Slitherine

BA1, with a one level hill, has a huge problem with LOS and hills, I posted several times about it, I understand it is in the core of BA and so, difficult to improve, so I did not develop scenarios with hills for BA1.
Now BA2, with a two level hills has a x2 huge problem with LOS. It's a pity that the new BA doesn't improve LOS at all.

In my humble opinion, scenarios with hills should be also avoided in BA2, because it has no logic at all.

BA seems not taking into account that to "see" you must have a straight line of sight to the target (well, in modern physics, Einstein said something about curving light but I think is not applicable to a tactical war-game).

The example shows the big problem, there are much more, especially with the slopes, but these showed are essential.

When an object is in the LOS BA seems to do the correct thing.

If a tile in BA represents 100-300 m. a level one hill tile should be equivalent to the height of a small building or wood on a ground level. A level two hill tile should be equivalent to the height of a large building or woods, or a small building on a level one tile.

This is the key: a level one should be considered and object like house, and a level two as a house in level one.

I really hope the development team takes this as a priority. The Big Guns map is a mess round the hills. It really takes away from a great game. We cannot just end up with all flat terrain.

Gerry

enric wrote:BA1, with a one level hill, has a huge problem with LOS and hills, I posted several times about it, I understand it is in the core of BA and so, difficult to improve, so I did not develop scenarios with hills for BA1.
Now BA2, with a two level hills has a x2 huge problem with LOS. It's a pity that the new BA doesn't improve LOS at all.

In my humble opinion, scenarios with hills should be also avoided in BA2, because it has no logic at all.

BA seems not taking into account that to "see" you must have a straight line of sight to the target (well, in modern physics, Einstein said something about curving light but I think is not applicable to a tactical war-game).

The example shows the big problem, there are much more, especially with the slopes, but these showed are essential.

More on LOS.
I'll finish this scenario Hill 621 it's near ready, but cancel any other scenario with Hills, its a shame, but the level system is non playable until a fix is done.
The T34 LOS is incompressible.

It's all to do with rising edges cutting across lines of sight. It actually does make sense if you look for the terrain rising across the center of the tiles. That said, it's not incredibly intuitive, but that's partly down to the abstract nature of the model, we can't just ray cast between tiles because it would make no sense at the scale the game is played at.

There are definitely some oddities that I need to look at though.

Cheers

Pip

It actually does make sense if you look for the terrain rising across the center of the tiles.

ummm, I missed you.
Looking at the image, imagine the T34 is tile F1, on a coordinates

E1 is a rising edge, LOS go to D1, C1, etc
F2 is a rising edge LOS don't go more than F2
E3 is not in LOS (WHY?)
Also D4 is not LOS WHY?
But look at the rear of the T34
B0 is in LOS as D-1 and D.2 but
C-1 is not in LOS but C-2 YES

I understand it's not easy to fix it, but I can't understand you said "does make sense if you look for the terrain rising".

As I said before, I made a map just for test, just Hills tanks and trucks, I recommend to spend some time on something similar.

All player I'm playing and testing find the level system is a shame. It's as it was in BA1, and we expected a step forward on BA2.

Well, to pick a specific example, E3 is not visible because the LOS from F1 passes through F2 which has a rising edge across the middle of it. As I say, it's not especially intuitive unless you know how the system works. Frankly I fought against multiple hill levels as they are confusing to the player, and so hills are best used sparingly.

Cheers

Pip

But D1 is visible and LOS passes through E1 with a rising edge across the middle.
And C3 with a rising edge across the middle don't block B4, I can't understand

It's all to do with the effective heights going up and down, which is how the system tracks going in and out of valleys. The path to E3 goes F1, F2, E2, E3 and the extra ups and downs are the difference.

Cheers

Pip

Pip and company:

1) Why not treat it in an intuitive way so that a player will be able to have an idea of what could happen a unit when they move into a tile. For example, F1-F2-F3 all seem to be slopes so F1 should see down into F3 in an intuitive way.

2) Please don't give up on levels. Also not having levels in cities/villages makes it a bit boring. The battlefield was not flat. it is a lovely game system. Please try and continue to work on levels in terms of hills and urban areas.

Thanks,

Gerry

I think the first thing to solve a problem is accept that there is a problem. but at the present, it seems that the problem is not yet accepted.

Nope - we know that hills don't just 'work' in a perfect way. That said, the logical design of the system to allow them to both look right and be consistent has thusfar eluded us.

Cheers

Pip

pipfromslitherine wrote:Nope - we know that hills don't just 'work' in a perfect way. That said, the logical design of the system to allow them to both look right and be consistent has thusfar eluded us.

Cheers

Pip

"thusfar" is a spelling mistake? or I did not know this word, as not native english speaker... but I asume you said: you eluded to find a more logical approach because this will affect 3D looking.

I see, in many tactical wargame (board or computers) that they treat hills as level one or two without a slope hex between both levels, i.e., the slope is only for looking right in 3D map, but considered as part of the inferior level.
I don't know how difficult could be to change the logical in the code to avoid this, but many issues come from slopes. Maybe several changes will make them not perfect but more intuitive. Now, I'm sure nobody is able to say, looking at the map (in a hill context), if there is , or not,a LOS from a tile to another.

Sorry - thusfar just means 'so far' or 'up until now'.

I understand your idea, but with something like BA I think it would help less. e.g. a unit looking along the slope of a hill would be able to see right through it, which doesn't look right given the sizes of the units. Definitely some of the problems come from the abstractions we have chosen verses relative sizes of the visuals.

Cheers

Pip