Fenneks mast operational?

[Chainsaw]

The dutch/german Fennek is a reccoinnase vehicle, pretty much screwed if spotted.

So a important tool for the fennek is its mast with observation equiptment.

The reconnaissance vehicle's observation system is the Rheinmetall Defence Electronics (formerly STN Atlas Elektronik) BAA which comprises a thermal imager, a CCD day vision camera and a laser rangefinder and is installed in a sensor head mounted on an extendable mast.

The sensor head can be controlled in azimuth and elevation and raised to a height of 3.29m above ground i.e. 1.5m above the vehicle roof. For observation from a concealed position, the sensor head can be tripod-mounted at an exposed location for remote operation up to 40m from the vehicle.

But will this be operational? I know the warrior FO vehicles has a radarmast that doesnt work, but Fenneks best equiptment is the mast. so please, will it work in CMSF?

/Thomas

[hoolaman]

That sure would be nice.

[Jaws]

Yes it would be nice but the last info is that is technical not possible. At this moment the Fennek does a fine job while beta testing. Remember that even with the fantastic optics as soon enemy is close to the fennek that advantage is gone. Your soldiers have to dismount for a close target recce. How that works you can check here at the first part of the AAR.

http://www.battlefront.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1632&Itemid=404

[akd]

Canadian Coyote has such a mast as well, no? Seems like it would be worth making it work.

[Chainsaw]

Jaws, Im fully aware of close recce, my favorites in CMSF is just recce assets

It just feels weird that the main "weapon" of the Fennek wont work as intended. its like having a abrams with a decoy gun...

We all know the problems with the recce humwee. it get smoked before it sees anything. thats what will be happening with the fennek as well.

I want to be able to use the main weapon of the fennek, and that is to park the little bugger behind a crest and have just the small telescope peeking over the crest observing while the Fennek is hidden.

If I dont remember wrong steve once wrote that observation lines can be drawn from different positions of a vehicle. a fix could be to have the arm extended at all times and draw the observation line from it, just an idea

[Jaws]

Ok I love close target recce too:)

Agree it would be cool to see this work.

But the main problem with the current engine is you can only assign one point from the vehicle for LoS. Thats the .50 of the Fennek.

Its not that BF is not willing but it is an engine limitation.

Prioritation is up to BF ofc. And they work pretty hard on 3 games as we all know.

[Erwin]

I don't suppose one can program the vehicles to have "virtual masts" that while maybe we can't see em, do effectively function to provide LOS when the vehicle is completely behind a hill or trees?

[Battlefront.com]

Yeah, sorry guys... having the mast animate up and down is easy. Everything else is quite difficult. For example, how does the player tell the vehicle to raise its mast? How high? There's no UI support for this.

Once the mast is raised, should there be TacAI to keep the mast at optimal height as the vehicle moves? Or should it just sit there waiting for you, the player, to adjust the height? Obviously any AI means coding and testing. No AI usually means player frustration.

The big issue, however, is the requirement for two points of LOS generation (mast and vehicle crew height). This would need a massive change to the game engine, which will likely have a hit to the framerate.

In addition to two points of LOS we'd also need the vehicle to have two different chances of being spotted, depending on circumstances. That's because the enemy should have a chance of spotting the sensor box even if it can't see the rest of the vehicle. But the chance of spotting the sensor box should not be the same as the chance of spotting the whole vehicle. And if the sensor box is retracted that's quite different. Again, major coding effort needed here.

This is a ton of work for one or two vehicles in a single game Family. We really can't get ourselves bogged down by things like this.

Steve

[Dietrich]

Besides, with the map-size limitations in CM:SF, if the enemy can spot the Fennek, they can probably damage or destroy it (unless the heaviest weapons they have are MMGs). At least the crew of the Fennek, unlike that of the M707 HMMWV, doesn't need to be exposed to use its observation package.

That said, I'd certainly be glad to see dismountable/tripod-mounted LRAS3s in CM:SF 2. =)

[Wicky]

This article on training future 'brains in jars' using retro puters cropped up today

Tech Know: BBC Micros used in retro programming class

The second time the students got to use the BBC Micros they were given three hours to create a simple 8-bit game. Tech Know was there to record what happened.

The BBC Micro has an unforgiving interface

Prior to the lesson Mr Abrams had produced 100 lines of code that created a rough version of the game pitting a battleship against a bomber. The students' task was to refine the game by introducing a scoring system, improving its looks and introducing new elements such as a hunter-killer submarine.

The simple program that the students were working on threw up some real problems.

Mr Gritton and partner Callum Adams were given the task of adding a submarine. But, they realised, the introduction of the torpedo-firing sub would spell the end of the game, as the ship had no way to avoid it.

Changing one element in the simple game kicked off the need to solve lots of separate problems - it was a real exercise in creative coding. The students had their eyes on the screen and their hands in the bits.

"We're learning a lot," said Callum Adams. "It makes you realise how difficult it is making real video games."

The day of study had begun with what must be the ultimate hands-on technology experience: Mr Abrams got the students to be a computer.

They each took on the role of a different part of the machine - CPU, accumulator, RAM and program counter - and simulated the passage of instructions through the hardware.

The five shuffled data around, wrote it to memory, carried out computations and inserted them into the right places in the store.

It was a noisy, confusing and funny simulation and, once everyone knew what they were doing, managed to reach a maximum clock speed of about one instruction per minute.

Yeah, sorry guys... having the mast animate up and down is easy. Everything else is quite difficult. For example, how does the player tell the vehicle to raise its mast? How high? There's no UI support for this.

Once the mast is raised, should there be TacAI to keep the mast at optimal height as the vehicle moves? Or should it just sit there waiting for you, the player, to adjust the height? Obviously any AI means coding and testing. No AI usually means player frustration.

The big issue, however, is the requirement for two points of LOS generation (mast and vehicle crew height). This would need a massive change to the game engine, which will likely have a hit to the framerate.

In addition to two points of LOS we'd also need the vehicle to have two different chances of being spotted, depending on circumstances. That's because the enemy should have a chance of spotting the sensor box even if it can't see the rest of the vehicle. But the chance of spotting the sensor box should not be the same as the chance of spotting the whole vehicle. And if the sensor box is retracted that's quite different. Again, major coding effort needed here.

This is a ton of work for one or two vehicles in a single game Family. We really can't get ourselves bogged down by things like this.

Steve

[Wuehlmaus]

Can't the mast be handled as a second object with its x/y position and orientation linked to the vehicle? Something like mounted soldiers on a WWII tank. And the z position (mast up and down) could be set by the deploy button already in the UI.

[Erwin]

I appreciate that many potentially good ideas are not viable.

However, in this mast case, how about designing for effect? So, yes, the "TacAI should keep the mast at optimal height as the vehicle moves" and how about having that as what the vehicle sees at all times. Why would a crew want to see less when they have a mast? So, there would only be one point of LOS generation.

And visibility seems more a function of range. At longish distance, would the enemy really see the sensor box? Yes, it would be a compromise to only have one visibility factor for the vehicle. But there are many other compromises in CMSF, and when all is said and done, it is a GAME - no matter how brilliant.

It would be VERY cool to have telescoping masts.

[Battlefront.com]

No chance of it happening. Coding the TacAI to position the mast would be a major effort since there is nothing in the code like it. Yet having the mast go to some sort of fixed height, and staying there, definitely won't work.

As for why we still need two points of LOS/Spotting... because LOS/Spotting works two ways. Even if we blinded the crew in favor of just seeing through the sensors (which is a bad idea. See next comment), we still have to allow other units to spot the sensor or the vehicle separately. Otherwise we run into problems that make the unit unrealistically hard or unrealistically easy to spot. That's not a minor issue.

Blinding the crew is a really bad idea. The sensors are good, but they have limited situational awareness (all sensors like this do). This would mean that if the sensor was looking east, and something came up into LOS/LOF from the north, south, or west then the vehicle would have a 0% chance of spotting it. That's not acceptable.

Correct... the game can not be a 100% accurate depiction of 100% of the stuff out there on the battlefield. So compromise is inherent with any of the games we make. The trick is to pick the compromises that yield the overall best results. Spending a significant chunk of time on sensor masts fails the most basic rule of using limited resources wisely. And since there is no compromise available to short cut this, and yet yield a better result than ignoring it, the obvious answer is to leave this one alone.

And yes, it would be cool to have remote sensors. Someday we will!

Steve

[dan/california]

If I may be forgiven a small nudge, The best remote sensor is a drone. And the game need them, badly.

[Alan8325]

A drone should be easier to code than a recon vehicle w/ mast. Only one point of LOS is needed for a drone and it should behave pretty much like any manned unit. Also, by the time CMSF2 comes around everything in the military will be unmanned anyway.

[Erwin]

Thanks for the note. I do understand re the mast issues. But, I wonder why effort is made for examle to give interiors and crew to bunkers. Would one realistically know how many guys are in the bunker. It seemed like just one of several items that could have been cut in favor of other cool stuff.

Its not a big issue...

BTW I find myself enjoying the Brits a lot. It seems like more of a challenge where one has to use a lot more skill than with the US with their ability to shoot the c*** out of everything before moving in. Looking forward to similarly balanced scenarios in Afghanistan.

[c3k]

I think the mast issue should be tackled sooner, rather than later. Once the mast LOS issue is solved, many other units could be easily tacked into the CMx2 engine. A quick list of these units would include, obviously, any vehicle with masted weapons/optics, tethered aerostats, UAV's, scout helicopters hiding behind obstacles with only their mast showing, dirigibles, TV crew camera booms, enraged construction crews jumping on their cranes and forklifts to engage in battle, aircraft strafing at low altitude, submarines using their periscopes (don't forget snorkels), armored infantry using jet packs, half-naked winged valkyries swooping over the battlefield (I have some mods in mind for those), and then there's the entire family of null-grav vehicles/weapons to think about.

In short, by ducking the mast issue, you are unfairly crippling the entire series.

Ken

[Praetori]

Once the mast is raised, should there be TacAI to keep the mast at optimal height as the vehicle moves? Or should it just sit there waiting for you, the player, to adjust the height? Obviously any AI means coding and testing. No AI usually means player frustration.

The big issue, however, is the requirement for two points of LOS generation (mast and vehicle crew height). This would need a massive change to the game engine, which will likely have a hit to the framerate.

Steve

Can't the mast be handled like/by the "button/unbutton" function? After all the spotting of unbuttoned vehicles are already increased? Does the LOS get changed as well?

Ai already handles hatching up when under fire.

Could another option be to handle it as a grouped HW?

[Battlefront.com]

See previous answer about the LOS and Spotting issues, as well as TacAI. The UI is a very minor problem to overcome. All things have to be solved at one time or it isn't possible to have the feature.

Steve

[Alan8325]

Aren't there multiple points of LOS generation in an infantry squad? Perhaps this can form the basis for some sort of fudge.