Best practice to display messages during missions?

[Smoerble 11]

Hello everyone,

i would like to hear, how you guys give messages during a mission to players:

radio messages (which means a lto of work for all the audio files) or hints or any other method? Especially when completing or changing missions while it's running?

Thanks

Smo

[IT07 10]

Best would be to use hint or hintSilent and then put some coloured and sized text in there to make it more fancy and more appealing to the eye.

Some people would totally not see the hints if left on default styling and text sizes.

[Smoerble 11]

Ok, thanks.

Woudl you recommend to make the hint disappearing after [x] seconds or shall users hide it with a key?

[dreadedentity 278]

hintSilent is by far the best way to display messages to players. I've noticed the sound generated with hint actually makes quite a difference in performance if you put it in a loop. Players may miss a dialog in heavy combat though, or even see it but not process it until the battle is over (but they forgot what it said). Though, they can press 'H' in-game (default key) to show the last hint again.

You might be interested in hintC. Please don't use hintC during combat though, because I'm pretty sure the game keeps going, while your players are frozen.

[rakowozz 14]

In my opinion, one of the classier means is BIS_fnc_advHint. It's definitely worth reading and implementing: https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Arma_3_Advanced_Hints_%28Field_Manual%29

Of course it depends on what you're exhibiting.

[iceman77 19]

Totally depends on what you're doing. That said, keep in mind that only one hint can be displayed at a time for the user. Hints get "overwritten" by one another. If you've a message that has the possibility of being displayed at any given time, and if it's important, don't use a hint as there's the possibility of the message being prematurely overwritten. For debugging, it's a no brainer to use global or side chat rather than hints.

I use hints sparingly at any rate. My2C

[killzone_kid 1333]

With ctrlCreate you can make your own "hints" on the fly

[Smoerble 11]

Thanks for your input. But I was thinking more about a situation like this:

let's say, players have a task and complete it successfully. Then they get the message on top of the screen, that the task is completed and they can continue with the next task.

but let's say, i want to give them additional info during a mission or information that is important for their next task.

i know, that I can do this in the briefing (diary), but my question is, how you guys do this in your missions or what is the best practize to give advanced info to players?

[-lordsoth- 15]

use the "hint" command in On Activation field of your completed task - this text will show up in the middle of the screen for players to see. You should be able to change font and colour as mentioned in a previous post. So if you set up your tasks properly to complete then you can have the on activation hint pop up.

[jshock 513]

How you guys do this in your missions or what is the best practize to give advanced info to players?

I personally came from a couple of realism units and got used to writing 1000+ word briefings, that covered most of what was needed for the mission including ROEs, how to handle POWs, etc.

Made my job easier in making the mission because I didn't need a tasking system or hints all the time, but it just took a while to make the briefing itself.

But that's a lot of work (I know), but that's what I do for advanced information.

[cuel 25]

Thanks for your input. But I was thinking more about a situation like this:

let's say, players have a task and complete it successfully. Then they get the message on top of the screen, that the task is completed and they can continue with the next task.

but let's say, i want to give them additional info during a mission or information that is important for their next task.

i know, that I can do this in the briefing (diary), but my question is, how you guys do this in your missions or what is the best practize to give advanced info to players?

I have two sound files with random gibberish that sounds like a radio transmission.

Before the actual info there will be a sideChat message from HQ/some guy saying "message in ten", and one of the sound files previously mentioned will be played on all SQLs (by default, can enter custom guys as well). After that, the actual message is sent, pretty short with some description and the other sound played. It's also given a number and added to the briefing

[Smoerble 11]

Sounds pretty clever.

Can you add new sounds without using a mod?

[cuel 25]

Yes, missions can define their own sounds using cfgSounds in the description.ext

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Description.ext#cfgSounds