Slitherine

Joubarbe wrote:Removing the FOW is in my opinion a bad idea.

1/ You have an option to do so in Armageddon.
2/ Even if this is more TT experience, don't forget that we are on a computer videogame, and that's the FOW cannot be managed on a tabletop game. No FOW will mean absolute carnage, because with the new firing ranges, every piece of artillery will be able to shoot at everyone. With the FOW however, you need to scout before firing. And that's the TT feeling.

@bram1979 : I thought of that, adding more spotting to scouts. But Scouts are NOT a weak unit in War40k, especially with sniper rifles, as they have in the game. Flying units will serve as scouts, I think. Again, I finish my tool, convert a dozen of units, then upload a scenario for you guys to test. Now my tool handles the graphics of weapons (Graphics\attack.whdat) ; you click on the image, and the Offsets are automatically set. And that's cool !

Hmm, this is a tough one. I'm not knocking anyones ideas here, just consider this thinking out loud in terms of the effects on gameplay. Currently, in game, units weapons ranges are 2-4 hexes with spotting of 2-3 hexes, so already there is a sense that any unit can be used as an FO (forward observer) which is in real life for calling in artillery. The effects are minimal though. If one significantly increases the range of weapons but spotting is only partialy increased, then i think issues will crop up. For example, if infantry on average can shoot 8 hexes but spot only 4, what will tactics be? Players will send recon out to spot enemy units, then once spotted, the player will creep fwrd his infantry just into weapons range but OUTSIDE the spotting range of the enemy units, an then blast them without any return fire. He then can go back and use the continuous movement of a recon unit, to slink back... Combat might look a lot more like modern naval warfare vs ground pounder action. You dont even need dedicated recon to do this, anything w decent armour and move rates can serve the same function....
A solution might be to simply determine the range of say your "average" maximum long range armoured vehicle/tank weapon, and simply give ALL units that spottting distance, even if it is 15 hexes... You could give artillery less though I suppose. Maps would have to be carefully designed though so terrain and LOS comes into play. Or just make really BIG maps!
I dont know if there would be canage per se, as when increasing the hex range of weapons, you would need to proportionally reduce the cumulative accuracy penalty.
Turning off FOW solves any issues like this but also takes away something that computers can do so nicely....

How will you manage increasing direct fire range above 4? I thought it was currently hard coded.

I would keep the fog of war too and somehow design spotting values around the max direct-firing range of 4.
It’s a pity the fog of war disrespects the nifty terrain LOS modifiers, so you can still see through settlements, mountains and alike, but we have to live with that.
I use a 12” per hex conversion at moment and cut the range of any direct-fire weapon above 48” (4 hexes) off. Maybe shrinking anything to a 24”/hex scale would be better. Then you have range 1 for small arms engagements, range 2 for heavy and short-range ordnance, range 3 for the typical tank cannon range, and range 4 for primary and similar super-weapons.
The accuracy of weapons could still be tweaked a bit to better distinguish ranges like 8, 12, 16 and 24”.

In the tactical ruleset of the Dark Eldar mod, I also used a 12'' for 1 hex conversion.

As for the game hardcoded restrictions, it is only the minimal range that cannot be "above 4".
Maximal range can go far up, up to 48 hex range or more.
We still have plenty of options.

maximal range can be 48, but the game stops computing LoS beyond 4, so only indirect fire above 5.

Ah yes, thank you for noting this.
I confirm that is an issue, we just can't fire at 5+....