(another) LOS tool proposal

[poesel]

Hi,

yes - beaten to death and yes - something similar has been mentioned already (though more complicated).

Still its IMHO worth the effort to get this tiny, tiny(*) change into the game before the bulge.

LOS is AFAIK determined by calculating the line from the observer to the point on the ground(!) at the cursor. But ground is often obscured by low obstacles (like walls, hedges, higher ground...). So the targeting tool often will show you no LOS to a place where you would like to for instance ambush a tank. You then have to guess (and hope) that your Truppen can see this bigger target.

Now if you had the information at which height you could see a target one could much better asses the situation. This can be accomplished by adding two lines: one straight up from the ground to the point where you could see an object and a second from the observer to that point (for less 'clutter' the second line could be replaced by a simple light blue dot on the tip of the first line but I like it more this way).

IMHO such a thing would answer many, many question here about 'why can't I see this'.

(*) IANACP (**) - so I of course don't really know

(**) I Am Not A Cmbn Programmer

[sburke]

I like the idea in general, but I think the mechanics are going to be difficult, in addition LOS and LOF aren't the same thing so you might see the target and still not be able to shoot at it.

Still keeping the discussion open can't hurt.

[A Canadian Cat]

I agree that this idea is much simpler that previous proposals. Nice idea. I think I could use it. Now consider that I draw a LOS from one corner of the map to another though forest, multiple elevation changes such that the light blue line is heading to a point 100m above the map. Or worse my observer team is hiding behind a building and I draw a line to somewhere on the other side of the building. Now the viewable point is an infinite distance above the map. Do you just drop it if the height is over some amount? Any other limitations or edge cases that need to be considered.

For the record I would hazard to say that I would just drop the light blue line if the distance above the map was greater than the 8 story tower.

[poesel]

Hmm - good question - how high is the CM map actually? Its probably the point where artillery shells start to appear. Never tried to find that.

But you are of course right. A cut off would be needed. I think the limit for the height of the 'pole' and a blue line could be even lower than that 8 story building. The information you want to gain from that graphic is 'how high would an enemy unit at this position have to be, to be able to see it'. (Hmm, I also don't know what the highest vehicle in this game is - but this is probably an easy question for some of us here... isn't it? ). So probably the cut off would be at around 4m and the pole would just be a red line.

[A Canadian Cat]

Sure, 4m could work and perhaps it would be better. I was thinking the height of the 8 story building because then you could tell what story was visible for any building. Bottom line is that what ever the cut of height is the choice will be arbitrary.