A very bad learning tool.....

[TheGrunch]

Server admins typically set these settings in the server's server.cmd which is loaded once when the server is started, or using FBDj (which initialises these settings when it connects to the server). These settings are the same for all players on the server.

Offline, you can create a file which Il-2 will load periodically to refresh these settings (offline they are reset when a mission is loaded). Most people call it something like icons.rcu. This means that it is not in the control of the mission builder, rather the player can alter these settings on their own machine if they wish.

The contents should be your chosen icon settings, followed by a timeout which loads the file again, e.g.:

mp_dotrange FRIENDLY TYPE .1 ID 2 RANGE 00.1 COLOR .01 DOT 10
mp_dotrange FOE TYPE .01 ID .01 RANGE .01 COLOR 0000.01 DOT 10
timeout 60000 file icons.rcu

The timeout is in milliseconds so the above represents 60 seconds.

The DOT setting determines the distance at which the dot model of an aircraft first appears. The ALTCOLOR and ALTSYMBOL are relatively new, I believe and allow aircraft to be highlighted by a symbol without providing extra information. The others are all fairly self explanatory. Looks like there's also a NAME setting which probably shows the player's callsign.

The above settings would make the dots appear at 10km. For friendlies the type (aircraft model) will appear at 100m, the markings (e.g. RS -A) at 2km, the range at 100m and the color (red/blue) at 10m. For enemies, the type will appear at 10m, the ID at 10m, the color at 10m. 0.005 or 5m is I think the lowest setting the game will recognise and basically means that the defined info doesn't appear, for all intents and purposes. 25km is the maximum setting for any value.

Once you've chosen your settings and created a file to load, open the game's existing rcu file and paste the following at the end:

@file icons.rcu

Source: Airwarfare

The single player defaults are as follows:

mp_dotrange DOT 14.0 COLOR 6.0 TYPE 6.0 ID 6.0 RANGE 6.0 ALTICON 0.1 ALTCOLOR None ALTSYMBOL +
mp_dotrange FRIENDLY NAME 6.0
mp_dotrange FOE NAME 0.005

[dimlee]

Originally Posted by TheGrunch

...
Offline, you can create a file which Il-2
...

Kudos to TheGrunch for this very useful information.
I just returned to IL2 after 5 years break, with new equipment at my desk, and was surprised by difficultiy of spotting targets at higher resolution monitor.
Now I can change icons visibility in offline training missions.
Thanks again, TheGrunch.

[TheGrunch]

No probs! I think in honesty it should probably be a game setting like any other, might be worth mentioning in the DT requests thread.

[KG26_Alpha]

Icon Settings:

You can change your icon types and distances by typing these variables in console in game the command syntax is:
mp_dotrange [FRIENDLY|FOE] [DEFAULT] [COLOR<km>] [DOT <km>] [RANGE <km>] [TYPE <km>] [ID <km>] [NAME <km>]
FRIENDLY or FOE keywords define which party the following parameters apply to the aircraft of the viewer’s army, or the aircraft of the hostile armies.

The following keys define
the distance at which the appropriate icon is enabled:
•
COLOR: The distance at which icons take the color of the inbound plane’s army.
Icons farther away will be drawn in grey.
•
DOT: The distance at which the “dot” plane marker becomes visible.
•
RANGE: The distance at which the distance measurement appears in the icon.
•
TYPE: The distance at which the airplane model or model family becomes visible.
•
ID: The distance at which the tactical number is visible.
•
NAME: The distance at which the aircraft’s pilot name is visible (if it is driven by a
human pilot).
mp_dotrange DEFAULT restores the Pacific Fighters predefined icon setup. mp_dotrange run without parameters prints the current icon setup ranger, which may be issued by both client and server.
(e.g mp_dotrange FRIENDLY COLOR 0.1 DOT 15 RANGE 5 TYPE 0.1 ID 0.1 NAME 2.5
This will give you friendly info at Aircraft dot at 15km range at 5km Pilot
name 2.5km all other at 100metres



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).