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Turning off FoW?


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Tried searching "Fog of war", but the words are too short. SO apologies if this gets asked and answered all the time.

Is there any way to disable to FoW? I've been playing with Lightgemini's sight mod and I really like being able to see most of the map. What I don't like is mowing down the poor aliens from a distance. I know I could mess with weapon ranges or accuracy, but what I'd probably want to do is change the drop-off after the optimum range is exceeded, and that's hardcoded.

So turning sight ranges back and FoW off might be a compromise.

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Yeah i thought it was a bit odd that you went there by air but have no idea what could be where from the get-go. Thing is, after a few time you know where everything is anyways since the placement is static. Right now this punish people with bad memory and make it boring for people with good memory:P

So Explored, with fog and dynamic placements would be hawt :P

I don't know if the game could handle random locations but...

Having variations of maps should be easy enough to make and should work. Not sure how the game would handle having 10 variations for each map. Like 3 new different spawn for Human and UFO would mean 9 variations~ + original or 16 variations depending on how you go through with it lol

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Why would you fly directly over a landing site of a UFO that has advanced weaponry and potentially a hostile crew with guns pointing at the sky waiting for you?

I find it more likely you would fly in low without passing over the enemy crash site and land at a safe distance.

That means you would not have seen the area from the air, you may at best have a rough idea of direction if there was a smoke column.

The maps do have a certain amount of randomness built in.

The submaps will always be in the same place on each map but those maps are selected from a list.

The individual submaps also have a set of choices so the layout should never be exactly the same twice in the final versions.

There is limited variation at the moment on some maps as all of the resources are not in place yet.

Thing is, after a few time you know where everything is anyways since the placement is static. Right now this punish people with bad memory and make it boring for people with good memory:P

So Explored, with fog and dynamic placements would be hawt :P [/QUOTe]

To follow your own logical path wouldn't that also make it boring for people with poor memory or when you had not yet learnt the maps?

You suggest that knowing the layout is a bad thing and that to fix it you should make the layout known from the start.

That doesn't make sense to me.

I would prefer to have more maps and more variation in submaps so the layout was unlikely to be known and exploration was maintained as it was in the original game.

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You would see behind buildings, around corners and inside homes as you would if the shroud was not present?

Or would you be able to see a small area which is reflected in the current sight system?

If your pilot was stupid enough to hover over a hot landing zone high enough for you to see the enemy, and therefore be seen and fired on by them, you would get a better view, temporarily.

I can see why an area around the helicopter should be visible but not the whole map.

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Why would you fly directly over a landing site of a UFO that has advanced weaponry and potentially a hostile crew with guns pointing at the sky waiting for you?

I find it more likely you would fly in low without passing over the enemy crash site and land at a safe distance.

That means you would not have seen the area from the air, you may at best have a rough idea of direction if there was a smoke column.

LMAO - You can fly half way round the world to a country and manage to land a few clicks away from a downed craft and have no idea about the lay of the land?

So no maps, no satelite images, no drones relaying images, no fighter nose cams - Nothing?

The real question is, why would you go at all if you have no information at all - oh, other than you know how damaged it is.

And more to the point, if you are to avoid the crash site you would have to know the lay of the land and more importantly, if you are to land at your LZ you should know the area .....your idea is kinda faulty.

Edited by mace6442
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I spent some time looking for information on how a pilot would actually approach a hot landing zone. The closest I could find was this video of a medevac in an ongoing firefight in Afghanistan. From the video, the pilots come in VERY low, to a designated point far away from the suspected/known point of conflict. They sure as hell don't faff around flying over a point where they could have the shit shot out of them. "Realistically", it looks like a squad going into a "hot" situation would depend upon pre-mission briefings and whatever local maps could be scrounged up, rather than looking out of a window.

EDIT: At the end of the day, it's a game decision. Like so much of the game, it isn't based in anything like "reality", it's based on "game" decisions. The real question shuldn't be "is this real" but "does it hurt the game?"

EDIT 2: This one's for mace. An article which in part discusses poor intelligence gathering and application by the US Army in the Iraq and Afghan combat theatres, reccomending considerable reogranisation of how intelligence is gathered.

Edited by Max_Caine
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EDIT: At the end of the day, it's a game decision. Like so much of the game, it isn't based in anything like "reality", it's based on "game" decisions. The real question shuldn't be "is this real" but "does it hurt the game?"

Exactly, and no, I dont think it would hurt the game at all. Exploration is kinda boring and this isn't memory game. In fact I think it would let us appreciate randomness of maps more.

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Why would you fly directly over a landing site of a UFO that has advanced weaponry and potentially a hostile crew with guns pointing at the sky waiting for you?

I find it more likely you would fly in low without passing over the enemy crash site and land at a safe distance.

That means you would not have seen the area from the air, you may at best have a rough idea of direction if there was a smoke column.

The maps do have a certain amount of randomness built in.

The submaps will always be in the same place on each map but those maps are selected from a list.

The individual submaps also have a set of choices so the layout should never be exactly the same twice in the final versions.

There is limited variation at the moment on some maps as all of the resources are not in place yet.

To follow your own logical path wouldn't that also make it boring for people with poor memory or when you had not yet learnt the maps?

You suggest that knowing the layout is a bad thing and that to fix it you should make the layout known from the start.

That doesn't make sense to me.

I would prefer to have more maps and more variation in submaps so the layout was unlikely to be known and exploration was maintained as it was in the original game.

Because you shot it down yourself and watched it crash. Because you may be able to see a smoke collumn, because i once started a mission, ran a soldier to the north west of my landing spot and right behind a building, i was able to see the UFO and my chopper at the same time.

It wouldn't be boring for someone with poor memory because he wouldn't know exactly where the enemy could be placed every time. I do NOT suggest that knowing the "lay of the land" is a bad thing, on the contrary.

I am saying there should be many variations in cover placement and choice of AI. There should be many variations in landing&crash locations and there should be building placement variations for each map. There should be various general tactic that the enemy will employ. Few example: Spread out and cover. Zerg. Zerg Roam. Dynamic/Reactive/Preventive. Full Turtle. Half Turtle.

I am saying that you shouldnt be able to tell "if there is an alien there, he is going to in cover at B5". Then you shoot a rocket at B5 and get a hit/blow its cover and then rain down LMG/Snipers on him. Its like playing battleship knowing the few predefined layout that the AI uses.

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LMAO - You can fly half way round the world to a country and manage to land a few clicks away from a downed craft and have no idea about the lay of the land?

So no maps, no satelite images, no drones relaying images, no fighter nose cams - Nothing?

The real question is, why would you go at all if you have no information at all - oh, other than you know how damaged it is.

And more to the point, if you are to avoid the crash site you would have to know the lay of the land and more importantly, if you are to land at your LZ you should know the area .....your idea is kinda faulty.

No the idea that you would fly your unarmed and fragile helicopter over a hostile and well armed enemy force just to have a look at it is flawed.

You know the crash site is 'North of the farm at these co-ordinates' as reported by the interceptor pilot so you land south of the buildings, keeping as much terrain as possible between you and those big guns.

That keeps your ground squad alive long enough to deploy.

They then move in on foot and clear the area.

Maps would be possible, not sure how detailed the maps would be though assuming they happened to have a map of every town, village, farm, and piece of open Arctic tundra available for instant access as your squad scramble to the helicopter.

Satellite imagery would also be possible if you were able to wait long enough to get one into position as I find it unlikely every part of the globe would be under constant observation.

I don't believe google maps were available in 1979.

Drones are not something I am familiar with in a 1970/80's context.

How common were they to be used back then?

Fighter nose cams could be a good source of information on the crash site.

I don't believe that 1970/80's aircraft were equipped with real time video streams so you would probably have to wait for them to come back and manually view it.

I am saying that you shouldnt be able to tell "if there is an alien there, he is going to in cover at B5". Then you shoot a rocket at B5 and get a hit/blow its cover and then rain down LMG/Snipers on him. Its like playing battleship knowing the few predefined layout that the AI uses.

So what does that have to do with the removal of the shroud?

None of that is affected by the shroud being in place, in fact it is much more difficult to tell where an alien may be hiding if you can't see where every building and bush is before even setting foot outside.

You suggested that the maps became boring once you knew where everything was placed but seemed to suggest that to remedy this the shroud should be removed so that you would be able to see where everything was placed.

Apologies if I misunderstood but I found that contradiction to be confusing.

Edited by Gauddlike
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Based on what I could find, I conclude that there were no live video feeds mounted on aircraft in the late 1970s. If you wanted pictures, aircraft had to take photos from a high-speed camera, send them back, then they had to be developed. Satellites were expensive to deploy, therefore they watched high-value targets. Furthermore, the pictures a satellite sent back required composition and substantial image processing from the raw data, and little things like cloud cover could effectively render a satellite useless. Reconnassance aircraft tended to rely more on non-video means, such as radio communication (the OVA-10 Bronco had three different radios when working as a Forward Air Controller), RADAR, laser designation, etc. Drone programmes went back as far as the 1960s but were very highly classified. As in "we will deny we ever used them, even with the world at stake, because we don't control you and can't really trust you" classified.

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So what does that have to do with the removal of the shroud?

None of that is affected by the shroud being in place, in fact it is much more difficult to tell where an alien may be hiding if you can't see where every building and bush is before even setting foot outside.

You suggested that the maps became boring once you knew where everything was placed but seemed to suggest that to remedy this the shroud should be removed so that you would be able to see where everything was placed.

Apologies if I misunderstood but I found that contradiction to be confusing.

Ah indeed. Fogless and a various map/mini-map/general layout is two thing and my suggestion of removing the shroud should not really be tied to mapping.

Thing is, in coding, its only really "pseudo-random".(forgive me i forgot the other term, but it mean that it is random within fixed parameter (since when you code, its only random up to the various possibilities you "taught" your program to handle.))

And what i mean is, this cause what i would call a "pattern syndrome" where some player identify repeating patterns in the game and this create like a 6th sense of precognition which sometimes make the game very easy for them.

The more pattern (variation) there is, the harder it get to "figure it all out" for these players(also reduce the chance of the "precognition to be right") and for other players, it call for more various tactics to be developed(otherwise a hard counter can be developed for every situation by most players).

THUS, the conclusion is, this could not feel directly relevant to the OP's topic, and IS contradictory, but; I think removing the Fog would be a cheap fix overall. Whereas all my raving about need for variation would be countered if that was implemented. That is because i think there should only be 2 approach : Either you know exactly what the map is or you don't. Right now its kind of a blur in-between because its all hidden but you still know can know from memory(not enough variations) and people with poor memory would have to use map files to kind of even out. This is bad.

PS: I think the best fix, regardless of how many map will be made officially and unofficially is; Fog(its doubtful 2 UFO would crash at the same place, therefore it doesnt make sense your troops have every detail of the area known) with some way of having this vague sense of information:

http://www.mediafire.com/convkey/b1e6/qktolcjri1q1j1efg.jpg

There is tons of way to achieve that, remove fog is kind of a bad way of doing it and it'd be out of topic to get into discussing ways of achieving it if it kicked out removing fog out of the concept.

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Gauddlike why are you so rude and avoid reading the point?

you can argue all you want but maps have been around lot longer than 1970 and anyone that goes into a war zone without one is an idiot.

Argue that all you want but you are still wrong.

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I fail to see how Gauddlike is being rude.

Also, you wouldn't have a map for every square inch of planet earth, so having a map for every possible crash site is improbable in the extreme. Also, there wouldn't be time for a map to be drawn, because odds are the first time you'd see the crash site close enough and with enough detail to make a map, it'd be when you're first getting boots on the ground. After all, this is a rapid response team; they wouldn't take the time to scout out the area, have a cartographer sketch a map, and then deploy.

Also, the crash sites aren't war zones, not in the traditional sense. It's more akin to the SWAT or whomever responding to a call about some terrorists, or something. They get there asap, and scout themselves. I don't know if that analogy made sense or not, but I hope it did.

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I understand what you mean but it was not the case in the 40s let alone the 70s. My dad went to some far reach places as short notice and they had maps of the area.

Not that I care anyway as it simply isn’t gona change in the game. I understand that, but it annoys me when people set out to disprove your point before they truly invest in the idea that it could just be so.

This has evolved to nothing to do with the game but I think the idea of people thinking they go in blind is kind of funny as how would they know where to land without a map - saying south of the building x is rather a lot of pressure on a pilot that’s apparently flying blind.

I am military and my family have been in the Army since the Army in its current form existed. Anyone that thinks that any Army goes anywhere without knowing the land is kidding them self. I could grant you that a few fields would be unmapped in extremis but a town with railways - might I remind us that world war 1 and 2 meant that both America and Britain as well as almost every other country in the world has travelled the globe and they never did it blind.

Least we forget that many of us have colonised parts of the world and have occupying forces in most areas.

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Sorry if you feel I was being rude, I was simply trying to address your own points with counter arguments.

You assume that I set out to disprove your point without bothering to read your posts however I think my own posts do address your own quite closely.

You however are simply putting forward the argument that I am wrong and being rude because I disagree with your opinion.

That does make me feel that addressing your posts in the future may be worth less of my time.

This has evolved to nothing to do with the game but I think the idea of people thinking they go in blind is kind of funny as how would they know where to land without a map - saying south of the building x is rather a lot of pressure on a pilot that’s apparently flying blind.

It may not be related to the game as such but it is related to the thread as it was put forward as a reason for the whole map being visible in the game from the start.

I imagine it could indeed be difficult for the pilot to identify a nearby safe landing area in some situations after arriving at an area he didn't know well.

Although a single radio report from the interceptor pilot along the lines of 'UFO down North of a farm at x:y co-ordinates, clear area to the South' and suddenly the helicopter pilot knows where he is going, which direction to approach from, and has a possible landing site.

I assume any competent pilot could manage that.

I don't agree that in the 70's maps would be available to hand for every town and wilderness area on the globe.

With the sort of planning that goes into an army deployment, and the time scales usually involved, getting hold of maps would be much easier.

It isn't like they could google map the area on their iphones as they run to the Chinook.

On top of that I also don't feel that removing the shroud adds anything to the game.

It takes away a lot of the tension and exploration aspect of the ground missions and, so far, the arguments that it is unrealistic have not been convincing.

I do however completely agree that increasing the randomisation of the maps is a fantastic idea and will lead to much more re-playable maps.

Hopefully as more content is added towards release this will happen.

The groundwork is there, however the new maps are more handcrafted which may mean the more random submap selections may not fit with their design.

Edited by Gauddlike
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Having a map of an area is a LOT different than turning off the shroud - no map is going to show where every bale of hay, hedge wall, parked car, park bench, etc is. Or every tree, rock, etc in the wild.

What would be more realistic would be that instead of the shroud being black it had vague placeholder props - e.g. the outline of a house, or of a park, that would then get "resolved" into current game tiles once a squaddie gets into range to notice the details. Then you have the "quick recon of the fighter jet / heli under fire / map" to give you a more strategic overview but still encounter tactical details as you go through the map. e.g. some examples of what maps will tell you: wilderness, urban

Implementing such a system would be far too complex, this game is an XCOM clone, the shroud will stay.

The game has far less maps than it will later in the beta / at launch, and with community maps being added in the game it's not like we'll have an EU12 situation.

Edited by erutan
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I suggested the same thing a while back, I even drew up a mock image where the shroud had an overlay that looked like a chalkboard drawing.

Each submap had its type written on a rough square showing its position, for example Building, Field, Farm House, or whatever was defined int he submap.

Chris didn't want to make any alterations to the system though.

It is a pity because I feel that would be a nice compromise between wanting a better idea of what is present in the area and keeping the exploration aspect intact.

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