LOS works only after 8 am

[rick112]

I'm new to CO2 and while working my thru the tutorial 'Return to St Vith' I noticed that the LOS tool only works after 8 am. By 'works' I mean that LOS from any point on the map only extends 200m and looks like this:



It will remain like this until 8 am when it starts working as I would expect. At first I thought that this was normal until l saw a video walkthrough of this tutorial on youtube where the player was using it at night and in the predawn. The tool showed different LOS patters for different spots on the map and slowly got better at it went from night to day.

I downloaded CO2 yesterday from steam so I'm on the latest release. The only oddity that may be at play is that I'm forced to run it in a VM as I only have a mac. I've tried running it using both VirtualBox and KVM with the same results. The guest OS was Windows 7.

Other than the degraded LOS, everything else is working just fine.

 

[jimcarravallah]

I'm new to CO2 and while working my thru the tutorial 'Return to St Vith' I noticed that the LOS tool only works after 8 am. By 'works' I mean that LOS from any point on the map only extends 200m and looks like this:

View attachment 7521

It will remain like this until 8 am when it starts working as I would expect. At first I thought that this was normal until l saw a video walkthrough of this tutorial on youtube where the player was using it at night and in the predawn. The tool showed different LOS patters for different spots on the map and slowly got better at it went from night to day.

I downloaded CO2 yesterday from steam so I'm on the latest release. The only oddity that may be at play is that I'm forced to run it in a VM as I only have a mac. I've tried running it using both VirtualBox and KVM with the same results. The guest OS was Windows 7.

Other than the degraded LOS, everything else is working just fine.

The LOS algorithm was changed in the Steam version of CO2 (Ver 5.1.31) to account for significant modifications to visibility based on atmospheric conditions (rain, fog, blizzard, etc.), and various levels of day light (pre-dawn, dawn, full daylight, early evening, late evening, night time) and night time lighting conditions (the amount of light available from various moon phases).

The modifications show up as more distinct visibility ranges in the LOS tool as well as different levels of details at various ranges.

In its basic application without modification for weather conditions or moon light under Return to St. Vith, the shorter night time visibility ranges would start at 1600 (sunset) and change to longer ranges at 0800 (sunrise).

 

[rick112]

So, are you saying that the evaluation version on steam limits some features like the advanced LOS you described above?

 

[jimcarravallah]

So, are you saying that the evaluation version on steam limits some features like the advanced LOS you described above?

No.

What you are experiencing is a more accurately reflected LOS based on lighting and atmospheric conditions for the time of day and the weather as experienced with the sighting / ranging technology available to ground troops in the World War II era (basically eyeball and binoculars).

What a person may see at 1000 meters on flat land in broad daylight using binoculars with no rain / fog / snow interfering won't be visible at night.

That is reflected in the nighttime LOS Area visibility overlay.

 

[rick112]

So there seems to be a problem with the steam version then. I just now downloaded and installed the version form the LnL site and the LOS behaves as you describe, which is different from the steam version. In the LnL version, the visibility ranges change as I click around the map, whereas in the steam version, the ranges all look the same as shown in the first image. Here's a screen capture of the LnL version clicking on the same spot.

 

[Keydet]

Thought I'd add a bit while cool my heels @ car service. My experience with the latest versions and when active duty infantry officer the visibility in those weather conditions at night is next to him. All consistent. Unsure about different visibility results with different versions same scenario and identical context. Never tried that out.

 

[jimcarravallah]

So there seems to be a problem with the steam version then. I just now downloaded and installed the version form the LnL site and the LOS behaves as you describe, which is different from the steam version. In the LnL version, the visibility ranges change as I click around the map, whereas in the steam version, the ranges all look the same as shown in the first image. Here's a screen capture of the LnL version clicking on the same spot.

View attachment 7522

Actually, it's just the opposite.

The visibility range is what changed in the Steam Ver. 5.1.31 Beta.

The effective visibility range shrinks, and the level of detail diminishes as the daylight and / or weather conditions interfere with the light.

The calculations in 5.1.31 apparently indicate that the maximum range of effective visibility at daybreak is 200-meters. If you run the scenario until 1000 in the Steam Version you will see an increase in range and level of detail by clicking on the same area at that time.

That's the way it works in real life.

The LnL version (5.1.28) had less restrictive visibility constraints at night, making outcomes unrealistic as a result.