LOS engine: Height and % Cover

from Elemental Forums

I'll love to have an Line of Sight engine for this game, so a lot of sight related abilities (invisibility/pre-cognition/night-vision/illusion spells/etc) can be added/removed  in a mod, and the AI will know how to handle and utilitize special type of eye-sight to its advantage.

Brad has mentioned a watch tower won't 'see thru' a mountain.  This is great, but if this is no LOS engine I expect it is hard coded, which is not good.

Here I just try to outline the basics of the LOS engine.  Feel free to chime in!

Different units has "Sight Range" which is likely the same as the "Sight" statistics we saw from Brad's screenshoots.

As long as there is no 'obstacle' in-btw its sight range, the game will display the current situation to the unit/player every turn.   Stuff behind the obstruction will not be shown at all, unless your current location is higher than the obstacles.    

For example, when you build a watch tower, you can see behind your obstacles only because your gaurds are located at a higher place.
Different terrain has different % Cover value .  A mountain has 100 % Cover, heavy brushes has 50% Cover, so when someone hide there, it can be 'seen' only 50% of time.  You see it half of the time.    

Different unit has a different % cover value.   Placing a couple Giants in front can help hiding troops of normal size behind it.  Maybe the Giants will have a inherent 30% cover value.  So unless you have  watchtowers (or on natural high ground) that are taller than the Giants, it is harder to confirm if there is other enemies tailgating the giants.

Units that are skilled with concealment may have 30% cover bonus that can be applied on top of the terrian value.   Or player can instruct certain troop marching slower so that 10% cover bonus is bestowed.

New addition:

Weather effects like fog, cloud, rain, snowstorm etc should be able to change the % cover of all terrains tile.  This will make Weather an important aspect of the game, as it determine whether your units can succesffully ambush your enemy.  (I always hope weather is default feature that can be turned on/off at will.)  

Guards that are instructed on patrol duty or sentry duty will have a bonus in spotting concealed units with their immediate surrounding.  This bonus counteracts with the % Cover value of your enemy.   The longer time the guard remain on patrol/sentry, the higher this bonus will be.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes definately. Being able to work with these abilities for a mod would be extremely useful and satisfying.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

I think Brad may have mentioned this.

 

Suggestion:  Allow Pioneers to build beacons on mountains (with some later tech) with big visibility ranges.  Also give watchtowers on hills bigger ranges

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

More idea..

Weather effects like fog, cloud, rain, snowstorm etc should be able to change the % cover of all terrains tile.  This will make Weather an important aspect of the game, as it determine whether your units can succesffully ambush your enemy.  (I always hope weather is default feature that can be turned on/off at will.)  


When LOS engine is avaliable, modders should have less hassle making a Day & Night mod.  On a moonless night, everything is pitch dark except artificial light is shone (or if there is night-vision units).  

Guards that are instructed on patrol duty or sentry duty will have a bonus in spotting concealed units with their immediate surrounding.  This bonus counteracts with the % Cover value of your enemy.   The longer time the guard remain on patrol/sentry, the higher this bonus will be.

 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Just to add something sort-of related to this discussion. I been reading that Frogboy wants to make this AI world class and I believe he will. But just in case no one has mentioned this, When I play Age of Wonders in single player mode any of the spells or feats or terrain features that provide invisibility or concealment or extra sight etc are useless against the AI as it just runs the script and ignores the fact that you are invisible or it is on the other side of the map yet it somehow (Unrealistically)knows where you are and it just does a straight line towards you even though it should not even know you are there. In multi-player these feats are great for scouting and assassins but against the AI such strategies are pointless. Hope Elemental will address such issues so that the AI is on equal footing as the player even-though the AI has the ability to bypass certain human aspects of the game.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

TarponCrest, I concurr.

During the recent discussion of Tactical combat (TC).   I have noticed that there is a critical lack of an important feature in AOWSM.   

LOS engine must work in TC map.   Your unit cannot see behind the street corner or deep into the forest, thus your opponent can hide there attempting an ambush.   And the local map weather affects your units' LOS too.   

Hundreds of pre-made TC map (or stamps) maybe a good idea, but all it does is adding choke point to tactical combat.    Stealth related strategy cannot be expressed.

This is another innovation a LOS engine can bring to the game.  This, will ultimately improve the fun factor of the game.