Curious if the "hex" will ever be retired.

[steveh11Matrix]

Or of course there's the Paradox Entertainment system, using areas instead of hexes...but I don't hink that's moving in the direction you want!
Steve.

[Mr.Frag]

I just wouldn't thing a alevation of only...what?...300'?...would double the distance to the horizon though.

Not quite that simple ... you need to factor the height of both targets (the observer and the target) against the curvature.

Spotting a BB is a lot easier then spotting a PT. Most ships spotted in WWII were spotted by their smoke (dirty fuel oil), not the ship itself ... radar back then rarely outdistanced the good old Mark 20/20 (eyeball)

Weather conditions played a rather dramatic role in this. A good wind would disperse the smoke quickly. Crappy weather would cover it up. etc

[Mr.Frag]

Couple of game engines which don't use hexes are the HTTR series and the CM series. AFAIK they use a 2D grid and 3D grid respectively. They are only dealing with small areas of the planet though ...

yep, thats one of the keys ... if you can keep the area represented down to less then 10 degrees of longitude and latitude, the distortion effects become meaningless ...

One of the nice things about Europe is that it nicely fits in a couple of lines and is not too far north to matter. Once you start including sea routes to russia, things go to hell [:D]

[rogueusmc]

I think some of the later radars used thermals to increase ranges didn't they? Kinda like they do with sonar?

[Mr.Frag]

I think some of the later radars used thermals to increase ranges didn't they? Kinda like they do with sonar?

Yep, but that now falls into the *you* might spot them range catagory, not the "you have target tracking radar locked and can target and illuminate for a shooting solution" catagory.

[rogueusmc]

Makes sense...then agan, [:D]I'm just a humble ground pounder...

[Mr.Frag]

Makes sense...then agan, I'm just a humble ground pounder...

[:D]

Even a ground pounder knows that climbing the hill lets them see farther [;)]

[rogueusmc]

Hey...that doesn't occur to us because we STAY on the high ground...kinda take it for granted I guess...[8D]

[MengCiao]

I think you could coarse-gain the terrain and fine-grain the other
coordinates.

And wouldn't one simple tensor-transformation take care of all
the planetary curvature vector problems? As long as you only use less than 1/2 the sphere?

I think it could be done...ie you could get rid of hexes and still have
a game that would run on a PC. It would have to be a completely different game engine obviously and restructuring everything to take
advantage of the non-hex world would be as much trouble as juggling
the coordinates all the time.

[Mr.Frag]

Get together with Zoomie and start working on it. You understand the math, he can code ...

[ZOOMIE1980]

ORIGINAL: MengCiao

I think you could coarse-gain the terrain and fine-grain the other
coordinates.

And wouldn't one simple tensor-transformation take care of all
the planetary curvature vector problems? As long as you only use less than 1/2 the sphere?

I think it could be done...ie you could get rid of hexes and still have
a game that would run on a PC. It would have to be a completely different game engine obviously and restructuring everything to take
advantage of the non-hex world would be as much trouble as juggling
the coordinates all the time.

Kind of lost me there, I'm afraid. That takes care of the distance measuring problems and routing (i.e. Great Circle type stuff), but you still have the problem of "normalization" of combat data to deal with. Hexes are great "normalizers" (see the Mandalay example above). At what level of resolution are "stacked" combat units considered to all be in range to engage in ground combat in a coordinated fashion? You still must able to abstract your locations into a single cohesive geo-object to encapsulate or "point to" your combat resolutions, and their associated game object.

[esteban]

I agree that developing a true spatial map would be too much work. Also, hexes are useful in determining range and what your movement options are.

[ZOOMIE1980]

Hexes are truely remarkable entities in a wargame, and they stand the test of time, even in object oriented development approaches. They have attributes like terrain, location (in a grid and lat-long if you desire), weather/climate, ownership (political, military ZOC). In addition they act as "containers" for things located in them, such as airbases, supply depots, shipyards, ports, cities, and references to lists of objects like land combat units, task forces, etc... When those get co-located with enemy objects you get combat.

You get rid of hexes, you lose all that utility and it has to be replaced with something else. And what would that be? All to solve a spatial problem...

[siRkid]

A war game without hexes! NEVER!

[MengCiao]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Get together with Zoomie and start working on it. You understand the math, he can code ...

I'm sure we can make a game. What do you want in it that would be
diffferent due to having no hexes?

One thing (judging by HTTR)...you'll be able to zoom in and out.

Another...the AI will have to have hierarchical routines and these will
blend at some level with the ordinary TF and ship routines...as in "I drive
10 miles and check the radar...I see something...what next?"

I guess with no hexes you still need absolute time of some kind.

[Mr.Frag]

ORIGINAL: MengCiao

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Get together with Zoomie and start working on it. You understand the math, he can code ...

I'm sure we can make a game. What do you want in it that would be
diffferent due to having no hexes?

One thing (judging by HTTR)...you'll be able to zoom in and out.

Another...the AI will have to have hierarchical routines and these will
blend at some level with the ordinary TF and ship routines...as in "I drive
10 miles and check the radar...I see something...what next?"

I guess with no hexes you still need absolute time of some kind.

Yep, if you are getting rid of hexes, you might as well put *time* into the game. Who said it had to be turn based instead of event based ... game runs until event requires input ... you enter the input ... it continues to run ...

Heres where scripting comes into play for the engine ...

You script the conditions and responses that you want the interupts to happen.

TF reaches destination, TF encounters enemy, etc ...

You could script what happens ... if destination = true, unload then return to home port.

if enemy spotted, close range then stop with sighting report. wait for attack or shadow or flee order.

[FirstPappy]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Get together with Zoomie and start working on it. You understand the math, he can code ...

... and Mr. Frag can beta test it.

[MengCiao]

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

ORIGINAL: MengCiao

ORIGINAL: Mr.Frag

Get together with Zoomie and start working on it. You understand the math, he can code ...

I'm sure we can make a game. What do you want in it that would be
diffferent due to having no hexes?

One thing (judging by HTTR)...you'll be able to zoom in and out.

Another...the AI will have to have hierarchical routines and these will
blend at some level with the ordinary TF and ship routines...as in "I drive
10 miles and check the radar...I see something...what next?"

I guess with no hexes you still need absolute time of some kind.

Yep, if you are getting rid of hexes, you might as well put *time* into the game. Who said it had to be turn based instead of event based ... game runs until event requires input ... you enter the input ... it continues to run ...

Heres where scripting comes into play for the engine ...

You script the conditions and responses that you want the interupts to happen.

TF reaches destination, TF encounters enemy, etc ...

You could script what happens ... if destination = true, unload then return to home port.

if enemy spotted, close range then stop with sighting report. wait for attack or shadow or flee order.

Right...but "Time" in a war game means some way of setting conditions where some other routine can intervene and change things...and this means the AI...but in the case we're describing the "AI" runs everything all the time by default unless there's some human intervention....so you sort of still need something like a turn especially if you're doing PBEM or
head-to-head.

[Mr.Frag]

Right...but "Time" in a war game means some way of setting conditions where some other routine can intervene and change things...and this means the AI...but in the case we're describing the "AI" runs everything all the time by default unless there's some human intervention....so you sort of still need something like a turn especially if you're doing PBEM or
head-to-head.

No, Zoomie was talking client server ... the game would be running full time on the server ... you would have scripts that you had assigned precanned activities to to handle the normal stuff.

You would also have operational reports being spit out as the game progresses.

Should you choose to interceed, you would kick off an interrupt from your client to refresh your scripts as such with new orders ... they would take effect after a suitable command delay (gotta get those orders dispatched).

The game runs completely hands off effectively with you in overall command, reacting and planning.

[Toro]

Just for info, the distance one can see is based on height of eye. Several have mentioned this above, but as a note, a 300' HOE only sees about 20 mile, not 40. That's 40k yards (nautical), and that might be the thing some of we Naval types were recalling. Of course, atmospherics can do odd things with radar -- I recall getting 100 NM distances in the Persian Gulf one night (very bizarre).

Here's a distance calculator, if anyone is interested:
http://pollux.nss.nima.mil/calc/horizon.html