Rocky Terrain question

[souldierz]

I'm a little confused to what exactly this rocky terrain represents.

I noticed in 1 firefight i had a harder time hitting the enemy in this type of terrain with shrubs all around.

Does this mean that there are big desert rocks or boulders that are 5-10 feet tall and wide and the troops can take cover behind them or does it represent rocks that are the size of your foot and maybe 1 or 2 feet tall and have no real cover?

Do the troops have added cover in this terrain even tho they look exposed like they are in the open?

I'm sure its been discussed before but i guess i missed out and i cant find any info on this.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

A 2 ft rock is pretty useful cover.

But yeah, it is terrain that gives more protection then grass in the shape of a modifier. Exact values aren't known, I think.

[GSX]

If you take the game at face value I imagine it means exactly what it looks like. A few small rocks that would be no better to hide behind than they look. I have absolutely no idea how the game treats them other than what I have experienced and that tells me to avoid them.

[Secondbrooks]

Haven't used them much. But there was one quick battle i took last week and because no other cover was available i set my men (=Syrian airborne) into rocky tiles. Men were able to take fair amout of beating. One team managed to take minute of shooting from T-90 and BMP-2 without casualties!, after that they evaded and remained full strenght. They even had BMP-3 cooking off behind them

Sure they were in top of the ridge (slightly behind it's top) so hitting them overall was hard, distances weren't that great, around 500 meters. One thing which i wonder is rocks and extreme heat. I had understrenght company worth of men on that ridge, distance ranging from 400-700 meters from enemy's front and they remained invisible to enemy for about 30 minutes (except that one team). I really wasn't counting on it, but were sure that they need to pull back from that ridge soon.

[Vinnart]

I think this terrain could be modeled much better. I do not understand why it is done flat with no 3D rocks. Even Cmx1 had that.

[YankeeDog]

I think this terrain could be modeled much better. I do not understand why it is done flat with no 3D rocks. Even Cmx1 had that.

Actually, CMx1 does not have 3D rocks. From CMBB on, it has "doodads," including rocks, that are actually 2D objects that use a few simple tricks to give the impression of a 3D object. Sometimes, tricks like this are referred to as "2.5D." IMHO, they looked pretty good as long as you didn't get the camera too close or move the camera too much. Certainly a good solution given the hardware limitations of the time. In any event, the doodads had exactly 0 effect on cover -- cover was entirely dependent of the "cover value" assigned to the underlying terrain tile.

Unlike CMx1, CMx2 renders variety of "flavor objects," in full 3D, and these objects are directly modeled as providing cover -- if a bullet hits them, it might get stopped or deflected. AFAIK, large rocks are conspicuously missing from the current "flavor object" list. It would be nice to have a few boulders strewn about more rural maps...

In any event, I think the "Rocky" terrain in CMx2 is intended to model pretty small variations in the terrain. This would be difficult to render in 3D in a way that (a) looked good, but ( didn't kill even the best graphics cards (every little rock is a dozen or or more polygons for the graphics engine to render).

Graphics issues aside, it is definitely true that such "micro cover" can provide substantial protection, especially to a prone soldier. Combined with a good fighting crest position, it's not at all surprising to me that a squad in this type of terrain could survive quite a bit of incoming fire.

Edited to add:

Computer Graphics cards do offer ways of generating small variations on rendered surfaces without rendering every single polygon, such as bump mapping. So there is some hope that we'll see actually bumpy rocky terrain at some point. These solutions not necessarily simple to implement, though. And given ATI and NVidia's habit of breaking their own video card drivers with regard to simpler things like shadow rendering, it doesn't at all surprise me that CMx2 hasn't ventured into bump mapping yet.

[Thomm]

... and these objects are directly modeled as providing cover -- if a bullet hits them, it might get stopped or deflected.

I am still not 100 % sure that this is indeed the case.

I did a test once with a lot of barrels and sand bags and do not recall them to have great stopping power.

Best regards,

Thomm

[YankeeDog]

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

[Emphasis Added]

So, yes. Flavor Object do provide cover. How much cover they provide is a different story... I wouldn't expect an (empty) oil barrel to stop most modern Assault Rifle Rounds. I would think a double row of Sand bags would do better, but I've never tested so I don't know.

It is worth noting the no concealment thing above, which probably effectively reduces the amount of actual protection offered by flavor objects -- even if they do provide some cover, a soldier behind one is still in full view of the enemy as far as the engine is concerned, and therefore incoming fire is presumably more accurate.

[souldierz]

So i guess its safe to say that this is a 2d image of small boulders that provide your soldiers with some extra cover and concealment.Not big enough or good enough to duck down behind like a wall but still big enough to give u a surviving chance.In real life to be honest i would not want to be behind to many small boulders unless the advantage is clearly on my side.Bullets have a nasty habit of dissolving what they touch and sending chunks of whatever screaming through the air causing more harm.

I wonder if there was a field with this terrain in the middle, could my troops hide there and not be seeing by the enemy or will the enemy spot them just as quick as if they were in field?

I guess i need more experience on this terrain and to watch it a little closer to see what the real impact of it is on troops and vehicles.This is definitely a spot I'm gonna try to send my scouts and snipers to and find out what advantage i can gain from it.

[Ryujin]

The low rocky terrain has some abstracted cover, some soldiers seem to get "magic invisible cover", where you'll see bullets pass through them without doing damage. The rocky ground is the best stuff short of a wall or building, a foot high rock is better than nothing for a prone soldier and is decent cover.

It's also the only naturally occurring 'real' cover (micro terrain cover is modeled on almost all terrain types, just it's generally not very good). Trees work to a degree, but your troops really don't use em. I bet it also provides a little concealment, but probably not much better that laying in the open. So when your out and about away from walls and buildings, rocky ground and terrain/trenches are the only cover. Personally I've noticed my guys last quite a bit longer when in rocky ground as opposed to any other terrain type.

[Alan8325]

All vehicles can drive over that type of terrain so it can't represent rocky features more than about a foot high and still be realistic. It would be cool to see a large rock/boulder type of terrain that offers excellent cover to infantry but is impassible to vehicles, but this would be very complex 3d terrain that would be hopelessly taxing on the processor. If it worked it would be great for the Afghanistan maps though.

[Lanzfeld]

I could live with a lower poly count version of this cover that didnt look so perfect. I would love to try to drive out a dug in defender in this terrain. Think about it...3 foot high rocks that could withstand even tank rounds. Boulders.

[Michael Emrys]

Rocky terrain is kind of a mixed bag as far as providing cover is concerned though. Yes, projectiles may not penetrate them, but they produce splinters that cause wounds and ricochets that can do the same. In North Africa when the ground was too hard to dig in, the troops would often stack rocks to provide a measure of cover, but their situation was not always improved much thereby.

Michael

[Lanzfeld]

Stacking rocks and hiding behind boulders are two different things.

But yes....splinters are bad.