If you like the new ALTSYMBOL command, might I suggest something nicer than +

I give you:

·

Created by the higher ASCII (ALT + 0183) aka "middle dot"

If you want a bigger one (don't we all), you can use bullet (ALT + 0149)

•

Other options can be found by running "charmap" from your computer's run command.

Which leaves me begging for more...

So how do I execute such a command? Or do I alter some file?
Additional icon options
Three more options were added for mp_dotrange command: ALTICON, ALTCOLOR,
ALTSYMBOL.
ALTICON sets the maximum distance when the icon will be shown. ALTCOLOR sets the color of
the icon. ALTSYMBOL sets the one character symbol which will be shown as icon. These
settings only kick in when old style icons are not shown, i.e. when distance of COLOR, TYPE,
NAME, ID and RANGE are smaller than the distance to the aircraft.
Example:
mp_dotrange FRIENDLY DOT 25.0 COLOR 0.1 RANGE 0.1 TYPE 1.0 ID 0.1 NAME 0.1 ALTICON
2.5 ALTSYMBOL + ALTCOLOR 3
This will display a symbol "+" above the aircraft between 1.0 and 2.5 km in color 3 (green).

edit the Icons file that resides in your pilot's folder under Users.

What is the 'ICONS' file.
I only find two files under 'Users/Uriah/'
They are
QMB.ini
settings.init

OT: This is such a cool hint! Thanks a lot - it will help me much in my RL work!

Maybe this is not known to you yet? Run "snippingtool" from command.

This is so incorrect that I'm wondering if it was meant as a joke.

The icon settings are managed through the 'rcu' file.

Here is one tutorial link at Mission4Today. I've seen others over the years so it should be easy to find one:

http://www.mission4today.com/index.php?name=Knowledge_Base&file=print&kid=76&page=1

Aviar

Not incorrect. It's a new feature of 4.11 that I can see.
If you have specified icon settings in your rcu, they will be updated in the Icons file in your /users/pilot folder.
?

It's there for me, anyways and gets updated each time I issue new icon commands.

Why on Earth would I joke about that?



But you have to send an initial icons command to the console (see my other thread); then this file is updated. Each and every time.

They used to be EXCLUSIVELY handled through RCU. I think they made a change to be easier to manage.

lol ya I've never known Tolwyn to be a jokester

Well, not about this anyways. Here's my RCU:


The @file iconset.txt line simply calls another file. The contents of this file is:




The contents of my (always updated) Icons file in my pilot folder is:



I assume I could remove the @file command from RCU, remove the iconset.txt file completely, and work with just the Icons file in my pilot folder and viola!

This is the only information concerning additional icon options in the official User's Guide for 4.11:

Three more options were added for mp_dotrange command: ALTICON, ALTCOLOR,
ALTSYMBOL.
ALTICON sets the maximum distance when the icon will be shown. ALTCOLOR sets the color of
the icon. ALTSYMBOL sets the one character symbol which will be shown as icon. These
settings only kick in when old style icons are not shown, i.e. when distance of COLOR, TYPE,
NAME, ID and RANGE are smaller than the distance to the aircraft.
Example:
mp_dotrange FRIENDLY DOT 25.0 COLOR 0.1 RANGE 0.1 TYPE 1.0 ID 0.1 NAME 0.1 ALTICON
2.5 ALTSYMBOL + ALTCOLOR 3
This will display a symbol "+" above the aircraft between 1.0 and 2.5 km in color 3 (green).


There is no mention of a new Icons file, where it's located and how to use it. DT really needs to put more effort into including more information into the Guide.

I know how to use the rcu file, but out of curiosity, how does one activate the settings in the Icons file? Or can they be activated from there at all?

**BTW Tolwyn, sorry about the 'joke' remark. Also, in case you are not aware, you don't need seperate FRIENDLY and FOE commands if all of the settings are the same. In other words, your settings....

mp_dotrange FRIENDLY DOT 25.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL · ALTCOLOR 0
mp_dotrange FOE DOT 25.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL · ALTCOLOR 0

...can be shortened to this:

mp_dotrange DOT 25.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL · ALTCOLOR 0


Aviar

I agree that there are likely many undocumented features, just don't shoot the messenger .
I noticed the new file just the other day. My assumption is that it will be invoked if no other icon settings are declared. I'm testing that RIGHT NOW. Will fly a mission and report back.

Ok. I'm back.

Yes, if you have no other icon settings declared, it will simply just USE the settings in your Icons file in your pilot folder.

So, there you have it.

Yea, I just tested it myself. It looks like the new Icons file saves the latest custom icon settings you loaded. It also makes it easier to use than your rcu file. You can just load your icon settings into the Icons file and you're good to go.

I wonder how this works online. If you go on a server with custom icon settings do they get saved also? My guess is they don't but we'll find out.

Aviar

Well, still no luck.

I pulled the game up off line and tried to bring up the chat window. No luck. So, I could not enter any command as posted at Missionfortoday.



I could on line. but then I understand all that dot range stuff is controlled by the server - so I think it is of no use.

That 'icons' file - is the file extension 'ini' or 'txt' or something else?

Just create your custom icon settings as described in the Guide and place them in your Icons file. That's it. When you start an offline mission the settings are loaded automatically. It's actually easier than using the rcu file.

Just use Notepad to open the Icons file.

Aviar

To answer your question, there is no extension.

OK, I made one and the following is its exact contents:

mp_dotrange FRIENDLY DOT 25.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL · ALTCOLOR 0
mp_dotrange FOE DOT 25.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL · ALTCOLOR 0

Your ALTICON setting is greater than your DOT setting. Not sure what will happen. Your DOT will disappear at 25km but your icons are set to display up to 30km. So, you may have an icon with no DOT. That seems a little strange, but maybe that's the way you want it?

Aviar

I just cut and pasted what was in this thread. If presented with better by your opinion I will use that! Please provide!

In the ICONS file I manually made I changed the values to following":

mp_dotrange FRIENDLY DOT 30.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL * ALTCOLOR 0
mp_dotrange FOE DOT 30.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL * ALTCOLOR 0


Notice the number after the word 'DOT'. It is '30'. I guess that means 30 KM out I will see a '.'.
However, I changed just what the 'dot' is. Instead of a dot now I get a '*'. It really stands out. It is in the above code right after the word ALTSYMBOL.

This only seems to work off-line. I think while playing on-line the host server overrides any value you might in your 'icons' file.

I would rather just have a bigger '.' than a '*'. Maybe there is something better that can be done. But it is easy now to find the other planes.

That is not what the 'DOT' setting stands for. What DOT means is the smallest graphic depiction of a plane we can see on our monitor.....basically, a pixel. This is always how Oleg (and the community) described THE PIXEL.

In the early years of IL-2, there were many discussions of just how far away the 'Dot' should appear. Of course, at that time, we couldn't actually do anything about it because the mp_dotrange settings were not available to the community until later on (I can't remember exactly what patch it first appeared).

Anyway, that's the skinny on the DOT setting. ALTICON, ALTSYMBOL and ALTCOLOR are brand new settings included in the 4.11 patch.

Aviar

I am thinking about pixel. On a real monitor the pixels are much smaller than a TV. And if you have either a monitor or TV that is big then the the pixels are bigger. Which makes me think that the smallest representation of a plane in the distance may be larger than a single pixel.

Regardless. It seems that 'DOT 30.0' determines that this representation would show up at 30km. So what makes it go away? I suspect it is the midrange of a plane takes over. There does not seem to be code available to change when that shows up. Am I correct? I changed the 'ALTSYMBOL *' back to 'ALTSYMBOL .' as the '.' shows up very nicely.

I got the bigger dot just by cutting and pasting into the ICONS file from what was posted earlier. That is '•'

Now I might like to have it gray rather than black. What color number would be gray be?

Thanks guys, very useful for us with high res. Out of 8 million pixels it wasn't easy to spot 1 pixel.

Not sure if there is a gray. The only ones I know are:
0 - None
1 - Red
2 - Blue
3 - Green
4 - Gold
5 - Purple
6 - Aqua
7 - Maroon
8 - Navy
9 - Emerald
10 - Olive
11 - Magenta
12 - Teal
13 - Orange
14 - Turquoise
15 - Brown
16 - Salad
17 - White

But black is too much, maybe will try navy.

What the hell is salad color anyway?

Looks like a dark green.

Aviar

I've gone with underscore _ it's not so high above them and star was too easy.

I found a little trick. You can open up MS Word and insert a special character. You will have many to choose from and just insert it into WORD and then copy it from WORD to the ICONS file. All in all I like the period the best. But at the distance I have set sometimes it looks like there is twice as many planes coming.

This is what I have a the moment.

mp_dotrange FRIENDLY DOT 60.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL . ALTCOLOR 10
mp_dotrange FOE DOT 60.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL . ALTCOLOR 10

Cool, did you have to save the file as Unicode to make the word symbols work?
Which format do you save as with notepad?

 just a test

Um, seems more complicated than I thought. · It seems the symbols will not be what you think when you paste them that way into the text.

I think I got what Tolwyn was talking about. If you don't have some character after ALTSYMBOL then the default that will show up will be a '+'. If that is to big and distracting you can put a period after ALTSYMBOL like I have it below. If you don't want any symbol to show up then change the value after ALTICON to be 00.0 as I show on the FOE line.
I found that if after the word DOT I have '60.0' that some kind of spec will show up at about 40 seconds out as I fly my late model Spit toward a late model 109. I like the results.

mp_dotrange FRIENDLY DOT 60.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 30.0 ALTSYMBOL . ALTCOLOR 10
mp_dotrange FOE DOT 60.0 COLOR 1.65 RANGE 0.01 TYPE 1.65 ID 0.01 NAME 0.02 ALTICON 00.0 ALTSYMBOL . ALTCOLOR 10