Reciprocal LOS

[GreenAsJade]

Just a quick chime in to say that 1) I agree that basically it's not broken, once you know what Reverse Slope means and 2) It would be great to have the LOS from the waypoint drawn from the waypoint. It is particularly confusing to work out what does the pink and blue parts mean when using the current strange line...

GaJ

[Battlefront.com]

Right now things are simple and consistent. Spotting is from a fixed height (IIRC 1m) to the ground of any Action Spot. Almost always this is all the information the player really needs to then be combine with obvious terrain. For example, if there is a hedge and I'm trying to see something on the other side... do I really need to have an explicit indication that I can't see directly behind the hedge, but I can see over it? Maybe I'm giving you guys too much credit thinking you have enough sense to know this without being told

The way we see it a system like this has to be very much either simplified (as it is) or fully detailed (with all kinds of information shown). Anything inbetween would be extremely confusing and probably not really add to things.

As I said, we don't see this as a problem that needs to be fixed.

I don't know why the LOS checks from Waypoints work the way they work. I'll ask, but it's funny... this hasn't come up much in the last 4 years. I'm kinda surprised to see it mentioned as much as it has been in this thread. Personally I never, ever use it so it doesn't bother me the way it is now

Steve

[sfhand]

... Personally I never, ever use it so it doesn't bother me the way it is now

Steve

For some strange reason I think this is due to you being a RT player...

[sburke]

For some strange reason I think this is due to you being a RT player...

LOL I'd put my money there. I use them for sure as if I am gonna tell a Jpz to move towards a crest I'd really like to know how far up that hill I should go. For the next 60 seconds I will be stuck with the result.

[YankeeDog]

For some strange reason I think this is due to you being a RT player...

Yep. In RT, if you misjudge LOS slightly, you can immediately plot another order to nudge the unit an AS one way or another, and fix things. But in WEGO, depending on how things time out relative to the end of the turn, you may have to wait the better part of a minute before you can fix things, which is disastrous in some situations.

I would also add that even playing WEGO I didn't use the the Target Order to judge LOS from waypoints in CMSF anywhere near as much as in CMBN. I suspect this is because in the arid terrain that you see in most CMSF maps it is pretty easy to just eyeball LOS from any given point on the map by going down to Camera level 1 and maybe using zoom a bit, if needed. But it's a lot trickier to eyeball LOS in CMBN because there are a lot of trees and other vegetation, which units can see through to some degree, but are opaque to the camera. Will that tree canopy completely screen me from that anti-tank gun, or not? Of course, it's not necessarily realistic for the player to always be able to judge LOS with 100% accuracy, but sometimes it's very hard to even get a general idea of the LOS blocking qualities of vegetation simply from the graphical display.

This is where having the Target line originate from the waypoint would be a useful tweak -- the color change on the Target line tells you where the LOS break occurs, but only if you're plotting the line is from the unit -- when you plot from a waypoint, this gets offset and therefore you don't know exactly where the LOS break occurs. So, for example, you don't know if you should be shifting your waypoint a bit to the left, so the unit can see around that tree, or a bit to the right, so you can see around the corner of that building.

Not a huge deal to me, but definitely on my "Someday it would be nice if this got tweaked" list.

And, just a friendly noodge to Steve and all at BFC: As soon as you figure out a way to get an action save/rewind feature working in RT, I'm all over it. But I just can't give up being able to rewind and watch all the glorious cinematics... problem for me with RT is that the game looks so darn good, I don't want to miss anything.

[GreenAsJade]

The main thing I use waypoint-LOS for is "will I be able to spot the target from this location" so I know where to put an FO with LOS yet minimal danger to them.

IMHO this is very gamey: how do I know what I can see from there until I go there?

I don't understand the rationale for enabling this, but since it's enabled, that's the obvious use for it.

GaJ

[TheVulture]

The main thing I use waypoint-LOS for is "will I be able to spot the target from this location" so I know where to put an FO with LOS yet minimal danger to them.

IMHO this is very gamey: how do I know what I can see from there until I go there?

I don't understand the rationale for enabling this, but since it's enabled, that's the obvious use for it.

GaJ

The rationale is the compromise with the fact that itis hard to 'fine tune' the behaviour of your guys intelligently re spotting (especially in WeGo). In the real world, it is quite easy to find a position near to where you are that has line of sight to somewhere in particular (unless LoS is impossible). In game - particularly WeGo - you send someone to a position you think ought to have LoS, and find no, there is a single tree in the way blocking LoS. So you wait a minute and give an order to relocate. Then you find that this time you are marginally too low to see over a building halfway between you and your desired target point. So you try again next minute (and maybe again if you are in a congested area with lots of trees). There isn't a 'move around until you get LoS to this spot' command. So you could spend many minutes in WeGo fine tuning the position of your men when in reality it would take 5 seconds and a few paces to the left.

Secondly, since you can move the camera around anywhere you like and look in any direction, 90% of that information is already available anyway (give or take visual graphics on screen being obscured by trees). Not having the waypoint LoS tool wouldn't make that information inaccessible, just make it more of a pain to obtain. Taking out a feature where all it would do is make the UI harder to use would be peverse at best.

The flip side is that in the real world you might send some guys up a hill to get LoS, and after half an hour they realise there is nowhere on the hill that has LoS to the spot they want to observe. In game you can find that out without wasting a single second (unless you play real time, in which case may God have mercy on your soul). But again, you can pretty much find that out with the camera regardless of the LOS tool existing or not.

Now if you wanted to play Iron man rules where you can only use the lowest camera PoV and have to stay locked to your units (i.e. only see what they see), then the LoS tool from waypoints would be a fudge, but then if you have the discipline to play the game like that I'd guess you can resist the temptation to use the LoS tool too.

[GreenAsJade]

That all makes sense.

And yet CMx1 was perfectly fine without LOS-from-waypoint.

CMBN feels gamey, in this respect, by comparison.

The rationale used to be that going there and looking with the camera is like looking at a map, which commanders can do. It gives you a lot of the story, but not the whole story: not those nuisancy trees etc. Hence it had a believeable rationalisation.

By contrast, I feel gamey every time I click on a waypoint and hit "t" Ewww, look over my shoulder, make sure no-one is watching I guess that now I will remind myself that this is like moving over close to there and then checking and adjusting

GaJ

[stikkypixie]

The main thing I use waypoint-LOS for is "will I be able to spot the target from this location" so I know where to put an FO with LOS yet minimal danger to them.

IMHO this is very gamey: how do I know what I can see from there until I go there?

I don't understand the rationale for enabling this, but since it's enabled, that's the obvious use for it.

GaJ

Because if you play WEGO, and if you misplaced a waypoint you would have to wait a full minute before you can (hopefully) give a correct waypoint. In real life no unit would sit around doing nothing but they would just advance until they have LOS.

And guess from a technical point of view, it is simply a consequence having the ability to stack orders.

It is much less "gamey" than in CMx1 because of relative spotting.

[Erwin]

The ability to check LOS from every waypoint is a justifiable balance to the problem of not being able to get a LOS as easily as in RL.

There are many other examples of this sort of trade off in the game. The CM series has always been a balance of "gaminess" and "realism" to provide "verisimilitude". And that is what makes for a good game.

Too often the CM series seems criticized cos it doesn't approach the "realism" of a multi-zillion dollar DoD sim that has undergone "Verification and Validation" tests. That is not fair. And those highly realistic DoD games are not "fun".

I get deja vu reading these posts as I am reminded of similar comments/requests from consumers for more "realism/complexity" in cardboard wargames in the early 80's. That led to the development of complex "monster games" that were virtually unplayable, and which led to the great cardboard wargame industry implosion.

[ClarkWGriswold]

That all makes sense.

And yet CMx1 was perfectly fine without LOS-from-waypoint.

CMBN feels gamey, in this respect, by comparison.

CMx1 also had "action spots" that were four times as large, and there was never a worry that your commander would see the target but the gunner wouldn't.

It would be nice if we could just tell who could see what (Personally, I'd love to see something like the yellow cover arc that shows what is and is not viewable), but since we can't I think the LOS-from-waypoint is sometimes necessary.

[John1966]

Just to get back to the original thing for the moment, is this reverse slope thing anything to do with why I get into such a mess trying to set up MGs with LOS through bocage.

Sometimes I just cannot find a spot where the MG can get a LOS even though the squads all around are fine. On closer examination, the riflemen are stood and the MGs are on the ground. It does look as if the berm of the bocage blocks the view but surely the pixeltruppen should hoik the thing higher up so he can get a LOF? I've tried trying to get the thing closer to the hedge but that's as close as the commends avaialble allow. But like I say, the riflemen seem to manage.

I'm sure there must be a solution (as I have mangaged to get them to fire through on occasion but I must be doing something wrong). And it must be ovious because I can't find a thread on it.

[YankeeDog]

Just to get back to the original thing for the moment, is this reverse slope thing anything to do with why I get into such a mess trying to set up MGs with LOS through bocage.

Sometimes I just cannot find a spot where the MG can get a LOS even though the squads all around are fine. On closer examination, the riflemen are stood and the MGs are on the ground. It does look as if the berm of the bocage blocks the view but surely the pixeltruppen should hoik the thing higher up so he can get a LOF? I've tried trying to get the thing closer to the hedge but that's as close as the commends avaialble allow. But like I say, the riflemen seem to manage.

I'm sure there must be a solution (as I have mangaged to get them to fire through on occasion but I must be doing something wrong). And it must be ovious because I can't find a thread on it.

Yes; this can be tricky. IME, if you add a FACE order at right angles to the Bocage to the movement order that puts them on the bocage, they will usually set up the MG so that it can fire through the bocage. But occasionally this doesn't work. When this happens, I move the MG unit away from the bocage, and have them approach from a slightly different angle and setup up again; this usually fixes the problem.

[hoolaman]

CMx1 also had "action spots" that were four times as large, and there was never a worry that your commander would see the target but the gunner wouldn't.

This seems to be an enduring myth. CMx1's map tiles are much larger, but the game simulation grid is much smaller. I think it is 1x1m or 2x2m.

The reason LOS in CMx1 was so easy was because terrain was homogeneous and units occupied a singular point in space. You knew that LOS extended exactly 5m (or whatever) into any woods tile so you could easily estimate where to place units so they could see past obstacles. Elevations did not seem to cause such hard LOS blocks either.

[YankeeDog]

This seems to be an enduring myth. CMx1's map tiles are much larger, but the game simulation grid is much smaller. I think it is 1x1m or 2x2m.

The reason LOS in CMx1 was so easy was because terrain was homogeneous and units occupied a singular point in space. You knew that LOS extended exactly 5m (or whatever) into any woods tile so you could easily estimate where to place units so they could see past obstacles. Elevations did not seem to cause such hard LOS blocks either.

Well... as I'm sure you know, it's a little more complicated than that. But I'll definitely agree with you that CMx1's system made calculation of LOS far simpler. There are some compromises that result from this simpler modeling, though. For example, in CMx1, and infantry unit's LOS is absolutely binary -- either all members of an infantry team can see (and be seen) by an enemy unit, or they can't. There is no "partial unit LOS," in CMx1, where some members of a unit can see a given enemy, but others cannot.

It's really comparing apples to oranges, since CMx1 didn't use the same kind of Action Spot system that CMx2 uses for determining deployment at all. It is true that the 20m x 20m squares in CM were simply the primary terrain map building block, so this really has nothing directly to do with unit location. But looking at the big picture, I would argue at the "game simulation grid," or "unit location granularity" or whatever term you want to use, is far more specific in CMx2 than it is in CMx1.

In CMx1, infantry units (rules for vehicles are a little different) are conceptually very similar to the electron cloud model of an atom -- the theoretical "center" or nucleus of an infantry unit can be placed anywhere on the map, tracked to a 1m x 1m granularity. But this is abstractly representing an infantry team deploying itself to the best of its ability in the general vicinity of the singularity point. So while CMx1 tracked the location of an infantry unit down to a 1mx1m resolution, it didn't actually track the location of the individual members of that infantry unit at all. CMx1 used abstractions to model how individual soldiers might be deploying themselves. For example, infantry units whose "nucleus" is within a "heavy woods" tile get a substantial cover bonus, which reduces the effect of incoming fire and is intended to abstractly represent the idea that individual soldiers are taking cover behind trees, logs, etc.

In contrast, CMx2 only allows you to place an individual infantry team only within a grid of 8m x 8m squares. So player control of the exact location of a unit, in a way, is less. However, the unit AI decides, and the game engine tracks, the exact location of each individual member of an infantry team down to a resolution far finer than 1m x 1m -- CMx2 actually gets to the point where it is tracking which parts of the body of an infantryman are exposed, and which are not.

This is not to say CMx2 is completely without abstraction. Terrain can still provide a "micro cover" bonus in CMx2, abstractly representing the cover provided by small aspects of the terrain difficult to represent graphically. Looking at the big picture, though, I think it is very clear that the "granularity" of CMx2 is far finer than that of CMx1.

As alluded, the vehicle modeling in both engines is a little different... but here, too, I think it's clear that CMx2's modeling has a much finer than CMx1's.

[hoolaman]

Yes for the most part you have it right there and you're certainly right it is comparing apples and oranges.

Well... as I'm sure you know, it's a little more complicated than that. But I'll definitely agree with you that CMx1's system made calculation of LOS far simpler. There are some compromises that result from this simpler modeling, though. For example, in CMx1, and infantry unit's LOS is absolutely binary -- either all members of an infantry team can see (and be seen) by an enemy unit, or they can't. There is no "partial unit LOS," in CMx1, where some members of a unit can see a given enemy, but others cannot.

LOS is actually a binary situation in CMx2 as well: At least one member of an infantry unit must have LOS from its current action spot to the target action spot or LOS will not be granted. There is no Partial LOS for a team in an action spot which "sees" as a single entity. This means that the granularity of positioning and spotting in CMx1 is coarser than that of CMx1.

The electron cloud is actually an interesting analogy. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle tells us that if we try to observe the exact position and momentum of an electron we ruin the whole thing, and that they are best viewed as a cloud of probabilities. Heisenberg would probably have preferred CMx1's electron cloud infantry.

Of course there is also partial LOF where some guys don't bring their weapons to bear but the first coarse LOS check must be completed first before this comes into play.

What CMx2 has that complicates LOS is vertically stratified action spots. Vertical obstacles like walls and berms can block LOS in ways that aren't always easy to eyeball from the 3D depiction. That's the reason for these weird "reverse slope" messages, where there is LOS to that action spot but a marginal elevation block before the target. This is coarser in some ways too. For example try getting CMx2 to give you true "hull-down". It is very difficult.

[YankeeDog]

Yes for the most part you have it right there and you're certainly right it is comparing apples and oranges.

LOS is actually a binary situation in CMx2 as well: At least one member of an infantry unit must have LOS from its current action spot to the target action spot or LOS will not be granted. There is no Partial LOS for a team in an action spot which "sees" as a single entity. This means that the granularity of positioning and spotting in CMx1 is coarser than that of CMx1.

I think we basically agree, but I'm not sure I concur with this part of your analysis. Since LOS is actually checked from every single pair of eyes in CMx2 (remember, Action Spots only matter for the LOS "Pre-check" to reduce processor load), the way I see it an individual soldier in a team may be aware of an enemy unit because another unit on the same team has spotted said unit (AFAICT, within an individual unit, spotting in CM is more or less "borg"), but he himself may not have LOS and LOF to said unit, because there's a tree trunk, or a building corner, or whatever else in his way. Practically speaking, when you're talking small arms being aimed over simple iron sights, LOS = LOF and I don't see a reason to make a distinction.

But the game display only tells us, as players of the game, if at least one of the soldiers in a given unit has spotted an enemy, so this is largely opaque to us. In game play, for the the most part, a unit either spots an enemy or it doesn't. The number of soldiers within a unit that can actually see and fire on any given enemy varies, though, and this is a very important thing to remember when playing CMx2.

[hoolaman]

Yes I'm sure we do agree .

The LOS "pre-check" is actually the only check that matters. If you have it you can spot the enemy, if you don't you can't.

Everything else is LOF, for example your MG setup wrong against the bocage can "see" the enemy because he is part of an indivisible unit that can see the enemy. He can't shoot at it though cause he is set up too low. He will TRY to shoot them, cycling the gun etc, but he cannot.

[YankeeDog]

Yes I'm sure we do agree .

The LOS "pre-check" is actually the only check that matters. If you have it you can spot the enemy, if you don't you can't.

Everything else is LOF, for example your MG setup wrong against the bocage can "see" the enemy because he is part of an indivisible unit that can see the enemy. He can't shoot at it though cause he is set up too low. He will TRY to shoot them, cycling the gun etc, but he cannot.

[Emphasis added]

Sorry, but this last part of your analysis is incorrect. If an individual soldier's LOS to a given enemy is blocked (even though one more more of his teammates has spotted the enemy so the unit, as a whole, is "aware" of the enemy), soldiers without LOS to the enemy will remain at "spotting" and will NOT try to shoot -- That is, the soldiers without LOS won't bring their guns to their shoulder, and their status will remain at "spotting"; it will never change to to "firing" or even "aiming". The LOS "pre-check" is not the "only check that matters." There are individual soldier LOS checks as well. I have a saved game that clearly shows this; I'll try to post a screenie later today.

Edit to add: There are situations like the bocage/MG situation you describe (especially with M1919A4 MMG), where the MG gunner can have LOS to the target, but can't get LOF with the gun. I'm pretty sure this is due to the fact that the game actually tracks LOS from the soldier's eyes, but LOF from the sights/barrel of the MG. So the gunner, kneeling with his eyes ~ 1m off the ground may be able to see an enemy, but since the M1919A4 has a very low-slung tripod, the gun muzzle is significantly lower than 1m off the ground, and may actually be too low to shoot at same enemy if there is a small rise (like bocage base) right in front of the MG. In this case, you will see the MG gunner cycle in and out of "aiming" status, but fail to shoot. He has LOS to the enemy from his kneeling position, but when he bends down to sight the gun, he can't get LOF through the sights. But this is not the same situation as a rifleman whose specific location within the Action Square means he simply has no LOS to a given enemy *at all* (even through he is "aware" of said enemy via his teammate(s)). In this case, the rifleman will remain at "spotting".

[stikkypixie]

Yes I'm sure we do agree .

The LOS "pre-check" is actually the only check that matters. If you have it you can spot the enemy, if you don't you can't.

Everything else is LOF, for example your MG setup wrong against the bocage can "see" the enemy because he is part of an indivisible unit that can see the enemy. He can't shoot at it though cause he is set up too low. He will TRY to shoot them, cycling the gun etc, but he cannot.

The pre-check just is just a coarse filter if you like. If the LOS check is a go, finer detailed LOS checks are made.

[sburke]

The pre-check just is just a coarse filter if you like. If the LOS check is a go, finer detailed LOS checks are made.

Assuming Yankee Dog has it correct, which I believe he does (or if not he's pretty darn close) how about adding that to the CMBN FAQ? It is a well put together description of the complexity of LOS as well as the difference between LOS and LOF.