SOFLAM Integration Core

3.1.1

3.1.1

==============================================================
  2026-11-08 - UPDATE
==============================================================

NEW - FAR UNITS IN THE DRONE PICTURE

Soldiers in the picture of a drone are now shown even when they are far away
from the player with the tablet. While the picture is open, the server
streams the units in the camera's field of view to the operator (up to 80
objects) and lets go of them a few seconds after they leave the picture. The
tablet makes sure they show up complete: soldiers with their gear instead of
arms only.

- When a picture is opened for the first time, the camera looks at the loiter
  point of the drone. After that it stays on the last point you used.


FIXED

- THE TABLET LINKS ONLY TO A SOFLAM ON A TRIPOD. A SOFLAM on the ground or in
  your hand is no longer linked, neither by the LINK key nor by the "Link"
  action. Devices in your pocket stay skipped.
- The tablet screen of a picture source is rebuilt when the screen size
  changes (window, full screen, resolution). Before, the HUD kept the old
  size.
- When the operator is a Game Master, closing the editor no longer removes the
  drone from his game. The tablet showed NO FEED.
- Enemy groups in the picture: all units within 10 m of the centre of a group
  form that group. Before, units were chained, so squads standing next to each
  other merged into one marker such as INF 18.

KNOWN ISSUE

- Vehicles far from the operator are not drawn completely in the drone picture
  (a truck without its cargo bed, an armoured vehicle without wheels).

3.1.0

3.1.0

==============================================================
  2026-11-08 - UPDATE
==============================================================

UPDATE - NEEDS GTG THERMAL FRAMEWORK 1.1.0 OR NEWER

Subscribe to the new version of "GTG Thermal Framework" (1.1.0). The tablet
reads the night vision gain from it. With the old 1.0.0 this mod does not load.


NEW - PICTURE SOURCES ON THE TABLET

The tablet is no longer limited to the SOFLAM. Other mods can plug in a picture
source, for example a drone, and the tablet gives it the same screen as the
SOFLAM. On its own the Core has no drone: the new screens come alive with a
source mod such as UAV SOFLAM. Open them with TAB > Source.

- Full screen like the SOFLAM: the right mouse button or the dot key takes
  over, the mouse, W A S D or the right stick slew the camera, aiming leaves
  full screen. The camera stays locked on the last point you used.
- Night vision and thermal with all palettes, temperature windows and gain, on
  the same keys and the same controller layout as the SOFLAM.
- A HUD for flying sources: armament, course tape, laser code, horizon, time
  left, altitude, attack mode and range. A grid readout with the terrain
  height (5 digits per axis, a 1 m raster) is ready for fire missions.
- A settings page for each source (TAB > UAV settings): number entry with the
  digit keys, code entry, choices, switches and one-press actions. The blue
  LINK key switches between several sources.
- Laser spots appear in the picture as a diamond with their code: green for
  the code of the source, red for any other code.
- Enemy infantry and vehicles in the picture are red, your own forces blue
  (your faction) and green (your group). Enemies closer than 10 m form a group
  (INF 3), vehicles are labelled VEH.


NEW - AUTOMATIC MAP MARKING

Settings > Auto map marking, off by default. When it is on, the enemies a
source sees are marked on your map and refreshed every 15 seconds. Only you
see the markers. The markers in the picture do not depend on it.


FIXED

- THE LINK KEY NO LONGER TIES THE TABLET TO A SOFLAM IN YOUR POCKET. Devices in
  your inventory are skipped, and a linked device that gets stowed is
  unlinked. A SOFLAM on a tripod, on the ground or held in your hand still
  links.
- The messages of the vehicle tracking are in English now.


FOR MODDERS

- GTG_SOFLAM_TabletFeedSource is the base class of a picture source. Register
  it with GTG_SOFLAM_TabletSources. It provides the camera, the status for the
  HUD, the settings and the commands.

3.0.0

==============================================================
  2026-11-07 - MAJOR UPDATE
==============================================================

MAJOR UPDATE - YOU NEED ONE NEW MOD

Subscribe to "GTG Thermal Framework". Thermal imaging and night vision moved
out of this mod into it, so other mods can use them too. Without it this mod
does not load.


NEW - THE SOFLAM TABLET

A tablet that controls a SOFLAM standing on a tripod. It is an item in the US
arsenal.

- "Link Tablet" on the tripod head ties the tablet in your hand to exactly
  that device. The same action reads "Unlink Tablet" while it is yours.
- In the hand it shows a small screen with the live picture of the device and
  five status lights: power, link, laser, tracking and vision mode.
- "Use Remote Control" (or the left mouse button) opens the full-screen view
  of the tablet with its keys. Click them, or use the same keys as on the
  device itself.
- Take over to aim: the mouse swings the device, W A S D or the stick swing it
  faster. Your character stands still while the tablet is open.
- Everything the sight does works in the picture: designate, range only, track,
  night vision and thermal with all palettes, zoom, laser power. The readout of
  the sight (azimuth, elevation, range, code) is part of the screen.
- The laser code can be changed on the tablet.


NEW - THERMAL IMAGING

Thermal imaging comes from the GTG Thermal Framework and is much more than
before.

- Four palettes: White Hot, Black Hot, Ironbow and Rainbow. J changes the
  palette.
- Ten temperature windows. Shift + mouse wheel changes the window; the sight
  and the tablet each keep their own.
- The heat picture follows the in-game time of day. Ground and trees cool down
  at night and warm up in the sun.
- The infantry window picks itself by the time of day, one for the cold ground
  at night and in the morning, another for the warm ground during the day.
- The sight and the tablet show the palette and the temperature window in
  degrees.


NEW - ZOOM

Five zoom steps: 2.5x, 5x, 10x, 15x and 20x, on the standard zoom keys of the
game (Num +/-, Alt + wheel, controller RB + D-pad). 5x is the old picture. The
current zoom is shown in the sight and on the tablet.


CHANGED

- NIGHT VISION NOW USES THE GAME'S OWN NIGHT VISION LOOK (green phosphor, as in
  the vanilla night vision sights) instead of our own white phosphor material.
- THE IR LASER STARTS AT THE SECOND LOWEST POWER STEP. A strong IR beam shows
  your position to everyone with night vision, and a real one is invisible
  without it. Raise it with H + mouse wheel when you want to be seen. The upper
  limit is 30 instead of 40: above that the beam blows out the night vision
  picture.
- THE KEYS: I cycles the vision mode (it was J), J changes the thermal palette.
  Right mouse button (night vision / thermal) and Shift + wheel (gain / thermal
  window) are unchanged. All of them can be rebound under Settings > Controls >
  SOFLAM Integration.
- Diagnostic lines no longer fill script.log during normal play.

2.0.2

2.0.2

==============================================================
  2026-10-22 - HOTFIX
==============================================================

FIXED

- THE SCREEN COULD STAY WASHED OUT OR TURN COMPLETELY WHITE AFTER USING THE
  NIGHT VISION OR THERMAL MODE. The device set the camera brightness itself
  and never gave it back. After turning the night-vision gain up, the thermal
  picture, and even the normal view when you got back into the device, stayed
  white; after turning it down they stayed dark. Even without touching the
  gain the exposure stayed where the night vision had left it, so the day
  picture looked brighter and flatter until another device, like your own
  night-vision goggles, reset it. The brightness is now handed back to the
  game whenever you switch mode or leave the device, and the gain starts at
  its default again.

2.0.1

==============================================================
  2026-10-17 - HOTFIX
==============================================================

FIXED

- ENTERING OR LEAVING THE TRIPOD COULD PUT A PLAYER UNDER THE MAP. On a map
  with a terrain fault the ground measurement under the tripod's door can hit
  something far below, or nothing at all. The door points followed it: the
  entry point sank into the ground and the exit point ended up beneath the
  map. The measured height is now only used when it lies within what a tripod
  on a slope of up to 35 degrees can produce, 1.6 m from the tripod's own
  height. Otherwise the door keeps the height from the prefab, and the log
  gets one warning with the position, so a faulty spot on a map can be found.

2.0.0

MAJOR UPDATE - UPDATE THE AH-64 SOFLAM MOD TOGETHER WITH THIS ONE

Both were rebuilt and have to be the same version.


THE TRIPOD WORKS ON SLOPES

- "Use SOFLAM" no longer reads "obstructed" on a hillside. The height map sat
  up to 0.6 m below the surface you actually stand on, which put the door
  points 0.3 m inside the ground. Door points and legs now take the real
  surface, measured by a trace instead of read from the map.
- Each leg is solved on its own until its foot really lands: while it extends
  along its slanted axis the foot slides 0.2 - 0.35 m sideways.
- The slope limit for assembling is 35 degrees instead of 25.
- Aiming no longer drops the frame rate. The leg and door geometry was
  recomputed on every aim update, which is every frame; it is now measured only
  when the height or the placement changes.

TRIPOD AND DESIGNATOR ARE ASSEMBLED, NOT MOUNTED

The two-step route is gone. Instead of deploying the tripod and then mounting
the device, you drop the folded tripod, look at it, and "Assemble" builds it
together with a SOFLAM from your inventory. A ghost shows the result first.
Both parts are consumed; "Pack Up Tripod" gives both back, separately. No
entrenching tool needed.

"Mount Designator" and "Collect Designator" are removed. The second one was
harmful: it left a tripod with no device, and in that state "Use SOFLAM"
disappears.


THE MOUNTED DEVICE IS NOW VISIBLE ON DEDICATED SERVERS

It existed for the server and for nobody else - the reason the previous build
listed replication as untested. Our mounted prefab inherited Weapon_Base, an
abstract base that carries a weapon animation component but no animation graph.
Without a graph the entity initialisation aborts and the engine returns an empty
shell: no model, no components, and no replication component. Nothing to
replicate, so no client ever saw it.

  Server  slot 1 | weapon 1 | designator false | Rpl false | children 9
  Client  slot 1 | weapon 0 | prefab -         |           | children 8


THE GUNNER NO LONGER RIDES UP WITH THE LEGS

Listed as open last time. Extending the legs lifted the whole tripod, seat
included:

  legs 0.94 | lift 0.5045 | root above ground 0.5045 | gunner 0.5045

The seat cannot be moved at runtime, so the root now stays on the ground and
the structure rises instead. Same world positions, different frame of
reference - measured, gunner and root stay at 0.


TRACKING WORKS FROM THE GUNNER SEAT

Tracking shipped last time, but only ever worked with nobody at the device.
Sitting in the turret, locking on threw the mount 180 degrees off and froze it
there. The engine's SetAimingAngles takes radians and was being given degrees,
so both axes ran into their limits - elevation read exactly 45.000, the stop
value. From outside it looked correct, because the ball head follows through a
second call that was already in radians.

  before   sight axis off by 133.3 degrees
  after    off by 0.13 degrees, most of it parallax in the measurement itself

Helicopters were checked as well, against a Mi-8 over 80 to 167 m and 49
degrees of bearing. Above 45 degrees of elevation the mount reaches its limit -
that is the hardware.


THE MOUNT NO LONGER STEPS WHILE TRACKING

Different from the view stutter fixed in the previous build. Aiming and the
target point hung on a throttle meant for network updates, so the mount moved
in ten steps a second while the picture ran at 60 and more. Both now update
every frame while the target moves, and drop back to 10 Hz when it stands
still. Network traffic is unchanged.

Sideways lag fell from 0.64 degrees to under 0.023 - about 7 cm at 166 m.


SMALLER CHANGES

- The tripod now actually appears in the arsenal. It was announced last build,
  but sat in the Equipment list while deployable parts have their own catalog
  list, so it was never shown. Rank PRIVATE, 15 supplies.
- Six duplicate GUIDs in the turret prefab, four of them older than this build.
  Two were shared between the compartment door and the height actions.
- The folded tripod no longer renders as a duffel bag when dropped.
- The assemble preview shows our tripod instead of vanilla's M3.
- The device follows the ball head as the legs and column move.


STILL OPEN

- The sight lags one step behind when the height is changed very fast.
- Placing straight from a quick slot, ghost in hand. That belongs to the gadget
  placement system, not to deployables; no vanilla prefab combines the two.

1.0.2

TRACKING NOW SHARES THE SAME TRUTH ON EVERY MACHINE

Five fixes, all found the same way: comparing what the server logged against
what each client logged for the same shot.

TRACKING WAS NEVER ACTUALLY NETWORKED

The turret tracked correctly wherever the operator was, but the tracking
state itself - on/off, and which target - lived only in a local variable.
The server runs its own copy of the same update loop and always sends
directly, never through a relay, so it had its own tracking state that
simply stayed off. Result: the server's own (usually wrong) camera-based aim
raced against the operator's correct one, and whichever update landed last
won - looking, from outside, like a missile that flew correctly and then
veered off for no reason. Tracking on/off is now sent the same way a target
create or update already was, so every machine agrees on it.

WALKING AWAY NO LONGER DRAGS THE LASER WITH YOU

The aim point was re-measured from the current camera every frame, including
cases where nobody was actually looking through the device - walking off,
getting into another vehicle. Now it only re-measures while the operator is
aiming through this SOFLAM specifically; otherwise it holds the last real
measurement.

A LASER MARK NO LONGER OUTLIVES ITS DEVICE

Turning the laser off now also cleans up locally before the network message
goes out, instead of only after. If that message never arrives - device
destroyed, no relay available - the mark used to keep existing on other
machines with nothing left to remove it.

TWO NETWORK RELIABILITY FIXES FOR THE SAME SYMPTOM

Stray unreliable target-update packets arriving late could recreate a mark
right after it was removed, leaving a corpse with no operator behind it.
That update now goes over a reliable channel. On top of that, every mark now
expires on its own after five seconds without an update, regardless of why
the update stopped coming - closing the gap for any future case that does
the same thing.

EACH TRIPOD LEG NOW REACHES THE GROUND INDEPENDENTLY

The base itself no longer tilts to match sloped ground - it stays level,
which was needed so the head's aim-tilt limit stops clipping early and
unevenly on a slope. That only works if each of the three legs can extend to
a different length for its own patch of ground, instead of all three
sharing one length. Verified live: legs reach uneven ground correctly, base
stays level.

TWO SMALLER FIXES

- Getting out of the turret when nobody had ever actually locked a weapon in
  no longer failed to hand back the seat correctly (the aim-axis lookup now
  retries the weapon selection the same way getting in already did).
- Getting into the tripod's turret was blocked on flat ground in a way that
  had nothing to do with the leg height fixes - a leftover override meant
  for two edge cases was also silently catching the ordinary case. Removed;
  the vehicle's own door-pick logic already handles it correctly.

1.0.1

Disabled Logging

1.0.0