Idea: Counter-Artillery radar?

[centurion-1]

Hi!
As you may or may not know, I'm currently developing a mod for spring, called Gear Commander, set in the heavy gear universe. While pondering gameplay recently I came to the conclusion that arty might be hard to counter in the mod, since i plan on really long range artillery, and then the idea struck me: Counter-artillery radar. IRL there are specialized radars used to detect artillery fire so that friendly arty or air assets can pound them quickly, and since my mod, and indeed TA, is set in the distant future i think counter artillery radar should be present. How do experienced TA players think this would affect gameplay? TA already has an advanced EW system with radars and jammers, and i think this might work well with it? Jammers would naturally cancel out the effect of artillery radar... I'm guessing It needent be too hard to implement, just a new line in the units .fbi

[det]

I think it is a great idea! I am not entirely sure how you envision your system to work. I think the following system would be nicely ballanced:

I will use the terms "artillery detector" (AD) and "artillery unit" (AU).

An AD would have a detection radius. I can think of two ways in which the radius could work. Either it could be a radius that the AU must fire from within or a radius that the artillery fire must enter. I think the latter would be better and that the accuracy should decrease the farther the shot came from. Once detected, the firing AU should appear on the players map ghosted. Subsequent fires would replace the previous ghosted unit. I don't think there should be any jammers. If there needs to be any ballance I think it should come in other forms. A great way to ballance it would be that the position of the unit could be wildly inaccurate and become more accurate with each shot detected.

[FizWizz]

It's really off the wall, and I don't expect to ever see it happen, but here's an idea: what about a special type of unit that detects weaponfire, and then traces their vectors back to a source which is turned into a blip on the radar. It would only work for ballistic weapons, but that's what you want it for, so no worries.

[AF]

I think ti would be simple anough to have a generic way of defining a sensor then have it ahve a range and a set of targets be them LOS radar, anti radar cloaking or weaponstags/explosions, that way eventually thigns such as the hyperspace jumps of homeworld could be don btu with other things, say like a special nuke firing, or simply being told a large explosion occured here...

[Das Bruce]

Units firing should make a radar flare sort of thing.

[AF]

Oh god, why didnt I remember?!?!?! This can be done with globalai / groupAI!!!!!!!!!

[Guessmyname]

Then do it! *Pokes AF with a Halberd*

Go go go go go go go go go go!

(It'll be bloody brilliant for the space mod I'm planning)

[SinbadEV]

I sorta like the balistic vector computing Global AI idea... it's kinda cool... mark the "source" with any data that can ge garnered from the shot (like force/attack strength/projectile type... I would prefer if it were blockable on specific weapon types by the modder if they don't like the idea...

[Guessmyname]

notrace=1; tag in weapon file?

[Felix the Cat]

Oh god, why didnt I remember?!?!?! This can be done with globalai / groupAI!!!!!!!!!

It needs to actually be an inherent property of the unit.

[AF]

no need for claculating the firing point, the engine hands you it, however I am thinking now that this is more of a heler global AI thing, and that a groupAI simply doesnt have the necessary abilities anymore.

Otherwise a helepr global AI could do 80-90% of what you're asking, but it'd be able to do all of it given the explosion event in the AI itnerface I have been asking after for so long.

Such an AI helepr would read the data it needs from the unit fbis and thus the code could be easily removed and shoved itno spring with a few changes to implement it fully.

However I have too many things, if I am todo this you have a minimum waiting period of 8 months at the very least, more likely to be 10.