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Spotting through trees

W

WinOrLose

Guest
Is it me or is spotting through trees too easy?

I find that tree canopies have little to no effect on spotting and I have noticed this over a couple of years.

Take a current game - I have a 17lbr in an elevated position behind a hedge. It manages to spot and take out a tiger through a dozen tree canopies. With the camera you cant see anything but some how my ATG crew can.

Anyone else notice this?
 
Yeah probably the biggest shortcoming or complaint about the CMx2 engine is the LOS/spotting. On a regular basis there’s times when units should spot or shouldn’t spot things. It’s too common. Buildings for one should be easier to manually target for direct fire. Shouldn’t have to see the middle or foundation of a building to target it.
 
MeatEtr said:
Yeah probably the biggest shortcoming or complaint about the CMx2 engine is the LOS/spotting. On a regular basis there’s times when units should spot or shouldn’t spot things. It’s too common. Buildings for one should be easier to manually target for direct fire. Shouldn’t have to see the middle or foundation of a building to target it.
Click to expand...

Agree on the targeting of buildings....very frustrating.....

The above incident was on iron setting.

It’s come to the point now that I just assume trees provide no concealment though they do provide some cover. My ATG spotted the tiger at about 500m through a dozen tree canopies, fired two shots which both passed through the canopies.
 
Just as an aside and for taking into consideration, what I learned so far from the manual, BFF discussions and own experience:

1. In CM you can not go as deep to the ground with the camera as your men are.
So you never can get exactly the perspective that the soldiers on the ground actually have.

2. Trees ON/OFF: For example it can happen that a tank commander with open hatch has
his head full in the leaves of a tree and sees nothing, while an AT gun, which is much deeper on the ground, can perfectly aim at a target.

3. I GUESS that shadows are playing a big role too. An AT gun that is standing in the shadow of a building will be spotted harder than the one
that stands on the "sunny side" (for example).

4. Time and weather: For sure spotting is much more difficult (takes longer) at dusk, night and dawn (range / visibility is more limited)
than in daylight /sunny conditions. The same applies to rain and snow. In summer deciduous trees have leaves, but in winter they are bare.

5. The experience level /training level of a unit is very important too. A higher trained unit is not only better in spotting and seeing others but also
makes better use of cover, is moving more silent and can better camouflage itself and will be spotted much later than a "conscripts" unit, for example.

6. Equipment: Some units have binoculars while others don't.
 
Shorker said:
Just as an aside and for taking into consideration, what I learned so far from the manual, BFF discussions and own experience:

1. In CM you can not go as deep to the ground with the camera as your men are.
So you never can get exactly the perspective that the soldiers on the ground actually have.

2. Trees ON/OFF: For example it can happen that a tank commander with open hatch has
his head full in the leaves of a tree and sees nothing, while an AT gun, which is much deeper on the ground, can perfectly aim at a target.

3. I GUESS that shadows are playing a big role too. An AT gun that is standing in the shadow of a building will be spotted harder than the one
that stands on the "sunny side" (for example).

4. Time and weather: For sure spotting is much more difficult (takes longer) at dusk, night and dawn (range / visibility is more limited)
than in daylight /sunny conditions. The same applies to rain and snow. In summer deciduous trees have leaves, but in winter they are bare.

5. The experience level /training level of a unit is very important too. A higher trained unit is not only better in spotting and seeing others but also
makes better use of cover, is moving more silent and can better camouflage itself and will be spotted much later than a "conscripts" unit, for example.

6. Equipment: Some units have binoculars while others don't.
Click to expand...

7. Magnetic trees: If your AT or tank gunner can hit a tree, he WILL hit a tree ... virtually guaranteed. :rolleyes:
 
Shorker said:
Just as an aside and for taking into consideration, what I learned so far from the manual, BFF discussions and own experience:

1. In CM you can not go as deep to the ground with the camera as your men are.
So you never can get exactly the perspective that the soldiers on the ground actually have.

2. Trees ON/OFF: For example it can happen that a tank commander with open hatch has
his head full in the leaves of a tree and sees nothing, while an AT gun, which is much deeper on the ground, can perfectly aim at a target.

3. I GUESS that shadows are playing a big role too. An AT gun that is standing in the shadow of a building will be spotted harder than the one
that stands on the "sunny side" (for example).

4. Time and weather: For sure spotting is much more difficult (takes longer) at dusk, night and dawn (range / visibility is more limited)
than in daylight /sunny conditions. The same applies to rain and snow. In summer deciduous trees have leaves, but in winter they are bare.

5. The experience level /training level of a unit is very important too. A higher trained unit is not only better in spotting and seeing others but also
makes better use of cover, is moving more silent and can better camouflage itself and will be spotted much later than a "conscripts" unit, for example.

6. Equipment: Some units have binoculars while others don't.
Click to expand...


I agree with all the above. Remember this is not a moan - I had the advantage from this situation. I recall another crazy situation where I had a Piv take out a Sherman on the other side of a valley about 1000m away through approx 20 tree canopies....I generally feel trees do not provide the concealment or cover they should.
 
mTk said:
Maybe its the difficulty level everyone (but me) likes to play at.
Click to expand...
It is definitely *not* the difficulty setting. Difficulty setting goes not affect how units spot at all. Iron does show you friendly spotting information that the other levels don't but that is all.

Hedgehog said:
You are so right on that.....Bit frustrating to get killed and never see who done it
Click to expand...
LOL - on the other hand it is totally realistic to not know who or what killed your mate during combat.

Rico said:
7. Magnetic trees: If your AT or tank gunner can hit a tree, he WILL hit a tree ... virtually guaranteed. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...
And the OpFor shell will thread the needle and blow up your key unit. :)
None of this is observation bias, no none of it. :D

Tree cover is confusing since it is not quite WYSIWYG. BFC has a post explaining the limitations somewhere. It is a limitation of the way trees are handled not as intractable a limitation as tanks not being able to shoot at building faces they can clearly see. Let me see if I can find that link...
 
Well that was easy - I saved it in my FAQ folder (and thread at BFC): http://community.battlefront.com/to...ith-los-through-trees/?page=2#comment-1652113

And tank area targeting explanation is here (I know that @MeatEtr knows this already but just in case anyone else is interested):
http://community.battlefront.com/topic/111851-its-got-to-go/?page=2#comment-1490888

Just in case anyone does not know what on earth we are talking about:
http://community.battlefront.com/to...n-urban-envionment/?hl=+urban++action++square
 
It's not just you. I think most players get LOS frustrations quite often due to trees, especially pines.

The reason is that spotting is abstracted - the more trees between you and the target, the less chance to spot, but there will often be a tiny chance, even through many trees.

So when something gets spotted through a forest, it's the computer game equivalent of rolling six sixes in a row - difficult but not impossible. Especially since in the game, the dice keep rolling.

In some way, I guess you could say it's a good approximation of reality. But as I see it, the main problem with this approach is that it makes it very difficult for the human player to navigate in that kind of environment. We are not there in person, so all those little things that would obvious to anyone there, visibility in fog, darkness, how dense a forest is.. we just don't really know.

But it's one of the fundamental problems with the game that I don't know how they could solve without making the game -less- realistic. For example, they could say ok, from now on, all trees block LOS 100% of the time. And then make the tree graphics show a tree that is impossible to see through.

That would make it much easier for the player to know if their tank could be vulnerable from any particular angle, but it wouldn't be realistic, because obviously in real life, trees are not monoliths.
 
By the way, there's also another thing that can make this problem even worse - elevation differences between shooter and target can sometimes substantially reduce the actual number of tree-tiles that LOS passes through.

It's especially seen when going downhill. Even if you're technically still in the middle of a forest, shooters from the outside have quite good view, because each LOS check only passes through 1-2 tiles of trees.
 
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