Fog of war

[RERomine]

Originally Posted by Suhiir

One thing you could do if you think such units should be easier to spot is change the unit size.

Normally 2-3 man AT teams are size 0.
As a standard part of the code such units are harder to spot (even with the automatic spotting bonus you get when an ATGM fires).
If you make them size 1 they'll be more easily spotted both before and after they fire.

Just an idea for what it's worth.

Not meaning to be difficult, but the men will still be larger than whatever they carry so the unit should still be visible at the same point.

What really needs to be done, and it won't happen, is unit spotting needs to be independent of weapon identification. Someone has mentioned it in this thread before. Weapons would have to be assigned a "size" beyond just "warhead size". In this case "size" would represent the physical size of the weapon. It would be nice to use warhead size as a reference, but a grenade has WH=3, where a rifle has WH=1. Obviously, the rifle is larger and more visible than the grenade so that won't work. Once the "weapon size" is decided on, then it is just a matter of deciding at what range such weapon sizes could be identified. I figure weapon identification would be automatic if it was fired or used.

The big problem is the code base is complete and anything done has to be integrated into the existing code. It would effectively have to be gutted. Many suggestions by people would probably be considered if they were starting to program from scratch.

One interesting thought on unit size, does anyone know if there is a cumulative size count of units in a hex? Basically, if you have 100 snipers in one hex, would they all be unspotted (given that at that range one sniper normally would remain unseen) or would the fact they are having a "sniper convention" give away some of them?

[c_of_red]

I seem to remember reading that the more units in a hex, the greater the chance of ONE of them getting hit by shell fragments. Also you can damage your own unit by same hex combat with grenades, HEAT rounds from AT weapons, etc. So there is at least one subroutine that "looks" at unit density in a hex. You might want to try that. Set up a test and buy 100 snipers, put them in a hex, if you can and then direct fire a 100mm shell into that hex. Then run and hide before the UN shows up with a war crimes warrant.

[RERomine]

I don't doubt they can be hit, if you know to fire there to begin with. If the "sniper convention" is in a hex and no one moves, would the likelihood of them being spotted be increased by the shear number of them in the hex. It would be hard to target the convention if you don't know where it is.

[Suhiir]

To the best of my knowledge the unit size of each individual unit stacked in a hex is checked individually for spotting purposes. There is no cumlative effect. However multiple units in the same hex mean more checks to see if someone is spotted so there is in effect a sort of cumlative effect.