Tactical Ping

[Wombat]

Firstly, the latest TvT night was really fun and we had good numbers for most of it, well done. We even played a new fun paintball-esque mission when we were down to below 20 players at around 11pm.

Now down to the subject of the thread. There were times during the TvT night where I was reminded why I dislike the relatively new "tactical ping" available for server#1. I know we've somewhat discussed it before, I think it was brought up in the community meeting, but I would like to open discussion on it again. I will start with breaking it down into how I view it with pros and cons.

Pros:
It somewhat simulates the real-life ability to point to a position/target.

• This is similar to ACE3's point feature though the way it is implemented in ACE3 is far superior.

Cons:
It is too accurate.

• Whereas ACE3's version gives you a relatively large circle as a marker, tactical ping gives you an accurate point marker on the terrain or object. In real-life, seeing your friend point to something in the distance, even if he is right next to you, is not exactly an accurate science.

It broadcasts the marker to everyone of the same side. This has multiple problems.

• Firstly, there is the issue of spam. It can be annoying and hurts immersion.

• Secondly, it oversimplifies the reliance of good inter-squad communication to communicate the location of threats and positions of importance. It is much more interesting gameplay-wise for squads to strife to effectively communicate what they see rather than simply tap a button.

• Thirdly, unlike ACE3's implementation where you have to be within 10m of a person who is doing the pointing to be able to see the marker, with tactical ping you could be on the other side of the island, be in a completely different squad, and yet still be able to see the marker.

Those are my views on it and it is the reason why I wish that tactical ping was removed from server#1. Please share your thoughts.

EDIT: Please read Dmitry's post at the bottom of the page.

[SuvS]

Agreed, if we are going for a milsim, it should be turned off. With it, FMT-2 is being useless where it teaches you to identify and give directions to the sighed enemy.

[Beyond your Ken]

Wombat I think you are wrong with it broadcasting it to everyone as the con. I think that is more a player issue, as I believe everyone is doing it on side channel rather then group or direct channel. But I have to say the sound Is pretty annoying.

[Wombat]

Wombat I think you are wrong with it broadcasting it to everyone as the con. I think that is more a player issue, as I believe everyone is doing it on side channel rather then group or direct channel. But I have to say the sound Is pretty annoying.

If what you are saying is true then I didn't know that. It would be so much better if it were limited to direct channel only but I don't think we have the ability to limit it in that way other than making it a soft rule which would be difficult to communicate and enforce.

[Spud]

it is pretty op even tho i dont know how to use it

[Wombat]

it is pretty op even tho i dont know how to use it

It's a bit of a blessing that tactical ping isn't bound to a key by default otherwise I imagined it would be spammed and abused far more regularly than it is even now. Still, it's only a matter of time before more players gradually discover how to bind it.

[Eagle-Eye]

I would vote for removing it.

The sound is annoying, and pretty much every time I’ve seen it used so far, it wasn’t relevant for me or my squad. The odd times where it has been important to us, we still needed to talk people onto the marker (and if they missed it, create a new one), so you might just as well give the talk-on on the actual thing you want to point out.

[Bryan]

Agreed, it is op and kind of silly

[Folau]

I refuse to use it even when asked. As far as I am concerned being able to describe terrain and threats is a skill that is completely negated by this. It’s too accurate on position, too quick to use, and the sound is irritating.

I voted against it before and I always will do in its current form.

[Wombat]

I've added a poll to this thread.

[Terox]

This was put to a vote on the last community meeting, the vote majority was to keep it, although i also agree, its a bit gamey and does undermine the teachings of the FMT sessions, so maybe it should be revisited

[Dmitry Yuri]

We could potentially make a mod that adds our own zeus 'tactical ping' that more closely resembles the ace pointing system. Depending on what kind of features we want it could probably be made a server only mod so the clients are not required to have any mods installed. Although use of the CBA key handling functions would make it a lot cleaner IMO.

[Wombat]

We could potentially make a mod that adds our own zeus 'tactical ping' that more closely resembles the ace pointing system. Depending on what kind of features we want it could probably be made a server only mod so the clients are not required to have any mods installed. Although use of the CBA key handling functions would make it a lot cleaner IMO.

That would be brilliant if possible. For me, it would have to be limited in accuracy and proximity similar to the ACE3 solution. I have no idea how difficult it would be to develop though or if there are technical limitations preventing this.

[Beyond your Ken]

I like tactical ping because you can point into the direction rather slowly trying to describe someone on to the target. I do find it to accurate, making it gamey. My real gripe against keeping it is the sound and the people that use it on side channel(the sound is giving me a headache).

If we try to have it modded we need remove the sound more then proximity.

[Dmitry Yuri]

For me, it would have to be limited in accuracy and proximity similar to the ACE3 solution. I have no idea how difficult it would be to develop though or if there are technical limitations preventing this.

I've just had a poke about in the ACE Pointing addon and there is nothing in there that really requires their mod to work. The only thing I would not be able to bring across is their custom image for the 3d marker. But any vanilla map marker can be substituted for that.

I have taken some of the ace code and rewritten some of it myself to get this 'proof of concept' in vanilla arma. It uses the same basic conditions that ace pointing has, any player that is not in a vehicle (excluding statics) that is within 4m of the pointing player will see this 3d marker. If you are not the pointing player then you have some randomisation added to the marker draw location.

As for technical limitations the only thing that I need to investigate some more is the key handling. CBA allows you to define a default key that can call a function. And the player has the ability to change that key in the controls menu under configure addons. Without CBA it becomes slightly more convoluted to give the user the ability to change the key (mainly because of key modifiers like ctrl, shift and alt).

I may end up doing something like, if you have CBA loaded then it uses that for key handling. If not then you have to use the default key that I tell you to use. But I may be able to figure out what key the client uses for the tactical ping and use that.

// Edit: If anyone is unaware, CBA is an addon we have in ZClient that contains lots of useful functions. If we wanted this to be a feature for all players who join the #1 server even if they don't have ZClient loaded, then this script cannot require CBA.