Short form vehicle & mission names on map

Hello all,

I have a couple of "quality of life" suggestions to put to you and would appreciate your input and with any luck have them put to the devs for consideration & hopefully implementation.

Thanks

Part 1

I would like to propose a way to show a shorter vehicle name/callsign on the map.

Currently I have my units named with a callsign and a descriptor (e.g. EC20A1 - Lincoln South Aerial Appliance; 31🞳 XA201 - Mansfield ARV 1; A4010 - Boston Ambulance 10). However, if I have the "Show vehicle names on map" option ticked it soon becomes a mess (see below,).

I like to have the descriptor portion since it easier to search & differentiate units in a list, where as on a the map I mainly want to see the vehicle state & a quick "is that an rrv or otl" or "is this pump 1 or 2" kind of thing

I would like a way to show just the callsign portion of vehicle names. This could be done by introducing a new callsign field in the vehicle properties, or (probably more feasibly) a setting to only show x number of characters. and possibly reveal the full name when you hover over the vehicle.

Part 2

The same as above but for mission names, currently it shows the whole mission name and address, which again looks very messy. I'd like to suggest only showing the mission name - or a shortened version of the mission name, then showing all the details once you hover over.

EDIT: Added greeting paragraph

Quote from Curiosity03

On what you said above:

I think an easier change to implement would be to have a separate 'vehicle description' field when editing a vehicle.

This works also, I only suggested a separate new callsign field as the current field is already filled and has an established 150 character limit. But maybe a rename the current field and addition of an optional callsign field, with a lower character, limit may be more appropriate? Obviously whatever is used it shouldn't be allowed to break people's current systems/setups, jus an additional supplement to it.

Quote from Curiosity03

In settings under 'show vehicle names on map' there could be 'show vehicle type' (like as the vehicles name on map), 'show vehicle callsign' (which currently is the only setting) and 'show vehicle description'. This would enable greater customization and would fix the issues you have above. I have actually turned off the vehicle name display because like you said, it got too crowded, but with these changes it would be manageable.

I agree, this idea would work a lot better - having the ability to toggle individual parts vehicle parameters would be a good addition & solution.

I actually used to have the Show vehicle names on map turned off, but recently wanted to turn it back on to better keep track of which unit is where, but it's just a mess how it is at the moment - to the extent i've considered removing the descriptor just to tidy up the map, at the expense of completely forgetting what each callsign actually represents 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Quote from Curiosity03

Also on the topic of naming, I would like the character limit on dispatch centers to be removed. Some realistic dispatch centers have names longer than 40 characters. It is currently a thing so when you click on a dispatch center the name doesn't fill your whole screen. Instead of the character limit, we could have it so it is a character display limit. If it goes over 40 characters three little dots at the end of the 40 characters and to view the rest of the name/full name you have to click and open the building.

I too have come across this little annoyance, not only on dispatch centers but also regular stations (such as a "...fire & ambulance station") and have ended up having to us abbreviations which just look bad to read.