Ground clutter/ Ground cover

[Dark_au]

The setting for ground clutter on or off needs to be set by the server. As it is there are several people who appear to deliberately turn it off to give themselves an advantage. This is stupid as the only reply is to turn it off yourself. To me that defeats the whole purpose of it being there.

[yurch]

I have particular difficulty as infantry in that hide-and-seek map. Unless I pick the camera way up, I have a hard time spotting jammed vehicles, let alone other infantry.

Gunnery view has an utter forest of grasses limiting visibility to a few meters. Hit 'hold position' however, and the rest of your squad starts lighting everything up, including the odd walking infantry unit from 4k away.

This is most unfortunate, as our combination of allowable settings and large numbers of AI controlled units will never allow this sort of feature to be used reasonably.

[poesel]

Another problem: for those of us with weak computers turning foliage on slows things down a lot.

And, as yurch said, the bots see through foliage. This is especially annoying if you drive over a rim with foliage and have a bot on the other side.

So maybe a question for Clay: is it possible for the game engine to heighten the areas with foliage about a meter for line of sight calculations? This way turning of foliage wouldn't give you an advantage. It would look strange sometimes as units pop into existence as you clear the gras that you can't see but I could live with that.

[ClaytoniousRex]

It's a sticky problem. There are really only a few permanent solutions:

</font>

• Raise minimum system requirements so that everyone has it on at all times - fewer players online</font>
• Model the effects of it not only for bots but also for players who have it turned off - very hard to define programmatically (a random chance of "not seeing" a target? reduced weapon accuracy? all quite imperfect)</font>
• Make it transparent while in the gunner's view - no physical justification for this, but would address the problem</font>

Poesel, that approach would actually be too strong a penalty - you can often catch sight of a target even through the foliage and eventually fire on it. It's just painful and annoying to do.

Actually, a variation on #1 in the list might be possible. Even on min-spec systems, maybe we could render only the foliage in the immediate area (the annoying stuff in your face in the gunner's view) but not the other trillion blades of grass in the distance for users who have foliage turned off. If this is feasible, it's probably the best solution.

[Dark_au]

The last sollution still leaves a player with folliage on at the mercy of those without it on in the middle distance.

[ClaytoniousRex]

How does it do that? They will both see foliage in their gunner's views, which is the majority of the problem here. Do you mean that the target in the middle distance might be hard to see because of the foliage around it? I don't think this true of any of the AFV's, though it theoretically could be if a scenario author were to make some remarkably large foliage. However, it could well be a problem for infantry, especially if they're prone. In most of these cases, though, the detection rules (which force them to be invisible even if the client has foliage turned off based on terrain type) should take care of that already.

[Dark_au]

In the middle distance a player in a paladin who isn't low enough to be affected by the loacal long grass will see the infantry lying out in the open if they have folliage turned off... I'm talking about say 2-500m

[ClaytoniousRex]

Yes, I see what you mean. Maybe we can extend it out to about that range for the min spec players. I'll do some testing and find out.

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Make it transparent while in the gunner's view - no physical justification for this, but would address the problem

Maybe we should invert this idea.

When in gunner's view, the computer synthesizes a number of local sensor systems to produce a ground-plane mapping. Milimetric radar, LIDAR, etc, all combine to strip the ground clutter within, say, 500m ... or at least the computer feeds you a view unobstructed by it. Beyond that, there's just too much scatter and jamming.

This puts infantry near the vehicle which are close enough and not "concealed" enough to be visible as visible, makes it far easier to do shoot-and-scoot over hills and around corners when in gunner, but lets the "environmental view" still show the nearby ground clutter on the high end boxes. It pretty much removes the serious advantage of turning off ground clutter decoration without removing it entirely.

(Oh, yes, and the reason the system works for infantry is their HUD doesn't have the bulk and emissions of an enclosing vehicle to deal with, so they cut through it just the same. A prone infantry gunner sees the immediately surrounding foliage pulled back to 500m, which should help a fair chunk.)

[CrimsonDestiny]

Originally posted by Alexander SquidLord Williams:

When in gunner's view, the computer synthesizes a number of local sensor systems to produce a ground-plane mapping. Milimetric radar, LIDAR, etc, all combine to strip the ground clutter within, say, 500m ... or at least the computer feeds you a view unobstructed by it. Beyond that, there's just too much scatter and jamming.

This puts infantry near the vehicle which are close enough and not "concealed" enough to be visible as visible, makes it far easier to do shoot-and-scoot over hills and around corners when in gunner, but lets the "environmental view" still show the nearby ground clutter on the high end boxes. It pretty much removes the serious advantage of turning off ground clutter decoration without removing it entirely.

Are you saying that when in the gunner's view, that maybe a wireframe outline of the vehicle pops up through the foliage or something along those lines?

[adzling]

well i'd like to use foliage but my poor computer isn't fast enough (1.5ghz g4 laptop)

i would rather play with it on as it looks cool and would keep things on an even keel play-balance wise but i just can't do it with my current machine...

squidlord's idea sounds good tho

[Alexander SquidLord Williams]

Are you saying that when in the gunner's view, that maybe a wireframe outline of the vehicle pops up through the foliage or something along those lines?

I was suggesting something simpler, actually, that no foliage is drawn in gunner's view under 500m. Everything after is according to graphics settings. Less processing necessary, so its a fast impliment.

[Chilibird]

Originally posted by adzling:

well i'd like to use foliage but my poor computer isn't fast enough (1.5ghz g4 laptop)

i would rather play with it on as it looks cool and would keep things on an even keel play-balance wise but i just can't do it with my current machine...

squidlord's idea sounds good tho

1.67 Ghz Powerbook G4, 512 MB RAM, and it runs fine with foliage for me. Generally, though, I shut down any background apps when running DropTeam. iTunes, Adium, and Virus Barrier are the 3 I normally have running, and they are all shut down.

[yllamana]

I can't even turn on foliage on my computer. Interesting implication that this somehow makes me a cheater.

As long as it doesn't have big performance implications, I don't mind. As it stands the big framerate drops for me tend to occur what seems to be the first time something happens on a map (e.g. when the deployment phase is over and the dropships appear, I get a big lag - also seems to happen when anything new appears for the first time, including explosions and units).

I think it could be nice to have foliage if that was possible, as long as it was done efficiently to avoid much impact on framerate.

[adzling]

yeah iceman it would make sense that it runs fine for you....

i've got the 17" powerbook being driven by a 64meg ram video card.....yours has twice as much ram with (perhaps) less pixels to push and a faster clock rate.

Still, i'm happy to swap powerbooks if you like

[Chilibird]

lol, that would do it

Those new intel mac pros are out.. starting @ $1700 USD I think?

[Ithai]

You know I don't have foliage turned on and I still get caught by infantry. I really don't think there is an advantage with foliage off. Its pretty simple if you dont move and don't use jump jets your going to take some one by surprise. The only disadvantage I see with those of us who have to play with foliage off is that we cant see where the really good hiding places are. I have tried with foliage on and playing is no longer fun. I see no ability to cheat by playing with foliage off.

[CrimsonDestiny]

Originally posted by Alexander SquidLord Williams:

I was suggesting something simpler, actually, that no foliage is drawn in gunner's view under 500m. Everything after is according to graphics settings. Less processing necessary, so its a fast impliment.

I dig this.

[cool breeze]

Me too.

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

Originally posted by CrimsonDestiny:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Alexander SquidLord Williams:

I was suggesting something simpler, actually, that no foliage is drawn in gunner's view under 500m. Everything after is according to graphics settings. Less processing necessary, so its a fast impliment.

I dig this. </font>