Visibility & direct hit

[ghibli]

Hi all,
I've noticed with LOS area tool that from a clicked pixel there's always an area, about 250m radius in daylight, where sight is not affected by terrain (i.e. bright green). I found this while playing St. Vith as the Germans, since they never have the opportunity of firing RPGs, even in ambush, even in forests, in day time. Editing the visibility effect of terrain doesn't have any effect within these 250m, only expanding a little the RPG ranges helped. Have you noticed the same thing? I think it should be well possible that you find out 50m close to an ambushing enemy in urban or forest environment, and even if you know from intel or recon that there is some enemy unit you won't spot hidden targets until you get veeery close (or when thay start shooting..), so maybe you know where they are, but you must drive them out of their holes in close combat.

As for the direct hit terrain modifier it seems that in game it is different from the one you find in the layer data inside mapmaker, or in the manual (e.g. pine wood should have 41% but in game and in the scenario maker it shows a 16%). Does anyone know why is that?
Is it the same value for foot and armour? I think that terrain hit modifier should consider both concealment and hard cover, and these benefits depend on the size of the hiding equipment.

I must say I'm relatively new to this game (more than a game actually!) and really loving it!

ghibli

 

[jimcarravallah]

Terrain effects relating to visibility and protective cover are controlled by the map illustrator's decision on what the layers included in the map represent. SceneMaker uses that map information into the parameters that support the game engine's combat and vision algorithms. MapMaker has a limited number of available layers, so to allow for geographic variations, the map designer is offered the choice of varying the visibility and protective parameters and the naming conventions for those layers to best represent real life conditions for game play.

My guess is in the scenario you looked at, the "pine" layer was adjusted to represent the density of the forest coverage in the area, pine being the designated label but a more dense mix of pine and hardwood as the actual map component.

The area visibility overlay is an averaged representation of the visibility. To get a more accurate read on visibility to a specific target, it's better to use the line of sigh tool which takes into account a more refined visibility line than the area tool can represent. I think you'll see with the line of sight tool that the blocks of visibility represented by the area tool have variations on distances within each block.

 

[ghibli]

Thank you jimcarravallah,

I've tried using the line of sight tool, the same happens: LOS is affected by terrain, but only outside the green circle which can be visualized with area LOS (and which is always light blue with line tool). I've tried some experiments editing the terrain with some exaggerated values (tried for pine, base and town layers, for all the types of units, not just infantry) for sight reduction, and yes, I do get a sudden reduction to zero but only outside this magic ring; any areas within this region is not affected at all! That has the consequence that every unit gets spotted and fired as soon as it gets 250m from the enemy, which is a distance too large for fighting in covered terrain. I invite everyone to check this.
Reading the manual I understood that, as an example, for pine layer the reduction should be 80% in 100m, which is the default value in this St Vith scenario, add 20% base, and that should completely hide deployed infantry within 100m.
I will post some pictures when I have time, since I think this is an issue..

I am glad to hear any feedback!

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Re LOS. First off there is a guaranteed visibility within the unit's occupied area. For a company this normally is a 300m x 200mk rectangle, which I think we opted to handle by a simple minimum radius. I can't recall off the top of my head what the exact figure we use - 150m IIRC. Then on top of that you add the minimum spotting distance for the current visibility. So in other words you need to judge from the forward edge plus the min visibility. Now you also have to remember that this is an operational level game, not a tactical one. So we have to abstract patrols too. Further engagement ranges are normally handles in three tiers, namely forward edge to forward edge, middle to middle and rear to rear. So this means that there will still be some close engagement rtanges but just not with the full suite of weapons available to the unit. This simulates the fact that the unit is spread out over an area. I hope that helps explain things.

Re Hit Effects. I need to research that. Can you cite a particular map/scenario and show me a screen dump of the location you are checking. Thanks.

 

[ghibli]

Thank you Dave, now I understand,
RE LOS: I think the minimum radius is exactly 250m (see file .Vis01 ), the double of the radius being half of the (1km) hex grid. Since it's a operational game surely tactical scale processes should be abstracted in order to achieve a realistic result. Personally I think that the way visibility works at close range should be revised a little, maybe simply reducing this guaranteed zone, or making it somehow terrain dependent since it never allows for real "close" combat, even in the terrain where it did occur (while for combat in open terrain it is irrelevant). Also patrols could be less effective during daytime and more important during the night. I mean, the game should be able somehow to better simulate "operational close combat"..

To simplify everything it would be nice to have a value to be set in the editor, to adjust for a particular scenario (actually "personal taste"!)

RE Hit effects: I uploaded Lommersweiler map from MapMaker and St Vith scenario from ScenarioMaker. The values in game are exactly those in the scenario maker. The direct hit modifiers are different, and I wondered if the cover bonus does affect all types of unit the same.

Thank you very much!

 

[Dave 'Arjuna' O'Connor]

Fair enough but bear this in mind. If the unit's forward edge is at 150m from its centre then engaging at 250m from the centre is really engaging at only 100m from its forward edge. You need to adjust your mind's view of the engagement. Don't see it as being 250m from the centre of the unit but 100m from the forward edge. Now that min vis range will reduce at night and in poor vis so we really are talking about close combat here.

 

[ghibli]

Yeah, that was what I wrongly thought, that ranges were calculated between the center of the counters. Great to know that the unit footprint is not just for cosmetics! I think this game is a masterpiece, and getting deeper inside its mechanics is really fascinating..