LOS

[budd]

Well i had to take a peek.a couple of Quick questions i just played the first tutorial, did checking LOS from other hexes get taken out.Click on the LOS tool click a hex and it shows what can be seen from that hex, didn't work in the first tutorial. Also is the damage box only going to say "unknown damage VS unknown target with FOW in effect, don't see the point of showing it if thats all it going to say. I'm already late gotta go, damn knew i shouldn't of opened the game. check back later for the replies, thx.

[TheGrayMouser]

Some chaps were talking about this in the Blitz forums, appears this is intentional. If you want to know the LOS from any given hex , you have to earn it with boots on the ground

[berto]

Yes, that is a new feature of Extreme FOW, which we have taken even more to the extreme. It doesn't apply with ordinary FOW, or no FOW.

In any case, it's much more realistic, and makes doing reconnaissance, with actual units, more important than ever.

[budd]

no problemo, fine with me. Thanks for the reply.

[TheWombat_matrixforum]

The damage dialog though is odd, as it doesn't tell you anything about damage to your own units, either; even with extreme FoW, you'd think you'd know if, um, your tank blew up.

One other thing, sort of related: when you use F3 to open the unit detailed info, it would be really, REALLY, helpful if the tool defaulted to the selected unit, rather than making you scroll through all the units for that side to find the specific OT-62 or whatever it is you're looking for. In general, one of the issues all Tiller-originated games have is opaqueness of interface and difficulty of getting at the data. It's all there, but it sometimes is harder to access than it should be.

In the same light, when you hit F2 to open the basic unit info, there is no info about what actually is IN the unit, in terms of type of weaponry/capabilities other than the general category stuff on the right there (infantry, amphibious, etc.). Seems F2 and F3 should/could be sort of combined and kill two birds with one stone.

But yeah, this is a cool effort, and a very nice job overall.

[budd]

he's right about F3, can be more time consuming then necessary to get to where you want. As i'm not that familiar with modern equipment i anticipate using F3 a lot. Would be a great help if it would default to selected unit. It's not even alphabetical.

[Jason Petho]

It's based on the Platoon ID list, how the platoon##.oob file is laid out.

Good point about the unitviewer... we were thinking it was just an additional tool so didn't default to anyone platoon, where the F2 would provide most of the information that one requires.

I'll add it to the 1.01 UPDATE list.

Thanks, guys!

Jason Petho

[berto]

ORIGINAL: TheWombat

The damage dialog though is odd, as it doesn't tell you anything about damage to your own units, either; even with extreme FoW, you'd think you'd know if, um, your tank blew up.

Yes, with the Extreme FOW optional rule selected, it is odd to be seeing "unknown results against unknown units" all the time, even for friendlies.

But consider: As some people never tire of reminding us, game turns represent six minutes of real time. (More or less. [;)])

The tank crew, the tank platoon would surely know if its tank blew up. But would the platoon a kilometer or two away know? Especially if there is obscuring terrain between them?

Would the overall (scenario-level) force commander know? In near real time? No. (Not even in the modern battlefield, with its instantaneous communications. Where the problem is not knowing too little, but too much. Information overload!)

The Extreme FOW is, by design, meant to be exactly that: extreme.

We think it portrays the battlefield more realistically, what with all the chaos and the smoke and the noise, etc.

Also: By giving the human player less information, it tends to disadvantage the player vs. the A/I. Not exactly A/I cheating, but tipping the situation somewhat against the human player. Makes for more competitive solo vs. A/I game play thereby.

And also: It would be a bit strange not to have any dialog at all, just the sound of explosions, nothing else, every time fire or assault combat finishes.

But yeah, good point about the oddness.

Our original design intention was to have a very fine grained FOW mechanism, with not just three choices -- Extreme, non Extreme, none at all -- rather, a slider mechanism with a scale from 0 to 100, with this and that FOW aspect ratcheted up or down accordingly. But we ran out of time to implement that. (And it might be a nightmare to document and explain.)

Rather than have the Extreme FOW results dialog saying "unknown results against unknown units" all the time, short of the fancy, micro-managed FOW mentioned above, we might have the results dialog be a wee bit more informative. If for no other reason than to break the monotony. But in any case, under Extreme FOW, it still won't reveal much.

Good feedback.

[Nico165b165]

ORIGINAL: berto

ORIGINAL: TheWombat

The damage dialog though is odd, as it doesn't tell you anything about damage to your own units, either; even with extreme FoW, you'd think you'd know if, um, your tank blew up.

Yes, with the Extreme FOW optional rule selected, it is odd to be seeing "unknown results against unknown units" all the time, even for friendlies.

But consider: As some people never tire of reminding us, game turns represent six minutes of real time. (More or less. [;)])

The tank crew, the tank platoon would surely know if its tank blew up. But would the platoon a kilometer or two away know? Especially if there is obscuring terrain between them?

Would the overall (scenario-level) force commander know? In near real time? No. (Not even in the modern battlefield, with its instantaneous communications. Where the problem is not knowing too little, but too much. Information overload!)

The Extreme FOW is, by design, meant to be exactly that: extreme.

We think it portrays the battlefield more realistically, what with all the chaos and the smoke and the noise, etc.

Also: By giving the human player less information, it tends to disadvantage the player vs. the A/I. Not exactly A/I cheating, but tipping the situation somewhat against the human player. Makes for more competitive solo vs. A/I game play thereby.

And also: It would be a bit strange not to have any dialog at all, just the sound of explosions, nothing else, every time fire or assault combat finishes.

But yeah, good point about the oddness.

Our original design intention was to have a very fine grained FOW mechanism, with not just three choices -- Extreme, non Extreme, none at all -- rather, a slider mechanism with a scale from 0 to 100, with this and that FOW aspect ratcheted up or down accordingly. But we ran out of time to implement that. (And it might be a nightmare to document and explain.)

Rather than have the Extreme FOW results dialog saying "unknown results against unknown units" all the time, short of the fancy, micro-managed FOW mentioned above, we might have the results dialog be a wee bit more informative. If for no other reason than to break the monotony. But in any case, under Extreme FOW, it still won't reveal much.

Good feedback.

About this extreme fow/damage dialog, the odd thing is that you can still find the information not present in the dialog :

- if a hard target is destroyed, a wreck appears
- you can look at the strength in the unit panel and see if there's any less
- you can look in status/strength and note exactly which kind of units was just lost

So it's a bit odd that the only place where you have no info at all is the damage dialog [:D]

[Crossroads]

It is not perfect yet true. There are places you can sneak a peek [:)]

[*] Wreck marker is a good indication, true.
[*] Strength Dialog is worth a sneak peek especially in the beginning of battle when it is easier to spot changes there. We've talked about what to do with this in a future update.
[*] Hostile's Strength info is only available when in clear though.

[berto]

ORIGINAL: Nico165

ORIGINAL: berto

Our original design intention was to have a very fine grained FOW mechanism, with not just three choices -- Extreme, non Extreme, none at all -- rather, a slider mechanism with a scale from 0 to 100, with this and that FOW aspect ratcheted up or down accordingly. But we ran out of time to implement that. (And it might be a nightmare to document and explain.)

About this extreme fow/damage dialog, the odd thing is that you can still find the information not present in the dialog :

- if a hard target is destroyed, a wreck appears
- you can look at the strength in the unit panel and see if there's any less
- you can look in status/strength and note exactly which kind of units was just lost

So it's a bit odd that the only place where you have no info at all is the damage dialog [:D]

Yes, but having to dig for that information, rather than having it right there, "in your face", immediately -- having to dig for it, that's not quite real time, is it?

With Extreme FOW, we're not saying that you never find out what happened. But it takes time, and effort, to find out. Just like it would in Real Life.

That said, we did run out of time to review each and every aspect of the old, legacy FOW system. More refinements will be forthcoming in future updates, and future CS games.

[TheWombat_matrixforum]

Oh, I'm fine with Extreme FoW being, well, extreme! Just minor things that you could think about down the road for making it seem less odd. At first, I thought it twas a bug, with the constant repetition of the same phrase for every attack!