stikkypixie Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I have some question about the contact markers. First what do they really represent? Visual contacts and (pre-battle) intel only? Or also sound? How do the virtual people in the game react to those "?". Are enemies spotted faster if their location has a "?". Is this the main advantage of having a command chain intact? Inquiring mind wants to know. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stuka Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 ?????????? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yskonyn Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Good point! I have been wondering how this works as well in CMSF. Any insights please, gents? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Very curious about that as well! There are also categories such as semi-transparent question mark icons and solid question mark icons. What is the distinction? Most importantly: are the question marks only visual aids for the player or do they actually speed up spotting for the individual units? Best regards, Thomm 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yskonyn Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Well as far as the faded (transparent) and the solid icons go; Normally when you select one of your units the enemy icons which he cannot see/spot will fade out. So eventhough other units might spot that enemy, the currently selected unit does not, hence the distinction between faded and solid icons. Please correct me if I am wrong. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
c3k Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Hmmm, as for fading, my understanding was that the "?" fades as a function of TIME. Some sort of observed activity creates the initial "?". If no more activity is observed, the "?" will gradually fade. If pre-battle intel yields a field of "?"s, then, if nothing else happens, they will all begin to fade. Yet, you can be pretty sure that someone is there. If there is an isolated spot of concealment, perhaps a house, alone in a field, and you have good observation around the entire field, then that initial "?" marking the house which then fades away, tells you that there is probably an enemy unit there which is biding its time. You can use this against your opponents. Make feints towards the edge of some cover/concealment. That will make some "?" markers. Then pull your guys back. Rinse and repeat. That will give the enemy a slew of "?" markers to be concerned about. Hopefully your men are nowhere near those markers while the enemy fires at them. Regards, Ken 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoex Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I petition for seperate and distinguishable question marks for infantry and vehicles. When you miss something showing up and then vanishing again (which happens easily in real time play), you have no way of knowing whether it was a scout, a squad or even a tank. This can cause problems, needless to say . 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akd Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I have the same problem as stoex with real time play. Different icons for vehicles and infantry would be most helpful. Also don't understand the concept of pre-battle intel that marks the precise location of a unit, but is not able to distinguish between a man and a tank. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Other Means Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 Icons broken down by arm; AFV, infantry & support by type of contact; sound, pre-battle & previously sighted plus confidence (basically time * amount of initial spot) is what I've been voting for. Not that it's a democracy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stikkypixie Posted January 14, 2009 Author Share Posted January 14, 2009 Yes, but what's the point of having those question marks? Is it something only for the player? Or do the pixeltruppen also get a benefit out of it? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoex Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 you mean the question marks in general, stikkypixie? or the ones Other Means is stipulating? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yskonyn Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 In general I presume. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flanker15 Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 From what I've seen: Solid question marks are units (usually knocked out vehicles) that a unit has no LOS to but another unit in cotact with it can see (Vet difficulty). Fading ones are where a unit last saw an enemy or was fired upon by an enemy but now can't see the unit (eg An enemy squad is seen running across an open area then returns to cover, a fading ? will appear at the last place it's seen. An enemy squad in building opens fire then stops before it is seen, a fading mark will apear over the building.) There are no sound contact at the moment, you can drive 10 tanks along a tall wall with a squad on the other side and there won't be any markers. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
salwon Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I think they're just for our benefit, but in 1.11 they men will fire at contacts after they go ?, so there's at least some recognition of a lost contact on the AI level. The ? definitely fade over time, and I've seen them come up from dust and direction of fire. But some kind of vehicle/inf marker would be welcome, as well as sound/sight. Maybe color coded sound vs sight? For me, the fading system works well, but I agree some more variety would be welcome. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wengart Posted January 14, 2009 Share Posted January 14, 2009 I always presumed it was a mix of sound contacts and previously spotted units. Also as your boyz are the one that spotted them I just guessed they would pay more attention to those areas but I have no way to confirm any of this so heh. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stikkypixie Posted January 15, 2009 Author Share Posted January 15, 2009 I'll give this a little bump to see if we can get some insider knowledge. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I searched for info in the "Spotting and Floating Icons" section of the SF manual. Did not find anything on Question Marks. Best regards, Thomm PS: Bump. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Tiger Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Definitely NOT insider information but for what it's worth. I believe that the ?'s mean that your unit knows that there is an unidentified unit at that location. It can get this in one of a few ways: a it directly observes the unit itself but hasn't gathered enough info to fully identify it. (You see this happen a lot in night missions or when the enemy unit is moving in concealing terrain) b it HAD identified a unit but subsequently lost LOS to that unit. c it gets the information passed to it from another unit that has spotted it via C2. d it gets it at the start of the mission if set by the scenario designer in the scenario parameters If your unit has a direct LOS to that icon it can target that icon but the firing unit will only use area fire as the unit hasn't been identified yet. I think the AI can benefit fom this in two ways... I don't KNOW if this is true but if a unit receives info on an enemy unit via C2 or via method d, and then moves into LOS itself, it will receive some bonus when spotting that unit. Second, v1.11 introduced a feature that allows the TAC AI to continue to fire at fully spotted targets that duck out of sight but using the 'target light' command rather than the full 'target' command. The AI can take advantage of this feature too. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 I don't KNOW if this is true but if a unit receives info on an enemy unit via C2 or via method d, and then moves into LOS itself, it will receive some bonus when spotting that unit. I would like to have an official confirmation about whether the above spotting bonus is indeed implemented or whether the question marks are just a visual aid for the player. Of course some testing would show this, but some official word would sound even sweeter! Best regards, Thomm 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falconander Posted January 16, 2009 Share Posted January 16, 2009 Ok.. I have questions on this as well. I finally stopped playing basic training and now I have the question marks all over. I think that there might be multiple ?s for different viewpoints. Meaning which, a single squad could be registering as multiple ?s when no squads of your own are selected. When you click on one of your squads it will give you their ?s of assumed positions, when you click on anther it changes. Now when no one is clicked you see what everyone sees, right. Now that enemy squad or two instead of having 2 icons has about 5 ?s some times as you have a bunch of different estimates of where they really are.... I think this is pretty cool. However, you have to realize that this is what they do so you don't committ too many forces and realize you were just chasing shadows and the real force is somewhere else. A little verification if somone else has seen this would be good. So I am essentially saying you might get multiple ?s for the same enemy squad at times since your have different sources of feedback. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thewood Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 Bump before it falls off the first page. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stoex Posted January 18, 2009 Share Posted January 18, 2009 Falconander, I am pretty sure that what you said is essentially correct. I think that a question mark is produced for any part of a squad spotted by your troops (could be one man or several), so that an inf squad moving across terrain will produce several of these 'blips' as individuals in the squad (or team, whatever) are spotted occasionally as they move along. This can become a kind of 'thread' of ?s showing the path of the enemies' movement, letting you guess where they might be headed. Very useful for planning airburst arty strikes, I have found . Also, I have noticed often that when an enemy inf unit is finally ID'd after throwing up ?s for a while in the abovementioned fashion, several of the ?s will vanish at once (very much the way sound contacts and unknown contacts did in CMx1 when you finally spotted/ID'd the unit). This indicates to me that internally there is some kind of a distinction between the ?s, meaning they are tied to an actual individual enemy unit...but this information is not passed on to the player. Just for good measure, I repeat my urgent wish for different ? icons for infantry and vehicles....in almost any situation, I think it is highly unrealistic that my pixeltruppen can't tell an unknown infantry unit from an unknown vehicle until they have actually ID'd it as a two man sniper team or a T-72, respectively. To use a drastic example....vehicles and infantry are decidedly different on so many levels 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stikkypixie Posted January 18, 2009 Author Share Posted January 18, 2009 Actually reading the manual got me thinking even more. Are there other advantages to keeping C2 line intact? The manual states that cohesion is better, but what does this mean in terms of the game? And of course, the advantages of spotting; is there some sort spotting bonus if there is a question due to the C2? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vincere Posted January 19, 2009 Share Posted January 19, 2009 Actually reading the manual got me thinking even more. Are there other advantages to keeping C2 line intact? The manual states that cohesion is better, but what does this mean in terms of the game? And of course, the advantages of spotting; is there some sort spotting bonus if there is a question due to the C2? This had me thinking for some time. I guess we can't see the problems of C+C with blue so much. But the system is not as clear as CM1. As mentioned in another thread, why no command delays in cm2. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomm Posted January 21, 2009 Share Posted January 21, 2009 Bump before it falls off the first page. Could not have put it better! Best regards, Thomm 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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