Probus Posted July 5, 2020 Share Posted July 5, 2020 I would pay good money for a Field of View button. I think it is Graviteam Tactics games that has that. A real life saver. A click and an arc spreads out over your field of view so that, at a glance, you can see... what you can see. Any chance this could be added to any future patches (I'm sure the MoD would be willing to pay for it). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benpark Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 Indeed. In the 2D view as well! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeyD Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 I think they had something like that for CMx1 (which I haven't touched in more than a decade) but that game engine units were a lot of abstractions centered around a single point. Field of view graphics would be a complex thing in CM. A tank includes the field of view of each member of the crew and it changes dynamically (if the loader's loading instead of spotting for instance). I recall there was a bug in the Beta involving a Tiger I were spotting didn't feel quite right. It turned out the invisible commander in the buttoned-up tank was sitting sideways in his seat so wasn't looking out his forward vision block! For infantry you've got a 7-13 man squad, each with his own LOS. If one man is up on one knee the squad has LOS, if he's prone it doesn't. If they're in short grass they do, in tall grass they don't. And if that guy on one knee has line-of-sight that doesn't mean anyone has line-of-fire. If a member of the squad isn't facing to the rear on lookout they can be jumped from behind. This is awfully complex stuff to put into a graphical representation. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vacillator Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 29 minutes ago, MikeyD said: I think they had something like that for CMx1 (which I haven't touched in more than a decade) but that game engine units were a lot of abstractions centered around a single point. Field of view graphics would be a complex thing in CM. A tank includes the field of view of each member of the crew and it changes dynamically (if the loader's loading instead of spotting for instance). I recall there was a bug in the Beta involving a Tiger I were spotting didn't feel quite right. It turned out the invisible commander in the buttoned-up tank was sitting sideways in his seat so wasn't looking out his forward vision block! For infantry you've got a 7-13 man squad, each with his own LOS. If one man is up on one knee the squad has LOS, if he's prone it doesn't. If they're in short grass they do, in tall grass they don't. And if that guy on one knee has line-of-sight that doesn't mean anyone has line-of-fire. If a member of the squad isn't facing to the rear on lookout they can be jumped from behind. This is awfully complex stuff to put into a graphical representation. While such a tool would be very useful 'I think MikeyD has a point' 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bufo Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 54 minutes ago, MikeyD said: I think they had something like that for CMx1 (which I haven't touched in more than a decade) but that game engine units were a lot of abstractions centered around a single point. Field of view graphics would be a complex thing in CM. A tank includes the field of view of each member of the crew and it changes dynamically (if the loader's loading instead of spotting for instance). I recall there was a bug in the Beta involving a Tiger I were spotting didn't feel quite right. It turned out the invisible commander in the buttoned-up tank was sitting sideways in his seat so wasn't looking out his forward vision block! For infantry you've got a 7-13 man squad, each with his own LOS. If one man is up on one knee the squad has LOS, if he's prone it doesn't. If they're in short grass they do, in tall grass they don't. And if that guy on one knee has line-of-sight that doesn't mean anyone has line-of-fire. If a member of the squad isn't facing to the rear on lookout they can be jumped from behind. This is awfully complex stuff to put into a graphical representation. He is not talking about the actual field of view, but point-to-point possibilities. In other words, if I want to move my tank, where do I move it? A tool like this would be very useful. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hapless Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 Well, in terms of point-to-point possibilities, you can always draw a line with the target command- you can do that from movement waypoints so you can pretty much draw LOS from anywhere you like. The downside that it's not 100% accurate... precisely because you're drawing simple LOS from one point to another instead of dealing with the complex actual LOS of units in CM. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubokii Boy Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 Yepp... This topic has been up for discussion several times before and the answer has always been in line with what MikeyD mentioned... Because of how the game engine works with LOS/LOF 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 1 hour ago, MikeyD said: I think they had something like that for CMx1 (which I haven't touched in more than a decade) but that game engine units were a lot of abstractions centered around a single point. Unfortunately, CM1 did not have that sort of feature. IIRC one could not even view from a waypoint, only from the unit itself. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Erwin Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 34 minutes ago, Bufo said: ...not talking about the actual field of view, but point-to-point possibilities. In other words, if I want to move my tank, where do I move it? Yes that would be useful as well. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thewood1 Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 (edited) Triple post Edited July 6, 2020 by Thewood1 Crap 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thewood1 Posted July 6, 2020 Share Posted July 6, 2020 (edited) 3 hours ago, MikeyD said: I think they had something like that for CMx1 (which I haven't touched in more than a decade) but that game engine units were a lot of abstractions centered around a single point. Field of view graphics would be a complex thing in CM. A tank includes the field of view of each member of the crew and it changes dynamically (if the loader's loading instead of spotting for instance). I recall there was a bug in the Beta involving a Tiger I were spotting didn't feel quite right. It turned out the invisible commander in the buttoned-up tank was sitting sideways in his seat so wasn't looking out his forward vision block! For infantry you've got a 7-13 man squad, each with his own LOS. If one man is up on one knee the squad has LOS, if he's prone it doesn't. If they're in short grass they do, in tall grass they don't. And if that guy on one knee has line-of-sight that doesn't mean anyone has line-of-fire. If a member of the squad isn't facing to the rear on lookout they can be jumped from behind. This is awfully complex stuff to put into a graphical representation. Graviteam has 3D maps like CM and and has 3D units like 3M. But it also has larger maps on average and has deformable terrain. This in real-time. CM has the option of wego to help the processing. Steel Beasts, similar to Graviteam games, has much larger maps and typical unit counts. Yet both games can generate a LOS map or display. Both games trace LOS from individual soldiers. Both games trace LOS from individual spotting locations on AFVs. Both games have dealt with grass and soldier posture. So we can dispense with the refrain that it can't be done because of the 3D nature of CM. Yes, its complex. And yes other games do it. It might be something else other than just the 3D environment that makes it impossible. I don't know a thing about that. But its not the 3D nature of the game unless something is wrong with how it was implemented. A couple last thoughts. Steel Beasts has been out for over 20 years and Graviteam is around 10. So people knew how to do it way back in the old days too. On similar-sized scenarios, I get 30-40 fps in CMBS, 60 in Steel Beasts, and 40-50 in a Graviteam game. Edited July 6, 2020 by Thewood1 Premature save 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Probus Posted July 6, 2020 Author Share Posted July 6, 2020 It doesn't have to be exact. I've been playing SF2 on sand and I ended up downloading the wonderful terrain squares because I was having real troubles with LOS/FOV. I know that is a realistic part of a sandscape environment, but still... it helped. It didn't help me enough. Lost 5 Challengers in a single turn when reinforcements popped up out of literally nowhere (I'm not bitter)! Ok maybe I had just turned my back on that part of the map thinking no reinforcements were coming... But anyway, imperfect is fine as long as the player has a choice of if they want to use it or not and while reinforcements spawn out of sand (I'm not bitter). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glubokii Boy Posted July 7, 2020 Share Posted July 7, 2020 (edited) One problem i can think of would be displaying this on multi story buildings (with multiple windows)...you might be able to see one window in an action square...but not the other 2 for example. Edited July 7, 2020 by RepsolCBR 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletpoint Posted July 9, 2020 Share Posted July 9, 2020 (edited) On 7/6/2020 at 9:12 PM, MikeyD said: Field of view graphics would be a complex thing in CM. A tank includes the field of view of each member of the crew and it changes dynamically (if the loader's loading instead of spotting for instance). I recall there was a bug in the Beta involving a Tiger I were spotting didn't feel quite right. It turned out the invisible commander in the buttoned-up tank was sitting sideways in his seat so wasn't looking out his forward vision block! For infantry you've got a 7-13 man squad, each with his own LOS. If one man is up on one knee the squad has LOS, if he's prone it doesn't. If they're in short grass they do, in tall grass they don't. And if that guy on one knee has line-of-sight that doesn't mean anyone has line-of-fire. If a member of the squad isn't facing to the rear on lookout they can be jumped from behind. This is awfully complex stuff to put into a graphical representation. On 7/6/2020 at 9:43 PM, Vacilllator said: While such a tool would be very useful 'I think MikeyD has a point' Actually he doesn't have much of a point, because the original poster asked for a feature like the Graviteam games have. And those games have just as complex LOS calculations as Combat Mission, with each individual crewmember spotting, etc. You can even toggle on a mode that shows you which vision slit each of the crew is looking out of at any given moment. Yet Graviteam also has a feature to draw a map of the total field of view of any given unit. Edited July 9, 2020 by Bulletpoint 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
com-intern Posted July 13, 2020 Share Posted July 13, 2020 IIRC Graviteam is likely advantaged here as it started life as a tank-sim and expanded into a tactical game. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thewood1 Posted July 13, 2020 Share Posted July 13, 2020 That's not a bad way start. Steel Beasts is heading in the same direction. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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