Contour line intensity

[pensfanvw]

Is there a way to increase the intensity of the contour lines displayed on the map? As they are now, they are a bit too faint for me to see easily.

[blackcloud6]

ORIGINAL: pensfanvw

Is there a way to increase the intensity of the contour lines displayed on the map? As they are now, they are a bit too faint for me to see easily.

I second this.

[Sniper31]

ORIGINAL: pensfanvw

Is there a way to increase the intensity of the contour lines displayed on the map? As they are now, they are a bit too faint for me to see easily.

I also would like this

[varangy]

ORIGINAL: pensfanvw

Is there a way to increase the intensity of the contour lines displayed on the map? As they are now, they are a bit too faint for me to see easily.

Same.

[Phoenix100]

Height in general is difficult to determine without using the los tool. I would like to see hard contour lines around the individual colours in the height overlay mode, as my (older) eyes really can't distinguish too well between fine gradations.

[zacklaws]

One of the issues when alpha and beta testing the game, contour lines blended in with the tracks etc and made the map very confusing in certain areas especially in very hilly locations even toggling them on and off did not help much. Even a suitable colour could not be found, to dark, and you lost them in the hilly heavily forested area and to light, they was lost in the open fielded areas and when they was visible they just looked like dirt tracks or roads depending on the colour. Bear in mind that in a lot of places, contours do not show as the ground is too flat to have any or maybe just one or two. This can also be seen on any paper map so lack of contours in AB is not unique.

I eventually got used to what AB has in use and find what there is workable.

[kevinkins]

On a somewhat related note: the manual mentions that hull down sprites appear smaller. Has anyone observed that? I would love to see a side-by-side screenshot so as to know what to look for. A very important part of a war game at AB's scale.

Kevin

[Veitikka]

Frankly, the current contour lines are very pixelated when zooming in, so in my opinion it's better that they're not very visible. In the current system the contour lines are a single image that's rendered on top of the map. It would be better to use vectors, but our framework doesn't support them, as far as I know.

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

On a somewhat related note: the manual mentions that hull down sprites appear smaller. Has anyone observed that? I would love to see a side-by-side screenshot so as to know what to look for. A very important part of a war game at AB's scale.

Kevin

Do you mean this part: "When dug-in or in defilade, the unit appears as smaller to the observer, and it is better protected against direct and indirect fire." ? The green arc is there when the unit is hull-down.

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: Veitikka

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

On a somewhat related note: the manual mentions that hull down sprites appear smaller. Has anyone observed that? I would love to see a side-by-side screenshot so as to know what to look for. A very important part of a war game at AB's scale.

Kevin

Do you mean this part: "When dug-in or in defilade, the unit appears as smaller to the observer, and it is better protected against direct and indirect fire." ? The green arc is there when the unit is hull-down.

More precisely, the 'observer' is the enemy.

[kevinkins]

OK, does the "observer" mean the enemy AI or the player? I was thinking the observer was the player and it would a definitive way to signal that a tank was hull down. But the writer probably meant the enemy AI. Let us know. Thanks.

Kevin

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: kevinkin

OK, does the "observer" mean the enemy AI or the player? I was thinking the observer was the player and it would a definitive way to signal that a tank was hull down. But the writer probably meant the enemy AI. Let us know. Thanks.

Kevin

The 'observer' is the one who is spotting or attacking. It can be a player or AI ground or air unit. The 'observer' and the 'target' are not friends, but hostile towards each other. So if the 'observer' is a player unit then the 'target' is an AI unit, and vice versa.

[kevinkins]

By player I meant the human playing the game. I thought the observer and human player were one in the same. I thought the sprite actually got smaller on screen as an indication that the unit was hull down. Silly me [:D]. But when you think about it, not a bad signal to those playing the game. Usually, there might be text next to the unit indicating it's hull down.

Kevin

[Red2112]

Iam ok with contour lines as there are and understand Veitikka´s point of view/decision. To counter this, we have the ISO map view. You rise the elevation of the ISO map and that gives you quite a good "elevation" perspective without the need of contour line heavy maps.

But there´s still a handycap to this, at least as I see it. You have a general elevation view via the ISO map as stated above, but what you would really need to be able to do in this view is the ability to move your units, to let´s say that elevated crest line your looking at, or at least be able to place a marker there so you can then place/move your unit there in the normal top-down map view. Even just having the ability to place/move a unit where you want in the ISO view would do, there´s no need for the command pop-up, as you can always do that back in your normal view, although in a perfect world, the command menu would be great too! I say "place" because it would also be useful in the deployment phase.

Red

[zacklaws]

ORIGINAL: Red2112

But there´s still a handycap to this, at least as I see it. You have a general elevation view via the ISO map as stated above, but what you would really need to be able to do in this view is the ability to move your units, to let´s say that elevated crest line your looking at, or at least be able to place a marker there so you can then place/move your unit there in the normal top-down map view. Even just having the ability to place/move a unit where you want in the ISO view would do, there´s no need for the command pop-up, as you can always do that back in your normal view, although in a perfect world, the command menu would be great too! I say "place" because it would also be useful in the deployment phase.

Red

I mentioned how to do this another post somewhere in the forum.

Before deploying the troops in setup, do an appraisal of the area you want to deploy in using the LOS tool after getting a rough idea with the ISO tool, ie search for locations for OP's, reverse slopes, long views for ATGW and MBT's, interlocking arcs. Areas to deploy defences that can be overlooked etc. Look for the area where you suspect the enemy may appear and click on them areas with the LOS tool and find locations in your defensive area that can see those locations. Sometimes, there may be none.

Once done.

To position your troops in setup:-

1. Select your unit
2. Switch on the LOS tool.
3. Search around for a location that overlooks the area you want as a kill zone or area to observe etc.
4. Once found, do not move your mouse pointer.
5. Press the space bar
6. Press your left mouse button and the selected unit will jump to that location
7. Once done, recheck again with the LOS tool.
8. If you use the "defend" order, recheck again before starting the scenario.

You can actually do the above with the "Mark" tool when doing your appraisal to just drop a few marks around as a reminder for when you do setup your units.

[Veitikka]

ORIGINAL: Red2112

Iam ok with contour lines as there are and understand Veitikka´s point of view/decision. To counter this, we have the ISO map view. You rise the elevation of the ISO map and that gives you quite a good "elevation" perspective without the need of contour line heavy maps.

But there´s still a handycap to this, at least as I see it. You have a general elevation view via the ISO map as stated above, but what you would really need to be able to do in this view is the ability to move your units, to let´s say that elevated crest line your looking at, or at least be able to place a marker there so you can then place/move your unit there in the normal top-down map view. Even just having the ability to place/move a unit where you want in the ISO view would do, there´s no need for the command pop-up, as you can always do that back in your normal view, although in a perfect world, the command menu would be great too! I say "place" because it would also be useful in the deployment phase.

Red

What about the 'HGT' map mode (hotkey 'H')? Is it any useful in finding hills and depressions? It works in the ISO view too.

[Red2112]

@Zacklaws, thanks!

Yes that´s one way to do it, although I think it would be alot faster if I can first "mark" a postion in the ISO view, then check it with the LOS tool.

As I see it, the ISO view gives you a overall fast, "at a glance", perspective of how the terrain is, similar (even better) to what you would see in a tight spacing (10mt) countour map. Even in a heavy populated contour line map, you always end up checking your LOS (tool) before moving your unit to that position. Well as long as you remember to check that, because we don´t always do! [:D]

@Veitikka, thanks for the tip, but...

For the overall picture, everything helps and adds to collecting more info. In other words, the more tools the better. But I find the HGT view, of which I have used in other games like Scott Hamiltons "Point of Attack 2.5" are only useful in some ocasions, as in "steep" summits, or narrow pathways between two crests. Here are some examples of how I see it...

Here we have our normal view in the deployment phase were I have placed a Infantry marker SW (taking North as top of map) of "Objective_1" as reference, and for the sake of this example. We can see at a glance that the terrain below the reference marker is slightly beveled...






In the HGT view we get a better picture of the beveled terrain we saw in the normal view, we have now a confirmation that such a depression is present below our reference marker, and we also see that objective_1 is on slopped terrain. Aside from that we don´t have any other info/references as vegetation and/or buildings...






Now in the ISO view we "see" everything as is, and we now have very good representation of how the terrain is on site, including the two roads "through and below" objective_1, and how slopped the terrain is in that sector. But aside from our OOB, we don´t have any other references we could add, such as that Inf. marker I added in the normal view...










As you can tell, I have omitted the ability to be able to move a unit in the ISO view, a simple marker would do very well for use to plan our tactics/strategies.

Just some examples, suggestions and/or Ideas. Thanks for the good work/game so far [:)]

Red