Differenciated Radar Blips and The General Approach to Intel

You are not.
This is not something we can trust the client to keep track of (to easy to cheat your way to new information).
Not to mention that this data also has to be transported to each player every tick.
It is quite a bit more complex in a 40 player/10k units game then a 8 player with less then 8k units game like SupCom. And even supcom get's really slow at that load!

Ah ok, my programming knowledge is limited (I do a bit of oldskool C for embedded applications but nothing like this)....

I am not so sure this a good idea. This is a networkign environment.

First rule of networking: Data is going to get lost along the way. So once in a while you have to transfer it all (like even the best video compression use difference images with regular complete images).
And the client needs to be able to handle data comming in "late". What if hte info about that unit appearing got lost on the way? When would it be told again (to be certain the state is synched)?

Didn't help. Dot on land, land unit, dot on water is a naval (or submerged land) unit. Simples.

well my point was that it's simply the same argument of "memorising is micro that shouldn't be your job" again.

I don't think it fits that as well, you don't have to stop and think about if there's water there, you can see it.

It's a little harder to tell (totally possible though) if units are floating in air when in a top down perspective or if they are in a formation so likely to be idle units.

Might be a little more relevant with naff gpu's.

But i take your point.

For most units, intel is only updated every 0.3 seconds or less. State can only change whenever a unit is seeing another unit.

Actually, these states are saved right now, too. And it's consuming at least the same amount of memory, because there are two boolean variables instead of one 2bit-variable. So this is really just a tiny change.

Only ghosts (immobile ghosts which stay even when you are fully loosing radar) require actual changes and additional data, since each player can possibly have seen a different version of the ghost and each ghost unit is a regular unit streamed to the client. (Only that it has no physic properties or whatsoever.)

the point is if you're talking about an amphibious tank or a boat or a submarine or a hover tank the difference really matters. and having radar + sonar will allow you to know without having vision and send the correct units in consequence.

Is it on the water surface? It's a water unit.

Is it below the water surface? It's a submerged unit.

It it on the surface, but not under water surface? It's a landborn unit.

Is it above the surface? It's a flying unit.

Is it above the orbital threshold? It's an orbital unit.



Yes, a landed plane is landborn.
Yes, a submerged dox is submerged.
Yes, a dox can be submerged at one time and landborn the next moment when he reaches the coastline.

Also worked just like that in SupCom, and it was good.

There is only one not-so-WYSIWG exception, and that is hovercrafts and all other units which are floating ABOVE the water surface and are therefor no valid target for torpedoes.

it's not your fukin job.

Why shouldn't the icon change?

Btw.: As far as I remember, if you had identified the unit, it retained the corresponding strategic icon. That icon switch only occurred if all you had was the layer icon.

I know but as I said it's a matter of delegation and you shouldn't have to figure something out that your minions could work out easy-peasy

Given how much can actually be read from that "simple radar output", why do we even HAVE vision in the first place?

I mean, we can shoot at radar blips too. We can tell them apart. (Well, our units can't so target priorities get messed up even further.)
Only thing we can't do is telling the power state of powered building and predicting precise unit type when units start going into formation. Oh, and of course seeing what enemy units are targeting.

The intelligence system is just one of PAs weakest points, only counting "fully implemented" features, of course. But that's a different topic.

wait I'm having problems understanding your stance here.


here's what I was able to gather (but I really didn't understand so you'll have to correct me) there should only be one or the other? vision OR radar. that both are two resemblant to be worth existing side by side?

It's more complex than that. Vision, radar, it somewhat overlaps and has different meanings for different units, depending on who is hiding, and what information you are trying to hide. Informations you have to protect are: Shere existence, precise location, precise unit type, and precise status including the action currently performed.

Each of these 4 states has a different value depending on which unit you are looking at. Sometimes pure location is enough to implicitly reveal all other information, and sometimes the last stage is still worth a fortune.

you're missing the point.

gameplay depth.

that's why FOG of war + radar was such a recipe of incredible depth for so many games. Radar and vision are not to be perceived as resemblant. they are complementary, one fulfils the other yin yang style. You can radar all you want but it's worthless if you don't send that air scout. You can air scout all you want but it's worthless if you don't have radar.

at least that's how they had it in all these other games that had a correct balance between the two.

Currently in PA, we're in a situation where we only have the vision half. We scout (or don't because it's not even getting us anywhere apart for knowing in which general direction to attack) and it's not doing us any good because we donot salvage the information we retrieved . the balance is being worked out in my opinion. and I’ve presented what I see as the obvious solution.

We have to keep this very simplistic, as mods might intruduce odd units (like amphibic battleships).

This are the movement forms one might encouter:
1. In orbital layer
2. In the Air
3. On Land surface
4. On water surface without being in water (hovering above it)
5. On water surface while being in water
6. under water surface but not on the ground (diving)
7. under the water surface and on the ground (amphibic pedestrian)

Stock units might have both 3 and 7 or 3 and 4 (if they implemented floaters/hovercraft wich seems at least likely).
1, 2, 3 and 4 or 5 could be detected with radar (but 4+5 can not be distinguished by radar alone)
5, 6 and 7 can be detect by sonar and even be distinguished.

Even if the blip would only show "revealed movement types" this would tell a lot about the unit already.
If a sonar reveals a unit that is under water walking on the ground that is a dead giveaway it is a bot/commander.
If you radar picks up something on the water surface and no movement in the water is detected when it comes into sonar range, that reveals you it is a floater.

actually that unit exists in Supreme commander, even a battleship destroyer that sprouts legs and walks on land.

both of those kept their ship icon if Identified, if not the icon of their layer.

my OP's idea still works

This thread screams a scream from the bottom of it's soul. And that scream is : "I'm relevant again!"

MMMMMMMMMMMMBUMP

I'd have to test this before speculating. And test it with PA not supcom. I can see points on both sides that are logical.

I think we have to keep in mind that the maps for PA can be very different in size. Playing on a single tiny moon with the proposed radar change? Might as well remove the fog of war. Even though the fog of war and having to work hard to receive intel is a huge part of rts games. Now playing on a multi planet system, this could greatly benefit from the proposed radar changes.

I'm not saying yes or no but I think with the variety of map sizes of this game, actual testing should be done. Because on one scale it could destroy the game and on the other it might actually be helpful and not ruin the fog of war idea.

Side note we do have satellite radar in game that give visual and radar blips so in all honesty I don't know how necessary these changes are...

@tatsujb half of this thread is you bumping it