another idea - radar range on geoscape

[moriarty]

hmmm, that was a bit complicated, and I based it on faulty assumptions.

I just read in GeoscapeState.cpp that UFO detection happens every 30 game minutes, and the chance is increased by adding radar installations. hmm. in that case, I don't really know how to handle the detection chance visualization. perhaps we should just leave that out until openGL is implemented.


unless of course we want to change a game mechanic at that level, and have additional radars increase the detection frequency instead of the chance... 

[pmprog]

That's interesting. What about detection from craft? Is that only every 30 minutes? If so, that adds a whole new dimension to sending crafts for patrol than I ever thought about before

[moriarty]

as far as I have seen, the game goes into the loop to check for UFO detection every 30 game-minutes. the loop takes every UFO currently flying around, checks first to see whether it is within the range of any radar facility, then checks whether the radar facility is completed, then goes ahead and generates a random number between 1 and 100 and compares that against the facility's detection chance.

so for a base with two large radars, a UFO within the range is simply checked twice for detection: once for each facility.

for craft, UFOs inside the craft's radar range are detected. no probability involved.

did I get that right? I think I did.

see for yourself. line 615 to 671

[Volutar]

moriarty, not only crafts, but alien bases too. Though I haven't looked what mechanics lies behind base detection.

pmprog, craft patrolling was one of most frequently used things while I was playing, for the sake of alien base detections, specially in early stages and over uncovered areas.

[moriarty]

ah, okay. right, alien bases, I totally forgot about them

I think the "one check every 30 minutes" is kind of overly simplified, though... just imagine: an interceptor can fly immediately next to an UFO for almost half an hour and never see it, because it came into his radar range after the last check and flew away before the next one.

I think that's not what we want, is it? It might be how it was done in the original, but perhaps only for lack of a better way, because this way saves some CPU time.


I would like to suggest changing the mechanic for craft radar to more frequent but less reliable checks. perhaps every 5 minutes with a chance of 25 percent?
(btw, what's the radar range of aircraft? is it the same for every craft?)

I would also like to suggest changing the mechanic for base radar to "more radar facilities shorten detection intervals" instead of "each radar gets its own check".


I know this changes a more-or-less fundamental game mechanic, but really, in this case the original mechanics suck big time 

[Yankes]

new test with radar visualization.

[pmprog]

So is this for ingame? or just when placing a new base? Are you going to show 3 purple borders (one for each radar type) for the latter?

To me the shading is the wrong way around; I would have expected the covered area to be shaded, with the rest of the world still drawn normally. Suppose it doesn't really matter either way though, as it's still useful.

Good work.

[Volutar]

I've made simple function which draws circles as line segments with floating point coordinates, in order to make less "jagged" and more precise though aliased figures (you can notify those circles aren't symmetrical). These circles could be drawn as projected to the sphere surface with some segments hidden (if they gone to other side).
Segments drawn with different colours to notify "non regular" nature of these lines.
These lines drawn in software, "pixel-by-pixel" manner (because there is no other way).

[Volutar]

Yankes, you can try to make "highlight" area for radar cover. I mean literally, make this "combined" zone with maximum brightness (short range), maximum-1 for large radars, and everything else shift 3-4 brightness level lower. So day/night will be visible, and radar coverage too. Radar zones must have "hard" edges.

[Daiky]

this has been suggested already:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,67.0.html

# In the geoscape, radar type and range could be shown as colored rings around bases. This would give a much better indication of in which areas the player should not expect to detect UFOs.

I have to admit, that was already 2 years ago, but it's too bad the suggestion threads of bramcor got lost in the "archives", he was a professional game designer, and still had the best and most complete lists of idea's to improve xcom I have ever seen on this forum. Although never got any replies in those days... and now people just re-post one of his ideas and everyone goes crazy :p
(however, no offense hellblade, it's still a good idea and maybe just deserved a seperate thread)

his other threads, in case you are interested:
Ideas for improving base usability:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,68.0.html
Ideas for improving research & development usability:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,69.0.html
Ideas for improving xcom craft usability:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,70.0.html
Ideas for soldier usability:
https://openxcom.org/forum/index.php/topic,71.0.html

[Yankes]

Volutar, something like this?

[Volutar]

Yes but might be with less contrast and not centered (to get better picture).

[Yankes]

Next step in radar shader
I bit overestimated CPU power need to draw it. right now I can draw 20 independent radars at once without any big performance drop (without any optimization).

[Amunak]

I bit overestimated CPU power need to draw it. right now I can draw 20 independent radars at once without any big performance drop (without any optimization).

I thought that from the beginning

Good job, it looks nice. How's it done? Is it another "layer" or is it drawn "directly on the surface"? Would it be possible to mix the border color? This can be confusing - it can be mixed with the night shadow.

[Volutar]

It looks to me radars on the night side are too bright.. I thought it should add couple of bright levels that's all. BTW, what those inbetween contour lines doing? I thought there should be no such lines or both of them (from each overlapped circle).
And BTW, the maximum number of radars is 16 (including short and large).