Matrix Games Forums

I am curious about how line of sight will be modeled. Will I be able to quickly check the LOS of any of my units or from a piece of land?

Yes, by using the LOS tool.

When you click on empty terrain, the LOS tool shows the area that would be visible by daylight, using the maximum visibility setting. As each unit can have different weapons, we have to use some generic setting for the terrain LOS. The actual LOS for units (available when any unit is selected with LOS tool) can be restricted by the time-of-day, terrain and visibility. It can be also improved by the weapon Night Vision values of a particular unit (for example thermals allow you to engage targets better in the conditions of scarce visibility like smoke, rain etc.).

We also added a new feature which automatically shows you which enemy units are spotted by a selected unit.

Great, thanks for the answer.

It's worth noting that the maps are made of 30x30 meter cells, and that's the terrain resolution used by the engine. The LOS is always checked between these terrain cells. A cell can contain only one alive ground unit at a time. The large cell size allows us to have the huge maps.

The grid system is the cornerstone of the game. In the new UI this is made more apparent, and we're not trying to hide it from the player. What you see when zooming in close to the ground is not supposed to be a 1:1 representation of the real world, but an abstraction, more or less. Even vehicle positions are not always exact. For example, a vehicle blocks a single-cell road, until the vehicle has been destroyed or abandoned and has stopped burning. As a comparison, Steel Panthers had a stacking limit of 2 or 3 units per 50 meter hex. In Armored Brigade you can have 4 units in a 60x60 meter area, so in that sense it's not much different.

maps are made of 30x30 meter cells ... Steel Panthers had a stacking limit of 2 or 3 units per 50 meter hex

Your cells are square; not hexagonal?

ORIGINAL: CSO_Talorgan

maps are made of 30x30 meter cells ... Steel Panthers had a stacking limit of 2 or 3 units per 50 meter hex

Your cells are square; not hexagonal?

Yes, squares.