Poor Man's Relative Spotting that might fit into CM2

[Midnight Warrior]

There has been much discussion on this forum concerning relative verses absolute spotting. Also, we will have to wait for the engine rewrite in CMII before we get relative spotting. I had a thought on how to implement a poor man's relative spotting that might fit into the constaints of current game engine. The idea is to create the effects of relative spotting without having to implement all the complex mechanics of literal relative spotting.

The effect of relative spotting are that when one guy spots an enemy unit everybody else doesn't automatically spot it too. There is the area fire problem too in that even with relative spotting a player can beat the system by targeting the partially spotted unit with area fire from units that haven't spoted the unit yet.

[the following is revised and very much simplified from earlier post]

A simple way to create the effect pf relative spotting is to introduce a new level of being spotted that is inbetween unspotted and absolutely spotted, called partially spotted. Whenever an unspotted unit first become spotted it has the potential of becoming a partially spotted target. Partially spotted units would be something akin to sound contacts in that there is some random amount of error in its location. However, unlike sound contacts the icon of the partially spotted unit has the proper ID and directioanl orientation (subject to fog of war restrictions). Whenever anyone shoots at a partially spotted unit the TAC AI would randomly decide whether he spotted the target or not. If yes, then the shot is normal. If no, then the shot becomes an area shot directed at some radius around the partially spotted unit's icon (similar to the proceedure that it scatters indirect fire). This area fire may still hit the target but has reduced liklihood due to the uncertainty of where the target actually is. TAC AI could use some simple rules to affect the probability that the firer spots the target (e.g. his chances go up if he is being shot at by the unit or if he is close to it). As time goes on the degree of error of the location of the partially spotted target could decrease. The rate in which it decreases could be a function of target activity such as motion and firing, the terrain that it is in, and whether the shooter spotted the unit the previous turn or not. When the error foes to zero the target becomes absolutely spotted so that everyone knows exactly where it is.

Note that the firer could also choose to fire area fire at where it thinks the real location of the partially spotted unit is. He would do this if he thinks he can guess better than having the AI randomly pick for him. However, if it does this then it forgoes the possibility that the AI declaring him to have sighted the target. With this approach it would be harder to game the system and use area fire to defeat the relative spotting mechanics since the target icon's location is randomly displaced from the target's actual location. Thus his area fire would have to cover a wide area with reduced liklihood of actually hitting the partially spotted unit.

Implementation of this should not be a problem in the current engine in that it is only adding a few more logic checks to the existing firing proceedure (e.g. is it in Line Of sight, is oit in range, ect). It should be easier to implement than true relatively targeting sense it does not require every unit ro keep track of which targets it has spotted or not but only requires that the TAC AI decree whether the shooter when he shoots at a target actually has spotted it or not by use of some simple rules.

[ 01-01-2002: Message edited by: Midnight Warrior ]

[ 01-02-2002: Message edited by: Midnight Warrior ]</p>

[Midnight Warrior]

I majorly edited this post so I am bumping it back up. The edited approach to relative targeting is much more simplier than my first iteration.

[aka_tom_w]

just a suggestion...

Perhaps you should review pages 81 and 82 of the manual.

There are already 4 differnet levels of spotting in full fog of war

level 0 No contact units are there and you cannot see any of them because they are hiding

level 1 sound contact

(the enemy unit is shown at a location which maybe somewhat incorrect)

level 2 first contact

(muzzle flash)

level 3 contact

(misidenified tanks are common)

level 4 contact Identified

full identification

perhaps you might want to read pages 81 and 82 and then revisit your latest post

-tom w

[Midnight Warrior]

Good point! (Its been quite a while sense I've read the manual. However,

1. If I'm not mistaken, these levels of spotting in the manual apply uniformily to all units where what I am describing allows different units to have a different levels of spotting, i.e. one guy sees (and maybe even ID's) the target and another doesn't.

2. Perhaps one of these levels in the manual could be extended to include the aspects of releative spotting (though it seems that that would be mixing apples and oranges in that these are different aspects of spotting, i.e. to what degree is he spotted and who else sees him.