Having damaged terrain give less cover

[VR_Nocturne]

Is it possible to have damaged terrain provide less cover?

I figure it would need an entry in terrain.txt, however, what's the name of the damaged tiles, assuming the game even considers damaged buildings and such as "different terrain" (or if it's possible to have it do so)?

Also, would something similar to destructible terrain be possible? Hit a building or forest enough and it turns into open ground complete with the forest or building tile disappearing (which can then turn into craters as per normal)?

[Gerry4321]

Interesting ideas.

1. In terms of less cover was it not true that a rubbled building also provided a lot of cover? I think the Allies found that at Cassino after the bombing. But maybe it was less cover than the original building. I do not know.

2. How much battering should it take to be able to clear a forest tile?

Gerry

[VR_Nocturne]

I figure it still gave some cover - definitely not the same as being just in a wide open field - but probably not as much as a sound structure. If someone is shooting at me in my house as a sound structure, I'm going to be better protected from fire than if I'm in a blown up/heavy damaged house with big holes in the walls, no roof, etc. At least that's how I think of it - and considering we're talking about getting shot at by tanks, mortars, etc.

Actually, that would be interesting - a "light arms" and "heavy arms" cover rating. Or, vs HE and vs AP in the terms BA2 uses.

As for the damage threshold, hmm... Roads turn to Craters at 255 damage. Wire turns into Open Ground at 100 damage. Brings up a question - how is "damage to the tile itself" calculated?

I probably would go 150 maybe for turning a Forest into Open Ground?

[JosephM]

Hello Guys,

Although I've not tried modding BA2, I saw this and thought I'd give my two cents. I'm not sure a forest tile should ever turn into open ground. Even if the trees were flattened, there'd still be lots of branches and roots and such which would provide either cover or certainly would slow movement. I think maybe a change from forest to rough ground to craters would be better - and looking at those damage figures you'd probably more want 200 for the transition to rough ground then maybe 100 more for craters.

However if you were to have certain units, I'm thinking some specialist unit as used by Royal Engineers (Holbarts Funnies) would be bulldozer units and could potentially clear forest faster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobart%27s_Funnies

Also, I think damaged buildings do offer less cover, but I've not checked this in-game.

[pipfromslitherine]

You can have objects change their terrain type due to damage (check out the non-strong bridges in the object.txt files).

Cheers

Pip