HighlightEnemies

Draws a coloured outline around enemies, so they read clearly against dark interiors and cluttered backgrounds. Their model, camo and textures are left completely untouched — the outline sits around them, nothing is repainted.

By Svanovsky. Built for SPT 4.1.2 (EFT 0.16.9.5.40743).

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What it does

• Outlines enemies you can actually see. The outline is hidden by anything in front of them, per pixel, exactly like the enemy is. Peek round a corner and you only see the part that's genuinely exposed.
• Constant thickness at any range. Width is measured in screen pixels, so it stays readable point-blank and at 200 m.
• Dead bodies are never outlined.
• Optional "only after they shoot at you" mode. Enemies stay completely unmarked until they actually fire at you — a near miss counts. You find out who's shooting the moment the first round comes your way, and nothing else is revealed.
• Optional see-through-walls mode, off by default.

Everything is configurable in-game with F12.

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Installing

1. Download the archive.
2. Extract it straight into your SPT root folder (the one with EscapeFromTarkov.exe and the BepInEx folder in it). The archive already has the right structure, so nothing needs moving.
3. You should end up with:

   SPT/
     BepInEx/
       plugins/
         HighlightEnemies/
           HighlightEnemies.dll
           highlightenemies.bundle
   

4. Start the game.

Both files are required. Without highlightenemies.bundle the mod loads, writes one warning to the log, and does nothing at all.

To check it loaded, look in BepInEx/LogOutput.log for:

[Info : Svanovsky-HighlightEnemies] Outline shader loaded from bundle: HighlightEnemies/EnemyOutline

Uninstalling

Delete BepInEx/plugins/HighlightEnemies/. Optionally also delete BepInEx/config/com.svanovsky.highlightenemies.cfg to clear your settings.

Requirements

SPT 4.1.x. No other mods needed.

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Settings

Press F12 in game to open the BepInEx configuration manager.

General

Setting	Default	What it does
Enabled	on	Master switch.
Highlight which enemies	Always	Always, or AfterTheyShootAtYou to stay quiet until someone actually engages you.
Keep them marked for	8 s	How long an enemy stays outlined after their last shot at you. Only used by AfterTheyShootAtYou.
Maximum distance	300 m	Enemies further than this are ignored.

Appearance

Setting	Default	What it does
Outline colour	red
Outline thickness	2.5	In screen pixels. 2–3 is comfortable; above 5 distant enemies become blobs.
Single clean outline (BETA)	on	See the note below.
Seam cleanup	1.0	Helps the beta option. Raise if you see faint lines inside the outline; lower if the outline looks thin.
See enemies through walls	off	Turning this on is a wallhack. It's here if you want it.
Leave glass alone	on	Keeps outlines off visors and scope lenses.

Performance

Sensible defaults; you shouldn't need to touch these. Update rate only affects how quickly enemies are picked up — the outline itself is drawn every frame by the GPU either way.

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About "Single clean outline (BETA)"

This feature is beta and does not work perfectly yet.

The goal is one clean edge around the whole enemy, Valorant-style. On most enemies it does exactly that. On some gear — chest rigs especially — you may still see faint lines inside the outline where separate pieces of equipment meet.

If that bothers you, you have two options:

1. Raise "Seam cleanup" a little. Often enough to clear it up.
2. Turn the beta option off. You'll get an outline around every piece of gear separately — busier looking, but completely reliable, and some people prefer it because it makes an enemy's kit easy to read at a glance.

Nothing breaks either way. It's purely how the outline looks.

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Building from source

Requires the .NET SDK. The project targets net472 and resolves its reference assemblies straight from your SPT install.

dotnet build -p:SPTTarkovDirectory="C:\Games\SPT"

SPTTarkovDirectory defaults to C:\Games\SPT; override it if yours is elsewhere. The build copies HighlightEnemies.dll into BepInEx/plugins/HighlightEnemies/ automatically — pass -p:CopyOutputToBepInEx=false to skip that.

The shader bundle

highlightenemies.bundle is built separately from the Unity project in unity/, and only needs rebuilding if you change a shader. It requires Unity 2022.3.43f1 — the game's own version, using the built-in render pipeline. Do not add URP or HDRP to the project.

Either open unity/ in the Editor and use HighlightEnemies → Build Asset Bundle, or build it headlessly:

"C:\Program Files\Unity 2022.3.43f1\Editor\Unity.exe" -batchmode -quit -nographics -projectPath unity -executeMethod HighlightEnemies.EditorTools.BuildAssetBundle.Build -logFile build.log

Unity's exit code is unreliable — it returns 0 even on a licence failure. Check that unity/Build/highlightenemies.bundle exists and grep the log for Compiling shader.

Packaging a release

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\package-release.ps1

Produces release/Svanovsky-HighlightEnemies-<version>.zip in installation-ready layout.

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Reporting a problem

Please include:

1. Your BepInEx/LogOutput.log.
2. A shader-probe.txt — press F9 in a raid while near an enemy, and it's written next to the mod's DLL. It describes exactly what the mod sees, which is usually enough to identify the issue immediately.
3. A screenshot if it's a visual problem.

If outlines aren't appearing at all, turn on Debug → Log diagnostics first. It writes one line a second showing how many enemies passed each stage, which says precisely where they're being lost.

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Notes

• This is a visual advantage mod. It is built for SPT and has never been used against live servers. Do not attempt to use anything like it on live EFT.
• The enemy's own materials and textures are never modified. The mod adds a separate outline pass and removes it cleanly when an enemy is no longer highlighted.
• Licensed MIT — see LICENSE. Source code is linked on the mod page.