Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-11-29T19:08:38+02:00

I was thinking that maybe certain weapons like missiles had a harder time attacking stealth units, though this may be hard to balance. I was also thinking that instead of Omni being able to detect stealth, it has to get an upgrade to do that or maybe there is just an entirely different structure that does that, but I am not sure about this idea. It would also be cool to see radar jamming be used to make an area of the map invisible to radar, but the enemy would know this. Or maybe it shuts down the enemy radar for a certain period of time.

Statistics: Posted by bigcrap757 — 29 Nov 2013, 19:08

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-11-08T22:58:24+02:00

Wakke wrote:
Don't forget there is nasty bug (or engine limitation?) where enemies firing on your cloaked buildings 'magically' know when it is destroyed. Does anyone have an idea if that can be fixed?

no sadly not, that bug cant be fixed, in dms i attempted a fix which works 50% of the time by deleting the attack order from the unit but like i say
because its complicated i could only offer a partail fix which is better than no fix at all.

as for the rest of the questions about intel, yeah it possible for a unit to determine if its on any type of intel which a bit of scripting.

Statistics: Posted by Domino — 08 Nov 2013, 22:58

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-11-07T22:08:56+02:00

Don't forget there is nasty bug (or engine limitation?) where enemies firing on your cloaked buildings 'magically' know when it is destroyed. Does anyone have an idea if that can be fixed?

Statistics: Posted by Wakke — 07 Nov 2013, 22:08

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-11-07T02:36:03+02:00

errorblankfield wrote:
So in summation. If you have a unscouted stealth field, every unit icon in the field is shaded. If a scout flys by, everything that can see it (and can thus be seen by it)* has there icon lit back to normal -no pings or alerts- just normalcy. Once the scout is gone, the buildings stay lit and the units become shaded once more as they fall off radar.

Wow, I'd forgotten all about this thread. But yeah, that sounds like a mod that I would jump on. Cool.

Statistics: Posted by Mycen — 07 Nov 2013, 02:36

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-11-06T12:31:35+02:00

I never replied.
If only I had e-mail notifications.

Mycen wrote:
errorblankfield wrote:
Towers can be unstealthed all day as well. So I don't really see a difference.

The difference is not that they can be discovered visually, the difference is that once they are, as a structure, their position is marked, and the enemy player will always know they are there.

With mobile units, they could be seen, then move out of sight range, disappear from radar, and then move into sight range and be seen again, and this can happen many times in succession for the same, like during a battle.

I think see what your saying, but the mobile stealth part doesn't matter. A stealth ring is a stealth ring even if it moves. The problem is stealthed units within a ring. They can leave a ring, be spotted within a ring, or move into a ring (etc.) making their current visual status less binary than a buildings 'I've been seens' v 'I've not been seen' situation.

In this case, it would really behave mostly the same. If your unit is in a ring (or otherwise cloaked), it's marked as such. If it's visually spotted, it's unmarked. If it's spotted and then the spotter loses vision, it's marked again because of stealth mechanics.
Currently, stealth radar only truly works for units. Buildings once seen are always seen (unless you toggle a field). Makes a degree of sense because you can just mark down a map when you see a building. But with units, if you lose visuals with a stealthed unit, it's gone cause you can't track it anymore (without omni or vision). So my idea of having such units marked when stealthed would boil down to 'if in a stealth ring and the enemy doesn't currently have direct vision, unit is marked'.

Why does this matter? If the enemy can see me, he's firing anyway and I have blinking icons for that!
It's more for knowing if radar can see you. If you are planning an ambush or secret army, you can stack up all your units in a stealth field and this will make sure you don't have a few units not in the ring without manually checking.

And the bonus with buildings speaks for itself.

And we can do this with the com too cause the fade time on that guy is different.

Mycen wrote:
errorblankfield wrote:
It's not like if you see a unit for a millisecond the blimp doesn't permanently become a unit. Same with broken stealth.

Mobile stealth, while rarely used for buildings, can function the same way. 'Look, a unit saw me visually! Better let my commander know stealth has been broken.'

As long as the alert is based on the stealth unit spotting something (info the player should be able to use) and not the enemy unit spotting it (info the player shouldn't be alerted to) I think it's a great idea, maybe even a map ping would be nice. I would love to know when and which stealth things have been spotted. I just think, in light of what I said above, getting all those chimes or beeps or whatever all through an engagement, would get really annoying, so I am wondering more specifically how that would work, when I'm getting a lot of alerts that I naturally already know about.

I never thought of doing pings. This game is silent about anything happening on the field from a 'Jarvis' perspective and I
want to keep it that way. (Jarvis being iron man's suit personality that tells him what's going on and generally acts as an interface.)
My suggestion is merely shading the icons that are stealthed a bit. Kinda like a destroyed building that's in radar range (or an upgraded building as the game can't tell a difference XD) but not visually checked to assure destruction.

So in summation. If you have a unscouted stealth field, every unit icon in the field is shaded. If a scout flys by, everything that can see it (and can thus be seen by it)* has there icon lit back to normal -no pings or alerts- just normalcy. Once the scout is gone, the buildings stay lit and the units become shaded once more as they fall off radar.

*It doesn't have to be that unit partically. An allied scout can say 'OMG, blind Pete, that percy saw you!' and the icon will light up.

Hope that clears everything up.

-Cheers

Statistics: Posted by errorblankfield — 06 Nov 2013, 12:31

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-18T05:09:26+02:00

errorblankfield wrote:
Towers can be unstealthed all day as well. So I don't really see a difference.

The difference is not that they can be discovered visually, the difference is that once they are, as a structure, their position is marked, and the enemy player will always know they are there.

With mobile units, they could be seen, then move out of sight range, disappear from radar, and then move into sight range and be seen again, and this can happen many times in succession for the same, like during a battle.

errorblankfield wrote:
It's not like if you see a unit for a millisecond the blimp doesn't permanently become a unit. Same with broken stealth.

Mobile stealth, while rarely used for buildings, can function the same way. 'Look, a unit saw me visually! Better let my commander know stealth has been broken.'

As long as the alert is based on the stealth unit spotting something (info the player should be able to use) and not the enemy unit spotting it (info the player shouldn't be alerted to) I think it's a great idea, maybe even a map ping would be nice. I would love to know when and which stealth things have been spotted. I just think, in light of what I said above, getting all those chimes or beeps or whatever all through an engagement, would get really annoying, so I am wondering more specifically how that would work, when I'm getting a lot of alerts that I naturally already know about.

Statistics: Posted by Mycen — 18 Jul 2013, 05:09

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-17T14:00:50+02:00

Mycen wrote:
errorblankfield wrote:
Mycen wrote:How would such a warning even work without being super annoying?

I do believe I already mentioned this. It wouldn't work with the eye, omni, or any other thing that can break stealth at range.

It would only matter for units that break stealth by being in visual range. So air units flying directly over you or other units running by that you can see can conversely conclude they could see you.

Right. And I was asking how this would work with mobile stealth and other things that can be 'unstealthed' several times. Or would it only be for static stealth towers?

Towers can be unstealthed all day as well. So I don't really see a difference.

It's not like if you see a unit for a millisecond the blimp doesn't permanently become a unit. Same with broken stealth.

Mobile stealth, while rarely used for buildings, can function the same way. 'Look, a unit saw me visually! Better let my commander know stealth has been broken.'

I think mobile units are more likely to talk as well -just an aside.

Statistics: Posted by errorblankfield — 17 Jul 2013, 14:00

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-17T04:57:20+02:00

SC-Account wrote:
What about the intel stuff? No one cares?

^^ that aspect was good +1. being able to view radar contact statistics by type would be a good HUD feature. Or perhaps it could be made a rollover display for the radar itself.

Statistics: Posted by Hawkei — 17 Jul 2013, 04:57

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-17T04:12:51+02:00

SC-Account wrote:
What about the intel stuff? No one cares?

I like the idea. Make radar contain more info. Maybe make a HUD style radar info panel.

Statistics: Posted by RoundTabler — 17 Jul 2013, 04:12

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-17T02:21:30+02:00

What about the intel stuff? No one cares?

Statistics: Posted by SC-Account — 17 Jul 2013, 02:21

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-16T15:58:09+02:00

errorblankfield wrote:
Mycen wrote:How would such a warning even work without being super annoying?

I do believe I already mentioned this. It wouldn't work with the eye, omni, or any other thing that can break stealth at range.

It would only matter for units that break stealth by being in visual range. So air units flying directly over you or other units running by that you can see can conversely conclude they could see you.

Right. And I was asking how this would work with mobile stealth and other things that can be 'unstealthed' several times. Or would it only be for static stealth towers?

Statistics: Posted by Mycen — 16 Jul 2013, 15:58

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-16T14:33:19+02:00

lol, SC-Account's thread got kidnapped by some stealth shit talk

Statistics: Posted by Crotalus — 16 Jul 2013, 14:33

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-16T14:10:21+02:00

Mycen wrote:
How would such a warning even work without being super annoying?

I do believe I already mentioned this. It wouldn't work with the eye, omni, or any other thing that can break stealth at range.

It would only matter for units that break stealth by being in visual range. So air units flying directly over you or other units running by that you can see can conversely conclude they could see you.

Statistics: Posted by errorblankfield — 16 Jul 2013, 14:10

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-16T08:28:37+02:00

Firewall wrote:
I would object to the stealth/cloak compromised warning because it would remove this element from the gameplay. It basically means if I spot a stealthed ACU with the Eye of Rianne, he will be notified, and take action to move it. He would know his stealth has been compromised...

Exactly. And you use the perfect example, too, why should my opponent know that I have spotted them with an Eye? They have no way of detecting that.

Some other examples off the top of my head: How do they know if an omni sensor in a base had detected their stealth units? Maybe it's turned off or the opponent has a power stall. If a player moves a scout into its sight range of a stealthed enemy, but it still outside the enemy's sight range, why should the enemy know it? How do they know it's a scout, and not something with a smaller sight range that hasn't detected them? And if they are in sight range of the scout, then they'll know anyway, because they can see it's a scout.

It just seems wrong to base a player's information on what the other player's units are doing, not his own. A warning when your stealth units spot an enemy unit would serve a stealth detection purpose appropriately and fairly enough, but just seems annoying. I don't want a ping every time an enemy gets within 20 of my scattershield (they'll know it's there after the first time) but I would want a new ping for mobile stealth units because they can be detected and disappear again. But that would be really annoying if I was in a heated T2 land battle and constantly getting pinged as my hoplites/deceivers move in and out of range.

How would such a warning even work without being super annoying?

Statistics: Posted by Mycen — 16 Jul 2013, 08:28

Re: Adding more intel and strategy

2013-07-16T07:54:12+02:00

johnie102 wrote:
Isn't there an UI option to always have stealth radiuses visible? This should work enough.

This is true. But knowing that your units are stealthed in not the same as knowing whether or not they have been detected.

The only true indication that your units have been detected is when you start taking targeted fire. But, in the case of a snipe scenario, there is the posibility that a stealthed or cloaked unit could be detected. With the other player choosing not to immediately act on that intel. Saving the snipe for a more opportunistic moment. Or using the intel to devise some pre-emptive counter, or some other gain... There is also the possibility that the opponent could defeat the stealth by "guessing" or "blind luck". Such as firing artillery randomly, or the random intercetor patrol. Anything could happen. The difficulty with intel countermeasures is that a player can never know for certain whether they have been defeated or not.

I would object to the stealth/cloak compromised warning because it would remove this element from the gameplay. It basically means if I spot a stealthed ACU with the Eye of Rianne, he will be notified, and take action to move it. He would know his stealth has been compromised...

***

As an aside. There is one aspect of gameplay that I would like to see changed. I would like to see stealth and cloaking break targeting orders. Because if I manualy target an enemy, and then loose my intel, they will still pursue and attack it. I know that this was created in FA to make bombers more useful. I still think manual attacks should work beyond visual range. But the addition of stealth, or cloaking IMO, should break the target lock.

Statistics: Posted by Hawkei — 16 Jul 2013, 07:54