File Name: SimPlot Viewer (beta)

File Submitter: kmart494

File Submitted: 16 Jun 2016

File Category: Application/Tools/Mods/Docs

 

 

 

SimPlot Viewer (beta) is a SimPlot application for multiplayer Harpoon games. When a referee sends SimPlot turn files to players, the Viewer will allow them to create their own unit range circles, reference points, and plot the suspected location and type of enemy units (independent of the referee and other players).

A new feature that I am testing is selectable icon size. Four sizes are available: 8x8 (dots), 16x16 (reduced), 24x24 (default), and 32x32 (enlarged). This is very similar to NTDS standards for icons. The "dots" size will show only generic unit types (surface, air, subsurface, bases, and airbases) due to the small icon size. For example, helicopter and missile units will be shown as air units, although they will still retain their respective player side color.

Players may now create enemy or neutral units on screen wherever their location is suspected (usually based on ESM or SONAR bearings). Just add them using the same method in SimPlot. You can assign heading and speed (if known) but the "static" units (as I call them) will not move. Also, all suspected units will have a white color, but will have the correct icon shape for their respective side. This is done to prevent confusion with known enemy or neutral unit locations.

Viewer will save player created range circles and suspected units in a "static file" within the same directory as the scenario turn files. When the next turn is sent by the referee and loaded into Viewer, you will see the updated friendly and known enemy unit locations. The static file is also loaded and it will show the previous turn's suspected enemy unit locations. At present, the suspected locations will have to be updated manually based on the information provided by the referee (such as changing ESM or SONAR bearings). This may require a little work on the player's part, but hopefully Viewer will make the task of managing the unknown units easier, anyway.

SimPlot Viewer will work on Windows computers with the latest .NET installed.

*** Note ***

I discovered a flaw in SimPlot's ESM and SONAR bearing functions that may make multiplayer turn files crash Viewer. The problem is that the bearing information is not calculated until the bearing needs to be drawn. This means that if the referee does not draw the bearings on screen before saving the multiplayer file, then the bearings will have a zero value when the file is saved. The referee file will not be affected as it uses the unit IDs of the observer and emitter. The player files only use the observer ID and bearing (in degrees) to prevent the player from getting information from it. So, the quick work around is for referees to display all bearings on his screen before saving a multiplayer file.

 

 

 

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I forgot to add that the Viewer file should be unzipped into the same folder as SimPlot. Viewer will also use the same custom color file as SimPlot.

Uploaded SimPlot Viewer 0.9.1. A few minor changes:

 

• Fixed a problem with icon/text size changing while loading a new turn file.
• Unknown enemy unit attributes now show "Unknown" instead of the "-1" turn file placeholder value.
• Eliminated the "NAV TGT" information for non-friendly units, since you can't know it anyway.
• Changed the screen font to Arial.