Basements?

[Saferight]

May have been asked before but why are there no basement positions for buildings? Ive a read a few accounts from different wars of defenders making basements into excellent pillboxes. Usually ends up with them having a grenade tossed in on them or whole structure collapsing down but.... Just wanted to see BFC and everyones else take on this thanks.

[Tank Hunter]

Has been up for discussions from time to time. Seems most people agree that houses need to be changed to include fortified positions and basements. Have not seen any official comment from BF on this but I think they would agree, there are just so many other things that have been more important so far.

I think BF must change how houses are modeled with the Stalingrad familly. They should also include sewers for movement between the apt buildings. That is if they want to model Stalingrad (city) fighting properly. I would also like to see more buildings and extra content so we can build cities that look and feel natural. In my opinion everything above village does not look or feel right in what we have in Normandy, Italy and Russia right now. That's probably why we don't see that many scenarios or campaign that involve fighting in Towns and Cities.

[Erwin]

An important (current) issue with dense urban scenarios is that it is hard to place the camera to see the action. Walls get in the way very easily and LOS of units can be "erratic" as one may be able to see a target easily, but the game system has trouble allowing one to target something that seems in plain sight.

[RockinHarry]

It seems it´s not that easy to code something, that cuts the basic ground terrain mesh, to provide a real below ground feature. If it´s just for a shelter and not fighting position (some basement types are still slightly above level ground and have windows), maybe something abstracted would do for the beginning. An invisble "container" type feature, similar to sewer movement in CMX1. Raises the question, how to handle collapsing buildings or enemy troops above, a direkt hit from heavy Arty and such. Guess it doesn´t quite fit BFC concept of the game. So then a true 3D solution in V4 or V5 maybe?

[Pelican Pal]

the problem is that ground mesh changes must be visible to all players. So any house with a basement would have a very clear hole in the map. This is why we have above ground trenches and foxholes.

My wishlist item is fortified buildings or the ability to make a building fortified, much like you can purchase and place trenches.

[Combatintman]

There is a workaround - try this in the editor. Place a two-storey building in the editor. Set the elevation to 17 on the tile containing the building. Set your surrounding tile heights to 20. Ditch lock all of the elevations. Your two storey building becomes a one storey building with a basement. Troops can enter and exit with no problems.

[Saferight]

Thanks for the replies, i see why this hasn't been done yet. I for one would be happy with just a bare box underneath a building with potentially windows to fire from. But i see how this and a lot of other stuff involving more realistic structures and fortifications would be a nightmare for the devs.

[emccabe]

if battlefront does this I bet it will be kept underground until release pun intended

[Sequoia]

I think BF must change how houses are modeled with the Stalingrad familly. They should also include sewers for movement between the apt buildings. That is if they want to model Stalingrad (city) fighting properly. I would also like to see more buildings and extra content so we can build cities that look and feel natural. In my opinion everything above village does not look or feel right in what we have in Normandy, Italy and Russia right now. That's probably why we don't see that many scenarios or campaign that involve fighting in Towns and Cities.

It's also possible of course we may see urban fighting enhancements if they do a Battle for Berlin Module for the Red Thunder family along with a CMx 4.0 release.

[Michael Emrys]

the problem is that ground mesh changes must be visible to all players. So any house with a basement would have a very clear hole in the map.

So? Why is that a problem? All players can already see the building. Why shouldn't they be able to see buildings with basements? It's not exactly as if they were hidden.

This is why we have above ground trenches and foxholes.

That's a different matter. Trenches and foxholes are not assumed to be a permanent part of the landscape, but were constructed relatively recently by the occupying troops who made some effort to conceal them. Basements and cellars were there before the armies came along.

Michael

[womble]

I think it just seems a bit odd that "looking at a map of a village" would tell you which buildings had basements... It's just that bit more weird than being able to see all interior connections...

[z-warfare]

It'd be nice if it was possible to place foxholes within buildings, representing some degree of reinforcement.

[emccabe]

placing a 2 story house in the ground is quite effective and it protects the ocupants of the fiest floor from artillery

[Erwin]

Of course looking at a map of the village wouldn't tell you how the rooms are arranged and where the doors are either, and waypoints wouldn't tell you what you can see from them, roads wouldn't zigzag etc. So, it's more of a game issue... at what point on the spectrum of unrealism does verisimilitude break down.

[womble]

Of course looking at a map of the village wouldn't tell you how the rooms are arranged and where the doors are either, and waypoints wouldn't tell you what you can see from them, roads wouldn't zigzag etc. So, it's more of a game issue... at what point on the spectrum of unrealism does verisimilitude break down.

You can't tell how the rooms are arranged... that's all below the abstraction layer.

Most of the time, IRL, you can tell where one building ends and the next begins quite well once it becomes important.

Cellars less so. I feel that the line of verisimilitude breakdown lies somewhere between "being able to tell that it's one big house" and "knowing there's a cellar under the east wing from a mile away"

[76mm]

Cellars less so. I feel that the line of verisimilitude breakdown lies somewhere between "being able to tell that it's one big house" and "knowing there's a cellar under the east wing from a mile away"

But at a range of one mile (or whatever), who cares if a building has a cellar or not? Until you're within small arms/assault range, you're presumably simply aiming at the building (or assuming that the enemy has defenses there), so the existence of the building, which is obvious, is the main thing.

Foxholes are different, since their presence is more of a direct inference to the presence of enemy troops that you wouldn't otherwise know about.

[poesel]

I'm no cellar expert but AFAIK having a cellar very much depends on the region and type of structure.

Where I live every house has a cellar and barnes would never have one. If you have a rocky underground or water nearby no one would have a cellar.

So IMHO not much information would be given away if you would be informed about a cellar or not. You would already know by looking at the house from the outside.

[Erwin]

What I was referring to was that we really shouldn't be able to have the camera enter the room of a building to see the layout until a friendly unit is already in the room.

But, it's a game and we need these abstractions.

[Michael Emrys]

I'm no cellar expert but AFAIK having a cellar very much depends on the region and type of structure.

Where I live every house has a cellar and barnes would never have one. If you have a rocky underground or water nearby no one would have a cellar.

That was my thought as well. In rural European areas with lots of farming a cellar was a necessity. It was where you stored vegetables over winter. Without a cellar your diet would be impoverished. They might be a bit more optional in urban areas, but there too there were often very good reasons for having one. Entire neighborhoods would be cellarized. It wouldn't be a case of one here or there and having to explore to figure out which house might have one or not.

Michael

[Brent Pollock (WBRP)]

An important (current) issue with dense urban scenarios is that it is hard to place the camera to see the action. Walls get in the way very easily and LOS of units can be "erratic" as one may be able to see a target easily, but the game system has trouble allowing one to target something that seems in plain sight.

Amen. My rig also seems to have trouble with levels above 2 or 3 - starts to look like Hitchcock's Vertigo. Clicking on a unit in a church tower is very disorienting.