CMx2: LOS/LOF & Split Squads

[KG_Jag]

Here's a recent and interesting Battlefront post on these issues:

"Battlefront.com
Administrator
Member # 42

posted September 04, 2005 12:51 PM
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Recently I've posted some stuff that I wasn't sure of which Charles has confirmed aren't possible right now. One was something I wasn't surprised to hear (and had said I wasn't sure), the other is something that in hindsight I'm not surprised to hear but had unfortunately forgotten when I posted. Hopefully I won't need to retract statements very often, but when I find the record needs correction I will do so as quickly as possible.

The first one is vehicles blocking LOS and/or LOF. The word is final (for now) that they can indeed block LOF but they can not block LOS. This has to do with computation and RAM costs for tracking moving, variable sized objects. LOF is a lot easier and therefore we can do that. Out of the two, LOF is the more important one. LOS would be hard for most vehicles to block effectively for any length of time anyway, so from a simulation standpoint it really isn't a big deal to leave it out. Leaving out LOF would be, as you CMx1 guys know full well since CMx1 didn't support LOF blocking.

The retraction is on the ability to split Squads. For the first game, at least, this will not be possible. As you guys recall, this was a feature added to CMx1 really late in the initial development cycle. We were never happy about putting it in for a number of reasons. One of which was the potential for abuse, which turned out to be a justified concern. However, we felt it was necessary for various reasons and therefore we put it in anyway.

For CMx2 the need for split squads is inherently reduced. First of all, Squads now behave as teams (2-3, depending) which removes the "leapfrog" problem associated with CMx1's solid Squads. In our opinion this was the biggest problem with CMx1's Squad modeling, and now it is fixed. The other reason to split Squads was to engage more targets. CMNx2's new target selection and 1:1 representation system fixes these problems. In fact, the Split Squad thing in CMx1 actually created gamey and potentially unbalancing problems for the game system, so it isn't like CMx1's Split Squad thing was a net positive in this respect. The third reason to split up Squads is to cover more terrain with fewer men. To some degree the new Team modeling of CMx2's Squads takes care of this, but not completely. For extreme, Eastern Front type scenarios, where Squads are strung out in 2-3 men over vast distances... the CMx2 system will not work. But to be fair, neither would a simple Split Squad feature. Instead you'd need to be able to break up Teams in addition to Squads. That is just not going to happen.

Besides the playability issues associated with splitting squads, there is a performance issue. A Company of Squads and Teams means x # of units. The system can count on this and performance and hardware resources predicted. But if you can suddenly add about 35% more units, on the fly and without any limitations, things become very messy fast. This is the reason why we aren't allowing it.

To put things into perspective, Charles recently made this statement to Dan and I when talking about terrain heights.


quote:
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Our heightfield is a 1m x 1m grid. For a 2km x 1km map it uses (at least) 32MB of memory. If the heightfield was a 10cm x 10cm grid, it would need 3.2 gigabytes.
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A 10 fold increase in a single aspect of terrain fidelity (or so the request would be worded) has a 100 fold increase in RAM consumption. How many people here have 3.2 GB of RAM in their systems? While not directly related to the Squad issues, it does give you guys a real world number to look at and realize that just because you can conceptualize something as "not a big deal" doesn't mean that the code will reflect this. Sometimes even small features are very big deals.

Anyway, there you go. Discuss amongst yourselves

Steve

P.S. Yes, there is another bone. Height is in 1m increments and there are NO hardcoded limitations (yet... hehe) about the height delta between lowest and highest points.

[ September 04, 2005, 10:02 AM: Message edited by: Battlefront.com ] "

[KG_Cloghaun]

Well, at first glance I don't like it. Hopefully this new "team" modelling of squads will live up to it's potential and make up for this latest bit of bad news.

I wonder if the "team model" will allow squads to be more elastic, letting them at least spread out under the 1:1 representation. This ability coupled with the new targeting system for CMx2 may turn out to be quite fun and a bit more realistic.

Does anyone know exactly how the new targeting system for infantry squads will work? Will each team (2-3 per squad) get to fire at diff targets?

Will Agent Jack Baur find his way out of Mexico and redeem himself or will he fall back into the welcome arms of his prior heroin addiction?

[KG_Panzerschreck]

No split squads huh? thats not so bad with 2 and 3 man teams. but that begs the question, "can you form up several teams into 12 and 14 man squads?"