iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 If a tank has trees behind him, will an enemy unit in front of him have a harder time spotting the tank than if the tank was on a hill? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
109 Gustav Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 No. However, if you place the tank in scattered trees, it will be harder to spot or hit. Only do this in perfect ground conditions though, as tanks in scattered trees are very likely to bog in anything from damp on up. ------------------ Well my skiff's a twenty dollar boat, And I hope to God she stays afloat. But if somehow my skiff goes down, I'll freeze to death before I drown. And pray my body will be found, Alaska salmon fishing, boys, Alaska salmon fishing. -Commercial fishing in Kodiak, Alaska Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Michael emrys Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 But I think you can put a tank behind a single row of scattered tree squares and it can trace an LOS/LOF through it. Michael Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 Placing tanks in scattered trees will slow thier rotation rates. Nice try. Will BTS try to impliment a real solution for future CMs? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 Close Michael but not the same thing. If your tank is on the move, wouldn't you want your back drop to conceal your outline? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 And to another question that wasn't answered, future versions of CM should have hull down vehicles lower thier cannons to point to the horizon. It's silly that they point to the sky and it just takes that much longer to braket a threat when it appears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Clark Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Placing tanks in trees slows the rotation in the game??? Damn! This game has SOOOO much in it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 Yes Clark, this to simulate the difficulty of rotating guns when near trees. I'm talking about your backdrop though. If you were to advance a tank, you should be better off with a tree line behind you. As it stands, you are not rewarded for a better tactical approach. [This message has been edited by iggi (edited 01-26-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lorak Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Iggi, No offense but have you really thought about what you are asking? That every single enemy unit has to check for LOS on every one of your troops, vehicle/men, then the program has to take into account every unit that has LOS to every single unit and decide not only if it is in LOS, what kind of cover, terrain, stance, but then what backdrop is behind every one of your units considering the LOS angles from all units with LOS to it. Would be sweet if it could happen. But it is a bit much I think. Lorak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 Right now, a unit running in an open field can be seen as easily as a unit running in open ground along a tree line. Aren't LOS checks made anyways? The unit knows where the obstacles are already, no? Right now, doesn't a unit know that a building is behind an enemy unit? So if you have two spottings, a building and a unit at the same relative angle from north, they are lined up allowing for a benifit for a unit with that backdrop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMplayer Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Originally posted by iggi: Right now, a unit running in an open field can be seen as easily as a unit running in open ground along a tree line. Aren't LOS checks made anyways? The unit knows where the obstacles are already, no? Right now, doesn't a unit know that a building is behind an enemy unit? So if you have two spottings, a building and a unit at the same relative angle from north, they are lined up allowing for a benifit for a unit with that backdrop. This would of course be a great thing to simulate but it would seem to need to wait until there is relative spotting. A certain unit might have a dark background from one direction and be skylined from another. Perhaps drawing the LOS past the unit and checking the background for 'dark' or 'light' could be used within the present spotting system by adjusting the delay time to target or even changing the chance for a hit. regards, -Rett [This message has been edited by CMplayer (edited 01-27-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 A certain unit might have a dark background from one direction and be skylined from another. Of course. The game already has every unit check every area of the game. So a unit knows that the treeline is there. Attach an angle and distance to every pont and when you have a unit with the same angle as a backdrop but less distance from spotter, you have a unit with a backdrop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 This way your tank benifits by being next to a building. Or when your tank is hiding behind a tree line and it comes out hunting, it will get the advantage of being less likely to be noticed because it's coming out of a treeline. It's turret rotation is not adversly affected cause the tank is in the open though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 You can even start out a scenario with a tank cammed up in front of a treeline. ie branches, leaves, a net are place over the tank. The cammed benifit should be greater with a backdrop to blend in with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 The game doesn't do this sort of relative spotting for the same reason it doesn't take into account the style of camoflauge. Can you imagine the sort of calculations it would take if the camo pattern of the vehicle was taken into account into spotting the unit. So if you stick "The Pink Panther"TM on the back side of a single "woods" tile, it still has the same concealment factor as one painted up to match the trees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Aitken Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 This is not a simple yes/no issue where a unit is either camouflaged against a backdrop or not, in the same way that a unit is either in a woods tile or not. We're effectively talking about modelling visual perception into the AI. Your men would have to "look" and see where an enemy unit is in relation to its surroundings. I can't begin to imagine how much more complex the AI would need to be in order to be intuitively aware of the surrounding battlefield in the way that real humans are. The AI can only react to relatively simplistic criteria, it can't "see" and it can't exercise intuition. That is unlikely to change for a long time. This kind of thing would be nice, but it's on a higher plane from the computer game AI of today. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 Originally posted by David Aitken: This is not a simple yes/no issue where a unit is either camouflaged against a backdrop or not, in the same way that a unit is either in a woods tile or not. We're effectively talking about modelling visual perception into the AI. Your men would have to "look" and see where an enemy unit is in relation to its surroundings. I can't begin to imagine how much more complex the AI would need to be in order to be intuitively aware of the surrounding battlefield in the way that real humans are. The AI can only react to relatively simplistic criteria, it can't "see" and it can't exercise intuition. That is unlikely to change for a long time. This kind of thing would be nice, but it's on a higher plane from the computer game AI of today. David Well said, David. What in effect iggi is asking is for the game to actually *see* what it's looking at. It can't. LOS is calculated soley on numbers, not visual cues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 I'm not asking for a unit to "see". I'm not asking for the AI to get confused. 1)The enemy unit spots a tree line. 2)If I am moving in between the tree line and the enemy unit, I am less likely to be spotted. The closer I am to the tree line, the less likely to be spotted. The area or cone that is created from the enemy unit to all tree lines in effect changes the spotting modifier of the terrain in that cone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 I can see why David Aitken was saying that the ai would have to "see". That was probably because I was asking that the angle of the target relative to the spotter be compared to the angle of the treeline relative to the spotter. If the two angles line up, you would have a backdrop. But that would mean that the ai has already spotted the target in order to compare angles. If you want the ai not to know where the target is try my second approach, ie creating a cone that the spotting modifer of the terrain is altered. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BIG DD Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 iggi what u are asking for has never been implemented in any game ever.....so youll excuse me when i say NOT GONNA HAPPEN! NEXT... ------------------ MAKE IT SHORT AND SWEET THEN GET THE F#$K OUT Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 27, 2001 Author Share Posted January 27, 2001 Well that's CM's challenge. To go where no wargame/sim has gone before. PS When I talk about "CM", I mean it's future versions not a patch for this CM. [This message has been edited by iggi (edited 01-27-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Aitken Posted January 27, 2001 Share Posted January 27, 2001 iggi wrote: > 1)The enemy unit spots a tree line. > 2)If I am moving in between the tree line and the enemy unit, I am less likely to be spotted. The closer I am to the tree line, the less likely to be spotted. > The area or cone that is created from the enemy unit to all tree lines in effect changes the spotting modifier of the terrain in that cone. Sorry, what you're talking about is still tantamount to having the AI need to "see". How would you propose creating this "cone"? LOS is calculated from point to point. Area does not come into it. A treeline is not a line, it is the edge of an area. What if you have tree tiles scattered haphazardly? Bang goes your neat treeline, and trying to create these "cones" would be ten times the nightmare it already is, if it were even possible in the first place. And that's only on a two-dimensional plane. What about three dimensions? What if you're looking across a valley to a treeline, and an enemy unit is below you? They are within the cone, but they can't benefit from camouflage of the treeline. The only way to do it is to have units basically "see", which is my point. There is no other way they can take in all the factors to decide whether an enemy unit is camouflaged in relation to its surroundings. David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
L.Tankersley Posted January 28, 2001 Share Posted January 28, 2001 Actually, while this is by no means a trivial endeavor, I don't think it's as hard as it's being made out to be either. Once you've verified that a clear LOS exists from spotter to target, you already know the viewing angle (both azimuth and elevation) and that LOS line could be extended out beyond the target to see where it next hits an obstacle (where obstacle in this case might or might not be something that would actually block LOS). The harder question is what to do with this information once you have it. The spotting code currently in CM is essentially a black box to me right now anyway. We know that range and terrain occupied by the target both play a role, but the details are hidden. It seems, though, that in general once a friendly unit has LOS to a moving enemy, they will be spotted pretty much immediately with the exception of sneaking/crawling infantry. And stationary/hiding units are very rarely spotted in my experience, at least if they're in decent concealment. It sounds like what iggi is proposing is to make it harder to spot targets that have a concealment backdrop even if they don't actually occupy the concealment. I'm not sure, but I suspect that any such modifier would be overwhelmed by the current global spotting code (only one spotter has to detect the target for it to be visible to all). Perhaps units in front of concealment "backdrops" could receive a concealment level bonus, but it's unclear to me what actual game effect that would have or whether it would be worth the additional calculations required. Something that I'd much rather see would be to have the intel level on targets that drop out of sight reduced. That is, if you have a fully identified enemy infantry squad that moves out of LOS so it becomes a cross/star/rondel/whatever, after a few turns that symbol should fade and if spotted again you would only see "Infantry?" until you once again gained additional intel on it. ------------------ Leland J. Tankersley Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iggi Posted January 28, 2001 Author Share Posted January 28, 2001 Thanks for the feedback guys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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