Setup Zones--Is there any way just to see the edges?

[John Kettler]

Depending on what sort of shape I'm in, my brain may or may not handle a lot of visual information well. In the latter state, I go into what's called channel saturation. Too much information hitting too little ability to handle it. In screwing around with a QB, I opted to take RUS defending in a "computer choses Armor engagement." When I opened the map, I practically went blind when faced with a lurid red sea covering almost the entire map, obscuring a great deal of important terrain detail in the process. So overwhelming was it that I CMD TABed out of it and put the game back in my Dock.

 

In looking at the c3k vs DMS Free Game AAR, I noticed his overview map showed the setup zones delineated by simple colored lines (suspect image modification by him after initial setup), rather than blocks of color. Is there a way to do this in the game? I've scrutinized the various commands and hotkeys, but have so far found nothing. What's bedeviling me probably won't bother most players here, but it's overloading my brain to the point where I'm almost totally paralyzed when it comes to planning the fight and deploying my force, a situation made worse by what the red hides.

 

Can anyone here offer some sort of solution, please? Not only is this matter important generally, but it's absolutely critical to the defender, who often lives or dies based on initial deployment decisions. Thanks!

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

 

 

[Michael Emrys]

Nope, no way for a player to change that in-game, and I am doubtful that it is a feature that can be modded. Various suggestions have been made in the last two or three years to alter the appearance of set-up zones, objectives, cover arcs, etc. but little has been done. One change I did notice for the first time under 3.01 is that on recent maps the objective zones are now sometimes hollow rectangles and in BS can be very faint and hard to pick up. Set-up zones though, as you discovered, are very dense indeed.

 

Michael

[John Kettler]

Michael Emrys (and BFC)

 

Oh, how that sucks! Unless my brain gets better and stays better, I may have to play the Allies in CMBS almost exclusively--for the sake of my sanity! To me, this mind obliterating saturated Martian red is something that urgently needs correcting. I don't recall ever running into it in any other CM games I've had (all CMx1, plus full CMBN and now CMBS), but that may well be faulty memory via whanged skull, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't an issue. I do recall not liking the color the Germans had in "Barkmann's Corner" or the Allied deployment zone in "Bridge at Varraville," but those were merely annoying or garish. This situation is extreme to the point of being almost disabling. Ideally, I'd like those lovely colored lines as deployment boundaries. Failing that, I would think BFC could simply and easily change the hue, value and chroma settings for whatever code is used to generate that map overlay. Ideally, the result would have only enough color/hue to make it visible on the map, with low value (not the totally in your face situation I describe) and as close to transparent as possible. In other words, an overlay with just enough color in it to tell it's there, with every terrain detail easily discernible beneath it, not totally washed out in the item of woe I'm reporting. There has to be a way to fix this!

 

Regards,

 

John Kettler

[Michael Emrys]

I don't recall ever running into it in any other CM games I've had (all CMx1, plus full CMBN and now CMBS), but that may well be faulty memory via whanged skull, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't an issue. I do recall not liking the color the Germans had in "Barkmann's Corner" or the Allied deployment zone in "Bridge at Varraville," but those were merely annoying or garish.

 

 

Mark Ezra recently released a nice set of maps for BN that have the graphic features we are discussing here: overly saturated set-up zones and hollow objective zones. So you can expect to be running into them for the foreseeable future.

 

BTW, my own suggestion for a cure was to use variable density shadings so that the edge of a zone would be a fairly narrow line of high density (so that you wouldn't miss seeing it) quickly thinning out to an almost transparent wash so that the underlying terrain would not be obscured. Since any graphics program that I am aware of includes this capability, it isn't obvious to me why inclusion of it here should be such a big deal. But then, I've never claimed to know everything...quite.

 

 

Michael

[sburke]

Objectives and set up are painted by AS. Period.  You could paint the whole map in a checkerboard pattern if you want.  The "Zone" is not a zone.  It is simply whatever AS are painted.  If you do a hollow rectangle, it is just the edges that you could set up in.  The game does not see it as a whole, only as individual AS.  There is no "edge".  The hollow objective zones are misleading in the sense that the "objective" is only the highlighted area.  The interior of the rectangle is now irrelevant.  That might not matter for an objective, but it most certainly going to f**k with your set up.

Edited March 2, 2015 by sburke

[Michael Emrys]

Objectives and set up are painted by AS. Period.  You could paint the whole map in a checkerboard pattern if you want.  The "Zone" is not a zone.  It is simply whatever AS are painted.  If you do a hollow rectangle, it is just the edges that you could set up in.  The game does not see it as a whole, only as individual AS.  There is no "edge".  The hollow objective zones are misleading in the sense that the "objective" is only the highlighted area.  The interior of the rectangle is now irrelevant.  That might not matter for an objective, but it most certainly going to f**k with your set up.

 

Okay, that is worth noting. That means, I suppose, that altering the situation might be a trickier programming challenge than I had at first supposed. At some point though, I still think it needs to be done.

 

Michael

[womble]

Objectives and set up are painted by AS. Period.  You could paint the whole map in a checkerboard pattern if you want.  The "Zone" is not a zone.  It is simply whatever AS are painted.  If you do a hollow rectangle, it is just the edges that you could set up in.  The game does not see it as a whole, only as individual AS.  There is no "edge".  The hollow objective zones are misleading in the sense that the "objective" is only the highlighted area.  The interior of the rectangle is now irrelevant.  That might not matter for an objective, but it most certainly going to f**k with your set up.

And, programatically, it's pretty trivial to check for contiguity and have the program aware of painted areas as being more than one AS. A one-AS setup zone wouldn't be big enough for a gradient to make any difference. It's not like setup zones are something that changes, so it only needs calculating once at the point of save of a map. It's obviously more computationally heavy for TAs that can be moving with an element. Maybe it's an OpenGL limitation. It's certainly an architecture limitation.

[MarkEzra]

I'm using the border square to limit the need to root out broken enemy. The player needs only to check the actual line. But also understand that being near the obj is exercising control of the obj.

I can't do anything about the set I p areas,but the border obj style is my response to the in game yellow blotchy pattern that a fill obj paint job leaves.

[womble]

I'm using the border square to limit the need to root out broken enemy. The player needs only to check the actual line. But also understand that being near the obj is exercising control of the obj.

I can't do anything about the set I p areas,but the border obj style is my response to the in game yellow blotchy pattern that a fill obj paint job leaves.

And a jolly good response it is, too.

[Michael Emrys]

And a jolly good response it is, too.

 

Certainly seems an advance over the old style. I currently have a game going on one of the new maps, which should give some idea of how this plays out in battle.

 

Michael

[womble]

The only thing you might consider wrong with the "box" objectives actually addresses the "but I have control!" complaints that a single unit disputes it even against overwhelming odds. The boxes are best (and usually) drawn in fairly clear terrain where you can easily see any contesting enemy, and just as easily kill them. And they're drawn around "points of interest" (the objectives that are driving the narrative), so the enemy can have a Broken, out of ammo, pistol-armed conscript in the building at the middle of the narrative "objective" and they won't be able to effectively dispute your control of the actual game-mechanical victory location.

[John Kettler]

After being hit with a sea of deep purple in a failed attempted at a Tiny Probe action as US Defending, I find myself once again pining for some sort of thin wash of color for setup zones, rather than the color saturated visual overwhelm I did encounter. Surely, there must be some way for BFC to provide us with the deployment zone color while not overwhelming our (or at least my) ability to readily read the ground beneath? Am no programmer, but I'd think this would be trivial when compared to any number of issues being worked for patching or mooted for similar attention. Sure wish this was something our very talented modders could fix!

Regards,

John Kettler 

Edited April 15, 2016 by John Kettler

[womble]

You're not the only one, John. It's a perennial request.