Sphere worlds and LOS/radar

Just curious. Wild idea. Just brainstorming. Would be theoretically possible (I'm not suggesting this as a feature for PA – so go easy) that LOS shrouding and/or radar be removed entirely in an RTS with sphere worlds, due to the natural obfuscation that sphere worlds create (i.e. you can only see to the immediate "horizon")?

Now I see immediate objections, ofc, like maybe you'd have bookmarked locations to zoom to on hotkeys, or it's too easy to scroll around and back again – but just conceptually speaking, if you built a game around the idea that sure you must scroll around the planet to find your opponent and what he's up to, and this is time consuming, is there some way to remove LOS/radar and just have, say, army-engagement alerts?

Again, don't shoot me down, this could be total nonsense, I'm just putting it out there as a really wild, long-shot idea to explore. Could a game be designed so that what you SEE your enemy doing is not necessarily what he has planned, and the unit designs etc might have a surprise weapon onboard, or be carrying hidden cargo, for example? So even if you know a fleet is approaching and its approximate configuration (which you see on a minimap anyway!), you perhaps don't know from purely seeing it on the main map as to how powerful or dangerous it is (or if it's even a totally fake army constructed from cheap materials, say), without actually engaging it or sending a few scouts or sacrificial forces?

IMO it could introduce some potential interesting game mechanics, of bluffing and deception, sending out cheap bulk forces, or faking a strike, or using decoys, etc etc.

Discuss. (Or not, whatever).

viewtopic.php?f=61&t=37738
Some similar ideas presented there, for reference.
Topic is a bit different though.

Yeah, thanks for posting though, much appreciated – I did take a quick look at that earlier, VERY interesting thread! It seemed a bit different but I'll plough through all the responses now just in case.

I suppose what I'm suggesting, as a massive heathen and blasphemer who might get burned alive for this, is that what if you designed around having no radar or LOS at all?

Might be cool. This would mean that radars have a detection range that scales with the size of the world. For small worlds, ambushes become easier. For large worlds, mass coverage isn't that big a deal.

'LOS' though is really about the concept of increasing intelligence on the enemy the closer he gets to your forces.


So you could possibly change the idea slightly and say that far away stuff (that would traditionally not be in LOS / Radar) would be visible, but only get updated say once a minute.

Things under 'Radar' could get updated every 10 seconds, and stuff in direct line of sight would get updated immediately.


It's all hugely dependent on how the planets turn out though - if we're talking about tiny balls we drive all over, the curvature of the planet is going to be a big factor and an idea like this might be workable. If we're talking about enormous planets with several different combat zones / maps on one planet, then there would be a completely different problem set to work with.

I'm not sure I see any benefit to dropping visibility mechanics entirely. All of the strategies you listed still make sense when players aren't omniscient. Conversely, there are a number of strategies and units that don't make sense without visibility mechanics. Surely it would be better to start with visibility and radar in place, and then give players the option of turning them off via game options or mods.

On the contrary, what makes LOS interesting is that is a second factor, separate from distance, that helps determine whether you can see something. With LOS taken into account, an enemy can become invisible by moving behind a mountain, even if his distance from the observer has not changed.

Sure. I'm not posting in favor of the idea, just exploring it .

Interesting side fact though, LOS in Supcom is a circle, not terrain limited. Zero-K is terrain dependent. If I'm remembering all the details correctly that is.

I think TA had this as an option too: True, Circular, Permanent. Something like that.

I suppose in this thread I'm more interested in going further and exploring no LOS or radar, i.e. permanent "LOS". So you just spin the globe and you can see what your enemy is up to. Then exploring game units, tech, etc that can make visual "bluffs" to your opponent.

The problem with this concept is that it reduces the value of scouting, and essentially gets rid of the intelligence metagame.

Not to mention the Orbital layer, which has tremendous potential to add another cool layer to the intel metagame.

Not necessarily. It probably just changes how it works. Plus you can still have cloaked units etc. Problem is, most RTS games are designed around a LOS system, which is fine, but I'm curious as to what it could look like otherwise.

If we do end up having a 'true' LOS system that allows units to see to the horizon (that would be amazing) then satellites should be able to see enormous swathes of the planet they're orbiting. In that case, a structure or unit of some sort that can spew clouds of dust and vapour into the sky in a radius above it might be interesting to block or reduce vision from orbital units.

Of course, players would be able to see through said cloud if they have ground LOS on the area the cloud is in.

I really don't get how "Orbital" will work in conjunction with other layers, in particular air. It just seems to me that anything special to that layer would be taking away what is special about the air layer. I can see it working on gas planets or even asteroids without atmosphere.

This might just be my view of orbital units, as there really hasn't been anything from Uber to tell us specifics about orbital units/mechanics.

Popoulous:The Beginning got no line of sight and is a sphere(technically wrapped cylinder).
I played it in singleplayer only. If there are someone with multiplayer experience they could propably share their experience.

For LoS it should simply work as it does in real life. With more altitude and less atmospheric scattering you can see further. e.g. taller units or units on a mountain top can see further. e.g.2 Units can't see through solid objects, like mountains. e.g. 3 Fog or smoke obscures vision (scatters light) and limits the distance that you can see regardless of your altitude (if fact, higher altitude could actually lower your horizontal LoS.).

As for radar and sonar, again, they should work as they do in real life. Radar for for objects in the sky or on the surface of bodies of water/lava/ some liquid. Sonar for objects under some liquid.

As for radar working for units on the ground, *pick your vulgar expletive* NO! This is the worst, by first the worst, idea I have ever seen in a game. NO NO NO NO. Tanks look like rocks when views by a radar source. NOOOOOOoooooo! You get my point.

If you want to see what your enemy is up to you need to make scouts and keep them alive. So some sorta scout ground units, air unit, or, now, a space satellite unit.

This is just one situation where realism just works.

RE: orbital layer and it's interaction between what I would call the 'primary tiers', which are basically the planet side unit set. That would be sea, land, amphibious and air.

So let me start by saying I am well aware that nothing has been suggested, confirmed or denied about the orbital tier. I'm just speculating really, but I think there's some real scope for a great orbital layer to add some real depth to the game.

Satellites used for intelligence gathering, orbital bombardment and so on.

I would certainly like to speculate about ways that satellite LOS could be countered. As far as I know, space based radar is at conceptual stage right now with the design being rehashed after the difficulty with the RORSAT satellites used by Soviet Russians between the late 60's and the 80's. However, it does prove that the concept works and makes for interesting reading.

There are some subjects in the first link that suggest that you could potentially start a map with no idea about the terrain of the planet at all, save what you could actually see with direct line of sight. Terrain would be mapped by scouting (think Age of Empires) and increased again with the use of ground based radar and eventually, when the orbital tier was reached, more advanced mapping satellites could be used to uncover the map terrain possibly giving a player DLoS over a specified area. I'm just thinking aloud here.

I really see orbital as the third tech level. Where players will naturally be trying to progress to orbital tier in order to gain an advantage over their opponents. Acquiring orbital tier units could, and should IMO, prompt a players opponent to either build counter orbital units and ultimately advance to orbital themselves. The same kind of way that in SupCom, players when faced with enemy T2 units would be forced to build tougher point defence and in order to do so, would require T2 tech themselves or be slowly overwhelmed by units that they cannot deal with.

Certainly over the horizon radar is not a new concept. We're talking 50's tech here. But as stated in linked the article, I think that we are forgoing accuracy in favour of reducing cost when compared to other more accurate methods and this could be concurrent with the nature of the use of radar in PA. We don't need to be 100% accurate to real life. And that's just comparing it to what we had in the 50's, not the super-refined technology of killing machines from millennia in the future. There's no reason that, if it were right for the game, we couldn't have various types of advanced unit detection. Both land and space based systems. The important thing to focus on is what works for the game as well as what is cool in concept.

EDITED: Typos. It's late.