Line of sight (-TOOL)

[chuckdyke]

There is an easy 'Line Of Sight' tool it is Camera Position 1. I try not to be sarcastic; it is hard at times. You may see a ship for anker, but you never see the anker. 

[chuckdyke]

Let the AI do the hard work and trust camera position 1. No troops were visible in the village. Go to Camera Position 1 and set your firing zones. No further plotting was done. Not a good idea shooting from a roof-top. Conceal behind shrub or a spinifex is. 

[leon_2]

a trick i discovered is that you can  use target arcs to read the terrain. Target arc are rendere above the terrain, but they follow it in elevation. Due to their transparent visualisation, if you lower the camera, your target arc will clip into itself and overlap on reverse slope positions. this way you can really read the blindspots of any given position fairly well. the screenshot is from a shock force 2 scenario. all the less transparent areas show potential ditches that offer valuable cover.

one thing i have noticed about buildings that is very annoying is that LOS seems to be calculated from the top edge of the floor, rather than a midpoint of the wall, or the position of the windows. this is especially annoying when you encounter enemies in reverse slope buildings.

in the screenshot all the windows are visible. but due to engine limitations the floor of the building is forced to level the terrain, thus creating a very short reverse slope denying all area fire.

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, leon_2 said:

but due to engine limitations the floor of the building is forced to level the terrain, thus creating a very short reverse slope denying all area fire.

This may well be clever map design where designers deliberately try and create very hard assault challenges. 

We hear the maxim "if you can see the enemy they can see you".  But, this is often not true in CM.  It is not uncommon that a clever map designer creates ambush opportunities where the enemy can see and shoot at you but you cannot see the enemy, nor can you area target their location.

[A Canadian Cat]

3 hours ago, leon_2 said:

use target arcs to read the terrain.

Hey, that's pretty cool. I'll have to try that.

[chuckdyke]

18 hours ago, Erwin said:

This may well be clever map design where designers deliberately try and create very hard assault challenges. 

We hear the maxim "if you can see the enemy they can see you".  But, this is often not true in CM.  It is not uncommon that a clever map designer creates ambush opportunities where the enemy can see and shoot at you but you cannot see the enemy, nor can you area target their location.

In RL too, shoot from a shadow through a shadow makes it very hard to be spotted. Sniper in the back of a room in the shadows, it takes more than multiple shots for him to reveal his position.