Feature 05 / FF Spectator
Every seat inthe house
Thirteen camera presets, six overlay layers and a typed command broker. A viewer is a real role, not a hidden body, and a controller can drive the whole broadcast without touching the mission.
Illustrative multiview. UI text is rendered literally; server replies report dispatch, not remote execution.
Presets
Thirteen ways to look at a session.
Following something
- group — squad-centred view
- shoulder, front, gear, vehicle
- drone — UAV sensor-style, own radius, height and speed
- conversation — two-body framing
Free and scripted views
- overhead, top-down, theater, ambient
- map position — pick a ground position
- postmortem — the body as it fell
- killcam — the shot that killed, optional slow motion
Automatic cuts remember the real prior mode. After another camera command, restoration is abandoned rather than fighting the newer intent. Every pending transition can be invalidated through a generation token.
Control
A command broker, not a code tunnel.
Commands have a fixed operation list, fixed argument counts and no code-valued payloads.
normalizeCommand rejects anything else before the server sees it.
| Operations | Examples |
|---|---|
| Camera | setMode (plus drone radius/height/speed), setPlayer, setMapPos |
| Image | setNVGMode (auto/aperture/thermal/off), setNVGStrength 0–1 |
| Broadcast | uiToggle, toggleAutoCuts, toggleAutoNVG |
| Maintenance | reinitializeSpectator, resyncRadios, resetVariables |
| Body | healSpectator, respawnSpectator, manageSpectatorHide |
| Privileged | execute, only with authorization and allowCode = true |
Requests are bounded and rate limited. Camera dispatches are server-only and checked against the receiving viewer body, token and server sequence.
Broadcast
Overlays that survive a squad change.
Squad icons
Friendly units, enemy contacts, dead units, medics, tracer lines and map markers.
Night vision
Lighting monitor, NVG mode and strength. Automatic NVG follows the scene.
Combat tracking
trackCombat, trackDeathsAndRespawns and
checkAutoCut drive automatic switching without losing the chosen mode.
Hotkeys: F1 group, F2 gear, F3 drone, F4 shoulder, F5 theater, F6 overhead, F7 conversation, F8 cycle map/ambient/front/top-down, F9 track this player, F10 map position, F11 panel.
Radios
TFAR and ACRE, without stealing gear.
Synchronization mirrors existing personal radios and records their original tuning for restoration. It never removes gear. TFAR vehicle radios are excluded because the crew shares them; ACRE matches base radio types before copying channels, because equal channel numbers do not imply equal presets.
The service is opt-in. Loading Spectator registers functions and one mission-end cleanup handler, but starts no cameras and never touches a mission that does not enable it.
Feature 05 / 08 Every system deep dive