Guest Guest Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 deleted per user request 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Other Means Posted August 22, 2008 Share Posted August 22, 2008 AIUI the cover is abstracted within the tile, so everyone gets some bonus. Willing to get herring-battered and corrected. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoolaman Posted August 23, 2008 Share Posted August 23, 2008 Are they concealed? I have never observed that individuals are concealed (as in "not seen") behind a tree, but it may be so. Individuals can certainly be concealed behind a low wall or a berm, but that is also "perfect" cover, where even whether they are prone makes a difference. Once a squad is spotted I suppose they are inviting fire, and that fire is as likely to find any guy withing 10m. But I am sure that man-to-man LOF tracking means that they are in COVER, if not concealment. It's an interesting question, whether the game code explicitly simulates an individual soldier actually aiming at another individual soldier. I've never payed attention enough to see if I've killed any enemy men who were not spotted at the time even though their squad as a whole was spotted. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stikkypixie Posted August 23, 2008 Share Posted August 23, 2008 I think I've spotted parts of squads, so it's not out of the question. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted August 24, 2008 Share Posted August 24, 2008 deleted per user request 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoolaman Posted August 25, 2008 Share Posted August 25, 2008 Just to be clear are you actually talking about cover or concealment? I am 100% sure the men behind the tree will have more cover than the man not, a more extreme example is where half your squad is behind a crest and half is hanging over a crest, only half will take fire and die. Once your squad is spotted and starts taking fire, whether one man is concealed and one is not is irrelevant AFAICT. LOF/cover is modelled per man, LOS/concealment/spotting is modelled per unit. Does that answer your question? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 deleted per user request 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 First off, don't use the word "hex" unless you're talking about a game that uses hexes CM's Action Spots are squares for the most part, customized shapes in special circumstances. Just clarifying! Concealment means the enemy has a lower chance of spotting. Cover means the enemy has a lower chance of hitting. The basic terrain inside a particular Action Spot (square, usually) is identical for both cover and concealment except when there are other forms of terrain present within. These should be obvious from a visual standpoint. When these other forms of terrain are present they matter on a 1:1 basis. Examples of other types of terrain: Roads, trees, bushes, walls, craters, windows, etc. Elevation and unit height (Enhanced LOS added the latter) are critically important. You can possibly see soldiers in a particular Action Spot while walking, but when they drop to the ground be lost due to something blocking LOS to the spot on the ground where the soldiers dropped to. OK, so how does the system decide who gets behind a tree and who sits out in the open? It's realistic circumstances, really. If you have 1 tree in an Action Spot you can't fit 12 men behind it, therefore 1 or 2 will go behind the tree and the rest will take the best alternative cover that is available. This very often means nothing much to speak of. By default the soldiers always treat the direction ahead of it as the threat area. That means when the unit advances into an Action Spot it chooses positions that would be defensively good if the enemy were directly ahead of it. This can be overridden by a FACE Command, which the player gives to instruct the unit to orientate itself towards a potential threat in a different direction. In this way you can move a unit north and have it set up positions to defend to the south instead of the north. The other condition that can come up is, obviously, enemy activity. If the TacAI feels that its current positions have been compromised, and better alternatives exist, it will attempt to reorientate the soldiers to reduce vulnerability. However, conditions may exist that makes reorientation difficult to achieve, if not impossible. In which case the soldiers may "bugger out". (the latter is a "new" behavior that was introduced in v1.08 or v1.10, I can't remember which since I haven't used v1.08 in months). A lot of work has gone into improving the TacAI's ability to use the natural cover and elevation changes Action Spots provide for both cover and concealment. There has also been a lot of work on the TacAI's ability to engage or disengage soldiers from enemy contact within an Action Spot. Meaning, if there is a guy behind a tree, and another one in the open, and the guy behind the tree gets zapped... the guy in the open may try to put that tree inbetween himself and the enemy. HOWEVER, soldiers also understand that moving around can be worse than staying still sometimes, therefore the TacAI weighs various factors before relocating. Special note... Flavor Objects provide cover but not concealment. The degree of cover is, of course, dependent on what the object is. A soldier will get a lot more cover lying behind some tires instead of standing up behind a sign post Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Guest Posted September 1, 2008 Share Posted September 1, 2008 deleted per user request 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huntarr Posted September 5, 2008 Share Posted September 5, 2008 The following is a dramatization. For the satirically impaired this a joke.... How Cover should work when near buildings 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Huntarr Posted September 5, 2008 Share Posted September 5, 2008 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Battlefront.com Posted September 7, 2008 Share Posted September 7, 2008 Adam, Realistic yes but we also cannot spread out a squad between more than two adjacent action spots. Since the squad is abstracted ("the blob") we can't spread out individual men the way the terrain calls for. The way the terrain sometimes calls for, agreed. Often times the terrain and density of the soldiers within it is spot on. So it is very much situationally dependent. The big negative from too much soldier to cover density comes from "area effect" weapons, such as mortar rounds. As discussed on this Forum more times than I care to recall , we've adjusted down the effects of those sorts of things in order to ensure that things are balanced out. Incidentally, we did something similar in CMx1 games because inherently each Squad was on the "head of a pin". Meaning, as far as the simulation was concerned a 12 man Squad occupied less than 1 square meter. Now that's a bit crowded Therefore, firepower had to be "dumbed down" to simulate the men being spread out when, in fact, from a data standpoint they weren't. Steve 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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