Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: mickxe5

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ORIGINAL: sepp3gd
Regarding the 360 degree view vs the current LOS "radar sweeping" as you named it - I am not in favor of a 360 degree viewshed during unit deployment as this seems unrealistic. To know when and where the LOS begins and ends at 50m, 100m, and so forth with respect to depressions in the terrain, environmental obstacles, and structures, is not realistic in this capacity. In the reality, one would indeed have to focus on a specific feature with fieldglasses and make a guess as to where the field of fire is limited. With that, the LOS "radar sweeping" represents this exercise in a more realistic manner.

I understand that it would be nice to just drop a 75mm AT Gun on the map and instantly know every potential target it could possibly reach within that field of fire, but this is just fake and takes away from the game.

"In my experience as an M163 gunner, a crew/team knows where the blind zones are from any position it occupies in much less time than it takes to do a classic CC LOS 'radar sweep', no field glasses required. A 360 viewshed tool makes LOS determination far more realistic when the observer is at ground level as opposed to having a top down/oblique perspective.

Elevation contour is a prime example. At ground level a person's grasp of the effect that even minor elevation variance has on LOS is almost intuitive. From a top down perspective elevation changes immediately below are difficult to even detect unless they're fairly severe, and nigh impossible to determine their effect on LOS. In this respect a viewshed tool serves a function similar to the assumed light source of a shaded relief map in illuminating elevation effects. The concept is better understood when you consider intervening obstacles as simply terrain features composed primarily of varying elevations (a 2m bush, a 4m structure, a 12m tree etc)."

In response:

If your barrel is which is 1.5 in height and are viewing a target area that is 50m distant from your position, what is the area that is your blindspot from an object that has the following dimensions height of 10m, length of 15m, and width of 20m, located halfway between your position and the target area?

Furthermore, take the question, solve it. Now add in that you are travelling across uneven terrain, at variable speeds, and so is the enemy. Furthermore, you have never been there before.

In the game the targets become visible when they are seen. All you need to do to do know which unit can see the target is look at the sitrep.

But the major difference between the game and reality is that the terrain features within your blindspots would be unknown, where as in the game they are not. The issue arises that with a viewshed of 360 degrees, you would now know precisely where the enemy is within a vicinity, and judging the terrain features within your blindspot, predict where they likely are. This is not something that is possible if you have never previously recconoitered the terrain, and even to this extent it would require a good memory or very detailed maps.

"What is too often lacking w/r/t CC LOS is a tactical AI that would auto-prompt defending units/individuals to make minor position changes to gain LOS when a suitable target is known to them but just out of view."

To state that they would make a change of position to hit a target that is known but out of view implies the ability for the target to be seen by someone and that information be communicated to the person who cannot see that target, or it relies on the ability to predict where a target will be after it moves out of sight.

A scenario where this already does happen in the game (close quarters combat is a prime example of this in the game mechanics with regard to individual soldiers throwing grenades, engaging in hand-to-hand combat, and etc,). However, to fire at a target at greater distances would require significant changes in postion.

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ORIGINAL: Steve McClaire
Soft map edges: We're experimenting with this. Allowing an angled and rotating camera means you either see off the map edge or there will be parts of the map you can't see with the angled / rotated view -- if you look at the outline of the 'visible map area' on the mini-map you'll see it's a trapezoid rather than a rectangle. Feedback so far is that people really want to be able to rotate the camera and aren't as concerned about seeing the edge of the map.

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ORIGINAL: mickxe5

quote:

ORIGINAL: Steve McClaire
Soft map edges: We're experimenting with this. Allowing an angled and rotating camera means you either see off the map edge or there will be parts of the map you can't see with the angled / rotated view -- if you look at the outline of the 'visible map area' on the mini-map you'll see it's a trapezoid rather than a rectangle. Feedback so far is that people really want to be able to rotate the camera and aren't as concerned about seeing the edge of the map.

To avoid unsightly black map borders I'd suggest creating slightly oversized maps then define the out of bounds perimeter area with shading or crosshatch.

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ORIGINAL: Nomada_Firefox
For the record, I do not like the idea from mickxe5. The game would look bad. In other games where you can use a full 3D camera, just you do not see nothing. Just the border of the map and nothing more.

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ORIGINAL: mickxe5

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ORIGINAL: Nomada_Firefox
For the record, I do not like the idea from mickxe5. The game would look bad. In other games where you can use a full 3D camera, just you do not see nothing. Just the border of the map and nothing more.

Steel Division: 44 takes an approach other than see nothing to its map borders. Its 1v1 tactical map is embedded within a larger multiplayer map which itself is bordered by a 'game table'. Not bad looking at all.

Since different game engines are involved I can accept that expanding TBF maps into the border area isnt an option. But, as Pip indicates that map borders are under discussion, at this point its worthwhile to add our $.02 to the pot.

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Hard to believe they went to all that effort in making gorgeous photo-accurate maps for gameplay that looks to be about as realistic as rock-paper-scissors.

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ORIGINAL: PipFromSlitherine

We aren't releasing a projected date at this time. We want to get done asap, but we also want to be done right.

Cheers

Pip