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Fog of War?


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I remember talk about fog of war for the radar in BC3020 (baack then).

Was any of it implemented in BCM? Or will we see this in BCO?

*Disclaimer: The voices in my head are forcing this on me*

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From what I read of the XP1 features list, we'll have something similar in XP1. And that something would be that you can only see whats under your ship on a planet's surface, when in orbit of that planet. No ship in orbit and overhead = (No uplink from troops + no ship sensory downlink to troops) = Same effect of fog of war: Not knowing what the heck's going on down there

[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Salnas ]

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Heh heh...Don't worry Tac, the same voices are working for me as well.

I think what Tac is referring to is the same concept as Fog of War, but in space.

This issue has been in part addressed in BCM, where NPCs will not respond to you unless you close to a certain range. But they are still visible to you.

I think it would be unreal to implement true fog of war - so that other craft were not detected outside the scanning range of your ship. Give fighters a relatively small scanning range - say, 200 km. Give larger ships a longer range - say, 2000km. Stations (for multiplayer XP1) would have access to the entire region.

Certain objects should be flagged always visible. Objects such as jump anomalies, and large installations such as stations. Also, all craft should be able to detect their launch base at all time when in the same system - this means that fighters on a patrol could RTB even if more than their scanning range away form their mother ship.

This would make the universe seem SO much bigger. Imagine if the Insurgents could infiltrate Earth space and build a starstation in orbit around the moon. Earth Command patrols might discover it too late. All of a sudden, the Insurgency are out there, in force, around Earth's moon, while the UFN are twiddling their thumbs. They either sit there and wonder what the hell is going on, or they send in patrols to try and reconnoitre the area.

All of a sudden, a space area that consists of - what - a hundred systems? Would be multiplied. Because every jump anomaly, planet, and moon, would become like it's own region, because it would be invisible to all others.

I'm beginning to drool again at the idea of this, so I'll stop. It could be accomplished pretty easily (well, simply speaking) by simply switching off target detection at certain ranges - you wouldn't have to make the area invisible. Without a target to click on and access, you wouldn;t know it was there, and in Tacops you wouldn't be able to zoom to it. Visually you might be able to see some dots around the moon, but until you jumped into the region, you wouldn't be able to target them.

*drool*...

-GD

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quote:


Originally posted by Tac:

I remember talk about fog of war for the radar in BC3020 (baack then).

Was any of it implemented in BCM? Or will we see this in BCO?

*Disclaimer: The voices in my head are forcing this on me*


FOW is implemented in BCM. Check the Beta VCF.

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quote:


Originally posted by DeSylva:

I think what Tac is referring to is the same concept as Fog of War, but in space.


It also works in space. In fact, stations also have a limited range.

The only reason why you [the player] can see clean, clear across the space region is for gameplay reasons. The regions are just too huge and putting in any further restrictions on radar capabilities will ruin the game. I think.

Enabling a few lines of code right now in BCM, will cause you to launch from GHQ and not even see Genesis on radar.

And there is no need to distinguish one target (e.g. station) from another (e.g. jump gate) because that would just be ludicrous. Why would you be able to see a jump gate at any range and not the station a few clicks from it. See what I mean?

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Ah the Beta VCF of course .

Thnx chief !

DeSylva: Yes, I meant in space and in ground as well.

"It also works in space. In fact, stations also have a limited range.

The only reason why you [the player] can see clean, clear across the space region is for gameplay reasons. The regions are just too huge and putting in any further restrictions on radar capabilities will ruin the game. I think.

Enabling a few lines of code right now in BCM, will cause you to launch from GHQ and not even see Genesis on radar.

And there is no need to distinguish one target (e.g. station) from another (e.g. jump gate) because that would just be ludicrous. Why would you be able to see a jump gate at any range and not the station a few clicks from it. See what I mean?"

I always figured the fog-of-war would be similar to Sonar. Having browsed over the appendix, with the min/max radar ranges of ships, I had believed that the fog of war would be something like:

Player sees all "static" objects in space region (read: gates, asteroids, planets, stations, ODS)...why? because these objects are either actively emmitting signals (radar, radio, etc) and can be detected from long range (or are marked in nav charts), or are just obvious (aka, planets).

Player does not see "dynamic" (my term for something that moves around on its own AI, aka, ships) objects unless they are emitting signals (read: active radar) or are inside the detection range of your active radar or come inside "visual range" (10 kliks?).

So, a cruiser using passive radar can jump into a sector and it will see the station, jump gates and planets, but he wont see any ships UNLESS those ships are using active radar. Ships that are 4k kliks from you using active radar will not detect you unless you come inside their radar detection range, OR you turn on your active radar (subs : PING!).

A set up like this would enable ships to jump into a hostile sector and actually "fly" to a point in space far away from the gate-to-gate or station-to-gate space routes and remain there undetected. Would be like the "poor mans cloaking device".

Dang it, now I gotta fire up me old PC and play SEAWULF or 688II... got the craving... argh...

[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Tac ]

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Yeah, it would nice for it to be that way Tac, even though I do the see the

problem that SC stated too. Seeing less certainly does make it more

interesting, mainly because you HAVE to set up fighters on patrol missions

just to make sure the area is clear. I like that idea a lot since my

fighters seem to engage anything hostile in the area, no matter where it is.

Are the fighters supposed to do that?

[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Roberto ]

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quote:


Originally posted by Tac:

Dang it, now I gotta fire up me old PC and play SEAWULF or 688II... got the craving... argh...


hehe, I figured thats where you had your mind. But this is a space sim, not a sub sim.

Speaking of which, you should grab Silent Hunter II. Being playing it lately and its quite good.

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Yeah, I know that in effect FOW is impemented in BC for the NPCs.

Just for conversations' sake (you know I don't like to start irrelevant wishlists...)

As Tac has touched upon, some objects - such as stations, jump anomalies, and planetary bodies - are fixed in space. As such, they would be recorded in the ship's Navitron system. This is the justification for them being able to be targetted at any range. This means that a ship could always naviaget from one side of the galaxy to the other. But I've always thought it would add to the strategy of the game. Imagine having a damaged ship, and wanting to get back to GalCOM HQ. Having to send your FCs on patrol ahead of you to investigate and, if necessary, clear out each jump point before you jumped in to make your way through the system.

I'm not suggesting a Wing Commander type game but the sense of having to search out your enemies through patrol missions was always one of the things I liked best about those games. It always gave the game atmosphere.

Perhaps someone will find those few lines of code to enable FOW for the player and mod it for us all? *grin*.

-GD

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That would be interesting... switching from passive to active radar would change the range at which you see ships and get detected... but stations are so big, you can't miss em... and ODS emit ALOT of radar energy (bleeps on tascan)... and i suppose you could always see friendlies since... well.. they're friendlies.

And yes, you should always see anomalies and jump points because (wild guess) they emit alot of energy, right?

But with that it would be necessary to change tactics... but the sneaking thing is very interesting... Maybe an option to enable/disable at the start of a (new) game?

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quote:


Originally posted by Tac:

but still.. doesnt it sound... right? *grin*


Yeah, but it will add yet another un-needed layer of complexity to the game. I'm not particularly interested in dwindle the fan base you know....unless of course you pledge to buy 100K+ copies of the game

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quote:

Originally posted by Supreme Cmdr:

Yeah, but it will add yet another un-needed layer of complexity to the game. I'm not particularly interested in dwindle the fan base you know....unless of course you pledge to buy 100K+ copies of the game

Rats, and I was thinking it might be an optional level of difficulty (Fog of War : Yes/No)

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I like the idea of ships being semi stealthy. It makes sense for smaller ships to have a chance of evading detection, and that could add an interesting degree of sneaking around.

Perhaps each ship should have a stealth value, based on their size, and then the detection value could be a mix of their sensor range and average officer skill. Friendly ships would have all of their detection overlapped, so if you're sitting around in Earth orbit, using your fighters to keep any hostiles away, friendly ships could alert you, and then your officers could alert your fighters.

So a few hostile fighters could sneak in system, and at enough range to evade detection from everything. Then as they approach a friendly ship, that ship detects them and alerts all other friendly ships in the system. Galcom HQ and Genesis station both become alerted (possibly launching fighters), and then the CC gets wind of the hostiles in the region. Those coordinates are then relayed to the fighters on patrol, and they go engage.

It seems a little complex, but I guess it would just be an overlapping, simple check. Each ship has a chance of detecting things, and if it does, it informs all over ships friendly to it. So if you were to jump into a totally hostile system, you would have next to no information about whats in the area. However the hostile ships would each have a chance to detect you and if only one of them suceeds, all of them know you're there.

On uninhabited systems, things could get interesting. For gameplay purposes, the AI could have a better detection value so it could better plan an ambush, but it would be neat to play a cat and mouse game in the middle of a dark room.

Currently I like the radar system as it is, and its usually not a good thing to tamper with perfection.

I've also got a quick question...I've been having really lousy comp problems and haven't been able to play for a while. If you're playing as a carrier and have your fighters out on SAD, will they automatically engage any and all hostiles in the region at any range?

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Although I guess it would be cool. I don't think it would be realistic. I'm pretty sure we would have a decent chance of detecting something the size of a Megaron with a nuclear reactor in local Earth-space even at our current tech...and this is supposed to be 1000 years in the future.....

Not to mention the fact that even if this were true ,all inhabited systems would have a massive, interlocking, double redundant broad-spectrum sensor net of buoys, satellites and repeaters... such is the military mindset...And while that poses some interesting tactical play ....God, would it clutter up the tacops display.

[ 01-12-2002: Message edited by: Stormshadow ]

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But doesn't "CLASS: STEALTH CRUISER" just look good?

Stealth isn't a device, it's a way of living... (An 8 min device doesn't make up for ingress-egress. Useful in a pinch, but not the same as having tactical limitations on sensors.)

But hey, really, it's the SC's game. If he thinks FOW is too much of an additional layer of complexity, I don't have a marketing analysis to dispute him with. My gut feeling doesn't agree, but again. It's his game, and I can respect that.

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