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Foxhole facing


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Well, since there's apparently no thread for quick, easy questions, I guess I'll have to start a new thread for this... couldn't find an answer when searching old threads either, or in the manual.

I'm settting up some foxholes, and I wonder if there is a way to set their facing during the setup phase, before the battle? I just noticed that they seem to have an arrow pointing in the direction they are facing, so can you rotate that somehow, to put it towards the expected enemy line of advance?

Also, does foxholes give better cover in some directions? Does the facing of the team in the foxhole, and the facing of the foxhole itself matter? Should they be in the same direction to get the best cover from them?

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As far as my experience, no there is no way to face fowhooles. Nor is there an defensive advantage from directional fire...just being "in" the foxhole (and your team members might not actually be shown as in a particular hole...it's abstracted a bit) gets you the defensive benefits.

Btw, I am certain my pixeltruppen have received benefits from just being prone behind a foxhole group...but that could be my imagination.

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Using Face can change the way your team uses the foxhole, which might persuade more pTruppen that they're safer in the hole,which they are, AIUI, even if there's some abstraction involved, though the degree of protection has been questioned in the past, and adjusted in previous patches.

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  • 9 years later...

Resurrection eh, 10 years!

I am just wondering whether anything has changed since the posts above? 

I (and some worthy opponents and designers) have been looking at this, and so far my conclusions are:

  • Although foxholes display 'facing arrows' and the manual hints at being able to rotate, they don't actually have a facing and you can't rotate them
  • The scenario designer therefore can't change the illustrated facing
  • Neither can the player during setup, even if they can move the foxholes to another location in a setup zone

All of which may be rather pointless anyway if the above post is correct that facing does not matter as far as LOS/LOF/concealment/protection goes, but I'm not yet convinced this is the case.

Can anyone confirm or deny any of this?

 

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21 hours ago, Vacillator said:
  • Although foxholes display 'facing arrows' and the manual hints at being able to rotate, they don't actually have a facing and you can't rotate them
  • The scenario designer therefore can't change the illustrated facing
  • Neither can the player during setup, even if they can move the foxholes to another location in a setup zone

That all seems correct. Although I did not recheck the manual so I have no idea how strong the hint is - it doesn't matter though.

21 hours ago, Vacillator said:

All of which may be rather pointless anyway if the above post is correct that facing does not matter as far as LOS/LOF/concealment/protection goes, but I'm not yet convinced this is the case.

Indeed, facing a set of fox holds it is pointless. I am afraid to ask why you are not convinced because this seems like a thread / topic that can go back to sleeping peacefully for another 10 years :D

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4 hours ago, IanL said:

I am afraid to ask

Thanks for the answer Ian. 

I asked because I have recently started playing lots of PBEMs based in Normandy.  The facing (indicated but lacking) was something I'd not seen before and nor I think had anyone else I'm playing. 

Why I said I'm not convinced was that I don't know whether the indicated facing makes any difference to LOS/LOF/concealment/protection.  If you say it doesn't that's good enough for me 😉.

I suppose the only remaining question would be why do they still show facings after all these years (and patches) if they don't actually have a facing?

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18 hours ago, Vacillator said:

If you say it doesn't that's good enough for me 😉.

I had better be right then 😉

 

18 hours ago, Vacillator said:

I suppose the only remaining question would be why do they still show facings after all these years (and patches) if they don't actually have a facing?

That I have no certainty about. Do trenches also have the facing markers too? I just forget. My suspicious is that it was just easier to use the same marker for all fortifications (and maybe the same one for vehicles too) than it was to create an additional one that was conditionally used. Sand bag walls do have facing and it does matter which way they are facing.

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3 hours ago, IanL said:

Do trenches also have the facing markers too?

Yes they do, and from a quick trip to the editor I think you can only change their direction by placing another one alongside, when they snap to each other.  I haven't tried multi-'unit' trench building yet, but obviously trenches aren't all just straight lines in game so I assume you change direction as you go.  Perhaps I'll try this later, this is a good way to learn about the editor in a basic sort of way 😆.

As for the markers I think you're probably right.

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  • 1 month later...
  • 1 month later...

Facing marker is just a generic thing so one can see them better during placement phases. Otherwise some deliberate facing is possible since the game engine applies some progressing rotation on them. Similar to shellhole placement which seems random but it´s likely not. Every these newly placed type objects rotate in 12-15 degrees counter clock wise. Similar to flavor objects if doing a LMB click on them. Foxhole internal placement & rotation of the 4 objects seems more random but IDK for sure. Re cover value there might be an invisible armor hit box sort of applied to them. Generally the TacAI prefers ground terrain slope cover more, so if you see pixeltroopers placing behind them or in a nearby tiny shellhole, then it comes from that basically.

Foxholes and trenches work best if placed into ditch locked terrain. This gives mentioned cover from slopes in the ground terrain mesh. Works fairly well vs. not so heavy direct fires but sucks equally if it comes to indirect fires (mortar/Arty). But that can be expected from hastily scraped out holes in the ground which CM foxholes is basically.

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