When respawning, player body changes identity to identity of original AI unit which can change previous player's body skin color and change their goggles. This looks very immersion-breaking and I believe that when player control switches to another unit it should not remove player identity if previously controlled unit is dead.
Repro mission and video attached. {F23701}
Video: http://youtu.be/eI-TUKbXS78
Additionally I think that changing identity on a unit which already had some identity (player identity), should not change their goggles as it sometimes removes or adds new goggles on old unit when you take control of a different unit.
Problem been actual since at least A2, likely even since A1 or even OFP.
Proposed solution summary:
I've found that the face and glasses are updated when player takes/releases control over the unit (body). This includes respawn and disconnect/join cases.
Disabling the update could lead to possibility to switch identity of all playable AI units in the mission (by repeatedly joining into different roles/AI units).
I can disable the switch only for dead units but it's kind of similar, there will be dead and alive units with the same identity. Wouldn't that be confusing in the mission (especially for alive AI with player's identity)?
Wouldn't it make more sense to switch the unit which is respawned and leave the dead body as is? (Perhaps I've misunderstood the current system)
I guess having dead and alive unit with player identity will make more sense than seeing how player body changes face as they respawn. Either way I would suggest to leave this decision up to mission designer by either:
Of course I would prefer event handler to control this behavior which will give mission designer maximum flexibility.
George, is it possible to give us profileParams command just like with squadParams so that we can set appearance of a dead body exactly as it is in players profile including custom face?