What the mod does
ATG Displays puts a live map on a device a player carries, rather than on the paper map alone. Two devices ship with it: a handheld tablet and a folding unit worn on the chest. Either can be thrown up full screen under a cursor when a glance is not enough, and only one of them is up at a time.
What the devices show is a set of displays, each on its own tab. The mod ships one, the map. Other mods add their own by registering a tab, so a device carried on a server running ATG Signals also shows its Signals display, with nothing to configure on this side.
The mod declares no dependencies. Loaded with ATG Core it gains two rows on the settings menu and takes its log level from Core; without it, everything below still works, and a setting reachable only from that menu stays at its default.
The Military Issue Tablet
A ruggedised handheld, carried in the gadget slot. Raise it and the map is read off its own screen, with everything around the character still visible.
It takes quick slot 0 as it is picked up, pushing off whatever was there. A tablet is useless until it is held, so it claims the one slot the base game keeps for a tool.
While it is raised, three spots on the model offer actions: turn to the next display, turn to the previous display, and open full screen. The two that turn the display are only offered when there is another display to turn to.
It can be raised in a vehicle, from the driver’s seat or a passenger’s.
The ATAK
A folding map terminal worn against the chest. It never leaves the character’s hands free because it never enters them: it stays where it is mounted and folds open there.
| Key | What it does |
|---|---|
Tap , | Fold the device open, or fold it shut |
Hold , | Show what it is showing full screen |
Both are under ATG in the game’s controls settings and can be rebound there.
The same key leaves the full-screen view. Hold it again to go back to the device’s own screen with the device still open; tap it to fold the device shut, which takes the view down with it. With any other menu open — the tablet’s full-screen view included — the key does nothing, because it belongs to the ATAK rather than to whatever is on screen.
It weighs 0.4 kg and takes up little room in a pack.
Folding it open brings the screen live; folding it shut takes the screen down. Everybody nearby sees the lid move, on every machine, so a squad can see who has their device open. The screen itself is drawn only for the wearer.
It works in a vehicle, from any seat.
The mod ships the device and not the carrier. Which chest slot it clips to is declared by whatever mod supplies the carrier, since this mod cannot know what vests a server runs. ATG Faction PMC ships a variant that clips to RHS chest velcro, and a faction mod of your own can do the same with a prefab that inherits the device and names the slot.
The full-screen view
Either device’s displays, filling the screen under a cursor. This is where the map is read properly: pan it, zoom it, and move between displays with the tab bar across the top of the view or the game’s own menu tab keys. Close it the way any menu closes.
The device’s own screen goes dark while the view is up and comes back when it closes.
The zoom a player chose is carried between the device and the view, so moving from one to the other does not snap the map back.
Each device remembers the tab it was last left on, and its full-screen view shares that memory. Reading the Signals tab on the ATAK and then opening it full screen keeps the Signals tab; raising the tablet afterwards brings up whatever the tablet was last showing, not what the ATAK was.
One device at a time
A player carrying both devices has only one of them up. Raising the tablet folds the ATAK shut, and everybody nearby sees the lid close; folding the ATAK open puts the tablet away.
There is one map in a world and only one surface can draw it, so two devices open at once would leave one of them frozen on the last frame it drew. Putting the other away is what keeps the one in front of the player live.
Tabs other mods contribute
A device’s screen carries tabs, and a mod loaded after this one can add its own. Three exist where the mods that supply them are loaded:
- Signals — the voice coverage and data band picture, from ATG Signals.
- Objectives — the live objectives the holder is entitled to, alongside the objective markers drawn on the same screen, from ATG Scenario. Both are governed by what the holder is carrying rather than by this mod; Objectives is where that is set.
- Messages — contacts and the conversation with whichever one is picked, from ATG Signals. Offered on the ATAK alone.
A tab can be offered on some devices and not others. A contributing mod names which surfaces it wants, so the two devices this mod ships are not obliged to carry the same set: the ATAK is treated as a phone and the tablet as a screen. A tab that names no surface in particular appears on both.
A tab can tell which device it is drawn on, and the full-screen view answers as the device it was opened from. That is what lets a contributing mod keep a setting per device rather than one for both — the alert controls in ATG Signals work that way.
A tab appears only where the mod contributing it compiled first. Load order decides it and the failure is silent, so check the log line each mod writes at world start if a tab is missing.
Screen brightness
A device’s screen is drawn at one of four settings, chosen by the player:
| Setting | What the screen does |
|---|---|
| Day | Full brightness |
| Night | Dimmed for the dark |
| NVG | Dimmed far enough to be read through night vision |
| Auto | NVG while the player’s night vision is switched on, Night after sunset, Day otherwise |
Auto is the default. It recognises the night vision goggles from RHS and from WCS; night vision from any other mod is not seen, and Auto treats the player as not wearing any.
Dimming what is drawn dims the screen’s glow with it. It applies to the devices’ own screens only — the full-screen view is read off the monitor, not off a device, and is never dimmed. One setting covers both devices.
The control is in the top corner of every display, as an icon showing the setting chosen — Auto shows as Auto, not as whatever it has settled on. On a device’s own screen it is only a reading; in the full-screen view, clicking it steps to the next setting, round from Auto back to Day. A tab that is worked with a pad — Messages and Objectives — includes it in its left and right stepping.
With ATG Core loaded the same setting is also a row on the ATG tab of the game’s settings menu, under Displays: Device screen brightness. Without Core the corner control is the only way to change it. Either way it is kept with the player’s own game settings, and a server owner has no setting for it.
Drawing the map on a screen or in a panel
Drawing a live map onto a device’s screen costs the machine that draws it. A player who would rather not pay for it can have the device present its displays in a panel on screen instead, which shows the same thing without rendering a second surface.
With ATG Core loaded, this is a row on the ATG tab of the game’s settings menu, under Displays: Draw the map on device screens, on by default. Without Core there is no tab, and every player gets the screen.
Nothing about this reaches the server. It is a client preference and a server owner has no setting for it.
Logging
This mod carries no settings of its own. How much it writes to the server log is
ATG Core’s m_iLogVerbosity, and without Core it writes at normal.
Warnings and errors are never suppressed at any level.