm a little concerned about what that means as far as my release frequency.

Sarge: I'll add it to the list but I wouldn't expect it anytime soon. The fixed icon sizes (adjusting the icon sizes as you zoom) and marker support are the priority for the next release.

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Skruis, 2 questions..

I can't get ink to work. I've followed the instructions and the map panning stops, but mouse strokes don't draw.

What fps can I expect on the map monitor? I'm currently getting less than 1 frame per 10 seconds.

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Tank, I haven't had anyone report that behavior before. If you run the app in offline mode, does the ink work then?

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@Tank

When you click the I on the left does the context menu come up? Should see options for Mode, Color, Thickness and a check box for Highlight?

As far as frames, if you go to file, settings you can enter in the frame count. Default is 5

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That frame count is actually how many frames get skipped in recording sessions. So lets say you play for an hour and the frame count is set to 5, you'll save every 5th frame. The only reason, that i can think of, for the slowness is heavy cpu usage or a really slow hard drive. Athena updates more slowly on heavy ai missions but Ive run 100+ AI and still had it update a frame at max 3 seconds. Tank, what mission are u playing?

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Yes, the ink menu comes up but after that, I can't draw with the mouse.

I've set frames to 1, but actual observed map update rate is still way less than that.

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Tank, there's something else going on. What missions are you running? What if you go into the editor, place down a single unit and start it?

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It's my domi edit. I'll try an editor version.

---------- Post added at 21:32 ---------- Previous post was at 21:06 ----------

It certainly does update much better in an editor preview. My client is a 4790k @ 4.7 with a Samsung SSD and a GTX 770, so I don't think I'm short of power. That said, the mission is very tough on clients, I rarely get above 30 FPS. I'll quit and rejoin the mission see if its any bottom.

About ink... you have to click the stop button at the bottom before you can ink? Cos that's how its working for me now.

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Tank, no, that shouldnt be the case. Fire up the editor and launch that session. Click start in athena and then click the i button of the left. You should be able to ink straight away.

---------- Post added at 02:34 ---------- Previous post was at 02:28 ----------

I had wondered about large heavily scripted missions like domination. I would simply say that Athena shouldnt be used for something like that. Markers everywhere...literally. I could probably filter out empty markers...u cant see them on the map so theres really no reason to collect them and a mission like domination probably has a ron of empty markers. Is that mission available for download somewhere?

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Yeah, I'm beginning to think that the issues I'm seeing are related to the client performance on this mission. I noticed unusual fps drops while running athena.

If you filter servers for redux, you should see my two servers, one of which is public. You can get the pbo from that if you want to ruin your pc ������

You're right, there's a LOT of hidden markers in Domi. There's quite a few NOT hidden lol. Perhaps it's time for a cull. :)

Edited by Tankbuster

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Yea, there's a lot working against huge missions like that in Athena currently. 1. I'm collecting data I don't need because sometime in the never coming future "I might want to do something with that data" but I probably won't. 2. Athena, as a programming time saver for myself, is re-drawing those markers every frame. I'm revamping the entire marker system to make it easier for me to maintain and also to accommodate getting markers created in Athena into ARMA. Part of that revamp will probably improve the overall performance of heavily 'marked' missions.

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Well, so much for testing in the 1.46 RC, 1.46 proper is out now and Athena is ... blocked. I sent an e-mail to them asking for it to be whitelisted. I'll follow up when I hear back from them.

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Hm, yeah, just noticed. Hope for a quick and positive response.

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No word yet but in other news, I have the fixed icon sizes working when zooming out. The icons will 'grow' as you zoom in past Zoom Factor 1 but as you zoom out (Zoom Factor < 1), the icons remain a fixed size. So it should be easier for the pilots.

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any chance for this to find it on github anytime soon so that it can be ported over to android for example?

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X39: No, sorry.

*sight* so i have to develop my very own application for it ...

ok

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You would probably have to anyways. The windows app is built entirely in vb.net and the presentation layer is in WPF. The only thing you could really borrow would be the logic and I'm not going to assume that mine is any better than yours :-) Then there's the data delivery method. I'm outputting a JSON file from the @athena mod. I doubt Android apps will natively (non hacky) support SMB access to a file share for ongoing file read/writes and not just simple file transfers. I haven't looked into it but I have doubts so that'll mean figuring out another way to deliver the data which will require a middle tier component, probably some sort of stateless web service that will deliver the data. So, as of now, Windows is the easiest option.

*EDIT* I had said that maybe I'll support an Android app if it's easy. After thinking about that, I'm pulling that possibility. This an app that would be used by a small percentage of a small user base: spending numerous hours supporting Android isn't worth the time. There are alternatives and those are for someone to connect a 2nd monitor (every video card supports this), pull out an old laptop, get a Windows tablet (HP Stream 7" is $80 new) or buy a used Win10 compatible phone.

Edited by skruis

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I saw an update for ARMA3 today (~16MB). I am now able to run Athena. I'm not sure if BIS scaled back on the BattleEye whitelisting a bit or if Athena was actually whitelisted. I haven't heard back from them so I can't confirm which is the case but either way, it's currently working.

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