TC LOS

[cannon]

I cut this out of the thread on Hull Down because I think it deserves a seperate topic.

"In reality, a TC would not 'see' through terrain. He would be very aware that terrain to his front is blocking his LOS. Lets take an example of relatively flat terrain where there is a small hill in front of our real life TC. What he would do is slowly approach the hill on as gentle a slope as he can see and manuver so that HE, the TC, can JUST see over the terrain. This 'turret down' position would allow the TC to see targets and have his vehicle protected. He would then advise the gunner of targets range, position, etc ("T34, 1 o'clock, 400 meters!) and tell the driver to advance slowly. The gunner would depress his gun as much as he dares (dont wanna scoop up dirt..another good thing about the muzzle brake is that it can keep out dirt!) and hopes to have the target 'rise' off the terrain at which point he yells 'halt'. A TC will intervene if its obvious they are going over and the gun barrel is clearly 'tilted up'. A driver will immediately reverse if he starts to see a target.

So the way the game is now, the cart is in front of the horse. I believe the game does NOT model TC LOS different from Gunner LOS/LOF so that is a major part of the problem. Example: There should be cases where the 'Unit' can see places he cant target.."

Lewis

I think Lewis brings up an important point here and that is that the TC should have LOS over a ridge before the vehicle is exposed to fire. This would have a tremendous impact on the survivability and utility of several vehicles in the game such as the light tanks, open topped tank destroyers, recce vehicles, and halftracks. My personal feeling is that the ability for the TC to spot before the vehicle is fully exposed would have a large enough impact on gameplay and modeling "reality" that it should be seriously considered. Naturally I can't speak for the programming requirements, but I invite comment from other players on the gameplay issues involved.

It seems to me to be a concept that would have been used in WWII and would have a wide impact on gameplay.

Robert

[Guest KwazyDog]

It is certainally an interesting point and one I am sure that Charles would like to model but there are two things I can see would need to be taken into consideration here in this discussion...

* One is programming required, which I dont think would be small becuase not only do you have to add in the code to do the extra LOS calculation, but Charles would have to code the AI to handle this new input and how it should react realistically.

* The other is that what this is in effect doing is doubleing all LOS calculation for vehicle in a battle, which over 1 minute will probably be a significant increase.

What I think both of the above points would add up to is an increase in turn resolution, maybe a considerabe one. Im sure it is something Charles and Steve did consider, and Im sure there is probably a reason why it isnt currently modeled

[cannon]

I don't think it would necessarily double the LOS calculations. First you check LOS for the TC and then you check that subset that he can see for LOS to the gun. The gun LOS should be a subset of the TC LOS.

It would certainly make the TC an even more important aspect of gameplay.

[Guest KwazyDog]

"I don't think it would necessarily double the LOS calculations. First you check LOS for the TC and then you check that subset that he can see for LOS to the gun. The gun LOS should be a subset of the TC LOS."

True, but 95% of the time these are the same