DCS Battleground

Originally created for the french community Liaison-16, DCS Battleground is an open source tool for visualizing the battlefield of DCS servers and sharing scouting elements and flight plans between pilots. It was designed from sneaker and uses the Tacview protocol to communicate with DCS. It has Discord's authentication and is interfaced with the Special K's Server bot.

A live example of DCS Battlegound can be viewed here.

Installation

1. Download the latest released version from here.
2. Do not edit the example file directly. Create your own configuration file (for example config.prod.json) based off the example, replacing the required information (and optionally adding multiple servers to the array).
3. If you want to modify Battleground, make sure your real configuration file (with passwords, tokens, etc.) is not committed into git (keep it outside the repo or add it to your .gitignore).
4. Run the executable with the configuration path: DCSBattleground.exe --config path\to\config.prod.json --bind 0.0.0.0:yourport
5. (Optional) You can download DCS's maps here, see the configuration to use it

Configuration

DCS Battleground features a built-in Discord authentication

1. Create a new Discord Application
2. Configure the redirect url (used later) and copy the client id and client secret
3. Add the following to your config.json (delete comments before saving).
   Important: this JSON is an example. You must replace all secrets (database password, Discord client secret, Tacview password, etc.) by your own values and keep this file private (never commit it to a public repository).

{
  "servers": [
    {
	"name": "ServAlias",								//Don't compliant with special characters
	"dcsname": "Name of your server on DCS ",					//To link the DCS Battleground's server with DCS's server
	"hostname": "XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX",							//Hostname or IP address of the Tacview server
	"port": 1234,									//Port of the Tacview server
	"password": "password",								//Password of the Tacview server
	"radar_refresh_rate": 5,							//Ping time of collecting data from tacview
	"serverbot_coalition_system": true,						//Plug and play Special K's coalition system (need the "database" data)
	"default_coalition": "",							//Default coalition if the user have not coalition (can be "blue", "red", "GM" or "")
	"enable_friendly_ground_units": true,						//Show friendly ground units
	"enable_enemy_ground_units": true,						//Show enemy ground units
	"enemy_ground_units_ratio": 40,							//Show a enemy ground unit every 40 units
	"enemy_ground_units_max_quantity": 10,						//Show max 10 enemy units on the map (-1 to deactivate this feature)
	"enable_friendly_flight_units": true,						//Show friendly aircraft
	"enable_enemy_flight_units": true,						//Show enemy aircraft
	"view_aircraft_when_in_flight": true						//Hide enemy aircraft when the user is connected to DCS (need to link the discord account with DCS account with .link command's)
	"zones_size":[["Vehicle",10000], ["Human",3000], ["default", 10000]],		//Zones size of units, the object type is defined in Tacview documentation : https://www.tacview.net/documentation/acmi/en/
	"editor_id":["289817258535157761"],						//Discord user ID, used for advanced feature enabled for the user
    "show_on_shutdown": true
    }
  ],
  "assets_path_external": "D:\\your\\folder\\DCSBattlegroundV2\\files\\",		//Uploaded pictures folder (must be writable, not inside the git repo)
  "dcsmaps_path_external": "D:\\your\\folder\\DCSBattlegroundV2\\DCSMaps\\",    //DCS Map folder, you can download all files here : http://06mhr.diciess.fr/temp/DCSMaps.zip
  "serverbot": true,									//Use Special K's server bot
  "database": "postgres://user:password@hostname:5432/postgres?sslmode=disable",	//Special K's server bot Database (contains credentials, keep it secret)
  "discord_client_id": "1564564564421",							//Client ID of the discord application (public)
  "discord_client_secret": "azrfdsflkdsfokdsklfjdskfj",					//Client secret of the discord application (secret, never share)
  "redirect_url": "http://my-url.kaboom/redirect/"					//The url used to access DCS Battleground (/redirect/ needed)
}

Development, tests and build

Requirements

• Node.js / Yarn
• Go (version compatible with the go.mod in this repository)

Frontend (React / TypeScript)

Install JavaScript dependencies:

yarn

Run the frontend test suite (Jest + Testing Library):

yarn test

Build the frontend bundle:

yarn build

Backend (Go)

Run the Go tests for the HTTP/server package:

go test ./server

Build the Windows and Linux binaries using the provided script:

build.cmd

build.cmd will:

1. Clean the dist directory.
2. Install/update JS dependencies with yarn.
3. Run yarn test (frontend tests).
4. Build the frontend bundle with yarn build.
5. Run go test ./server.
6. Build DCSBattleground.exe (Windows) and DCSBattleground (Linux).

Web UI

DCS Battleground UI presents an emulated radar scope over top a Open Street Map rendered via maptalks. The web UI is updated at a configurable simulated refresh rate (by default 5 seconds). It use Flappie's work to display the Caucasus Layer ! (thanks for is work)