LOS / LOF problems

[Cameroon]

Originally posted by sandy:

I think that the problems highlighted in this thread indicate just one more example of why, so far, and IMHO, CMSF seems to be a step backwards from CM1 in actual gameplay.

If these issues are bugs which can be fixed by patch 1.12, or whatever, all well and good.

My worry is that they may be the result of ill-chosen but fundamental design decisions...

I certainly never saw anything like this in many years of playing CM1

No comment by BF I note.

Then you never had your tanks shot through a building in CMx1? There were plenty of times where an AFV had LOS (and thus LOF) through the corner of a building in my games, so that engine had its LOS/LOF issues as well.

[panzermartin]

True but it was only around building corners and totally predictable. Los/Lof across terrain, hill crests, berms etc was close to perfect and in hundreds of games I played, I never had a "WTF? how did he see me through the hill" incident. Now its totally unpredicatble, you can even lose tanks taking shells in the belly while hidden behind berms. I need to concetrate and play the game not fight with the abstractions and the bluriness of the LOS/LOF grid. Once I start getting into the game one of these bugs pops ups and puts me off again.

[C'Rogers]

was close to perfect and in hundreds of games I played, I never had a "WTF? how did he see me through the hill" incident.

Really? A lot of times I thought guys were well protected/concealed by a hill that they ended up getting shot through.

Overall I imagine this is an issue of relative spotting. In CMx1 a spotted unit was spotted by everything, it was one of the biggest things people wanted done away with. Now it is gone but with every unit running individual spot checks it creates the potential for obvious things being missed.

It will be improved I am sure, more so than the borg issue which had no real chance of improvement.

[panzermartin]

Los/Lof was not a problem in CMx1. I would happily trade infatry 1:1 with a more accurate LOS system, a base with 9 pixel soldiers but not 1:1 tracking of LOS/LOF. Right now is too confusing. And I completely hate having men of the same squad spread all over the map, some stuck in trees other at some walls and the squad icon floating in the middle of the desert.

I was thinking if there could be an auto normalizing feature of terrain elevations in the scenario editor in order to fit in the LOS grid more accurately. Like eliminating a pointy hill crest in the middle of an action spot or whatever. Or just make the terrain mesh less fine than currently is?

[SlowMotion]

Originally posted by panzermartin:

In the last example, maybe he was shaken/rattled or something after abndoning the vehicle?

I didn't save this so I could check, but I don't think so. He had been out of the Stryker for several minutes before I gave him any commands and he executed those without any delays. Maybe it has to do with the man so close to ground. I've noticed that sometimes crawling soldiers don't spot nearly as well as those who walk. This is not a bug of course, but if the crawling happens in a place where there are no bushes, long grass or similar I think they should see quite a bit further than the distance to the Humvee in my screen shot.

[ September 03, 2007, 09:42 PM: Message edited by: SlowMotion ]

[Sgt Joch]

Originally posted by Cameroon:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by sandy:

I think that the problems highlighted in this thread indicate just one more example of why, so far, and IMHO, CMSF seems to be a step backwards from CM1 in actual gameplay.

If these issues are bugs which can be fixed by patch 1.12, or whatever, all well and good.

My worry is that they may be the result of ill-chosen but fundamental design decisions...

I certainly never saw anything like this in many years of playing CM1

No comment by BF I note.

Then you never had your tanks shot through a building in CMx1? There were plenty of times where an AFV had LOS (and thus LOF) through the corner of a building in my games, so that engine had its LOS/LOF issues as well. </font>

[hoolaman]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

...

Barleyman,

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Wait a second.. First you say LOS is tracked on a 8x8 grid, fine. But then you go around and say it matters if you can see 0.5m of tank from beyond a house corner.

I'm sure the confusion is my fault. This is a difficult thing to explain, especially for someone who has been using it for years and not using CMx1. It is also difficult because I didn't code the thing and some of the very fine points aren't known to me unless I check with Charles first. Since he's busy I'm going to try and wing an answer to your question.

As I understand it LOS is drawn from the location of the unit spotting to the Action Spot of the unit that it is trying to target. So if the Bradley is mostly behind a building it doesn't get to spot something that is around the corner. However, LOF is exact so the enemy can "see" that portion of the Bradley that is poking out and take a shot at it even though the Bradley doesn't have LOS.

...

Truppenfuhrung

It's terrain, rather than walls, that's really becoming the major issue for me. The 'plan' here ('Meeting at High Altitude') was to move the squad up to just short of the top of the ridge, the Syrians being on the other side, obviously. That's where, visually, they went - but ended up in a firefight through the hill with the results you can see.

Yup, there is something to be fixed there for sure. There was something about this earlier in this thread or elsewhere. While a LITTLE bit of this is expected when there is a slight ridge in the middle of an Action Spot (say 2 guys shooting through the terrain and 7 not), the screenshot you have up is clearly not such an event. Charles is looking into such things now.

...</font>

[Pandur]

It is akin to what earlier wargames called "LOS Maps". It is a trick, if you will, to get muuuuuuch faster LOS/LOF information on the fly. It is a must have for a real time game.

does this again say that we should thank RT for this "fine" LOS system and nothing "finer" is possible even with high power machines compared to CMx1 times PC´s!?

i mean, where do we stuff all ouer PC power into, i wonder quiet some time about that allready.

and why isnt LOS worth it to stuff even more power in !?

[Martin Krejcirik]

Pandur, there acually is a finer check, but only when a unit fires (LOF check). Although it sometimes doesn't work as advertised (we have all seen fire through the wall and things like that.).

What I see as a problem though, sometimes there clearly is unobstructed LOF (you can see it in the 3D), but your unit cannot fire, because the action-spot based LOS check fails.

[ September 10, 2007, 06:39 AM: Message edited by: Martin Krejcirik ]

[SlowMotion]

Originally posted by Hoolaman:

Lately I have been wondering if the game mechanics will ever allow for the possibility of something as finely resolved as turret down spotting. Has anybody tested this?

What is this turret down spotting?

[Mishga]

When all that is above a berm is the TC hatch and he can stand on his seat and observe with binoculars or scopes or open fire with the TC weapon.

[SlowMotion]

So this would be like one step further from hull down which was already there in CMx1. Thanks for the explanation. Maybe we will see this one day.

[hoolaman]

Correct, and more importantly in a modern era game is the fact that vehicles can have powerful sensor packages mounted on roofs or even on extendable periscope thingies. So turret-down positions to spot are critical.

If you can't edge a recon vehicle up to a ridge and spot with its sensors than this game is not capable of a fundamental tactical option in modern warfare.

Even infantry should be able to stick their heads over the ridge line to spot without being as clearly visible from the enemies side.

But again, I would like the official word on how it really works.

[Huntarr]

Reverse Slope has the ability to target. Just harder to hit

Reverse Slope also has the inability to target due to "No Aim Point"

Your still in LOS so you do not receive a "No LOS" you just have a more difficult shot.

[ October 02, 2007, 08:57 AM: Message edited by: Huntarr ]

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[Huntarr]

So it appears I was correct in recommending you post it here as a bug.

It makes it easier for us to find and fix the errors when you keep them in the central LOS/LOF thread.

[Pandur]

well, i guess i post em here again. cant hurt.

the first 5 are all shot around the same 2 houses. i think it shows that some LOS/LOF problems could be tied to specific houses and a specific spot of the vehicle. when i moved the vehicle a bit it mostly worked or changed at least. at the 3rd house in this map i couldnt find such spots at all.

this one is a great shot i find. its a RPG emerging out of the ground scoring a bottom penetration after pirceing about 15-20 meters of soldid material in front of the tank. the tank was knocked out and burned as soon as it hit.

the tank was visible, though. just a part of the turrent was possible to catch a hit and not the rest, let alone the bottom side.

[LuckyStrike]

Oh dear.

So with these action spots, are we back to Squad Leader, taking a ruler and checking LOS between hex centers (action spots), only with smaller 8x8m hexes?

[ October 14, 2007, 12:28 AM: Message edited by: LuckyStrike ]

[Wiggum]

Why we get no answer from Battlefront to these problems ?

[SlowMotion]

Sunday?