“Information delay” implementation

[Elmo_Zumwalt]

How feasible would it be to mod in an “information delay” (similar to command delay, but in the opposite direction)? As I understand it, the game currently displays all information as soon as it is received by any unit; however, realistically this would not be the case.

[nikolas93TS]

We are working on that feature for the sequel. It goes with a new spotting system and command hierarchy, which implied a new database as well.

Being work in progress, we are open to suggestions. Particularly to studies on command cycles and statistical times.

[Elmo_Zumwalt]

Will this include both a delay in displaying the spotted locations of enemy units to the player, as well as a delay in displaying the locations of friendly units? That is, the positions of units displayed at the current time would reflect the situation “x” minutes before the current game time?

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: Elmo_Zumwalt

Will this include both a delay in displaying the spotted locations of enemy units to the player, as well as a delay in displaying the locations of friendly units? That is, the positions of units displayed at the current time would reflect the situation “x” minutes before the current game time?

What has been planned is that the player always has perfect knowledge of all his units. The information delay steps in when individual units are sending reports to other friendly units. We don't have this implemented yet, but I think when the player doesn't have any unit selected he sees the most fresh information that's the combination of all what his units see at the moment, and when he selects an individual unit then he sees the viewpoint of that unit.

[varangy]

ORIGINAL: Veitikka
I think when the player doesn't have any unit selected he sees the most fresh information that's the combination of all what his units see at the moment, and when he selects an individual unit then he sees the viewpoint of that unit.

Perfect!

[lancer]

Hi Veitikka,

Sounds good. How are you planning on handling ECM?

Cheers,
Lancer

[Elmo_Zumwalt]

Does this mean that if the player designates a “player avatar” unit on the map, they will have the viewpoint of that unit? That is, that the “player unit” designation will count as “selecting” a unit, and the viewpoint would be fixed to that unit regardless of any other units being selected.

If not, I would like to suggest this feature.

[nikolas93TS]

Local electronic warfare should be formulated with different levels of hindrance values (None, Light, Medium, and Strong), each having a different impact of jamming on friendly or hostile communications/radar networks, or muting GPS/GLONASS/BeiDou signals. A degree of performance degradation might be expected on certain weapon systems, if we succeed in implementing it.

The EW interference levels should be adjustable for each side individually and pre-set before the battle. Force training value should have an influence on the level of communication degradation.

[lancer]

Hi nikolas,

Thanks for the info. Sounds good.

How is jamming going to effect on non-weapon areas such as the speed of information flow or the issuing of commands?

I take it that ECM will be abstracted and there won't be an EW unit sitting behind a hill at the rear, on-map?

Cheers,
Plugger

[nikolas93TS]

Indeed, there won't be EW units on map (except eventually for ground radars, as those fall under electronic warfare units in some armies) . They are outside the scope of the game, and they usually tend to be stay well behind the front-lines.

Jamming and other countermeasures will chiefly influence spotting report speed and command delay (for example, with strong EW units must rely on maintaining C3 connection either visually or using static communications like field telephones and runners), but also might delay air/artillery and/or UAV support. Side employing strong EW might also receive random reports on possible enemy locations.

[lancer]

Hi nikolas,

O.K, that also sounds good.

Would the ECM effect for a given game be constant for the prescribed level or would, for example, a Medium ECM give varying amounts of hindrance during the game based on it's base strength (Medium) and intermittement probability rolls?

Cheers,
Plugger

[Elmo_Zumwalt]

Copied from earlier:

Does this mean that if the player designates a “player avatar” unit on the map, they will have the viewpoint of that unit? That is, that the “player unit” designation will count as “selecting” a unit, and the viewpoint would be fixed to that unit regardless of any other units being selected.

If not, I would like to suggest this feature

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: Elmo_Zumwalt

Copied from earlier:

Does this mean that if the player designates a “player avatar” unit on the map, they will have the viewpoint of that unit? That is, that the “player unit” designation will count as “selecting” a unit, and the viewpoint would be fixed to that unit regardless of any other units being selected.

If not, I would like to suggest this feature

A very interesting idea, but how would the player be able to command his units if he didn't have the high level overview of the situation available?

[Elmo_Zumwalt]

Well, in my concept, the player would have a “high level” overview; however, this would be out of date by various times depending on the unit (e.g. a single tank’s location would update less frequently/be more out of date than the tank’s commander, and so on up the chain of command). This would reflect a realistic operational environment, in which the location of units is only intermittently (rather than continuously) updated, and the latency of the updates changes depending on the unit’s status (engaged/maneuvering/emplaced).

So for instance, a unit could show as being in one location to the player, but its actual position might be out of date significantly if they had moved without communicating an update. This would further reduce the effectiveness of micromanaging units, as the combined latency of command delay (commander -> subordinates) and information delay (subordinates -> commander) would incentivize planning well in advance.

The macroscopic situation would be available to the player (at least over a suitable time scale), but they would still need to pay attention to trends and plan accordingly (e.g. proactively moving reserves to halt an impending breakthrough before it occurs). In most cases, the course of a battle does not swing instantaneously (rather, it does so over time, enabling trends to be observed and acted upon); and if it does in some cases, such is war [:)].

[22sec]

ORIGINAL: Elmo_Zumwalt

Well, in my concept, the player would have a “high level” overview; however, this would be out of date by various times depending on the unit (e.g. a single tank’s location would update less frequently/be more out of date than the tank’s commander, and so on up the chain of command). This would reflect a realistic operational environment, in which the location of units is only intermittently (rather than continuously) updated, and the latency of the updates changes depending on the unit’s status (engaged/maneuvering/emplaced).

So for instance, a unit could show as being in one location to the player, but its actual position might be out of date significantly if they had moved without communicating an update. This would further reduce the effectiveness of micromanaging units, as the combined latency of command delay (commander -> subordinates) and information delay (subordinates -> commander) would incentivize planning well in advance.

The macroscopic situation would be available to the player (at least over a suitable time scale), but they would still need to pay attention to trends and plan accordingly (e.g. proactively moving reserves to halt an impending breakthrough before it occurs). In most cases, the course of a battle does not swing instantaneously (rather, it does so over time, enabling trends to be observed and acted upon); and if it does in some cases, such is war [:)].

That's all well in theory, but your units' AI needs to be able to then function correctly with no control. I don't know how to do that without scripting behaviors, which while I am assuming doable is something we haven't seen implemented. Maybe someday? Veitikka, Nik???

[Elmo_Zumwalt]

Not “no control”; the control scheme would be the same as it is currently (however, real-time information on unit status would not be available continuously, only updating as units report changes). That would probably require modifying the way in which this information is fed to the AI commander, to account for the delay on the AI-controlled side as well as on the player-controlled side.

But I suspect this would be very similar to whatever logic would be used to time the display of status updates on the player’s screen.

[22sec]

ORIGINAL: Elmo_Zumwalt

Not “no control”; the control scheme would be the same as it is currently (however, real-time information on unit status would not be available continuously, only updating as units report changes). That would probably require modifying the way in which this information is fed to the AI commander, to account for the delay on the AI-controlled side as well as on the player-controlled side.

But I suspect this would be very similar to whatever logic would be used to time the display of status updates on the player’s screen.

Gotcha, I am just wondering from a coding standpoint how feasible that would be?

[Elmo_Zumwalt]

Well, I imagine that a time delay on feeding unit positions/status to either the AI or the player’s screen would be relatively straightforward; that is, the position/status of a certain unit at time (x) would be cached and then sent at time (x + info delay) to the screen/AI. Of course, the AI might have issues operating on out-of-date information, depending on its capacity to observe trends/predict further events based on delayed data relative to a human player.

[lancer]

Hi,

Riffing off the ideas above.

In a lot of tactically orientated games information on the enemy isn't given to the player in a 'god-like' manner. Instead there are delays in the information reaching the player (up through whatever chain of command is in the game) and enemy units are shown as 'possibles' rather than 'definites' if there is a chance they may have moved since.

The key point with Armoured Brigade is that it doesn't matter what situational awareness your subordinate unit elements have as they are handled by the AI and will automatically shoot or react to a known enemy presence regardless of what you, the Player, knows.

However it's the Player making the decisions and if you give the player God like abilities then you've completely defeated the purpose of having information delays in the first place. It's all back to front.

Game wise you could easily (?) handle this by simply showing the player every unit that has been spotted but have any enemy intel that has come via a time delay shown in a different manner, eg. there's an M1 tank over there but it's shown greyed out (hard to see?) or shown in a different colour tint or with an icon (time last seen?) or something.

This way the Player still has a God Like perspective of the battlefield but it's a hazy, way more realistic one, where they are having to make decisions based on imperfect information. Sure you know there were M1 tanks over there a minute ago but would they still be there now?

If you clicked on a subordinate element the view wouldn't change. You'd still get the hazy, time delayed, view. Your ATGM team that you're currently looking at may be firing at something that you can't see but that doesn't matter as it's still carrying out your orders and reacting to the battlefield situation as it knows it (which may well be different to your understanding). You've already implemented this in the way helicopters work.

If the game was set up like a lot of others where the player can directly take control of individual units and tell them what to do this approach wouldn't work. But AB is all about the Player having hands off control of their forces via the order delays mechanic. It's not a big leap to provide the Player with a view of the battlefield that reflects information arriving over time.

Of course you could do this via an option toggle for those that still want to be of a heavenly disposition.

If nothing else you would, with a 'hazy' view of the battlefield, elevate the game into a being a more realistic decision making experience.

Cheers,
Plugger

[Elmo_Zumwalt]

Lancer,

You have a good idea of where I am going with this proposal. Essentially (in my view) all military-tactical games exist on a spectrum between an actual combat environment (most realistic) to a Wargame-esque setup with no information or command delay (most gamey, having both God's-eye view and God's-eye commands). But obviously a fully realistic game would not be engaging for more than a minority of enthusiasts (even Radio General has real-time updates on friendly unit positions, while this is obviously not the case in actual operations).

I am proposing a nudge in the more "realistic" direction of the scale; this could possibly be toggleable as you suggested. A further modification could be only enabling real-time updates for units within visual line-of-sight of the player, and implementing the information lag for all other units.

I think the biggest obstacle here is that the current AI is somewhat deterministic in nature (no offense meant to the developers, just an observation [:)]), which could complicate adapting it for non-real-time information updates. But if this is not the case, I would be glad to be corrected on this.