Map Markers Scipted vs. Addon

[Knight Trane]

Hey Guys,

Quick question.  Is it possible to add new map markers with just scripting?  I'd like to use some real military map markers, but I don't want to use addons.  Frankly the stock BIS markers look childish.  Any thoughts?  

[Mandoble]

I think you will need to use external addons if you want to use extra marker types.

[Spooner]

Yep. You can't add new markers or even new colours for them (you can only use red/green/blue/black/white/yellow by default), without an addon. The only conceivable alternative to this is to draw your own markers using just the square markers as lines (look at SPON Map, where I draw circles, squares and curves just using the square marker shape). I would advise you to just choose a decent addon marker set though...or live with the BIS ones, because drawing markers for yourself is never going to be easy or look very good.

[Knight Trane]

Yeah,
I thought so.  I titled it specifically for noobs.   Easy to search.  Thanks.  I think MAP Misc. has decent markers.

[Worldeater]

I wonder if it could be done using dialogs... ?

Has anyone tried yet?

[Ext3rmin4tor]

No, but I don't get why you wanto t write a long and boring script when you can just put a small addon toghether your mission when you release it, few markers would be jus few KBs

[Spooner]

Yes, it is possible to overlay markers on the map using dialogs (I do this, and I suspect BIS does it too, when you are placing an icon on the map, but haven't committed it). However, you can't alter the BIS map dialog without using an addon, so the dialog-markers would just be on your own map controls. More importantly, you'd have to track all the zooming and map scrolling to ensure your marker was in the correct place...

[Knight Trane]

Is it possible to limit the Markers that players can use in game?

[Spooner]

Not as far as I am aware. Do you mean to stop them using markers that other people don't have, which causes errors (Just play on a decent server that only allows set addons and this won't be a problem) or only letting a subset of the available markers be used by the players? Pretty certain that you couldn't limit what was available to players, except by removing the markers entirely from the addons, which would prevent them being available in the editor either.

Personally, I find that players only ever use a couple of markers for everything anyway, rather than scrolling through the list for the ones they should use, especially when they have a lot of markers available. Different matter with SPON Map though ;P

[Knight Trane]

Does Spon Map work with the ACE mod?  Do I need Spon Core even though Spon Core is in ACE?

But I was also wondering, if I can't get rid of the Markers I don't want, could I at least put them in the order I want?  I like others only need a few, but I want to use the ones that are in the middle of the list.  Is it possible to reorganize the list? 

[Spooner]

You don't need SPON Core twice. You can happily use SPON Map with the ACE mod and it will use the Core it finds there. You'd need to ensure that the Map addon was loaded after ACE though, or it will complain that Core can't be found.

You could reorganise the list, I think, by creating a replacement addon that redefined all the markers. However, if you reorganise the list, you won't be able to access the ones that are easiest to access now ;P Certainly, if you are playing ACE, you can't avoid having a ridiculous number of markers, making the standard selection method quite unwieldy.