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Sighting Range[message #100930]

Fri, 26 March 2004 02:24

Eddy Baby is currently offline

Messages:5
Registered:March 2004
Location: England, God's Own Countr...

Since my understanding of the source code doesn't go much beyond the meaning of some variables, I'm not sure what to do about this idea - but I'm interested in increasing the JA2 sighting range, possibly even to realistic levels (you still can't see people in cover, but anyone standing in the middle of the road in broad daylight can still be seen from 50 squares away).

Could anyone give me an idea of what needs to be done to achieve something like this, and where to do it?

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Private

Re: Sighting Range[message #100931]

Sat, 27 March 2004 07:51

Digicrab is currently offline

Messages:253
Registered:December 2003

In .\Tactical\Overhead Types.h there is this:

#define STRAIGHT_RANGE	13

Change 13 to whatever you want.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Sighting Range[message #100932]

Tue, 30 March 2004 06:15

KIA is currently offline

Messages:92
Registered:November 2002
Location: Virginia (USA)

Does that mean that you could implement items like opera glasses, binoculars, field glasses, and sniper scopes which could increase the STRAIGHT_RANGE by +10, +20, +30, and +40 respectively? Or would that require recoding to something like BASE_STRAIGHT_RANGE and FINAL_STRAIGHT_RANGE? (Edit) I imagine the sun goggles already work this way, so there's already some mechanism for implementing the idea...

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Corporal 1st Class

Re: Sighting Range[message #100933]

Tue, 30 March 2004 11:17

Digicrab is currently offline

Messages:253
Registered:December 2003

I plan to have items that give +to bonuses similar to DnD and such. This will make the system more general, whereas now it's mostly hardcoded. When I'm done you'll be able to create new items without touching the source.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Sighting Range[message #100934]

Tue, 30 March 2004 11:39

Chris Camfield is currently offline

Messages:68
Registered:February 2000
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Quote:

Originally posted by KIA:
Does that mean that you could implement items like opera glasses, binoculars, field glasses, and sniper scopes which could increase the STRAIGHT_RANGE by +10, +20, +30, and +40 respectively? Or would that require recoding to something like BASE_STRAIGHT_RANGE and FINAL_STRAIGHT_RANGE? (Edit) I imagine the sun goggles already work this way, so there's already some mechanism for implementing the idea...

IMO you'd have to do a bit more coding than that. When sight is checked, the maximum is calculated and then reduced according to the angle between the viewer's facing and the direction to the other character. If you just change the maximum sighting distance for people using such items, then they will magically have better vision in 360 degrees, instead of just whereever they are actually looking.

(Also, should they be effective at night, if they don't include NV capability?)

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Corporal

Re: Sighting Range[message #100935]

Tue, 30 March 2004 14:57

dextertt is currently offline

Messages:54
Registered:November 2000

Eddy,

I hope you can increase the sighting range to "realistic" distance because the way it is now, all the weapon ranges are at very odd proportions. 50 or more should be better. That would make for very exciting distance stand off.

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Corporal

Re: Sighting Range[message #100936]

Tue, 30 March 2004 15:12

Digicrab is currently offline

Messages:253
Registered:December 2003

I think increasing the sighing range by itself is not the way to go. What has to be done is a complete redesign of the weapon dynamics.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Sighting Range[message #100937]

Tue, 30 March 2004 16:33

dextertt is currently offline

Messages:54
Registered:November 2000

Hi Digicrab,

The problem I see with the current sighting range is that who get to shoot first gets the upper edge. This is due to the unrealistic sighting range. By having a longer sighting range, the first shot is not important but using cover and flank maneuver to close with the enemy are more important. And also having the longer ranges the differences between weapon classes: pistols, smg, rifles, and sniper rifles are more noticeable. Each will have their proper usage based on the situation.

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Corporal

Re: Sighting Range[message #100938]

Wed, 31 March 2004 05:09

KIA is currently offline

Messages:92
Registered:November 2002
Location: Virginia (USA)

It sounds like we're talking about revamping cover and concealment rules for more "realistic" spotting. (Please note these terms are different. Concealment makes it harder to spot you, but won't stop a bullet. No kevlar bushes here! Cover not only limits vision but stops shots.) According to Chris (Thanks, Chris!) the angle of view is factored in (good) and I imagine that the stance (standing, crouching, prone) fits in too, probably some sort of target "visibility" or "profile" calc. This would also allow things like grass, low walls, brush and scrub, etc. to add to concealment (not cover) or lower the visibility/profile. How does that tie in to camo kits and ghille suits? They should also decrease visibility / profile. Interesting problems, these. Let's proceed cautiously. Don't break the game!

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Corporal 1st Class

Re: Sighting Range[message #100939]

Wed, 31 March 2004 06:33

Eddy Baby is currently offline

Messages:5
Registered:March 2004
Location: England, God's Own Countr...

I'm going to play with range a bit, but I'm not sure whether I should be using realistic effective ranges. The M4 (hands up everyone who never considered that the Commando would make a nice M4), for instance, is stated accurate at 600m, or 60 tiles in the somewhat-suspicious 10m+1 tile calc, possibly now obsolete. For the purposes of balance it might be wise to limit extreme-range shots to sniper rifles, or something. I'll let you know.

My tuppence on visibility:

I think visibility should be unlimited in the daytime, but, as said above, with some heavy-duty occlusion work. The further away the enemy, the more exposed he must be to be seen, for instance. The more alerted the enemy the harder he is to spot. Items such as binoculars could be implemented, and the sun goggles changed, not to increase view distance but to reduce the occlusion effect at range (easier to pick out a soldier with a magnified view).

The combat dynamics are of course an issue, designed as they are for (comparitively) close ranges. Will our characters be ridiculously inaccurate over long distances? How will the AI react?

I'll give it a test or two.

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Private

Re: Sighting Range[message #100940]

Thu, 01 April 2004 17:26

Sooner is currently offline

Messages:35
Registered:January 2004
Location: Broken Arrow, OK

One thing I would keep in mind on visibility is having to spend more time in turn based mode. While I agree, the fact that I can't see more the 15 squares in broad daylight on main street has always puzzled me. On the other hand, if I am visible or the enemy is from all the way across the map, then that means we are in TB mode the entire map, which will slow things down a lot.

Also keep in mind shooting through windows with longer visibilty will mean more casualties (both you and the enemy). Imagine trying to cross what you think is a safe street only to find out there is a guy 300 yards away with one of those Baretta sniper pistols;)

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Private 1st Class

Re: Sighting Range[message #100941]

Thu, 01 April 2004 18:59

Khor1255 is currently offline

Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ

Speaking in terms of game balance, I think increasing the range could be catastrophic if not balanced with perhaps greater possibilities for cover. Let's remember, Ja2 uses maps that are on a pretty small scale in terms of realistic gun ranges. With this in mind some provision must be made to make each map playable. Otherwise you would be hitting targets four maps away and being hit from those same distances. I don't have to say how aggrevating that would be.
I heard some of you talking about expanding the size of the maps and that offers a lot of promise to the solution. But keep in mind these maps are flat, flatter than anywhere on earth so if you want realistic gun range remember there are no hills to obstruct you're trajectory and this gives guns an unrealistic advantage.
If you could rework the maps so they are large enough to support the longer ranges and add elevation to balance out the unfair advantage these ranges would give only then would any tweaking of gun range be balanced enough not to turn this game into a turkey shoot.
Would be fantastic to see these things happen.

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Sergeant Major

Re: Sighting Range[message #100942]

Thu, 01 April 2004 19:36

BlackHand is currently offline

Messages:20
Registered:March 2004
Location: Germany

Good point Khor. Increasing sight ranges does make sniper rifles (or any long range weapon) much more powerful, with the exception of night-ops and heavy obstacle-terrain. So this has definitely to be balanced out, although on the other and you can't use sniper rifles to their full potential atm. At least not without a spotter.

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Private 1st Class

Re: Sighting Range[message #100943]

Thu, 01 April 2004 23:14

Sahtor is currently offline

Messages:3
Registered:March 2004
Location: Finland

You could always give extra bonuses for prone and crouching stands. I'd say prone is 3 times more harder to detect than a standing enemy.

I don't see any problem in more realistic sighting. Maybe you'd have to make the enemy use cover more to balance it out.

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Civilian

Re: Sighting Range[message #100944]

Sat, 03 April 2004 08:30

KIA is currently offline

Messages:92
Registered:November 2002
Location: Virginia (USA)

Extended sight ranges -would- make stealth, camo, cover, and crawling MUCH more important. Yes, the game would change, but if effective ranges (i.e. no "sniper" pistols) and maybe enemy skills (no cross-map headshots with pistols) are adjusted as well, it should be interesting.

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Corporal 1st Class

Re: Sighting Range[message #100945]

Sat, 03 April 2004 09:14

dextertt is currently offline

Messages:54
Registered:November 2000

Kia,

Those are good points you said. I too have a lot of problem with "sniper" pistols in the game. To counter balance longer sighting range and sniper rifles:

1. increase the ap cost of sniper rifle so the first shoot has very small chance of hitting.
2. may be a Sniper Skill Trait is required to fire sniper class weapons or else a massive accuracy penalty and increased ap.
3. limit the availability of sniper class weapons in the game.

Again, combat is more fun when you get to use cover and flank manuevers to close with the enemy and take them out with grenades.

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Corporal

Re: Sighting Range[message #100946]

Sun, 04 April 2004 18:58

Tox is currently offline

Messages:249
Registered:February 2000
Location: www.webcodesign.de

you want more realistic sighing ranges?
render the whole person animations about half their size and it seems to fit again Razz

Razz

I for one think that JA2's sighting ranges are pretty well done since I wanna see my merc and the offender on the same screen without having to scroll all the time. if you change the sighting range to fit realistic values you'll turn the whole game upside down.
aww yeah, if you want the sighting range realistic you might wanna change the size of buildings, tanks etc as well, have fun...

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Sergeant 1st Class
JA2STI Creator

Re: Sighting Range[message #100947]

Sun, 04 April 2004 21:47

Khor1255 is currently offline

Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ

Well said. I would still like to see elevations introduced into the engine for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is the ability to have multi story buildings.

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Sergeant Major

Re: Sighting Range[message #100948]

Sat, 24 April 2004 02:17

CoffeeJunkie is currently offline

Messages:12
Registered:April 2004
Location: Suomi Finland PRKL

1. Mercs should be able to draw weapons (with appropriate AP cost if in TB mode).

2. Those mercs (if and only using sniper scope) should have highly increased sighting range (and decreased sighting to surroundings making detecting of enemies approaching from sides more difficult)

3. Binoculars in the future versions of JA?!?

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Private

Re: Sighting Range[message #100949]

Sat, 24 April 2004 03:11

Lanfear is currently offline

Messages:46
Registered:April 2004
Location: The Netherlands

to be quite honest i doubt a sniper scope would be the tool of choice for locating enemies if you have no other indications of where they might be. in a way the game already reflects this, by allowing you to shoot enemies you're not actually seeing, but who have been spotted by someone else.

binoculars would make a lot of sense though, and if all is well the modifications being made to the game *should* allow modders to add such items to the game.

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Corporal

Re: Sighting Range[message #100950]

Sun, 25 April 2004 03:12

Kurt is currently offline

Messages:423
Registered:March 2004

There are functional monoculars in UC, so it's definitely an easy thing to add...

If you change the game's resolution to 1024x768 (no big problem since todays CPUs won't even notice the performance hit), you should IMHO be able to increase all ranges to something more realistic, while keeping shooter and victim inside the same screen (no scrolling needed).

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Master Sergeant

Re: Sighting Range[message #100951]

Sun, 25 April 2004 03:27

Khor1255 is currently offline

Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ

How small then would the Avatars be? You could concievably have them as small as Age of Empires dudes but searching rooms and identifying openable drawers could border on nightmareish.
Besides, bringing gun ranges into the truly realistic perspective would require Age of Empires graphics on 32 inch monitors and still wouldn't cover the range of an expert marksman with a scoped Barret .50.
One of my original Wish List requests concerned realistic gun ranges. The folks here quickly set me straight. While I'm always for realism in game mechanics, playability must also figure very high in anyones list of priorities. I think reducing the size of Avatars susbstantially to reflect more realistic gun ranges would rob something from the rest of the game. Besides, it would further increase the difficulty in designing animations that portrayed the exact weaponry and armour characters wear. I'd much rather see this done than a half baked attempt at increasing range.
Perhaps a feature to zoom in or out might offer some solution but I think this one is a pretty big fish to fry.

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Sergeant Major

Re: Sighting Range[message #100952]

Sun, 25 April 2004 04:19

Lanfear is currently offline

Messages:46
Registered:April 2004
Location: The Netherlands

increasing the resolution to 1024*768 would effectively increase the size of the viewscreen by 2*2, so distances would roughly double, and all objects would be about half their normal size. however, the level of detail would remain the same, just with a lot small pixels...

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Corporal

Re: Sighting Range[message #100953]

Sun, 25 April 2004 07:35

Khor1255 is currently offline

Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ

Again, I'd be for it if there were a zoom in zoom out feature.

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Sergeant Major

Re: Sighting Range[message #100954]

Sun, 25 April 2004 20:24

Kurt is currently offline

Messages:423
Registered:March 2004

Quote:

Originally posted by Khor1255:
searching rooms and identifying openable drawers could border on nightmareish.

True, I didn't think about that... Surprised

Surprised

Quote:

Besides, bringing gun ranges into the truly realistic perspective would require Age of Empires graphics on 32 inch monitors and still wouldn't cover the range of an expert marksman with a scoped Barret .50.

Yes, of course, if you want to implement 2 km ranges, your mercs will have pixel-size Very Happy

Very Happy

.
No, I was just suggesting to double the resolution (easy to do), and increase the ranges accordingly (= double the existing rifle values. Easy to do, too). I agree it's just a quick & dirty solution, but it has the advantage that it takes near to nothing to code that. You could have that tomorrow.

Quote:

Besides, it would further increase the difficulty in designing animations that portrayed the exact weaponry and armour characters wear. I'd much rather see this done than a half baked attempt at increasing range.

Depending on what we're talking about: My solution is just a quick hack to the existing JA2 code. Having animations portraying the exact equipment would be a very heavy modification of the graphics engine, which would take some time.

Quote:

Perhaps a feature to zoom in or out might offer some solution but I think this one is a pretty big fish to fry.

That would be ideal indeed.

Problem is only the people actually working on the code know what they can do with it witout spending half a dozen years doing it. We always can fantasize about things we would like, but it's only them who can actually tell what they plan on doing. And they seem to have deserted the forum. Let's hope they're working... Very Happy

Very Happy

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Master Sergeant

Re: Sighting Range[message #100955]

Mon, 26 April 2004 04:57

Khor1255 is currently offline

Messages:1817
Registered:August 2003
Location: Pleasantville, NJ

Absolutely. This is my busy season at work, otherwise I'd be still trying to learn C. All I can do now is crank out a map or two with the Beta Editor every week.
That's not really advancing anything but I dig mods.

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Sergeant Major

Re: Sighting Range[message #100956]

Mon, 03 May 2004 07:55

PsyckoSama is currently offline

Messages:9
Registered:April 2004

Quote:

Those are good points you said. I too have a lot of problem with "sniper" pistols in the game. To counter balance longer sighting range and sniper rifles:

Quote:

1. increase the ap cost of sniper rifle so the first shoot has very small chance of hitting.

With snipers the attitude is that the first shot is kill shot. Bad idea.

Quote:

2. may be a Sniper Skill Trait is required to fire sniper class weapons or else a massive accuracy penalty and increased ap.

Also a bad idea... at those kinds of ranges I'd just require a very high marks

Quote:

3. limit the availability of sniper class weapons in the game.

now your making some sense, but the diffrence between a sniper weapon and a normal rifle, except with the exception of afew specialty rifles (Dragnov, PSG1, Barret, ect) have been taking an accurate standard long arm or even hunting rifle design then adding a scope and bipod.

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Private

Re: Sighting Range[message #100957]

Mon, 03 May 2004 08:16

Drakkcon is currently offline

Messages:21
Registered:August 2003
Location: USA

I believe Soldiers At War had all of the features that you guys want. Of course the game was buggy, boring, and little RPG development - but it had 8 levels (two per story), long ranges, 3 zoom levels, and a built in hit calculator too.

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Private 1st Class

Re: Sighting Range[message #100958]

Mon, 03 May 2004 09:31

Snap is currently offline

Messages:286
Registered:September 2000
Location: USA (by way of the Old Wo...

Quote:

Originally posted by Kurt:
No, I was just suggesting to double the resolution (easy to do), and increase the ranges accordingly (= double the existing rifle values. Easy to do, too). I agree it's just a quick & dirty solution, but it has the advantage that it takes near to nothing to code that. You could have that tomorrow.

Ahem. You might be surprised to learn that it's not quite as easy as you think it is.

But if someone does pull off a 2x resolution increase, implementing zoom should not be too difficult: using the same graphics, simply blow up every pixel into a 2x2 square - the result will look pretty much like the present JA2.

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Master Sergeant

Re: Sighting Range[message #100959]

Wed, 05 May 2004 03:26

Kurt is currently offline

Messages:423
Registered:March 2004

pythagoras of the Whitehat team was writing resolution increase is possible , he managed to get 800x600.
Quote:

So, for now it seems as if a resolution change is not something too complex, which is quite promising.

Of course "is not too complex" can mean anything...

And you'll have to change the standard map size too, else you won't gain anything, except the urge to reach for a magnifying glass.

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Master Sergeant

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