Steel Beasts vs Combat Mission t-72 visibility test

[Erwin]

2 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

If you can drive through you can shoot through it. 

Unfortunately this does not always work.  In urban environments it is common that one can drive a unit down a road that doers not have any obstructing terrain, but have no LOS from one end to the other.  ie:  One cannot shoot at a building that may sit at the end of the road.  IIRC the same problem with roads lined with trees.

[chuckdyke]

55 minutes ago, Erwin said:

Unfortunately this does not always work.

I wrote through a forest, urban environments is something else. My pet peeve was the lack of common sense in the animations in urban environments. Fortunately some people on this form helped me out. Like a sniper taking a position on the balcony. But thanks to other people I appreciate the way around it. Not to be spotted is maybe more important than spotting yourself. Just appreciate the engine gives you tentative contacts and full contacts which is your LOS 

[Kraft]

Maybe underlying simulation is deeper, but if the game shows an open green field with a clearly skylined tank facing sideways while your tank is pointing directly at it at a range where you could almost  make it out with the Mk 1 Eyeball in Late Stage cold war with magnified optics at your hand you would expect your tank to spot it easily.

Doesn't matter if its a test range or not, your gunner should immediately see the tank in his sight, or atleast after 5 sec while scanning horizon, not after sideways facing tank does a 90° swoop and blows it up. Wether the crew knows there should be a tank or not as long as they have their eyes somewhat open and aren't drunk they'd spot it.

If the code can't simulate your tank directly looking at another tank how accurate is the simulation reflecting reality?

Edited October 30, 2021 by Kraft

[chuckdyke]

18 minutes ago, Kraft said:

If the code can't simulate your tank directly looking at another tank how accurate is the simulation reflecting reality?

You need to publish a screenshot to get a favorable reaction. After playing CM for more than ten years I think spotting if anything errs on the side of the player. Example infantry spots AFV's in excess of a kilometer under hazy conditions. To do a test you need to make your own map and publish your findings. 

[Erwin]

10 hours ago, chuckdyke said:

the engine gives you tentative contacts and full contacts which is your LOS 

In CM1 the tentative "sound" contacts were not very accurate and it was rarely effective to area fire at them.  However, in CM2, "tentative contacts" are quite accurate and one can area fire at them with good effect.  Have thought that the CM1 inaccurate contacts was better.  It's too easy in CM2.

[Bud Backer]

On 10/29/2021 at 10:22 AM, IanL said:

Yep. I personally would like a true WYSYG mode for fog, darkness, blizzards etc. but that would have to be toggle-able so you could actually play - as @ASL Veteran correctly points out. I think it would be pretty cool to follow a unit through the fog seeing what they can really see. Like smoke now.

Not to mention it would put to rest some of the "why can't my guys see that <insert big scary thing here> right in front of them". OK it wouldn't really stop those posts but we could turn them all into:

OP: "Why can't my guys see that <insert big scary thing here> right in front of them. The game is broken"

The rest of us: "Have you toggled on True Visibility (tm) mode?

OP: "Oh"

This is something we discussed with @Battlefront.combefore. We have toggleable smoke. We have toggleable trees. We have toggleable artificial brightness for night battles. Toggleable fog/snow etc is no different. It is NOT directional, there is no arc, it changes nothing in the engine in terms of showing what a unit might or might not see. Just like turning off or on smoke changes no spotting information. It makes a heck of a difference in what the PLAYER can see and that is what we proposed for fog, rain, snow etc. It is very difficult to intuitively gauge what the guys on the ground can see when the player can see almost perfectly in dense fog. 

Edited October 30, 2021 by Bud Backer

[chuckdyke]

8 hours ago, Erwin said:

tentative contacts" are quite accurate

Now it is they have seen something but they didn't identify it. There is sound contacts or partly visible contacts. I believe that is the case now. 

[Erwin]

Yes, but if you fire at the "tentative contacts" it is highly probably that your shots will do damage as the location of the enemy unit is quite accurate.  In CM1 IIRC the actual enemy unit could have been located several meters away from its tentative contact icon.