Pilot Mini-Map Viewport Control - Solved

[MajorMagee]

A version of this question has been asked before, but never directly answered.

 

In some missions when you cycle through the "m" command the compact and full size mini-maps are showing essentially the same viewport, just enlarged to show more. Like this:

 

 

Unfortunately, for most others the full size mini-map is a much wider viewport with the details zoomed out so far as to be useless. Like this:

 

 

The question is what controls this behavior? I assume it's done through one of the MCUs in the Mission editor, but I can't for the life of me find it, and looking at the few missions that do it like the first example, I don't see any controls that line up with the viewport boundaries being displayed by the full size mini-map.

 

I do see that the compact mini-map always centers on the player location, but the full size mini-map is centered on some outside boundaries defined by what exactly? And what sets the range scale being shown by each one? It's quite different in the two examples above.

 

The zoom level and position of the full size map accessed by the "o" command does not seem to be tied to the mini-map behaviors in any direct way either.

Edited June 24, 2023 by MajorMagee

[MajorMagee]

Okay, I think I figured it out. It responds to some MCU Icons Types, but not all. 

 

Attack / Defense Target Areas will limit the Full Size Mini-Map to a square around all of the ones that you've drawn on the Full Size GUI Map.

 

Marked Out Regions and Front lines by themselves don't seem to do the trick.

 

The Compact Mini-Map is always drawn as a 9 km square.

 

 

 

Edited June 25, 2023 by MajorMagee

[Jaegermeister]

Generally speaking, the larger mini-map size and orientation is centered on the activated route path. The icons do not change the display if they are not linked together, and the map will enlarge to cover as much of the route path as possible up to its maximum size, about half the Normandy map more or less. If there is no route path, the map will center between the player location and any target or attack icons. If there are no icons at all, the map will display at maximum size centered on the player or the entire map if it fits.

 

 

In the QMB, the Devs use pairs of linked icons with 0 color to define the corners of the mini map path larger than the small flight path that is generated. If your route path is larger than the maximum map size, that would not have any effect on the map position.