Hide and reveal markers

[Taylor1984 14]

Hi!

 

I'm making an RTS style mission in which I want a map marker to appear on the position of an enemy unit when any of my units knows about that enemy unit. When my unit is killed or looses track of the enemy unit I want the enemy marker to disappear again.

Blufor is the enemy and I've tried using "east knowsAbout" removing the marker when no friendly Opfor (east) units knowsabout the Bluefor one and vice versa and this works intitially for hiding the marker but once the marker has been revealed it won't disappear again, even though no Opfor units knowsabout the Bluefor unit.  I guess I could use detection triggers somehow but there's gotta be an easier way of doing this? I'm not that good of a scripter actually so help would be much appreciated.

 

Thanks

[Harzach 2517]

Instead of removing the marker, you could just change its alpha.
https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/setMarkerAlpha

[Taylor1984 14]

Thanks, but my problem is really to find a way to have the marker disappear when all friendly units stop knowing about the enemy unit that the marker belongs to.

[HazJ 1289]

You can maybe use speed command?

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/speed

while {true} do
{
	if (speed player > 0) then
	{
		// hide marker using alpha or whatever you need
	} else
	{
		// show marker using alpha or whatever you need
	};
	sleep 1;
};

Not tested, was just done quickly to give you a rough idea. There are other ways of doing this obviously. Another method would be check position and update if moved at all or X distance, etc...

[Harzach 2517]

4 hours ago, Taylor1984 said:

 

Blufor is the enemy and I've tried using "east knowsAbout" removing the marker when no friendly Opfor (east) units knowsabout the Bluefor one and vice versa and this works intitially for hiding the marker but once the marker has been revealed it won't disappear again, even though no Opfor units knowsabout the Bluefor unit.

 

Let's start with sharing how you are accomplishing this, then move forward from there.

[HazJ 1289]

Ah. I misunderstood I think. Share your code so we can see what you are doing.

[Taylor1984 14]

_group = _this select 0

#loop1

"germg1mark" setmarkerpos (getpos leader _group);"germg1mark" setMarkerDir (getdir leader _group)

? {alive _X} count units _group == 0 : "germg1mark" setMarkerAlpha 0;exit

~0.3

? east knowsAbout leader germg1grp == 0 : "germg1mark" setMarkerAlpha 0;goto "loop1"

"germg1mark" setMarkerAlpha 1

goto "loop1"

I can't use sqf so I use sqs... I'm sorry about that but it shouldn't affect the outcome of the script I guess?
They way the script works now is that it reveals the enemy unit on the map when any of my units discover it.. but it will never get hidden after that, no matter what I do.

[HazJ 1289]

SQS

while {true} do
{
	if (opfor knowsAbout player <= 1) then // Return Value: Number in the range of 0 - 4, where 4 is max knowledge
	{
		// hide marker using alpha or whatever you need
	} else
	{
		// show marker using alpha or whatever you need
	};
	sleep 1;
};

Not sure how fast enemy forget about targets, or at what distance. Charges alert enemy anywhere on the map, unless this was fixed. You could use the following to manually forget though when X distance but not really a great solution for long-range snipers over viewing:

https://community.bistudio.com/wiki/forgetTarget

[mrcurry 496]

It takes quite some time for knowsAbout values to decay. 3-4 min of no contact if I remember correctly. With your current setup the marker tracks the enemy's position even though you have lost sight cause knowsAbout stays >0 during this extended time. 

A better approach would be to use targetKnowledge and check for last seen. 

[pierremgi 4850]

knowsAbout is simpler and you can directly set the markerAlpha on it. But that takes a looong time to decrease this value :

0 = [] spawn {

  While {true} do {

     "germg1mark" setMarkerAlpha (WEST knowsAbout player)/4;

     sleep 2;
  };

};

[Taylor1984 14]

Thanks

Knowsabout doens't seem like the ideal choice then. I'll give targetKnowledge a try and let you know if it works for me.

 

Cheers

[Von Quest 1163]

Isn't there a Game Option already built into the game?

I believe you can turn it on/off in the difficulty settings.

[Taylor1984 14]

Maybe, but I wanna use arrows because I think they look nice and I can see which way the unit is facing. I'm recreating Close Combat 3 in Arma.

[pierremgi 4850]

1 hour ago, Taylor1984 said:

Maybe, but I wanna use arrows because I think they look nice and I can see which way the unit is facing. I'm recreating Close Combat 3 in Arma.

So, if I'm right, it's more a question of Line Of Sight (LOS) instead of targeting knowledge. Use checkVisibility

[mrcurry 496]

1 hour ago, pierremgi said:

So, if I'm right, it's more a question of Line Of Sight (LOS) instead of targeting knowledge. Use checkVisibility

Would deffo give you more control and perf impact is pretty low nowadays.