Visual Helpers

[reto]

Hi Guys

The Marines module is a big leap forwards, the game just makes more fun – don't ask me why exactly, but it's really cool to see how you guys progress with your improvements!

There's one thing I missed from day one: good simple visual helpers. The most important one being something to help identify small height changes in the terrain. Be it contour lines (thats how they are called in english, right?) like on a real map, or just a simple greenish grid laid over the map. Best would be if the grid/lines could be activated using a hotkey and perhaps a small button somewhere in the gui. With today's GUI I always have to get very low to the ground to even be able to identify small hills and valleys or to be able to judge if a given unit can cover a given area.

If you think this makes the game too easy I have two suggestions: 1. only activate it in <= veteran mode (thats the one I play *g*). or 2. create a detailed in game map which has good contour informations (like a real map for an officer) which could be activated somehow.

The second helper which I would like very much would be a LOS identifier. Press a button, and the map gets colorized by LOS according to the current mouse position, this would be very cool, but also very powerful. Perhaps too powerful, not sure. Because a command on a real battlefield wouldn't have something like that – on the other hand, in the real world a good commander would prepare himself much more than we can (and want to), by studying the map over a longer time, and by having a better vision then we do. Dunno

I personally really miss the visual helper for the terrain of the map, the LOS thing isn't that important. But I'd love both!

Cheers, and thanks for the cool game

Reto

[Moon]

on the other hand, in the real world a good commander would prepare himself much more than we can (and want to), by studying the map over a longer time, and by having a better vision then we do.

Not so sure about that one. You, as the player, with the free moving camera, generally already have MUCH more detailed info accessible to you then any real-world commander on the battlefield. You can "go anywhere" and look at any place on the map freely. That's a huge advantage over just studying sat images or topo maps. Adding the ability to, with one click, see the precise topography, might be going too far. Would it make the game easier to play and win? Yes. But I am not sure if that's what we (in the collective sense of players out there) really want.

BTW, nothing is preventing you from "studying a map over a longer time" in the game, too

[SlowMotion]

Actually I'd like a game option where map usage would work exactly the opposite way. When the game would start you'd see only the parts of the map your units can see. Other details like what's behind some hill would be at least partially hidden. So you would for example know whether there are buildings behind that hill only once your units can see that part of the map.

[reto]

Moon: Yes I agree, moving the camera around is powerful, but still, it's much more difficult to see small hills than it is in the real life. And about the preparing thing, what I was tryign to say was that the commander there has a real plan of the area, with contour lines and everything, not just plain normal pictures. Having such a map would already help, it wouldn't have to be laid over the real view (although this would be cooler ).

Perhap its a similar problem with the trenches, they dissapear when the cameare is farther away then a few metere (about 50) and aren't seeable anymore. It would be also great if the engine could plot them a simple mapish line to still be aware of them.

[Yair Iny]

Hi reto. Are you sure you are running with patch 1.10? A feature was added to the game ages ago that made sure trenches are visible from all overhead (i.e. 6-8) views at all times.

Cheers

[reto]

I am yes, It might have gotten better yes . But some visual makrings would be helpful for them as well. Of course bf doesn't want to create a terminator-view of the battlefield ... so too many visual hints would probably bad. But some help to see elevations would be great!