weather effects on spotting

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Sat Jul 07, 2001 5:53 am

Question on weather an spotting. the manual states 'Units have less chance of sighting and move more slowly due to fog, haze, rain, snow and dust storms.' If this is the case, the reduction does not seem that great. I havne't noticed reduced spotting in rain. A heavy rain or snow could quicly reduce visabilty to a couple hundred meters (say 4-6 hexes). Rain in the tropics, or heavy snow could reduce vis. to a hundred yards. So, can could a matrix person let me know what the whether effects are?

I've experimented with reducing spotting to 70%,50%, and 30%. It seems like the 50% reduces spotting in a tropical rainstorm down to a plausable level. I could just set the visabilty to 6 hexes, but then units couldn't fire beyond that - and once a unit started firing, it could be targeted by its muzzle flash beyond the six hex limit. Has anyone else been thinking about the ramifications of weather and night fighting? It seems more important now, with the increased emphasis on INf. in ver6.0. Infantry would use weather as a tool. "Good Infantry Weather" was the saying when i was in the 82nd. any thoughts?

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Sun Jul 08, 2001 12:32 am

comon, i know someone out there has an opinion. or is it i'm only one of three people left with the MC? I guess if i had it, i wouldn't be wasting my time posting replies either

Stuart Millis · Post by **Stuart Millis** » Sun Jul 08, 2001 12:48 am

In versions 5.01 and earlier, it seemed to me that most battles were fought in rain.
This was probably an error, since version 6 appears to have permitted a variety of weather conditions.
Visibility drops greatly in sandstorm conditions as does movement.
I can't really comment on the expected reduction of visibilty in rain, but I would expect fog or blowing snow to affect visibilty to a greater extent, unless the rain is torrential. I have not played enough battles in monsoon conditions to comment.

However, it should not be difficult to set up a simple scenario to test spotting conditions in a variety of weather conditions.......

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Sun Jul 08, 2001 1:49 am

OK, i just got through some testing. As far as i can tell, the weather or time of day has Zero effect on spotting. Shooting at a target at 12 hexes (600 meters) at night is just as accurate as on a sunny day. The only diffenece between night and day is that at night, you can't shoot out to 14 hexes, or whatever the vis. range is. But all shooting withen the vis range is JUst as Accurate. Same applies for blizzard/thunderstorm/sandstorm. This isn't realistic. I've played with the visability setting, which can be used to make the results more plausable, by lowering them to 30% (as low as they go).

It would seem to make sense to come up with a chart for different battle types, ie, in a light rain reduce vis to 80%, a sandtorm to 50%, etc.

Could this be coded into the game? Doesn't seem like a hard one to intorduce - but then again i'm not the one doing the work. How about getting it into CL or CA?

BigDuke66 · Post by **BigDuke66** » Sun Jul 08, 2001 2:41 am

Would be nice to get this into SPWAW if it is possible.

Del · Post by **Del** » Sun Jul 08, 2001 3:45 am

You will find that the weather conditions in the game and the visibility levels have nothing to do with each other. I'm playing a pbem game where the weather is a thunderstorm. Visibility is well over one mile. This is highly unlikely in a thunderstorm.

In another pbem game there was a sandstorm. Movement is reduced for one hex for infantry yet visiblity was again over one mile. When I questioned how this could be I was told the game randomly picks the weather and in a separate routine randomly picks the visibility.

Therefore, it is possible to have a blinding snow storm and see all the way across the map.

I believe a units experience level, size and rate of movement have more to do with spotting than weather by a huge factor.

[ July 07, 2001: Message edited by: Del ]

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Sun Jul 08, 2001 4:32 am

from the testing i did, wheather has absolutely nothing to do with spotting, which seems a HUGE weakness in SPWaW as a simulation. The weather is a weapon. I hope this gets addressed in future SPWaW/CA/CL games.

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Mon Jul 09, 2001 8:53 pm

Does no one care about the weather?

BigDuke66 · Post by **BigDuke66** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 12:20 am

I do

There is much traffic in this Forum so the Officials may need some time to answer.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 12:33 am

The way spoting works is a "cookie cutter" model that is based on teh visibility range. Weather affects the value that range takes, but not the specifics of the spotting chances within that "cookie cutter".

That's just the way the game was designed. Combat Leader will use a different spotting % calculation technique based on a more continuous function, not set value beyond which things magically disappear

Mike Wood · Post by **Mike Wood** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 12:46 am

Hello...

We had calculations which indexed the weather, time of day or night, unit experience for the units involved and type of unit, for spotting. There were a number of complaints that visibility was always too limited, it rained or snowed too often and that people were restarting the battles until they achieved an acceptable visibility. Towards correcting this, the values for time of day and weather were altered, so as to increase the visibility ranges.

Originally posted by BigDuke66:
I do There is much traffic in this Forum so the Officials may need some time to answer.

With regards to hitting or penetrating the unit and weather conditions, this was never programmed into the game. It was assumed that if you can see them with your eye, the bullet can hit them. Although it is true that atmospheric humidity, barometric pressure, wind direction, ambient temperature, phase of the moon, sun-spot activity and an enormous number of other factors can, in in reality do, affect the projectile vector, none of this was coded. We did not have the proper formulae for these considerations, and in many cases, factors such as what the gunner had for dinner actually have more effect. To account for these intrinsic factors, we humbly offer the random factor.

Hope this helps to explain our logic...

Michael Wood

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 7:39 am

The US Army sucks, always has, always will. Germans walked all over them any time they wanted to. Tigers are way better than Sherman’s, mano-y-mano. The loss at Stalingrad and Kursk was a fluke. I trained with US soldiers in Germany once, and they were all transvestites. The U.S. was once mean to Indians, and even now doesn't let them to open up Casino’s on their reservations. The only reason I'd ever consider sleepy with an American woman is because I'm too lazy to masturbate. The only life form that could possibly be considered lower than an American is a Californian. Oh, and by the way, what do you think of the way SPWAW handles spotting in poor weather and darkness?

11Bravo · Post by **11Bravo** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 8:07 am

Excellent posts on this subject A_B.

I had some suspicions that there were some disconnects in weather, visibility, spotting, and hitting, but gave them little thought and even less testing.

After reading your thread and the other post replying to recreating Battle of Bulge weather, I am going to redo a scenerio I am developing (same time period as above) and ask users to make adjustments to the preferences.

Finally, I would like to add...DEATH TO ALL AMERIKANS!!! :rolleyes:

[ July 10, 2001: Message edited by: 11Bravo ]

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 8:21 am

The US Army sucks, always has, always will. Germans walked all over them any time they wanted to. Tigers are way better than Sherman’s, mano-y-mano. The loss at Stalingrad and Kursk was a fluke. I trained with US soldiers in Germany once, and they were all transvestites. The U.S. was once mean to Indians, and even now doesn't let them to open up Casino’s on their reservations. The only reason I'd ever consider sleepy with an American woman is because I'm too lazy to masturbate. The only life form that could possibly be considered lower than an American is a Californian. Oh, and by the way, what do you think of the way SPWAW handles spotting in poor weather and darkness?

Thanks for the input, 11Bravo. If you were an 11B, you've probably heard some dumb ass officer say, "GOOD INFANTRY WEATHER", when you were cold, tired, rained on, and lost in the middle of the night. Well, at least no one would spot you - or hear you - which is a large part of the 'spoting' equation at night.

I'm making a pacific campaign, which will feature big changes in the preferences to reflect weather. I'm not discussing it to belittle the game, quite the contrary, just trying to use the prefernces in the best possible way. I'd like to build a consensus of values for bad weather/night fighting, from those of us who've been out there. I know there are a couple around - my baiting should pull them in here, and then maybe they'll stay long enough to reply.

lnp4668 · Post by **lnp4668** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 4:48 pm

Hi A_B, I think that your questions are just outside the ability of most people to handle. Since most posters here are wise enough to keep their mouth shut when they don't know what to say, you will gets less post than the flame thread

However, your question is what improve the game, not the flame.

p.s. The flame thread is fun to read, but it is my policy to not to contribute or respond to any degradatory remarks

Mark Ezra · Post by **Mark Ezra** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 6:05 pm

An interesting post A_B. The editor allows a scenarior designer to set the viz distance as well as the weather conditions. I suppose the battle generator is where the disconnect is. I expect you won't have to ask players to set their preferances to play a designer scen. So what perferance would you ask a PBEM player to set in Battle Gen. game?

I don't know who unchained Mike Woods long enough to answer your question! I expect he has been just a tad busy with Combat Leader/Combat Assault programing.

Larry Holt · Post by **Larry Holt** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 6:07 pm

A_B Please don't get discouraged. Your posts are well thought out. Its just that I didn't even finish one 5.3 scenario before 6.0 came out then I got 6.1 before I had my first 6.0 finished. I'm so busy trying to learn that I can't comment on what I don't have a good handle on. I don't want to comment based on my one or two instances. I'm sure the others are in the same state of SPWAW overflow.

Paul Vebber · Post by **Paul Vebber** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 6:28 pm

IF you want to reduce teh chances of spotting and not just the max range of spotting, you have to use the "Searching" preference in conjunction with teh vis range.

Brent also has a trick or two to deal with fog that he might be convnced to reveal

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Tue Jul 10, 2001 11:20 pm

The US Army sucks, always has, always will. Germans walked all over them any time they wanted to. Tigers are way better than Sherman’s, mano-y-mano. The loss at Stalingrad and Kursk was a fluke. I trained with US soldiers in Germany once, and they were all transvestites. The U.S. was once mean to Indians, and even now doesn't let them to open up Casino’s on their reservations. The only reason I'd ever consider sleepy with an American woman is because I'm too lazy to masturbate. The only life form that could possibly be considered lower than an American is a Californian. Oh, and by the way, what do you think of the way SPWAW handles spotting in poor weather and darkness?

Just doing a little fishing

A_B · Post by **A_B** » Wed Jul 11, 2001 1:18 am

Paul, Mike W., I'm not bitching about SP. I think the preferences will handle night fighting ok. I understand Mike Woods point that people don't necessarily want realism. Many people just want to shoot their 88mm out to 3000 meters and wipe out hoardes of t34's. Thats ok for tanks, i don't think they would choose to cruise around attacking in the fog. Infantry do, however. Bad Weather and poor visability is the only 'armor' they got. As far

I would, however, like to see a consensous on settings. For example, a clear night spotting is 50%, a rainy night spotting is 30%, hitting in the rain is 90%, hitting at night is 60%. I've been doing some testing, and have these types of rules in the campaign i'm working on (first four battles are done, if anyone wants to have a go - McArthurs Battles; US Army vs. Japs)